MAIA: an event-based modular architecture for intelligent agents

Online services are no longer isolated. The release of public APIs and technologies such as web hooks are allowing users and developers to access their information easily. Intelligent agents could use this information to provide a better user experience across services, connecting services with smart automatic. behaviours or actions. However, agent platforms are not prepared to easily add external sources such as web services, which hinders the usage of agents in the so-called Evented or Live Web. As a solution, this paper introduces an event-based architecture for agent systems, in accordance with the new tendencies in web programming. In particular, it is focused on personal agents that interact with several web services. With this architecture, called MAIA, connecting to new web services does not involve any modification in the platform.

Polarization properties of polymer-based photonic crystal fibers

Selectively filled photonic crystal fibers with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicon-type material, have been studied. Is has been demonstrated that polarization properties of these hybrid devices and the properties of the guided light in relation with the temperature changes, finding that the state of polarization (SOP) change with the increasing temperature but remains constant for a wide spectrum of wavelengths for a determinate temperature.

Validation Study of the Use of Matlab/Simulink Synchronous-Machine Block for Accurate Power-Plant Stability Studies

This paper presents results of the validity study of the use of MATLAB/Simulink synchronous-machine block for power-system stability studies. Firstly, the waveforms of the theoretical synchronous-generator short-circuit currents are described. Thereafter, the comparison between the currents obtained through the simulation model in the sudden short-circuit test, are compared to the theoretical ones. Finally, the factory tests of two commercial generating units are compared to the response of the synchronous generator simulation block during sudden short-circuit, set with the same real data, with satisfactory results. This results show the validity of the use of this generator block for power plant simulation.

Infiltration of a photonic crystal fiber with cholesteric liquid crystal and blue phase

Photonic crystal fibers (PCF) have been selectively filled with a cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLC) with special interest in the blue phase (BP) of the liquid crystal. It has been observed thermal tuning of the guided light in the visible region. A dramatically enhance appears when the phase of the liquid crystal changes from cholesteric to blue phase I (BPI). When a thermal range of the blue phase I is achieved, no changes are observed while increasing temperature from BPI through BPII and to the isotropic phase.

Biofouling on PM stainless steels

Powder metallurgy (PM) consists in obtaining pieces of powder metal that are processed at high temperatures and pressure. Due to its characteristic manufacturing process, the materials can have a specific and controlled porosity, which makes it possible to obtain porous parts such as ball bearings, gears, and roller bearings, etc. This porosity is what made us think about how easy biofouling would be on these materials and its possible environmental applications.

Flood Hazard Analysis in the ”Caldera de Taburiente” National Park (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain) using Dendrogeomorphology

Aplicación de técnicas dendroecológicas para el estudio de avenidas torrenciales.

Unit Commitment and Electricity Prices Forecasting for Market Strategy Preparation in Interconnected Systems

In this paper we present a solution for building a better strategy to take part in external electricity markets. For an optimal strategy development, both the internal system costs as well as the future values of the series of electricity prices in external markets need to be known. But in practice, the real problems that must be faced are that both future electricity prices and costs are unknown. Thus, the first ones must be modeled and forecasted and the costs must be calculated. Our methodology for building an optimal strategy consists of three steps: The first step is modeling and forecasting market prices in external systems. The second step is the cost calculation on internal system taking into account the expected prices in the first step. The third step is based on the results of the previous steps, and consists of preparing the bids for external markets. The main goal is to reduce consumers' costs unlike many others that are oriented to increase GenCo's profits.

XRD analysis of InGaN uniform layers grown on Si (111) without any buffer layers and on Sapphire

The International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors (IWN) is a biennial academic conference in the field of group III nitride research. The IWN and the International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors (ICNS) are held in alternating years and cover similar subject areas.

A Porposal: "Agro-ERASMUS"

The rural population is getting smaller as percentage of the total population in the countries. There is a constant depopulation of rural areas to urban areas. The most extreme data are in countries like USA, where the rural population is 1.5%, from which 1% of that amount is part time and only 0.5% full time. On the other side, we have countries with more than 50% rural population. Related to training, cultural development, business and specific weight in society, rural residents have no significance in their societies. As they are few, and separated across the territory they have no influence on their societies. Comparing the USA farmer with one from the EU, we see that the American one is a businessperson and the European one, in most cases is a farm worker. To reduce this gap between these different farmers, we believe that we must train the new generations of children belonging to farming Europe. They must have a common language, English; they must know other countries culture and farming systems, live and network with other young Europeans colleagues,future young farmers. It is what we have coined as AGRO-ERASMUS. A project to be placed within the EU Common Agriculture Policies. The project must be designed before its implementation. Even some previous experience should make better viability. It should make use of a network of agricultural universities in several European countries. Each university would build a "farm school" where young people would learn "English?, and visit and work in small agricultural practices with a correct use of the time. One important subject dealing with should be agribusiness. The procedure based on the ?Farm School? (F-S) experience, should start with young people from 13 years up to 18 years. Their attendance, every summer, to the F-S should be rotated between different countries besides their own. The first and second year, with young people 13/14 years old, the Farm School would last less than three weeks in an English speaking country (Ireland, UK or someone else). They should live with a local family the time they stay outside of the Farm School (F-S). This two years period must be devoted to learn and become familiar with the English language and cultural differences. The rest of the four years left, the Farm Schools will have longer duration and be placed in other countries from the network. The living way would be in multinational teams of young people where the only spoken language would be English. After six years of summer oexistence speaking English and learning new competences and skills with colleagues from other countries, we would have a great team of young and future European farmers, able to travel free and confident through the whole Europe and ready to be engaged in productive, commercial and research activities. These new young farmers may revive European agriculture and would not look any more like rural habitants, but international business-farmers, professionally speaking. In a brief survey among the assistants to the Fifth International Academic Conference titled "Alternative Income Sources in Small Agricultural Holdings of the European Union" held in Krakow (PL) in June 2015, participants from universities and countries like Poland, Hungary, Rep. Czech, Portugal, Romania, etc., expressed the necessity of addressing this problem in a new and bold way.

Determinants and impact of suboptimal asthma control in Europe : The INTERNATIONAL CROSS-SECTIONAL AND LONGITUDINAL ASSESSMENT ON ASTHMA CONTROL (LIAISON) study

Acknowledgements We are grateful to THERAmetrics for the study management, data collection and analysis. The authors would like to thank the following investigators for their contribution (>30 patients enrolled): F. Fohler, A.G. Haider, J. Hesse-Tonsa, J. Messner, W. Pohl (Austria); G. Joos, J.L. Halloy, R. Peche, H. Simonis, P. Van den Brande (Belgium); B. Bugnas, J.M. Chavaillon, P. Debove, S. Dury, L. Mathieu, O. Lagrange, A. Prudhomme, S. Verdier (France); A. Benedix, O. Kestermann, A. Deimling, G. Eckhardt, M. Gernhold, V. Grimm-Sachs, M. Hoefer, G. Hoheisel, C. Stolpe, C. Schilder, M. John, J. Uerscheln, K.H. Zeisler (Germany); A. Chaniotou, P. Demertzis, V. Filaditaki-Loverdou, A. Gaga, E. Georgatou-Papageorgiou, S. Michailidis, G. Pavkalou, M. Toumpis (Greece); K. Csicsari, K. Hajdu, M. Póczi, M. Kukuly, T. Kecskes, C. Hangonyi, J. Schlezak, E. Takács, M. Szabo,G. Szabó, C. Szabo (Hungary); G.W. Canonica, W. Castellani, A. Cirillo, M.P. Foschino Barbaro, M. Gjomarkaj, G. Guerra, G. Idotta, D. Legnani, M. Lo Schiavo, R. Maselli, F. Mazza, S. Nutini, P. Paggiaro, A. Pietra, O. Resta, S. Salis, N.A. Scichilone, M.C. Zappa, A. Zedda (Italy); M. Goosens, R. Heller, K. Mansour, C. Meek, J. van den Berg (The Netherlands); A. Antczak, M. Faber, D. Madra-Rogacka, G. Mincewicz, M. Michnar, D. Olejniczak, G. Pulka, Z. Sankowski, K. Kowal, I. Krupa-Borek, B. Kubicka Kozik, K. Kuczynska, P. Kuna, A. Kwasniewski, M. Wozniak (Poland); F. Casas Maldonado, C. Cisneros, J. de Miguel Díez, L.M. Entrenas Costa, B. Garcìa-Cosio, M.V. Gonzales, L. Lores, M. Luengo, C. Martinez, C. Melero, I. Mir, X. Munoz, A. Pacheco, V. Plaza, J. Serra, J. Serrano, J.G. Soto Campos (Spain); T. Bekci, R. Demir, N. Dursunoglu, D. Ediger, A. Ekici, O. Goksel, H. Gunen, I.K. Oguzulgen, Z.F. Ozseker, (Turkey); L. Barnes, T. Hall, S. Montgomerie, J. Purohit, J. Ryan (United Kingdom). The authors would also like to thank P. Galletti (THERAMetrics S.p.A., Sesto San Giovanni, Italy) and K. Stockmeyer (THERAMetrics GmbH, Essen, Germany) for providing editorial assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Activation of RhoA by Lysophosphatidic Acid and Gα12/13 Subunits in Neuronal Cells: Induction of Neurite Retraction

Neuronal cells undergo rapid growth cone collapse, neurite retraction, and cell rounding in response to certain G protein–coupled receptor agonists such as lysophosphatidic acid (LPA). These shape changes are driven by Rho-mediated contraction of the actomyosin-based cytoskeleton. To date, however, detection of Rho activation has been hampered by the lack of a suitable assay. Furthermore, the nature of the G protein(s) mediating LPA-induced neurite retraction remains unknown. We have developed a Rho activation assay that is based on the specific binding of active RhoA to its downstream effector Rho-kinase (ROK). A fusion protein of GST and the Rho-binding domain of ROK pulls down activated but not inactive RhoA from cell lysates. Using GST-ROK, we show that in N1E-115 neuronal cells LPA activates endogenous RhoA within 30 s, concomitant with growth cone collapse. Maximal activation occurs after 3 min when neurite retraction is complete and the actin cytoskeleton is fully contracted. LPA-induced RhoA activation is completely inhibited by tyrosine kinase inhibitors (tyrphostin 47 and genistein). Activated Gα12 and Gα13 subunits mimic LPA both in activating RhoA and in inducing RhoA-mediated cytoskeletal contraction, thereby preventing neurite outgrowth. We conclude that in neuronal cells, LPA activates RhoA to induce growth cone collapse and neurite retraction through a G12/13-initiated pathway that involves protein-tyrosine kinase activity.

Spontaneous heterosis in larval life-history traits of hemiclonal frog hybrids

European water frog hybrids Rana esculenta (Rana ridibunda × Rana lessonae) reproduce hemiclonally, transmitting only their ridibunda genome to gametes. We compared fitness-related larval life-history traits of natural R. esculenta from Poland with those of the two sympatric parental species and of newly generated F1 hybrids. Compared with either parental species, F1 hybrid offspring had higher survival, higher early growth rates, a more advanced developmental stage by day 49, and earlier metamorphosis, but similar mass at metamorphosis. R. esculenta from natural lineages had trait values intermediate between those of F1 offspring and of the two parental species. The data support earlier observations on natural R. esculenta that had faster larval growth, earlier metamorphosis, and higher resistance to hypoxic conditions compared with either parental species. Observing larval heterosis in F1 hybrids in survival, growth rate, and time to metamorphosis, however, at an even higher degree than in hybrids from natural lineages, demonstrates that heterosis is spontaneous and results from hybridity per se rather than from subsequent interclonal selection; in natural lineages the effects of hybridity and of clonal history are confounded. This is compelling evidence for spontaneous heterosis in hybrid clonals. Results on hemiclonal fish hybrids (Poeciliopsis) showed no spontaneous heterosis; thus, our frog data are not applicable to all hybrid clonals. Our data do show, however, that heterosis is an important potential source for the extensively observed ecological success of hybrid clonals. We suggest that heterosis and interclonal selection together shape fitness of natural R. esculenta lineages.

Violations of the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes: prevalence in four countries

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of violations of the international code of marketing of substitutes for breast milk in one city in each of Bangladesh, Poland, South Africa, and Thailand.

The genetics of pain and pain inhibition.

The present review summarizes the current state of knowledge about the genetics of pain-related phenomena and illustrates the scope and power of genetic approaches to the study of pain. We focus on work performed in our laboratories in Jastrzebiec, Poland; Portland, OR; and Los Angeles, which we feel demonstrates the continuing usefulness of classical genetic approaches, especially when used in combination with newly available molecular genetic techniques.