7,196 research outputs found

    An investigation of entorhinal spatial representations in self-localisation behaviours

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    Spatial-modulated cells of the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) and neighbouring cortices are thought to provide the neural substrate for self-localisation behaviours. These cells include grid cells of the MEC which are thought to compute path integration operations to update self-location estimates. In order to read this grid code, downstream cells are thought to reconstruct a positional estimate as a simple rate-coded representation of space. Here, I show the coding scheme of grid cell and putative readout cells recorded from mice performing a virtual reality (VR) linear location task which engaged mice in both beaconing and path integration behaviours. I found grid cells can encode two unique coding schemes on the linear track, namely a position code which reflects periodic grid fields anchored to salient features of the track and a distance code which reflects periodic grid fields without this anchoring. Grid cells were found to switch between these coding schemes within sessions. When grid cells were encoding position, mice performed better at trials that required path integration but not on trials that required beaconing. This result provides the first mechanistic evidence linking grid cell activity to path integration-dependent behaviour. Putative readout cells were found in the form of ramp cells which fire proportionally as a function of location in defined regions of the linear track. This ramping activity was found to be primarily explained by track position rather than other kinematic variables like speed and acceleration. These representations were found to be maintained across both trial types and outcomes indicating they likely result from recall of the track structure. Together, these results support the functional importance of grid and ramp cells for self-localisation behaviours. Future investigations will look into the coherence between these two neural populations, which may together form a complete neural system for coding and decoding self-location in the brain

    Visual Programming Paradigm for Organizations in Multi-Agent Systems

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    Over the past few years, due to a fast digitalization process, business activities witnessed the adoption of new technologies, such as Multi-Agent Systems, to increase the autonomy of their activities. However, the complexity of these technologies often hinders the capability of domain experts, who do not possess coding skills, to exploit them directly. To take advantage of these individuals' expertise in their field, the idea of a user-friendly and accessible Integrated Development Environment arose. Indeed, efforts have already been made to develop a block-based visual programming language for software agents. Although the latter project represents a huge step forward, it does not provide a solution for addressing complex, real-world use cases where interactions and coordination among single entities are crucial. To address this problem, Multi-Agent Oriented Programming introduces organization as a first-class abstraction for designing and implementing Multi-Agent Systems. Therefore, this thesis aims to provide a solution allowing users to impose an organization on top of the agents easily. Since ease of use and intuitiveness remain the key points for this project, users will be able to define organizations through visual language and an intuitive development environment

    Racialisation in Domestic Violence Shelter Work : Autoethnographic Action Research

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    Lähisuhdeväkivalta ja lähisuhteissa tapahtuva hyväksikäyttö ovat mittasuhteiltaan laajoja ihmisoikeusrikkomuksia, jotka traumatisoivat ja aiheuttavat mittavaa kärsimystä kokijoilleen. Sukupuolistuneena ilmiönä lähisuhdeväkivalta risteää etnisyyden, rodun ja maahanmuuttostatuksen kanssa. Tämä laajalle levinnyt sosiaalinen ongelma edellyttää tehokasta puuttumista sekä lähisuhdeväkivaltaa kohdanneiden tukemista. Suomessa turvakodit tarjoavat matalan kynnyksen palveluita, joiden tavoitteena on antaa välitöntä suojaa ja turvaa lähisuhdeväkivallan uhreille sekä voimaannuttaa heitä. Merkittävällä osuudella turvaa etsivistä ihmisistä on maahanmuutto- tai muu rodullistettu asema suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa, mikä on heikosti tunnistettu ilmiö. Esimerkiksi Sosiaali- ja terveysministeriön raportti (Laine, 2010) osoittaa, että noin 30 % turvakotien asukkaista Suomessa on maahanmuuttotaustaisia, kuten pakolaisia, turvapaikanhakijoita tai äidinkieleltään muita kuin suomen- tai ruotsinkielisiä. Osuus on tätä korkeampi suurissa kaupungeissa ja Etelä-Suomessa; näillä alueilla paikoin kaikki turvakotien asukkaat ovat maahanmuuttotaustaisia. Lisäksi turvakodeissa on paljon etnisiin vähemmistöihin, kuten Suomen romaneihin, kuuluvia asiakkaita. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan näiden, rodullistettujen lähisuhdeväkivallan uhrien tilanteita ja asemaa turvakodeissa ja sitä, millaisia haasteita he tuovat turvakotityöntekijöiden ammattitaidolle. Tutkimusten mukaan rodullistetut uhrit kohtaavat syrjintää hakiessaan turvaa. Ulossulkevat ja toimijuutta heikentävät turvakotikäytännöt, etniseen taustaan liitetyt stereotypiat, kielteiset identiteettikonstruktiot ja keskiluokkaisen valkoisuuden normatiivisuus muokkaavat ympäristöstä torjuvan monille rodullistetuille uhreille (Bent-Goodley, 2005; Burmen et al. 2004; Donnelly et al., 2005; Kulkami, 2018; Nnawulezi and Sullivan, 2014). Lisäksi tutkimus osoittaa, että rodullistetut uhrit kohtaavat monissa maissa huomattavia esteitä ilmoittaessaan väkivallasta ja hakiessaan apua. Ammattilaiset puolestaan kokevat työskentelyn rodullistettujen uhrien kanssa vaikeaksi ja pohtivat usein, pitäisikö työntekijöiden kohdella maahanmuuttotaustaisia uhreja samoin vai eri tavoin kuin rodullisesti enemmistössä olevia uhreja (Hagemann-White et al., 2019). Tutkimuksen piirissä on peräänkuulutettu lähisuhdeväkivallan uhrien intersektionaalisten haavoittuvuuksien asianmukaista käsitteellistämistä ja ymmärrystä; tämä tarkoittaa esimerkiksi sen tunnistamista, miten maahanmuuttajastatus kietoutuu yhteen muiden alistuksen muotojen kanssa (Burman et al., 2004; Kulkami, 2018; Menjivar and Salcido, 2002). Myös Suomessa on tunnistettu tarve kehittää onnistuneita käytäntöjä lähisuhdeväkivaltaan puutumiseksi (Husso et al., 2020, 2021; Piippo et al., 2021) ja kiinnittää huomion ongelmallisiin työskentelyn käytäntöihin liittyen kulttuurisensitiivisyyteen ja eroihin. Esimerkiksi monikulttuurisesta väkivaltatyöstä puuttuu eroja ymmärtävä intersektionaalinen lähestymistapa. Tämä ylläpitää lähisuhdeväkivallan ja hyväksikäytön kehystämistä kulttuuriseksi ilmiöksi ja näin ollen myös uusintaa rodullistavaa ymmärrystä uhreista (Keskinen, 2011; Keskinen et al., 2012; Honkatukia and Keskinen, 2018; Niemi et al., 2017). Puutteellinen ymmärrys intersektionaalisiin subjektipositioihin kiinnittyvistä haavoittuvuuksista voi johtaa rodullistettujen uhrien ulossulkemiseen turvakotien tarjoaman suojan piiristä. Esimerkiksi Törmän (2017) tutkimus osoitti, että lähisuhdeväkivaltaa kokeneet romanit kohtaavat epäilyä ja ulossulkemista hakiessaan apua viranomaisilta tai turvakodeista. Tutkijat ovat tähdentäneet kulttuurisensitiivisyyden merkitystä kohtaamisissa rodullistettujen uhrien kanssa, jotta olennaiset erot voitaisiin tunnistaa ilman, että uhreista ylläpidetään rasistisia käsityksiä (Lidman, 2015). Tämä on yhä haaste turvakotien arkisissa käytännöissä. Tähän tutkimuskeskusteluun pohjautuen tutkimukseni käsittelee turvakotityötä Suomessa ja sen vaikutuksia rodullistettujen uhrien turvan ja voimaantumisen piiriin pääsylle. Tutkimukselle on merkittävät yhteiskunnalliset perusteet, sillä turvakotipalvelun ulkopuolelle jääminen ja toimijuutta heikentävät turvakotikäytännöt ovat elämän ja kuoleman kysymys lähisuhdeväkivaltaa ja hyväksikäyttöä paettaessa. Lisäksi tutkimukseni tarjoaa uuden näkökulman tämänhetkiseen lähisuhdeväkivaltatyöhön Suomessa; se tuottaa uutta tietoa arkisista rodullistavista tulkinnoista ja käytännöistä turvakodeissa, jotta on mahdollista ymmärtää intersektionaalista valtadynamiikkaa ja sen vaikutuksia turvakotityöhön sekä osoittaa mekanismeja, joilla moninaisten rodullistettujen uhrien pääsyä turvan ja voimaantumisen piiriin voidaan parantaa. Tarkastellessani turvakotityön olosuhteita ja rodullistavia tulkintoja ja käytäntöjä turvakodin arjessa, esitin seuraavat kolme tutkimuskysymystä: Kuinka turvakodeissa tehtävän työn olosuhteet vaikuttavat rodullistettujen uhrien kanssa työskentelyyn? Kuinka turvakodin työntekijät ymmärtävät intersektionaaliset erot ja kuinka tämä vaikuttaa rodullistettujen uhrien asemaan turvakotityössä? Kuinka turvakotityön käytännöt vaikuttavat turvakotipalvelujen piiriin pääsyyn sekä rodullistettujen uhrien voimaantumiseen ja turvallisuuteen? Keräsin tutkimusaineistoni kahdeksan kuukauden autoetnografisen kenttätyön aikana turvakodissa, jossa työskentelin kokopäiväisenä ohjaajana. Tutkimusaineisto koostui kenttämuistiinpanoista, autoetnografisista ääninauhoituksista sekä toimintatutkimuksen työpajoissa tuotetuista dokumenteista. Aineiston keräämisessä käytin autoetnografian ja toimintatutkimuksen menetelmiä. Osana toimintatutkimusta järjestin viisi kuukausittaista tutkimustyöpajaa turvakodin työntekijöiden kanssa. Niissä keskustelimme työntekijöiden ja uhrien intersektionaalisista asemoista sekä valtasuhteista rodullistettujen selviytyjien kanssa tapahtuvissa kohtaamisissa. Tutkimukseni lähestymistapa sijoittuu feministisen intersektionaalisuutta koskevan tutkimuskeskustelun ja sosiaalisen konstruktionismin alueille ottaen huomioon rodullistamisen erityispiirteet Suomen sosiaalisessa kontekstissa. Tämä tutkimus laajentaa aikaisemman tutkimuksen havaintoja intersektionaalisista eriarvoisuuksista ja niiden haitallisista vaikutuksista uhreihin lähisuhdeväkivaltatyössä (esimerkiksi heikentyneestä toimijuudesta) analysoimalla myös intersektionaalisten asemojen voimaannuttavia vaikutuksia (esimerkiksi mahdollistava toimijuus). Lisäksi, toisin kuin aikaisempi tutkimus rodullistamisesta ja lähisuhdeväkivallasta, tutkimukseni keskittyy uhrien subjektipositioiden lisäksi työntekijöiden subjektipositioihin. Tutkimukseni tarkastelee myös väkivaltatyön tekemisen olosuhteita turvakodissa ratkaisevina kontekstuaalisina tekijöinä, jotka vaikuttavat sensitiivisen turvakotityön mahdollisuuksiin ja rajoituksiin. Erittelen tutkimuksessa rodullistavien turvakotikäytäntöjen intersektionaalisia vaikutuksia rodullistettujen uhrien kanssa tehtävään työhön tuoden esiin niiden vahingollisia vaikutuksia. Ymmärrän rodullistamisen prosessin relationaalisena subjektipositioiden rakentumisena (Bourdieu, 2018), joka sisältää sekä etuoikeutettujen (valkoiset) että alisteisten (ei-valkoiset) subjektipositioiden rakentumisen (Keskinen et al., 2021). Rakenteisiin, instituutioihin ja käytäntöihin sisältyvä arkipäivän rasismi tulee näkyväksi ja käsittelyyn silloin, kun instituutioiden eri toimijat havaitsevat syrjivät institutionaaliset käytännöt (Seikkula and Hortelano, 2021). Havaitseminen on yhteydessä tunnistamisen ja väärin tunnistamisen tekoihin (meconaissance; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990), mikä tarkoittaa tunnistamista riittävästi, tunnistamista joksikin muuksi (Husso et al., 2016) tai sitä, että havaitsemista tai tunnistamista ei tapahdu lainkaan (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990). Esimerkiksi, vaikka rodullistaminen vaikuttaa merkittävästi turvakotityöhön, työntekijät yleensä eivät tunnistaa sen vaikutuksia turvakodin arjessa. Tutkimus osoittaa turvakodin työntekijöiden ponnistelevan paljon havaittujen kulttuuristen erojen luokittelun äärellä. Tämä muovaa työntekijöiden ymmärrystä maahanmuuttaja- ja romanivähemmistöistä sekä heidän turvakotitarpeistaan ja väkivallan aiheuttaman haitan laajuudesta. Lisäksi kulttuuristen erojen arviointi on yhteydessä väkivallan tunnistamiseen; työntekijät voivat epäillä uhrin tarinaa tai väärin tunnistaa lähisuhdeväkivallan joksikin muuksi, kuten tavalliseksi eroprosessiksi. Tutkimuksen mukaan turvakotityön aliresursointi ja välttämättömien turvakodin tukipalvelujen puute heikentävät turvakotityön laatua yleisesti sekä erityisesti suomen kieltä puutteellisesti osaavien tai muuten rodullistetun aseman vuoksi haavoittuvassa asemassa olevien uhrien kohtaamista. Maahanmuuttotaustaisiin tai romaniuhreihin liittyvät rodullistavat näkemykset ja käytännöt sekä turvakotityön rakenteelliset rajoitukset heikentävät rodullistettujen vähemmistöjen parissa tehtävän työn laatua. Tämä vaikuttaa kielteisesti näihin ryhmiin luokiteltujen uhrien turvallisuuteen ja voimaantumiseen turvakotityössä.Domestic violence and abuse are human rights violations of pandemic proportions. As a gender-based violence intersecting with ethnicity, race and/or immigration status, domestic violence causes enormous suffering and trauma. Therefore, this widespread social problem requires an effective public response, part of which involves supporting domestic violence refugees. Domestic violence shelters are residential institutions that provide immediate safety, protection and empowerment to domestic violence victims. In Finland such shelters aim to provide low-threshold services to ensure immediate safety and empowerment for all domestic violence and abuse victims. In a barely recognized trend, racially minoritized survivors constitute a significant part of the people seeking protection. For example, a report from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (Laine, 2010) indicated that approximately 30% of the residents of Finnish domestic violence shelters are people with immigrant backgrounds, such as refugees, asylum seekers and those whose mother tongue is other than Finnish or Swedish. The percentage is even higher in larger cities and in the south of Finland, where, at times, all residents of a shelter are immigrants. When also considering victims of ethnic minorities. such as the Finnish Roma, the share of racially minoritised shelter residents is even higher. Racially minoritised domestic violence victims significantly challenge shelter workers' competences. International academic research suggests that racially minoritised victims face discrimination when seeking protection. Exclusionary and disempowering shelter practices, together with racial stereotyping, negative identity constructions, and white, middle-class normativity, shape an inhospitable environment for many minoritised survivors (Bent-Goodley, 2005; Burman et al. 2004; Donnelly et al., 2005, Kulkarni, 2018; Nnawulezi and Sullivan, 2014). Moreover, research indicates that across countries, immigrant women face considerable obstacles when reporting violence and seeking help, while professionals state that working with immigrant victim is difficult and raise the question whether workers should treat immigrant victims the same or differently from the racially majoritised victims (Hagemann-White et al., 2019). Scholars have called for adequate conceptualisations of intersectional vulnerabilities and a better understanding of the superimposition of immigrant status onto other forms of oppression in relation to victims of domestic violence (Burman et al. 2004; Kulkarni, 2018; Menjivar and Salcido, 2002). Similarly, Finnish academic research indicates the need to develop successful domestic violence intervention practices (Husso et al., 2020, 2021; Piippo et al., 2021) and address problematic working practices related to cultural sensitivity and differences. For example, multicultural violence work lacks an intersectional approach when it comes to understanding of differences and thus reproduces the racialised understanding of victims through culturalisation of domestic violence and abuse (Keskinen, 2011; Keskinen et al., 2012; Honkatukia and Keskinen, 2018; Niemi et al., 2017). A lack of understanding regarding the vulnerabilities of certain intersectional subject positions can result in the exclusion of racialised victims from the needed shelter service provision. For example, Törmä (2017) indicated that Roma domestic violence survivors face disbelief and exclusion when seeking help from officials or shelters. Finnish scholars have called for cultural sensitivity in encounters with racialised victims to recognise relevant differences without reproducing racist perceptions of victims (Lidman, 2015). However, this remains a challenge in the everyday practices of shelters. Against this backdrop and building on the extant debates on racialisation in shelter work, my research addresses the Finnish domestic violence shelter work and its effects on racially minoritised victims’ access to safety and empowerment. This research is important for societal reasons because exclusion from shelter provision and disempowering shelter practices are a question of life and death when fleeing domestic violence and abuse. Moreover, it is important to generate knowledge on the racialised everyday perceptions and practices of shelters to better understand intersectional power dynamics and their effects on shelter work and to indicate mechanisms for improving access to safety and empowerment for diverse survivors. Therefore, my research provides new perspective on the current developments of domestic violence work in Finland. Aiming to explain effects of Finnish shelter work on racially minoritized survivors, my research focused on the issues of shelter work conditions, perceptions of shelter work agents and shelter work practices. To address these conditions, perceptions and practices, I posed the following three research questions; How do shelter work conditions affect the work with racially minoritised victims? How do shelter workers perceive intersectional differences, and how does this affect racially minoritised victims’ positions? How do shelter work practices affect access to shelter services, the empowerment of racially minoritised victims and the safety of racially minoritised shelter work subjects? I collected my research data during eight months of autoethnographic fieldwork in a domestic violence shelter where I worked as a full-time counsellor. The data included field notes, tape recordings, and documents produced during action research workshops. To collect the data, I used methods of autoethnographic observation and action research. As a part of action research approach, I organised five monthly research workshops with my shelter co-workers to discuss their own and the victims' intersectional positions and power relations in encounters with racialised survivors. My research approach is grounded in feminist literature on intersectionality and social constructionism while considering the specifics of racialisation in the social context of Finland. Although extant research on intersectional inequalities in domestic violence work has revealed adverse effects of intersectional subject positions on victims, my research widens the usual focus on disempowerment (e.g. decreased agency) by analysing the empowering effects of intersectional positions (e.g. enabling agency). Moreover, in contrast with previous research on racialisation and domestic violence, my research focuses not only on the subject positions of victims but also those of workers. In addition, my study approaches working conditions in shelters as decisive contextual factors for the limitations and possibilities of sensitive shelter work. My analytical approach was aimed at explicating the intersectional effects of racialising shelter practices in order to contribute to their recognition and thus highlight possibilities for countering their harmful effects. A relational understanding of subject position construction (Bourdieu, 2018) is central to the concept of racialisation, which involves constructing privileged (white) and oppressed (non-white) subject positions (Keskinen et al., 2021). Everyday racism embedded in structures, institutions and practices can be addressed when different agents in institutions notice discriminatory institutional practices (Seikkula and Hortelano, 2021). Noticing is related to acts of recognition and misrecognition, or meconaissance (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990), which means recognising something adequately or as something else (Husso et al., 2016) or neither noticing nor recognising it at all (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990). The analysis indicated shelter workers' classification struggles around perceived cultural differences, which structure workers' understanding of immigrant and Roma minority victims and their shelter service need, the extent of harm caused by violence and the recognition of the violence as such. Moreover, findings indicate that the under-resourcing and a lack of essential shelter support services negatively affect the quality of shelter work in general and especially for victims in vulnerable positions, such as non-Finnish speaking persons. Racialised perceptions and practices related to immigrant and Roma victims and the structural constraints of shelter work conditions, shape the preconditions for (in)sensitive shelter work, negatively affecting racialised minority survivors’ access to safety and empowerment and safety and security in domestic violence shelter work

    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    Developing an in house vulnerability scanner for detecting Template Injection, XSS, and DOM-XSS vulnerabilities

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    Web applications are becoming an essential part of today's digital world. However, with the increase in the usage of web applications, security threats have also become more prevalent. Cyber attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in web applications to steal sensitive information or take control of the system. To prevent these attacks, web application security must be given due consideration. Existing vulnerability scanners fail to detect Template Injection, XSS, and DOM-XSS vulnerabilities effectively. To bridge this gap in web application security, a customized in-house scanner is needed to quickly and accurately identify these vulnerabilities, enhancing manual security assessments of web applications. This thesis focused on developing a modular and extensible vulnerability scanner to detect Template Injection, XSS, and DOM-based XSS vulnerabilities in web applications. Testing the scanner against other free and open-source solutions on the market showed that it outperformed them on Template injection vulnerabilities and nearly all on XSS-type vulnerabilities. While the scanner has limitations, focusing on specific injection vulnerabilities can result in better performance

    Knowledge-based Reasoning and Learning under Partial Observability in Ad Hoc Teamwork

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    Ad hoc teamwork refers to the problem of enabling an agent to collaborate with teammates without prior coordination. Data-driven methods represent the state of the art in ad hoc teamwork. They use a large labeled dataset of prior observations to model the behavior of other agent types and to determine the ad hoc agent's behavior. These methods are computationally expensive, lack transparency, and make it difficult to adapt to previously unseen changes, e.g., in team composition. Our recent work introduced an architecture that determined an ad hoc agent's behavior based on non-monotonic logical reasoning with prior commonsense domain knowledge and predictive models of other agents' behavior that were learned from limited examples. In this paper, we substantially expand the architecture's capabilities to support: (a) online selection, adaptation, and learning of the models that predict the other agents' behavior; and (b) collaboration with teammates in the presence of partial observability and limited communication. We illustrate and experimentally evaluate the capabilities of our architecture in two simulated multiagent benchmark domains for ad hoc teamwork: Fort Attack and Half Field Offense. We show that the performance of our architecture is comparable or better than state of the art data-driven baselines in both simple and complex scenarios, particularly in the presence of limited training data, partial observability, and changes in team composition.Comment: 17 pages, 3 Figure

    A Survey of Large Language Models

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    Language is essentially a complex, intricate system of human expressions governed by grammatical rules. It poses a significant challenge to develop capable AI algorithms for comprehending and grasping a language. As a major approach, language modeling has been widely studied for language understanding and generation in the past two decades, evolving from statistical language models to neural language models. Recently, pre-trained language models (PLMs) have been proposed by pre-training Transformer models over large-scale corpora, showing strong capabilities in solving various NLP tasks. Since researchers have found that model scaling can lead to performance improvement, they further study the scaling effect by increasing the model size to an even larger size. Interestingly, when the parameter scale exceeds a certain level, these enlarged language models not only achieve a significant performance improvement but also show some special abilities that are not present in small-scale language models. To discriminate the difference in parameter scale, the research community has coined the term large language models (LLM) for the PLMs of significant size. Recently, the research on LLMs has been largely advanced by both academia and industry, and a remarkable progress is the launch of ChatGPT, which has attracted widespread attention from society. The technical evolution of LLMs has been making an important impact on the entire AI community, which would revolutionize the way how we develop and use AI algorithms. In this survey, we review the recent advances of LLMs by introducing the background, key findings, and mainstream techniques. In particular, we focus on four major aspects of LLMs, namely pre-training, adaptation tuning, utilization, and capacity evaluation. Besides, we also summarize the available resources for developing LLMs and discuss the remaining issues for future directions.Comment: ongoing work; 51 page

    Identity, Power, and Prestige in Switzerland's Multilingual Education

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    Switzerland is known for its multilingualism, yet not all languages are represented equally in society. The situation is exacerbated by the influx of heritage languages and English through migration and globalization processes which challenge the traditional education system. This study is the first to investigate how schools in Grisons, Fribourg, and Zurich negotiate neoliberal forces leading to a growing necessity of English, a romanticized view on national languages, and the social justice perspective of institutionalizing heritage languages. It uncovers power and legitimacy issues and showcases students' and teachers' complex identities to advocate equitable multilingual education

    CAMEL: Communicative Agents for "Mind" Exploration of Large Scale Language Model Society

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    The rapid advancement of conversational and chat-based language models has led to remarkable progress in complex task-solving. However, their success heavily relies on human input to guide the conversation, which can be challenging and time-consuming. This paper explores the potential of building scalable techniques to facilitate autonomous cooperation among communicative agents and provide insight into their "cognitive" processes. To address the challenges of achieving autonomous cooperation, we propose a novel communicative agent framework named role-playing. Our approach involves using inception prompting to guide chat agents toward task completion while maintaining consistency with human intentions. We showcase how role-playing can be used to generate conversational data for studying the behaviors and capabilities of chat agents, providing a valuable resource for investigating conversational language models. Our contributions include introducing a novel communicative agent framework, offering a scalable approach for studying the cooperative behaviors and capabilities of multi-agent systems, and open-sourcing our library to support research on communicative agents and beyond. The GitHub repository of this project is made publicly available on: https://github.com/lightaime/camel

    Endogenous measures for contextualising large-scale social phenomena: a corpus-based method for mediated public discourse

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    This work presents an interdisciplinary methodology for developing endogenous measures of group membership through analysis of pervasive linguistic patterns in public discourse. Focusing on political discourse, this work critiques the conventional approach to the study of political participation, which is premised on decontextualised, exogenous measures to characterise groups. Considering the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of decontextualised approaches to large-scale social phenomena, this work suggests that contextualisation using endogenous measures might provide a complementary perspective to mitigate such weaknesses. This work develops a sociomaterial perspective on political participation in mediated discourse as affiliatory action performed through language. While the affiliatory function of language is often performed consciously (such as statements of identity), this work is concerned with unconscious features (such as patterns in lexis and grammar). This work argues that pervasive patterns in such features that emerge through socialisation are resistant to change and manipulation, and thus might serve as endogenous measures of sociopolitical contexts, and thus of groups. In terms of method, the work takes a corpus-based approach to the analysis of data from the Twitter messaging service whereby patterns in users’ speech are examined statistically in order to trace potential community membership. The method is applied in the US state of Michigan during the second half of 2018—6 November having been the date of midterm (i.e. non-Presidential) elections in the United States. The corpus is assembled from the original posts of 5,889 users, who are nominally geolocalised to 417 municipalities. These users are clustered according to pervasive language features. Comparing the linguistic clusters according to the municipalities they represent finds that there are regular sociodemographic differentials across clusters. This is understood as an indication of social structure, suggesting that endogenous measures derived from pervasive patterns in language may indeed offer a complementary, contextualised perspective on large-scale social phenomena
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