Historical and current machine intelligence

In this article, we provide an initial insight into the study of MI and what it means for a machine to be intelligent. We discuss how MI has progressed to date and consider future scenarios in a realistic and logical way as much as possible. To do this, we unravel one of the major stumbling blocks to the study of MI, which is the field that has become widely known as "artificial intelligence"

‘Once a miner, always a miner’: Poverty and livelihood diversification in Akwatia, Ghana

This paper offers an alternative viewpoint on why people choose to engage in artisanal mining – the low tech mineral extraction and processing of mainly precious metals and stones – for extended periods in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing upon experiences from Akwatia, Ghana’s epicentre of diamond production since the mid-1920s, the analysis challenges the commonly-held view that the region’s people are drawn to artisanal mining solely because of a desire ‘to get rich quick’. A combination of events, including the recent closure of Ghana Consolidated Diamonds Ltd’s industrial-scale operation and decreased foreign investment in the country’s diamond industry over concerns of it potentially harbouring ‘conflict’ stones from neighbouring Coˆte D’Ivoire, has had a debilitating economic impact on Akwatia. In an attempt to alleviate their hardships, many of the town’s so-called ‘lifetime’ diamond miners have managed to secure employment in neighbouring artisanal gold mining camps. But their decision has been condemned by many of the country’s policymakers and traditional leaders, who see it solely as a move to secure ‘fast money’. It is argued here, however, that these people pursue work in surrounding artisanal gold mining communities mainly because of poverty, and that their decision has more to do with a desire to immerse in activities with which they are familiar, that offer stable employment and consistent salaries, and provide immediate debt relief. Misdiagnosis of cases such as Akwatia underscores how unfamiliar policymakers and donors are with the dynamics of ASM in sub-Saharan Africa.

Livelihood diversification and the expansion of artisanal mining in rural Tanzania: drivers and policy implications

This paper provides an extended analysis of livelihood diversification in rural Tanzania, with special emphasis on artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Over the past decade, this sector of industry, which is labour-intensive and comprises an array of rudimentary and semi-mechanized operations, has become an indispensable economic activity throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, providing employment to a host of redundant public sector workers, retrenched large-scale mine labourers and poor farmers. In many of the region’s rural areas, it is overtaking subsistence agriculture as the primary industry. Such a pattern appears to be unfolding within the Morogoro and Mbeya regions of southern Tanzania, where findings from recent research suggest that a growing number of smallholder farmers are turning to ASM for employment and financial support. It is imperative that national rural development programmes take this trend into account and provide support to these people.

Property funds: how much diversification is enough?

t is well known that when assets are randomly-selected and combined in equal proportions in a portfolio, the risk of the portfolio declines as the number of different assets increases without affecting returns. In other words, increasing portfolio size should improve the risk/return trade-off compared with a portfolio of asset size one. Therefore, diversifying among several property funds may be a better alternative for investors compared to holding only one property fund. Nonetheless, it also well known that with naïve diversification although risk always decreases with portfolio size, it does so at a decreasing rate so that at some point the reduction in portfolio risk, from adding another fund, becomes negligible. Based on this fact, a reasonable question to ask is how much diversification is enough, or in other words, how many property funds should be included in a portfolio to minimise return volatility.

Reconstruction of historical pollination rates reveals linked declines of pollinators and plants

Widespread reports of low pollination rates suggest a recent anthropogenic decline in pollination that could threaten natural and agricultural ecosystems. Nevertheless, unequivocal evidence for a decline in pollination over time has remained elusive because it was not possible to determine historical pollination rates. Here we demonstrate a widely applicable method for reconstructing historical pollination rates, thus allowing comparison with contemporary rates from the same sites. We focused on the relationship between the oil-collecting bee Rediviva peringueyi (Melittidae) and the guild of oil-secreting orchid species (Coryciinae) that depends on it for pollination. The guild is distributed across the highly transformed and fragmented lowlands of the Cape Region of South Africa. We show that rehydrated herbarium specimens of Pterygodium catholicum, the most abundant member of the guild, contain a record of past pollinator activity in the form of pollinarium removal rates. Analysis of a pollination time series showed a recent decline in pollination on Signal Hill, a small urban conservation area. The same herbaria contain historical species occurrence data. We analyzed this data and found that there has been a contemporaneous shift in orchid guild composition in urban areas due to the local extirpation of the non-clonal species, consistent with their greater dependence on seeds and pollination for population persistence.