Organization of Multi-Agent Systems: An Overview

In complex, open, and heterogeneous environments, agents must be able to reorganize towards the most appropriate organizations to adapt unpredictable environment changes within Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). Types of reorganization can be seen from two different levels. The individual agents level (micro-level) in which an agent changes its behaviors and interactions with other agents to adapt its local environment. And the organizational level (macro-level) in which the whole system changes it structure by adding or removing agents. This chapter is dedicated to overview different aspects of what is called MAS Organization including its motivations, paradigms, models, and techniques adopted for statically or dynamically organizing agents in MAS.Comment: 12 page

Safety and Efficacy of Achilles Tenotomy under Local Anaesthesia: as Part of the Ponseti Clubfoot Management -Experience at the Sudan clubfoot clinic

Introduction: Ponseti method of treatment of clubfoot is a gold standard method. It includes serial casting to be followed by percutaneous tenotomy of the Achilles tendon under local anaesthesia. In the current study the safety and efficacy of tenotomy under local anaesthesia following serial casting will be studied. Patients and Methods: 89 patients who were seen at the Sudan Clubfoot clinic at Soba University Hospital between 2011 and 2012. All underwent serial casting according to Ponseti method and that was followed by Achilles tenotomy under local anaesthesia using a single stab using a size 15 scalpel. Results: there were 89 patients (135 feet), 64 [71.9%] males and 25 (28.1%) females. 46 patients (51.1%) had bilateral involvement. Familial history was there in 11 (11.2%) babies.  Tenotomy was performed in all feet after an average of 6.2 casts (range, 3 to 11). All were discharged 2 hours after the tenotomy. No adverse events were related to local anaesthesia and/or the procedure itself, and there was no delay in discharge in any of the operated babies.  All patients had an uneventful course. Only one patient (1.12%) had previous conservative treatment before coming to the clinic. Pressure sores were observed as a result of casting in one foot. Residual equinus deformity after the tenotomy was experienced in 5 feet. 86 of the parents were satisfied with the correction. The rest; 3 patients (3.37%) were not satisfied because of the residual equinus. Conclusion: Tenotomy procedure using local anaesthesia is an effective and safe procedure

Perthes Disease, Results of Conservative Management at Soba University Hospital

Background: Legg-Calve- Perthes’ Disease (LCPD) is an idiopathic avascular necrosis of the femoral head. It affects children between four and 10 years. Male : female ratio of 4:1. The main aim of treatment is to get an acceptable containment of a spherical head with good range of motion. Ideal way of treatment remains controversial.Objectives: To study patterns of presentations and outcome of management of patients with LCPD treated at Soba University Hospital.Materials and Methods: Records of patients with LCPD who were treated at SobaUniversity Hospital between 2005 and 2013 were reviewed. There were 43 patients (46 hips). Their patterns of presentation, follow up notes and imaging as well as clinical and radiological outcome were reviewed.Results: There were 43 patients 29 Males and 14 females (2:1) with 46 hips. Their ages ranged between 4 and 12 years (mean 7.7). 74.4% of patients were from low socioeconomic strata of the society. 9.3% of patients had family history and 58.1% had history of trauma. Painless limp was the presenting complaint in 88.4%. Herring lateral pillar classification was used; 43.5%) group A, 37.0% B, 13.0% B/C and 6.5% C. Thirty four hips (73.9%) had conservative treatment using Ischial Weight Bearing Calliper and physiotherapy in Lotus (Fagir) sitting Position and 12 hips (26.1%) had surgical treatment. Thirty one hips (67.4%) of those who were treated conservatively healed with Stulberg I or II, while 7 hips (58%) of those who underwent surgery with Stulberg I or II. Most of patients who presented at age less than 6 years healed with Stulberg I or II.Conclusion: LCPD affects children of low class. Prognosis is generally good when the age at onset less than 6 years. Herring’s lateral pillar classification is a reliable method of classification. Conservative treatment using Ischial Weight Bearing Calliper and physiotherapy in Lotus (Fagir) sitting Position has good outcome.Keywords: Perthes’ Disease, Conservative Management, Soba

Patterns of Presentation and Outcome of Management of Congenital Pesudarthrosis of the Tibia

Background: Congenital pseudarthrosis of the tibia (CPT) is a rare paediatric orthopaedics condition characterized by bowing of the tibia with spontaneous fracture which does not heal easily. It is sometimes associated with Neurofibromatosis. It has many classification schemes and various methods of treatment.Objectives: To study the patterns of presentation, demographic characteristic and outcome of management of CPT.Patients and Methods: This is retrospective case series study, records and follow up notes of all patients of CPT who presented to and managed at Soba University Hospital between 2003 and 2014 were reviewed, data were collected and analysed.Results: there were 37 patients with CPT, 19 males and 18 females. Their ages atpresentation ranged between 1month and 11 year, mean of 3.8 years. Neurofibromatosis was associated in 37.8% of the cases. The most common deformity was anterolateral bowing of the tibia seen in over 90% of the cases. In 54% of cases the treatment was surgical and 90% of these had intramedullary rush pin and free fibular grafting. In 88% complete healing could be attained. In two cases there was non-union.Conclusion: Congenital Pseudarthrosis of the tibia is a rare pathology we have reported 37cases. One third of the patients had Neurofibromatosis. Majority of cases had anterolateral bowing. Associated fibular pseudarthrosis is very rare. If they present before fracture they can be protected by bracing. Intramedullary rush pin with bone grafting is easy, cost effective with union achieved in over 80% of cases.Key words: Bowing of the tibia, spontaneous fracture, neurofibromatosis, Suda

ARCOQ: Arabic Closest Opposite Questions Dataset

This paper presents a dataset for closest opposite questions in Arabic language. The dataset is the first of its kind for the Arabic language. It is beneficial for the assessment of systems on the aspect of antonymy detection. The structure is similar to that of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) closest opposite questions dataset for the English language. The introduced dataset consists of 500 questions, each contains a query word for which the closest opposite needs to be determined from among a set of candidate words. Each question is also associated with the correct answer. We publish the dataset publicly in addition to providing standard splits of the dataset into development and test sets. Moreover, the paper provides a benchmark for the performance of different Arabic word embedding models on the introduced dataset

Jamming Impact on the Performance of MIMO Space Time Block Coding Systems over Multi-path Fading Channel

The combined effect of broad/partial band jamming on the analysis performance of multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) space time block coding (STBC) systems over Rayleigh fading channel is often neglected in the literature. To this end, this paper investigates the impact of different kinds of jamming on the performance of MIMO STBC systems. Closed form expressions for the bit error probability (BEP) of the performance of binary phase shift keying (BPSK) STBC communication system over Rayleigh fading channel under the impact of both partial band and broad-band jamming for different number of transmitting and receiving antennas are presented. Computer simulations are provided to validate the theoretical developments. It has been found that the performance of such systems is severely deteriorated in the presence of strong jamming power (with a signal to jamming power ratio less than − 10dB) and the worst scenario occurs in the presence of broad-band jamming

Phosphorus Loss into Ground Water in Paddy Soils as Influenced by Irrigation System and Rate of Added-P

A field experiment was carried out in delta Nile region of Egypt, to elucidate the impact of irrigation system and graded phosphorus fertilizer rates on P loss into ground water in paddy soils (heavy clay soil). Three irrigation system were used: submergence with continuous head of water (about 8 cm), irrigation with saturation percent and discontinous irrigation where soil was irrigated every 7 days. The rate of applied P were 45 and 90 Kg P2O5/acre as super phosphate. Values of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in ground water increased under saturation and discontinuous irrigation compared to it under submergence condition (e.g.,0.25,0.18 and 0.14 mg P/L, respectively) under 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. and after 15 days of added-P. Accumulation values of DRP in ground water after 105 days at 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. of added-P were 1.18,0.76 and 0.67 mg P/L under saturation, discontinuous and submergence irrigation methods, respectively. The rate of loss for DRP in ground water was the highest under saturation method at 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. ( 0.01 mg P/L/day). Results also showed that, accumulated total phosphorus (TP) at the end of ground water collection (105 days after transplanting) when 90 Kg P2O5 /ac. was added were 2.78,2.18 and 1.69 mg P/L under discontinuous, saturation and submergence irrigation system, respectively. Also, the rate of loss for TP was the highest under discontinuous irrigation condition (0.025 mg P/L). These results indicated that, increasing added phosphorus fertilizer let to increasing P loss into ground water by leaching through the soil profile.In addition, phosphorus loss into ground water was increased with decreasing added water for irrigation in paddy soils (increasing drought regime) and that was not expected