A Negotiating Agents Model for the Provision of Flexible Telephony Services

Current telephone systems suffer from a service interface bottleneck problem, wherein network resources are under-utilised and customer requirements are often not met, in spite of these resources' ability to satisfy such requirements. This bottleneck is primarily due to a coarse-grain service interface, coupled with the inability to support arbitrary terminal types, and the inability to inter-operate with other systems. This paper outlines a new model for telephony services, based on the concept of negotiating agents. In this model, functionality is not made available to users in the form of services, as has been the case traditionally. Instead, users specify policies that describe how they wish their calls to be handled. These policies are used to guide agents appointed to act on behalf of users. The paper also describes a prototype that was built to demonstrate the capabilities of the model

The ODO project: a Case Study in Integration of Multimedia Services

Recent years have witnessed a steady growth in the availability of wide-area multi-service networks. These support a variety of traffic types including data, control messages, audio and video. Consequently they are often thought of as integrated media carriers. To date, however, use of these networks has been limited to isolated applications which exhibit very little or no integration amongst themselves. This paper describes a project which investigated organisational, user interfacing and programming techniques to exploit this integration of services at the application level

Creating enriched YouTube media fragments With NERD using timed-text

This demo enables the automatic creation of semantically annotated YouTube media fragments. A video is first ingested in the Synote system and a new method enables to retrieve its associated subtitles or closed captions. Next, NERD is used to extract named entities from the transcripts which are then temporally aligned with the video. The entities are disambiguated in the LOD cloud and a user interface enables to browse through the entities detected in a video or get more information. We evaluated our application with 60 videos from 3 YouTube channels

The role of competitive and cooperative norms in the development of deviant evaluations

The present study examined how peer group norms influence children's evaluations of deviant ingroup members. Following the manipulation of competitive or cooperative norms, participants (children, Mage = 8.69; adolescents, Mage = 13.81; adults, Mage = 20.89; n = 263) evaluated deviant ingroup members from their own and the group's perspective. Children rated cooperative deviancy positively and believed their group would do the same. Adolescents and adults believed that their group would negatively evaluate cooperative deviancy when their group supported a competitive allocation strategy. Reasoning varied based on norm and participants’ agreement with deviancy. Understanding an ingroup may not be favorable toward a cooperative deviant in a competitive context is a developmental challenge requiring the coordination of social and moral norms

The development of intergroup resource allocation: The role of cooperative and competitive in-group norms

The present study investigated age-related changes in the intergroup allocation of resources depending on whether the ingroup norm was competitive or cooperative. Participants included children (Mage = 8.69), adolescents (Mage = 13.81), and adults (Mage = 20.89), (N = 263) who were inducted into simulated groups and informed about an ingroup norm of either cooperation or competition. The goal context for the resource allocation task was either prosocial (to benefit the welfare of animals in a charity event) or group focused (to win a national interschool competition). They were then asked to allocate resources between an ingroup and outgroup, and to justify their allocation. The findings showed that children allocated significantly more resources to their ingroup in order to achieve a prosocial goal, but only when the ingroup norm was competitive. In contrast, adolescents and adults allocated resources equally irrespective of the ingroup norm. These findings showed that children prioritized the moral goal of welfare over that of fairness when their ingroup favored competition, while adolescents and adults always prioritized fairness. Older participants justified their equal allocation with greater reference to the importance of fair competition. This study demonstrated an important developmental shift in how the prioritization of moral goals during intergroup resource allocation is influenced by ingroup norms of competition and cooperation

Dark sectors 2016 Workshop: community report

This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration, and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the next 5-10 years

Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods

How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

Cabbage and fermented vegetables : From death rate heterogeneity in countries to candidates for mitigation strategies of severe COVID-19

Large differences in COVID-19 death rates exist between countries and between regions of the same country. Some very low death rate countries such as Eastern Asia, Central Europe, or the Balkans have a common feature of eating large quantities of fermented foods. Although biases exist when examining ecological studies, fermented vegetables or cabbage have been associated with low death rates in European countries. SARS-CoV-2 binds to its receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). As a result of SARS-CoV-2 binding, ACE2 downregulation enhances the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT(1)R) axis associated with oxidative stress. This leads to insulin resistance as well as lung and endothelial damage, two severe outcomes of COVID-19. The nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) is the most potent antioxidant in humans and can block in particular the AT(1)R axis. Cabbage contains precursors of sulforaphane, the most active natural activator of Nrf2. Fermented vegetables contain many lactobacilli, which are also potent Nrf2 activators. Three examples are: kimchi in Korea, westernized foods, and the slum paradox. It is proposed that fermented cabbage is a proof-of-concept of dietary manipulations that may enhance Nrf2-associated antioxidant effects, helpful in mitigating COVID-19 severity.Peer reviewe

Adherence to treatment in allergic rhinitis using mobile technology. The MASK Study

Background: Mobile technology may help to better understand the adherence to treatment. MASK-rhinitis (Mobile Airways Sentinel NetworK for allergic rhinitis) is a patient-centred ICT system. A mobile phone app (the Allergy Diary) central to MASK is available in 22 countries. Objectives: To assess the adherence to treatment in allergic rhinitis patients using the Allergy Diary App. Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was carried out on all users who filled in the Allergy Diary from 1 January 2016 to 1 August 2017. Secondary adherence was assessed by using the modified Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) and the Proportion of days covered (PDC) approach. Results: A total of 12143 users were registered. A total of 6949 users reported at least one VAS data recording. Among them, 1887 users reported >= 7 VAS data. About 1195 subjects were included in the analysis of adherence. One hundred and thirty-six (11.28%) users were adherent (MPR >= 70% and PDC = 70% and PDC = 1.50) and 176 (14.60%) were switchers. On the other hand, 832 (69.05%) users were non-adherent to medications (MPR Conclusion and clinical relevance: Adherence to treatment is low. The relative efficacy of continuous vs on-demand treatment for allergic rhinitis symptoms is still a matter of debate. This study shows an approach for measuring retrospective adherence based on a mobile app. This also represents a novel approach for analysing medication-taking behaviour in a real-world setting.Peer reviewe