Science – Page 33 – Minority Mindset

When Prices Surge: Unpacking Sudden Market Moves

15.01.2026 by qfx

Sudden, unpredictable shifts in a system’s baseline-these “drift bursts”-reveal the inherent instability masked by smoothed averages, suggesting that apparent consistency is often a fragile illusion built upon a series of unnoticed, accumulating errors.

New research identifies ‘drift bursts’ – brief, intense shifts in asset pricing – as a key driver of rapid price fluctuations and potential market instability.

AI-Powered Pandemic Response: A New Era of Control

15.01.2026 by qfx

Researchers demonstrate how intelligent agents can coordinate regional interventions to dramatically improve pandemic outcomes.

Beyond Accuracy: Building Trust in AI Teams

15.01.2026 by qfx

As large language models proliferate, ensuring reliable performance requires more than simple metrics – it demands dynamic, adaptive assessments of trustworthiness.

Supply Chain Watchdogs: AI Agents on the Hunt for Disruption

15.01.2026 by qfx

An agentic system systematically deconstructs conventional monitoring by pursuing autonomous disruption, necessitating a staged approach and specific data inputs to achieve a comprehensive understanding of systemic vulnerabilities.

A new approach uses autonomous AI agents to proactively scan for and respond to supply chain vulnerabilities across multiple tiers, offering a significant leap beyond traditional monitoring methods.

Network Fairness: A Graph-Based Approach to Bias Mitigation

15.01.2026 by qfx

$Sheaf Diffusion, a technique for reconciling fairness metrics, falters when applied to populations fractured into distinct communities, demonstrating that algorithmic fairness is often undermined not by bias within a group, but by the inherent disparities <i>between</i> them - a reflection of how easily shared identity eclipses universal principles.$

A new framework leverages the structure of networks to address both individual and group biases in machine learning models.

Testing the Limits of AI Self-Assessment

15.01.2026 by qfx

The enhanced model demonstrates a discernible pattern of classification accuracy, as evidenced by the confusion matrices, revealing its strengths and weaknesses in distinguishing between categories - a natural consequence of any system subjected to the relentless pressure of data.

A detailed case study of facial emotion recognition reveals the practical challenges of complying with upcoming AI regulations through self-certification.

Learning to Infer: The Promise and Peril of Scalable Bayesian Methods

14.01.2026 by qfx

The amortized normalizing flow demonstrably captures the complex geometry of a multimodal distribution and efficiently separates its modes, offering a significant acceleration over Markov Chain Monte Carlo baselines in posterior sampling.

A new statistical analysis reveals how well neural networks can approximate complex probability distributions, and the challenges that arise when real-world data changes.

Networked Epidemics: Scaling Complexity with Statistical Mechanics

14.01.2026 by qfx

$Epidemic modeling in a one-dimensional system demonstrates that approximations of varying complexity-from first-order closure to Monte Carlo simulations averaging over hundreds or thousands of realizations-converge on similar trajectories for total infected and recovered populations, as governed by parameters [latex]\tilde{p}=p\Delta t=5\times 10^{-3}[/latex] and [latex]\tilde{q}=q\Delta t=8\times 10^{-4}[/latex].$

A new approach combines agent-based modeling with hierarchical closure techniques to accurately simulate epidemic spread on complex networks.

When a Smiley Becomes a Threat: The Hidden Risks in AI’s Understanding of Emojis

14.01.2026 by qfx

Large language models demonstrate a critical vulnerability by misinterpreting human emotional cues-specifically emoticons-as integral instructions, potentially leading to severe operational failures such as the irreversible deletion of essential data.

New research reveals that Large Language Models can misinterpret common emoticons as executable code, creating serious security vulnerabilities in automated systems and agentic AI applications.

Smarter Sustainability Metrics: An AI Agent for ESG Analysis

14.01.2026 by qfx

The interplay between an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agent and a benchmark reveals a synergistic relationship, suggesting that systems do not simply exist in isolation but evolve through complex interactions-a dynamic where the benchmark isn't merely measured against, but actively shapes, and is shaped by, the agent’s influence over time.

Researchers have developed an advanced AI agent and benchmarking framework to deliver more accurate and insightful evaluations of environmental, social, and governance factors.