Active Rules Research Articles

Vibrio fluvialis: An Emerging Pathogen for Intestinal and Extraintestinal Infections

The genus Vibrio is a ubiquitous group of bacteria belonging in the family Vibrionaceae. More than 100 species have been discovered in the genus Vibrio and about 14 of them have been reported to cause several human infections. Vibrio fluvialis, a member of this group is widely distributed in the aquatic environment, mostly in the seas, brackish waters and coastal zones.1 V. fluvialis is a pathogenic bacterium more commonly found in coastal areas. It causes diarrhea and enterocolitis and a significant number of extra intestinal infections. Due to increasing number of infections, it is considered as an emerging pathogen.1 Though this pathogen can be easily isolated by conventional staining and culture methods along with the biochemical properties, its identification is considered as a challenging problem due to its close phenotypic similarity of this species either with other vibrios and Aeromonas spp. By using automated BD Phoenix M50 techniques, it has become easier to identify V. fluvialis from clinical and different environmental samples. In this system biochemical properties of different 45 substrates are used to observe their fermentation reactions. Automated identification and antimicrobial susceptibility test systems are essential for modern clinical microbiology laboratories for rapid identification and proper selection of effective antibiotics. Several virulence factors of V. fluvialis have been identified.2 The rule and mechanisms of action of these virulent factors causing pathogenesis and infection are yet to be clarified. In this review article, the epidemiology, identification, pathogenicity, intra- and extra-intestinal clinical features and management of V. fluvialis infections have been focused. KYAMC Journal Vol. 14, No. 01, April 2023: 48-53

When more isn’t always better: The ambiguity of fully transparent judicial action and unrestricted publication rules

Unrestricted publication of judicial opinions and full transparency of judicial action are often considered a means to increase information relevant for future litigants and public discourse. In this paper, we analyze a model that captures the potential for unintended consequences of such policies. Under certain conditions, unrestricted publication of judicial opinions, full transparency of judicial behavior at trial and oral argument enabled by telecasting, and other forms of surveillance of judicial behavior may induce judges to obscure their opinions and actions leading to less information for the public over time. Unrestricted publication and full transparency of judicial action should be carefully considered as a policy preference.

Knowledge Authoring for Rules and Actions

AbstractKnowledge representation and reasoning (KRR) systems describe and reason with complex concepts and relations in the form of facts and rules. Unfortunately, wide deployment of KRR systems runs into the problem that domain experts have great difficulty constructing correct logical representations of their domain knowledge. Knowledge engineers can help with this construction process, but there is a deficit of such specialists. The earlier Knowledge Authoring Logic Machine (KALM) based on Controlled Natural Language (CNL) was shown to have very high accuracy for authoring facts and questions. More recently, KALMFL, a successor of KALM, replaced CNL with factual English, which is much less restrictive and requires very little training from users. However, KALMFL has limitations in representing certain types of knowledge, such as authoring rules for multi-step reasoning or understanding actions with timestamps. To address these limitations, we propose KALMRA to enable authoring of rules and actions. Our evaluation using the UTI guidelines benchmark shows that KALMRA achieves a high level of correctness (100%) on rule authoring. When used for authoring and reasoning with actions, KALMRA achieves more than 99.3% correctness on the bAbI benchmark, demonstrating its effectiveness in more sophisticated KRR jobs. Finally, we illustrate the logical reasoning capabilities of KALMRA by drawing attention to the problems faced by the recently made famous AI, ChatGPT.

Online attention dynamics: The triangle framework of theory, big data and simulations

In computational social science era, the theory, big data and simulations should be well combined and deeply integrated, and this work serves as a typical example. Online collective actions have great impacts to societies, and we focus on the life cycle pattern of coexisting multiple online cases. We propose the analysis framework of “Theory-Big Data-simulation” (TDS). The theory includes two essential action rules of netizens. We combined macro-level analysis (big data analysis) and micro-level behavior (agent-based modeling), to surpport the theory. For the big data, macro-level life cycle pattern (persistent) is caused by micro-level individual actions. For macro-level verification, basic assumption is that netizens are allocating limited attentions to limited coexisting online events, which has been supported by our big data from the Weibo platform (N=197,985). For the micro-level, we use agent-based modeling to verify the behavioral rules of Netizens. We set two agent categories (Netizens & Hots), which behave and interact autonomously. Based on multiple-round simulations, we obtained optimal solution outcomes. Besides, we have implemented mutual validation between big data and agent-based modeling, which has not been considered before. Three big data sets have been applied to check both validity and robustness of our solutions. For the dataset A, we use 89 online cases of the Shaanxi Province in China. For the dataset B, we used 147 online cases of the whole China in 2021. For the dataset C, we used 138 online cases under specific topic (the pandemic). It suggests that three optimal solutions have both validity and robustness. As three big data sets have different levels, cases, topics and durations, the model’s generality can be well supported. Hence, general behavior pattern of the Netizens can be revealed, which is of great significance for investigating human behavior online. Moreover, our work contains rich managerial implications, which helps to improve social simulation and prediction. Also, our TDS analysis framework can support or inspire other researches.

RWD143 Lift Off: From Real World Data Quality Guidelines to Actionable Assessment

As efforts increase to assess regulatory acceptability of real-world data (RWD) submissions, the number of guidelines around RWD quality considerations have grown. Globally, these align on emphasizing the need for transparency in RWD quality assessments, focused on the “what” and giving opportunity for “how”. The Kahn data quality framework harmonizes assessment methods across standards, defining three assessment categories (conformance, completeness, plausibility) within two contexts (verification, validation). Creation of standardized tools can operationalize RWD guidance in a transparent, reproducible manner. Objectives: (1) Translate Kahn framework into actionable business rules and thresholds defined in accordance with regulatory guidance (2) Deploy metrics through interactive OMOP-compatible dashboard, enabling determination of data’s fit-for-purpose for generation of real-world evidence.

Natural products targeting signaling pathways associated with regulated cell death in gastric cancer: Recent advances and perspectives.

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most serious gastrointestinal malignancies with high morbidity and mortality. The complexity of GC process lies in the multi-phenotypic linkage regulation, in which regulatory cell death (RCD) is the core link, which largely dominates the fate of GC cells and becomes a key determinant of GC development and prognosis. In recent years, increasing evidence has been reported that natural products can prevent and inhibit the development of GC by regulating RCDs, showing great therapeutic potential. In order to further clarify its key regulatory characteristics, this review focused on specific expressions of RCDs, combined with a variety of signaling pathways and their crosstalk characteristics, sorted out the key targets and action rules of natural products targeting RCD. It is highlighted that a variety of core biological pathways and core targets are involved in the decision of GC cell fate, including the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, MAPK-related signaling pathways, p53 signaling pathway, ER stress, Caspase-8, gasdermin D (GSDMD), and so on. Moreover, natural products target the crosstalk of different RCDs by modulating above signaling pathways. Taken together, these findings suggest that targeting various RCDs in GC with natural products is a promising strategy, providing a reference for further clarifying the molecular mechanism of natural products treating GC, which warrants further investigations in this area.

Between Integration and the Rule of Law: EU Law’s Culture of Lawful Messianism

AbstractThe present article seeks to identify the particular culture that undergirds the practice of EU law, by drawing from Paul Kahn’s Cultural Analysis of Law. It will do so by extracting from his work certain models for understanding the imaginative life of a political community, most importantly those of the rule of law and of political action, which in Kahn’s observation of American realities stand in competition to one another. This will lead us, first, to consider the particular place held by European integration, as a messianic project of collective transformation. While this might seem to structure the practice of EU law in a way that is consistent with Kahn’s description of political action, such a view, we will then submit, does not consider the particular place of law in the EU’s legal culture, as the very substance in which the European order appears incarnated, and which provides the impetus for much of its development. To account for these two dimensions in the political imaginary of the EU, it is argued that, unlike Kahn’s description of the American context, the rule of law and political action do not stand in tension with one another. Instead, the practice of EU law operates under an idiosyncratic frame of experience, which can be usefully associated to Robert Cover’s notion of “lawful messianism,” and which synthesizes key aspects of Kahn’s account of the rule of law and political action. Finally, to illustrate the operation of just that culture of lawful messianism and its persistence to this day, the article turns to the place of the rule of law as a “foundational value” of the European legal system and recent developments around this particular norm of EU law.

EXPLORING THE RELEVANCE OF DETERRENCE PUNISHMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS TO SOCIAL STABILITY AND LEGAL SANCTION

The idea of a society without crime is fiction. Crime and criminals have become an indispensable part of any society. It is not something which is expected, yet it exists, due to the interplay of various factors. In essence, the idea of crime is tied to the social structure. A person’s interests are best served by being part of a community/society. Everyone has obligations to their fellow humans as well as rights and privileges that they want others to protect for them. The behaviour of the people inside a society is governed by this sense of respect and trust for one another's rights. Even if the majority of individuals adhere to the "live and let live" maxim, there are others who, for one reason or another, stray from this accepted pattern of behaviour and connect themselves with anti-social forces. This lays a duty on the State to keep society functioning normally. Protecting law-abiding individuals and punishing lawbreakers is a difficult responsibility that falls under the purview of the State, which carries it out with the aid of the law. For this reason, Salmond described law as a "rule of action" governing people's behavior in society. While actions that are permitted by the law are regarded as lawful, those that are banned by the law at a certain time and location are recognized as crimes or wrongdoings. According to the law of crime, the wrongdoer who commits a crime is punished for his culpability.

AbU: A calculus for distributed event-driven programming with attribute-based interaction

In recent years, event-driven programming languages, in particular those based on Event Condition Action (ECA) rules, have emerged as a promising paradigm for implementing ubiquitous and pervasive systems. These implementations are mostly centralized, where a single server (often in the cloud) collects and processes all the inputs from the environment. In fact, placing the computation on the nodes interacting with the environment requires suitable abstractions for effective communication and coordination of (possibly large) ensembles of these distributed components — abstractions that current ECA languages are still missing.To this end, in this paper we present AbU, a calculus for modeling and reasoning about ECA-based systems with attribute-based communication. The latter is an interaction model recently introduced for the coordination of (possibly large) families of nodes: communication is similar to broadcast but the actual receivers are selected on the spot, by means of predicates over nodes properties. Thus, the programmer can specify interactions between nodes in a declarative way, abstracting from details such as nodes identity, number, or even their existence, without the need for a central server: the computation is moved on the “edge”, thus improving reliability, scalability, privacy and security.After having defined syntax and formal semantics of AbU, we showcase its expressiveness by providing some example applications and the encoding of AbC, the archetypal calculus with attribute-based communication. Then, we focus on two key properties of reactive systems: stabilization (i.e., termination of internal steps) and confluence. For both these properties we provide formal semantic definition, sufficient syntactic conditions on AbU systems, and algorithms to statically check such conditions. Hence, AbU is both a basis for the formal analysis of event-driven architectures with attributed-based interaction, and a reference model for a full-fledged language for IoT and edge computing.

Choice with Affirmative Action

A choice rule with affirmative action decides on the recipients of a limited number of identical objects by reconciling two objectives: respecting a priority ordering over the applicants and supporting a minority group. We extend the standard formulation of a choice problem by incorporating a type function and a priority ordering and introduce monotonicity axioms on how a choice rule should respond to variations in these parameters. We show that monotonic and substitutable affirmative action rules are the ones that admit a bounded reserve representation. As a prominent class of choice rules that satisfy the monotonicity axioms, we characterize lexicographic affirmative action rules that are prevalent both in the literature and in practice. Our axiomatic approach provides a novel way to think about reserve systems and uncovers choice rules that go beyond lexicographic affirmative action rules. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: B. Doğan gratefully acknowledges financial support from the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust [Grant SRG1819\190133].

Analysis of the Effect of Modified Biochar on Saline–Alkali Soil Remediation and Crop Growth

To solve the problem of soil degradation in coastal saline–alkali land, three different types of biochar (rice straw biochar, magnetic biochar, and humic acid–magnetic biochar) were prepared to remedy the saline–alkali soil under different mixing ratios. The effects of biochar on the growth of crops in saline–alkali soil were explored through a pot experiment on Chinese cabbage. The experimental results showed that the soil leaching treatment combined with humic acid–magnetic biochar could effectively repair the coastal saline–alkali soil. After adding 5% humic acid–magnetic biochar, the content of soil organic matter was 33.95 g/kg, the water content was 13.85%, and the contents of available phosphorus and available potassium were 9.43 mg/kg and 29.51 mg/kg. After adding 5% humic acid–magnetic biochar, the plant height of Chinese cabbage was 9.16 ± 0.19 cm, and the plant germination rate reached 83.33 ± 5.54%. The incorporation of biochar could effectively increase the chlorophyll content and soluble protein content of pakchoi and reduce the soluble sugar content of pakchoi. The study analyzed the effect of different modified biochar on saline–alkali land restoration and crop growth and explored the action rule of hydrochloric acid magnetic biochar on saline–alkali land restoration, which has important practical value for improving coastal saline–alkali land.

Multi-Party Litigation in Tanzania: A Case for Class Action Suits

Purpose: In suits involving numerous parties, legal technicalities are involved. Such suits call for special litigation devices. Multiparty litigation devices in Tanzania can take different forms such as joinder, next of kin, representative suits and class action suits. However, representative suit is currently the main means of handling claims for compensation involving large groups of similarly affected victims.
 Methodology: This study carries out an appraisal of the legal framework in Tanzania concerning multiparty litigation devices. It is shown that too strict an adherence to same interest and locus standi requirements in Tanzania makes multiparty litigation devices too restrictive. In addition, multiparty litigation devices for group actions are not clearly provided for.
 Findings: Litigation devices have a great potential of helping parties to realize effective right to remedy. In order for litigation devices to effectively play that role, they should be friendly, timely and affordable. Similarly, such devices should be properly managed and clearly provided for under legislations. 
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Currently, a representative suit in Tanzania is interchangeably used both in public interest litigation and group action. In order to guarantee proper management of group actions, a case for class action rules is made. Indeed, a call for reform of the legal framework is recommended in this study to the effect that class action rules should be enacted in form of regulations or under a specific legislation.

Travelers’, migrants’ and refugees’ health – individual, population and systemic aspects

Introduction Mobility, the ability to move from the place of residence, is a sign of the times. It results from many grounds and conditions. Numerous groups of mobile people can be distinguished. Changing the place of residence poses a health risk for mobile persons and, in the case of infectious diseases, also for people who may be in contact with them. Two groups of mobile people are in focus of the public health: the travelers and migrants and refugees. Purpose A panoramic presentation of selected issues related to multifacets and complex problem of travelers and migrants, health. Health risks and health interventions related to travel and migration are discussed, as well as system solutions for the health of travellers, migrants and refugees. State of knowledge Departures of travelers are induced by intrapersonal factors. The health risk depends on the state of health, the travel/transport conditions and mode, the specificity of the destination and the behavior of the traveller. Risk factors are relatively well recognized, including those of a biological nature. Health interventions have a long tradition, there are rules for systemic actions, but improvement of existing solutions is expected. Departures of migrants and refugees are caused by external factors. Health risk is multidimensional and related to the migration phase (pre-migration, movement, arrival). Risk factors for the health of migrants are insufficiently recognized and can be of a very diverse nature - physical, chemical, biological, psychophysical and social. Health interventions are poorly established and focused on improving access to healthcare. The necessity for a broader spectrum of activities, including political, interdisciplinary, multisectoral and global ones is pointed. Summary Travelers’, migrants’ and refugees’ health are becoming increasingly important nationally and internationally.

Identifying Security and Privacy Violation Rules in Trigger-Action IoT Platforms With NLP Models

Trigger-action platforms are systems that enable users to easily define, in terms of conditional rules, custom behaviors concerning Internet of Things (IoT) devices and Web services. Unfortunately, although these tools stimulate the creativity of users in building automation, they may also introduce serious risks for the users. Indeed, trigger–action rules can lead to the possibility of users harming themselves, for example, by unintentionally disclosing nonpublic information, or unwillingly exposing their smart environment to cyber-threats. In this article, we propose to use natural language processing (NLP) techniques to detect automation rules, defined within trigger–action IoT platforms, that potentially violate the security or privacy of the users. The proposed NLP-based models capture the semantic and contextual information of the trigger-action rules by applying classification techniques to different combinations of rule’s features. We evaluate the proposed solution with the mainstream trigger-action platform, namely, If-This-Then-That, by training the NLP models with a data set of 76 741 rules labeled by using an ensemble of three semi-supervised learning techniques. The experimental results demonstrate that the model based on bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERTs) obtains the highest performances when trained on all features, achieving average Precision and Recall values between 88% and 93%. We also compare the achieved performances with those of a baseline system implementing information flow analysis.

Current situation and prospect of researches on regularities and mechanisms of acupuncture-moxibustion in alleviating chronic inflammatory response

The inflammatory response plays an important role in the onset, development and prognosis of inflammatory diseases and a variety of chronic diseases. Long-term uncontrolled inflammatory response may lead to dysfunction or loss of organ tissue function. Clinical practice and evidence-based medicine suggest that acupuncture can effectively alleviate the inflammatory status of various inflammatory diseases and chronic diseases. Stimulation of acupoints related to internal organs and target organs can initiate neuromodulation by modulating the microenvironment of acupoints. After integration of acupuncture stimulus information in the central nervous system, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc. are released and ultimately act on immune cells through neuro-endocrine-immune pathways, such as the vagus-mediated cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, vagus nerve-adrenal medullary-dopamine pathway, somatic sympathetic nerve pathway, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, etc. Ultimately, the intracellular signaling pathways and polarization balance of monocytes/macrophages and T cell subsets are regulated and the immune homeo-stasis of target organs of the body realizes. Therefore, we proposed that the anti-inflammatory action of acupuncture may be one of the universal therapeutic strategies for multiple diseases, and a powerful interpretation of acupuncture in regulating the balance of yin and yang. The elucidation of its anti-inflammatory action rules and mechanism may better realize the clinical transformation of acupuncture and moxibustion precision treatment.

Comparative analysis of the legal regulation of counteracting the development of epidemics (pandemics) in the USSR and modern Russia: the experience of forming a legal model of socially useful behavior of the individual

This work is a comparative analysis of the experience of the legal regulation of public relations in counteracting the development of epidemics (pandemics) in the USSR and the Russian Federation. It is considered in the context of the legal formulation of a model of socially useful behavior of an individual. The model of socially useful behavior of an individual under conditions of the threat of epidemics in the USSR was normatively formed by the 70s80s and included the traditional law-abiding and active components. The first was based on the populations knowledge of the normatively fixed rules of action in the event of foci of the spread of specific diseases. The second was associated with the involvement of the public in the direct implementation of anti-epidemic measures.
 It is revealed that the current Russian legislation does not create sufficient legal prerequisites for forming of a legal model of socially useful behavior of an individual. The circumstances that led to such a situation are indicated. It was concluded that it is necessary to accumulate its inherent restrictions and prohibitions in the uniform federal Rules of conduct for citizens and activities of organizations under the threat of epidemics of dangerous diseases with the provision of the states of the Russian Federation with the right to authorize their application to create legal prerequisites for the formation of a traditional law-abiding model of socially useful behavior of an individual.
 Forming a legal model of socially active behavior of an individual requires the definition of legal forms and the permissible degree of public participation in preventive work by analogy with the extensive Soviet experience. In contrast, the incentives for useful behavior should be a ramified system of legal guarantees in the fields of labor, social security, education, and related areas, and their interrelationships.

Optimal dose escalation methods using deep reinforcement learning in phase I oncology trials

ABSTRACT In phase I trials of a novel anticancer drug, one of the most important objectives is to identify the maximum tolerated dose (MTD). To this end, a number of methods have been proposed and evaluated under various scenarios. However, the percentages of correct selection (PCS) of MTDs using previous methods are insufficient to determine the dose for late-phase trials. The purpose of this study is to construct an action rule for escalating or de-escalating the dose and continuing or stopping the trial to increase the PCS as much as possible. We show that deep reinforcement learning with an appropriately defined state, action, and reward can be used to construct such an action selection rule. The simulation study shows that the proposed method can improve the PCS compared with the 3 + 3 design, CRM, BLRM, BOIN, mTPI, and i3 + 3 methods.

Development of complex executive function over childhood: Longitudinal growth curve modeling of performance on the Groton Maze Learning Task.

This longitudinal study modeled children's complex executive function (EF) development using the Groton Maze Learning Task (GMLT). Using a cohort-sequential design, 147 children (61 males, 5.5-11 years) were recruited from six multicultural primary schools in Melbourne and Perth, Australia. Race/ethnicity data were not available. Children were assessed on the GMLT at 6-month intervals over 2-years between 2010 and 2012. Growth curve models describe age-related change from 5.5 to 12.5 years old. Results showed a quadratic growth trajectory on each measure of error-that is, those that reflect visuospatial memory, executive control (or the ability to apply rules for action), and complex EF. The ability to apply rules for action, while a rate-limiting factor in complex EF, develops rapidly over early-to-mid childhood.

General rules of investigative actions

General rules of investigative actions

Collaborative Management to support sustainable Community Forest

The current state of social forestry, including community forestry (HKm) in Indonesia, is practically stagnant. Many factors cause stagnation in HKm management, including the main one being the interaction with the Forest Management Unit (FMU) as forest manager at the site level. This study aims to build an institutional model for sustainable forest management through analysis of the arena of action, community attributes, and forest management rules at the Nambo Community Forest, Central Sulawesi. The results of this research found that the collaborative management model between the government and the community is suitable to be applied in Community Forest management, because it provides greater opportunities for recognizing the rights of local communities to forest resources, as well as increasing the empowerment of rural communities.