Supergravity description of spacetime instantons

We present and discuss BPS instanton solutions that appear in type II string theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds. From an effective action point of view these arise as finite action solutions of the Euclidean equations of motion in four-dimensional N=2 supergravity coupled to tensor multiplets. As a solution generating technique we make use of the c-map, which produces instanton solutions from either Euclidean black holes or from Taub-NUT like geometries.Comment: 35 pages, some clarifications adde

Issues and recommendations from the OHBM COBIDAS MEEG committee for reproducible EEG and MEG research

The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) has been active in advocating for the instantiation of best practices in neuroimaging data acquisition, analysis, reporting and sharing of both data and analysis code to deal with issues in science related to reproducibility and replicability. Here we summarize recommendations for such practices in magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) research, recently developed by the OHBM neuroimaging community known by the abbreviated name of COBIDAS MEEG. We discuss the rationale for the guidelines and their general content, which encompass many topics under active discussion in the field. We highlight future opportunities and challenges to maximizing the sharing and exploitation of MEG and EEG data, and we also discuss how this ‘living’ set of guidelines will evolve to continually address new developments in neurophysiological assessment methods and multimodal integration of neurophysiological data with other data types.Peer reviewe

Метафорична картина світу та її місце у системі світів

Статья посвящается исследованию понятия метафорической картины мира, целесообразность выделения которой автор объясняет тем, что по аналогии с языковой и концептуальной картинами мира, термин "метафорическая картина мира" содержит информацию о сложной структуре многосмысловых значений, которые в силу своей метафорической природе гармонически объединяются.У статті йдеться про поняття метафоричної картини світу, доцільність виділення якої авторка пояснює тим, що за аналогією до мовної й концептуальної картин світу, термін "метафорична картина світу" вміщує інформацію про складну структуру багатосмислових значень, що завдяки своїй метафоричній природі гармонійно поєднуються.The article deals with the notion of metaphorical world picture connected with the general principle of conceptualization. The term "metaphorical world picture" consists of a complex structure of various meanings harmonically combined due to their metaphorical nature

Postoperative Metamorphopsia in Macula-Off Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment:Associations with Visual Function, Vision Related Quality of Life, and Optical Coherence Tomography Findings

To evaluate postoperative metamorphopsia in macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) and its association with visual function, vision related quality of life, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) findings.45 patients with primary macula-off RRD were included. At 12 months postoperatively, data on metamorphopsia using sine amsler charts (SAC), best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), letter contrast sensitivity, color vision (saturated and desaturated color confusion indexes), critical print size, reading acuity, the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25), and OCT, were obtained.Metamorphopsia was present in 39 patients (88.6%), with most of them (n = 35, 77.8%) showing only mild metamorphopsia (SAC score = 1). Patients with metamorphopsia had significantly worse postoperative BCVA (p = 0.02), critical print size (p<0.0005), and reading acuity (p = 0.001) compared to patients without metamorphopsia. Other visual function outcomes and NEI-VFQ-25 overall composite score were all also somewhat lower in patients with metamorphopsia, but this did not reach statistical significance. No association with OCT findings was present.The prevalence of postoperative metamorphopsia in macula-off RRD patients is high, however, the degree of metamorphopsia is relatively low. When metamorphopsia is present, visual functions seem to be compromised, while vision related quality of life is only mildly affected

Sexual minority youth and depressive symptoms or depressive disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies

Objective: Research has suggested that sexual minority young people are more likely to have depressive symptoms or depressive disorder, but to date most studies in the field have relied on convenience-based samples. This study overcomes this limitation by systematically reviewing the literature from population-based studies and conducting a meta-analysis to identify whether depressive disorder and depressive symptoms are elevated in sexual minority youth. Method: A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted and informed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement to determine if rates of depressive symptoms or depressive disorder differ for sexual minority youth, relative to heterosexual adolescents. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE and ERIC databases were searched. Studies reporting depressive symptom data or the prevalence of depressive disorder in population-based samples of adolescents, that included sexual minority youth and heterosexual young people, were included in the review. A meta-analysis was conducted to examine differences between groups. Results: Twenty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. The proportion of sexual minority youth in the studies ranged from 2.3% to 12%. Sexual minority youth reported higher rates of depressive symptoms and depressive disorder (odds ratio = 2.94, pConclusions: There is robust evidence that rates of depressive disorder and depressive symptoms are elevated in sexual minority youth in comparison to heterosexual young people. Despite the elevated risk of depressive symptoms or depressive disorder for sexual minority youth, the treatment for this group of young people has received little attention

Postoperative Vision-Related Quality of Life in Macula-Off Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachment Patients and Its Relation to Visual Function

To determine the vision-related quality of life (VR-QOL) after surgery for macula-off rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) in relation to visual acuity, contrast acuity, and color vision.In a prospective observational study, we included 55 patients with a macula-off RRD. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), color vision (saturated and desaturated color confusion indices (CCI)) and contrast acuity were measured at 12 months postoperatively in both the RRD eye and the fellow control eye, and the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25) was filled out.Operated and fellow control eyes differed significantly in mean LogMAR BCVA (P<0.0001), median Log contrast acuity (P<0.0001), saturated CCI (P = 0.009), and desaturated CCI (P = 0.016). Significant correlations were observed between the NEI VFQ-25 overall composite score and postoperative LogMAR BCVA (R = -0.551, P<0.0001), contrast acuity (R = 0.472, P<0.0001), saturated CCI (R = -0.315, P = 0.023), and desaturated CCI (R = -0.283, P = 0.044).A lower VR-QOL was highly correlated to a worse postoperative BCVA and contrast acuity and to a lesser extent to color vision disturbances

A Better-response Strategy for Self-interested Planning Agents

[EN] When self-interested agents plan individually, interactions that prevent them from executing their actions as planned may arise. In these coordination problems, game-theoretic planning can be used to enhance the agents¿ strategic behavior considering the interactions as part of the agents¿ utility. In this work, we define a general-sum game in which interactions such as conflicts and congestions are reflected in the agents¿ utility. We propose a better-response planning strategy that guarantees convergence to an equilibrium joint plan by imposing a tax to agents involved in conflicts. We apply our approach to a real-world problem in which agents are Electric Autonomous Vehicles (EAVs). The EAVs intend to find a joint plan that ensures their individual goals are achievable in a transportation scenario where congestion and conflicting situations may arise. Although the task is computationally hard, as we theoretically prove, the experimental results show that our approach outperforms similar approaches in both performance and solution quality.This work is supported by the GLASS project TIN2014-55637-C2-2-R of the Spanish MINECO and the Prometeo project II/2013/019 funded by the Valencian Government.Jordán, J.; Torreño Lerma, A.; De Weerdt, M.; Onaindia De La Rivaherrera, E. (2018). A Better-response Strategy for Self-interested Planning Agents. Applied Intelligence. 48(4):1020-1040. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-017-1046-5S10201040484Aghighi M, Bäckström C (2016) A multi-parameter complexity analysis of cost-optimal and net-benefit planning. In: Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Conference on International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling. AAAI Press, London, pp 2–10Bercher P, Mattmüller R (2008) A planning graph heuristic for forward-chaining adversarial planning. In: ECAI, vol 8, pp 921–922Brafman RI, Domshlak C, Engel Y, Tennenholtz M (2009) Planning games. In: IJCAI 2009, Proceedings of the 21st international joint conference on artificial intelligence, pp 73–78Bylander T (1994) The computational complexity of propositional strips planning. Artif Intell 69(1):165–204Chen X, Deng X (2006) Settling the complexity of two-player nash equilibrium. In: 47th annual IEEE symposium on foundations of computer science, 2006. FOCS’06. IEEE, pp 261–272Chien S, Sinclair A (2011) Convergence to approximate nash equilibria in congestion games. Games and Economic Behavior 71(2):315–327de Cote EM, Chapman A, Sykulski AM, Jennings N (2010) Automated planning in repeated adversarial games. In: 26th conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence (UAI 2010), pp 376–383Dunne PE, Kraus S, Manisterski E, Wooldridge M (2010) Solving coalitional resource games. 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Artif Intell 143(2):219–262Helmert M (2006) The fast downward planning system. J Artif Intell Res 26(1):191–246Jennings N, Faratin P, Lomuscio A, Parsons S, Wooldrige M, Sierra C (2001) Automated negotiation: prospects, methods and challenges. Group Decis Negot 10(2):199–215Johnson DS, Papadimtriou CH, Yannakakis M (1988) How easy is local search? J Comput Syst Sci 37 (1):79–100Jonsson A, Rovatsos M (2011) Scaling up multiagent planning: a best-response approach. In: Proceedings of the 21st international conference on automated planning and scheduling, ICAPSJordán J, Onaindía E (2015) Game-theoretic approach for non-cooperative planning. In: 29th AAAI conference on artificial intelligence (AAAI-15), pp 1357–1363McDermott D, Ghallab M, Howe A, Knoblock C, Ram A, Veloso M, Weld D, Wilkins D (1998) PDDL: the planning domain definition language. Yale Center for Computational Vision and Control, New HavenMilchtaich I (1996) Congestion games with player-specific payoff functions. Games and Economic Behavior 13(1):111–124Monderer D, Shapley LS (1996) Potential games. Games and Economic Behavior 14(1):124–143Nigro N, Welch D, Peace J (2015) Strategic planning to implement publicly available ev charching stations: a guide for business and policy makers. Tech rep, Center for Climate and Energy SolutionsNisan N, Ronen A (2007) Computationally feasible vcg mechanisms. J Artif Intell Res 29(1):19–47Nisan N, Roughgarden T, Tardos E, Vazirani VV (2007) Algorithmic game theory. Cambridge University Press, New YorkPapadimitriou CH (1994) On the complexity of the parity argument and other inefficient proofs of existence. J Comput Syst Sci 48(3):498–532Richter S, Westphal M (2010) The LAMA planner: guiding cost-based anytime planning with landmarks. J Artif Intell Res 39(1):127–177Rosenthal RW (1973) A class of games possessing pure-strategy nash equilibria. 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The association between palliative care team consultation and hospital costs for patients with advanced cancer: An observational study in 12 Dutch hospitals

Background: Early palliative care team consultation has been shown to reduce costs of hospital care. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between palliative care team (PCT) consultation and the content and costs of hospital care in patients with advanced cancer. Material and Methods: A prospective, observational study was conducted in 12 Dutch hospitals.

Fat-tailed sheep in Indonesia; an essential resource for smallholders

This paper discusses the historical development of fat-tailed sheep in Indonesia, the dynamics of production systems, production and reproduction performances under farmers’ conditions, and roles of sheep in livelihoods. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, fat-tailed sheep from southwest Asia and Africander sheep from South Africa were introduced. Crossing of fat-tailed sheep with the local thin-tailed sheep produced the Javanese fat-tailed sheep. Main motives for the gradual change-over to fat-tailed sheep have been their potential larger body size and the preference of consumers for their meat. Management systems are changing in response to the intensification of land use. The reproductive performances of fat-tailed sheep are good. Households keep four to six animals, housed close to the family quarters. This results in very high levels of faecal bacteria contamination of drinking water sources. Sheep provide a small income, manure, security and help to accumulate capital. Sheep also play a key role in religious festivities. Farmers hardly profit from the increased demand for the feast of sacrifice; animals are sold mainly when the owners have urgent cash needs. Systematic sheep fattening can contribute to higher economic results, if sufficient family labour and crop residues are available