869 research outputs found
Self-stabilizing Overlays for high-dimensional Monotonic Searchability
We extend the concept of monotonic searchability for self-stabilizing systems
from one to multiple dimensions. A system is self-stabilizing if it can recover
to a legitimate state from any initial illegal state. These kind of systems are
most often used in distributed applications. Monotonic searchability provides
guarantees when searching for nodes while the recovery process is going on.
More precisely, if a search request started at some node succeeds in
reaching its destination , then all future search requests from to
succeed as well. Although there already exists a self-stabilizing protocol for
a two-dimensional topology and an universal approach for monotonic
searchability, it is not clear how both of these concepts fit together
effectively. The latter concept even comes with some restrictive assumptions on
messages, which is not the case for our protocol. We propose a simple novel
protocol for a self-stabilizing two-dimensional quadtree that satisfies
monotonic searchability. Our protocol can easily be extended to higher
dimensions and offers routing in hops for any search
request
Participant Nonnaiveté and the reproducibility of cognitive psychology
Many argue that there is a reproducibility crisis in psychology. We investigated nine well-known effects from the cognitive psychology literatureâthree each from the domains of perception/action, memory, and language, respectivelyâand found that they are highly reproducible. Not only can they be reproduced in online environments, but they also can be reproduced with nonnaĂŻve participants with no reduction of effect size. Apparently, some cognitive tasks are so constraining that they encapsulate behavior from external influences, such as testing situation and prior recent experience with the experiment to yield highly robust effects
The Problem of Signal and Symbol Integration: A Study of Cooperative Mobile Autonomous Agent Behaviors
This paper explores and reasons about the interplay between symbolic and continuous representations. We first provide some historical perspective on signal and symbol integration as viewed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics and Computer Vision communities. The domain of autonomous robotic agents residing in dynamically changing environments anchors well different aspects of this integration and allows us to look at the problem in its entirety. Models of reasoning, sensing and control actions of such agents determine three different dimensions for discretization of the agent-world behavioral state space. The design and modeling of robotic agents, where these three aspects have to be closely tied together, provide a good experimental platform for addressing the signal-to-symbol transformation problem. We present some experimental results from the domain of cooperating mobile agents involved in tasks of navigation and manipulation
Depleted 15N in hydrolysable-N of arctic soils and its implication for mycorrhizal fungiâplant interaction
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Biogeochemistry 97 (2009): 183-194, doi:10.1007/s10533-009-9365-1.Uptake of nitrogen (N) via root-mycorrhizal associations accounts for a significant portion of
total N supply to many vascular plants. Using stable isotope ratios (ÎŽ15N) and the mass balance
among N pools of plants, fungal tissues, and soils, a number of efforts have been made in recent
years to quantify the flux of N from mycorrhizal fungi to host plants. Current estimates of this
flux for arctic tundra ecosystems rely on the untested assumption that the ÎŽ15N of labile organic
N taken up by the fungi is approximately the same as the ÎŽ15N of bulk soil. We report here
hydrolysable amino acids are more depleted in 15N relative to hydrolysable ammonium and
amino sugars in arctic tundra soils near Toolik Lake, Alaska, USA. We demonstrate, using a
case study, that recognizing the depletion in 15N for hydrolysable amino acids (ÎŽ15N = -5.6 â° on
average) would alter recent estimates of N flux between mycorrhizal fungi and host plants in an
arctic tundra ecosystem.This study was funded by NSF-DEB-0423385and NSF-DEB 0444592.
Additional support was provided by Arctic Long Term Ecological Research program, funded by
National Science Foundation, Division of Environmental Biology
Methodological quality of a systematic review on physical therapy for temporomandibular disorders: influence of hand search and quality scales
The validity of a systematic review depends on completeness of identifying randomised clinical trials (RCTs) and the quality of the included RCTs. The aim of this study was to analyse the effects of hand search on the number of identified RCTs and of four quality lists on the outcome of quality assessment of RCTs evaluating the effect of physical therapy on temporomandibular disorders. In addition, we investigated the association between publication year and the methodological quality of these RCTs. Cochrane, Medline and Embase databases were searched electronically. The references of the included studies were checked for additional trials. Studies not electronically identified were labelled as âobtained by means of hand searchâ. The included RCTs (69) concerning physical therapy for temporomandibular disorders were assessed using four different quality lists: the Delphi list, the Jadad list, the Megens & Harris list and the Risk of Bias list. The association between the quality scores and the year of publication were calculated. After electronic database search, hand search resulted in an additional 17 RCTs (25%). The mean quality score of the RCTs, expressed as a percentage of the maximum score, was low to moderate and varied from 35.1% for the Delphi list to 54.3% for the Risk of Bias list. The agreement among the four quality assessment lists, calculated by the Interclass Correlation Coefficient, was 0.603 (95% CI, 0.389; 0.749). The Delphi list scored significantly lower than the other lists. The Risk of Bias list scored significantly higher than the Jadad list. A moderate association was found between year of publication and scores on the Delphi list (râ=â0.50), the Jadad list (râ=â0.33) and the Megens & Harris list (râ=â0.43)
Study of decays to the final state and evidence for the decay
A study of decays is performed for the first time
using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0
collected by the LHCb experiment in collisions at centre-of-mass energies
of and TeV. Evidence for the decay
is reported with a significance of 4.0 standard deviations, resulting in the
measurement of
to
be .
Here denotes a branching fraction while and
are the production cross-sections for and mesons.
An indication of weak annihilation is found for the region
, with a significance of
2.4 standard deviations.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-022.html,
link to supplemental material inserted in the reference
Interactive Effects of Time, CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e, N, and Diversity on Total Belowground Carbon Allocation and Ecosystem Carbon Storage in a Grassland Community
Predicting if ecosystems will mitigate or exacerbate rising CO2 requires understanding how elevated CO2 will interact with coincident changes in diversity and nitrogen (N) availability to affect ecosystem carbon (C) storage. Yet achieving such understanding has been hampered by the difficulty of quantifying belowground C pools and fluxes. Thus, we used mass balance calculations to quantify the effects of diversity, CO2, and N on both the total amount of C allocated belowground by plants (total belowground C allocation, TBCA) and ecosystem C storage in a periodically burned, 8-year Minnesota grassland biodiversity, CO2, and N experiment (BioCON). Annual TBCA increased in response to elevated CO2, enriched N, and increasing diversity. TBCA was positively related to standing root biomass. After removing the influence of root biomass, the effect of elevated CO2 remained positive, suggesting additional drivers of TBCA apart from those that maintain high root biomass. Removing root biomass effects resulted in the effects of N and diversity becoming neutral or negative (depending on year), suggesting that the positive effects of diversity and N on TBCA were related to treatmentdriven differences in root biomass. Greater litter production in high diversity, elevated CO2, and enhanced N treatments increased annual ecosystem C loss in fire years and C gain in non-fire years, resulting in overall neutral C storage rates. Our results suggest that frequently burned grasslands are unlikely to exhibit enhanced C sequestration with increasing atmospheric CO2 levels or N deposition
Communication, advice exchange and job satisfaction of nursing staff: a social network analyses of 35 long-term care units
Background: The behaviour of individuals is affected by the social networks in which they are embedded. Networks are also important for the diffusion of information and the influence of employees in organisations. Yet, at the moment little is known about the social networks of nursing staff in healthcare settings. This is the first study that investigates informal communication and advice networks of nursing staff in long-term care. We examine the structure of the networks, how they are related to the size of units and characteristics of nursing staff, and their relationship with job satisfaction. Methods: We collected social network data of 380 nursing staff of 35 units in group projects and psychogeriatric units in nursing homes and residential homes in the Netherlands. Communication and advice networks were analyzed in a social network application (UCINET), focusing on the number of contacts (density) between nursing staff on the units. We then studied the correlation between the density of networks, size of the units and characteristics of nursing staff. We used multilevel analyses to investigate the relationship between social networks and job satisfaction of nursing staff, taking characteristics of units and nursing staff into account. Results: Both communication and advice networks were negatively related to the number of residents and the number of nursing staff of the units. Communication and advice networks were more dense when more staff worked part-time. Furthermore, density of communication networks was positively related to the age of nursing staff of the units. Multilevel analyses showed that job satisfaction differed significantly between individual staff members and units and was influenced by the number of nursing staff of the units. However, this relationship disappeared when density of communication networks was added to the model. Conclusions: Overall, communication and advice networks of nursing staff in long-term care are relatively dense. This fits with the high level of cooperation that is needed to provide good care to residents. Social networks are more dense in small units and are also shaped by characteristics of staff members. The results furthermore show that communication networks are important for staff's job satisfaction. (aut. ref.
Impaired health status and care dependency in patients with advanced COPD or chronic heart failure
Search for supersymmetric particles in scenarios with a gravitino LSP and stau NLSP
Sleptons, neutralinos and charginos were searched for in the context of
scenarios where the lightest supersymmetric particle is the gravitino. It was
assumed that the stau is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle. Data
collected with the DELPHI detector at a centre-of-mass energy near 189 GeV were
analysed combining the methods developed in previous searches at lower
energies. No evidence for the production of these supersymmetric particles was
found. Hence, limits were derived at 95% confidence level.Comment: 31 pages, 14 figure
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