Optimal Routing for Autonomous Taxis using Distributed Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, a learning-based optimal transportation algorithm for autonomous taxis and ridesharing vehicles is introduced. The goal is to design a mechanism to solve the routing problem for a fleet of autonomous vehicles in real-time in order to maximize the transportation company’s profit. To solve this problem, the system is modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) using past customers data. By solving the defined MDP, a centralized high-level planning recommendation is obtained, where this offline solution is used as an initial value for the real-time learning. Then, a distributed SARSA reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to capture the model errors and the environment changes, such as variations in customer distributions in each area, traffic, and fares, thereby providing an accurate model and optimal policies in real-time. Agents are using only their local information and interaction, such as current passenger requests and estimates of neighbors’ tasks and their optimal actions, to obtain the optimal policies in a distributed fashion. The agents use the estimated values of each action, provided by distributed SARSA reinforcement learning, in a distributed game-theory based task assignment to select their conflict-free customers. Finally, the customers data provided by the city of Chicago is used to validate the proposed algorithms

Beyond "the Relationship between the Individual and Society": broadening and deepening relational thinking in group analysis

The question of ‘the relationship between the individual and society’ has troubled group analysis since its inception. This paper offers a reading of Foulkes that highlights the emergent, yet evanescent, psychosocial ontology in his writings, and argues for the development of a truly psychosocial group analysis, which moves beyond the individual/society dualism. It argues for a shift towards a language of relationality, and proposes new theoretical resources for such a move from relational sociology, relational psychoanalysis and the ‘matrixial thinking’ of Bracha Ettinger which would broaden and deepen group analytic understandings of relationality

Optimal Routing for Autonomous Taxis using Distributed Reinforcement Learning

In this paper, a learning-based optimal transportation algorithm for autonomous taxis and ridesharing vehicles is introduced. The goal is to design a mechanism to solve the routing problem for a fleet of autonomous vehicles in real-time in order to maximize the transportation company’s profit. To solve this problem, the system is modeled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) using past customers data. By solving the defined MDP, a centralized high-level planning recommendation is obtained, where this offline solution is used as an initial value for the real-time learning. Then, a distributed SARSA reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to capture the model errors and the environment changes, such as variations in customer distributions in each area, traffic, and fares, thereby providing an accurate model and optimal policies in real-time. Agents are using only their local information and interaction, such as current passenger requests and estimates of neighbors’ tasks and their optimal actions, to obtain the optimal policies in a distributed fashion. The agents use the estimated values of each action, provided by distributed SARSA reinforcement learning, in a distributed game-theory based task assignment to select their conflict-free customers. Finally, the customers data provided by the city of Chicago is used to validate the proposed algorithms

Justice and the dark arts: law and shamanism in Amazonia

The idea of “law” as a regulating force external to individuals is rapidly gaining traction among Peruvian Urarina. Its uptake and mode of use have been guided by local forms of shamanic practice, reflecting the common basis of law and shamanism in ritual and violence. Yet despite people's best efforts to deploy law on their own terms—namely as a weapon through which a higher force or authority is harnessed to individual ends—law, unlike shamanism, is inherently unifying rather than fragmenting and implies a unitary standard of truth and justice that is inimical to Amazonian political cosmology. Law epitomizes the centralizing processes of the state, promoting a fragile peace but only by establishing a monopoly on violence

Relational persons and relational processes: developing the notion of relationality for the sociology of personal life

The concept of relationality has recently found widespread favour in British sociology, particularly in the emergent sub-field of the sociology of personal life, which is characterised by its attachment to the concept. However, this ‘relational turn’ is under-theorized and pays little attention to the substantial history of relational thinking across the human sciences. This paper argues that the notion of relationality in the sociology of personal life might be strengthened by an exploration of the conceptualization of the relational person and relational processes offered by three bodies of literature: the process oriented thinking of American pragmatism, specifically of Mead and Emirbayer; the figurational sociology of Elias; and psychoanalysis, particularly the object relations tradition, contemporary relational psychoanalysis and Ettinger’s notion of transubjectivity. The paper attends particularly to the processes involved in the individuality, agentic reflexivity and affective dimensions of the relational person

Exposed Hydrophobic Residues in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Vpr Helix-1 Are Important for Cell Cycle Arrest and Cell Death

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) accessory protein viral protein R (Vpr) is a major determinant for virus-induced G2/M cell cycle arrest and cytopathicity. Vpr is thought to perform these functions through the interaction with partner proteins. The NMR structure of Vpr revealed solvent exposed hydrophobic amino acids along helices 1 and 3 of Vpr, which could be putative protein binding domains. We previously showed that the hydrophobic patch along helix-3 was important for G2/M blockade and cytopathicity. Mutations of the exposed hydrophobic residues along helix-1 were found to reduce Vpr-induced cell cycle arrest and cell death as well. The levels of toxicity during virion delivery of Vpr correlated with G2/M arrest. Thus, the exposed hydrophobic amino acids in the amino-terminal helix-1 are important for the cell cycle arrest and cytopathicity functions of Vpr

Activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase δ syndrome: Update from the ESID Registry and comparison with other autoimmune-lymphoproliferative inborn errors of immunity

Background: Activated phosphoinositide-3-kinase d syndrome (APDS) is an inborn error of immunity (IEI) with infection susceptibility and immune dysregulation, clinically overlapping with other conditions. Management depends on disease evolution, but predictors of severe disease are lacking. Objectives: This study sought to report the extended spectrum of disease manifestations in APDS1 versus APDS2; compare these to CTLA4 deficiency, NFKB1 deficiency, and STAT3 gain of-function (GOF) disease; and identify predictors of severity in APDS. Methods: Data was collected from the ESID (European Society for Immunodeficiencies)-APDS registry and was compared with published cohorts of the other IEIs. Results: The analysis of 170 patients with APDS outlines high penetrance and early onset of APDS compared to the other IEIs. The large clinical heterogeneity even in individuals with the same PIK3CD variant E1021K illustrates how poorly the genotype predicts the disease phenotype and course. The high clinical overlap between APDS and the other investigated IEIs suggests relevant pathophysiological convergence of the affected pathways. Preferentially affected organ systems indicate specific pathophysiology: bronchiectasis is typical of APDS1; interstitial lung disease and enteropathy are more common in STAT3 GOF and CTLA4 deficiency. Endocrinopathies are most frequent in STAT3 GOF, but growth impairment is also common, particularly in APDS2. Early clinical presentation is a risk factor for severe disease in APDS. Conclusions: APDS illustrates how a single genetic variant can result in a diverse autoimmune-lymphoproliferative phenotype. Overlap with other IEIs is substantial. Some specific features distinguish APDS1 from APDS2. Early onset is a risk factor for severe disease course calling for specific treatment studies in younger patients. (J Allergy Clin Immunol 2023;152:984-96.

Reflecting on the study of psychoanalysis, culture and society: the development of a psycho-cultural approach

This article discusses the development of a psycho-cultural approach that brings together object relations psychoanalysis and cultural studies to explore the psycho-dynamics of culture, politics and society. While foregrounding the work of Donald Winnicott and other psychoanalysts influenced by his ideas, I contextualise that approach by tracing my own relationship to the study of psychoanalysis and culture since I was a Cultural Studies student in the 1980s and 1990s and also my engagement with the psychoanalytic scene that existed in London at that time. I have since applied a psycho-cultural lens to the study of masculinity and emotion in cinema and more recently to the study of emotion and political culture in Europe and the US. The article provides an example of that work by discussing the populist appeal of Donald Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK, where the contradictory dynamics of attachment, risk and illusion are present when communicating with their supporters and the general publi