DISCOVERY: A Visual Arts Elementary School

On average, school-age children spend more time in the classroom environment than they do at home. Why not provide environments that stimulate children’s curiosity to learn through visual arts? Including visual arts in educational programs can enhance students’ cognitive development, problem-solving abilities, cultural awareness, and critical thinking skills. As someone who has attended various public schools in Florida, I’ve found that incorporating arts education into the curriculum can enhance students’ overall engagement with learning. Unfortunately, many students lack access to arts education due to a lack of funding and resources. Traditionally, the arts have been viewed as an opportunity for creative expression and separated from “real” learning like math, science, and English. However, multiple case studies have shown that incorporating visual arts into education can lead to better learning outcomes. For example, one compelling program called MASE integrates visual arts with geometry, allowing students to creatively solve problems while learning about both topics. Therefore, I propose designing an elementary school that prioritizes arts education in its curriculum. The first five years of a child’s development are crucial, providing a foundation for social-emotional and physical development. Children are tactile learners, and research has shown that the number of tactile receptors in the fingertips gradually decreases after the age of ten. By designing a space that prioritizes the arts, students will appreciate the benefits of creativity in their education. Activities like drawing, painting, and working with ceramics provide effective methods of communication for children. They allow children to express their opinions and beliefs to adults using visual media. Additionally, these activities help children connect what they learn to various contexts, make connections with prior knowledge and everyday experiences, and acquire new knowledge in more meaningful ways. In conclusion, incorporating visual arts into education can have significant benefits for students. By prioritizing arts education in a school’s curriculum, we can help students develop crucial skills while encouraging creativity and self-expression

Aggregate Farming in the Cloud: The AFarCloud ECSEL project

Farming is facing many economic challenges in terms of productivity and cost-effectiveness. Labor shortage partly due to depopulation of rural areas, especially in Europe, is another challenge. Domain specific problems such as accurate monitoring of soil and crop properties and animal health are key factors for minimizing economical risks, and not risking human health. The ECSEL AFarCloud (Aggregate Farming in the Cloud) project will provide a distributed platform for autonomous farming that will allow the integration and cooperation of agriculture Cyber Physical Systems in real-time in order to increase efficiency, productivity, animal health, food quality and reduce farm labor costs. Moreover, such a platform can be integrated with farm management software to support monitoring and decision-making solutions based on big data and real-time data mining techniques.publishedVersio

Effective Field Theories, Reduction and Scientific Explanation,

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An intelligent, free-flying robot

The ground based demonstration of the extensive extravehicular activity (EVA) Retriever, a voice-supervised, intelligent, free flying robot, is designed to evaluate the capability to retrieve objects (astronauts, equipment, and tools) which have accidentally separated from the Space Station. The major objective of the EVA Retriever Project is to design, develop, and evaluate an integrated robotic hardware and on-board software system which autonomously: (1) performs system activation and check-out; (2) searches for and acquires the target; (3) plans and executes a rendezvous while continuously tracking the target; (4) avoids stationary and moving obstacles; (5) reaches for and grapples the target; (6) returns to transfer the object; and (7) returns to base

Architecture Design Options for Federated Data Spaces

The massive growth of data and the increasing potential of data analytics in industrial production fuel the emergence of data spaces and corresponding platforms that realize data ecosystems and enable data-driven sustainability applications. To leverage their benefits of demand-driven and scalable data integration, the stakeholders of emerging data space initiatives must make informed decisions about their data space support platforms (DSSPs). This study proposes a conceptual framework based on federated architectures and by considering existing endeavors of data infrastructures. Based on existing literature about data ecosystem resources and an explorative single case study of an industrial data space with sustainability-focused applications, we elaborate on the key design options of data, services, and computing infrastructures. The resulting conceptual framework guides design decisions for DSSPs. The framework captures not only the resources involved but also the operational concepts of federated services and shared services to introduce governance mechanisms and sustainability policies

Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interactions

Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología (CICYT) SETI (TIN2009-07366)Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-2533 (Isabel)Junta de Andalucía TIC-590

Development of the huggable social robot Probo: on the conceptual design and software architecture

This dissertation presents the development of a huggable social robot named Probo. Probo embodies a stuffed imaginary animal, providing a soft touch and a huggable appearance. Probo's purpose is to serve as a multidisciplinary research platform for human-robot interaction focused on children. In terms of a social robot, Probo is classified as a social interface supporting non-verbal communication. Probo's social skills are thereby limited to a reactive level. To close the gap with higher levels of interaction, an innovative system for shared control with a human operator is introduced. The software architecture de nes a modular structure to incorporate all systems into a single control center. This control center is accompanied with a 3D virtual model of Probo, simulating all motions of the robot and providing a visual feedback to the operator. Additionally, the model allows us to advance on user-testing and evaluation of newly designed systems. The robot reacts on basic input stimuli that it perceives during interaction. The input stimuli, that can be referred to as low-level perceptions, are derived from vision analysis, audio analysis, touch analysis and object identification. The stimuli will influence the attention and homeostatic system, used to de ne the robot's point of attention, current emotional state and corresponding facial expression. The recognition of these facial expressions has been evaluated in various user-studies. To evaluate the collaboration of the software components, a social interactive game for children, Probogotchi, has been developed. To facilitate interaction with children, Probo has an identity and corresponding history. Safety is ensured through Probo's soft embodiment and intrinsic safe actuation systems. To convey the illusion of life in a robotic creature, tools for the creation and management of motion sequences are put into the hands of the operator. All motions generated from operator triggered systems are combined with the motions originating from the autonomous reactive systems. The resulting motion is subsequently smoothened and transmitted to the actuation systems. With future applications to come, Probo is an ideal platform to create a friendly companion for hospitalised children