Automatic ontology mapping for agent communication

Agent communication languages such as ACL and KQML provide a standard for agent communication. These languages enable an agent to specify the intention and the content of a message as well as the protocol, the language, and the ontology that are used. For the protocol and the language some standards are available and should be known by the communicating agents. The ontology used in a communication depends on the subject of the communication. Since the number of subjects is almost infinite and since the concepts used for a subject can be described by different ontologies, the development of generally accepted standards will take a long time. This lack of standardization, which hampers communication and collaboration between agents, is known as the interoperability problem. To overcome the interoperability problem, agents must be able to establish a mapping between their ontologies. This paper investigates a new approach to the interoperability problem. The proposed approach requires neither a correspondence between concepts used in the ontologies nor a correspondence between the structure of the ontologies. It only requires that some instances of the subject about which the agents try to communicate are known by both agents.economics of technology ;

Optimization of Cricket-inspired, Biomimetic Artificial Hair Sensors for Flow Sensing

High density arrays of artificial hair sensors, biomimicking the extremely sensitive mechanoreceptive filiform hairs found on cerci of crickets have been fabricated successfully. We assess the sensitivity of these artificial sensors and present a scheme for further optimization addressing the deteriorating effects of stress in the structures. We show that, by removing a portion of chromium electrodes close to the torsional beams, the upward lift at the edges of the membrane due to the stress, will decrease hence increase the sensitivity.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Detailed and large-scale cost/benefit analyses of landslide prevention vs. post-event actions

The main aim of this paper is to test economic benefits of landslide prevention measures vs. post-event emergency actions. To this end, detailed- and large-scale analyses were performed in a training area located in the northeastern Italian pre-Alps that was hit by an exceptional rainfall event occurred in November 2010. On the detailed scale, a landslide reactivated after 2010 event was investigated. Numerical modeling demonstrated that remedial works carried out after the landslide – water-removal intervention such as a drainage trench – could have improved slope stability if applied before its occurrence. Then, a cost/benefit analysis was employed. It defined that prevention would have been economically convenient compared to a non-preventive and passive attitude, allowing a 30 % saving relative to total costs. On the large scale, one of the most affected areas after 2010 event was considered. A susceptibility analysis was performed using a simple probabilistic model, which allowed to highlight the main landslide conditioning factors and the most hazardous and vulnerable sectors. In particular, such low-cost analysis demonstrated that almost 50 % of landslides occurred after 2010 event could be foreseen and allowed to roughly quantify benefits from regional landslide prevention. However, a large-scale approach is insufficient to carry out a quantitative cost/benefit analysis, for which a detailed case-by-case risk assessment is needed. The here proposed approaches could be used as a means of preventive soil protection in not only the investigated case study but also all those hazardous areas where preventive measures are needed

A systematic review of school-based alcohol and other drug prevention programs

Background: Alcohol use in adolescents constitutes a major public health concern. Europe is the heaviest drinking region of the world. Several school-based alcohol prevention programs have been developed but it is not clear whether they are really effective. The present study was aimed at identifying the typology with the best evidence of effectiveness in European studies. Methods: A systematic search of meta-analyses and/or randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on interventions school-based prevention programs aimed at preventing alcohol consumption or changing the attitudes to consume alcohol. Results: A meta-analysis published in 2011 and 12 RCTs more recently published were identified. The meta-analysis evaluated 53 RCTs but only 11.3% of them were conducted in Europe. Globally, 23 RCTs (43.4%) showed some evidence of effectiveness, and 30 RCTs (56.6%) did not find significant difference between the groups. According to the conclusions of the meta-analysis, the Unplugged program should be considered as a practice option in Europe. Among the other 12 RCTs, 42% were conducted in Europe. Globally, 7 studies (58.3%) achieved positive results, and 5 studies (41.7%) did not find significant differences or produced a mixed pattern of results. Three of the 5 European trials (60%) used the Unplugged program with positive results. Conclusion: Even if further studies should be conducted to confirm these results, Unplugged appears to be the prevention project with the best evidence of effectiveness in European studies

Fast Long-Distance Control of Spin Qubits by Photon Assisted Cotunneling

We investigate theoretically the long-distance coupling and spin exchange in an array of quantum dot spin qubits in the presence of microwaves. We find that photon assisted cotunneling is boosted at resonances between photon and energies of virtually occupied excited states and show how to make it spin selective. We identify configurations that enable fast switching and spin echo sequences for efficient and non-local manipulation of spin qubits. We devise configurations in which the near-resonantly boosted cotunneling provides non-local coupling which, up to certain limit, does not diminish with distance between the manipulated dots before it decays weakly with inverse distance.Comment: 17 pages (including 8 pages of Appendices), 2 figure

Optimized single-shot laser ablation of concave mirror templates on optical fibers

We realize mirror templates on the tips of optical fibers using a single-shot CO$_2$ laser ablation procedure. We perform a systematic study of the influence of the pulse power, pulse duration, and laser spot size on the radius of curvature, depth, and diameter of the mirror templates. We find that these geometrical characteristics can be tuned to a larger extent than has been previously reported, and notably observe that compound convex-concave shapes can be obtained. This detailed investigation should help further the understanding of the physics of CO$_2$ laser ablation processes and help improve current models. We additionally identify regimes of ablation parameters that lead to mirror templates with favorable geometries for use in cavity quantum electrodynamics and optomechanics