150 research outputs found
Temporally extended goal recognition in fully observable non-deterministic domain models
This work has been partially supported by the ERC-ADGWhiteMech (No. 834228), the EU ICT-48 2020 project TAILOR (No. 952215), the PRIN project RIPER (No. 20203FFYLK),and the PNRR MUR project FAIR (No. PE0000013).Peer reviewedPublisher PD
30th European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2023)
This is the abstract book of 30th European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2023
Generating predicate suggestions based on the space of plans:an example of planning with preferences
The version of record is available online at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11257-022-09327-wTask planning in human–robot environments tends to be particularly complex as it involves additional uncertainty introduced by the human user. Several plans, entailing few or various differences, can be obtained to solve the same given task. To choose among them, the usual least-cost plan criteria is not necessarily the best option, because here, human constraints and preferences come into play. Knowing these user preferences is very valuable to select an appropriate plan, but the preference values are usually hard to obtain. In this context, we propose the Space-of-Plans-based Suggestions (SoPS) algorithms that can provide suggestions for some planning predicates, which are used to define the state of the environment in a task planning problem where actions modify the predicates. We denote these predicates as suggestible predicates, of which user preferences are a particular case. The first algorithm is able to analyze the potential effect of the unknown predicates and provide suggestions to values for these unknown predicates that may produce better plans. The second algorithm is able to suggest changes to already known values that potentially improve the obtained reward. The proposed approach utilizes a Space of Plans Tree structure to represent a subset of the space of plans. The tree is traversed to find the predicates and the values that would most increase the reward, and output them as a suggestion to the user. Our evaluation in three preference-based assistive robotics domains shows how the proposed algorithms can improve task performance by suggesting the most effective predicate values first.This work has been partially supported by the ERC project Clothilde (ERC-2016-ADG-741930); by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 under the project CHLOE-GRAPH (PID2020-118649RB-l00); by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR under the project ROB-IN (PLEC2021-007859); and by the CHIST-ERA project COHERENT (EPSRC EP/V062506/1)Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version
A Design Science Research Approach to Architecting and Developing Information Systems for Collaborative Manufacturing : A Case for Human-Robot Collaboration
Konseptointi- ja suunnitteluvaiheessa sekä valmistuksen, käytön ja kehitysprosessin aikana syntyy tietoa, jonka hyödyntämisessä on valtavaa potentiaalia liike-elämän ja tuotantoprosessien muuttamiseen. Neljännen teollisen vallankumouksen ytimessä oleva digitaalinen muutos tunnistaa tämän painottaen erityisesti tämän tiedon yhdistämistä toimintojen ja järjestelmien tukemiseksi läpi tuotteen elinkaareen, mitä kutsutaan digitaaliseksi säikeen kehykseksi (digital thread framework). Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena on kehittää ja käyttää yhtä tällaista viitekehystä ihmisen ja robotin yhteistoiminnan asiayhteydessä. Tämä kehys pyrkii vastaamaan merkittävään ongelmaan, joka liittyy mukautuvuuden ja joustavuuden abstrakteihin ominaisuuksiin. Nykyiset ihmisen ja robotin yhteistyöjärjestelmät (human-robot collaboration (HRC)) on rakennettu pääasiassa pysyviksi järjestelmiksi, jotka sivuuttavat ihmisten intuitiivisen toiminnan asettamalla heidän roolinsa yhteistyötehtävissä etukäteen määritellyiksi. Lisäksi järjestelmien kyky vaihtaa tuotteesta toiseen on rajoittunutta. Tämä on erityisen ongelmallista nykyisellä laajan tuotevalikoiman aikakaudella, joka johtuu asiakkaiden räätälöidyistä vaatimuksista.
Tähän taustaan vastaten, tämä väitöskirja käyttää design science research methodology -menetelmää suunnitellakseen, kehittääkseen ja ottaakseen käyttöön kolme pääasiallista artefaktia ihmisen ja robotin yhteistyösolussa laboratorioympäristössä. Ensimmäinen on digitaalisen säikeen kehys (digital thread framework), joka integroi tuotesuunnitteluympäristön toimijaksi monitoimijajärjestelmään käyttäen uusimpia tietoon perustuvia suunnittelujärjestelmiä, mikä tarjoaa prosessin toimijoille pääsyn tuotesuunnittelumalleihin reaaliajassa. Toinen on lisätyn todellisuuden malli, joka tarjoaa rajapinnan kokoonpanotehtävässä yhteistyöhön osallistuvan ihmisoperaattorin ja edellä mainitun kehyksen välille. Kolmas on tukitietomalli, jota yhteistyötä tekevät toimijat käyttävät tietopohjanaan täyttääkseen yhteistyössä tapahtuvan kokoonpanon tavoitteet mukautuvasti.
Näitä kehitettyjä artefakteja käytettiin kokonaisuutena tapaustutkimuksissa, jotka liittyivät aidon dieselmoottorin kokoonpanoon, ja joissa todennettiin niiden hyödyllisyys ja että ne lisäävät joustavuutta, jota varten kehys (framework) suunniteltiin. Rajauslaatikoiden näyttäminen skaalautuvana informaationa, joka hahmottaa alikokoonpanon osien geometriaa, demostroi kehitettyjen artefaktien käytettävyyttä yhteistyötä tekevien toimijoiden aikomuksia heijastavien laajennetun todellisuuden projektioiden tuottamiseksi.
Yhteenvetona tämän väitöskirjan tuloksena syntyi lähestymistapa älykkään ja mukautuvan robotiikan toteuttamiseksi hyödyntäen tietovirtoja ja mallinnusta ihmisen ja robotin yhteistoiminnan kontekstissa. Teollisuuden raportoima älykkäästi mukautuvien HRC-järjestelmien puute taas toimi osaltaan motivaationa tähän väitöskirjassa tehtyyn työhön. Kun tulevaisuuden tuotteet ja tuotantojärjestelmät muuttuvat monimutkaisemmiksi, tietojärjestelmiltä odotetaan suurempaa vastuuta korvaamaan ihmisen työmuistin luontaiset rajat ja mahdollistamaan siirtyminen kohti ihmiskeskeistä valmistusta, joihin viitataan termeillä Operator 4.0 ja Industry 5.0. Näin ollen on odotettavissa, että tietojärjestelmien tutkimus, kuten tämä väitöskirja, voi auttaa ottamaan merkittäviä askeleita tähän suuntaan.Information generated from the conceptualization, design, manufacturing, and use of a product has immense potential in transforming both the business and manufacturing processes of the manufacturing enterprise. The digital transformation at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution has acknowledged this with a special emphasis on weaving a thread of this information to support functions and systems throughout the life cycle of the product with what is known as a digital thread framework. This dissertation aims to develop and use one such framework in the context of human-robot collaborative assembly. The overarching problem that the framework aims to solve can be attributed to the abstract qualities of adaptability and flexibility. The human-robot collaboration (HRC) systems of today are built predominantly as static systems and ignore the intuitive role of humans by having their roles in collaborative tasks pre-defined. Furthermore, their ability to switch between products during product changeovers is also limited. This is especially problematic in the current era of product variety, stemming from the customised requirements of customers.
To this end, this dissertation employs the design science research methodology to design, develop, and deploy predominantly three artefacts in a human-robot work cell in a laboratory setting. The first is the digital thread framework that integrates the product design environment using state-of-the-art knowledge-based engineering systems, as an agent of a multi-agent system, which provide the collaborative human-robot agents with access to product design models at run time. The second is a constituent mixed-reality model that provides an interface for the foregoing framework for the human operator engaged in collaborative assembly. The third is a supporting information model that the agents use as their knowledge base to fulfil adaptively the goals of collaborative assembly.
Together, these developed artefacts were employed in case studies involving a real diesel engine assembly during which they were observed to provide utility and support the cause of adaptability for which the framework was designed. The identification of bounding boxes as a scalable information construct, that approximates the part geometry of the sub-assembly components, demonstrates the utility of the developed artefacts for spatially augmenting them as projections as intentions of collaborating agents.
In summary, this dissertation contributes with an approach towards realising intelligent and adaptive robotics within the realms of information flows and modelling in the context of human-robot collaboration. The lack of intelligently adaptable HRC systems reported by the industry in part motivated the work undertaken in this dissertation. As future products and production systems become more complex, information systems are expected to assume greater responsibility to compensate for the inherent limits of the human working memory and enable transition towards a human-centred manufacturing, the current likes of which are labelled as Operator 4.0 and Industry 5.0. Thus, the expectation is that information systems research, such as this dissertation, can help take significant strides forward in this direction
Machine Learning Methods with Noisy, Incomplete or Small Datasets
In many machine learning applications, available datasets are sometimes incomplete, noisy or affected by artifacts. In supervised scenarios, it could happen that label information has low quality, which might include unbalanced training sets, noisy labels and other problems. Moreover, in practice, it is very common that available data samples are not enough to derive useful supervised or unsupervised classifiers. All these issues are commonly referred to as the low-quality data problem. This book collects novel contributions on machine learning methods for low-quality datasets, to contribute to the dissemination of new ideas to solve this challenging problem, and to provide clear examples of application in real scenarios
The Role of General Practitioners in Disaster Health Management
Disasters are a time of excess demand for medical care overwhelming available medical services. General Practitioners (GPs) are local healthcare professionals already onsite managing the ongoing health of the majority of the community when disaster strikes. They are a medical resource, knowledgeable about the local community context, and remain to share the journey of adaptation and recovery with their local community in the days to years of aftermath. Early observations at commencement of this research demonstrated that whether GPs chose to or not, as local community health professionals they will be involved in some way in any disaster that strikes their community either during, and/or after the event. In most countries, including Australia, GPs are excluded from disaster response systems.
The research aim was to identify the role of GPs in disaster health management, and to propose a system of involvement that aligns with:
- the epidemiological evidence of disaster healthcare needs relevant to GPs,
- the perceptions of GPs and Disaster Managers (DM) experts, and
- the current All Hazards All Agencies Prevention-Preparedness-Response-Recovery (PPRR) international framework of disaster management
The first study was a systematic literature review utilising PRISMA guidelines to categorise the epidemiology of physical health consequences of disasters relevant to GPs. Following this the thesis reports a series of three qualitative studies employing a constructivist grounded theory approach: two using semi-structured interviews, and one using a focus group, with disaster-experienced GPs and DMs. These studies explored barriers and facilitators to inclusion of GPs and investigated current and future roles.
Research findings led to a conceptual representation for future integration of GPs, utilising the PPRR framework. Ultimately the thesis proposes a strategy for integration of GPs into existing disaster health management systems that addresses some of the barriers highlighted by the research, and elucidates the roles of GPs.
The researchers sought to synthesise the emerging knowledge and facilitate implementation by key stakeholders with the intention of closing the gap between what is known and what is practiced. Findings were disseminated as per Graham's Knowledge to Action framework. Key outputs were enacted through peer-reviewed journal publications, textbook sections, guidelines for a broad range of practitioners, presentations internationally and nationally, policy revision through professional committee memberships, and advocacy for GP involvement at international, national, and local levels.
To manage the challenges of disasters, countries require a resilient healthcare system that maximises capacity of all levels of local health resources, accommodates the surge in demand, and continues to sustain the local health services response in the aftermath. Comprehensive, people-focused coordination & continuity of care has the potential to improve the holistic health outcomes of disaster-affected people. Examination of the evidence from this doctorate suggests clear roles for GPs in disaster healthcare across all phases of disasters, with sustained contributions over the recovery. A knowledge of the temporal epidemiological patterns of health effects provides an opportunity for surveillance for emerging conditions over time, prevention of deterioration of existing conditions, and promotion of patient preparedness for future events, all roles within the usual realm of General Practice healthcare.
An important element of GP integration is ongoing research on disaster healthcare needs presenting to GPs to continue to evaluate, justify and support ongoing GP involvement. The future challenge is to change the focus of disaster health management to person-centred healthcare integrated across all levels of usual healthcare, including evidence-based General Practice primary care contributions
Multiple-Criteria Decision Making
Decision-making on real-world problems, including individual process decisions, requires an appropriate and reliable decision support system. Fuzzy set theory, rough set theory, and neutrosophic set theory, which are MCDM techniques, are useful for modeling complex decision-making problems with imprecise, ambiguous, or vague data.This Special Issue, “Multiple Criteria Decision Making”, aims to incorporate recent developments in the area of the multi-criteria decision-making field. Topics include, but are not limited to:- MCDM optimization in engineering;- Environmental sustainability in engineering processes;- Multi-criteria production and logistics process planning;- New trends in multi-criteria evaluation of sustainable processes;- Multi-criteria decision making in strategic management based on sustainable criteria
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