An Approach to Agent-Based Service Composition and Its Application to Mobile

This paper describes an architecture model for multiagent systems that was developed in the European project LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform). Its main feature is a set of generic services that are implemented independently of the agents and can be installed into the agents by the application developer in a flexible way. Moreover, two applications using this architecture model are described that were also developed within the LEAP project. The application domain is the support of mobile, virtual teams for the German automobile club ADAC and for British Telecommunications

Computation with narrow CTCs

We examine some variants of computation with closed timelike curves (CTCs), where various restrictions are imposed on the memory of the computer, and the information carrying capacity and range of the CTC. We give full characterizations of the classes of languages recognized by polynomial time probabilistic and quantum computers that can send a single classical bit to their own past. Such narrow CTCs are demonstrated to add the power of limited nondeterminism to deterministic computers, and lead to exponential speedup in constant-space probabilistic and quantum computation. We show that, given a time machine with constant negative delay, one can implement CTC-based computations without the need to know about the runtime beforehand.Comment: 16 pages. A few typo was correcte

On the Computational Complexity of MapReduce

In this paper we study MapReduce computations from a complexity-theoretic perspective. First, we formulate a uniform version of the MRC model of Karloff et al. (2010). We then show that the class of regular languages, and moreover all of sublogarithmic space, lies in constant round MRC. This result also applies to the MPC model of Andoni et al. (2014). In addition, we prove that, conditioned on a variant of the Exponential Time Hypothesis, there are strict hierarchies within MRC so that increasing the number of rounds or the amount of time per processor increases the power of MRC. To the best of our knowledge we are the first to approach the MapReduce model with complexity-theoretic techniques, and our work lays the foundation for further analysis relating MapReduce to established complexity classes

Customer-engineer relationship management for converged ICT service companies

Thanks to the advent of converged communications services (often referred to as ‘triple play’), the next generation Service Engineer will need radically different skills, processes and tools from today’s counterpart. Why? in order to meet the challenges of installing and maintaining services based on multi-vendor software and hardware components in an IP-based network environment. The converged services environment is likely to be ‘smart’ and support flexible and dynamic interoperability between appliances and computing devices. These radical changes in the working environment will inevitably force managers to rethink the role of Service Engineers in relation to customer relationship management. This paper aims to identify requirements for an information system to support converged communications service engineers with regard to customer-engineer relationship management. Furthermore, an architecture for such a system is proposed and how it meets these requirements is discussed

Extending scientific computing system with structural quantum programming capabilities

We present a basic high-level structures used for developing quantum programming languages. The presented structures are commonly used in many existing quantum programming languages and we use quantum pseudo-code based on QCL quantum programming language to describe them. We also present the implementation of introduced structures in GNU Octave language for scientific computing. Procedures used in the implementation are available as a package quantum-octave, providing a library of functions, which facilitates the simulation of quantum computing. This package allows also to incorporate high-level programming concepts into the simulation in GNU Octave and Matlab. As such it connects features unique for high-level quantum programming languages, with the full palette of efficient computational routines commonly available in modern scientific computing systems. To present the major features of the described package we provide the implementation of selected quantum algorithms. We also show how quantum errors can be taken into account during the simulation of quantum algorithms using quantum-octave package. This is possible thanks to the ability to operate on density matrices

A system of relational syllogistic incorporating full Boolean reasoning

We present a system of relational syllogistic, based on classical propositional logic, having primitives of the following form: Some A are R-related to some B; Some A are R-related to all B; All A are R-related to some B; All A are R-related to all B. Such primitives formalize sentences from natural language like `All students read some textbooks'. Here A and B denote arbitrary sets (of objects), and R denotes an arbitrary binary relation between objects. The language of the logic contains only variables denoting sets, determining the class of set terms, and variables denoting binary relations between objects, determining the class of relational terms. Both classes of terms are closed under the standard Boolean operations. The set of relational terms is also closed under taking the converse of a relation. The results of the paper are the completeness theorem with respect to the intended semantics and the computational complexity of the satisfiability problem.Comment: Available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10849-012-9165-

Case study: Treatment of oral and locomotory stereotypic behaviors in a mature sow

A 32-month-old female 225-kg nonpregnant cross-bred Newsham sow presented a 6-week history of stereotypic behaviors when housed in a laboratory research facility. A behavioral examination over 12 daylight hours revealed 3 main stereotypic motor patterns, namely (1) oral-nasal gate manipulation defined as placement of the snout between the bars of the pen gate with repetitive, forceful up and down movement; (2) head weaving defined as repetitive lateral head and snout movement toward the pen gates while rocking back and forth on her forequarters with hooves remaining on ground at all times; and (3) body weaving defined as repetitive shifting of body weight from one side to the other with front hooves lifting alternately off the ground. The sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 4.0%, 12.4%, and 6.8% of her total baseline time budget, respectively. The presumptive diagnosis was oral-nasal and locomotory stereotypies. Three treatments were used to mitigate the duration and frequency of these stereotypic behaviors. Treatment 1—Social treatment (change social stimuli by providing visual and nose-to-nose contact with different neighboring sows); Treatment 2—Forage treatment (change foraging substrates by providing peat moss as a rooting substrate); and Treatment 3—Space treatment (change pen configuration by increasing space). The sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0%, 0.4%, and 0.1% of her total time budget, respectively; social treatment: the sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0.9%, 15.3%, and 11.3% of her total time budget, respectively; and forage treatment: the sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0.5%, 28.0%, and 15.5% of her total time budget, respectively. This study is one of the first reports to evaluate the treatment of established stereotypies in a mature sow. Results suggest the promise of environmental enrichment as an effective treatment strategy. Further research is needed to evaluate the persistence of these behavioral changes and relative importance of different environmental manipulations provided

Reduced occupancy of hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) in rural England and Wales: the influence of habitat and an asymmetric intra-guild predator

Agricultural landscapes have become increasingly intensively managed resulting in population declines across a broad range of taxa, including insectivores such as the hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus). Hedgehog declines have also been attributed to an increase in the abundance of badgers (Meles meles), an intra-guild predator. The status of hedgehogs across the rural landscape at large spatial scales is, however, unknown. In this study, we used footprint tracking tunnels to conduct the first national survey of rural hedgehog populations in England and Wales. Single and two-species occupancy modelling was used to quantify hedgehog occupancy in relation to habitat and predator covariates. Hedgehog occupancy was low (22% nationally), and significantly negatively related to badger sett density and positively related to the built environment. Hedgehogs were also absent from 71% of sites that had no badger setts, indicating that large areas of the rural landscape are not occupied by hedgehogs. Our results provide the first field based national survey of hedgehogs, providing a robust baseline for future monitoring. Furthermore, the combined effects of increasing badger abundance and intensive agriculture may have provided a perfect storm for hedgehogs in rural Britain, leading to worryingly low levels of occupancy over large spatial scales