bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interacciones e inestabilidad del plancton en cuatro embalses tropicales con diferente estado trófico
Authors: Villabona González Silvia Lucía
Published: May 2024

Introducción: los embalses deben ser concebidos como un conjunto de interacciones, donde la inestabilidad física, química y biológica determinan cambios en la densidad de las comunidades planctónicas. Objetivo: Evaluar la inestabilidad del fitoplancton y zooplancton y su interacción con factores ambientales en cuatro embalses tropicales andinos con diferente estado trófico. Métodos: se analizaron datos de variables físicas y químicas y de las densidades del fitoplancton y del zooplancton, medidas entre 2010-2018, en los embalses oligotróficos Punchiná y San Lorenzo y, entre 2013 y 2015, en el embalse hipereutrófico Porce II y en el embalse eutrófico Porce III (n = 248). Se empleó el Factor Shaping Community Assemblages (FCA por sus siglas en inglés), para calcular la inestabilidad biótica y ambiental y la interacción entre esta. Resultados: de acuerdo con el FCA, en los embalses estudiados hubo una alta inestabilidad ambiental y biológica. El pH, la saturación de oxígeno, el nitrógeno total, la temperatura del agua, los nitritos, el fósforo total (solo para el zooplancton) y los sólidos totales, son las variables abióticas con mayor aporte a la inestabilidad planctónica. Particularmente, Cryptomonas sp., Aulacoseira sp., Cyclotella sp., Dinobryon sp., Nephrocytium sp., Tetraëdron caudatum y Oscillatoria sp., tuvieron mayor influencia sobre la inestabilidad de diferentes taxones de rotíferos y de algunos copépodos. Conclusión: independiente del estado trófico, la dinámica del pH, la disponibilidad de nutrientes, la cantidad de sólidos suspendidos y la disponibilidad de gases como el oxígeno disuelto determinaron principalmente la inestabilidad del fitoplancton, y en menor medida la del zooplancton. En los embalses oligotróficos la inestabilidad del zooplancton es influenciada principalmente por algas altamente palatables con toxicidad nula, y en embalses altamente enriquecidos la inestabilidad fue influenciada por algas con baja calidad nutricional y de difícil ingestión y manipulación.
Attitudes of psychedelic users regarding cost of treatment and non-hallucinogenic alternatives
Authors: Aday Jacob S. , Boehnke Kevin F. , Herberholz Moss , Kruger Daniel J.
Published: May 2024

Background and aims

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) is currently being studied as a possible treatment option for multiple disorders. Despite promising safety and efficacy findings, the high costs of the current PAP model makes it questionable if the treatment will be scalable. Non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analogs have been developed as a potential cost-effective alternative, but it is unclear what psychedelic users perceive as a reasonable cost for treatment and whether they would be open to trying a non-hallucinogenic analog.

Methods

We queried a large sample of people using psychedelics naturalistically (N = 1,221) about their attitudes regarding the role of altered states of consciousness in PAP outcomes, costs of treatment, and their openness to trying a non-hallucinogenic psychedelic analog for treating a mental health condition.

Results

We found that most (76%) participants considered altered states of consciousness as very or extremely important to the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. Despite this, most (61%) were also moderately, very, or extremely likely to try a non-hallucinogenic substance if given the chance. Lastly, participants considered approximately $70–80 per hour to be a reasonable cost for various aspects of psychedelic services (e.g., preparation, integration, and dosing sessions).

Conclusions

Participants valued the role of altered states of consciousness in therapeutic changes attributed to psychedelics, but were still open to trying a non-hallucinogenic analog. Notably, the price participants considered to be a reasonable amount for PAP is well below current market projections. Future research is needed to address limitations of the study as well as to identify ways of lowering treatment costs.
Cultivating Pacific Studies in Koʻolauloa
Authors: Kruse Line-Noue Memea , ʻHafoka ʻInoke
Published: May 2024

Pacific Studies is an interdisciplinary field that began in the twentieth century in Australia, Aotearoa, and the United States (Mawyer et al., 2020). The field sought to understand the area and region of Oceania, but later, many scholars took more critical approaches to Pacific Studies. These approaches have provided more perspectives from those connected to and in relation to Oceania. The authors provide a historical account of Pacific Studies being introduced into Hawaiʻi (first within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu) to then illustrate how it has become situated within the Koʻolauloa region of Oʻahu where Brigham Young University-Hawaiʻi (BYUH) is located. The purpose of sharing this historical account of Pacific Studies in Hawaiʻi, and more specifically BYUH, is to provide invaluable insights into the evolution of the academic discipline. There is a deeper appreciation for the present state of Pacific Studies and its potential future direction when past decisions and outcomes are recognized and understood within institutions and places. The authors look forward to fostering transparency, critical reflection, and informing decision-making processes to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of the Pacific Studies field.
Reclaiming, Resisting and Representing: Makings Space for Palauan Knowledge in a Pacific Islander Serving Institution
Authors: Hannibal Joy R.
Published: May 2024

Little research exists on the specific ways that Indigenous Knowledge is integrated into institutions of higher education across the U.S.-affiliated islands of Micronesia. This research study highlights the existence of Palauan Knowledge within Palau Community College. An Indigenous paradigm (Wilson, 2003) is utilized to align with Palauan values of respect (omenguul), responsibility (ngerachel), care and compassion (klechubechub). Through interviews (chelededuch) with nine collaborators, in addition to field notes, observations, and archival documents, this study was guided by the following questions: How is Indigenous Knowledge incorporated within Palau Community College (PCC)? Secondly, how do stories from Indigenous teachers and Indigenous learning environments inform PCC? Findings from this study reveal experiences of separation from Palauan Knowledge and the actions some collaborators took to preserve Palauan Knowledge. Collaborators’ narratives highlight several instances where Palauan knowledge is honored within the college through visual and oral representations and with academic and community programming. Continuity of Palauan Knowledge through ongoing opportunities to sustain practices in and outside the college is explored in the final reflections of collaborators. They continue to challenge perspectives that Indigenous Knowledge is in the past and instead is evolving. Ultimately, this study lays a foundation for continued inquiry and reflection of the college to continue to interrogate the ways that Palau Community College elevates Indigenous Knowledge.
Redistributing Waiwai: Carrying Abundance for Movement Building in Hawaiʻi
Authors: Huihui Micky
Published: May 2024

In this community spotlight, Executive Director Micky Huihui describes the work and aims of Hawaiʻi People’s Fund, an organization that seeks to contribute to social justice movements in Hawaiʻi through funding and supporting grassroots organizations and leaders doing on-the-ground social justice work.
Returning ʻŌiwi Birthing Practices to Hospitals in Hawaiʻi
Authors: Pinto Pua ʻO Eleili , Soon Reni
Published: May 2024

ʻŌiwi birthing practices are intimate relationships between family, community, and the environment. They support the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental health of the whole family. In the Hawaiian Kingdom, with the introduction of institutionalized birth, Queen Kapiʻolani hybridized Euro-American birth practices with ʻŌiwi ones. Over time, with the changing of political leadership and the devaluation of traditional knowledge, ʻŌiwi birth practices have become virtually unknown to many. As Native Hawaiians today disproportionately experience adverse pregnancy outcomes, the authors advocate for and outline how returning to ancestral and historical ʻŌiwi birthing practices in hospitals could improve ʻŌiwi maternal and neonatal health.
Abstraction Heuristics for Factored Tasks
Authors: Büchner Clemens , Ferber Patrick , Seipp Jendrik , Helmert Malte
Published: May 2024

One of the strongest approaches for optimal classical planning is A* search with heuristics based on abstractions of the planning task. Abstraction heuristics are well studied in planning formalisms without conditional effects such as SAS+. However, conditional effects are crucial to model many planning tasks compactly. In this paper, we focus on *factored* tasks which allow a specific form of conditional effect, where effects on variable x can only depend on the value of x. We generalize projections, domain abstractions, Cartesian abstractions and the counterexample-guided abstraction refinement method to this formalism. While merge-and-shrink already covers factored task in theory, we provide an implementation that does so. In our experiments, we compare these abstraction-based heuristics to other heuristics supporting conditional effects, as well as symbolic search. On our new benchmark set of factored tasks, pattern database heuristics solve the most problems, followed by symbolic approaches on par with domain abstractions. The more general Cartesian abstractions fall behind in terms of coverage but usually solve problems the fastest among all tested approaches. The generality of merge-and-shrink abstractions does not seem to be beneficial for these factored tasks.
Multi-Agent Temporal Task Solving and Plan Optimization
Authors: Caballero Testón J. , R-Moreno Maria D.
Published: May 2024

Several multi-agent techniques are utilized to reduce the complexity of classical planning tasks, however, their applicability to temporal planning domains is a currently open line of study in the field of Automated Planning.

In this paper, we present MA-LAMA, a factored, centralized, unthreated, satisfying, multi-agent temporal planner, that exploits the 'multi-agent nature' of temporal domains to perform plan optimization.

In MA-LAMA, temporal tasks are translated to the constrained snap-actions paradigm, and an automatic agent decomposition, goal assignment, and required cooperation analysis are carried out to build independent search steps, called Search Phases. These Search Phases are then solved by consecutive agent local searches, using classical heuristics and temporal constraints.

Experiments show that MA-LAMA is able to solve a wide range of classical and temporal multi-agent domains, performing significantly better in plan quality than other state-of-the-art temporal planners.
Return to Tradition: Learning Reliable Heuristics with Classical Machine Learning
Authors: Chen Dillon Z. , Trevizan Felipe , Thiébaux Sylvie
Published: May 2024

Current approaches for learning for planning have yet to achieve competitive performance against classical planners in several domains, and have poor overall performance. In this work, we construct novel graph representations of lifted planning tasks and use the WL algorithm to generate features from them. These features are used with classical machine learning methods which have up to 2 orders of magnitude fewer parameters and train up to 3 orders of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art deep learning for planning models. Our novel approach, WL-GOOSE, reliably learns heuristics from scratch and outperforms the hFF heuristic in a fair competition setting. It also outperforms or ties with LAMA on 4 out of 10 domains on coverage and 7 out of 10 domains on plan quality. WL-GOOSE is the first learning for planning model which achieves these feats. Furthermore, we study the connections between our novel WL feature generation method, previous theoretically flavoured learning architectures, and Description Logic Features for planning.
More Flexible Proximity Wildcards Path Planning with Compressed Path Databases
Authors: Chen Xi , Zhang Yue , Zhang Yonggang
Published: May 2024

Grid-based path planning is one of the classic problems in AI, and a popular topic in application areas such as computer games and robotics. Compressed Path Databases (CPDs) are recognized as a state-of-the-art method for grid-based path planning. It is able to find an optimal path extremely fast without state-space search. In recent years, researchers have tended to focus on improving CPDs by reducing CPD size or improving search performance. Among various methods, proximity wildcards are one of the most proven improvements in reducing the size of CPD. However, its proximity area is significantly restricted by complex terrain, which significantly affects the pathfinding efficiency and causes additional costs. In this paper, we enhance CPDs from the perspective of improving search efficiency and reducing search costs. Our work focuses on using more flexible methods to obtain larger proximity areas, so that more heuristic information can be used to improve search performance. Experiments conducted on the Grid-Based Path Planning Competition (GPPC) benchmarks demonstrate that the two proposed methods can effectively improve search efficiency and reduce search costs by up to 3 orders of magnitude. Remarkably, our methods can further reduce the storage cost, and improve the compression capability of CPDs simultaneously.
On Verifying Linear Execution Strategies in Planning Against Nature
Authors: Chrpa Lukáš , Karpas Erez
Published: May 2024

While planning and acting in environments in which nature can trigger non-deterministic events, the agent has to consider that the state of the environment might change without its consent. Practically, it means that the agent has to make sure that it eventually achieves its goal (if possible) despite the acts of nature. In this paper, we first formalize the semantics of such problems in Alternating-time Temporal Logic, which allows us to prove some theoretical properties of different types of solutions. Then, we focus on linear execution strategies, which resemble classical plans in that they follow a fixed sequence of actions. We show that any problem that can be solved by a linear execution strategy can be solved by a particular form of linear execution strategy which assigns wait-for preconditions to each action in the plan that specifies when to execute that action. Then, we propose a sound algorithm that verifies a sequence of actions and assigns wait-for preconditions to them by leveraging abstraction.
Multi-Objective Electric Vehicle Route and Charging Planning with Contraction Hierarchies
Authors: Cuchý Marek , Vokřínek Jiří , Jakob Michal
Published: May 2024

Electric vehicle (EV) travel planning is a complex task that involves planning the routes and the charging sessions for EVs while optimizing travel duration and cost. We show the applicability of the multi-objective EV travel planning algorithm with practically usable solution times on country-sized road graphs with a large number of charging stations and a realistic EV model. The approach is based on multi-objective A* search enhanced by Contraction hierarchies, optimal dimensionality reduction, and sub-optimal ϵ-relaxation techniques. We performed an extensive empirical evaluation on 182,000 problem instances showing the impact of various algorithm settings on real-world map of Bavaria and Germany with more than 12,000 charging stations. The results show the proposed approach is the first one capable of performing such a genuine multi-objective optimization on realistically large country-scale problem instances that can achieve practically usable planning times in order of seconds with only a minor loss of solution quality.
The achieved speed-up varies from ~11× for optimal solution to more than 250× for sub-optimal solution compared to vanilla multi-objective A*.
Higher-Dimensional Potential Heuristics: Lower Bound Criterion and Connection to Correlation Complexity
Authors: Dold Simon , Helmert Malte
Published: May 2024

Correlation complexity is a measure of a planning task indicating how hard it is. The introducing work, provides sufficient criteria to detect a correlation complexity of 2 on a
planning task. It also introduced an example of a planning
task with correlation complexity 3. In our work, we introduce
a criterion to detect an arbitrary correlation complexity and
extend the mentioned example to show with the new criterion that planning tasks with arbitrary correlation complexity
exist.
SLAMuZero: Plan and Learn to Map for Joint SLAM and Navigation
Authors: Fang Bowen , Chen Xu , Pan Zhengkun , Di Xuan
Published: May 2024

MuZero has demonstrated remarkable performance in board and video games where Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) method is utilized to learn and adapt to different game environments. This paper leverages the strength of MuZero to enhance agents’ planning capability for joint active simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and navigation tasks, which require an agent to navigate an unknown environment while simultaneously constructing a map and localizing itself. We propose SLAMuZero, a novel approach for joint SLAM and navigation, which employs a search process that uses an explicit encoder-decoder architecture for mapping, followed by a prediction function to evaluate policy and value based on the generated map. SLAMuZero outperforms the state-of-the-art baseline and significantly reduces training time, underscoring the efficiency of our approach. Additionally, we develop a new open source library for implementing SLAMuZero, which is a flexible and modular toolkit for researchers and practitioners (https://github.com/bwfbowen/SLAMuZero).
Preference Explanation and Decision Support for Multi-Objective Real-World Test Laboratory Scheduling
Authors: Mischek Florian , Musliu Nysret
Published: May 2024

Complex real-world scheduling problems often include multiple conflicting objectives.
Decision makers (DMs) can express their preferences over those objectives in different ways, including as sets of weights which are used in a linear combination of objective values.
However, finding good sets of weights that result in solutions with desirable qualities is challenging and currently involves a lot of trial and error.
We propose a general method to explain objectives' values under a given set of weights using Shapley regression values.
We demonstrate this approach on the Test Laboratory Scheduling Problem (TLSP), for which we propose a multi-objective solution algorithm and show that suggestions for weight adjustments based on the introduced explanations are successful in guiding decision makers towards solutions that match their expectations.
This method is included in the TLSP MO-Explorer, a new decision support system that enables the exploration and analysis of high-dimensional Pareto fronts.
SKATE : Successive Rank-based Task Assignment for Proactive Online Planning
Authors: Nedelmann Déborah Conforto , Lacan Jérôme , Chanel Caroline P. C.
Published: May 2024

The development of online applications for services such as package delivery, crowdsourcing, or taxi dispatching has caught the attention of the research community to the domain of online multi-agent multi-task allocation. In online service applications, tasks (or requests) to be performed arrive over time and need to be dynamically assigned to agents. Such planning problems are challenging because: (i) few or almost no information about future tasks is available for long-term reasoning; (ii) agent number, as well as, task number can be impressively high; and (iii) an efficient solution has to be reached in a limited amount of time. In this paper, we propose SKATE, a successive rank-based task assignment algorithm for online multi-agent planning. SKATE can be seen as a meta-heuristic approach which successively assigns a task to the best-ranked agent until all tasks have been assigned. We assessed the complexity of SKATE and showed it is cubic in the number of agents and tasks. To investigate how multi-agent multi-task assignment algorithms perform under a high number of agents and tasks, we compare three multi-task assignment methods in synthetic and real data benchmark environments: Integer Linear Programming (ILP), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and SKATE. In addition, a proactive approach is nested to all methods to determine near-future available agents (resources) using a receding-horizon. Based on the results obtained, we can argue that the classical ILP offers the better quality solutions when treating a low number of agents and tasks, i.e. low load despite the receding-horizon size, while it struggles to respect the time constraint for high load. SKATE performs better than the other methods in high load conditions, and even better when a variable receding-horizon is used.
Incremental Ordering for Scheduling Problems
Authors: Neubert Stefan , Casel Katrin
Published: May 2024

Given an instance of a scheduling problem where we want to start executing jobs as soon as possible, it is advantageous if a scheduling algorithm emits the first parts of its solution early, in particular before the algorithm completes its work. Therefore, in this position paper, we analyze core scheduling problems in regards to their enumeration complexity, i.e. the computation time to the first emitted schedule entry (preprocessing time) and the worst case time between two consecutive parts of the solution (delay).

Specifically, we look at scheduling instances that reduce to ordering problems. We apply a known incremental sorting algorithm for scheduling strategies that are at their core comparison-based sorting algorithms and translate corresponding upper and lower complexity bounds to the scheduling setting. For instances with n jobs and a precedence DAG with maximum degree Δ, we incrementally build a topological ordering with O(n) preprocessing and O(Δ) delay. We prove a matching lower bound and show with an adversary argument that the delay lower bound holds even in case the DAG has constant average degree and the ordering is emitted out-of-order in the form of insert operations.

We complement our theoretical results with experiments that highlight the improved time-to-first-output and discuss research opportunities for similar incremental approaches for other scheduling problems.
Accelerating Search-Based Planning for Multi-Robot Manipulation by Leveraging Online-Generated Experiences
Authors: Shaoul Yorai , Mishani Itamar , Likhachev Maxim , Li Jiaoyang
Published: May 2024

An exciting frontier in robotic manipulation is the use of multiple arms at once.
However, planning concurrent motions is a challenging task using current methods. The high-dimensional composite state space renders many well-known motion planning algorithms intractable.
Recently, Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) algorithms have shown promise in discrete 2D domains, providing rigorous guarantees. However, widely used conflict-based methods in MAPF assume an efficient single-agent motion planner. This poses challenges in adapting them to manipulation cases where this assumption does not hold, due to the high dimensionality of configuration spaces and the computational bottlenecks associated with collision checking.
To this end, we propose an approach for accelerating conflict-based search algorithms by leveraging their repetitive and incremental nature -- making them tractable for use in complex scenarios involving multi-arm coordination in obstacle-laden environments.
We show that our method preserves completeness and bounded sub-optimality guarantees, and demonstrate its practical efficacy through a set of experiments with up to 10 robotic arms.
Explaining the Space of SSP Policies via Policy-Property Dependencies: Complexity, Algorithms, and Relation to Multi-Objective Planning
Authors: Steinmetz Marcel , Thiébaux Sylvie , Höller Daniel , Teichteil-Königsbuch Florent
Published: May 2024

Stochastic shortest path (SSP) problems are a common framework for planning under uncertainty. However, the reactive structure of their solution policies is typically not easily comprehensible by an end-user, nor do planners justify the reasons behind their choice of a particular policy over others. To strengthen confidence in the planner's decision-making, recent work in classical planning has introduced a framework for explaining to the user the possible solution space in terms of necessary trade-offs between user-provided plan properties. Here, we extend this framework to SSPs. We introduce a notion of policy properties taking into account action-outcome uncertainty. We analyze formally the computational problem of identifying the exclusion relationships between policy properties, showing that this problem is in fact harder than SSP planning in a complexity theoretical sense. We show that all the relationships can be identified through a series of heuristic searches, which, if ordered in a clever way, yields an anytime algorithm. Further, we introduce an alternative method, which leverages a connection to multi-objective probabilistic planning to move all the computational burden to a preprocessing step. Finally, we explore empirically the feasibility of the proposed explanation methodology on a range of adapted IPPC benchmarks.
Neural Action Policy Safety Verification: Applicablity Filtering
Authors: Vinzent Marcel , Hoffmann Jörg
Published: May 2024

Neural networks (NN) are an increasingly important representation of action policies pi. Applicability filtering is a commonly used practice in this context, restricting the action selection in pi to only applicable actions. Policy predicate abstraction (PPA) has recently been introduced to verify safety of neural pi, through over-approximating the state space subgraph induced by pi. Thus far however, PPA does not permit applicability filtering, which is challenging due to the additional constraints that need to be taken into account. Here we overcome that limitation, through a range of algorithmic enhancements. In our experiments, our enhancements achieve several orders of magnitude speed-up over a baseline implementation, bringing PPA with applicability filtering close to the performance of PPA without such filtering.
Tightest Admissible Shortest Path
Authors: Weiss Eyal , Felner Ariel , Kaminka Gal A.
Published: May 2024

The shortest path problem in graphs is fundamental to AI. Nearly all variants of the problem and relevant algorithms that solve them ignore edge-weight computation time and its common relation to weight uncertainty. This implies that taking these factors into consideration can potentially lead to a performance boost in relevant applications. Recently, a generalized framework for weighted directed graphs was suggested, where edge-weight can be computed (estimated) multiple times, at increasing accuracy and run-time expense. We build on this framework to introduce the problem of finding the tightest admissible shortest path (TASP); a path with the tightest suboptimality bound on the optimal cost. This is a generalization of the shortest path problem to bounded uncertainty, where edge-weight uncertainty can be traded for computational cost. We present a complete algorithm for solving TASP, with guarantees on solution quality. Empirical evaluation supports the effectiveness of this approach.
Neuro-Symbolic Learning of Lifted Action Models from Visual Traces
Authors: Xi Kai , Gould Stephen , Thiébaux Sylvie
Published: May 2024

Model-based planners rely on action models to describe available actions in terms of their preconditions and effects. Nonetheless, manually encoding such models is challenging, especially in complex domains. Numerous methods have been proposed to learn action models from examples of plan execution traces. However, high-level information, such as state labels within traces, is often unavailable and needs to be inferred indirectly from raw observations. In this paper, we aim to learn lifted action models from visual traces --- sequences of image-action pairs depicting discrete successive trace steps. We present ROSAME, a differentiable neuRO-Symbolic Action Model lEarner that infers action models from traces consisting of probabilistic state predictions and actions. By combining ROSAME with a deep learning computer vision model, we create an end-to-end framework that jointly learns state predictions from images and infers symbolic action models. Experimental results demonstrate that our method succeeds in both tasks, using different visual state representations, with the learned action models often matching or even surpassing those created by humans.
Improving the Efficiency and Efficacy of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning on Complex Railway Networks with a Local-Critic Approach
Authors: Zhang Yuan , Deekshith Umashankar , Wang Jianhong , Boedecker Joschka
Published: May 2024

The complex railway network is a challenging real-world multi-agent system usually involving thousands of agents. Current planning methods heavily depend on expert knowledge to formulate solutions for specific cases and are therefore hardly generalized to new scenarios, on which multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) draws significant attention. Despite some successful applications in multi-agent decision-making tasks, MARL is hard to scale to a large number of agents. This paper rethinks the curse of agents in the centralized-training-decentralized-execution (CTDE) paradigm and proposes a local-critic approach to address the issue. By combining the local critic with the PPO algorithm, we design a deep MARL algorithm denoted as local-critic PPO (LCPPO). In experiments, we evaluate the effectiveness of LCPPO on a complex railway network benchmark, Flatland, with various numbers of agents. Noticeably, LCPPO shows prominent generalizability and robustness under the changes of environments.
Planning and Execution in Multi-Agent Path Finding: Models and Algorithms
Authors: Zhang Yue , Chen Zhe , Harabor Daniel , Bodic Pierre Le , Stuckey Peter J.
Published: May 2024

In applications of Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF), it is often the sum of planning and execution times that needs to be minimised (i.e., the Goal Achievement Time). Yet current methods seldom optimise for this objective. Optimal algorithms reduce execution time, but may require exponential planning time. Non-optimal algorithms reduce planning time, but at the expense of increased path length. To address these limitations we introduce PIE (Planning and Improving while Executing), a new framework for concurrent planning and execution in MAPF. We show how different instantiations of PIE affect practical performance, including initial planning time, action commitment time and concurrent vs. sequential planning and execution. We then adapt PIE to Lifelong MAPF, a popular application setting where agents are continuously assigned new goals and where additional decisions are required to ensure feasibility. We examine a variety of different approaches to overcome these challenges and we conduct comparative experiments vs. recently proposed alternatives. Results show that PIE substantially outperforms existing methods for One-shot and Lifelong MAPF.
Conte oral traditionnel et conscience écologique
Authors: KAKOU EPOUSE ASSI Adja Aboman Béatrice
Published: May 2024

Le processus de développement des sociétés humaines est caractérisé depuis toujours par une consommation démesurée, incontrôlée et irrationnelle des ressources de la terre, avec pour priorité la rentabilisation des capitaux et la satisfaction des besoins immédiats. Cette vision, plébiscitée et vulgarisée depuis lors, étale aujourd’hui ses limites, voire ses dangers par la crise humanitaire et écologique. La situation alarmante de finitude écologique de la terre impose de repenser le développement par un changement de paradigmes scientifiques et par l’appropriation et la promotion de nouvelles valeurs universelles en vue d’un développement durable saisi selon le rapport Brundtland comme un mode de vie qui répond aux besoins du présent sans compromettre l’évolution des générations futures. Comment y parvenir ? Notre communication intitulée « De la fiction à la réalité : pour une contribution du conte oral traditionnel au développement durable » qui s’inscrit à sa manière dans une optique traditionnelle du développement durable, envisage répondre à cette interrogation à travers l’étude d’un conte qui, au-delà des aspects anthropologiques, symboliques et sacrés, propose des solutions scientifiquement hardies en faveur du développement durable. Rigoureusement adossée à une démarche descriptive et socio-littéraire, l’analyse du conte oral traditionnel koulango (peuple habitant le Nord-Est de la Côte d’Ivoire) Pourquoi il y a des gens qui ne mangent pas le singe ? après, une brève exposition du cadre théorique du conte met en exergue les dimensions culturelles du récit et s’achève sur des propositions concrètes contribuant au développement durable.
Pour une analyse linguistique comparée de deux Chartes de l'environnement: la France et le Royaume du Maroc
Authors: SAGGIOMO Carmen
Published: May 2024

L’environnement et la durabilité ont progressivement constitué l’un des axes sur lesquels se sont concentrées les intentions politiques et juridiques de l’État. Ceci a créé un nouvel attrait pour les Chartes constitutionnelles, leurs documents d’intégration et leurs formulations de base. La Constitution française a été l’une des premières Constitutions inspirées par une nouvelle conscience environnementale. La France a inséré dans le Préambule de sa Constitution la Charte de l’environnement. C’est ainsi que l’engagement pris par le Président de la République Jacques Chirac pour l’insertion d’une écologie humaniste dans le pacte constitutionnel a été mis en pratique. D’autres pays francophones ont également fait un choix constitutionnel similaire. Parmi eux, le Royaume du Maroc s’est doté d’une Charte Nationale de l’environnement et du Développement Durable, dont la rédaction a été entamée suite aux directives énoncées par Sa Majesté le Roi Mohamed VI lors de son discours du Trône du 30 juillet 2009. Ces deux Chartes bien qu’inspirées des mêmes principes, utilisent des expressions linguistiques différentes, à évaluer de façon spécifique. Après un examen formel du dispositif législatif, nous nous concentrerons sur les convergences et sur les divergences – sur le plan morphologique, syntaxique et sémantique – propres à identifier les différentes approches adoptées par ces deux États pour la protection de l’environnement.
Moby-Dick à l’opéra
Authors: HALARY Amélie
Published: May 2024

Cet article traite de la relation entre la littérature et l'opéra et plus précisément entre l'opéra Moby-Dick de Jack Heggies (2020) et le roman Moby-Dick de Melville datant du 19ème siècle : La Baleine. Cet article étudie les implications de l'adaptation du roman de Melville sur la scène de l'opéra, ce qui conduit à une redéfinition de la relation hiérarchique entre une adaptation et sa contrepartie adaptée. En suivant la théorie de l'adaptation de Linda Hutcheon, j'étudie comment l'adaptation opératique permet à la fois une réinterprétation et une recréation du roman de Melville. Intrinsèquement adaptatif, le genre de l'opéra contribue à redéfinir et à remodeler la narration du roman par le biais de ses éléments textuels, visuels et musicaux. En se concentrant sur le processus d'adaptation, cet article élucide la manière dont l'adaptation opératique d'Heggie aide à incarner et à représenter la relation complexe qui lie la musique aux mots et les mots au sens.
May the best drag queen win
Authors: BONENFANT Luc
Published: May 2024

Pensé en termes de “présence” et d’“engagement” (Betasamosake Simpson, 2018), l’art du drag nous oblige à réfléchir aux positions et aux contingences propres aux subjectivités qui évoluent au sein de nos espaces culturels et sociaux. En conséquence, cet article se concentre sur la performance et l’agentivité dans RuPaul’s Drag Race pour envisager les (im)possibilités découlant de sa diffusion. En usurpant comme elle le fait les possibilités offertes par les systèmes (capitalistes, hétéronormatifs) en place, Drag Race défie nos espaces culturels et sociaux actuels en en redéfinissant les contours. De manière paradoxale, l’élargissement de sa notoriété à travers le monde a pour conséquence un remodelage de l’espace hétéronormatif au sein même duquel l’émission se trouve diffusée. Ce faisant Drag Race interroge notre culture et nos systèmes de valeurs politiques et sociales de la manière dont le ferait tout type d’“art oppositionnel” (Lagasnerie, 2020).
DNA MISMATCH-REPAIR PROTEIN EXPRESSION AND PROGNOSTIC SIGNIFICANCE IN GASTRIC CANCER
Authors: Gama Ibrahim , Vieria Maria , Martins Diana , Teixeira Paulo , Silva Maria de Fátima , Melo Fernando , Bolais Inês , Colaço Inês , Andrade Sara , Oliveira Rui Caetano , Ferreira Inês , Carreira Patrícia , Rocha Clara , Mendes Fernando
Published: May 2024

Introduction: Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common cancer and one of the most common causes of cancer death worldwide. Systemic chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery are the current treatment options. However, the poor outcomes indicate the need for more effective treatment strategies in order to improve patients survival rates. DNA mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency has received increasing attention as a biomarker of anti-PD-L1 treatments of solid tumors including gastric cancer (GC).
Aim: Our aim was to explore the expression of DNA MMR, PD-L1, and Ki-67 expression in GC patients and evaluate its clinicopathological and prognostic significance.
Material & Methods: We performed a retrospective study assessing DNA MMR status, Ki-67, and PD-L1 expression in 30 GC patients using immunohistochemistry staining for MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, PMS2, Ki-67 and PD-L1. Clinicopathological features, disease-free survival, and overall survival (OS) were collected from all patients.
Results: Expression of MMR proteins was observed in 40% of GC samples. The remaining samples exhibited an altered pattern of MMR protein. High PD-L1 expression was observed in 33,3% of the cases and Ki-67 expression in 53%. The results demonstrate that patients with MSI tumours demonstrated a better OS than MSS patients. The results also demonstrate a positive correlation between PD-L1 expression, advanced age and Ki-67 expression.
Conclusion: These results prove preliminary evidence that patients with the MSI GC show better outcome than MSS GC and that patients with MSI tumours can have potential better outcomes with immunotherapy. Although multicenter studies with additional molecular investigation are required to explore these tumors, the results demonstrate that MMR and MSI associated with PD-L1 could be important in GC treatment and outcome.
EFIKASNOST DRY NEEDLING TEHNIKE UZ STANDARDNI FIZIKALNI TRETMAN OSOBA S LUMBALNIM BOLNIM SINDROMOM
Authors: Kaljić Eldad , Džaferović Demir , Katana Bakir , Pecar Muris , Bojičić Samir , Trtak Namik
Published: May 2024

Uvod: Lumbalni bolni sindrom podrazumijeva tegobe koje se javljaju u donjem dijelu leđa. Najčešći razlog je disfunkcija lumbosakralnog dijela kičme i zaštitna mišićna reakcija na bol. Tegobe koje nastaju u lumbalnom dijelu kičme u rasponu od nespecifičnog do diskogenog porijekla nose zajednički naziv lumbalni bolni sindrom. Cilj istraživanja je bio ispitati efikasnost dry needling tehnike uz ostale modalitete fizikalne terapije na intenzitet i katastrofiziranje bola i stepen onesposobljenja osoba s lumablnim bolnim sindromom.
Metode istraživanja: Istraživanje je dizajnirano kao prospektivna randomizirana studija koja je upoređivala stanje ispitanika prije i nakon provedenog tretmana. Istraživanje je obuvatilo 35 ispitanika s lumbalnim bolnim sindromom oba spola, dobi od 25 do 83 godine i različitih zanimanja. Ispitanici su nakon provedenog fizikalnog pregleda započeli proces fizioterapijske rehabilitacije koja je obuhvatila Dry needling tehniku uz standardne modalitete fizikalne terapije: Interferentnu struju, terapijski ultrazvuk, LASER i kratkotalasnu dijatermiju. Terapijski protokol je trajao 10 dana u vremenskom periodu od dvije sedmice.
Rezultati istraživanja: Analiza srednjih vrijednosti Vizualne analogne skale (VAS) i skale katastrofizacije bola (PCS) je pokazala značajno poboljšanje u odnosu na period prije terapije; VAS prije terapije 8,17, nakon terapije 3,06, PCS prije terapije 25,66, nakon terapije 9,11. Analiza Oswestry Disibility Index skale (ODI) je također pokazala značajno smanjenje srednjih vrijednosti stepena onesposobljenja ispitanika nakon provedenog terapijskog protokola; ODI prije terapije 52,00. nakon terapije 22,00.
Zaključak: Dry needling tehnika uz standardne fizikalne procedure dovodi do smanjenja intenziteta i katastrofizacije bola, te smanjenja stepena onesposobljenja osoba s lumbalnim bolnim sindromom.
POVEZANOST ANTENATALNE DEPRESIJE S ISHODOM PORODA I DOJENJA
Authors: Perić Olivera
Published: May 2024

Uvod: Antenatalna depresija je oblik kliničke depresije koji može imati razoran utjecaj na ženu tijekom trudnoće i može prethoditi postporođajnoj depresiji ako se ne liječi na vrijeme i pravilno. Činjenica je da se antenatalna depresija nedovoljno dijagnosticira, i kao posljedica toga, nedovoljno liječi. Rizik se povećava kako se trudnoća razvija, te se procjenjuje da će 18% trudnica razviti antenatalnu depresiju. Depresivni poremećaji tijekom trudnoće mogu štetno utjecati na tijek trudnoće, njezin ishod i započinjanje dojenja.
Cilj: Svrha ovog rada je ukazati na povezanost depresivnih poremećaja tijekom trudnoće s nepovoljnim ishodima trudnoće, poroda i započinjanja dojenja, te ukazati na važnost boljeg probira na depresiju u trudnoći kao dijela rutinske prenatalne skrbi.
Razrada: Neliječena antenatalna depresija može imati značajne posljedice i za majku i za njezino dijete. Visoke razine simptoma depresije u trudnica povezane s nepovoljnim opstetričkim i neonatalnim ishodima, uključujući povećani rizik za spontani prijevremeni porod, nisku porođajnu težinu, preeklampsiju, dijabetes, itd. Trudnice s simptomima depresije većinom ne namjeravaju dojiti i znatno manje započinju dojenje u prvom satu nakon poroda. Važnu ulogu u otkrivanju depresije u trudnoći imaju programi probira koji moraju biti dio preventivne zdravstvene zaštite trudnica, te ih treba jasno nadopunjavati smjernicama i protokolima za daljnji tretman trudnica kojima je potrebna pomoć.
Zaključak: Neophodna je edukacija iz područja depresije u trudnoći svih zdravstvenih djelatnika uključenih u liječenje trudnica, uključujući i primalje, jer se time povećavaju izgledi za prevenciju depresije, brža dijagnoza, liječenje i smanjenje opasnosti od nepovoljnih ishoda poroda i dojenja.
LEGIONELA: IZAZOVI, RIZICI I SUVREMENE TEHNIKE DETEKCIJE
Authors: Cenov Arijana
Published: May 2024

Razvoj medicinske dijagnostike te laboratorijskih i instrumentalnih metoda detekcije i brojenja Legionella spp. iz humanih i okolišnih uzoraka, omogućava kontinuirano proširenje znanja o ovoj bakteriji. Napori su usmjereni na redukciju ili suzbijanje njene pojavnosti u okolišnim uzorcima, što će se u konačnici odraziti na smanjenje rizika od pojave legionarske bolesti. Prvi je puta ova bakterija identificirana 1976. godine, kada je veliki broj sudionika na skupu legionara obolio od, do tada nepoznate bolesti. Prema oboljelim legionarima, bolest koja je uzrokovala ovu atipičnu upalu pluća s visokim postotkom smrtnih ishoda, nazvana je legionarska bolest, a bakterija koja je uzrokuje Legionella pneumophila. Ubikvitarna je u prirodnom vodenom okolišu (rijeke, jezera, potoci ribnjaci). Za čovjeka postaje infektivna kada se namnoži u vodoopskrbnim sustavima različitih objekata, brodova, protupožarnim cijevima, rashladnim tornjevima, koji imaju potencijal stvaranja aerosola. Za smanjenje rizika ili kod pojave legionele u sustavima distribucije vode, predložene su mjere suzbijanja koje se provode pod stručnim nadzorom. Međutim, iskustvo je pokazalo da i nakon provedenih mjera ostaje izazov kako sustav održati sigurnim od kolonizacije legionelama. U cilju ranog otkrivanja i suzbijanja prisustva legionela u sustavima distribucije vode, od velike je važnosti razviti efikasne metode i tehnike dijagnosticiranja legionela iz različitih vodenih matriksa. Stoga će se ovo predavanje osvrnuti na metode identifikacije legionala koje se koriste u Odsjeku za sanitarnu mikrobiologiju i biologiju okoliša Nastavnog zavoda za javno zdravstvo Primorsko-goranske županije. Osim normirane metode kultivacije, u našem laboratoriju koriste se i suvremene tehnike detekcije poput RT-PCR tehnike, masene spektrometrije (MALDI-TOF) te infracrvene spektroskopije s Furierovom transformacijom (FTIR). Korištenje navedenih instrumenata i tehnika omogućava dobivanje dodatnih informacija, koje su od iznimnog epidemiološkog i javnozdravstvenog značaja.
BASIC BIOCHEMICAL AND HEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS IN COVID-19 DECEASED: ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL MORTALITY PREDICTORS
Authors: Marušić Jasmina , Hasković Edhem , Mujezinović Adnan , Adilović Harun , Đido Vedran
Published: May 2024

Introduction: As a result of research conducted globally, experts continue to extensively study the long-term consequences that SARS-CoV-2 infection can have on patients, as well as the factors contributing to severe outcomes. The aim of this study was to investigate the values of basic biochemical and hematological parameters in patients with fatal outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection, as well as to determine the combination of hematological and biochemical parameters that contribute to the progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The examined parameters were correlated with age and gender distribution of patients with fatal outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: The study represents a retrospective study of patients hospitalized at the Cantonal Hospital Zenica from February to April 2021, focusing on the biochemical and hematological parameters of subjects with confirmed presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus using the RT-PCR method, who were hospitalized at the Cantonal Hospital Zenica. Results: Of the 250 deceased subjects in the sample, females comprised the relative majority with 53.6%. Among the examined parameters, hemoglobin, MCH, and MCH were significantly lower in females compared to males, while males had significantly higher values of urea, creatinine, and troponin. The average age of the patients was 74 years, and with aging, the values of erythrocytes, hemoglobin, and troponin increased. Troponin showed a statistically significant positive correlation with age, as well as with urea and creatinine.
Conclusion: We can conclude that hemoglobin, urea, creatinine, and troponin are parameters that can be considered to contribute to the progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection. These parameters can be useful for assessing disease severity and prognosis in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus.