[4]
vicente.md/2026-004[cs.DS]17 Oct 202610 pages
Order inputs by residual density over prerequisite-closed bundles, then choose a stopping prefix at the shadow price of attention. This construction addresses a question many fields ask under different names: how should an overwhelming pool be sequenced so that every prefix holds the most net-new value per unit of effort? Residual density is an input’s value measured against what earlier inputs left unexplained, divided by its cost. Scoring bundles closed under prerequisites lets a foundation borrow the value of what it unlocks. For order-independent value without prerequisites, with fixed costs and monotone diminishing returns, each prefix holds at least 1 − 1/e of the optimum at its own cost. Synergy lowers that floor to 1 − e^(−γ), where γ is the submodularity ratio. Under additive value and prerequisites, exact Sidney decomposition gives a factor-2 guarantee for weighted completion time; single closures do not automatically inherit it. Coverage, information gain, least squares and scheduling share parts of the construction, with different assumptions. Stopping is a separate decision: compare modeled prefixes by value minus effort priced at its opportunity cost. First-crossing implements this comparison only when densities never rise. A reproducible, order-sensitive seven-book example illustrates both the ordering and a failure of first-crossing. The combined policy is a practical synthesis whose guarantees remain specific to these regimes.
submodular maximizationprecedence constraintsinformation foraginganytime algorithmscurriculum sequencingshadow prices
[3]
vicente.md/2026-003[q-bio.NC]8 Oct 202618 pages
A claim can travel through a million voices and still have one author. This paper develops affective attention capture (AAC): the operator-agnostic, prior-contingent extraction of sustained attention from aggregated populations. An operator, meaning any actor who understands the principle and controls some distribution, infers a population’s affective priors (its fears, resentments, identities and aspirations) and selects stimuli that resonate with them. Capture occurs when a stimulus’s affective salience outruns the recipient’s self-model resolution, the capacity to represent why one feels what one feels, and stress and load lower that threshold in anyone. The captured then carry the stimulus themselves, sincerely and without instruction; repetition and apparent consensus consolidate it into belief the holder experiences as self-generated; and engagement data return to the operator, who learns. We ground each of these five computations in a framework with independent empirical support: precision-weighted prediction and constructed emotion for resonance; model-free control and affect-as-information for capture; arousal-linked transmission, branching-process criticality and reinforcement of outrage for spread; the illusory truth effect and correlation neglect for consolidation; and source monitoring and confabulation for origin corruption. AAC differs from propaganda in its indifference to content, from persuasion in its pre-propositional entry point, and from engagement optimization in its intentional modeling of priors. Its decisive asymmetry is resolution, not intelligence. The contribution is the composition, not the parts: we mark which links are established, which are proposed and which have weakened under replication, state six falsifiable predictions, and argue that because capture is indifferent to content, defenses must be too.
attention capturepredictive processingmoral outragemisinformationreinforcement learningillusory consensusinformation cascades
[2]
vicente.md/2026-002[q-bio.NC]11 Sept 20268 pages
September marks the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere, when increasing daylight can influence sleep, mood, and brain chemistry. Human studies show seasonal changes in melatonin secretion and in systems involving serotonin, dopamine, and natural opioids. These findings describe different biological processes, rather than a uniform rise in brain activity. Some people experience relief from winter depression, while susceptible individuals may develop manic episodes. Most chemical measurements come from Northern Hemisphere studies comparing winter and summer, so their relevance to September in the south remains uncertain. This narrative synthesis separates measured changes from proposed mechanisms, ranks the evidence without pretending to rank causal impact, and asks what a Southern Hemisphere study would need to measure. The central constraint is that receptor binding, neurotransmitter release, and brain activation are different quantities: a change in one does not, by itself, identify a change in the others.
neurochemistryphotoperiodseasonalitymolecular imagingcircadian rhythmscomputational neuroscience
[1]
vicente.md/2026-001[q-bio.NC]26 Jul 20268 pages
The proposition that stimulants lower the convulsive threshold has circulated in prescribing labels, clinical folklore, and specialist practice for decades. This appraisal asks whether it survives contact with the modern evidence base as applied to lisdexamfetamine (LDX) at therapeutic oral doses. It does not. Three large studies using orthogonal designs converge: a within-individual analysis of 801,838 patients with ADHD found odds ratios of 0.71 for seizure events during medicated months among patients both with (95% CI 0.60–0.85) and without (0.62–0.82) a prior seizure history; a matched Medicaid cohort of 18,166 stimulant users against 54,197 non-users, all children with epilepsy, found a hazard ratio of 0.95 (0.83–1.09); and a Swedish register study of 21,557 individuals with a seizure history found no increase following ADHD-medication initiation. Every adequately powered estimate lies at or below the null. None indicates harm. The warning's provenance has been independently traced to preclinical animal work and stimulant-overdose case reports rather than therapeutic-dose observation, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has since removed the seizure entry from the Warnings and Precautions section of the LDX label, retaining it only under Overdosage.
Two qualifications are load-bearing and are frequently dropped in secondary summaries. First, the evidence is settled at the amphetamine-class level: LDX was inside the named exposure set of the largest study but has never been estimated as its own stratum, and no molecule-specific seizure estimate exists in the literature. Second, the finding is scoped to a defined exposure envelope — oral, intact prodrug, renally adjusted dose, and epilepsy controlled at initiation. We argue that the operationally correct framing is not a dose threshold but an exposure envelope, since renal impairment, urinary alkalinization, and CYP2D6 inhibition can each produce supratherapeutic exposure at a nominally therapeutic milligram count. We conclude with an explicit map of where the negative finding holds, where it thins, and where no data exist at all — a distinction the secondary literature routinely collapses.
Keywords — `lisdexamfetamine` `seizure threshold` `ADHD pharmacotherapy` `epilepsy comorbidity` `within-individual design` `pharmacovigilance` `evidence appraisal`
lisdexamfetamineadhdseizure thresholdpharmacovigilance