bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Adjuvant Pressurized IntraPeritoneal Aerosol Chemotherapy (PIPAC) in resected high-risk colon cancer patients – study protocol for the PIPAC-OPC3 Trial. A prospective, controlled phase 2 Study
Authors: Graversen Martin , Detlefsen Sönke , Fristrup Claus , Pfeiffer Per , Mortensen Michael Bau
Published: July 2018

Background

Peritoneal metastasis (PM) is the second most common site of recurrence in colon cancer (CC) patients and accounts for approximately one-third of all recurrences. Patients with T4 or intraperitoneal perforated colon cancers have an increased risk of developing PM, and since manifest PM is difficult to treat, high-risk patients should be offered prophylactic treatment. Here, we propose a study of adjuvant oxaliplatin administered as pressurized intraperitoneal aerosol chemotherapy (PIPAC OX) in patients with high-risk colon cancer (T4, perforated tumors, ovarian metastasis).

Methods

PIPAC-OPC3 CC is a non-randomized, non-blinded phase 2 cohort study designed to treat high-risk colon cancer patients with adjuvant PIPAC-directed therapy. Based on an expected 90 % peritoneal recurrence-free survival with adjuvant PIPAC against the estimated 75 % without, 60 patients are needed (α: 0.05, power: 0.8). Eligible patients will receive two PIPAC treatments with oxaliplatin (92 mg/m2) at 4–6 week intervals. During laparoscopy, the peritoneum is biopsied at two locations, and peritoneal lavage with 500 mL of saline and laparoscopic ultrasound is performed. The patients are screened for adverse medical events and surgery-related complications after each PIPAC procedure. After the second PIPAC procedure, the patients will be examined in the outpatient clinic and followed with CT scans 12, 24 and 36 months after resection. The primary outcome of the PIPAC-OPC3 CC trial is to evaluate if PIPAC-directed adjuvant therapy can reduce the risk of PM. Secondary outcomes include the number of conversions from positive to negative peritoneal lavage cytology after one PIPAC procedure, completion rate of two adjuvant PIPAC treatments, toxicity and complication rate and recurrence-free and overall survival rates after 1, 3 and 5 years.

Results

It is expected that PIPAC-directed adjuvant therapy can provide an absolute risk reduction of 15 % regarding the development of PM in high-risk colon cancer patients, and that this may result in increased survival rates. We expect that free intraperitoneal tumor cells (FITC) may be detected by peritoneal lavage performed just prior to the administration of PIPAC-directed therapy, and that this treatment may convert FITC-positive patients to a FITC-negative status.

Conclusions

This study may provide important knowledge to be used in designing additional studies on PIPAC in the adjuvant setting of other primary cancers.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT03280511 (2017-09-12). European Clinical Trials Database (EudraCT) 2017-002637-37.
PIPAC EstoK 01: Pressurized IntraPeritoneal Aerosol Chemotherapy with cisplatin and doxorubicin (PIPAC C/D) in gastric peritoneal metastasis: a randomized and multicenter phase II study
Authors: Eveno Clarisse , Jouvin Ingrid , Pocard Marc
Published: July 2018

Background

Peritoneal metastasis (PM) from gastric cancer often remains undiagnosed until it reaches an advanced stage. Despite curative management combining perioperative systemic chemotherapy, cytoreductive surgery (CRS), and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), treated patients’ 5 year survival rate remains under 20 % when patients are carefully selected. Palliative intravenous chemotherapy in patients with non-resectable cancer is frequently associated with poor long-term benefit and an estimated survival time below 1 year. Recently, two retrospectives studies reported that Pressurized IntraPeritoneal Aerosol Chemotherapy (PIPAC) improves patients’ overall survival without impairing their quality of life (QoL). This promising result needs however to be studied on large randomized clinical trial to validate the effect of PIPAC on survival and QoL of patients with gastric PM.

Methods

PIPAC EstoK 01 is a prospective, open, randomized multicenter phase II clinical study with two arms that aims at evaluating the effects of PIPAC with doxorubicin and cisplatin on patients with PM of gastric cancer with peritoneal cancer index (PCI)>8, treated with systemic chemotherapy between two PIPAC procedures. Patients were randomized at the end of explorative laparoscopy and after signing a written consent. Patients received in the first experimental arm a treatment associating PIPAC and systemic chemotherapy (1 PIPAC then 2 IV Chemo) and systemic chemotherapy only in the control arm. Primary endpoint was progression-free survival from the date of surgery to the date of death, or to the end of the 5 year follow-up. Secondary endpoint was 2 year overall survival, morbidity, QoL and secondary resectability rate. The number of patients randomized was calculated to be 94.

Trial registration

Retrospectively registered.
In defence of underlying representations: Latin rhotacism, French liaison, Romanian palatalization
Authors: Bermúdez-Otero Ricardo
Published: July 2018

The surface realization of a linguistic expression can often be predicted from the form of paradigmatically related items that are not contained within it: in Latin, the nominative singular of a noun can often be inferred from the genitive; in French, the final consonant of a prenominal masculine adjective in liaison can typically be predicted from the feminine; in Romanian, the plural form of a noun determines whether its stem will exhibit palatalization before the derivational suffix /-ist/. Such instances of phonological paradigmatic dependence without containment have been claimed to challenge cyclic models of the morphosyntax-phonology interface. In this article, however, they are shown to be established indirectly through the acquisition of underlying representations. This approach correctly predicts that phonological paradigmatic dependencies are never systematically extended to new items if they involve suppletive allomorphy rather than regular alternation, whilst those surface phonological properties of derivatives that are under strict phonotactic control evade paradigmatic dependence on the inflectional forms of their bases. Theories relying on surface-to-surface computation fail to recover these empirical predictions because they are inherently nonmodular, positing generalizations that promiscuously mix phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical information. Underlying representations, therefore, remain indispensable as a means of establishing a necessary modular demarcation between regular phonology and suppletive allomorphy.
Homogeneously catalyzed hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions – From a mechanistic point of view
Authors: Ke Zhuofeng , Li Yinwu , Hou Cheng , Liu Yan
Published: July 2018

Homogeneously catalyzed hydrogenation/dehydrogenation reactions represent not only one of the most synthetically important chemical transformations, but also a promising way to renewably utilize the hydrogen energy. In order to rationally design efficient homogeneous catalysts for hydrogenations/dehydrogenations, it is of fundamental importance to understand their reaction mechanisms in detail. With this aim in mind, we herein provide a brief overview of the mechanistic understanding and related catalyst design strategies. Hydrogenations and dehydrogenations represent the reverse process of each other, and involve the activation/release of H2 and the insertion/elimination of hydride as major steps. The mechanisms discussed in this chapter include the cooperation (bifunctional) mechanism and the non-cooperation mechanisms. Non-cooperation mechanisms usually involve single-site transition metal (TM) catalysts or transition metal hydride (TM-H) catalysts. Cooperation mechanisms usually operate in the state-of-the-art bifunctional catalysts, including Lewis-base/transition-metal (LB-TM) catalysts, Lewis-acid/transition-metal (LA-TM) catalysts, Lewis-acid/Lewis-base (LA-LB; the so-called frustrated Lewis pairs - FLPs) catalysts, newly developed ambiphilic catalysts, and bimetallic transition-metal/transition-metal (TM-TM) catalysts. The influence of the ligands, the electronic structure of the metal, and proton shuttle on the reaction mechanism are also discussed to improve the understanding of the factors that can govern mechanistic preferences. The content presented in this chapter should both inspire experimental and theoretical chemists concerned with homogeneously catalyzed hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions, and provide valuable information for future catalyst design.
Neutron methods for tracking lithium in operating electrodes and interfaces
Authors: Avdeev Mikhail V. , Bobrikov Ivan A. , Petrenko Viktor I.
Published: July 2018

The performance characteristics of modern electrochemical energy storage devices are largely determined by the processes occurring at charge separation interfaces, as well as by the evolution of the structure, composition and chemistry of electrodes and electrolytes. The paper reviews the principal applications of neutron scattering techniques in structural studies of electrode materials and electrochemical interfaces in the course of their operation (operando mode) with an accent to Li-ion batteries. The high penetrating power of thermal neutrons makes it possible to study complex systems that are the closest to real electrochemical cells. The recent progress and future tasks in the development of the neutron scattering methods (diffraction, reflectometry, small-angle scattering) for various types of electrodes/interfaces in Li energy storage devices are discussed.
Tove Jansson, Nietzsche and the poetics of overcoming
Authors: Ruin Hans
Published: July 2018

This article explores the connections between Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and Tove Jansson and the world of the Moomins. It begins with a short summary of the impact of Nietzsche in the Nordic countries and of his most important book, focusing on passages that are of particular relevance for the analyses that follow. It then proceeds to explore its meaning and significance for Jansson in three sections. The first concerns Atos Wirtanen, the writer and politician with whom she lived for ten years, and who encouraged her to publish her first book, while he himself was completing a book on Nietzsche. In the second section, the article analyzes an early semi-autobiographical literary experiment from the Jansson family archive that displays her as a passionate reader of Nietzsche long before her meeting with Wirtanen. In the third and last section, the framework of the Zarathustra narrative is used to interpret some of the figures and scenes from the Moomin books.
The response to radiofrequency neurotomy of medial branches including a bipolar system for thoracic facet joints
Authors: Rohof Olav , Chen Chee Kean
Published: July 2018

Background and aims

The evidence for interventional treatment of thoracic facet joint pain remains limited. This is partly due to inconsistency of the path of thoracic medial branches and a lower incidence of thoracic facet pain among spine pain patients. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of bipolar radiofrequency (RF) neurotomy of medial branches for treating chronic thoracic facet joint pain.

Methods

This is a retrospective record review of all patients diagnosed to have thoracic facet pain with diagnostic block and subsequently treated with bipolar RF neurotomy of medial branch between January 2012 and December 2015. The outcome measures were mean changes in Numeral Rating Scale (NRS) and Pain Disability Index (PDI).

Results

There were 71 patients with complete data available for analysis. The mean age of the patients was 57.9±11.2 years. The mean duration of pain was 23±10.5 months. The majority of patients (82%) had pain reduction of more than 50% at 12 months after bipolar RF neurotomy. The NRS decreased significantly from baseline of 7.75±1.25 to 2.86±1.53 at 3 months and 2.82±1.29 at 12 months post-procedure (p<0.001. p<0.001, respectively). The PDI improved significantly from 40.92±12.22 to 24.15±9.79, p<0.05). There were no serious adverse effects or complications of the procedure reported in this study.

Conclusions

Bipolar RF neurotomy of thoracic medial branch is associated with a significant reduction in thoracic facet joint pain. The promising findings from this case series merit further assessment with prospective, randomized controlled trial which will produce a more reliable and accurate finding for its clinical applications.
Kompensation des frequenzabhängigen Fehlers in der Strommessung bei der Bestimmung von Magnetisierungskennlinien und -verlusten
Authors: Trnka Nikolaus , Werner Ralf
Published: July 2018

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Kompensation frequenzabhängiger Fehler, die in der Strommessung mit Messwiderständen durch parasitäre Einflüsse auftreten. Dazu werden die Amplituden- und Phasengänge unterschiedlicher Messwiderstände aus einem Versuchsstand gemessen und ausgewertet. Anhand dessen wird eine alternative Kompensationsmethode anstatt der Übertragungsfunktion des Ersatzschaltbildes eines Messwiderstandes entwickelt. Es erfolgt eine Verifizierung der Methode mit Hilfe eines Versuchsstandes zur Bestimmung der magnetischen Eigenschaften von Blechproben.
Tripartite Chromatin Localization of Budding Yeast Shugoshin Involves Higher-Ordered Architecture of Mitotic Chromosomes
Authors: Deng Xiexiong , Kuo Min-Hao
Published: July 2018

The spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) is key to faithful segregation of chromosomes. One requirement that satisfies SAC is appropriate tension between sister chromatids at the metaphase-anaphase juncture. Proper tension generated by poleward pulling of mitotic spindles signals biorientation of the underlying chromosome. In the budding yeast, the tension status is monitored by the conserved Shugoshin protein, Sgo1p, and the tension sensing motif (TSM) of histone H3. ChIP-seq reveals a unique TSM-dependent, tripartite domain of Sgo1p in each mitotic chromosome. This domain consists of one centromeric and two flanking peaks 3 – 4 kb away, present exclusively in mitosis. Strikingly, this trident motif coincides with cohesin localization, but only at the centromere and the two immediate adjacent loci, despite that cohesin is enriched at numerous regions throughout mitotic chromosomes. Chromosome conformation capture assays reveal apparent looping at the centromeric and pericentric regions. The TSM-Sgo1p-cohesin triad is therefore at the center stage of higher-ordered chromatin architecture for error-free segregation.
Relationship Between Sequence Homology, Genome Architecture, and Meiotic Behavior of the Sex Chromosomes in North American Voles
Authors: Dumont Beth L , Williams Christina L , Ng Bee Ling , Horncastle Valerie , Chambers Carol L , McGraw Lisa A , Adams David , Mackay Trudy F C , Breen Matthew
Published: July 2018

On the heterogametic sex chromosomes, the homology-driven processes of pairing, recombination, and segregation are restricted to a short region of X/Y homology known as the pseudoautosomal region (PAR). Although failure of X/Y associations in most mammals...

In most mammals, the X and Y chromosomes synapse and recombine along a conserved region of homology known as the pseudoautosomal region (PAR). These homology-driven interactions are required for meiotic progression and are essential for male fertility. Although the PAR fulfills key meiotic functions in most mammals, several exceptional species lack PAR-mediated sex chromosome associations at meiosis. Here, we leveraged the natural variation in meiotic sex chromosome programs present in North American voles (Microtus) to investigate the relationship between meiotic sex chromosome dynamics and X/Y sequence homology. To this end, we developed a novel, reference-blind computational method to analyze sparse sequencing data from flow-sorted X and Y chromosomes isolated from vole species with sex chromosomes that always (Microtus montanus), never (Microtus mogollonensis), and occasionally synapse (Microtus ochrogaster) at meiosis. Unexpectedly, we find more shared X/Y homology in the two vole species with no and sporadic X/Y synapsis compared to the species with obligate synapsis. Sex chromosome homology in the asynaptic and occasionally synaptic species is interspersed along chromosomes and largely restricted to low-complexity sequences, including a striking enrichment for the telomeric repeat sequence, TTAGGG. In contrast, homology is concentrated in high complexity, and presumably euchromatic, sequence on the X and Y chromosomes of the synaptic vole species, M. montanus. Taken together, our findings suggest key conditions required to sustain the standard program of X/Y synapsis at meiosis and reveal an intriguing connection between heterochromatic repeat architecture and noncanonical, asynaptic mechanisms of sex chromosome segregation in voles.
Placental Abruption and Child Mortality
Authors: Riihimäki Outi , Metsäranta Marjo , Paavonen Jorma , Luukkaala Tiina , Gissler Mika , Andersson Sture , Nuutila Mika , Tikkanen Minna
Published: July 2018

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:

Placental abruption causes asphyxia and leads to high perinatal mortality. Our objective was to study the overall mortality and causes of death among children born after placental abruption.

METHODS:

Data on children born from singleton pregnancies complicated by placental abruption between 1987 and 2005 were collected from the Finnish Medical Birth Register, the Hospital Discharge Register, and the Cause-of-Death Register. A reference group consisted of children born from pregnancies without placental abruption. After excluding stillbirths, the final study sample comprised 3888 children born after placental abruption (index children) and 12 530 referent children. The main outcome measure was overall mortality.

RESULTS:

By the end of 2013, there were 280 deaths among the index children and 107 deaths among the referent children. Compared with the referent children, the overall mortality among the index children was significantly increased (hazard ratio: 8.70; 95% confidence interval 6.96–10.90). During the neonatal period (0–27 days) the mortality was nearly 15-fold (14.8; 10.9–20.0), birth-related asphyxia being the leading cause of death (108; 34–341). The mortality remained high during days 28 to 365 (10.3; 4.83–21.8) and beyond 365 days (1.70; 1.03–2.79). Furthermore, the overall mortality was increased among the index children born at 32 to 36 + 6 gestational weeks (2.77; 1.54–4.98) and at ≥37 weeks (4.98; 3.54–6.99) and among children with a birth weight of 2500 g or more (5.94; 4.33–8.14).

CONCLUSIONS:

The impact of abruption on offspring mortality extends far beyond the perinatal period. This is mainly due to birth-related asphyxia and prematurity-related consequences.
MMudanças na escrituração fiscal: um estudo sobre o impacto e a adaptação dos profissionais contábeis
Authors: Freitas Carvalho Hatson , Mendes de Oliveira Renata , Da Silva Barbosa Josilene , Monteiro de Souza e Savi Érika
Published: July 2018

A escrituração fiscal tem passado por muitas mudanças desde o seu surgimento, uma delas foi a implantação do Sistema Público de Escrituração Digital(SPED), que gerou impactos na rotina dos profissionais contábeis. Diante disso, esta pesquisa visa verificar a ótica dos profissionais contábeis da cidade de Ituiutaba (MG) em relação ao novo processo de escrituração fiscal. Com um caráter exploratório-descritivo, busca-se identificar as principais mudanças dos procedimentos de escrituração fiscal e como elas afetaram o cotidiano dos profissionais contábeis atuantes na cidade de Ituiutaba (MG). Para a coleta de dados, utilizou-se da aplicação de questionário saos profissionais contábeis, sendo obtidas dezesseis respostas. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam dificuldades em relação à adoção da escrituração fiscal digital e falta de treinamentos específicos para manipular o novo sistema de escrituração. Identificou-se que houve um aumento da quantidade de tarefas executadas pelos profissionais investigados, e percebeu-se que com o SPED houve uma melhoria na qualidade das informações.
A democratização do planejamento da política pública de educação municipal na região do Alto Tietê-SP
Authors: Brígido Fabiana Barbosa , Bueno Ricardo Luiz Pereira , Branco Marcello Simão
Published: July 2018

O processo de planejamento das políticas públicas municipais envolve a participação de diversos atores. O avanço nas pesquisas na área de políticas públicas contribuiu para o surgimento de estruturas de organização que permitiram uma melhor gestão do financiamento e um maior incentivo à participação popular na elaboração dessas políticas. Este artigo aborda, em termos práticos, como a construção dos Planos Municipais de Educação da região conhecida como Alto Tietê, no Estado de São Paulo, reflete as dificuldades dos municípios em desenvolver política pública, por meio de uma gestão compartilhada, que garanta participação social e a publicidade de ações. Esta pesquisa revela que a construção de políticas públicas que tragam respostas à sociedade depende de uma maior transparência na gestão pública, o que se faz por intermédio da disponibilização de uma ampla gama de informações e serviços por meio de canais de comunicação das prefeituras, sendo a internet a principal delas.
PROPOSIÇÃO DE ANÁLISE NA SERVITIZAÇÃO INDUSTRIAL
Authors: Nobrega Kleber Cavalacanti , De Sousa Eliabe Afonso , Nodari Cristine Hermann
Published: July 2018

O objetivo da pesquisa foi consolidar uma revisão literária sobre a servitização industrial, de modo a fomentar uma proposição dos aspectos a serem considerados na avaliação do grau de aglutinação de serviços na indústria. Por meio de uma pesquisa documental, foi consolidado um recorte teórico com base na análise de publicações científicas, com contribuição de diferentes autores a respeito do tema por meio do meta buscador Scopus. Os resultados apontaram a proposição de cinco dimensões para a análise da servitização, em que para cada dimensão coexistem três atributos respectivos de direcionamento para pesquisas acerca do tema: i) composição da oferta; ii) relacionamento com o cliente; iii) processos internos e capacidade organizacional; iv) alinhamento estratégico, e; v) cultura organizacional. Este trabalho contribui para o crescente campo de estudo da gestão de serviços em empresas manufatureiras, suas classificações e tipos de oferta além de uma abordagem conceitual sobre servitização.
EVOLUÇÃO DA POBREZA MULTIDIMENSIONAL NOS MUNICÍPIOS DE MATO GROSSO DO SUL SOB O PRISMA DO DESENVOLVIMENTO COMO LIBERDADE
Authors: Moreira Gabriela Balduino , Barbosa Francis Régis Mendes Gonçalves , Rocha Silvio Alves , Chavez Larissa Fabiana Gill
Published: July 2018

Neste trabalho, analisou-se a evolução da pobreza multidimensional nos municípios de Mato Grosso do Sul nos anos de 1991, 2000 e 2010. Com objetivos específicos, procurou-se: i) analisar as disparidades entre os municípios no que diz respeito a indicadores de pobreza multidimensional; ii) discutir como a evolução dos indicadores de pobreza multidimensional influenciou as liberdades substantivas individuais. Utilizou-se a estatística descritiva para atender aos objetivos do trabalho. Os dados utilizados foram provenientes da base do Atlas do Desenvolvimento Humano no Brasil por meio do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD). Observou-se que houve uma queda no nível geral de pobreza multidimensional, o que gerou um aumento nas liberdades substantivas das pessoas, contribuindo para a promoção do desenvolvimento.
PREDICTION OF PROBABILITY OF THE LONG TERM FATAL OUTCOME OF STROKE BY THE DATA OF TERRITORY AND POPULATIONAL REGISTRY
Authors: Klochikhina О. A. , Stakhovskaya L. V. , Polunina Е. A.
Published: July 2018

Aim.To develop a prediction model of individual probability of long term (within first 28 days from the onset) outcome of stroke.

Material and methods.By the method of territory-populational registry, in 2009-2016 in 16 regions of Russia, an analysis performed, of significant predictors of fatal stroke outcome. Overall, 50902 strokes registered in persons older 25 y. In 1553 there were no data on long term mortality. By the results of revealed significant predictors of the fatal outcome of stroke by LOTUS method, a tree-branching was done for development of probability of long term fatal outcome during the first 28 days from disease presentation.

Results.The significant predictors were acquired, of the fatal outcome of stroke, and graded by odds ratio. Based on the definition of significant predictors of fatal outcome, first time a prediction model developed of probability of long term stroke fatal outcome taken heterogeneity and multifactorial nature of the disease. Clinical guidelines proposed.

Conclusion.The developed prediction model of individual probability of long term stroke fatal outcome shows high level of sensitivity and specificity. Application of such model and of proposed clinical guidelines at various stages of patients management will facilitate diagnostical search, management strategy selection and improvement of prevention.
Learning to Order BDD Variables in Verification
Authors: Grumberg O. , Livne S. , Markovitch S.
Published: July 2018

The size and complexity of software and hardware systems have significantly increased in the past years. As a result, it is harder to guarantee their correct behavior. One of the most successful methods for automated verification of finite-state systems is model checking. Most of the current model-checking systems use binary decision diagrams (BDDs) for the representation of the tested model and in the verification process of its properties. Generally, BDDs allow a canonical compact representation of a boolean function (given an order of its variables). The more compact the BDD is, the better performance one gets from the verifier. However, finding an optimal order for a BDD is an NP-complete problem. Therefore, several heuristic methods based on expert knowledge have been developed for variable ordering. We propose an alternative approach in which the variable ordering algorithm gains 'ordering experience' from training models and uses the learned knowledge for finding good orders. Our methodology is based on offline learning of pair precedence classifiers from training models, that is, learning which variable pair permutation is more likely to lead to a good order. For each training model, a number of training sequences are evaluated. Every training model variable pair permutation is then tagged based on its performance on the evaluated orders. The tagged permutations are then passed through a feature extractor and are given as examples to a classifier creation algorithm. Given a model for which an order is requested, the ordering algorithm consults each precedence classifier and constructs a pair precedence table which is used to create the order. Our algorithm was integrated with SMV, which is one of the most widely used verification systems. Preliminary empirical evaluation of our methodology, using real benchmark models, shows performance that is better than random ordering and is competitive with existing algorithms that use expert knowledge. We believe that in sub-domains of models (alu, caches, etc.) our system will prove even more valuable. This is because it features the ability to learn sub-domain knowledge, something that no other ordering algorithm does.
Interactive Execution Monitoring of Agent Teams
Authors: Wilkins D. E. , Lee T. J. , Berry P.
Published: July 2018

There is an increasing need for automated support for humans monitoring the activity of distributed teams of cooperating agents, both human and machine. We characterize the domain-independent challenges posed by this problem, and describe how properties of domains influence the challenges and their solutions. We will concentrate on dynamic, data-rich domains where humans are ultimately responsible for team behavior. Thus, the automated aid should interactively support effective and timely decision making by the human. We present a domain-independent categorization of the types of alerts a plan-based monitoring system might issue to a user, where each type generally requires different monitoring techniques. We describe a monitoring framework for integrating many domain-specific and task-specific monitoring techniques and then using the concept of value of an alert to avoid operator overload. We use this framework to describe an execution monitoring approach we have used to implement Execution Assistants (EAs) in two different dynamic, data-rich, real-world domains to assist a human in monitoring team behavior. One domain (Army small unit operations) has hundreds of mobile, geographically distributed agents, a combination of humans, robots, and vehicles. The other domain (teams of unmanned ground and air vehicles) has a handful of cooperating robots. Both domains involve unpredictable adversaries in the vicinity. Our approach customizes monitoring behavior for each specific task, plan, and situation, as well as for user preferences. Our EAs alert the human controller when reported events threaten plan execution or physically threaten team members. Alerts were generated in a timely manner without inundating the user with too many alerts (less than 10 percent of alerts are unwanted, as judged by domain experts).
VHPOP: Versatile Heuristic Partial Order Planner
Authors: Younes H. L.S. , Simmons R. G.
Published: July 2018

VHPOP is a partial order causal link (POCL) planner loosely based on UCPOP. It draws from the experience gained in the early to mid 1990's on flaw selection strategies for POCL planning, and combines this with more recent developments in the field of domain independent planning such as distance based heuristics and reachability analysis. We present an adaptation of the additive heuristic for plan space planning, and modify it to account for possible reuse of existing actions in a plan. We also propose a large set of novel flaw selection strategies, and show how these can help us solve more problems than previously possible by POCL planners. VHPOP also supports planning with durative actions by incorporating standard techniques for temporal constraint reasoning. We demonstrate that the same heuristic techniques used to boost the performance of classical POCL planning can be effective in domains with durative actions as well. The result is a versatile heuristic POCL planner competitive with established CSP-based and heuristic state space planners.
Answer Set Planning Under Action Costs
Authors: Eiter T. , Faber W. , Leone N. , Pfeifer G. , Polleres A.
Published: July 2018

Recently, planning based on answer set programming has been proposed as an approach towards realizing declarative planning systems. In this paper, we present the language Kc, which extends the declarative planning language K by action costs. Kc provides the notion of admissible and optimal plans, which are plans whose overall action costs are within a given limit resp. minimum over all plans (i.e., cheapest plans). As we demonstrate, this novel language allows for expressing some nontrivial planning tasks in a declarative way. Furthermore, it can be utilized for representing planning problems under other optimality criteria, such as computing ``shortest'' plans (with the least number of steps), and refinement combinations of cheapest and fastest plans. We study complexity aspects of the language Kc and provide a transformation to logic programs, such that planning problems are solved via answer set programming. Furthermore, we report experimental results on selected problems. Our experience is encouraging that answer set planning may be a valuable approach to expressive planning systems in which intricate planning problems can be naturally specified and solved.
SAPA: A Multi-objective Metric Temporal Planner
Authors: Do M. , Kambhampati S.
Published: July 2018

SAPA is a domain-independent heuristic forward chaining planner that can handle durative actions, metric resource constraints, and deadline goals. It is designed to be capable of handling the multi-objective nature of metric temporal planning. Our technical contributions include (i) planning-graph based methods for deriving heuristics that are sensitive to both cost and makespan (ii) techniques for adjusting the heuristic estimates to take action interactions and metric resource limitations into account and (iii) a linear time greedy post-processing technique to improve execution flexibility of the solution plans. An implementation of SAPA using many of the techniques presented in this paper was one of the best domain independent planners for domains with metric and temporal constraints in the third International Planning Competition, held at AIPS-02. We describe the technical details of extracting the heuristics and present an empirical evaluation of the current implementation of SAPA.
Updating Probabilities
Authors: Grunwald P. D. , Halpern J. Y.
Published: July 2018

As examples such as the Monty Hall puzzle show, applying conditioning to update a probability distribution on a ``naive space'', which does not take into account the protocol used, can often lead to counterintuitive results. Here we examine why. A criterion known as CAR (``coarsening at random'') in the statistical literature characterizes when ``naive'' conditioning in a naive space works. We show that the CAR condition holds rather infrequently, and we provide a procedural characterization of it, by giving a randomized algorithm that generates all and only distributions for which CAR holds. This substantially extends previous characterizations of CAR. We also consider more generalized notions of update such as Jeffrey conditioning and minimizing relative entropy (MRE). We give a generalization of the CAR condition that characterizes when Jeffrey conditioning leads to appropriate answers, and show that there exist some very simple settings in which MRE essentially never gives the right results. This generalizes and interconnects previous results obtained in the literature on CAR and MRE.
TALplanner in IPC-2002: Extensions and Control Rules
Authors: Kvarnström J. , Magnusson M.
Published: July 2018

TALplanner is a forward-chaining planner that relies on domain knowledge in the shape of temporal logic formulas in order to prune irrelevant parts of the search space. TALplanner recently participated in the third International Planning Competition, which had a clear emphasis on increasing the complexity of the problem domains being used as benchmark tests and the expressivity required to represent these domains in a planning system. Like many other planners, TALplanner had support for some but not all aspects of this increase in expressivity, and a number of changes to the planner were required. After a short introduction to TALplanner, this article describes some of the changes that were made before and during the competition. We also describe the process of introducing suitable domain knowledge for several of the competition domains.
Optimal Schedules for Parallelizing Anytime Algorithms: The Case of Shared Resources
Authors: Finkelstein L. , Markovitch S. , Rivlin E.
Published: July 2018

The performance of anytime algorithms can be improved by simultaneously solving several instances of algorithm-problem pairs. These pairs may include different instances of a problem (such as starting from a different initial state), different algorithms (if several alternatives exist), or several runs of the same algorithm (for non-deterministic algorithms). In this paper we present a methodology for designing an optimal scheduling policy based on the statistical characteristics of the algorithms involved. We formally analyze the case where the processes share resources (a single-processor model), and provide an algorithm for optimal scheduling. We analyze, theoretically and empirically, the behavior of our scheduling algorithm for various distribution types. Finally, we present empirical results of applying our scheduling algorithm to the Latin Square problem.
Decision-Theoretic Bidding Based on Learned Density Models in Simultaneous, Interacting Auctions
Authors: Stone P. , Schapire R. E. , Littman M. L. , Csirik J. A. , McAllester D.
Published: July 2018

Auctions are becoming an increasingly popular method for transacting business, especially over the Internet. This article presents a general approach to building autonomous bidding agents to bid in multiple simultaneous auctions for interacting goods. A core component of our approach learns a model of the empirical price dynamics based on past data and uses the model to analytically calculate, to the greatest extent possible, optimal bids. We introduce a new and general boosting-based algorithm for conditional density estimation problems of this kind, i.e., supervised learning problems in which the goal is to estimate the entire conditional distribution of the real-valued label. This approach is fully implemented as ATTac-2001, a top-scoring agent in the second Trading Agent Competition (TAC-01). We present experiments demonstrating the effectiveness of our boosting-based price predictor relative to several reasonable alternatives.
K-Implementation
Authors: Monderer D. , Tennenholtz M.
Published: July 2018

This paper discusses an interested party who wishes to influence the behavior of agents in a game (multi-agent interaction), which is not under his control. The interested party cannot design a new game, cannot enforce agents' behavior, cannot enforce payments by the agents, and cannot prohibit strategies available to the agents. However, he can influence the outcome of the game by committing to non-negative monetary transfers for the different strategy profiles that may be selected by the agents. The interested party assumes that agents are rational in the commonly agreed sense that they do not use dominated strategies. Hence, a certain subset of outcomes is implemented in a given game if by adding non-negative payments, rational players will necessarily produce an outcome in this subset. Obviously, by making sufficiently big payments one can implement any desirable outcome. The question is what is the cost of implementation? In this paper we introduce the notion of k-implementation of a desired set of strategy profiles, where k stands for the amount of payment that need to be actually made in order to implement desirable outcomes. A major point in k-implementation is that monetary offers need not necessarily materialize when following desired behaviors. We define and study k-implementation in the contexts of games with complete and incomplete information. In the latter case we mainly focus on the VCG games. Our setting is later extended to deal with mixed strategies using correlation devices. Together, the paper introduces and studies the implementation of desirable outcomes by a reliable party who cannot modify game rules (i.e. provide protocols), complementing previous work in mechanism design, while making it more applicable to many realistic CS settings.
Complexity Results and Approximation Strategies for MAP Explanations
Authors: Park J. D. , Darwiche A.
Published: July 2018

MAP is the problem of finding a most probable instantiation of a set of variables given evidence. MAP has always been perceived to be significantly harder than the related problems of computing the probability of a variable instantiation Pr, or the problem of computing the most probable explanation (MPE). This paper investigates the complexity of MAP in Bayesian networks. Specifically, we show that MAP is complete for NP^PP and provide further negative complexity results for algorithms based on variable elimination. We also show that MAP remains hard even when MPE and Pr become easy. For example, we show that MAP is NP-complete when the networks are restricted to polytrees, and even then can not be effectively approximated. Given the difficulty of computing MAP exactly, and the difficulty of approximating MAP while providing useful guarantees on the resulting approximation, we investigate best effort approximations. We introduce a generic MAP approximation framework. We provide two instantiations of the framework; one for networks which are amenable to exact inference Pr, and one for networks for which even exact inference is too hard. This allows MAP approximation on networks that are too complex to even exactly solve the easier problems, Pr and MPE. Experimental results indicate that using these approximation algorithms provides much better solutions than standard techniques, and provide accurate MAP estimates in many cases.
The 3rd International Planning Competition: Results and Analysis
Authors: Long D. , Fox M.
Published: July 2018

This paper reports the outcome of the third in the series of biennial international planning competitions, held in association with the International Conference on AI Planning and Scheduling (AIPS) in 2002. In addition to describing the domains, the planners and the objectives of the competition, the paper includes analysis of the results. The results are analysed from several perspectives, in order to address the questions of comparative performance between planners, comparative difficulty of domains, the degree of agreement between planners about the relative difficulty of individual problem instances and the question of how well planners scale relative to one another over increasingly difficult problems. The paper addresses these questions through statistical analysis of the raw results of the competition, in order to determine which results can be considered to be adequately supported by the data. The paper concludes with a discussion of some challenges for the future of the competition series.
Representation Dependence in Probabilistic Inference
Authors: Halpern J. Y. , Koller D.
Published: July 2018

Non-deductive reasoning systems are often representation dependent: representing the same situation in two different ways may cause such a system to return two different answers. Some have viewed this as a significant problem. For example, the principle of maximum entropyhas been subjected to much criticism due to its representation dependence. There has, however, been almost no work investigating representation dependence. In this paper, we formalize this notion and show that it is not a problem specific to maximum entropy. In fact, we show that any representation-independent probabilistic inference procedure that ignores irrelevant information is essentially entailment, in a precise sense. Moreover, we show that representation independence is incompatible with even a weak default assumption of independence. We then show that invariance under a restricted class of representation changes can form a reasonable compromise between representation independence and other desiderata, and provide a construction of a family of inference procedures that provides such restricted representation independence, using relative entropy.
A Personalized System for Conversational Recommendations
Authors: Thompson C. A. , Goker M. H. , Langley P.
Published: July 2018

Searching for and making decisions about information is becoming increasingly difficult as the amount of information and number of choices increases. Recommendation systems help users find items of interest of a particular type, such as movies or restaurants, but are still somewhat awkward to use. Our solution is to take advantage of the complementary strengths of personalized recommendation systems and dialogue systems, creating personalized aides. We present a system -- the Adaptive Place Advisor -- that treats item selection as an interactive, conversational process, with the program inquiring about item attributes and the user responding. Individual, long-term user preferences are unobtrusively obtained in the course of normal recommendation dialogues and used to direct future conversations with the same user. We present a novel user model that influences both item search and the questions asked during a conversation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system in significantly reducing the time and number of interactions required to find a satisfactory item, as compared to a control group of users interacting with a non-adaptive version of the system.
Competitive Coevolution through Evolutionary Complexification
Authors: Stanley K. O. , Miikkulainen R.
Published: July 2018

Two major goals in machine learning are the discovery and improvement of solutions to complex problems. In this paper, we argue that complexification, i.e. the incremental elaboration of solutions through adding new structure, achieves both these goals. We demonstrate the power of complexification through the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) method, which evolves increasingly complex neural network architectures. NEAT is applied to an open-ended coevolutionary robot duel domain where robot controllers compete head to head. Because the robot duel domain supports a wide range of strategies, and because coevolution benefits from an escalating arms race, it serves as a suitable testbed for studying complexification. When compared to the evolution of networks with fixed structure, complexifying evolution discovers significantly more sophisticated strategies. The results suggest that in order to discover and improve complex solutions, evolution, and search in general, should be allowed to complexify as well as optimize.
Dual Modelling of Permutation and Injection Problems
Authors: Hnich B. , Smith B. M. , Walsh T.
Published: July 2018

When writing a constraint program, we have to choose which variables should be the decision variables, and how to represent the constraints on these variables. In many cases, there is considerable choice for the decision variables. Consider, for example, permutation problems in which we have as many values as variables, and each variable takes an unique value. In such problems, we can choose between a primal and a dual viewpoint. In the dual viewpoint, each dual variable represents one of the primal values, whilst each dual value represents one of the primal variables. Alternatively, by means of channelling constraints to link the primal and dual variables, we can have a combined model with both sets of variables. In this paper, we perform an extensive theoretical and empirical study of such primal, dual and combined models for two classes of problems: permutation problems and injection problems. Our results show that it often be advantageous to use multiple viewpoints, and to have constraints which channel between them to maintain consistency. They also illustrate a general methodology for comparing different constraint models.
On Prediction Using Variable Order Markov Models
Authors: Begleiter R. , El-Yaniv R. , Yona G.
Published: July 2018

This paper is concerned with algorithms for prediction of discrete sequences over a finite alphabet, using variable order Markov models. The class of such algorithms is large and in principle includes any lossless compression algorithm. We focus on six prominent prediction algorithms, including Context Tree Weighting (CTW), Prediction by Partial Match (PPM) and Probabilistic Suffix Trees (PSTs). We discuss the properties of these algorithms and compare their performance using real life sequences from three domains: proteins, English text and music pieces. The comparison is made with respect to prediction quality as measured by the average log-loss. We also compare classification algorithms based on these predictors with respect to a number of large protein classification tasks. Our results indicate that a ``decomposed'' CTW (a variant of the CTW algorithm) and PPM outperform all other algorithms in sequence prediction tasks. Somewhat surprisingly, a different algorithm, which is a modification of the Lempel-Ziv compression algorithm, significantly outperforms all algorithms on the protein classification problems.