Quality-set admission: do the nonius_* cities occupy space?

The city database in the scientist release lists signal_* cities alongside many nonius_* ones. The rules say a signal joins the quality set only if it stays sufficiently uncorrelated with everything already occupying space, including the fund's non-competition background signals. Are the nonius_* cities those background signals — meaning we should steer clear of them too when aiming for 60 degrees of novelty — or are they informational only, like in competition 5?