This paper presents an approach for supporting the connguration of Virtual Enterprises (VE) by holonic multiagent systems (H-MAS). At rst, we show that a VE can be naturally modeled as a H-MAS. Then, we take a closer look at two frameworks dealing with the systematic connguration of VEs. We will show that both frameworks are quasi identical and that in both decomposition , allocation and synthe...

Ventilation (Ve), end-tidal (Pe' CO2), mixed venous PCO2 (PVCO2) and the ventilatory response to carbon dioxide (deltaVE/deltaPCO2) were measured before and within 90 min after morphine 0.15 mg kg-1 i.m. given to 17 adult patients undergoing elective surgery under general anaesthesia. The hypothesis that patients with a low ventilatory response to carbon dioxide are more susceptible to the vent...

The study was to investigate the supplemental effect of α-tocopherol, β-carotene or combination of both on antioxidant capacities in plasma, liver and longissimus dorsi muscle (LM), and meat quality of pigs fed a high-linseed oil diet during the final finishing phase. Forty Duroc×Yorkshire×Landrace growing pigs were allocated to four high-linseed oil (3%) experimental diets formulated as basal ...

In engineering application heuristics are widely used for discrete optimization tasks. We report two cases (in Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing and High Level Synthesis), where a recent “intelligent” heuristic (STAGE) performs excellently by learning a value-function of the states. We have found that if a global structure of local minima is found by the function approximator then search t...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the feasibility of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) for predicting tumor response to radiotherapy in patients with suspected primary central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCTs). METHODS DCE-MRI parameters of 35 patients with suspected primary CNS GCTs were obtained prior to diagnostic radiation, using the Tofts and Kermode model. Ra...

In this study, data mining and knowledge discovery techniques were employed to acquire new information about the viscoelastic, flexural, compression, and tension properties for vapor-grown carbon nanofiber (VGCNF)/vinyl ester (VE) nanocomposites. These properties were used to design a unified VGCNF/VE framework solely from data derived from a designed experimental study. Formulation and process...

BACKGROUND Ventilatory efficiency (VE/VCO(2) slope) and peak oxygen consumption (VO) provide robust prognostic information in patients with heart failure undergoing cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX). The purpose of this study is to assess the change in prognostic characteristics of CPX at different time intervals. METHODS AND RESULTS Seven hundred ninety-one subjects (74% male, mean age:...

OBJECTIVES This study sought to define the relative prognostic value of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) variables in heart failure (HF) patients with preserved versus reduced systolic function. BACKGROUND Cardiopulmonary exercise testing has an established role in the assessment of patients with systolic heart failure (SHF). Two variables, peak Vo2 and, more recently, the VE/VCO2 slop...