The ART of IAM: The Winning Strategy for the 2006 Competition

In many dynamic open systems, agents have to interact with one another to achieve their goals. Here, agents may be self-interested, and when trusted to perform an action for others, may betray that trust by not performing the actions as required. In addition, due to the size of such systems, agents will often interact with other agents with which they have little or no past experience. This situation has led to the development of a number of trust and reputation models, which aim to facilitate an agent's decision making in the face of uncertainty regarding the behaviour of its peers. However, these multifarious models employ a variety of different representations of trust between agents, and measure performance in many different ways. This has made it hard to adequately evaluate the relative properties of different models, raising the need for a common platform on which to compare competing mechanisms. To this end, the ART Testbed Competition has been proposed, in which agents using different trust models compete against each other to provide services in an open marketplace. In this paper, we present the winning strategy for this competition in 2006, provide an analysis of the factors that led to this success, and discuss lessons learnt from the competition about issues of trust in multiagent systems in general. Our strategy, IAM, is Intelligent (using statistical models for opponent modelling), Abstemious (spending its money parsimoniously based on its trust model) and Moral (providing fair and honest feedback to those that request it)

Effect of spent coffee grounds and liquid worm fertilizer on the growth and yield of Brassica campestris L.

Brassica campestris L. plants are widely grown, including in Asian countries where the leaves are used to prepare Chinese sour pickled mustard greens. The potential benefits of the application of organic by-products and organic fertilizers in sustainable agricultural production have been shown in previous studies. Consequently, this study investigated the effectiveness of liquid worm fertilizer (LWF) and spent coffee grounds (SCG) individually and in combination on the growth of B. campestris. The results showed that LWF at the highest dose had positive effects on the growth and yield of B. campestris, but SGC had inhibitory effects. The treatment consisting of composted SCG + triple of the standard dose of LWF resulted in the best plot yield with 3,866.7 g.plot-1, followed by the treatment of fresh SCG + triple of the standard dose of LWF, which produced a yield of 3,766.7 g.plot-1. The lowest yield (2,100.0 g.plot-1) was observed in the treatment of 1 kg.m-2 fresh SCG + no LWF. The interaction effect between SCG and LWF on the plot yield of B. campestris L. was significant (F(4,18) = 4.6; p = 0.01) demonstrating enhanced yield when both SCG and LWF were used in combination

Facile Solution Route to Synthesize Nanostructure Li 4

High rate Li-ion batteries have been given great attention during the last decade as a power source for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs, EVs, etc.) due to the highest energy and power density. These lithium batteries required a new design of material structure as well as innovative electrode materials. Among the promising candidates, spinel Li4Ti5O12 has been proposed as a high rate anode to replace graphite anode because of high capacity and a negligible structure change during intercalation of lithium. In this work, we synthesized a spinel Li4Ti5O12 in nanosize by a solution route using LiOH and Ti(OBu)4 as precursor. An evaluation of structure and morphology by XRD and SEM exhibited pure spinel phase Li4Ti5O12 and homogenous nanoparticles around 100 nm. In the charge-discharge test, nanospinel Li4Ti5O12 presents excellent discharge capacity 160 mAh/g at rate C/10, as well as good specific capacities of 120, 110, and 100 mAh/g at high rates C, 5C and 10C, respectively

Facile Solution Route to Synthesize Nanostructure Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 for High Rate Li-Ion Battery

High rate Li-ion batteries have been given great attention during the last decade as a power source for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs, EVs, etc.) due to the highest energy and power density. These lithium batteries required a new design of material structure as well as innovative electrode materials. Among the promising candidates, spinel Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 has been proposed as a high rate anode to replace graphite anode because of high capacity and a negligible structure change during intercalation of lithium. In this work, we synthesized a spinel Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 in nanosize by a solution route using LiOH and Ti(OBu) 4 as precursor. An evaluation of structure and morphology by XRD and SEM exhibited pure spinel phase Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 and homogenous nanoparticles around 100 nm. In the charge-discharge test, nanospinel Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 presents excellent discharge capacity 160 mAh/g at rate C/10, as well as good specific capacities of 120, 110, and 100 mAh/g at high rates C, 5C and 10C, respectively

Conformations in crystals and solutions of d(CACGTG), d(CCGCGG) and d(GGCGCC) studied by vibrational spectroscopy

Crystals of self camplementary DMA hexamers dCCACGTG>, dCCCGCGG> and d were grown bf vapour dlffuslon technlque and studled by mlcroRaman and mlcroiR spectroscop es. The ollgonucleotldes were studled ln parallel ln solutlon by vlbratlonal spectroscopy. A B->Z transltlon was detected by Raman spectroscopy cl.lrlng the crystalllzatlon procese for dCCACGTG>. Vlbratlonal spectroscopy shows that the dCGGCGCC> crystals adopt a B geametry. On the contrary the d sequence whlch ls shown to be able to undergo ln solutlon or ln fllms qulte easlly the B->Z transltlon, remalns trapped ln crystals ln a geametry whlch may correspond to an lntermedlate conformatlon often proposed ln modele of the B->Z transltlon. The crystals used ln thls study were characterlzed by X-ray dlffractlon. The unlt cell and space group have been determlned

Size dependent tunneling and optical spectroscopy of CdSe quantum rods

Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy and scanning tunneling spectroscopy are used to study the electronic states in CdSe quantum rods that manifest a transition from a zero dimensional to a one dimensional quantum confined structure. Both optical and tunneling spectra show that the level structure depends primarily on the rod diameter and not on length. With increasing diameter, the band-gap and the excited state level spacings shift to the red. The level structure was assigned using a multi-band effective-mass model, showing a similar dependence on rod dimensions.Comment: Accepted to PRL (nearly final version). 4 pages in revtex, 4 figure

Spitzer 70 and 160-micron Observations of the COSMOS Field

We present Spitzer 70 and 160 micron observations of the COSMOS Spitzer survey (S-COSMOS). The data processing techniques are discussed for the publicly released products consisting of images and source catalogs. We present accurate 70 and 160 micron source counts of the COSMOS field and find reasonable agreement with measurements in other fields and with model predictions. The previously reported counts for GOODS-North and the extragalactic First Look Survey are updated with the latest calibration, and counts are measured based on the large area SWIRE survey to constrain the bright source counts. We measure an extragalactic confusion noise level of sigma_c = 9.4+/-3.3 mJy (q=5) for the MIPS 160-micron band based on the deep S-COSMOS data and report an updated confusion noise level of sigma_c = 0.35+/-0.15 mJy (q=5) for the MIPS 70-micron band.Comment: Accepted AJ, 15 Aug. 2009. Data available at http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/frayer/mycosmos/ until released by IRS

Collisional and thermal ionization of sodium Rydberg atoms I. Experiment for nS and nD atoms with n=8-20

Collisional and thermal ionization of sodium nS and nD Rydberg atoms with n=8-20 has been studied. The experiments were performed using a two-step pulsed laser excitation in an effusive atomic beam at atom density of about 2 10^{10} cm^{-3}. Molecular and atomic ions from associative, Penning, and thermal ionization processes were detected. It has been found that the atomic ions were created mainly due to photoionization of Rydberg atoms by photons of blackbody radiation at the ambient temperature of 300K. Blackbody ionization rates and effective lifetimes of Rydberg states of interest were determined. The molecular ions were found to be from associative ionization in Na(nL)+Na(3S) collisions. Rate constants of associative ionization have been measured using an original method based on relative measurements of Na_{2}^{+} and Na^{+} ion signals.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure

Bhlhe40 is an essential repressor of IL-10 during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection

The cytokine IL-10 antagonizes pathways that contro