Bis[μ-bis(diphenylphosphino)methane-К²P:P’]bis[(saccharinato-КN)- palladium(I)] dichloromethane solvate

The dimeric palladium(I) saccharinate complex [Pd₂(sac)₂(dppm)₂], has been characterized as its di¬chloro¬methane solvate, i.e. [Pd₂(C₇H₄NO₃S)₂(C₂₅H₂₂P₂)₂]•CH₂Cl₂. The complex features a Pd—Pd bond bridged by two dppm ligands, with the saccharinate ligands N-bonded trans to the Pd—Pd bond

Incidence of mild cognitive impairment and dementia in Parkinson's disease: The Parkinson's disease cognitive impairment study

Background: Cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD) includes a spectrum varying from Mild Cognitive Impairment (PD-MCI) to PD Dementia (PDD). The main aim of the present study is to evaluate the incidence of PD-MCI, its rate of progression to dementia, and to identify demographic and clinical characteristics which predict cognitive impairment in PD patients. Methods: PD patients from a large hospital-based cohort who underwent at least two comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations were retrospectively enrolled in the study. PD-MCI and PDD were diagnosed according to the Movement Disorder Society criteria. Incidence rates of PD-MCI and PDD were estimated. Clinical and demographic factors predicting PD-MCI and dementia were evaluated using Cox proportional hazard model. Results: Out of 139 enrolled PD patients, 84 were classified with normal cognition (PD-NC), while 55 (39.6%) fulfilled the diagnosis of PD-MCI at baseline. At follow-up (mean follow-up 23.5 ± 10.3 months) 28 (33.3%) of the 84 PD-NC at baseline developed MCI and 4 (4.8%) converted to PDD. The incidence rate of PD-MCI was 184.0/1000 pyar (95% CI 124.7-262.3). At multivariate analysis a negative association between education and MCI development at follow-up was observed (HR 0.37, 95% CI 0.15-0.89; p = 0.03). The incidence rate of dementia was 24.3/1000 pyar (95% CI 7.7-58.5). Out of 55 PD-MCI patients at baseline, 14 (25.4%) converted to PDD, giving an incidence rate of 123.5/1000 pyar (95% CI 70.3-202.2). A five time increased risk of PDD was found in PD patients with MCI at baseline (RR 5.09, 95% CI 1.60-21.4). Conclusion: Our study supports the relevant role of PD-MCI in predicting PDD and underlines the importance of education in reducing the risk of cognitive impairment

Interaction and communication among autonomous agents in multiagent systems

The main goal of this doctoral thesis is to investigate a fundamental topic of research within the Multiagent Systems paradigm: the problem of defining open, heterogeneous, and dynamic interaction frameworks. That is to realize interaction systems where multiple agents can enter and leave dynamically and where no assumptions are made on the internal structure of the interacting agents. Such topic of research has received much attention in the past few years. In particular the need to realize applications where artificial agents can interact negotiate, exchange information, resources, and services has become more and more important thanks to the advent of Internet. I started my studies by developing a trading agent that took part to an international trading on-line game: the First Trading Agent Competition (TAC). During the design and development phase of the trading agent some crucial and critical troubles emerged: the problem of accurately understanding the rules that govern the different auctions; and the problem of understanding the meaning of the numerous messages. Another general problem is that the internal structure of the developed trading agent have been strongly determined by the peculiar interface of the interaction system, consequently without any changes in its code, it would not be able to take part to any other competition on the Web. Furthermore the trading agent would not have been able to exploit opportunities, to handle unexpected situations, or to reason about the rules of the various auctions, since it is not able to understand the meaning o the exchanged messages. The presence of all those problems bears out the need to find a standard common accepted way to define open interaction systems. The most important component of every interaction framework, as is remarked also by philosophical studies on human communication is the institution of language. Therefore I start to investigate the problem of defining a standard and common accepted semantics for Agent Communication Languages (ACL). The solutions proposed so far are at best partial, and are considered as unsatisfactory by a large number of specialists. In particular, they are unable to support verifiable compliance to standards and to make agents responsible for their communicative actions. Furthermore such proposals make the strong assumption that every interacting agent may be modeled as a Belief-Desire-Intention agent. What is required is an approach focused on externally observable events as opposed to the unobservable internal states of agents. Following Speech Act Theory that views language use as a form of action, I propose an operational specification for the definition of a standard ACL based on the notion of social commitment. In such a proposal the meaning of basic communicative acts is defined as the effect that it has on the social relationship between the sender and the receiver described through operation on an unambiguous, objective, and public "object": the commitment. The adoption of the notion of commitment is crucial to stabilize the interaction among agents, to create an expectation on other agents behavior, to enable agents to reason about their and other agents actions. The proposed ACL is verifiable, that is, it is possible to determine if an agent is behaving in accordance to its communicative actions; the semantics is objective, independent of the agent's internal structure, flexible and extensible, simple, yet enough expressive. A complete operational specification of an interaction framework using the proposed commitment-based ACL is presented. In particular some sample applications of how to use the proposed framework to formalize interaction protocols are reported. A list of soundness conditions to test if a protocol is sound is proposed

Factor PD-Clustering

Factorial clustering methods have been developed in recent years thanks to the improving of computational power. These methods perform a linear transformation of data and a clustering on transformed data optimizing a common criterion. Factorial PD-clustering is based on Probabilistic Distance clustering (PD-clustering). PD-clustering is an iterative, distribution free, probabilistic, clustering method. Factor PD-clustering make a linear transformation of original variables into a reduced number of orthogonal ones using a common criterion with PD-Clustering. It is demonstrated that Tucker 3 decomposition allows to obtain this transformation. Factor PD-clustering makes alternatively a Tucker 3 decomposition and a PD-clustering on transformed data until convergence. This method could significantly improve the algorithm performance and allows to work with large dataset, to improve the stability and the robustness of the method

Partial Discharge in Electronic Equipments

Tato disertační práce se věnuje studiu částečných výbojů (PD) způsobených poklesem spolehlivosti a životnosti elektronických zařízení a systémů. Diagnostika PD je dnes známá metoda pro vysoké napětí u vysoko-výkonných zařízení. V případě elektronických zařízení PD testování není ale běžně používáná metoda, přestože je zde také potenciál pro vysoké elektrické zatížení vzhledem k velmi krátké vzdálenosti. Tato práce je zaměřena na vyšetřování PD činnosti u elektronických zařízení. Bylo navrženo a provedeno pracoviště pro diagnostiku PD v elektronických zařízeních. Pracovní frekvence se pohybuje od několika stovek Hz až 100 kHz. Maximální amplituda PD testovaného napětí je vyšší než 10 kV. Navzdory jednoduché konstrukci toto zařízení přináší vysokou spolehlivost měření. Více než 300 PD testů bylo provedeno na různých elektronických zařízeních a elektronických součástí,např. na planárních transformátorech a elektronických komponentách používaných při vysoko-napěťových měničíchThis dissertation thesis is devoted to study of partial discharge (PD) caused decrease of reliability and lifetime of electronic equipments and systems. PD diagnostic is nowadays well known method for high voltage high power equipments but in case of electronic devices PD testing it is not used routinely despite that there is also a potential for high electric load due to extremely short distances. The risk of PD caused failure is here extremely high because of high working frequency and consequently high repetition rate of PD events. Therefore, this work is focused on investigation of PD activity in electronic equipments. The workplace for PD diagnostic in electronic devices based on switched power supply was designed and made. Working frequency ranges from several hundreds of Hertz up to 100 kHz. The maximal amplitude of PD testing voltage is higher than 10 kV. Despite the simple design this equipment brings high repeatability and reliability of measurement. More than 300 PD tests were made on different electronic devices and electronic components, on planar transformers, and on components for voltage gate drivers for use in high voltage power converters. Possibilities of PD tools in investigation and engineering ofd insulation systems were demonstrated.

The impact of motor symptoms on self-reported anxiety in Parkinson's disease

OBJECTIVE: Anxiety is commonly endorsed in Parkinson's disease (PD) and significantly affects quality of life. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) is often used but contains items that overlap with common PD motor symptoms (e.g., “hands trembling”). Because of these overlapping items, we hypothesized that PD motor symptoms would significantly affect BAI scores. METHODS: One hundred non-demented individuals with PD and 74 healthy control participants completed the BAI. PD motor symptoms were assessed by the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). Factor analysis of the BAI assessed for a PD motor factor, and further analyses assessed how this factor affected BAI scores. RESULTS: BAI scores were significantly higher for PD than NC. A five-item PD motor factor correlated with UPDRS observer-rated motor severity and mediated the PD-control difference on BAI total scores. An interaction occurred, whereby removal of the PD motor factor resulted in a significant reduction in BAI scores for PD relative to NC. The correlation between the BAI and UPDRS significantly declined when controlling for the PD motor factor. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that commonly endorsed BAI items may reflect motor symptoms such as tremor instead of, or in addition to, genuine mood symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of considering motor symptoms in the assessment of anxiety in PD and point to the need for selecting anxiety measures that are less subject to contamination by the motor effects of movement disorders.Published versio