FC Portugal 3D Simulation Team: Team Description Paper 2020

The FC Portugal 3D team is developed upon the structure of our previous Simulation league 2D/3D teams and our standard platform league team. Our research concerning the robot low-level skills is focused on developing behaviors that may be applied on real robots with minimal adaptation using model-based approaches. Our research on high-level soccer coordination methodologies and team playing is mainly focused on the adaptation of previously developed methodologies from our 2D soccer teams to the 3D humanoid environment and on creating new coordination methodologies based on the previously developed ones. The research-oriented development of our team has been pushing it to be one of the most competitive over the years (World champion in 2000 and Coach Champion in 2002, European champion in 2000 and 2001, Coach 2nd place in 2003 and 2004, European champion in Rescue Simulation and Simulation 3D in 2006, World Champion in Simulation 3D in Bremen 2006 and European champion in 2007, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015). This paper describes some of the main innovations of our 3D simulation league team during the last years. A new generic framework for reinforcement learning tasks has also been developed. The current research is focused on improving the above-mentioned framework by developing new learning algorithms to optimize low-level skills, such as running and sprinting. We are also trying to increase student contact by providing reinforcement learning assignments to be completed using our new framework, which exposes a simple interface without sharing low-level implementation details

Discovery processes & the organization of innovation

The thesis comprises four key papers, which provide fresh perspectives pertaining to the key factors in the management of innovation: new ideas, people, transactions and institutions. First, a model of discovery is proposed, highlighting the importance of problem reshaping and shifting in addition to usual problem solving approach. To illustrate how they can be incorporated within existing models, the conventional NK model is adapted in a novel way that not necessarily constrains agents to local optima nearby. The extended model is then used to study effects of curiosity and conditions under which analogy, recombination or local search would be effective. Building on this model, we show how satisficing behaviour of agents can be described by using cognitive constructs such as attention and stimulus, which moderate the gap between local (agent) and non-local (real-world) information. Second, Innovation entails the interfacing of communities with different traditions and aspirations, in particular, the science and business domains. Through a quasi-experimental design, we explore the micro-foundations of the contact and conflict which define the science-business divide, strategies for mitigating discordance and exploit synergies are discussed. Third, the attempt to understand innovation as intra-firm or inter-firm process from a consistent perspective within the existing theories of the firm has provoked a reconceptualization of the 'firm'. A reductionist approach at the level of actions and assets of the firm is found to achieve this reconciliation and also helps introduce the concepts of quasi-boundary to appreciate interaction of firms with the market and the institutions. Third, the innovation process occasionally faces institutional impediments. One of the preeminent changes has been the involvement of the universities in innovation system, where its full commercial potential was realized over a century. The historical observation of how multiple institutions were reformed provides new insights into the mechanism of institutional entrepreneurship. Finally, consolidation of each of the factors requires acknowledgment that the innovation process exists in the context of each other, and are subject to evolution and extraneous influences. The conclusion is an attempt at synthesizing the four factors towards understanding the overarching dynamics in the innovation ecosystem. To leverage on the independent developments at each level, a proposal to build a consistent multi-level coherent framework for innovation is suggested

The bridge of dreams::Towards a method for operational performance alignment in IT-enabled service supply chains

Concerns on performance alignment, especially on business-IT alignment, have been around for three decades. It is still considered to be one of the most important driving forces for business success, as well as one of the top concerns of many practitioners and organizational researchers. It is also found to be a major issue in two thirds of digital transformation projects. Many attempts from researchers in diverse disciplines have been made to tackle this issue. Unfortunately, they have been working separately and the research appears in various forms and names. This dissertation presents a piece of interdisciplinary research that focuses on identifying operational performance alignment issues, discovering and assessing their root causes with attention to the dynamics in operating IT-enabled service supply chain (SSC). It makes a modest contribution by providing a communication-centred instrument which can modularize complex SSC in terms of a hierarchically-structured set of services and analyze the performance causality between them. With a special focus on the impact of IT, it makes it possible to monitor and tune various performance issues in SSC. This research intends to provide a solution-oriented common ground where multiple service research streams can meet together. Following the framework proposed in this research, services, at different tiers of an SSC, are modelled with a balanced perspective on both business, technical service components and KPIs. It allows a holistic picture of service performances and interactions throughout the entire supply chain to be viewed through a different research lens and permits the causal impact of technology, business strategy, and service operations on supply chain performance to be unveiled

Path Dependence in Personal Selling : A Meso-Analysis of Vertical Integration

We examine an unusual form of path dependence, in which suppliers that take different decision paths end up in the same position: excessive vertical integration of the personal selling function. We argue that this is the case even though outsourcing is more seriously considered than ever, and economic arguments for outsourcing the sales function are compelling. We develop an institutional explanation at the meso level (a combination of individual, organization, and environmental forces, explicitly considering how these levels combine). This meso-analysis focuses on four forces driving firms toward being locked into employee sales forces. We enumerate and classify these mechanisms, illustrating them with a simple simulation of how outsourcing sales becomes rare. We close with testable propositions about which firms are most likely to break their dependence on a vertically integrated path.path dependence; personal selling; outsourcing; sales function

MULTI AGENT-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL LANDSCAPE (MABEL) - AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SIMULATION MODEL: SOME EARLY ASSESSMENTS

The Multi Agent-Based Environmental Landscape model (MABEL) introduces a Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) systemic methodology, to simulate land use and transformation changes over time and space. Computational agents represent abstract relations among geographic, environmental, human and socio-economic variables, with respect to land transformation pattern changes. A multi-agent environment is developed providing task-nonspecific problem-solving abilities, flexibility on achieving goals and representing existing relations observed in real-world scenarios, and goal-based efficiency. Intelligent MABEL agents acquire spatial expressions and perform specific tasks demonstrating autonomy, environmental interactions, communication and cooperation, reactivity and proactivity, reasoning and learning capabilities. Their decisions maximize both task-specific marginal utility for their actions and joint, weighted marginal utility for their time-stepping. Agent behavior is achieved by personalizing a dynamic utility-based knowledge base through sequential GIS filtering, probability-distributed weighting, joint probability Bayesian correlational weighting, and goal-based distributional properties, applied to socio-economic and behavioral criteria. First-order logics, heuristics and appropriation of time-step sequences employed, provide a simulation-able environment, capable of re-generating space-time evolution of the agents.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Bridging the funding gap - The economics of cost shifting, fee arrangements and legal expenses insurance and their prospects for improving the access to civil justice

The right of access to civil justice is a cornerstone of the Belgian legal order. At present time, however, financial barriers prevent about three quarters of the Belgian population from fully asserting their subjective rights. As traditionally, apart from legal aid, private funding is the dominant method of funding a civil claim in Belgium, alternative funding options in between private and public funding might hold some prospects for improving the access to civil ustice. Therefore this paper aims to provide an in-depth economic analysis of the effects of cost shifting, client-lawyer fee arrangements and legal expenses insurance on the various dimensions of the access to civil justice. In summary, the main results from the analysis are that theoretically all three alternative funding methods may hold certain prospects for improving the accessibility of civil justice. But, as far as empirical data are available, cost shifting fits least the requirements for solving the policy issue addressed in this paper. However, the validity of this empirical observation is subject to certain limitations. Both contingency fees and legal expenses insurance hold clear prospects for overcoming risk aversion and liquidity constraints. Also, relative to hourly fees, the incentive scheme inherent to contingency fees appears most appropriate to curb lawyer opportunism. The involvement of a legal expenses insurer may lead lawyers to behave less opportunistically too. Finally, within the current legal framework, insurers' control of costs and quality requires their direct or indirect involvement in the civil justice administration system. This may pose some challenging policy issues as the market for legal expenses insurance further develops in the future.

Toward An Economic Theory of Dysfunctional Identity

We advance a novel choice-theoretic model of "identity" based on the notions of categories and narratives. Identity is conceived as a matter of "reflexive perception" -- how people understand themselves. Choosing an identity is equivalent to making a generalization about one's past that highlights the most salient aspects of experience. When many individuals make a common choice in this regard, they embrace a collective identity which is dysfunctional if it is Pareto dominated by an alternative self-classificatory schema. Using a simple multi-stage risk sharing game, we explore conditions under which dysfunctional collective identities might be expected to emerge.Identity; Dysfunctional Collective Identity