Gossip, Sexual Recombination and the El Farol Bar: modelling the emergence of heterogeneity

Brian Arthur's `El Farol Bar' model is extended so that the agents also learn and communicate. The learning and communication is implemented using an evolutionary process acting upon a population of mental models inside each agent. The evolutionary process is based on a Genetic Programming algorithm. Each gene is composed of two tree-structures: one to control its action and one to determine its communication. A detailed case-study from the simulations show how the agents have differentiated so that by the end of the run they had taken on very different roles. Thus the introduction of a flexible learning process and an expressive internal representation has allowed the emergence of heterogeneity

Communication Library Mechanisms for Children’s Social Integration

The article deals with communicative mechanisms of social interaction between libraries and different population categories. In conditions of information society, crisis situations, and war conflicts libraries should not only be supported by society but also to reintegrate into social life. Legislative instruments that regulate the work of libraries for children and determine its place in society were analyzed. The information about sociocultural, educational and informational functions of libraries much broader on the current conditions than set by legislation have been considered. The study finds that libraries for children work with different categories of young people including relocates, children with limited health capacities, teach finance and computer basics, develop creative talents and provide psychological help for parents. The paper presents an idea that libraries are not only limited to leisure activity institutions but have an important role in the process of socialization. The article deals with mechanism of library interaction with young people, particularly social partnership. Based on the research of sites and blogs of regional children’s libraries, the National Library of Ukraine for children, the main mechanisms of communication for social integration of young people into public and social life were determined

GUARDIANS final report

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for firefghters. The large dimensions together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The Guardians robot swarm is designed to assist fire fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this report we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots searching and assisting fire fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms which provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also one of the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus the robot swarm is able to locate itself and provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the re ghters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm based information to human beings

Modelling Socially Intelligent Agents

The perspective of modelling agents rather than using them for a specificed purpose entails a difference in approach. In particular an emphasis on veracity as opposed to efficiency. An approach using evolving populations of mental models is described that goes some way to meet these concerns. It is then argued that social intelligence is not merely intelligence plus interaction but should allow for individual relationships to develop between agents. This means that, at least, agents must be able to distinguish, identify, model and address other agents, either individually or in groups. In other words that purely homogeneous interaction is insufficient. Two example models are described that illustrate these concerns, the second in detail where agents act and communicate socially, where this is determined by the evolution of their mental models. Finally some problems that arise in the interpretation of such simulations is discussed

STRATEGY AS DISCURSIVE PRACTICE IN A BRAZILIAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY: A LOOK UNDER THE PERSPECTIVE OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The aim this article a critical discursive analysis of the “management plan” genre of a public institution of higher education, from 2012 to 2015, located in southeast Brazil. The aforementioned plan is inserted in the discursive practice of strategic management, specifically the institutional, bureaucratic management, and is used as an instrument for decision-making. The goal of this analysis will be to discuss the first step of the “management plan”, named “organizational policies”. We can see that, while elaborating declarative sentences, there is an evaluation of the statements regarding what is to be considered relevant to the institutions by means of the ideological discourse on neoliberal ideals and market behavior. The adoption of market-oriented managerial tools has been a constant in public administration. The public administration looks for bases of organizational practices in the private sphere. This mimicry is still present in the field, and the search for new managerial practices still crosses the imaginaries of the public managers. However, the increasing incorporation of a market-oriented, neoliberal logic, mainly in the adoption of strategic planning, can still be verified. The conclusion presented in this paper serves to foment the debate on the strategies formulated for the Brazilian public service and the methodological applicability of the critical discourse analysis. This meets the emerging need to systematize and integrate distinct theoretical and methodological approaches in the field of organizational studies when strategy is studied as a social and discursive practice

State-of-the-art on evolution and reactivity

This report starts by, in Chapter 1, outlining aspects of querying and updating resources on the Web and on the Semantic Web, including the development of query and update languages to be carried out within the Rewerse project. From this outline, it becomes clear that several existing research areas and topics are of interest for this work in Rewerse. In the remainder of this report we further present state of the art surveys in a selection of such areas and topics. More precisely: in Chapter 2 we give an overview of logics for reasoning about state change and updates; Chapter 3 is devoted to briefly describing existing update languages for the Web, and also for updating logic programs; in Chapter 4 event-condition-action rules, both in the context of active database systems and in the context of semistructured data, are surveyed; in Chapter 5 we give an overview of some relevant rule-based agents frameworks

Effect of Communication Delays on the Successful Coordination of a Group of Biomimetic AUVs

In this paper, the influence of delays on the ability of a formation control algorithm to coordinate a group of twelve Biomimetic Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (BAUVs) is investigated. In this study the formation control algorithm is a decentralized methodology based on the behavioural mechanisms of fish within school structures. Incorporated within this algorithm is a representation of the well-known and frequently used communication protocol, Time-Division-Multiple-Access (TDMA). TDMA operates by assigning each vehicle a specific timeslot during which it can broadcast to the remaining members of the group. The size of this timeslot varies depending on a number of operational parameters such as the size of the message being transmitted, the hardware used and the distance between neighbouring vehicles. Therefore, in this work, numerous timeslot sizes are tested that range from theoretical possible values through to values used in practice. The formation control algorithm and the TDMA protocol have been implemented within a validated mathematical of the RoboSalmon BAUV designed and manufactured at the University of Glasgow. The results demonstrate a significant deterioration in the ability of the formation control algorithms as the timeslot size is increased. This deterioration is due to the fact that as the timeslot size is increased, the interim period between successive communication updates increases and as a result, the error between where the formation control algorithm estimates each vehicle to be and where they actually are, increases. As a result, since the algorithm no longer has an accurate representation of the positioning of neighbouring vehicles, it is no longer capable of selecting the correct behavioural equation and subsequently, is unable to coordinate the vehicles to form a stable group structure

Agent-based Analysis of the Spread of Awareness in the Population in the Prodromal Phase of Bushfires

Efficient communication is essential in disasters in order to coordinate a response and assure effective evacuation. This paper focuses on the case study of the Melbourne bushfires in 2009. We first analysed some interviews of the population to know who the population communicates with (neighbours, family, authorities, etc), and using what channel (radio, phone, internet, etc). We then developed and implemented communicative actions in a Belief-Desire-Intention model of the population\u27s behaviour. Finally, we ran experiments in order to compare the speed at which the population becomes aware of the fires in different scenarios with different types of communication (more or less organised). Our first results show that more organised modes of communication would provide significant benefits in terms of propagation of awareness in the population