Building a Truly Distributed Constraint Solver with JADE

Real life problems such as scheduling meeting between people at different locations can be modelled as distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs). Suitable and satisfactory solutions can then be found using constraint satisfaction algorithms which can be exhaustive (backtracking) or otherwise (local search). However, most research in this area tested their algorithms by simulation on a single PC with a single program entry point. The main contribution of our work is the design and implementation of a truly distributed constraint solver based on a local search algorithm using Java Agent DEvelopment framework (JADE) to enable communication between agents on different machines. Particularly, we discuss design and implementation issues related to truly distributed constraint solver which might not be critical when simulated on a single machine. Evaluation results indicate that our truly distributed constraint solver works well within the observed limitations when tested with various distributed CSPs. Our application can also incorporate any constraint solving algorithm with little modifications.Comment: 7 page

Acute Sigmoid Volvulus Treated with Subtotal Colectomy and Primary Anastomosis

Acute Sigmoid Volvulus usually presents as an emergency and requires urgent treatment. Near–total or total colectomy is not a common treatment strategy in this condition. This is a case report of a 54-year old woman who underwent total colectomy and ileorectal anastomosis for an acute sigmoid colon with associated occluding sigmoid tumor and ischemic megacolon

A Textual Analysis of Online Newspapers Readers' Comments on the Coverage of Chibok School Girls Kidnap

This paper analyzes the comments of online newspapers readers' comments on the Chibok secondary school girls' kidnap. Public Deliberation Theory, an offshoot of Habermas concept of the 'public sphere' was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study. The researcher used Mckeess post-structuralist approach and made educated guesses about the contextual meaning of the comments. Online versions of two newspapers, Daily Trust and Vanguard were used as the stimulus for the study. Data for the study were compiled over a three week period through purposive sampling technique. Findings revealed that online comments are often influenced by ethnic, religious and cultural affiliations. Also, banality, frustration and hostility are present in the tones of commenters. Keywords: Internet, Public Sphere, Commenters, Online Newspaper, MainstreamMedia

Bat diversity and abundance in Omo Forest Reserve, Nigeria

Bats are yet to be incorporated in management plans in Nigeria. This is attributed to dearth in information as well as social stigma. This study was designed to determine bat species diversity, abundance and the relation of both indices to habitat structure. The survey was carried out in Omo forest reserve between May and June. Mist nets were deployed using stratified sampling method to place nets at 20 points. Netted points were set to be at least 200m apart. Total length of net averaged at 60 m, height ranged between 2-4m and set up after sunset from 1800-2300 hrs and before sunrise from 0400-0630 hrs. Sixty-four individuals were trapped belonging to 14 species in 8 genera and 6 families. Two other species were observed but not captured Eidolon helvum (Straw coloured fruit Bat) and Hypsignathus monstrosus (Hammer headed Fruit bat). Identification was based on Mammals of Nigeria and Mammals of Africa. Bat species diversity and bat abundance were higher in the forest compared to plantation but not significantly different. Bat species diversity decreased significantly as density of trees and litter cover increased while bat abundance decreased with increase in tree density but the relationship was not significant. Difference in diversity and abundance of bats is attributed to relative short distance between farmland and forest habitat types which provides easy access to bats for foraging. Habitat type and land usage influences the level of diversity and abundance of wildlife species for which bats are good indicators of habitat suitability.Keywords: Bats, diversity, Omo forest reserve, deforestation, density of tree

Generating Weather Forecast Texts with Case Based Reasoning

Several techniques have been used to generate weather forecast texts. In this paper, case based reasoning (CBR) is proposed for weather forecast text generation because similar weather conditions occur over time and should have similar forecast texts. CBR-METEO, a system for generating weather forecast texts was developed using a generic framework (jCOLIBRI) which provides modules for the standard components of the CBR architecture. The advantage in a CBR approach is that systems can be built in minimal time with far less human effort after initial consultation with experts. The approach depends heavily on the goodness of the retrieval and revision components of the CBR process. We evaluated CBRMETEO with NIST, an automated metric which has been shown to correlate well with human judgements for this domain. The system shows comparable performance with other NLG systems that perform the same task.Comment: 6 page

A Textual Analysis of Online Newspapers Readers' Comments on the Coverage of Chibok School Girls Kidnap

This paper analyzes the comments of online newspapers readers' comments on the Chibok secondary school girls' kidnap. Public Deliberation Theory, an offshoot of Habermas concept of the 'public sphere' was adopted as the theoretical framework for the study. The researcher used Mckeess post-structuralist approach and made educated guesses about the contextual meaning of the comments. Online versions of two newspapers, Daily Trust and Vanguard were used as the stimulus for the study. Data for the study were compiled over a three week period through purposive sampling technique. Findings revealed that online comments are often influenced by ethnic, religious and cultural affiliations. Also, banality, frustration and hostility are present in the tones of commenters. Keywords: Internet, Public Sphere, Commenters, Online Newspaper, MainstreamMedia

The mass media and violent conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa

Mass media have been a critical weapon of warfare since the cold war, and even more recently, the powerful intrusion of the new media: transformed the landscape in terms of reach and influence. Its role can be both constructive and deconstructive. The Rwanda genocide, armed violence in Nigeria and Kenya, and Balkan wars has questioned its roles, powers and ethical responsibilities in violent conflict circumstances. In these cases the mass media played a poisonous role. Although establishing a causal relationship between mass media and framing of opinion, emotion and beliefs that steams violent conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa is neither linear nor clear. However, this paper underscores mass media's compelling influence on how perception in fragile armed conflict environment of Africa is developed. It is not only used as an effective propaganda machine for promoting regime defense, building resistant movement, but also transforming the political actor's parochial interest into people's interest

The HIV-1 Tat Protein and Adverse Drug Reactions: A model system utilizing Jurkat T cells and sulphamethoxazole-hydroxylamine

In 2009 approximately 2.6 million people became infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). In addition to the estimated 33.3 million people currently living with the virus, this makes HIV/ AIDS an epidemic of unprecedented scale in modern times. Treatment of HIV infection requires antiretroviral agents as well as a number of other drugs such as antimicrobials. Hypersensitivity adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to a variety of drugs are common in HIV-infected individuals, but the antimicrobial Sulphamethoxazole remains a major culprit. Hypersensitivity ADRs cause significant morbidity, with the skin and liver most commonly affected and are among the top causes of death in the developed world. While the pathophysiology of drug hypersensitivity in general remains incompletely understood, ADRs to Sulphamethoxazole have been linked to one of its reactive metabolites SMX-HA. Previous work from our lab has also shown that the HIV-1 Tat protein plays a role in SMX-induced hypersensitivity ADRs. We sought to determine if altering the amount of Tat would have an effect on cellular toxicity. We also wanted to find out how Tat affects toxicity and what region of the protein mediated those effects. We created fusion proteins of Tat and its deletion mutants with green fluorescent protein and placed them in an inducible vector which was subsequently used to create stably transfected Jurkat T cell lines. These cell lines were differentially induced for Tat expression and then used in assays for cellular toxicity and oxidative stress in the absence and presence of SMX-HA. We found that cellular toxicity was dependent on the variant of Tat used. In the preliminary report, the first exon of the Tat protein was able to augment T cell death caused by the addition of SMX-HA, and that the cell death occurred via apoptosis. This cell death took place without alteration to the cellular redox state. In later experiments using a different Tat variant, only the full-length protein affected cell death after SMX-HA treatment. Also, expression of the full-length protein was able to cause an increase in ROS generated after incubation with SMX-HA. None of the deletion mutants had this effect. To try to further elucidate the effects of HIV-1 Tat on the cellular redox state, a set of experiments were carried out to detect the consequences on thiol proteins of Tat expression in the presence and absence of SMX-HA. Following Tat expression and incubation of the Jurkat cells with either vehicle or SMX-HA, the cells were disrupted in the presence of iodoacetamide and the lysates applied to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. In the absence of SMX-HA, the Tat-expressing cell lines were already under a fair amount of oxidative stress compared to the parent cell line and the HIV-infected cell line. Also in untreated cells, a small number of protein thiols were already oxidized. Exposure of the Tat-expressing cells to 200µM SMX-HA led to a dramatic increase in thiol protein oxidation