A Markov Decision Process with Awareness and Present Bias in Decision-Making

We propose a Markov Decision Process Model that blends ideas from Psychological research and Economics to study decision-making in individuals with self-control problems. We have borrowed a dual-process of decision-making with self-awareness from Psychological research, and we introduce present bias in inter-temporal preferences, a phenomenon widely explored in Economics. We allow for both an exogenous and endogenous, state-dependent, present bias in inter-temporal decision-making and explore, by means of numerical simulations, the consequences on well-being emerging from the solution of the model. We show that, over time, self-awareness may mitigate present bias and suboptimal choice behaviour

A model checking approach for verifying COWS specifications

We introduce a logical verification framework for checking functional properties of service-oriented applications formally specified using the service specification language COWS. The properties are described by means of SocL, a logic specifically designed to capture peculiar aspects of services. Service behaviours are abstracted in terms of Doubly Labelled Transition Systems, which are used as the interpretation domain for SocL formulae. We also illustrate the SocL model checker at work on a bank service scenario specified in COWS

Genetic analysis of fertility in the Italian Brown Swiss population using different models and trait definitions

AbstractThe aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for fertility and production traits in the Brown Swiss population reared in the Alps (Bolzano-Bozen province, Italy). Fertility indicators were interval from parturition to first service, interval from first service to conception (iFC), and interval from parturition to conception, either expressed as days and as number of potential 21-d estrus cycles (cPF, cFC, and cPC, respectively); number of inseminations to conception; conception rate at first service; and non-return rate at 56 d post-first service. Production traits were peak milk yield, lactation milk yield, lactation length, average lactation protein percentage, and average lactation fat percentage. Data included 71,556 lactations (parities 1 to 9) from 29,582 cows reared in 1,835 herds. Animals calved from 1999 to 2007 and were progeny of 491 artificial insemination bulls. Gibbs sampling and Metropolis algorithms were implemented to obtain (co)variance components using both univariate and bivariate censored threshold and linear sire models. All of the analyses accounted for parity and year-month of calving as fixed effects, and herd, permanent environmental cow, additive genetic sire, and residual as random effects. Heritability estimates for fertility traits ranged from 0.030 (iFC) to 0.071 (cPC). Strong genetic correlations were estimated between interval from parturition to first service and cPF (0.97), and interval from parturition to conception and cPC (0.96). The estimate of heritability for cFC (0.055) was approximately double compared with iFC (0.030), suggesting that measuring the elapsed time between first service and conception in days or potential cycles is not equivalent; this was also confirmed by the genetic correlation between iFC and cFC, which was strong (0.85), but more distant from unity than the other 2 pairs of fertility traits. Genetic correlations between number of inseminations to conception, conception rate at first service, non-return rate at 56 d post-first service, cPF, cFC, and cPC ranged from 0.07 to 0.82 as absolute value. Fertility was unfavorably correlated with production; estimates ranged from −0.26 (cPC with protein percentage) to 0.76 (cPC with lactation length), confirming the genetic antagonism between reproductive efficiency and milk production. Although heritability for fertility is low, the contemporary inclusion of several reproductive traits in a merit index would help to improve performance of dairy cows

Linguistic abstractions for programming and policing autonomic computing systems

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Factors affecting the incidence of first-quality wheels of Trentingrana cheese

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Reversing Single Sessions

Session-based communication has gained a widespread acceptance in practice as a means for developing safe communicating systems via structured interactions. In this paper, we investigate how these structured interactions are affected by reversibility, which provides a computational model allowing executed interactions to be undone. In particular, we provide a systematic study of the integration of different notions of reversibility in both binary and multiparty single sessions. The considered forms of reversibility are: one for completely reversing a given session with one backward step, and another for also restoring any intermediate state of the session with either one backward step or multiple ones. We analyse the costs of reversing a session in all these different settings. Our results show that extending binary single sessions to multiparty ones does not affect the reversibility machinery and its costs

Monitoring of sensory attributes used in the quality payment system of Trentingrana cheese

Abstract Trentingrana is a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) hard cheese manufactured in the valleys of Trento province (eastern Italian Alps) by several small cooperative dairies linked in a consortium. Nine months after production, wheels are delivered to a shared facility, ripened up to 18 mo, and assessed by a panel of 8 experts for 7 sensory attributes; namely, external aspect, rind thickness, paste color, texture, odor, taste, and aroma. The evaluation takes place every 2 mo on wheels sampled within each dairy. Based on the results of the assessment, dairies receive a price premium or penalty depending on a quality index, which is the weighted sum of the scores attributed to each sampled wheel. Sensory scores and quality index of 652 wheels representing 11 dairies and 10 yr of production were analyzed using a model that included fixed effects of dairy, year, and season of production, and first-order interactions between them. The coefficients of determination ranged from 0.50 (texture) to 0.66 (aroma). All factors significantly affected the studied traits, with the exception of interactions between dairy and season of production for texture and external aspect, and between year and season of production for odor. Dairy was the most important source of variation for visually assessed traits (external aspect, rind thickness, paste color, and texture) and for quality index, whereas year of production was the most important for flavor attributes (odor, taste, and aroma). The latter traits were always highly correlated among them and with the quality index, whereas correlations among visually assessed attributes, between them and flavor attributes, and between them and the quality index were more erratic. The sensory evaluation performed by the panel of experts has proven to be a useful tool to define the quality index and address the payment system of Trentingrana cheese, but it has some limitations in correctly describing the sensory profile of cheese and identifying specific defects and possible remedies