Translating Neuralese

Several approaches have recently been proposed for learning decentralized deep multiagent policies that coordinate via a differentiable communication channel. While these policies are effective for many tasks, interpretation of their induced communication strategies has remained a challenge. Here we propose to interpret agents' messages by translating them. Unlike in typical machine translation problems, we have no parallel data to learn from. Instead we develop a translation model based on the insight that agent messages and natural language strings mean the same thing if they induce the same belief about the world in a listener. We present theoretical guarantees and empirical evidence that our approach preserves both the semantics and pragmatics of messages by ensuring that players communicating through a translation layer do not suffer a substantial loss in reward relative to players with a common language.Comment: Fixes typos and cleans ups some model presentation detail

Some Thoughts on the Historiographical Invention of a West Iranian Migration

The continuous migration of the Sarmatians from East to West is still considered an historical fact. The fundaments of this theory, however, are tricky: the Iranian tie of all the populations on the north-eastern edge of the ancient world is too weak to support the existence of one ancient ethnos; our current image of the Sarmatians is the result of loose readings of texts and archaeological evidence, nourished by nationalistic convictions. This paper de-constructs the currently accepted Sarmatian migrations and proposes a new history of the invention of the Sarmatians, through the critical re- examination of the linguistic and archaeological data as well as of the historiographical theses of the last 500 years.Die Wanderung der Sarmaten von Ost nach West gilt bis heute als historische Tatsache. Dabei sind die Grundlagen dieser These kompliziert: Die iranische Verbindung all jener Bevölkerungen am Nordostrand der antiken Welt ist zu schwach ausgeprägt, um daraus auf die Existenz eines antiken ethnos zu schließen. Unser heutiges Bild der Sarmaten ist vielmehr das Resultat einer freien Lektüre antiker Texte und vager archäologischer Hinweise, genährt von nationalistischen Überzeugungen. Dieser Aufsatz dekonstruiert die bis heute akzeptierte These sarmatischer Wanderungen und erzählt die Geschichte der Erfindung der Sarmaten aufgrund einer kritischen Neulektüre der linguistischen und archäologischen Daten und der Historiographie der letzten 500 Jahre

TAX OPTIMIZATION THROUGH TRANSFER PRICING, COMMON AND MANIPULATIVE PRACTICE

This paper is about how multinational enterprises choose transfer prices in the presence of differential corporate income tax rates. A transfer prince is a value placed on the goods which are traded between divisions of an organization. We review and extetransfer pricing, tax optimization, tax reduction

The Quality of Educational Services in Higher Education – Assurance, Management or Excellence?

The present paper has as its target to present the regulations characterizing the quality of educational services in higher education, with a view to identifying the system which is the most efficient and revealing for their real quality. This approach also takes into account the central role that key intellectual and cultural responsibilities play in the development of modern society, as well as the moral impact of higher education on society as a whole. The authors reach the conclusion that, in order to have real quality in higher education, it is important to introduce a quality management system and to constantly improve it, using as feedback the satisfaction of clients and other interested parties, with the intention of attaining performance and excellence.excellence, performance, quality management, quality assurance, quality indicators

Analysis and optimization of nonsmooth mechanical structures

It is our aim to give a new treatment for some classical models of arches and plates and for their optimization. In particular, our approach allows to study nonsmooth arches, while the standard assumptions from the literature require W3,∞-regularity for the parametric representation. Moreover, by a duality-type argument, the deformation of the arches may be explicitly expressed by integral formulas. As examples for the shape optimization problems under study, we mention the design of the middle curve of a clamped arch or of the thickness of a clamped plate such that, under a prescribed load, the obtained deflection satisfies certain desired properties. In all cases, no smoothness is required for the design parameters

KINETIC STUDIES ON BIODEGRADATION OF LIPIDS FROM OLIVE OIL MILL WASTEWATERS WITH FREE AND IMMOBILIZED Bacillus sp. CELLS

The studies on the biodegradation of lipids from olive oil mill wastewater with free and immobilized Bacillus sp. cells indicated that the maximum specific rate of the process is reached at pH = 8. The use of immobilized cells allows to increasing the number of biodegradation process cycles, but reduces the rate of the process. In this case, the process rate depends on the biocatalysts size and cells concentration inside them. Thus, at bacterial cells concentration of 9 g d.w./100 mL biocatalyst, the apparent specific rate varied from 4.65 to 1.46×10-2 h-1 by increasing the biocatalyst particles diameter from 3 to 4.2 mm.The cumulated influences of the particles size and cells concentration have been included in a mathematical model for the apparent specific rate of lipids biodegradation. The model offers a good concordance with the experimental data, the average deviation being of +/- 7.38%

STUDY ON ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION IN A STATIONARY BASKET BIOREACTOR WITH IMMOBILIZED YEAST CELLS

The use of a stationary basket bioreactor with immobilized S. cerevisiae cells indicated the possibility to extend the number of alcoholic fermentation cycles that can be carried out with the same biocatalysts to over nine. Although the rates of glucose consumption and ethanol production were lower than those recorded for the mobile beds of immobilized yeast cells, the mechanical lysis of the biocatalysts is avoided in the case of basket bed. Due to the substrate and product accumulation inside the basket bed, the fermentation process can be improved by washing out the biocatalysts bed over two or four cycles