Search Results (11)

Smart contract auditing remains challenging because vulnerabilities often emerge only under complex execution conditions, cross-transaction interactions, and environment-dependent assumptions. Existing analysis techniques, including static analysis, symbolic execution, fuzzing, and recent LLM-assisted approaches, each provide useful but incomplete coverage, and monolithic auditing pipelines often struggle to balance search breadth, reproducibility, and reporting reliability. This paper presents SEMA, a self-evolving multi-agent auditing framework for smart contracts that formulates auditing as a resource-bounded discovery of concrete counterexamples under replay-certified reporting semantics. SEMA combines heterogeneous specialized agents, an orchestrator, a shared artifact-centric knowledge base, and a replay-based referee. During auditing, agents generate and consume reusable artifacts, such as candidate invariants, refuted hypotheses, transaction templates, and coverage cues, allowing the shared search state to evolve across rounds without modifying the analyzers themselves. To ensure reporting reliability, findings are accepted only when the referee can replay the candidate scenario under a pinned execution configuration and confirm violation of an executable security property. We further evaluate SEMA on an annotated smart contract benchmark under a fixed 300 s budget per contract. The full system achieves 0.9469 instance recall, 0.9441 success rate, and 0.9445 macro-average category recall on the retained executable subset, outperforming both symbolic-only and fuzzing-only baselines, as well as multi-agent ablations that disable dynamic knowledge evolution or cross-agent artifact reuse. Full article

Evaporating a liquid sessile drop deposited on a horizontal surface is an important object of applications (printing technologies, electronics, sensorics, medical diagnostics, hydrophobic coatings, etc.) and theoretical investigations (microfluidics, self-assembly of nanoparticles, crystallization of solutes, etc.). The arsenal of formulas for calculating the slow evaporation of an axisymmetric drop of capillary dimensions deposited on a flat solid surface is reviewed. Characteristics such as vapor density, evaporation flux density, and total evaporation rate are considered. Exact solutions obtained in the framework of the Maxwellian model, in which the evaporation process of the drop is limited by vapor diffusion from the drop surface to the surrounding air, are presented. The summary covers both well-known results obtained during the last decades and new results published by us in the last few years, but practically unknown to the wider scientific community. The newest formulas, not yet published in refereed publications, concerning exact solutions for a number of specific contact angles are also presented. In addition, new approximate solutions are presented (total evaporation rate and mass loss per unit surface area per unit time in the whole range of contact angles $\theta \in [0, \mathsf{\pi })$, drop lifetime in constant contact radius evaporation regime and constant contact angle mode), which can be used in modeling without requiring significant computational resources. Full article

Background: Youth sport provides regular physical activity for millions of children. It is a global system, which includes coaches, referees, athletes, and parent spectators; consequently, the behavior of each member can influence the experiences of others. This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of self-efficacy and assertiveness in the relationship between the degree of anger expression and the performance children’s score in a group of parents and coaches. Methods: 200 parents (96 fathers, 104 mothers) and 200 coaches (119 males, 81 females) responded to the General Self-efficacy Scale, The Scale for Interpersonal Behavior, and the State–Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2; an indicator of performance was asked of each coach. The age range of parents was 28–59 years (M = 41.39, SD = 7.07), while that of coaches was 27–43 years (M = 35.91, SD = 3.35). Results: Results revealed that self-efficacy and assertiveness were the direct and indirect predictors of performance score. Conclusions: The study provided an understanding of the nature and magnitude of this profoundly interpersonal experience. Future studies may advance relevant education programs and effective interventions aimed at reducing angry expressions and lack of communication. Full article

Purpose: A retrospective study is presented to correlate the inter-judge consistency for the different psycho-perceptual parameters of the recently proposed Impression Noise Fluency Voicing (INFVo) perceptual rating scale for substitution voices, and the vocal function as perceived by the patient. Methods: The scale Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQoL) and the Self Evaluation of Communication Experiences After Laryngectomy scale (SECEL)—a self-evaluation questionnaire of communicative experience after laryngectomy surgery—were administered to 89 total laryngectomees, subdivided in four groups depending on their type of alaryngeal voice (i.e., tracheoesophageal and esophageal speakers, electro larynx users, voiceless patients), in order to evaluate the impact of the impairment of the phonatory function on the quality of life. Results: No significant differences exist among the various groups on their perception of QoL using subjective questionnaires, whereas the INFVo scale has proven to be a useful tool for the description and analysis of the psychoacoustic characteristics of the vocal signal and a reliable instrument to correctly classify the patients. It is also notable that the judgement of the patients on their own voice and those of the referees are highly significant. Conclusion: Although speech rehabilitation for the acquisition of a substitution voice offers a new way of communication for the laryngectomized patients, nonetheless, their QoL is not significantly related to the type of substitution voice. Therefore, improving the patient’s adaptation to the new phonatory condition is mandatory. Full article

In ultimate games governed by the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), all competitors also take on the role of referee. The players discuss disputed calls with each other during the game, and then follow rules designed for these situations to determine how the play continues. The number one rule of the sport is to respect the spirit of the game (SOTG), which encourages competitive play while preserving mutual respect and minimizing the risk of injury. The use of SOTG in ultimate in the framework of self-arbitration as a moral practice aligns well with other tools of critical pedagogy. For this study, the SOTG scores of the WFDF Joint Junior Ultimate Championship (JJUC 2022) were analyzed. A total of 1009 players from 19 countries competed in 434 self-refereed games (29 national teams in the WJUC Under-20 (U20) tournament and 20 teams in the EYUC Under-17 (U17) tournament). All the scores from the individual criteria correlated well with the overall scores, but for the most part, they did not correlate with each other. Our experience with the scoring system has highlighted the importance of participants understanding the meaning of the results and how they may lead to a constructive reflection to improve exceptions, including scores representing fouls and rules knowledge. The findings provide important information for physical education teachers, coaches, and sport consultants and may be of use to design SOTG programs that could foster the experience of sportsmanship and to facilitate the ethical conduct of athletes in either recreative or in competitive contexts. Full article

In Ultimate Frisbee, players are responsible for administering and reinforcing adherence to the rules of the game. As a self-refereed sport, UF relies upon the Spirit of the Game (SOTG). This study aimed to profile the experience, to ascertain the training history of the sport, the participation and goal orientations of international Ultimate Frisbee players in the European Beach Ultimate Championship, and to evaluate the contribution of these variables in a discriminant function to classify players according to SOTG level and competitive level. The sample consisted of 160 players [females 33.8% (29.3 ± 7.2 years); males 66.2% (37.6 ± 9.7 years)] who competed in the European Beach Ultimate Championship, 2019. Factorial ANOVA was used to test the effect of sex, competitive level and SOTG level (measured by the sum of the scores obtained in five questions addressing the following domains: (1) Knowledge and use of the rules; (2) Fouls and body contact; (3) Fair-mindedness; (4) Positive attitude and self-control; (5) Communication. The results revealed that sex was not a consistent source of SOTG level variation among players. In each competitive level, those with high SOTG levels obtained lower European Beach Ultimate Championship classification (t = 5.73 to 6.55, p < 0.001, d = 1.28 to 2.06), higher SOTG classification (t = −13.21 to −7.04, p < 0.001, d = 1.28 to 2.85), and better evaluation for fouls and body contact (t = 2.76 to 9.23, p < 0.05, d = 0.86 to 1.99) and for positive attitude (t = 5.88 to 7.43, p < 0.001, d = 2.06 to 2.57), than regular SOTG level players. Players of different competitive levels demonstrated similar SOTG results. These findings provide important information to coaches, physical education teachers and sport consultants. Full article

The main objective of the university sport in Spain is the comprehensive training of the students. It sets out in the various state regulations in this respect. There is training in values within the comprehensive training that sporting activity should provide through Fair Play. This article aims to describe and evaluate an experience of training in values for the university students carried out by the Sports Department of the University of Cadiz, located in Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain. The methodology consisted of making selected changes to the game rules in football competitions. The experience has lasted ten years. The result of the experience has been very positive, obtaining, among other substantial achievements, a reduction of more than 75% in the percentage of cards (yellow and red) shown during matches and a reduction in referee cautions, a decrease in violent behavior, self-exclusion of players with violent behavior by the teams themselves, and an increase in fair play sporting behavior. Due to this experience, the Sports Department of the University of Cadiz has received numerous national and international awards. However, the leading award has been to take part positively, through sport, in the education and happiness of its students. Full article

Ultimate Frisbee (UF) is a non-contact, challenging, and self-promoted team sport. Its characteristics, such as the game environment and rules, appear to influence the on-the-pitch behaviour of players. This article examines the content of qualitative studies to determine if and how the unique characteristics of UF may be related to nine sociological themes, that may be identified during gameplay. These themes include the following: (a) competition and performance; (b) enjoyment; (c) communication; (d) cooperation/friendship; (e) behaviors/welfare; (f) teamwork/social skills; (g) environment/lifestyle; (h) rules/self-refereeing and (i) spirit of the Game (SOTG). The review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. A comprehensive search protocol was used to identify, screen, and select published research articles under a Qualitative Systematic Review (QSR). The search was occurred from 1 June to 30 December 2020 with no limitations regarding the year of publication. Original English-language papers that contained relevant data regarding sociological themes and UF were selected. As a result, nine papers were qualified to be included in the final version of QSR. The files analyzed were structured with MAXQDA. A total of 521 references were identified and selected for analysis. After the Screening (n = 301) and Eligibility (n = 71) phases, a total of 30 potential papers were selected and classified. Nine studies were included in the final analysis. The three most cited sociological themes in these studies were: communication, teamwork/social skills, and spirit of the game. Research suggests that UF involves patterns of interaction related to communication and the spirit of the game that encourage active lifestyles. Finally, we point out that UF is an appropriate sport to include in physical education classes in which the creation of positive relationships between students is the desired outcome. This topic should be explored further through interventional studies done in different contexts although the evidence suggests that UF offers players unique opportunities to experience a combination of physical activity and enjoyment. Full article

The aim of this paper is to analyze the interrelationships between the burnout and different psychosocial variables to which the grassroots football referee is exposed, in particular, associated with the influence of the environment and the level of verbal and physical aggression. To this end, a questionnaire was developed, consisting of items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey(MBI-GS) and various self-constructed items designed to find out these psychosocial variables. First, a study of the structure of the form was carried out. Second, a structural equation model was designed in order to test the causal relationship between the variables under consideration. The results obtained point to the validity of the proposed theoretical model. It is recommended to initiate training programs for this group aimed at strengthening personal coping and social support strategies, which can help minimize the evolution of this syndrome. Full article

Background: Volleyball officials require a combination of qualities, e.g., confidence, decisiveness, courage and mental toughness as very important attributes for their performance. Measurement of the self-efficacy of volleyball referees has not been studied with large samples; therefore, the aim of this study was to fill this gap in the research. Methods: Four-hundred and forty-five international volleyball referees participated in the study fulfilling the referee self-efficacy scale in the English version. Results: The confirmatory analysis verified the four-factor structure of the scale and its reliability in this specific sample of international volleyball referees. ANCOVA revealed a significant effect of the covariate “level of education” for all four dimensions of referees’ self-efficacy. Conclusions: Although English was not the mother tongue for most of the subjects in the sample, the scale was statistically reliable, and the items were easy to understand, thus making the tool very suitable to use for further studies on multilingual referees. The study also suggests enhancing the level of education of the officials because of its significant effect on the perceived self-efficacy during refereeing. Full article

The aim of this study was to analyze the association between sprint ability and endurance capacity in soccer referees. Twenty-three Spanish officials participated in this study. Each referee undertook, in this order, a 40 m linear straight sprinting test (40 m Sprint) and the Yo–Yo intermittent recovery level 1 test (YYIR1) interspersed with a 8 min of self-administered rest. The results in the 40 m Sprint test showed that the time spent by referees was 5.56 ± 0.27 s and achieved a maximum velocity of 31.46 ± 2.85 km·h⁻¹. Furthermore, during the YYIR1 the referees covered 1213.91 ± 432.26 m. The distance covered at YYIR1 was moderately correlated to the velocity achieved in the 40 m Sprint test (r = −0.404, p < 0.05). These results suggest that the ability to reach high speeds is a limiting factor in YYIR1 performance. Full article