Accelerating language emergence by functional pressures.

In language emergence, neural agents acquire communication skills by interacting with one another and the environment. Through these interactions, agents learn to connect or ground their observations to the messages they utter, forming a shared consensus about the meaning of the messages. Such connections form what we refer to as a grounding map. However, these maps can often be complicated, unstructured, and contain redundant connections. In this paper, we introduce two novel functional pressures, modeled as differentiable auxiliary losses, to simplify and structure the grounding maps. The first pressure enforces compositionality via topological similarity, which has been previously discussed but has not been modeled or utilized as a differentiable auxiliary loss. The second functional pressure, which is conceptually novel, imposes sparsity in the grounding map by pruning weaker connections while strengthening the stronger ones. We conduct experiments in multiple value-attribute environments with varying communication channels. Our methods achieve improved out-of-domain regularization and rapid convergence over baseline approaches. Furthermore, introduced functional pressures are robust to the changes in experimental conditions and able to operate with minimum training data. We note that functional pressures cause simpler and more structured emergent languages showing distinct characteristics depending on the functional pressure employed. Enhancing grounding map sparsity yields the best performance and the languages with the most compressible grammar. In summary, our novel functional pressures, focusing on compositionality and sparse groundings, expedite the development of simpler, more structured languages while enhancing their generalization capabilities. Exploring alternative types of functional pressures and combining them in agent training may be beneficial in the ongoing quest for improved emergent languages.

Quality of life and probable psychological distress among male workers at a construction site, Kolar district, Karnataka, India.

INTRODUCTION: The construction industry, which mainly consists of migrant labouers is one of the largest employers in the unorganized sector in India. These workers work in poor conditions and are often vulnerable to exploitation. These workers also do not have health care benefits and often these factors lead to poor quality of life (QOL) and psychological distress. OBJECTIVES: To assess the QOL, probable psychological distress and associated factors among male construction workers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted between September 2013 and November 2013 among 404 male workers. These construction workers were enrolled by consecutive sampling at a construction area in Kolar district, Kaarnataka, India. The study tools used were World Health Organization (WHO) QOL-BREF and 12-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to assess QOL and probable psychological distress, respectively. The transformed scores in WHO QOL-BREF in all four domains ranged 0-100. The four domain scores are scaled in a positive direction with higher scores indicating a higher QOL. Associations were done using statistical tests such as Chi-square, correlation, regression, independent samples t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: A total of 404 male workers with a mean age of 25.6 ± 7.3 years were studied. Mean scores of various domains of QOL were 68.5 ± 13.7 (physical), 59.9 ± 13.5 (psychological), 64.3 ± 16.4 (social), and 44.1 ± 12.8 (environmental). On the self- rating scale, 59 (14.6%) workers were rated as having poor QOL. The prevalence of probable psychological distress was 27.5%. Factors such as increasing age, being currently married, and low educational status were found to be significantly associated (P < 0.05) with poor QOL and psychological distress. There was a significant negative correlation (P < 0.05) between QOL and psychological distress and a positive correlation between income and QOL. CONCLUSION: The QOL in the environmental domain, which mainly deals with living conditions, health, and recreational facilities was found to be poor and there was a high prevalence of probable psychological distress among workers. This indicates a need for improving workplace amenities, and access to health and recreational facilities.

Educação superior no Brasil e a formação dos profissionais de saúde com ênfase no envelhecimento / Higher education in Brazil and the education of health care professionals with emphasis on aging / Educación superior en Brasil y la formación de los profesionales de salud con énfasis en el envejecimiento

Neste artigo discutimos a formação profissional em saúde com foco no envelhecimento, a partir da política pública de Educação Superior no Brasil. Utilizamos o estudo de caso da Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Consideramos, como questão central, o envelhecimento populacional no país, que reforça a necessidade de formação de profissionais de saúde que atendam, com qualidade, as especificidades desse grupo. Apoiados no levantamento bibliográfico da área, apontamos que as mudanças de característica do profissional de saúde se dão em consequência das transformações do contexto sociopolítico, sobretudo a expansão do capitalismo e o processo de mundialização, que imprimem mudanças nas políticas públicas de Educação Superior. Concluímos que formar profissionais de saúde adequados às demandas sociais tem sido desafiador, entretanto, no caso mais profundamente estudado, o da UFF, encontramos uma formação voltada para o atendimento à população idosa, com mudanças de currículos aprimorando tal característica.

In this article we discuss professional health education with focus on aging, based on the higher education public policy in Brazil. We used the case study of Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). The central issue was considered the aging of the country's population, which strengthens the need to educate health professionals so that they are able to assist this specific group with quality. Based on the bibliographic survey of the area, we indicate that changes in the health professional's characteristics happen as a consequence of transformations in the social-political context, mainly the expansion of capitalism and the globalization process, which produce changes in the higher education public policies. We conclude that educating health professionals who are suitable to the social demands has been a challenging task; however, in the case of UFF, we have found an education directed to the care of the aged population, with curricula changes aiming to make the best of such characteristic.

Discutimos la formación profesional en salud enfocando el envejecimiento, a partir de las políticas de educación superior en Brasil. Utilizamos el estudio de caso de la Universidad Federal Fluminense (UFF). Consideramos como cuestión central el envejecimiento de la población en Brasil, que muestra la necesidad de la formación de profesionales de salud que puedan ofrecer atención con calidad a las especificidades de este grupo. A partir de la revisión bibliográfica, destacamos que los cambios de características en el profesional de salud se desarrollan como consecuencia de las transformaciones del contexto socio-político, principalmente la expansión del capitalismo y el proceso de mundialización que promueven cambios en las políticas públicas de educación superior. Concluimos que formar profesionales de salud adecuados a las demandas sociales es un desafío, pero, en el caso de la UFF, encontramos una formación encaminada a la atención a la población anciana, con cambios curriculares que mejoran tal característica.

Implementação da política nacional de saúde da pessoa idosa nos cursos de graduação em saúde da Universidade Federal Fluminense / Implementation of national health policy of the elderly in undergraduate courses in health, Universidade Federal Fluminense

Aproximar instituições formadoras e serviços de saúde é uma estratégia utilizada pelo Ministério da Saúde com intuito de qualificar profissionais para atuarem no Setor. A Politica Nacional de Saúde da Pessoa Idosa - PNSPI busca, dentre outros objetivos, incentivar a inclusão de disciplinas que abordem o processo do envelhecimento nos currículos escolares...No caso da Universidade Federal Fluminense, esses 4 momentos distribuíram os cursos de Psicologia em incipiente, Nutrição, em momento Elementar, Educação Física, Odontologia e Serviço Social em momento Moderada e Enfermagem e Medicina em momento Consistente