Generating Adaptive Presentations of Hydrologic Behavior

This paper describes a knowledge-based approach for summarizing and presenting the behavior of hydrologic networks. This approach has been designed for visualizing data from sensors and simulations in the context of emergencies caused by floods. It follows a solution for event summarization that exploits physical properties of the dynamic system to automatically generate summaries of relevant data. The summarized information is presented using different modes such as text, 2D graphics and 3D animations on virtual terrains. The presentation is automatically generated using a hierarchical planner with abstract presentation fragments corresponding to discourse patterns, taking into account the characteristics of the user who receives the information and constraints imposed by the communication devices (mobile phone, computer, fax, etc.). An application following this approach has been developed for a national hydrologic information infrastructure of Spain

Generating Automated News to Explain the Meaning of Sensor Data

An important competence of human data analysts is to interpret and explain the meaning of the results of data analysis to end-users. However, existing automatic solutions for intelligent data analysis provide limited help to interpret and communicate information to non-expert users. In this paper we present a general approach to generating explanatory descriptions about the meaning of quantitative sensor data. We propose a type of web application: a virtual newspaper with automatically generated news stories that describe the meaning of sensor data. This solution integrates a variety of techniques from intelligent data analysis into a web-based multimedia presentation system. We validated our approach in a real world problem and demonstrate its generality using data sets from several domains. Our experience shows that this solution can facilitate the use of sensor data by general users and, therefore, can increase the utility of sensor network infrastructures

Evaluation of interleukin-9 expression as a potential therapeutic target in chronic lymphocytic leukemia in a cohort of Egyptian patients

Background: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a common lymphoid malignancy that has a highly variable clinical course. Genomic features as zeta-chain-associated protein kinase 70 (ZAP70) expression and CD38 expression provide further differentiation of disease prognosis. Extensive studies have confirmed the oncogenic activities of IL-9 in lymphoma. The aim of the current study was to investigate the contribution of IL-9 expression to the pathogenesis of CLL and its correlation to other prognostic parameters.Methods: This study was conducted on 80 patients at diagnosis with CLL and 80 healthy controls. Using real time polymerase chain reaction and enzyme linked immunosorbant assay, IL-9 mRNA expression and its serum level were compared between patients and controls. They were both correlated with other prognostic factors.Results: There was an overexpression of IL-9 in CLL patients that correlated with modified Rai staging, ZAP70, CD38 and all hallmarks of an active and aggressive disease. The correlation between IL-9 upregulation and patient characteristics provided a direct clinical evidence for its contribution to the pathogenesis of CLL.Conclusions: Significantly higher expression of IL -9 measured at both the mRNA and the protein levels in patients with CLL that correlates with more complex course of the disease and worse prognosis may allow one to speculate its importance in the pathogenesis of the disease and its possible role as a potential therapeutic target

In vivo imaging of systemic transport and elimination of xenobiotics and endogenous molecules in mice

We describe a two-photon microscopy-based method to evaluate the in vivo systemic transport of compounds. This method comprises imaging of the intact liver, kidney and intestine, the main organs responsible for uptake and elimination of xenobiotics and endogenous molecules. The image quality of the acquired movies was sufficient to distinguish subcellular structures like organelles and vesicles. Quantification of the movement of fluorescent dextran and fluorescent cholic acid derivatives in different organs and their sub-compartments over time revealed significant dynamic differences. Calculated half-lives were similar in the capillaries of all investigated organs but differed in the specific sub-compartments, such as parenchymal cells and bile canaliculi of the liver, glomeruli, proximal and distal tubules of the kidney and lymph vessels (lacteals) of the small intestine. Moreover, tools to image immune cells, which can influence transport processes in inflamed tissues, are described. This powerful approach provides new possibilities for the analysis of compound transport in multiple organs and can support physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling, in order to obtain more precise predictions at the whole body scale

An assigned responsibility system for robotic teleoperation control

This paper proposes an architecture that explores a gap in the spectrum of existing strategies for robot control mode switching in adjustable autonomy. In situations where the environment is reasonably known and/or predictable, pre-planning these control changes could relieve robot operators of the additional task of deciding when and how to switch. Such a strategy provides a clear division of labour between the automation and the human operator(s) before the job even begins, allowing for individual responsibilities to be known ahead of time, limiting confusion and allowing rest breaks to be planned. Assigned Responsibility is a new form of adjustable autonomy-based teleoperation that allows the selective inclusion of automated control elements at key stages of a robot operation plan’s execution. Progression through these stages is controlled by automatic goal accomplishment tracking. An implementation is evaluated through engineering tests and a usability study, demonstrating the viability of this approach and offering insight into its potential applications

On the predictability of domain-independent temporal planners

Temporal planning is a research discipline that addresses the problem of generating a totally or a partially ordered sequence of actions that transform the environment from some initial state to a desired goal state, while taking into account time constraints and actions' duration. For its ability to describe and address temporal constraints, temporal planning is of critical importance for a wide range of real-world applications. Predicting the performance of temporal planners can lead to significant improvements in the area, as planners can then be combined in order to boost the performance on a given set of problem instances. This paper investigates the predictability of the state-of-the-art temporal planners by introducing a new set of temporal-specific features and exploiting them for generating classification and regression empirical performance models (EPMs) of considered planners. EPMs are also tested with regard to their ability to select the most promising planner for efficiently solving a given temporal planning problem. Our extensive empirical analysis indicates that the introduced set of features allows to generate EPMs that can effectively perform algorithm selection, and the use of EPMs is therefore a promising direction for improving the state of the art of temporal planning, hence fostering the use of planning in real-world applications.</p

Orally added black maca (Lepidium Meyenii Walp.) Nano-emulsion meliorates fresh semen quality, testosterone level and fertilising ability of chilled and cryopreserved rabbit buck spermatozoa

Maca is an economic crop grown in the highlands of South America that serves as a food source and medication for humans and animals. The goal of this study was to determine the potential beneficial effects of administering the nano-emulsion of black maca (Lepidium meyenii) orally to improve fresh, chilled and frozen rabbit semen, as well as its promising effects on fertilising ability and testosterone levels. The study included forty New Zealand mature white rabbit bucks (8 to 10 mo old) and eighty non-lactating, sexually receptive New Zealand white rabbit does. Rabbit bucks were divided into a control group and treatment groups. The control group was given 0.0 mg maca (M0) nano-emulsion. Treatment groups M60, M120 and M180 were orally given 60 mg, 120 mg and 180 mg, respectively, of maca nano-emulsion. Maca was administered orally twice a week for 10 wk. Rabbit does were divided into four equal groups and prepared for insemination with chilled and frozen semen from the best concentration of the treatment (M60=980±69.65×106/mL spermatozoa) and the control. Semen was collected and evaluated once weekly for 10 wk, and testosterone hormone was also analysed once at fortnightly intervals for the same period. Results revealed that maca significantly increased (P&lt;0.05) ejaculate volume (0.41 vs. 0.56 mL for M0 vs. M60), sperm progressive motility (61.00 vs. 75.19% for M0 vs. M60), sperm count, the total number of sperm per ejaculate and testosterone levels (0.45 vs. 1.5 ng/mL for M0 vs. M60). It also improved sperm morphology compared to the control. M60 was the most effective concentration, so semen was collected from M60 rabbit bucks, chilled and frozen and used in the fertilising ability test. Finally, administering the nano-emulsion of black maca orally (60 mg/twice weekly/buck/10 wk) has been suggested for increasing rabbit buck semen quality, testosterone hormone levels and fertilising ability of chilled and cryopreserved rabbit buck spermatozoa. The pregnancy and kindling rates were 66.66 vs. 100% for M0 vs. M60 of chilled semen, as well as 33.33 vs. 83.33% for frozen/thawed sperm

On the Complexity of Reconfiguration in Systems with Legacy Components

International audienceIn previous works we have proved that component reconfig-uration in the presence of conflicts among components is non-primitive recursive, while it becomes poly-time if there are no conflicts and under the assumption that there are no components in the initial configuration. The case with non-empty initial configurations was left as an open problem, that we close in this paper by showing that, if there are legacy components that cannot be generated from scratch, the problem turns out to be PSpace-complete

Leveraging New Plans in AgentSpeak(PL)

In order to facilitate the development of agent-based software, several agent programming languages and architectures, have been created. Plans in these architectures are often self-contained procedures with an associated triggering event and a context condition, while any further information about the consequences of executing a plan is absent. However, agents designed using such an approach have limited flexibility at runtime, and rely on the designer's ability to foresee all relevant situations an agent might have to handle. In order to overcome this limitation, have created AgentSpeak(PL), an interpreter capable of performing state-space planning to generate new high-level plans. As the planning module creates new plans, the plan library is expanded, improving performance over time. However, for new plans to be useful in the long run, it is critical that the context conditions associated with new plans are carefully generated. In this paper we describe a plan reuse technique aimed at improving an agent's runtime performance by deriving optimal context conditions for new plans, allowing an agent to reuse generated plans as much as possible

THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT TYPES AND RATES OF FERTILIZERS ON THE POPULATION DENSITY OF SAP SUCKING PESTS INHABITING COWPEA FIELDS

This study was carried out during 2012 and 2013 seasons in the Horticultural Research Station at Kanater El- Khairiya, Qualiobeya Governorate to throw light on the effect of different types and rates of fertilizer treatments on the rates of infestation of the cowpea plants, Vigna unguiculata L. by different pests Tetranychus urticae, T. cucurbitacearum (eggs and motile stages), Bemisia tabaci (eggs, nymphs, pupae & adults), Thrips tabaci (nymphs & adults) and green Jassids and on the resultant crop yield. Data revealed that treatment with NPK mixture recorded the highest infestation rate by T. urticae Koch, T.cucurbitacearum (Sayed) and T. tabaci in the two seasons, while the K2O fertilizer revealed the lowest infestation rates. Moreover, the N2 fertilizer recorded the highest infestation with whitefly and Jassids. The brown scale insects, Coccus hesperidium Linnaeus were firstly recorded in Egypt on cowpea plants but throughout the first season only. The mixture treatments resulted highest yield (2428.3 &2675 Kg./fed.) followed by Micro-element treatments (1500 &1658.3 Kg./fed.) then K2O fertilizer treatment (1416.7 & 1553.3 Kg. /fed.) in 2012 and 2013, respectively; being significantly higher than control which recorded (756.0 & 845.0 Kg. / fed.) for the two seasons.   However, the results showed a significant improvement in the uptake of NPK over the control, so it increased the production