Symbol Emergence in Robotics: A Survey

Humans can learn the use of language through physical interaction with their environment and semiotic communication with other people. It is very important to obtain a computational understanding of how humans can form a symbol system and obtain semiotic skills through their autonomous mental development. Recently, many studies have been conducted on the construction of robotic systems and machine-learning methods that can learn the use of language through embodied multimodal interaction with their environment and other systems. Understanding human social interactions and developing a robot that can smoothly communicate with human users in the long term, requires an understanding of the dynamics of symbol systems and is crucially important. The embodied cognition and social interaction of participants gradually change a symbol system in a constructive manner. In this paper, we introduce a field of research called symbol emergence in robotics (SER). SER is a constructive approach towards an emergent symbol system. The emergent symbol system is socially self-organized through both semiotic communications and physical interactions with autonomous cognitive developmental agents, i.e., humans and developmental robots. Specifically, we describe some state-of-art research topics concerning SER, e.g., multimodal categorization, word discovery, and a double articulation analysis, that enable a robot to obtain words and their embodied meanings from raw sensory--motor information, including visual information, haptic information, auditory information, and acoustic speech signals, in a totally unsupervised manner. Finally, we suggest future directions of research in SER.Comment: submitted to Advanced Robotic

New forms of regional industrial policy in Europe: How do policy makers understand 'competitiveness' and 'clusters'?

The last decade has seen a revival of regional industrial policy in the Western world. New policies have been built on recent insights into the drivers of competitive advantage and are characterized by a focus on local production systems, on networking and partnerships, and more strategic forms of policy intervention. In addition, policy formulation and implementation has generally become part of an interactive process of consultation and consensus building, and, to a large extent, involves the co-ordination and reshaping of existing instruments rather than the development of entirely new ones. This paper will discuss the emergence of new forms of industrial policy targeted on regional ?competitiveness? on the basis of case studies undertaken in Germany, the UK and Spain. The aim of the paper is to understand how the concept and understanding of ?competitiveness? by local makers and other actors has influenced the shaping of local industrial policy. Since all the case studies involve laggard regions, one of the key issues of the debate is how policy makers perceive the balance between more ingenious, innovation-oriented approaches and approaches targeted in foreign investments. To understand the different outcomes in the various regions, account is taken of the governance framework for industrial policy making and implementation, the concepts and models invoked and used by policy makers, the impact of external factors such as funding conditions and European programs and, most fundamentally, the industrial and political traditions which characterize each region. The paper will point at some of the remarkable changes concepts have made on their way from theoretical and conceptual thinking to policy implementation, and will discuss the implications of these changes for academic research as well as policy-making. The work for this paper has been funded under the European Programmes ADAPT (Core project) and HCM (EUNIT network)

The P3 platform: an approach and software system for developing diagrammatic model-based methods in design research

Many issues in design and design management have been explored by building models which capture the relationships between different aspects of the problem at hand. These models require computer support to construct and analyse. However, appropriate modelling tools can be time-consuming to develop in a research environment. Reflecting upon five design research projects, this paper proposes that such projects can be facilitated by recognising the iterative and tightly-coupled nature of research and tool development, and by attempting to minimise the effort of solution prototyping within this process. Our approach is enabled by a software platform which can be rapidly configured to implement many conceivable modelling approaches. This configurability is complemented by an emerging library of modelling and analysis approaches tailored to explore design process systems. The platform-based approach enables any mix of modelling concepts to be easily created. We propose it could thus help researchers to explore a wide range of questions without being constrained to existing conventions for modelling – or for model integration

Integrating Constraint-led and Step-Game approaches to develop sport performance: a season-long action-research study of a youth volleyball team.

A presente dissertação procura examinar a influência da combinação de uma abordagem ecológica (i.e., abordagem guiada por constrangimentos) com uma abordagem construtivista (i.e., abordagem progressiva ao jogo), através de um desenho de investigação-ação no qual o investigador assumiu o duplo papel de treinador-investigador, no desenvolvimento da performance desportiva de jovens jogadoras de voleibol ao longo de uma época competitiva. O carácter cíclico e interventivo da investigação-ação possibilitou a monitorização sistemática e contextualizada de variáveis de processo (i.e., conhecimento tático) e de produto (i.e., tendências de sincronização coletivas em ambiente competitivo), facilitando, portanto, a inter-relação entre a informação proveniente do treino e da competição. Ademais, dada a natureza interpretativa deste projeto de investigação, foi possível compreender o impacto que o uso de diferentes estratégicas pedagógicas característica de ambas as abordagens (p.e., aumento complexidade tática via manipulação de constrangimentos, questionamento) tiveram no desenvolvimento da performance desportiva das jogadoras, em cada momento da época. A evolução do processo ensino-aprendizagem foi captada através de um diário reflexivo, notas de campo, reuniões de grupo focal, e documentação dos planos de treinos e de jogos. As coordenadas posicionais das jogadoras foram obtidas através do software TACTO, e utilizadas para aferir acerca do desenvolvimento das tendências de sincronização coletivas pelo cálculo do método de fase-cluster. O uso combinado das duas abordagens, revelou-se benéfico para a evolução do conhecimento tático, bem como para o desenvolvimento das tendências de sincronização coletivas em competição. Em particular, o aumento da complexidade tática: (i) induziu um progressivo aumento do conhecimento tático (i.e., consciência tática, atenção focal, e pensamento estratégico); (ii) atuou como ruído, promovendo diminuição da sincronia da equipa a curto-prazo, mas um reaumento a longo-prazo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: PEDAGOGIA DO DESPORTO, ANÁLISE DA PERFORMANCE, INVESTIGAÇÃO-AÇÃO, ABORDAGEM CENTRADA NO AMBIENTE E NO JOGADOR, VOLEIBOL.The aim of the present thesis was to examine the influence of combining an ecological approach (i.e., constraints-led approach) with an constructivist approach (i.e., step-game approach), using an insider action-research design where the researcher assumed the dual role of coach-researcher, on the development of sport performance in youth female volleyball players over a competitive season. The cyclical and interventive nature of the action-research design allowed for the systematic and contextualised monitoring of process variables (i.e., tactical knowledge) and product variables (i.e., collective synchronisation tendencies within competitive environment), thus facilitating the interplay between information from training and competition. Moreover, because of the interpretative nature of this research project, it was possible to comprehend the impact of using different pedagogical strategies with characteristics of both approaches (e.g., increasing tactical complexity via constraints manipulation, questioning) on the development of players' sport performance at each moment of the season. The evolution of the coaching-learning process was captured using a reflexive diary, field notes, focus group interviews, and by documenting training and game plans. The players' positional coordinates were collected using TACTO software and used to measure the development of collective synchronisation tendencies via the cluster-phase method calculation. The combined use of both approaches had benefits for evolving tactical knowledge, and for the development of collective synchronisation tendencies in competition. In particular, the increasing of tactical complexity: (i) induced a progressive enhancement of tactical knowledge (i.e., tactical awareness, attentional focus, and strategical thinking); and (ii) acted as noise, causing a decrease in team synchrony in the short-term, but a re-achievement in the long-term

Neurocognitive Informatics Manifesto.

Informatics studies all aspects of the structure of natural and artificial information systems. Theoretical and abstract approaches to information have made great advances, but human information processing is still unmatched in many areas, including information management, representation and understanding. Neurocognitive informatics is a new, emerging field that should help to improve the matching of artificial and natural systems, and inspire better computational algorithms to solve problems that are still beyond the reach of machines. In this position paper examples of neurocognitive inspirations and promising directions in this area are given

Technology Parks and Innovation Areas of Developing Countries as a New Way for Retuning Talents (Case Study: Pardis Technology Park)

“Talent acquisition, transformation and management are ?critical anchors for the growth of the industry”—Nandan Neilkeni As a result of rapid pace of science and technology around the world and the monstrous intrusion of social media into people’s lives, the changes are no longer related to a generation, decade or a period, but everything can change in a moment. Therefore, sticking to the methods of the past years or decades is a disaster. Today, the number of specialists among the manpower is higher than before, and the ideologists are like the countries’ soldiers fighting on the economic and entrepreneurial front. Science and technology are provided by talents, and they have created interactions regarding socio-economic progress in developing countries.Tec parks are safe havens for returning talents in developing Countries. With certain infrastructures and policies, parks have an essential role in returning talents.This paper is an attempt to explore science and technology for that purpose content analysis technique is used. Furthermore, it discusses the role of Pardis Technology Park in promoting the science and technology