Tootfinder

60,000 African penguins starved to death after sardine numbers collapsed – study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/05/african-penguins-starve-to-death-south-africa-sardine-population-aoe

Das #Rezept des Tages:
Vegane Auberginen-Pizza. 🍆🍕 Es sei gleich darauf hingewiesen, dass es kein echter Pizza-Teig ist. Das Gericht ist von der Art her ähnlich einer #Pizza. Und lecker! Mit #Auberginen

Vegane Auberginen-Pizza
Ich habe schon lange Auberginen vermieden, weil ich vor längerer Zeit ein viel zu fettiges Auberginengericht gegessen habe. Aber das eigentliche Problem war das Öl. Nun habe ich mein "Traume" überwunden und ein...

NASAs Aviris-5 spürt Lithium und andere Mineralien vom Flugzeug aus auf
Mit einem neuen Bildspektrometer der NASA kann auf Mineralienvorkommen im Boden geschlossen werden. Der Sensor dafür ist in einem Flugzeug untergebracht.

In Nederland zouden we echt moeten stoppen met benzine scooters, extreem vervuilend. Goed nieuws uit Afrika:
Elektrische motor in opkomst in Afrika, goed nieuws voor milieu en chauffeur - https://nos.nl/l/2601728

Elektrische motor in opkomst in Afrika, goed nieuws voor milieu en chauffeur
In meerdere Afrikaanse landen groeit elektrische mobiliteit snel. Start-ups investeren er graag in.

"I'm fairly certain that anyone who plays the game will come away with a new perspective," Ncube says.
"Whether it's about an unknown history, injustices that people are still waiting to be addressed or even the fact that people in #Africa can make games that are at a global standard."

Submodular Maximization over a Matroid $k$-Intersection: Multiplicative Improvement over Greedy
Moran Feldman, Justin Ward
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08473 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08473 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.08473
arXiv:2602.08473v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We study the problem of maximizing a non-negative monotone submodular objective $f$ subject to the intersection of $k$ arbitrary matroid constraints. The natural greedy algorithm guarantees $(k 1)$-approximation for this problem, and the state-of-the-art algorithm only improves this approximation ratio to $k$. We give a $\frac{2k\ln2}{1 \ln2} O(\sqrt{k})<0.819k O(\sqrt{k})$ approximation for this problem. Our result is the first multiplicative improvement over the approximation ratio of the greedy algorithm for general $k$. We further show that our algorithm can be used to obtain roughly the same approximation ratio also for the more general problem in which the objective is not guaranteed to be monotone (the sublinear term in the approximation ratio becomes $O(k^{2/3})$ rather than $O(\sqrt{k})$ in this case).
All of our results hold also when the $k$-matroid intersection constraint is replaced with a more general matroid $k$-parity constraint. Furthermore, unlike the case in many of the previous works, our algorithms run in time that is independent of $k$ and polynomial in the size of the ground set. Our algorithms are based on a hybrid greedy local search approach recently introduced by Singer and Thiery (STOC 2025) for the weighted matroid $k$-intersection problem, which is a special case of the problem we consider. Leveraging their approach in the submodular setting requires several non-trivial insights and algorithmic modifications since the marginals of a submodular function $f$, which correspond to the weights in the weighted case, are not independent of the algorithm's internal randomness. In the special weighted case studied by Singer and Thiery, our algorithms reduce to a variant of their algorithm with an improved approximation ratio of $k\ln2 1-\ln2<0.694k 0.307$, compared to an approximation ratio of $\frac{k 1}{2\ln2}\approx0.722k 0.722$ guaranteed by Singer and Thiery.
toXiv_bot_toot

@… yes, thanks. In fact I’ve had an arrangement with them for a while. https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Systems Approach
This was one of the more fun article…

"60,000 African penguins starved to death after sardine numbers collapsed – study"
#Africa #Penguins #Animals

Elektrische motor in opkomst in Afrika, goed nieuws voor milieu en chauffeur
https://nos.nl/artikel/2601728-elektrische-motor-in-opkomst-in-afrika-goed-nieuws-voor-milieu-en-chauffeur
Ehh.. 🤔
Die evolutie is toch al een hele tijd aan de gang?

2023–2024 El Niño triggered record-breaking sea level spike along African coastlines, study finds #Africa

2023–2024 El Niño triggered record-breaking sea level spike along African coastlines, study finds
Africa's coastlines are under growing threat as sea levels climb faster than ever, driven by decades of global warming caused by human activity, natural climate cycles, and warming ocean waters. Between 2009 and 2024, the continent experienced a 73% increase in sea-level rise, according to a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment.