Deposition and patterning of magnetic atom trap lattices in FePt films with periods down to 200nm

We report on the epitaxial growth and the characterization of thin FePt films and the subsequent patterning of magnetic lattice structures. These structures can be used to trap ultracold atoms for quantum simulation experiments. We use Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) to deposit monocrystalline FePt films with a thickness of 50 nm. The films are characterized with X-ray scattering and Mossbauer spectroscopy to determine the long range order parameter and the hard magnetic axes. A high monocrystalline fraction was measured as well as a strong remanent magnetization of M = 900 kA/m and coercivity of 0.4 T. Using Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) and argon ion milling we create lattice patterns with a period down to 200 nm, and a resolution of 30 nm. The resulting lattices are imaged in a Scanning Electron Microscope in cross-section created by a Focused Ion Beam. A lattice with continuously varying lattice constant ranging from 5 micrometer down to 250nm has been created to show the wide range of length scales that can now be created with this technique.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Generating Multi-objective Optimized Business Process Enactment Plans

Declarative business process (BP) models are increasingly used allowing their users to specify what has to be done instead of how. Due to their flexible nature, there are several enactment plans related to a specific declarative model, each one presenting specific values for different objective functions, e.g., completion time or profit. In this work, a method for generating optimized BP enactment plans from declarative specifications is proposed to optimize the performance of a process considering multiple objectives. The plans can be used for different purposes, e.g., providing recommendations. The proposed approach is validated through an empirical evaluation based on a real-world case study.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009-1371

ATP Changes the Fluorescence Lifetime of Cyan Fluorescent Protein via an Interaction with His148

Recently, we described that ATP induces changes in YFP/CFP fluorescence intensities of Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) sensors based on CFP-YFP. To get insight into this phenomenon, we employed fluorescence lifetime spectroscopy to analyze the influence of ATP on these fluorescent proteins in more detail. Using different donor and acceptor pairs we found that ATP only affected the CFP-YFP based versions. Subsequent analysis of purified monomers of the used proteins showed that ATP has a direct effect on the fluorescence lifetime properties of CFP. Since the fluorescence lifetime analysis of CFP is rather complicated by the existence of different lifetimes, we tested a variant of CFP, i.e. Cerulean, as a monomer and in our FRET constructs. Surprisingly, this CFP variant shows no ATP concentration dependent changes in the fluorescence lifetime. The most important difference between CFP and Cerulean is a histidine residue at position 148. Indeed, changing this histidine in CFP into an aspartic acid results in identical fluorescence properties as observed for the Cerulean fluorescent based FRET sensor. We therefore conclude that the changes in fluorescence lifetime of CFP are affected specifically by possible electrostatic interactions of the negative charge of ATP with the positively charged histidine at position 148. Clearly, further physicochemical characterization is needed to explain the sensitivity of CFP fluorescence properties to changes in environmental (i.e. ATP concentrations) conditions

Definitiestudie afwegingskader : naar een klimaatbestendig Nederland : definitiestudie Fase 1, kaders voor afweging

Onzekerheid over (omvang en tempo van) de gevolgen van klimaatverandering vormt een essentieel punt bij beslissingen over de ruimtelijke inrichting. De mate waarin en de snelheid waarmee veranderingen optreden zijn niet precies bekend. Een afwegingskader geeft de overheid en de planontwikkelaar instrumenten in handen om de risico’s, de kansen, de kosten en de baten van klimaatadaptatie op verschillende onderscheiden thema’s inzichtelijk te maken. Afwegen: hoe doe je dat. Daarvoor wordt in drie stappen een kader voor gegeven

FMAP: Distributed Cooperative Multi-Agent Planning

This paper proposes FMAP (Forward Multi-Agent Planning), a fully-distributed multi-agent planning method that integrates planning and coordination. Although FMAP is specifically aimed at solving problems that require cooperation among agents, the flexibility of the domain-independent planning model allows FMAP to tackle multi-agent planning tasks of any type. In FMAP, agents jointly explore the plan space by building up refinement plans through a complete and flexible forward-chaining partial-order planner. The search is guided by h D T G , a novel heuristic function that is based on the concepts of Domain Transition Graph and frontier state and is optimized to evaluate plans in distributed environments. Agents in FMAP apply an advanced privacy model that allows them to adequately keep private information while communicating only the data of the refinement plans that is relevant to each of the participating agents. Experimental results show that FMAP is a general-purpose approach that efficiently solves tightly-coupled domains that have specialized agents and cooperative goals as well as loosely-coupled problems. Specifically, the empirical evaluation shows that FMAP outperforms current MAP systems at solving complex planning tasks that are adapted from the International Planning Competition benchmarks.This work has been partly supported by the Spanish MICINN under projects Consolider Ingenio 2010 CSD2007-00022 and TIN2011-27652-C03-01, the Valencian Prometeo project II/2013/019, and the FPI-UPV scholarship granted to the first author by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.Torreño Lerma, A.; Onaindia De La Rivaherrera, E.; Sapena Vercher, O. (2014). FMAP: Distributed Cooperative Multi-Agent Planning. Applied Intelligence. 41(2):606-626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-014-0540-2S606626412Benton J, Coles A, Coles A (2012) Temporal planning with preferences and time-dependent continuous costs. In: Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 2–10Borrajo D. (2013) Multi-agent planning by plan reuse. In: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS). IFAAMAS, pp 1141–1142Boutilier C, Brafman R (2001) Partial-order planning with concurrent interacting actions. J Artif Intell Res 14(105):136Brafman R, Domshlak C (2008) From one to many: planning for loosely coupled multi-agent systems. In: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 28–35Brenner M, Nebel B (2009) Continual planning and acting in dynamic multiagent environments. J Auton Agents Multiagent Syst 19(3):297–331Bresina J, Dearden R, Meuleau N, Ramakrishnan S, Smith D, Washington R (2002) Planning under continuous time and resource uncertainty: a challenge for AI. In: Proceedings of the 18th conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence (UAI). Morgan Kaufmann, pp 77–84Cox J, Durfee E (2009) Efficient and distributable methods for solving the multiagent plan coordination problem. Multiagent Grid Syst 5(4):373–408Crosby M, Rovatsos M, Petrick R (2013) Automated agent decomposition for classical planning. In: Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 46–54Dimopoulos Y, Hashmi MA, Moraitis P (2012) μ-satplan: Multi-agent planning as satisfiability. Knowl-Based Syst 29:54–62Fikes R, Nilsson N (1971) STRIPS: a new approach to the application of theorem proving to problem solving. Artif Intell 2(3):189–208Gerevini A, Haslum P, Long D, Saetti A, Dimopoulos Y (2009) Deterministic planning in the fifth international planning competition: PDDL3 and experimental evaluation of the planners. Artif Intell 173(5-6):619–668Ghallab M, Nau D, Traverso P (2004) Automated planning. Theory and practice. Morgan KaufmannGünay A, Yolum P (2013) Constraint satisfaction as a tool for modeling and checking feasibility of multiagent commitments. Appl Intell 39(3):489–509Helmert M (2004) A planning heuristic based on causal graph analysis. In: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on automated planning and scheduling ICAPS. AAAI, pp 161–170Hoffmann J, Nebel B (2001) The FF planning system: fast planning generation through heuristic search. J Artif Intell Res 14:253–302Jannach D, Zanker M (2013) Modeling and solving distributed configuration problems: a CSP-based approach. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 25(3):603–618Jonsson A, Rovatsos M (2011) Scaling up multiagent planning: a best-response approach. In: Proceedings of the 21st international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 114–121Kala R, Warwick K (2014) Dynamic distributed lanes: motion planning for multiple autonomous vehicles. Appl Intell:1–22Koehler J, Ottiger D (2002) An AI-based approach to destination control in elevators. AI Mag 23(3):59–78Kovacs DL (2011) Complete BNF description of PDDL3.1. Technical reportvan der Krogt R (2009) Quantifying privacy in multiagent planning. Multiagent Grid Syst 5(4):451–469Kvarnström J (2011) Planning for loosely coupled agents using partial order forward-chaining. In: Proceedings of the 21st international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 138–145Lesser V, Decker K, Wagner T, Carver N, Garvey A, Horling B, Neiman D, Podorozhny R, Prasad M, Raja A et al (2004) Evolution of the GPGP/TAEMS domain-independent coordination framework. Auton Agents Multi-Agent Syst 9(1–2):87–143Long D, Fox M (2003) The 3rd international planning competition: results and analysis. J Artif Intell Res 20:1–59Nissim R, Brafman R, Domshlak C (2010) A general, fully distributed multi-agent planning algorithm. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (AAMAS). IFAAMAS, pp 1323–1330O’Brien P, Nicol R (1998) FIPA - towards a standard for software agents. BT Tech J 16(3):51–59Öztürk P, Rossland K, Gundersen O (2010) A multiagent framework for coordinated parallel problem solving. Appl Intell 33(2):132–143Pal A, Tiwari R, Shukla A (2013) Communication constraints multi-agent territory exploration task. Appl Intell 38(3):357–383Richter S, Westphal M (2010) The LAMA planner: guiding cost-based anytime planning with landmarks. J Artif Intell Res 39(1):127–177de la Rosa T, García-Olaya A, Borrajo D (2013) A case-based approach to heuristic planning. Appl Intell 39(1):184–201Sapena O, Onaindia E (2008) Planning in highly dynamic environments: an anytime approach for planning under time constraints. Appl Intell 29(1):90–109Sapena O, Onaindia E, Garrido A, Arangú M (2008) A distributed CSP approach for collaborative planning systems. Eng Appl Artif Intell 21(5):698–709Serrano E, Such J, Botía J, García-Fornes A (2013) Strategies for avoiding preference profiling in agent-based e-commerce environments. Appl Intell:1–16Smith D, Frank J, Jónsson A (2000) Bridging the gap between planning and scheduling. Knowl Eng Rev 15(1):47–83Such J, García-Fornes A, Espinosa A, Bellver J (2012) Magentix2: a privacy-enhancing agent platform. Eng Appl Artif Intell:96–109Tonino H, Bos A, de Weerdt M, Witteveen C (2002) Plan coordination by revision in collective agent based systems. Artif Intell 142(2):121–145Torreño A, Onaindia E, Sapena O (2012) An approach to multi-agent planning with incomplete information. In: Proceedings of the 20th European conference on artificial intelligence (ECAI), vol 242. IOS Press, pp 762–767Torreño A, Onaindia E, Sapena O (2014) A flexible coupling approach to multi-agent planning under incomplete information. Knowl Inf Syst 38(1):141–178Van Der Krogt R, De Weerdt M (2005) Plan repair as an extension of planning. In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on automated planning and scheduling (ICAPS). AAAI, pp 161–170de Weerdt M, Clement B (2009) Introduction to planning in multiagent systems. Multiagent Grid Syst 5(4):345– 355Yokoo M, Durfee E, Ishida T, Kuwabara K (1998) The distributed constraint satisfaction problem: formalization and algorithms. IEEE Trans Knowl Data Eng 10(5):673–685Zhang J, Nguyen X, Kowalczyk R (2007) Graph-based multi-agent replanning algorithm. In: Proceedings of the 6th international joint conference conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (AAMAS). IFAAMAS, pp 798–80

The Frenchness of Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of St Pius X:a new reading

The case of Marcel Lefebvre and the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) deserves fresh perspectives. The current historiography is too franco-centric, focused on selective aspects of Lefebvre’s biography and the actions of isolated individuals, rather than with the life of the SSPX itself. After evaluating the current state of the historiography, this article proposes a new analysis of the SSPX’s political discourses in France and internationally and undertakes to reframe the relationship between Lefebvre’s life and his congregation by re-examining his African missionary experiences. Such new perspectives will be helpful as the SSPX moves towards regularisation under the pontificate of Pope Francis

A novel patient-derived tumorgraft model with TRAF1-ALK anaplastic large-cell lymphoma translocation.

Although anaplastic large-cell lymphomas (ALCL) carrying anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) have a relatively good prognosis, aggressive forms exist. We have identified a novel translocation, causing the fusion of the TRAF1 and ALK genes, in one patient who presented with a leukemic ALK+ ALCL (ALCL-11). To uncover the mechanisms leading to high-grade ALCL, we developed a human patient-derived tumorgraft (hPDT) line. Molecular characterization of primary and PDT cells demonstrated the activation of ALK and nuclear factor kB (NFkB) pathways. Genomic studies of ALCL-11 showed the TP53 loss and the in vivo subclonal expansion of lymphoma cells, lacking PRDM1/Blimp1 and carrying c-MYC gene amplification. The treatment with proteasome inhibitors of TRAF1-ALK cells led to the downregulation of p50/p52 and lymphoma growth inhibition. Moreover, a NFkB gene set classifier stratified ALCL in distinct subsets with different clinical outcome. Although a selective ALK inhibitor (CEP28122) resulted in a significant clinical response of hPDT mice, nevertheless the disease could not be eradicated. These data indicate that the activation of NFkB signaling contributes to the neoplastic phenotype of TRAF1-ALK ALCL. ALCL hPDTs are invaluable tools to validate the role of druggable molecules, predict therapeutic responses and implement patient specific therapies

Bridging fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy

Development of new fluorescent probes and fluorescence microscopes has led to new ways to study cell biology. With the emergence of specialized microscopy units at most universities and research centers, the use of these techniques is well within reach for a broad research community. A major breakthrough in fluorescence microscopy in biology is the ability to follow specific targets on or in living cells, revealing dynamic localization and/or function of target molecules. One of the inherent limitations of fluorescence microscopy is the resolution. Several efforts are undertaken to overcome this limit. The traditional and most well-known way to achieve higher resolution imaging is by electron microscopy. Moreover, electron microscopy reveals organelles, membranes, macromolecules, and thus aids in the understanding of cellular complexity and localization of molecules of interest in relation to other structures. With the new probe development, a solid bridge between fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy is being built, even leading to correlative imaging. This connection provides several benefits, both scientifically as well as practically. Here, I summarize recent developments in bridging microscopy