Harvester ants are one of the most extensively studied groups of ants, especially the group foraging ants, Messor barbarus (Linnaeus, 1767), which construct long-lasting trunk trails. Limited laboratory investigations have delved into head-on encounters along foraging trails involving workers moving in opposing directions, with fewer corresponding studies conducted in the natural environment. To address this gap, we devised an in-field experimental design to induce lane segregation on the foraging trunk trail of M. barbarus. Using an image-based tracking method, we analyzed the foraging behavior of this species to assess the costs associated with head-on encounters and to figure out the natural coexistence of outgoing and returning workers on a bidirectional route. Our results consistently reveal heightened straightness and speed in unidirectional test lanes, accompanied by an elevated foraging rate compared to bidirectional lanes. This suggests a potential impact of head-on collisions on foraging behavior, especially on foraging efficiency. Additionally, Kinematic analysis revealed distinct movement patterns between outbound and inbound flows, particularly low speed and sinuous trajectories of inbounding unladen workers. The study of encounter rates in two traffic systems hints at the plausible utilization of individual memory by workers within trails, underscoring the pivotal role of encounters in information exchange and load transfer.

Network structures of the brain have wiring patterns specialized for specific functions. These patterns are partially determined genetically or evolutionarily based on the type of task or stimulus. These wiring patterns are important in information processing; however, their organizational principles are not fully understood. This study frames the maximization of information transmission alongside the reduction of maintenance costs as a multi-objective optimization challenge, utilizing information theory and evolutionary computing algorithms with an emphasis on the visual system. The goal is to understand the underlying principles of circuit formation by exploring the patterns of wiring and information processing. The study demonstrates that efficient information transmission necessitates sparse circuits with internal modular structures featuring distinct wiring patterns. Significant trade-offs underscore the necessity of balance in wiring pattern development. The dynamics of effective circuits exhibit moderate flexibility in response to stimuli, in line with observations from prior visual system studies. Maximizing information transfer may allow for the self-organization of information processing functions similar to actual biological circuits, without being limited by modality. This study offers insights into neuroscience and the potential to improve reservoir computing performance.

BACKGROUND: Surgical handover is associated with a significant risk of care failures. Existing research displays methodological deficiencies and little consensus on the outcomes that should be used to evaluate interventions in this area. This paper reports a protocol to develop a core outcome set (COS) to support standardisation, comparability, and evidence synthesis in future studies of surgical handover between doctors.
METHODS: This study adheres to the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative guidance for COS development, including the COS-Standards for Development (COS-STAD) and Reporting (COS-STAR) recommendations. It has been registered prospectively on the COMET database and will be led by an international steering group that includes surgical healthcare professionals, researchers, and patient and public partners. An initial list of reported outcomes was generated through a systematic review of interventions to improve surgical handover (PROSPERO: CRD42022363198). Findings of a qualitative evidence synthesis of patient and public perspectives on handover will augment this list, followed by a real-time Delphi survey involving all stakeholder groups. Each Delphi participant will then be invited to take part in at least one online consensus meeting to finalise the COS.
BACKGROUND: This study was approved by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) Research Ethics Committee (202309015, 7th November 2023). Results will be presented at surgical scientific meetings and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. A plain English summary will be disseminated through national websites and social media. The authors aim to integrate the COS into the handover curriculum of the Irish national surgical training body and ensure it is shared internationally with other postgraduate surgical training programmes. Collaborators will be encouraged to share the findings with relevant national health service functions and national bodies.
CONCLUSIONS: This study will represent the first published COS for interventions to improve surgical handover, the first use of a real-time Delphi survey in a surgical context, and will support the generation of better-quality evidence to inform best practice.
BACKGROUND: Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) initiative 2675.  http://www.comet-initiative.org/Studies/Details/2675 .

Utilising daily data from twelve Sub-Saharan stock markets we investigate the co-movements and information transmission among African stock markets as a result of the impact of COVID while employing multiple wavelet techniques and applying the Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN) to Renyi\'s and Shannon\'s effective transfer entropy analysis. The results infer that some number of co-movements exist among stock markets in Africa and that during periods of uncertainties, diversification through the creation of portfolios in African markets is not conducive since they tend to comove strongly during such periods. The study discovered that, a few of the markets responded to the pandemic in leads lags in the pre-, during and post-COVID era, as well as reacted to information transmission. Our findings generally show that information transmission/spillovers are more predominant in the short term than in the medium- and long-term horizons. The Renyi\'s effective transfer entropy recorded more negative information flows between African stock market than positive information flows, both during the COVID period and after. On the other hand, Shannon\'s entropy showed non-negative information flow across various time horizons. We conclude that even though most African stock markets were not prone to the contagion effect of the pandemic, it is of vital importance to re-evaluate the notion that African stock markets are immune to contagion of stock market co-movements, especially in times of global uncertainties.

In recent years, the idea has flourished that plants emit and perceive sound and could even be capable of exchanging information through the acoustic channel. While research into plant bioacoustics is still in its infancy, with potentially fascinating discoveries awaiting ahead, here we show that the current knowledge is not conclusive. While plants do emit sounds under biotic and abiotic stresses such as drought, these sounds are high-pitched, of low intensity, and propagate only to a short distance. Most studies suggesting plant sensitivity to airborne sound actually concern the perception of substrate vibrations from the soil or plant part. In short, while low-frequency, high-intensity sounds emitted by a loudspeaker close to the plant seem to have tangible effects on various plant processes such as growth - a finding with possible applications in agriculture - it is unlikely that plants can perceive the sounds they produce, at least over long distances. So far, there is no evidence of plants communicating with each other via the acoustic channel.

Channel capacity of signaling networks quantifies their fidelity in sensing extracellular inputs. Low estimates of channel capacities for several mammalian signaling networks suggest that cells can barely detect the presence/absence of environmental signals. However, given the extensive heterogeneity and temporal stability of cell state variables, we hypothesize that the sensing ability itself may depend on the state of the cells. In this work, we present an information-theoretic framework to quantify the distribution of sensing abilities from single-cell data. Using data on two mammalian pathways, we show that sensing abilities are widely distributed in the population and most cells achieve better resolution of inputs compared to an \'average cell\'. We verify these predictions using live-cell imaging data on the IGFR/FoxO pathway. Importantly, we identify cell state variables that correlate with cells\' sensing abilities. This information-theoretic framework will significantly improve our understanding of how cells sense in their environment.

We investigated the impact of nonequilibrium conditions on the transmission and recovery of information through noisy channels. By measuring the recoverability of messages from an information source, we demonstrate that the ability to recover information is connected to the nonequilibrium behavior of the information flow, particularly in terms of sequential information transfer. We discovered that the mathematical equivalence of information recoverability and entropy production characterizes the dissipative nature of information transfer. Our findings show that both entropy production (or recoverability) and mutual information increase monotonically with the nonequilibrium strength of information dynamics. These results suggest that the nonequilibrium dissipation cost can enhance the recoverability of noise messages and improve the quality of information transfer. Finally, we propose a simple model to test our conclusions and found that the numerical results support our findings.

Frail older patients are at risk for many complications when admitted to the hospital. Multidisciplinary regional transmural agreements (RTA) in which guidelines were set concerning the information transfer of frail older patients might improve outcomes. We aim to investigate the effect of implementation of the RTA on the completeness of the information transfer of frail older patients when admitted to and discharged from the hospital.
This is a retrospective cohort study in which we collected data from 400 randomly selected hospitalized frail older patients (70+) before the implementation of the RTA, January through March 2021, and after, October through December 2021. The cohort was split up into four groups, which determined what correspondence would be checked (referral letter by General Practitioner (GP) and three groups of \'hospital letters\': ED letter upon admittance, clinical discharge letter to the elderly care physician and clinical discharge letter to the GP. We assessed for mention of frailty, a medication list and mention of resuscitation orders.
In the period before implementation the mean age of patients was 82.6 years (SD 7.4) and 101 were female (50.5%), after implementation mean age was 82.3 (SD 6.9) and 112 were female (56.0%). Frailty was mentioned in hospital letters in 12.7% before and 15.3% after implementation (p = 0.09). More GP referral letters were present after implementation (32.0% vs. 54.0%, p = 0.03), however frailty was mentioned only in 12.5% before and 7.4% after (p = 0.58). There was a good handover of medication lists from the hospital (89.3% before, 94% after, p = 0.20) and even better from the GP (93.8% before, 100% after, p = 0.19). Resuscitation orders were mentioned in 59.3% of letters from the hospital before implementation and 57.3% after (p = 0.77), which is higher than in the referral letters (18.8% before and 22.2% after (p = 0.91).
The implementation of RTA improved the number of GP referral letters present; however, it did not lead to other significant improvements in communication between the hospital and the GP\'s. Frailty and resuscitation orders are still frequently not mentioned in the reports. After a successful reimplementation, the improvements of outcomes could be investigated.

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For a quantum system with a d-dimensional Hilbert space, suppose a pure state |ψ⟩ is subjected to a complete orthogonal measurement. The measurement effectively maps |ψ⟩ to a point (p1,…,pd) in the appropriate probability simplex. It is a known fact-which depends crucially on the complex nature of the system\'s Hilbert space-that if |ψ⟩ is distributed uniformly over the unit sphere, then the resulting ordered set (p1,…,pd) is distributed uniformly over the probability simplex; that is, the resulting measure on the simplex is proportional to dp1⋯dpd-1. In this paper we ask whether there is some foundational significance to this uniform measure. In particular, we ask whether it is the optimal measure for the transmission of information from a preparation to a measurement in some suitably defined scenario. We identify a scenario in which this is indeed the case, but our results suggest that an underlying real-Hilbert-space structure would be needed to realize the optimization in a natural way.