General Board Game Concepts

Many games often share common ideas or aspects between them, such as their rules, controls, or playing area. However, in the context of General Game Playing (GGP) for board games, this area remains under-explored. We propose to formalise the notion of "game concept", inspired by terms generally used by game players and designers. Through the Ludii General Game System, we describe concepts for several levels of abstraction, such as the game itself, the moves played, or the states reached. This new GGP feature associated with the ludeme representation of games opens many new lines of research. The creation of a hyper-agent selector, the transfer of AI learning between games, or explaining AI techniques using game terms, can all be facilitated by the use of game concepts. Other applications which can benefit from game concepts are also discussed, such as the generation of plausible reconstructed rules for incomplete ancient games, or the implementation of a board game recommender system

Support tools for 3D game creation

Nowadays, tools for developing videogames are a very important part of the development process in the game industry. Such tools are used to assist game developers in their tasks, allowing them to create functional games while writing a few lines of code. For example, these tools allow the users to import the content for the game, set the game logic, or produce the source code and compile it. There are several tasks and components regarding the development of videogames that may become unproductive, therefore, it’s necessary to automate and/or optimize such tasks. For example, the programming of events or dialogs can be a task that consumes too much time in the development cycle, and a tedious and repetitive task for the programmer. For this reason, the use of tools to support these tasks can be very important to increase productivity and help on the maintenance of the various processes that involve the development of videogames. This dissertation aims to demonstrate the advantages of the use of these kind of tools during the development of videogames, presenting a case study involving the development of a Serious Game entitled Clean World.Atualmente, as ferramentas para o desenvolvimento de jogos são uma parte bastante importante de todo o processo de desenvolvimento. Estas ferramentas servem para assistir os criadores de jogos nas tarefas que realizam, permitindo-lhes a criação de jogos funcionais escrevendo poucas linhas de código. Desenvolver um videojogo sem a utilização de ferramentas especializadas é um processo complexo e que consome bastante tempo, daí a existência de ferramentas que permitem ao utilizador importar os conteúdos para o jogo, definir a lógica de jogo, produzir o código fonte e compilá-lo. Este tipo de software é normalmente utilizado por quem se dedica à criação de jogos como hobby, ou por profissionais que procuram otimizar o processo de desenvolvimento de jogos. Existem várias componentes ao nível do desenvolvimento de videojogos que se tornam pouco produtivas, se não forem automatizados e/ou otimizadas. Por exemplo, a programação de eventos ou de diálogos pode ser uma tarefa que consome demasiado tempo no ciclo de desenvolvimento, para além de ser uma tarefa entediante e repetitiva no ponto de vista do programador. Por este motivo, a utilização de ferramentas pode ser muito importante no que diz respeito ao aumento da produtividade e manutenção dos vários processos que envolvem o desenvolvimento de videojogos. Nesta dissertação pretendemos demonstrar as vantagens da utilização dessas mesmas ferramentas durante o desenvolvimento de videojogos, através da apresentação de um caso de estudo que envolve o desenvolvimento de um Serious Game intitulado Clean World. Em Clean World, foram identificadas determinadas tarefas que se mostraram demasiado repetitivas e entediantes quando programadas por inteiro, como é o caso da adição, modificação ou remoção de componentes como diálogos, quest ou items. Tendo em conta este problema concreto, foram criadas algumas ferramentas de forma a aumentar a produtividade no desenvolvimento do jogo, tornando tarefas repetitivas e entediantes em processos simples e intuitivos. O conjunto de ferramentas é constituído por: Item Manager, Quest Manager, Dialog Manager e Terrain Creator

Advances in Green Infrastructure Planning

The expansion of urban areas has facilitated the conversion of undeveloped lands, which has led to environmental degradation, such as loss of habitats, hydro-modification, and the collapse of existing ecosystems. Recent climate change has exacerbated these damages by causing more frequent and serious hazards. To attenuate the impacts of urbanization and the negative effects of climate change, green infrastructure (GI) planning (e.g., nature-based strategies, technologies, policies, and solutions) has arisen as an important approach for balancing urban development and nature. GI offers a variety of benefits to our cities by reducing stormwater runoff, heat waves, and air pollution; expanding wildlife habitats; and increasing recreational opportunities and even nearby property values

Temoral Difference Learning in Complex Domains

Submitted to the University of London for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Scienc

Temporal Difference Learning in Complex Domains

PhDThis thesis adapts and improves on the methods of TD(k) (Sutton 1988) that were successfully used for backgammon (Tesauro 1994) and applies them to other complex games that are less amenable to simple pattem-matching approaches. The games investigated are chess and shogi, both of which (unlike backgammon) require significant amounts of computational effort to be expended on search in order to achieve expert play. The improved methods are also tested in a non-game domain. In the chess domain, the adapted TD(k) method is shown to successfully learn the relative values of the pieces, and matches using these learnt piece values indicate that they perform at least as well as piece values widely quoted in elementary chess books. The adapted TD(X) method is also shown to work well in shogi, considered by many researchers to be the next challenge for computer game-playing, and for which there is no standardised set of piece values. An original method to automatically set and adjust the major control parameters used by TD(k) is presented. The main performance advantage comes from the learning rate adjustment, which is based on a new concept called temporal coherence. Experiments in both chess and a random-walk domain show that the temporal coherence algorithm produces both faster learning and more stable values than both human-chosen parameters and an earlier method for learning rate adjustment. The methods presented in this thesis allow programs to learn with as little input of external knowledge as possible, exploring the domain on their own rather than by being taught. Further experiments show that the method is capable of handling many hundreds of weights, and that it is not necessary to perform deep searches during the leaming phase in order to learn effective weight

Modelling the integration between the design and inspection process of geometrical specifications for digital manufacturing

Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) is a technical language which covers the standardization for micro/macro- geometry specifications. In today’s environment of globalization, out-sourcing and sub-contracting is increasing. Geometrical specifications of a product need to be detailed to a degree where nothing is left open to interpretation. To fulfil this, and to meet the requirements of digital manufacturing, it is necessary to integrate the design and inspection process of a geometrical specification. At the technical level, many functional operator/operations are employed in a geometrical specification. These functional operators/operations are based on rigorous mathematics, and they are intricately related and inconvenient to be used directly. Consequently, it is of practical utility to build an integrated information system to encapsulate and manage the information involved in GPS. This thesis focuses on geometrical tolerancing, including form/orientation/ location tolerancing, and its integrated geometry information system. The main contributions are: Firstly, a global data expression for modelling the integration between the design and inspection process of a geometrical tolerance is presented based on category theory. The categorical data model represents, stores and manipulates all the elements and their relationships involved in design and inspection process of a geometrical tolerance, by categories, objects and morphisms, flexibly; the relationships between objects were refined by pull back structures; and the manipulations of the model such as query and closure of query are realized successfully by functor structures in category theory. Secondly, different categories of knowledge rules have been established to enhance the rationality and the intellectuality of the integrated geometry information system, such as the rules for the application of geometrical requirement, tolerance type, datum and datum reference framework and, for the refinement among geometrical specifications. Finally, the host system for drawing indication of geometrical tolerances in the framework of GPS was established based on AutoCAD 2007 using ObjectARX.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Guiding Monte Carlo Tree Search simulations through Bayesian Opponent Modeling in The Octagon Theory

Os jogos de tabuleiro apresentam um problema de tomada de decisão desafiador na área da Inteligência Artificial. Embora abordagens clássicas baseadas em árvores de pesquisa tenham sido aplicadas com sucesso em diversos jogos de tabuleiro, como o Xadrez, estas mesmas abordagens ainda são limitadas pela tecnologia actual quando aplicadas a jogos de tabuleiro de maior omplexidade, como o Go. Face a isto, os jogos de maior complexidade só se tornaram no foco de pesquisa com o aparecimento de árvores de pesquisa baseadas em métodos de Monte Carlo (Monte Carlo Tree Search - MCTS), uma vez que começaram a surgir perspectivas de solução neste domínio.Este projecto de dissertação tem como objectivo expandir o estado de arte actual relativo a MCTS, através da investigação da integração de modelação de oponentes (Opponent Modeling) com MCTS. O propósito desta integração é guiar as simulações de um algoritmo típico de MCTS através da obtenção de conhecimento acerca do adversário, utilizando modelação de oponentes Bayesiana (Bayesian Opponent Modeling), com o intuito de reduzir o número de computações irrelevantes que são executadas em métodos puramente estocásticos e independentes de domínio. Para esta investigação, foi utilizado o jogo de tabuleiro deterministico The Octagon Theory, pois as suas regras, dimensão fixa do problema e configuração do tabuleiro apresentam não só um complexo desafio na criação de modelos de oponentes e na execução de MCTS em si, mas também um meio claro de classificação e comparação (benchmark) entre algoritmos. Através da análise de um estudo efectuado sobre a complexidade do jogo, acredita-se que o jogo, quando jogado na maior versão do tabuleiro, se encontra na mesma classe de complexidade do Shogi e da versão 19x19 do Go, transformando-se num jogo de tabuleiro adequado para investigação nesta área. Ao longo deste relatório, diversas políticas e melhoramentos relativos a MCTS são apresentados e comparados não só com a variação proposta, mas também com o método básico de Monte Carlo e com a melhor abordagem (greedy) conhecida no contexto do The Octagon Theory. Os resultados desta investigação revelam que a adição de Move Groups, Decisive Moves, Upper Confidence Bounds for Trees (UCT), Limited Simulation Lengths e Opponent Modeling transformam um agente MCTS previamente perdedor no melhor agente, num domínio com uma complexidade da árvore de jogo (game-tree complexity) estimada de 10^293, mesmo quando o orçamento computacional atribuído ao agente é mínimo.Board games present a very challenging problem in the decision-making topic of Artificial Intelligence. Although classical tree search approaches have been successful in various board games, such as Chess, these approaches are still very limited by modern technology when applied to higher complexity games such as Go. In light of this, it was not until the appearance of Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods that higher complexity games became the main focus of research, as solution perspectives started to appear in this domain.This thesis builds on the current state-of-the-art in MCTS methods, by investigating the integration of Opponent Modeling with MCTS. The goal of this integration is to guide the simulations of the MCTS algorithm according to knowledge about the opponent, obtained in real-time through Bayesian Opponent Modeling, with the intention of reducing the number of irrelevant computations that are performed in purely stochastic, domain-independent methods. For this research, the two player deterministic board game The Octagon Theory was used, as its rules, fixed problem length and board configuration, present not only a difficult challenge for both the creation of opponent models and the execution of the MCTS method itself, but also a clear benchmark for comparison between algorithms. Through the analysis of a performed computation on the gametree complexity, the large board version of the game is believed to be in the same complexity class of Shogi and the 19x19 version of Go, turning it into a suitable board game for research in this area. Throughout this report, several MCTS policies and enhancements are presented and compared with not only the proposed variation, but also standard Monte Carlo search and the best known greedy approach for The Octagon Theory. The experiments reveal that a combination of Move Groups, Decisive Moves, Upper Confidence Bounds for Trees (UCT), Limited Simulation Lengths and an Opponent Modeling based simulation policy turn a former losing MCTS agent into the best performing one in a domain with estimated game-tree complexity of 10^293, even when the provided computational budget is kept low

Never again:Legal change after public health crises in China

This thesis examines legal change after public health crises in China. The research aim is threefold. First of all, it aims to contribute to our understanding of how crises can lead to legal change in China. Secondly, the thesis aims to contribute to our understanding of post-crisis lawmaking. Thirdly, the thesis aims to develop tools for measuring and assessing the nature of legal change and of post-crisis legal change in particular. These three aims have been captured in one overarching research question: To what extent and under which conditions do public health crises lead to legal change in China