Wasp fauna (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae, Chrysididae, Dryinidae, Tiphiidae, Mutillidae, Scoliidae, Pompilidae, Vespidae, Sphecidae, Crabronidae & Trigonalyidae) of Mordovia State Nature Reserve and its surroundings in Russia

Information is presented on 249 vespine species from 11 families in two regions of Mordovia (including Mordovia State Nature Reserve (MSNR)) and three districts of Nizhny Novgorod region (including Sarov) in Russia. Of these, 31 species are new to the Republic of Mordovia. Fauna of separate families of wasps in Mordovia State Nature Reserve is represented by 220 species: one species in Bethylidae, 31 in Chrysididae, two in Tiphiidae, two in Mutillidae, one in Scoliidae, 28 in Pompilidae, 37 in Vespidae, nine in Sphecidae, 108 in Crabronidae, and one in Trigonalyidae. The biodiversity of wasps in the reserve is very high. Of the 283 species of wasps in Mordovia, 220 (77.7%) are found within the reserve. Species characteristics such as geographic distribution and certain aspects of biology are also provided. There is an obvious extension of the ranges of three species, Priocnemis fastigiata, Sceliphron deforme, and Scolia hirta, to the north.

Genus one partitions

International audience We prove the conjecture by M. Yip stating that counting genus one partitions by the number of their elements and parts yields, up to a shift of indices, the same array of numbers as counting genus one rooted hypermonopoles. Our proof involves representing each genus one permutation by a four-colored noncrossing partition. This representation may be selected in a unique way for permutations containing no trivial cycles. The conclusion follows from a general generating function formula that holds for any class of permutations that is closed under the removal and reinsertion of trivial cycles. Our method also provides another way to count rooted hypermonopoles of genus one, and puts the spotlight on a class of genus one permutations that is invariant under an obvious extension of the Kreweras duality map to genus one permutations. Nous démontrons la conjecture de M. Yip affirmant que compter les partitions de genre un par le nombre de leurs éléments et leurs parties donne, à un décalage d’indices près, la même gamme de nombres que celle qui résulte en comptant les hypermonopoles de genre un. Notre preuve utilise une représentation de chaque permutation de genre un par une partition non-croisée quatricolorée. Cette représentation peut être choisi d’une manière unique pour les permutations qui ne contiennent pas des cycles triviaux. La conclusion suit d’une formule des fonctions génératrices générale qui vaut pour toute classe de permutations qui est fermé sous l’enlèvement et la réinsertion des cycles triviaux. Notre méthode offre une autre manière de compter les hypermonopoles enracinés de genre un, et dirige l’attention sur une extension évidente de la dualité de Kreweras sur les permutations de genre un.

Horn Clause Contraction Functions

In classical, AGM-style belief change, it is assumed that the underlying logic contains classical propositional logic. This is clearly a limiting assumption, particularly in Artificial Intelligence. Consequently there has been recent interest in studying belief change in approaches where the full expressivity of classical propositional logic is not obtained. In this paper we investigate belief contraction in Horn knowledge bases. We point out that the obvious extension to the Horn case, involving Horn remainder sets as a starting point, is problematic. Not only do Horn remainder sets have undesirable properties, but also some desirable Horn contraction functions are not captured by this approach. For Horn belief set contraction, we develop an account in terms of a model-theoretic characterisation involving weak remainder sets. Maxichoice and partial meet Horn contraction is specified, and we show that the problems arising with earlier work are resolved by these approaches. As well, constructions of the specific operators and sets of postulates are provided, and representation results are obtained. We also examine Horn package contraction, or contraction by a set of formulas. Again, we give a construction and postulate set, linking them via a representation result. Last, we investigate the closely-related notion of forgetting in Horn clauses. This work is arguably interesting since Horn clauses have found widespread use in AI; as well, the results given here may potentially be extended to other areas which make use of Horn-like reasoning, such as logic programming, rule-based systems, and description logics. Finally, since Horn reasoning is weaker than classical reasoning, this work sheds light on the foundations of belief change

Motivational Matrix for Educational Games

The study of the motivational factor in educational games (aka EduGames) has been limited up to now. A former study (Karoulis, 2004) discussed some aspects and proposed the adherence to the ARCS model of motivation proposed by Keller (Keller, 1983; Keller, 1998), which describes the motivation of any educational piece according to four factors: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Present study attempts to summarize the attributes of any EduGame, as they are encountered in the relative literature (including representations) and to match every one of those attributes to one (or more) of the ARCS-factors of motivation. The benefit of this approach is a better understanding of the motivational nature of every attribute of every EduGame and an obvious extension is the evolvement of a set of design guidelines for designers of EduGames and educational software in general.

Resonances in the dipositronium system: Rydberg states

We were previously successful in representing series of Ps + H scattering resonances as mainly due to quasi-bound Rydberg states in either the closed e+ + H– or Ps– + H+ system. An obvious extension would be to investigate the analogous Ps + Ps system, as either e+ + Ps– or e– + Ps+. Here we treat the system in four increasingly complete approximations: with and without including electron and positron symmetry and charge conjugation symmetry. A comparison is made with previous calculations, and in an Appendix the relationship between quasi-bound states and scattering resonances is clarified.

SEMIGROUPS WITH if–then–else AND HALTING PROGRAMS

The "if–then–else" construction is one of the most elementary programming commands, and its abstract laws have been widely studied, starting with McCarthy. Possibly, the most obvious extension of this is to include the operation of composition of programs, which gives a semigroup of functions (total, partial, or possibly general binary relations) that can be recombined using if–then–else. We show that this particular extension admits no finite complete axiomatization and instead focus on the case where composition of functions with predicates is also allowed (and we argue there is good reason to take this approach). In the case of total functions — modeling halting programs — we give a complete axiomatization for the theory in terms of a finite system of equations. We obtain a similar result when an operation of equality test and/or fixed point test is included.

Complete representation of some functionals showing the Lavrentieff phenomenon

The functional F(u) = ∫Bf(x, Du) is considered, where B is the unit ball in R2, u varies in the set of the locally Lipschitz functions on R2 and f belongs to a family containing, as model case, the following integrand: The computation of the relaxed functional F̄ is provided yielding an explicit representation formula.This formula nevertheless is not integral, because F̄ is not a measure and does not coincide with the obvious extension of F over all W1,p(B).This phenomenon is essentially due to the non-standard growth behaviour of f(x, z) in the variable z.

Detecting Nonlinearity in Experimental Data

The technique of surrogate data has been used as a method to test for membership of particular classes of linear systems. We suggest an obvious extension of this to classes of nonlinear parametric models and demonstrate our methods with respiratory data from sleeping human infants. Although our data are clearly distinct from the different classes of linear systems we are unable to distinguish between our data and surrogates generated by nonlinear models. Hence we conclude that human respiration is likely to be a nonlinear system with more than two degrees of freedom with a limit cycle that is driven by high dimensional dynamics or noise.

Methodological Aspects in the Frequency Analysis of Multiperiodic δ Scuti Stars

At Merate Observatory the study of δ Sct stars began in the sixties and spectroscopie and photometric campaigns were continuously undertaken in order to clarify the controversial points. As an obvious extension of the research, the observation of δ Sct stars was proposed for telescope-time allocation at European Southern Observatory, in order to take advantage of the ESO facilities and of the considerably better sky of La Silla. We put in our observing programme δ Sct stars showing cycle-to-cycle variations and, possibly, an amplitude larger than 0.05 mag in order to have a better signal-to-noise ratio; they are listed in the table. It is important to notice that we always tried to collect a number of measurements as large as possible (from 1988 we collected more than 1000 measurements per star), because it is a well-established fact that periodicities withan amplitude of a few thousandths of magnitude can be present in δ Sct stars. Moreover, when several modes are excited, an adequate frequency resolution becomes necessary and, therefore, a sufficient time baseline is requested (Poretti and Mantegazza 1992). A poor data sampling also gives an apparent good fitting for several solutions, all leaving a small residual rms, and there is no possibility to choose among them: different authors can pick up different solutions, generating the conflicting interpretations often found in δ Sct star literature.