An Application of Declarative Languages in Distributed Architectures: ASP and DALI Microservices

In this paper we introduce an approach to the possible adoption of Answer Set Programming (ASP) for the definition of microservices, which are a successful abstraction for designing distributed applications as suites of independently deployable interacting components. Such ASP-based components might be employed in distributed architectures related to Cloud Computing or to the Internet of Things (IoT), where the ASP microservices might be usefully coordinated with intelligent logic-based agents. We develop a case study where we consider ASP microservices in synergy with agents defined in DALI, a well-known logic-based agent-oriented programming language developed by our research group

A Heuristic Approach to Proposal-Based Negotiation: with Applications in Fashion Supply Chain Management

In this paper, we extend and improve the formal, executable framework for automated multi-issue negotiation between two autonomous competitive software agents proposed by Cadoli. This model is based on the view of negotiation spaces (or "areas"), representing the admissible values of the goods involved in the process as convex regions. However, in order to speed up the negotiation process and guarantee convergence, there was the restriction of potential agreements to vertices included in the intersection of the two areas. We present and assess experimentally an extension to Cadoli's approach where, for both participating agents, interaction is no longer vertex based, or at least not necessarily so. This eliminates the asymmetry among parties and the limitation to polyhedral negotiation areas. The extension can be usefully integrated to Cadoli's framework, thus obtaining an enhanced algorithm that can be effective in many practical cases. We present and discuss a number of experiments, aimed at assessing how parameters influence the performance of the algorithm and how they relate to each other. We discuss the usefulness of the approach in relevant application fields, such as, for instance, supply chain management in the fashion industry, which is a field of growing importance in economy and e-commerce

Application of Hybrid Agents to Smart Energy Management of a Prosumer Node

We outline a solution to the problem of intelligent control of energy consumption of a smart building system by a prosumer planning agent that acts on the base of the knowledge of the system state and of a prediction of future states. Predictions are obtained by using a synthetic model of the system as obtained with a machine learning approach. We present case studies simulations implementing different instantiations of agents that control an air conditioner according to temperature set points dynamically chosen by the user. The agents are able of energy saving while trying to keep indoor temperature within a given comfort interval

Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE: Cosmological Parameters

We forecast the main cosmological parameter constraints achievable with theCORE space mission which is dedicated to mapping the polarisation of the CosmicMicrowave Background (CMB). CORE was recently submitted in response to ESA'sfifth call for medium-sized mission proposals (M5). Here we report the resultsfrom our pre-submission study of the impact of various instrumental options, inparticular the telescope size and sensitivity level, and review the great,transformative potential of the mission as proposed. Specifically, we assessthe impact on a broad range of fundamental parameters of our Universe as afunction of the expected CMB characteristics, with other papers in the seriesfocusing on controlling astrophysical and instrumental residual systematics. Inthis paper, we assume that only a few central CORE frequency channels areusable for our purpose, all others being devoted to the cleaning ofastrophysical contaminants. On the theoretical side, we assume LCDM as ourgeneral framework and quantify the improvement provided by CORE over thecurrent constraints from the Planck 2015 release. We also study the jointsensitivity of CORE and of future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Large ScaleStructure experiments like DESI and Euclid. Specific constraints on the physicsof inflation are presented in another paper of the series. In addition to thesix parameters of the base LCDM, which describe the matter content of aspatially flat universe with adiabatic and scalar primordial fluctuations frominflation, we derive the precision achievable on parameters like thosedescribing curvature, neutrino physics, extra light relics, primordial heliumabundance, dark matter annihilation, recombination physics, variation offundamental constants, dark energy, modified gravity, reionization and cosmicbirefringence. (ABRIDGED

Exploring cosmic origins with CORE: Cosmological parameters

We forecast the main cosmological parameter constraints achievable with the CORE space mission which is dedicated to mapping the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). CORE was recently submitted in response to ESA’s fifth call for mediumsized mission proposals (M5). Here we report the results from our pre-submission study of the impact of various instrumental options, in particular the telescope size and sensitivity level, and review the great, transformative potential of the mission as proposed. Specifically, we assess the impact on a broad range of fundamental parameters of our Universe as a function of the expected CMB characteristics, with other papers in the series focusing on controlling astrophysical and instrumental residual systematics. In this paper, we assume that only a few central CORE frequency channels are usable for our purpose, all others being devoted to the cleaning of astrophysical contaminants. On the theoretical side, we assume ΛCDM as our general framework and quantify the improvement provided by CORE over the current constraints from the Planck 2015 release. We also study the joint sensitivity of CORE and of future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Large Scale Structure experiments like DESI and Euclid. Specific constraints on the physics of inflation are presented in another paper of the series. In addition to the six parameters of the base ΛCDM, which describe the matter content of a spatially flat universe with adiabatic and scalar primordial fluctuations from inflation, we derive the precision achievable on parameters like those describing curvature, neutrino physics, extra light relics, primordial helium abundance, dark matter annihilation, recombination physics, variation of fundamental constants, dark energy, modified gravity, reionization and cosmic birefringence. In addition to assessing the improvement on the precision of individual parameters, we also forecast the post-CORE overall reduction of the allowed parameter space with figures of merit for various models increasing by as much as ∼ 107 as compared to Planck 2015, and 105 with respect to Planck 2015 + future BAO measurements

Indexed Data Set From Molisan Regional Seismic Network Events

Abstract: After the earthquake occurred in Molise (Central Italy) on 31st October 2002 (Ml 5.4, 29 people dead), the local Servizio Regionale per la Protezione Civile to ensure a better analysis of local seismic data, through a convention with the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), promoted the design of the Regional Seismic Network (RMSM) and funded its implementation. The 5 stations of RMSM worked since 2007 to 2013 collecting a large amount of seismic data and giving an important contribution to the study of seismic sources present in the region and the surrounding territory. This work reports about the dataset containing all triggers collected by RMSM since July 2007 to March 2009, including actual seismic events; among them, all earthquakes events recorded in coincidence to Rete Sismica Nazionale Centralizzata (RSNC) of INGV have been marked with S and P arrival timestamps. Every trigger has been associated to a spectrogram defined into a recorded time vs. frequency domain. The dataset has been fully indexed in respect of the recorded spectra: list of all records, list of earthquakes, list of multiple earthquakes records. The main aim of this structured dataset is to be used for further analysis with data mining and machine learning techniques on image patterns associated to the waveforms

AIML knowledge base construction from text corpora

Text mining (TM) and computational linguistics (CL) are computationally intensive fields where many tools are becoming available to study large text corpora and exploit the use of corpora for various purposes. In this chapter we will address the problem of building conversational agents or chatbots from corpora for domain-specific educational purposes. After addressing some linguistic issues relevant to the development of chatbot tools from corpora, a methodology to systematically analyze large text corpora about a limited knowledge domain will be presented. Given the Artificial Intelligence Markup Language as the assembly language for the artificial intelligence conversational agents we present a way of using text corpora as seed from which a set of source files can be derived. More specifically we will illustrate how to use corpus data to extract relevant keywords, multiword expressions, glossary building and text patterns in order to build an AIML knowledge base that could be later used to build interactive conversational systems. The approach we propose does not require deep understanding techniques for the analysis of text. As a case study it will be shown how to build the knowledge base of an English conversational agent for educational purpose from a child story that can answer question about characters, facts and episodes of the story. A discussion of the main linguistic and methodological issues and further improvements is offered in the final part of the chapter