Regular Boardgames

We propose a new General Game Playing (GGP) language called Regular Boardgames (RBG), which is based on the theory of regular languages. The objective of RBG is to join key properties as expressiveness, efficiency, and naturalness of the description in one GGP formalism, compensating certain drawbacks of the existing languages. This often makes RBG more suitable for various research and practical developments in GGP. While dedicated mostly for describing board games, RBG is universal for the class of all finite deterministic turn-based games with perfect information. We establish foundations of RBG, and analyze it theoretically and experimentally, focusing on the efficiency of reasoning. Regular Boardgames is the first GGP language that allows efficient encoding and playing games with complex rules and with large branching factor (e.g.\ amazons, arimaa, large chess variants, go, international checkers, paper soccer).Comment: AAAI 201

Effects of selection for yolk cholesterol on growth and meat quality in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

Descendants () of S18 generation of Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica), selected for low (line 11, n=15) or for high (line 12, n=6) yolk cholesterol content were used for this experiment. The high (12) and low (11) lines were developed from a control egg type (line13) wild color plumage stock 07, from Poultry Breeding Station in Ivanka at Danube (Slovakia) that was maintained without conscious selection. The results of selected lines were compared to this one from unselected lines, egg type (line 13, n=15) and meat type (line 8, n=15), to study productive performance (growth and carcass weight) as well as meat quality traits (intramuscular collagen properties, fatty and cholesterol content). The birds were grown up to 35 days of age. Quails were fed ad libitum with commercial diets according to their ages. Animals had free access to water during the experiment. The body weight of the quails was controlled every week (from week 1 to 5). At the slaughter (at avg. weight of 104.0, 107.7, 110.6 g vs 209.3 g for lines 11, 12, 13 vs 8, respectively; P<0.05) the hot carcass weight was recorded and dressing percentage was calculated. Pectoralis superficialis muscles were removed from the carcasses to assess intramuscular collagen (IMC) properties (collagen and crosslink concentrations), intramuscular lipid and cholesterol contents. Growth and slaughter performance, intramuscular fat percentage and IMC properties of Pectoralis superficialis were not different between the birds selected for low (line 11) and high (line 12) yolk cholesterol content and were also found to be similar between the quails of egg type and those selected for yolk cholesterol content (lines 11 and 12). Compared to the birds of egg type line and those selected for yolk cholesterol content, the quails of meat type had higher growth and carcass traits (P<0.05), while meat quality traits were found to be similar. The meat of the quails selected for low cholesterol in the egg yolk (line 11) had lower (P<0.05) cholesterol (-35.9%) than that of the birds characterized by high cholesterol in the egg yolk (line 12). In conclusion, divergent selection for yolk cholesterol content did not significantly influence growth and slaughter traits, intramuscular fat and IMC properties of Japanese quail, while it affected the amount of cholesterol in meat. The quails of meat type showed the highest growth and slaughter traits

Spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid leak at the clivus

We present a case report of a 60-year-old woman with a spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid leak at the clivus, obesity and no history of trauma. Follow-up imaging scans confirmed enlargement of the defect within the posterior clival framework to the size of 16 × 9 × 4 mm with a suspected meningocerebral hernia. The surgeons used the “two nostrils – four hands” endoscopic operating technique. The patient reported a history of cerebrospinal fluid leaks lasting for 3 years, with increasingly shorter leak-free periods and an increasing incidence of inflammatory complications. The patient recovered without complications, and she was discharged 14 days after the surgery. Good local outcome and improved patient condition were achieved postoperatively

KD-64 : a new selective A2A_{2A} adenosine receptor antagonist has anti-inflammatory activity but contrary to the non-selective antagonist : caffeine does not reduce diet-induced obesity in mice

The A2 adenosine receptors play an important role, among others, in the regulation of inflammatory process and glucose homeostasis in diabetes and obesity. Thus, the presented project evaluated of influence of the selective antagonist of A2A adenosine receptor-KD-64 as compared to the known non-selective antagonist-caffeine on these two particular processes. Two different inflammation models were induced namely local and systemic inflammation. Obesity was induced in mice by high-fat diet and the tested compounds (KD-64 and caffeine) were administrated for 21 days. KD-64 showed anti-inflammatory effect in both tested inflammation models and administered at the same dose as ketoprofen exerted stronger effect than this reference compound. Elevated levels of IL-6 and TNF-α observed in obese control mice were significantly lowered by the administration of KD-64 and were similar to the values observed in control non-obese mice. Interestingly, caffeine increased the levels of these parameters. In contrast to caffeine which had no influence on AlaT activity, KD-64 administration significantly lowered AlaT activity in the obese mice. Although, contrary to caffeine, KD-64 did not reduce diet-induced obesity in mice, it improved glucose tolerance. Thus, the activity of the selective adenosine A2A receptor antagonist was quite different from that of the non-selective

Classification supporting COVID-19 diagnostics based on patient survey data

Distinguishing COVID-19 from other flu-like illnesses can be difficult due to ambiguous symptoms and still an initial experience of doctors. Whereas, it is crucial to filter out those sick patients who do not need to be tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in the event of the overwhelming increase in disease. As a part of the presented research, logistic regression and XGBoost classifiers, that allow for effective screening of patients for COVID-19, were generated. Each of the methods was tuned to achieve an assumed acceptable threshold of negative predictive values during classification. Additionally, an explanation of the obtained classification models was presented. The explanation enables the users to understand what was the basis of the decision made by the model. The obtained classification models provided the basis for the DECODE service (decode.polsl.pl), which can serve as support in screening patients with COVID-19 disease. Moreover, the data set constituting the basis for the analyses performed is made available to the research community. This data set consisting of more than 3,000 examples is based on questionnaires collected at a hospital in Poland.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figure