Nominal Cellular Automata

In Proceedings ICE 2016, arXiv:1608.0313

On abstraction: decoupling conceptual concreteness and categorical specificity

Conceptual concreteness and categorical specificity are two continuous variables that allow distinguishing, for example, justice (low concreteness) from banana (high concreteness) and furniture (low specificity) from rocking chair (high specificity). The relation between these two variables is unclear, with some scholars suggesting that they might be highly correlated. In this study, we operationalize both variables and conduct a series of analyses on a sample of > 13,000 nouns, to investigate the relationship between them. Concreteness is operationalized by means of concreteness ratings, and specificity is operationalized as the relative position of the words in the WordNet taxonomy, which proxies this variable in the hypernym semantic relation. Findings from our studies show only a moderate correlation between concreteness and specificity. Moreover, the intersection of the two variables generates four groups of words that seem to denote qualitatively different types of concepts, which are, respectively, highly specific and highly concrete (typical concrete concepts denoting individual nouns), highly specific and highly abstract (among them many words denoting human-born creation and concepts within the social reality domains), highly generic and highly concrete (among which many mass nouns, or uncountable nouns), and highly generic and highly abstract (typical abstract concepts which are likely to be loaded with affective information, as suggested by previous literature). These results suggest that future studies should consider concreteness and specificity as two distinct dimensions of the general phenomenon called abstraction

LOTOSphere:software development with LOTOS

LOTOS (Language Of Temporal Ordering Specification) became an international standard in 1989, although application of preliminary versions of the language to communication services and protocols of the ISO/OSI family dates back to 1984. This history of the use of LOTOS made it apparent that more advantages than the pure production of standard reference documents were to be expected from the use of such formal description techniques. LOTOSphere: Software Development with LOTOS describes in depth a five year project that moved LOTOS out of the ISO tower into software engineering practice. LOTOS became a vehicle for efficient, yet formally based industrial software specification, design, verification, implementation and testing. LOTOSphere: Software Development with LOTOS is divided into six parts. The first introduces the reader to LOTOS and the project LOTOSphere. The five remaining each treat an important part of the software development life cycle using LOTOS. This is the first book to give a comprehensive treatment of the use of these formal description techniques in a software engineering environment. It will thus be a valuable reference for researchers and software developers and can also be used as a text for an advanced course on the subject

Symbolic Implementation of Connectors in BIP

BIP is a component framework for constructing systems by superposing three layers of modeling: Behavior, Interaction, and Priority. Behavior is represented by labeled transition systems communicating through ports. Interactions are sets of ports. A synchronization between components is possible through the interactions specified by a set of connectors. When several interactions are possible, priorities allow to restrict the non-determinism by choosing an interaction, which is maximal according to some given strict partial order. The BIP component framework has been implemented in a language and a tool-set. The execution of a BIP program is driven by a dedicated engine, which has access to the set of connectors and priority model of the program. A key performance issue is the computation of the set of possible interactions of the BIP program from a given state. Currently, the choice of the interaction to be executed involves a costly exploration of enumerative representations for connectors. This leads to a considerable overhead in execution times. In this paper, we propose a symbolic implementation of the execution model of BIP, which drastically reduces this overhead. The symbolic implementation is based on computing boolean representation for components, connectors, and priorities with an existing BDD package

Off-label long acting injectable antipsychotics in real-world clinical practice: a cross-sectional analysis of prescriptive patterns from the STAR Network DEPOT study

Introduction Information on the off-label use of Long-Acting Injectable (LAI) antipsychotics in the real world is lacking. In this study, we aimed to identify the sociodemographic and clinical features of patients treated with on- vs off-label LAIs and predictors of off-label First- or Second-Generation Antipsychotic (FGA vs. SGA) LAI choice in everyday clinical practice. Method In a naturalistic national cohort of 449 patients who initiated LAI treatment in the STAR Network Depot Study, two groups were identified based on off- or on-label prescriptions. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to test several clinically relevant variables and identify those associated with the choice of FGA vs SGA prescription in the off-label group. Results SGA LAIs were more commonly prescribed in everyday practice, without significant differences in their on- and off-label use. Approximately 1 in 4 patients received an off-label prescription. In the off-label group, the most frequent diagnoses were bipolar disorder (67.5%) or any personality disorder (23.7%). FGA vs SGA LAI choice was significantly associated with BPRS thought disorder (OR = 1.22, CI95% 1.04 to 1.43, p = 0.015) and hostility/suspiciousness (OR = 0.83, CI95% 0.71 to 0.97, p = 0.017) dimensions. The likelihood of receiving an SGA LAI grew steadily with the increase of the BPRS thought disturbance score. Conversely, a preference towards prescribing an FGA was observed with higher scores at the BPRS hostility/suspiciousness subscale. Conclusion Our study is the first to identify predictors of FGA vs SGA choice in patients treated with off-label LAI antipsychotics. Demographic characteristics, i.e. age, sex, and substance/alcohol use co-morbidities did not appear to influence the choice towards FGAs or SGAs. Despite a lack of evidence, clinicians tend to favour FGA over SGA LAIs in bipolar or personality disorder patients with relevant hostility. Further research is needed to evaluate treatment adherence and clinical effectiveness of these prescriptive patterns

The Role of Attitudes Toward Medication and Treatment Adherence in the Clinical Response to LAIs: Findings From the STAR Network Depot Study

Background: Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics are efficacious in managing psychotic symptoms in people affected by severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The present study aimed to investigate whether attitude toward treatment and treatment adherence represent predictors of symptoms changes over time. Methods: The STAR Network \u201cDepot Study\u201d was a naturalistic, multicenter, observational, prospective study that enrolled people initiating a LAI without restrictions on diagnosis, clinical severity or setting. Participants from 32 Italian centers were assessed at three time points: baseline, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up. Psychopathological symptoms, attitude toward medication and treatment adherence were measured using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Drug Attitude Inventory (DAI-10) and the Kemp's 7-point scale, respectively. Linear mixed-effects models were used to evaluate whether attitude toward medication and treatment adherence independently predicted symptoms changes over time. Analyses were conducted on the overall sample and then stratified according to the baseline severity (BPRS < 41 or BPRS 65 41). Results: We included 461 participants of which 276 were males. The majority of participants had received a primary diagnosis of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (71.80%) and initiated a treatment with a second-generation LAI (69.63%). BPRS, DAI-10, and Kemp's scale scores improved over time. Six linear regressions\u2014conducted considering the outcome and predictors at baseline, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up independently\u2014showed that both DAI-10 and Kemp's scale negatively associated with BPRS scores at the three considered time points. Linear mixed-effects models conducted on the overall sample did not show any significant association between attitude toward medication or treatment adherence and changes in psychiatric symptoms over time. However, after stratification according to baseline severity, we found that both DAI-10 and Kemp's scale negatively predicted changes in BPRS scores at 12-month follow-up regardless of baseline severity. The association at 6-month follow-up was confirmed only in the group with moderate or severe symptoms at baseline. Conclusion: Our findings corroborate the importance of improving the quality of relationship between clinicians and patients. Shared decision making and thorough discussions about benefits and side effects may improve the outcome in patients with severe mental disorders

How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons

COVID-19 negatively affected surgical activity, but the potential benefits resulting from adopted measures remain unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in surgical activity and potential benefit from COVID-19 measures in perspective of Italian surgeons on behalf of SPIGC. A nationwide online survey on surgical practice before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in March-April 2022 (NCT:05323851). Effects of COVID-19 hospital-related measures on surgical patients' management and personal professional development across surgical specialties were explored. Data on demographics, pre-operative/peri-operative/post-operative management, and professional development were collected. Outcomes were matched with the corresponding volume. Four hundred and seventy-three respondents were included in final analysis across 14 surgical specialties. Since SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, application of telematic consultations (4.1% vs. 21.6%; p < 0.0001) and diagnostic evaluations (16.4% vs. 42.2%; p < 0.0001) increased. Elective surgical activities significantly reduced and surgeons opted more frequently for conservative management with a possible indication for elective (26.3% vs. 35.7%; p < 0.0001) or urgent (20.4% vs. 38.5%; p < 0.0001) surgery. All new COVID-related measures are perceived to be maintained in the future. Surgeons' personal education online increased from 12.6% (pre-COVID) to 86.6% (post-COVID; p < 0.0001). Online educational activities are considered a beneficial effect from COVID pandemic (56.4%). COVID-19 had a great impact on surgical specialties, with significant reduction of operation volume. However, some forced changes turned out to be benefits. Isolation measures pushed the use of telemedicine and telemetric devices for outpatient practice and favored communication for educational purposes and surgeon-patient/family communication. From the Italian surgeons' perspective, COVID-related measures will continue to influence future surgical clinical practice