Asymptotically idempotent aggregation operators for trust management in multi-agent systems

The study of trust management in multi-agent system, especially distributed, has grown over the last years. Trust is a complex subject that has no general consensus in literature, but has emerged the importance of reasoning about it computationally. Reputation systems takes into consideration the history of an entity’s actions/behavior in order to compute trust, collecting and aggregating ratings from members in a community. In this scenario the aggregation problem becomes fundamental, in particular depending on the environment. In this paper we describe a technique based on a class of asymptotically idempotent aggregation operators, suitable particulary for distributed anonymous environments

Cognitive fluctuations in connection to disgraphia a comparison of Alzheimer's disease with dementia Lewy bodies

Background: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between cognitive impairment and the performance of handwritten scripts presented as “letter-writing” to a close relative by patients with dementia Lewy bodies (DLB), as fluctuations of the symptoms phase, and in a matched group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The degree of writing disability and personal, spatial, and temporal orientation was compared in these two groups. Design and methods: Fourteen simple questions, designed in a form that could be utilized by any general practitioner in order to document the level of cognitive functioning of each patient, were presented to 30 AD patients and 26 DLB patients. The initial cognition test was designated PQ1. The patients were examined on tests of letter-writing ability. Directly after the letter-writing, the list of 14 questions presented in PQ1 was presented again in a repeated procedure that was designated PQ2. The difference between these two measures (PQ1 – PQ2) was designated D∆. This test of letter-writing ability and cognitive performance was administered over 19 days. Results: Several markedly strong relationships between dysgraphia and several measures of cognitive performance in AD patients and DLB patients were observed, but the deterioration of performance from PQ1 to PQ2 over all test days were markedly significant in AD patients and not significant in DLB patients. It is possible that in graphic expression even by patients diagnosed with moderate to relatively severe AD and DLB there remains some residual capacity for understanding and intention that may be expressed. Furthermore, the deterioration in performance and the differences noted in AD and DLB patients may be due to the different speed at which the process of the protein degradation occurs for functional modification of synapses. Conclusion: Our method can be used as part of neuropsychological tests to differentiate the diagnosis between AD and DL

Design and Validation of a Microwave Device for Food Contamination Real-time Sensing and Imaging

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Pauli Tomography: complete characterization of a single qubit device

The marriage of Quantum Physics and Information Technology, originally motivated by the need for miniaturization, has recently opened the way to the realization of radically new information-processing devices, with the possibility of guaranteed secure cryptographic communications, and tremendous speedups of some complex computational tasks. Among the many problems posed by the new information technology there is the need of characterizing the new quantum devices, making a complete identification and characterization of their functioning. As we will see, quantum mechanics provides us with a powerful tool to achieve the task easily and efficiently: this tools is the so called quantum entanglement, the basis of the quantum parallelism of the future computers. We present here the first full experimental quantum characterization of a single-qubit device. The new method, we may refer to as ''quantum radiography'', uses a Pauli Quantum Tomography at the output of the device, and needs only a single entangled state at the input, which works on the test channel as all possible input states in quantum parallel. The method can be easily extended to any n-qubits device

Multiparameter quantum estimation of noisy phase shifts

Phase estimation is the most investigated protocol in quantum metrology, but its performance is affected by the presence of noise, also in the form of imperfect state preparation. Here we discuss how to address this scenario by using a multiparameter approach, in which noise is associated to a parameter to be measured at the same time as the phase. We present an experiment using two-photon states, and apply our setup to investigating optical activity of fructose solutions. Finally, we illustrate the scaling laws of the attainable precisions with the number of photons in the probe state

High-Throughput Identification of Electrides from all Known Inorganic Materials

In this paper, we present the results of a large-scale, high-throughput computational search for electrides among all known inorganic materials. Analyzing a database of density functional theory results on more than 60,000 compounds, we identify 69 new electride candidates. We report on all these candidates and discuss the structural and chemical factors leading to electride formation. Among these candidates, our work identifies the first partially-filled 3d transition metal containing electrides Ba3CrN3 and Sr3CrN3; an unexpected finding that contravenes conventional chemistry.Comment: 5 page manuscript in letter format, 27 page Supplementary Informatio

Gravitational Waves, Event Horizons and Black Hole Observation: A New Frontier in Fundamental Physics

The observation of supermassive black holes by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration and the detection of gravitational waves emitted during the merging phase of compact binary objects to stellar-mass black holes by the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA collaboration constitute major achievements of modern science. Gravitational wave signals emitted by stellar-mass black holes are being used to test general relativity in an unprecedented way in the regime of strong gravitational fields, as well as to address other physics questions such as the formation of heavy elements or the Hawking Area Theorem. These discoveries require further research in order to answer critical questions about the population density and the formation processes of binary systems. The detection of supermassive black holes considerably extends the range of scientific investigation by making it possible to probe the structure of spacetime around the horizon of the central mass of our galaxy as well as other galaxies. The huge amount of information collected by the VLBI worldwide network will be used to investigate general relativity in a further range of physical conditions. These investigations hold the potential to pave the way for the detection of quantum-mechanical effects such as a possible graviton mass. In this paper we will review, in a cursory way, some of the results of both the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA and the EHT collaborations