Environment as a first class abstraction in multiagent systems

The current practice in multiagent systems typically associates the environment with resources that are external to agents and their communication infrastructure. Advanced uses of the environment include infrastructures for indirect coordination, such as digital pheromones, or support for governed interaction in electronic institutions. Yet, in general, the notion of environment is not well defined. Functionalities of the environment are often dealt with implicitly or in an ad hoc manner. This is not only poor engineering practice, it also hinders engineers to exploit the full potential of the environment in multiagent systems. In this paper, we put forward the environment as an explicit part of multiagent systems.We give a definition stating that the environment in a multiagent system is a first-class abstraction with dual roles: (1) the environment provides the surrounding conditions for agents to exist, which implies that the environment is an essential part of every multiagent system, and (2) the environment provides an exploitable design abstraction for building multiagent system applications. We discuss the responsibilities of such an environment in multiagent systems and we present a reference model for the environment that can serve as a basis for environment engineering. To illustrate the power of the environment as a design abstraction, we show how the environment is successfully exploited in a real world application. Considering the environment as a first-class abstraction in multiagent systems opens up new horizons for research and development in multiagent systems.     

Maternal depression and early positive parenting predict future conduct problems in young children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at risk for adverse outcomes such as substance abuse and criminality, particularly if they develop conduct problems. Little is known about early predictors of the developmental course of conduct problems among children with ADHD, however. Parental psychopathology and parenting were assessed in 108 children who first met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for ADHD at 4-7 years old. When demographic variables and baseline ADHD and conduct problems were controlled, maternal depression predicted conduct problems 2-8 years following the initial assessment, whereas positive parenting during the structured parent- child interaction task predicted fewer future conduct problems. These findings suggest that maternal depression is a risk factor, whereas early positive parenting is a protective factor, for the developmental course of conduct problems among children with ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonpathological Lyapunov functions and discontinuous Carathéodory systems

Differential equations with discontinuous right-hand side and solutions intended in Carathéodory sense are considered. For these equations, sufficient conditions which guarantee both Lyapunov stability and asymptotic stability in terms of nonsmooth Lyapunov functions are given. An invariance principle is also proven.     

Analytical prediction of composite beams response in fire situations

In this paper an extension of the method of the Fourier series expansion to the fire analysis of composite beams is presented. In particular the extension concerns the introduction of the temperature dependent interaction of all the components: steel beams, concrete slab and steel connectors. These last are considered of finite stiffness, and a proper account is given to the combined effect of thermal degradation of the properties, and stress amplification caused by the differential thermal expansion across the interface.The proposed method compares very well with some experimental fire tests of simply supported and framed composite beams. Due to its relative simplicity and speed, it can be used for design purposes in evaluating the critical temperature in terms of critical deflection. Finally we recall that the method is capable of dealing with every type of fastening distribution, such as discontinuous or variable length.     

Biosorption of heavy metals by Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Effects of nutrient conditions

Studies took place to investigate the effects of different nutrient conditions on the biosorption ability and selectivity of heavy metals by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After having grown in media supplemented with additional glucose, ammonium, phosphate or cysteine, the yeast was exposed to an equimolar solution of lead, cadmium, zinc and copper. Lead removal from a mixed solution was significantly higher than that of copper, followed by zinc and cadmium. Generally, yeasts from cysteine-rich media showed greatest sorption capacity whereas phosphate addition influenced zinc selectivity. In addition, glucose, fructose and sucrose as carbon sources were examined. Cultures grown in glucose had a better uptake than those cultivated with fructose at an incubation time of 30 min.     

Subsecond thermophysics research at the Boris Kidrich Institute Vincha

In the early eighties, at the Boris Kidrich Institute Vincha, a method for measuring specific heat and electrical resistivity of electrical conductors in the millisecond resolution range was developed for measurements from room temperature to 1900 K. Over a period of nearly 10 years, the method was applied to different materials, including pure metals, ferrous, and nickel/ chromium alloys, and to the characterization of candidate materials for thermophysical property reference standards. This paper describes the method and reviews the results obtained in specific heat and electrical resistivity studies of ferromagnetic and other materials. The paper also demonstrates capabilities of the method for describing phase transitions or anomalies in pure metals (Fe, Co, Ni) or alloys (Nichrome, austenitic stainless steel).Paper presented at the Second Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, September 20–21, 1990, Torino, Italy.     

Application of substituted N-arylpyrroles in the corrosion protection of aluminium in hydrochloric acid

The inhibiting action of N-arylpyrroles on aluminium in 0.17 mol dm^–3 hydrochloric acid solution, in the temperature range 20–60 °C, was studied using potentiodynamic and electrochemical impedence spectroscopy techniques. The inhibiting efficiency of both investigated compounds 1-(2-fluorophenyl)-2,5-dimethylpyrrole (compound A) and 1-(2-fluorophenyl)-2,5-dimethylpyrrole-3-carbaldehyde (compound B) slightly increases with increasing temperature of the corrosive solution. Inhibitor adsorption on the elecrode surface decreases the apparent activation energy of the hydrogen evolution reaction. Compound A follows the Temkin adsorption isotherm, while its carbaldehyde derivative follows the Langmuir isotherm. The results of the apparent energy of activation and the standard free energy of adsorption point to stronger chemisorption of the compound A. However, due to additional condensation of molecules with carbaldehyde groups on the electrode surface, the carbaldehyde derivative exhibits even better inhibiting efficiency than compound A. The kinetic corrosion parameters, analysed in terms of the impedance data, show a satisfactory agreement with those obtained by the potentiodynamic method.     

On some interval methods for algebraic,exponential and trigonometric polynomials

New inclusion methods for the simultaneous determination of the zeros of algebraic, exponential and trigonometric polynomials are presented. These methods are realized in real interval arithmetic and do not use any derivatives. Using Weierstrass' correction some modified methods with the increased convergence rate are constructed. Convergence analysis and numerical example are included.     

An approach to emulating separable graphs

A technique foremulating multicomputer interconnection networks that are based onseparable graphs (graphs having bounded degree and sublinear multicolor recursive bisectors) is presented. Efficient emulations among interconnection networks are necessary for porting programs designed for one network to another.Emulations are formalized asgraph embeddings, where the nodes (processors) of theguest graph (emulated network) are assigned to nodes of thehost graph (emulator), while the edges (communication links) of the guest are routed via paths in the host. The communication slowdown in an emulation depens on thedilation (length of the longest routing path) and thecongestion (number of paths that contend for a host edge) of the embedding. Theexpansion of the embedding (the ratio of the sizes of the host to guest) determines the inefficiency of processor utilization. Cell trees are introduced as interconnection networks whose special communication properties enable them to serve as intermediate devices in these emulations. Nodes in cell trees are organized into equinumerous parts calledcells; the cells are labeled by nodes of a complete binary tree. Communication in cell trees is restricted to two specific and distinct primitives:cell communication is confined within cells, whiletransfer communication occurs between adjacent cells. Rather than solved directly, the emulation problem for the original guest-host pair is decomposed into two independent parts: emulating the guest by the cell tree, and emulating the cell tree by the host.In emulations of separable graphs by cell trees, the node assignment that ensures small dilation is derived from the separator-based decomposition of guest graphs. The congestion-free edge routing is achieved by coordinatingglobal andlocal phases, which are based on two characteristic cell-tree communication primitives.The technique is instantiated by emulating cell trees on specific host graphs. Withshuffle-like hypercube-derivative networks as hosts new constant-expansion emulations are obtained that have both dilation and congestion logarithmic in the size of the multicolor bisector of guest graphs. These emulations are the first such to have optimal (up to constants)congestion; they provide the firstoptimal algorithm for emulating arbitrary separable graphs on shuffle-like networks. The application of the technique tohypercubes as hosts also produces optimal emulations that differ from those previously known by having smaller expansion constants.This research was supported in part by NSF Grants CCR-88-12567 and CCR-90-13184, and by the University of Massachusetts Graduate School Fellowship for the academic year 1991-92. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 3rd ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures, July 22–24, 1991, in Hilton Head, South Carolina, USA.     

An elementary proof of Sylvester’s double sums for subresultants

In 1853 Sylvester stated and proved an elegant formula that expresses the polynomial subresultants in terms of the roots of the input polynomials. Sylvester’s formula was also recently proved by Lascoux and Pragacz using multi-Schur functions and divided differences. In this paper, we provide an elementary proof that uses only basic properties of matrix multiplication and Vandermonde determinants.