Prolog

Probabilistic planning attempts to incorporate stochastic models directly into the planning process, which is the problem of synthesizing a sequence of actions that achieves some objective for a putative agent. Probabilistic programming has rapidly emerged as a key paradigm to integrate probabilistic concepts with programming languages, which allows one to specify complex probabilistic models using programming primitives like recursion and loops. Probabilistic logic programming aims to further ease the specification of structured probability distributions using first-order logical artefacts...

BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint inhibitors evoke the immune system, which may cause immune-related adverse effects. The predictors and mechanisms of anti-PD-1-associated thyroid immune injury remain unclear. METHODS: A retrospective analysis is conducted on 518 patients treated with anti PD-1/PD-L1. Firstly, the differences between anti PD-1 and anti PD-L1 are compared on the risk of thyroid immune injury. Then, the predictors of the risk and thyroid function for anti PD-1 related thyroid immune injury are analyzed...

This paper focuses on nutritional recommendation systems (RS), i.e. AI-powered automatic systems providing users with suggestions about what to eat to pursue their weight/body shape goals. A trade-off among (potentially) conflictual requirements must be taken into account when designing these kinds of systems, there including: (i) adherence to experts' prescriptions, (ii) adherence to users' tastes and preferences, (iii) explainability of the whole recommendation process. Accordingly, in this paper we propose a novel approach to the engineering of nutritional RS, combining machine learning and symbolic knowledge extraction to profile users-hence harmonising the aforementioned requirements...

The article presents the DigiHive system, an artificial chemistry simulation environment, and the results of preliminary simulation experiments leading toward building a self-replicating system resembling a living cell. The two-dimensional environment is populated by particles that can bond together and form complexes of particles. Some complexes can recognize and change the structures of surrounding complexes, where the functions they perform are encoded in their structure in the form of Prolog-like language expressions...

Several challenges prevent extracting knowledge from biomedical resources, including data heterogeneity and the difficulty to obtain and collaborate on data and annotations by medical doctors. Therefore, flexibility in their representation and interconnection is required; it is also essential to be able to interact easily with such data. In recent years, semantic tools have been developed: semantic wikis are collections of wiki pages that can be annotated with properties and so combine flexibility and expressiveness, two desirable aspects when modeling databases, especially in the dynamic biomedical domain...

Rationale: To provide consensus recommendations from a consortium of academic and industry experts in the field of lymphoma and imaging for the consistent application of imaging assessment with the Lugano classification. Methods: Consensus was obtained through a series of meetings from July 2019 until October 2021 sponsored by the PINTaD (Pharma Imaging Network for Therapeutics and Diagnostics) as part of the ProLoG consensus initiative. Results: Consensus recommendations encompass all technical imaging aspects of the Lugano classification...

Our objective was to provide consensus recommendations from a consortium of academic and industry experts in the field of lymphoma and imaging for consistent application of the Lugano classification. Methods: Consensus was obtained through a series of meetings from July 2019 until September 2021 sponsored by the Pharma Imaging Network for Therapeutics and Diagnostics (PINTaD) as part of the PINTaD Response Criteria in Lymphoma Working Group (PRoLoG) consensus initiative. Results: Consensus recommendations clarified technical considerations for PET/CT and diagnostic CT from the Lugano classification, including updating the FDG avidity of different lymphoma entities, clarifying the response nomenclature, and refining lesion classification and scoring, especially with regard to scores 4 and 5 and the X category of the 5-point scale...

In many scenarios where robots or autonomous systems may be deployed, the capacity to infer and reason about the intentions of other agents can improve the performance or utility of the system. For example, a smart home or assisted living facility is better able to select assistive services to deploy if it understands the goals of the occupants in advance. In this article, we present a framework for reasoning about intentions using probabilistic logic programming. We employ ProbLog, a probabilistic extension to Prolog, to infer the most probable intention given observations of the actions of the agent and sensor readings of important aspects of the environment...

An allegorical thought experiment occurring in a pseudo Huxleyean world in the future is conducted, in which "Euclidean" geometry has been forgotten and can only be retrieved by traversing backward in time, physically and virtually by two protagonists, Alpha and Beta, inspired by the challenge issued by their teacher Aleph 1. In the year 136 A.H (After Huxley, or late twenty-first century of the Common Era), all instruction occurs virtually. Mathematics is the exclusive purview of 0.01% of society (the alphas)...

BACKGROUND: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) provides numerous narrative documents containing formal recommendations and additional narrative guidance within the text. These guidelines are not intended to provide a complete "care pathway" for patient management, but these elements of guidance can be useful for clinical decision support (CDS) in obstetrical and gynecologic care and could be exposed within electronic health records (EHRs). Unfortunately, narrative guidelines do not easily translate into computable CDS guidance...

BACKGROUND: Caregivers of people with dementia find it extremely difficult to choose the best care method because of complex environments and the variable symptoms of dementia. To alleviate this care burden, interventions have been proposed that use computer- or web-based applications. For example, an automatic diagnosis of the condition can improve the well-being of both the person with dementia and the caregiver. Other interventions support the individual with dementia in living independently...

A unified treatment of the renewable portfolio standards is given concerning direct methanol fuel. The current mechanism of electrocatalysis of methanol oxidation on platinum and non-platinum-containing alloys is summarized for the systematic improvement of the rate of electro-oxidation of methanol are discussed. Policy realignment under the five-year plan is discussed in length to demonstrate how policy, markets, and engineering designs contribute towards the development of model direct methanol fuel cells operational enhancement, and factors that affect critical performance parameters for commercial exploitation are summarized for catalytic formulations and cell design within the context of why this investment in technology, education, and finances is required within the global context of sustainable energy and energy independence as exposed by thirteenth the five-year plan...

Missing data are hard to avoid, or even inevitable, in longitudinal learning diagnosis and other longitudinal studies. Sample attrition is one of the most common missing patterns in practice, which refers to students dropping out before the end of the study and not returning. This brief research aims to examine the impact of a common type of sample attrition, namely, individual-level random attrition, on longitudinal learning diagnosis through a simulation study. The results indicate that (1) the recovery of all model parameters decreases with the increase of attrition rate; (2) comparatively speaking, the attrition rate has the greatest influence on diagnostic accuracy, and the least influence on general ability; and (3) a sufficient number of items is one of the necessary conditions to counteract the negative impact of sample attrition...

Background: Diabetes is a disease that affects the body's ability to produce or use insulin. A total of 425 million people are suffering from diabetes in the world. Of this, more than 16 million people live in the Africa Region, which is estimated to be around 41 million by 2045. The main objective of this study was to design and develop a prototype knowledge-based system using data mining techniques for diagnosis and treatment of diabetes. Methods: For this study, experimental research design was employed, and the researchers used domain expert knowledge as a supplement of data mining techniques whereby three classification algorithms in WEKA; namely J48, PART and JRip were used, and finally the researchers decided to use the results of J48 classification algorithm...

We provide here an edited version of the "Farewell discussion" by the late Aleksandr (Alex) Yuryevich (Yu) Borisov (1930-2019) on several aspects related to the excitation energy transfer in photosynthetic bacteria. It is preceded by a prolog giving the events that led to our decision to publish it. Further, we include here a few photographs to give a personal glimpse of this unique biophysicist of our time. In addition, we provide here a reminiscence, by Andrei B. Rubin, on the scientific beginnings of Borisov...

Purpose: This study aimed to compare performance and pacing strategies between elite male and female cross-country skiers during a sprint competition on snow using the skating technique. Methods: Twenty male and 14 female skiers completed an individual time-trial prolog (TT) and three head-to-head races (quarter, semi, and final) on the same 1,572-m course, which was divided into flat, uphill and downhill sections. Section-specific speeds, choice of sub-technique (i.e., gear), cycle characteristics, heart rate and post-race blood lactate concentration were monitored...

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated a new insulin delivery system designed to reduce insulin delivery when trends in continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) glucose concentrations predict future hypoglycemia. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Individuals with type 1 diabetes ( n = 103, age 6-72 years, mean HbA1c 7.3% [56 mmol/mol]) participated in a 6-week randomized crossover trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a Tandem Diabetes Care t:slim X2 pump with Basal-IQ integrated with a Dexcom G5 sensor and a predictive low-glucose suspend algorithm (PLGS) compared with sensor-augmented pump (SAP) therapy...

The challenge of describing 3D real scenes is tackled in this paper using qualitative spatial descriptors. A key point to study is which qualitative descriptors to use and how these qualitative descriptors must be organized to produce a suitable cognitive explanation. In order to find answers, a survey test was carried out with human participants which openly described a scene containing some pieces of furniture. The data obtained in this survey are analysed, and taking this into account, the QSn3D computational approach was developed which uses a XBox 360 Kinect to obtain 3D data from a real indoor scene...

Motivation: The Unix 'make' program is widely used in bioinformatics pipelines, but suffers from problems that limit its application to large analysis datasets. These include reliance on file modification times to determine whether a target is stale, lack of support for parallel execution on clusters, and restricted flexibility to extend the underlying logic program. Results: We present BioMake, a make-like utility that is compatible with most features of GNU Make and adds support for popular cluster-based job-queue engines, MD5 signatures as an alternative to timestamps, and logic programming extensions in Prolog...

BACKGROUND: Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after coronary stenting prolongs survival by preventing both in-stent thrombosis and other cardiovascular atherothrombotic events. Patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) typically have a heavy burden of unrevascularized coronary artery disease and also stand to benefit from increased atherothrombotic protection with DAPT. The potential benefit of DAPT compared with aspirin alone in patients with PAD is not well described. METHODS: We identified all patients undergoing an initial elective lower extremity revascularization (bypass or endovascular) from 2003 to 2016 in the Vascular Quality Initiative registry discharged on aspirin or aspirin plus a thienopyridine antiplatelet agent (DAPT)...