Enabling dominance resistance in visualisable distance-based many-objective problems

The codebase for this paper is available at https://github.com/fieldsend/gecco_2016_vizThe results when optimising most multi- and many-objective problems are difficult to visualise, often requiring sophisticated approaches for compressing information into planar or 3D representations, which can be difficult to decipher. Given this, distance-based test problems are attractive: they can be constructed such that the designs naturally lie on the plane, and the Pareto set elements easy to identify. As such, distance-based problems have gained in popularity as a way to visualise the distribution of designs maintained by different optimisers. Some taxing problem aspects (many-to-one mappings and multi-modality) have been embedded into planar distance-based test problems, although the full range of problem characteristics which exist in other test problem frameworks (deceptive fronts, degeneracy, etc.) have not. Here we present an augmentation to the distance-based test problem formulation which induces dominance resistance regions, which are otherwise missing from these test problems. We illustrate the performance of two popular optimisers on test problems generated from this framework, and highlight particular problems with evolutionary search that can manifest due to the problem characteristics.This work was supported financially by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant EP/M017915 /1

A game theoretic perspective on Bayesian multi-objective optimization

This chapter addresses the question of how to efficiently solve many-objective optimization problems in a computationally demanding black-box simulation context. We shall motivate the question by applications in machine learning and engineering, and discuss specific harsh challenges in using classical Pareto approaches when the number of objectives is four or more. Then, we review solutions combining approaches from Bayesian optimization, e.g., with Gaussian processes, and concepts from game theory like Nash equilibria, Kalai-Smorodinsky solutions and detail extensions like Nash-Kalai-Smorodinsky solutions. We finally introduce the corresponding algorithms and provide some illustrating results

Discourses on wars and conflicts :the discursive construction of Iraq in the US press

PhD ThesisThis study examines the discourses of US newspapers during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988) and the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq to see how the themes: i.e., Saddam, Iraqi people, Shiites, Halabja/the use of chemical weapons are discursively represented in these two wars. The research also examines whether there is a shift in the US press stance in its reporting by comparing the treatment of the themes during the two wars in question. To operationalise an interdisciplinary framework for this investigation the study employs corpus linguistics tools: frequency, collocates and concordances, in combination with the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to CDA. The investigation reveals that during the Iraq-Iran war, the US press covered the conflicting official statements of all countries involved in the war, while there was an over-reliance on the opinions and statements of US officials during the US-led invasion, with Saddam’s voice being muted. In the same vein, although Saddam is portrayed negatively in the Iraq-Iran war, he is much more sharply vilified, Hilterlised and demonised in the US-led invasion, and constructed as a threat that needs to be faced and eliminated. With regard to the Iraqis/Shiites, there is also a shift in reporting in the two wars. In the 2003 US-led invasion they appear as worthy victims, a portrayal that fits in within the propaganda that the war had a humanitarian motive. However, the Iraqis/Shiites are never represented in this way during the Iraq-Iran war. In a similar way, whereas the US press coverage of Halabja and chemical weapons (in 1988) consists mainly of reports of the conflicting opinions and statements of Iraqi, Iranian and US officials during the Iran-Iraq war, this is not the case during the 2003 US-led invasion, when the history of the Halabja gassing and the use of chemical weapons by Iraq is brought back to the surface to serve the aims of demonising and criminalising Saddam in particular and Iraq in general: these events are used to support the claim that Iraq possessed WMDs and that there was a real threat that Saddam would use them. It is hoped that this thesis makes a multifaceted contribution to the field: first, in revealing the US press selective nature of human rights violations with regard to Iraqi social groups and showing how this was in line with US foreign policy; secondly, by contributing to our understanding of the quality of journalistic practices in the US during times of conflict and the way they may function to form the overall characteristics of US press discourses during iv international conflicts, especially conflicts in the Middle East. The study also highlights the mechanisms through which the US press discourses incorporate the official state voices in the processes of legitimising and persuading the public of the necessity for a war

MABGEL 1: C2F5, C4E10 & C2G12 as a vaginal microbicide

Topical microbicides are being developed as a female-controlled method for preventing HIV-1 infection. Non-antiretroviral (ARV)-based candidates may be advantageous given increasing levels of ARV resistance in low and middle- income countries.MABGEL 1 was a phase 1 trial designed to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and safety of a vaginal microbicide containing the broadly HIV-1 neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) C2F5, C4E10 and C2G12 in a hydroxyethylcellulose-based gel vehicle. It was the first study of topical mAb application to the human female genital tract.Twenty-eight healthy women were randomised to apply either high dose Mabgel (containing 20mg/g of each mAb) (n= 10), low dose Mabgel (containing 10mg/g of each mAb) (n=9) or placebo gel (n=9). Doses (2.5ml) were applied over 12 consecutive days. Genital tract sampling was performed at baseline, 1 hour, 8 hours and 24 hours post 1st dose and 12 and 36 hours post 12th dose with serum samples collected at baseline, 8 hours post 1st dose and 12 hours post 12th dose. Safety was assessed through participant report and clinical examination, including colposcopy.Residence half-lives (t ½) in vaginal secretions (Weck-Cel samples) were estimated to be between 4 and 5.5 hours for C4E10 and C2F5. In contrast, vaginal levels of C2G12 did not conform to a single overall exponential decay, displaying a more rapid initial rate of decline, which then slowed at lower concentrations. The estimated early t ½ of C2G12 was 1.4 hours (95% CI 1.2 to 1.8). There was no evidence of systemic absorption.Daily vaginal application of up to 50g of each mAb over 12 days was safe. Although adverse events (AEs) were reported by all but 1 participant, 95 % were mild, none were serious and only 4 were moderate. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of AEs reported per participant between the 3 study arms.Although there are a number of caveats, results demonstrate ‘proof of principle’ of the potential for combinations of HIV-1 neutralizing mAbs to be used as a coitally-dependent microbicide

MABGEL 1: C2F5, C4E10 & C2G12 as a vaginal microbicide

Topical microbicides are being developed as a female-controlled method for preventing HIV-1 infection. Non-antiretroviral (ARV)-based candidates may be advantageous given increasing levels of ARV resistance in low and middle- income countries. MABGEL 1 was a phase 1 trial designed to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and safety of a vaginal microbicide containing the broadly HIV-1 neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) C2F5, C4E10 and C2G12 in a hydroxyethylcellulose-based gel vehicle. It was the first study of topical mAb application to the human female genital tract. Twenty-eight healthy women were randomised to apply either high dose Mabgel (containing 20mg/g of each mAb) (n= 10), low dose Mabgel (containing 10mg/g of each mAb) (n=9) or placebo gel (n=9). Doses (2.5ml) were applied over 12 consecutive days. Genital tract sampling was performed at baseline, 1 hour, 8 hours and 24 hours post 1st dose and 12 and 36 hours post 12th dose with serum samples collected at baseline, 8 hours post 1st dose and 12 hours post 12th dose. Safety was assessed through participant report and clinical examination, including colposcopy. Residence half-lives (t ½) in vaginal secretions (Weck-Cel samples) were estimated to be between 4 and 5.5 hours for C4E10 and C2F5. In contrast, vaginal levels of C2G12 did not conform to a single overall exponential decay, displaying a more rapid initial rate of decline, which then slowed at lower concentrations. The estimated early t ½ of C2G12 was 1.4 hours (95% CI 1.2 to 1.8). There was no evidence of systemic absorption. Daily vaginal application of up to 50g of each mAb over 12 days was safe. Although adverse events (AEs) were reported by all but 1 participant, 95 % were mild, none were serious and only 4 were moderate. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of AEs reported per participant between the 3 study arms. Although there are a number of caveats, results demonstrate ‘proof of principle’ of the potential for combinations of HIV-1 neutralizing mAbs to be used as a coitally-dependent microbicide