HOMEBOTS: Intelligent Decentralized Services for Energy Management

The deregulation of the European energy market, combined with emerging advanced capabilities of information technology, provides strategic opportunities for new knowledge-oriented services on the power grid. HOMEBOTS is the namewe have coined for one of these innovative services: decentralized power load management at the customer side, automatically carried out by a `society' of interactive household, industrial and utility equipment. They act as independent intelligent agents that communicate and negotiate in a computational market economy. The knowledge and competence aspects of this application are discussed, using an improved \ud version of task analysis according to the COMMONKADS knowledge methodology. Illustrated by simulation results, we indicate how customer knowledge can be mobilized to achieve joint goals of cost and energy savings. General implications for knowledge creation and its management are discussed

Excited states and energy transfer among DNA bases in double helices

International audienceThe study of excited states and energy transfer in DNA double helices has recently gained new interest connected to the development of computational techniques and that of femtosecond spectroscopy. The present article points out contentious questions regarding the nature of the excited states and the occurrence of energy transfer and shows how they are currently approached. Using as example the polymer poly(dA)·poly(dT), composed of about 2000 adenine–thymine pairs, a model is proposed on the basis of time-resolved measurements (fluorescence decays, fluorescence anisotropy decays and fluorescence spectra, obtained with femtosecond resolution), associated to steady-state spectra. According to this qualitative model, excitation at 267 nm populates excited states that are delocalized over a few bases (excitons). Ultrafast internal conversion directs the excited state population to the lower part of the exciton band giving rise to fluorescence. Questions needing further investigations, both theoretical and experimental, are underlined with particular emphasis on delicate points related to the complexity and the plasticity of these systems

Vaginal yeasts in the era of "over the counter" antifungals

OBJECTIVE: To establish whether there has been any rise in the prevalence of non-albicans Candida species isolated from vaginal swabs since the introduction of “over the counter” antifungal treatments. METHOD: A retrospective review looking at all positive vaginal yeast isolates collected from women attending one genitourinary medicine clinic during the 6 year period from 1993 to 1998 inclusive. All positive vaginal yeast isolates were included, regardless of whether or not the patients were symptomatic. Isolates from HIV positive women were excluded from the analysis. RESULT: No increase in non-albicans vaginal yeast isolates was shown during the period studied. The proportion of non-albicans yeasts remained constant at approximately 5% of the total yeasts isolated. The most common non-albicans yeast isolated was C glabrata. CONCLUSION: There is no evidence from this study to suggest that the increasing use of “over the counter” antifungal treatment has selected for atypical, possibly inherently azole resistant, strains of vaginal yeasts in HIV seronegative women

HOMEBOTS: Intelligent Decentralized Services for Energy Management

The deregulation of the European energy market, combined with emerging advanced capabilities of information technology, provides strategic opportunities for new knowledge-oriented services on the power grid. HOMEBOTS is the namewe have coined for one of these innovative services: decentralized power load management at the customer side, automatically carried out by a `society' of interactive household, industrial and utility equipment. They act as independent intelligent agents that communicate and negotiate in a computational market economy. The knowledge and competence aspects of this application are discussed, using an improved version of task analysis according to the COMMONKADS knowledge methodology. Illustrated by simulation results, we indicate how customer knowledge can be mobilized to achieve joint goals of cost and energy savings. General implications for knowledge creation and its management are discussed

High-Energy Long-Lived Excited States in DNA Double Strands

International audienceDark DNA light: Dark excited states of alternating GC double strands emit fluorescence at 4000 cm-1 higher energy (see spectrum) and with four orders of magnitude longer lifetime compared to the bright * states. Such high-energy long-lived excited states are expected to play a key role in the DNA photoreactivity associated with the appearance of carcinogenic mutations

Compositional Design and Verification of a Multi-Agent System for One-to-Many Negotiation

A compositional verification method for multi-agent systems is presented and applied to a multi-agent system for one-to-many negotiation in the domain of load balancing of electricity use. Advantages of the method are that the complexity of the verification process is managed by compositionality, and that parts of the proofs can be reused in relation to reuse of components