AIM The effect of two jumping competitions, performed in two consecutive weekends, on serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), urea, creatinine (CREA) concentrations were evaluated in 12 healthy jumper horses. MATERIALS AND METHODS Blood sampling was performed before the 1(st) day of competition (T0), at the end of each show (J1, J...

A critical element in the use of PDDL2.1, the modelling language developed for the International Planning Competition series, has been the common understanding of the semantics of the language. The fact that this has been implemented in plan validation software was vital to the progress of the competition. However, the validation of plans using actions with continuous effects presents new chall...

Competition for inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen and phosphorous between phytoplankton and bacteria during an Emiliania huxleyi spring bloom (PeECE II) T. Løvdal ∗ , C. Eichner ∗∗ , H.-P. Grossart, V. Carbonnel, L. Chou, and T. F. Thingstad Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Jahnebakken 5, P.O. Box 7800, 5020 Bergen, Norway Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fis...

Planning with preferences involves not only finding a plan that achieves the goal, it requires finding a preferred plan that achieves the goal, where preferences over plans are specified as part of the planner’s input. In this paper we provide a technique for accomplishing this objective. Our technique can deal with a rich class of preferences, including so-called temporally extended preference...

Competition among private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans is seen by some as leading to lower premiums and expanded benefits. But how much competition exists in MA markets? Using a standard measure of market competition, our analysis finds that 97 percent of markets in U.S. counties are highly concentrated and therefore lacking in significant MA plan competition. Competition is considerably lower...

with the french occupation of egypt in 1798 ad, the communication route of britain to india was threatened and a new stage of conflict and competition began between the two countries in eastern mediterranean, ottoman, iran, indian ocean and the persian gulf. although threats temporarily subsided with the french abandoning egypt, but the continuous french expansionism in the east caused them per...

HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE: This Issue Brief examines issues related to managed competition and the use of a health insurance exchange for the purpose of addressing cost, quality, and access to health care services. It discusses issues that must be addressed when designing an exchange in order to reform the health insurance market and also examines state efforts at health reform that use an exch...