RLupus:Cooperation through emergent communication in the Werewolf social deduction game

This paper focuses on the emergence of communication to support cooperation in environments modeled as social deduction games (SDG), that are games where players communicate freely to deduce each others' hidden intentions. We first state the problem by giving a general formalization of SDG and a possible solution framework based on reinforcement learning. Next, we focus on a specific SDG, known as The Werewolf, and study if and how various forms of communication influence the outcome of the game. Experimental results show that introducing a communication signal greatly increases the winning chances of a class of players. We also study the effect of the signal's length and range on the overall performance showing a non-linear relationship

Large Language Models Empowered Agent-based Modeling and Simulation: A Survey and Perspectives

Agent-based modeling and simulation has evolved as a powerful tool for modeling complex systems, offering insights into emergent behaviors and interactions among diverse agents. Integrating large language models into agent-based modeling and simulation presents a promising avenue for enhancing simulation capabilities. This paper surveys the landscape of utilizing large language models in agent-based modeling and simulation, examining their challenges and promising future directions. In this survey, since this is an interdisciplinary field, we first introduce the background of agent-based modeling and simulation and large language model-empowered agents. We then discuss the motivation for applying large language models to agent-based simulation and systematically analyze the challenges in environment perception, human alignment, action generation, and evaluation. Most importantly, we provide a comprehensive overview of the recent works of large language model-empowered agent-based modeling and simulation in multiple scenarios, which can be divided into four domains: cyber, physical, social, and hybrid, covering simulation of both real-world and virtual environments. Finally, since this area is new and quickly evolving, we discuss the open problems and promising future directions.Comment: 37 page

Towards More Human-like AI Communication: A Review of Emergent Communication Research

In the recent shift towards human-centric AI, the need for machines to accurately use natural language has become increasingly important. While a common approach to achieve this is to train large language models, this method presents a form of learning misalignment where the model may not capture the underlying structure and reasoning humans employ in using natural language, potentially leading to unexpected or unreliable behavior. Emergent communication (Emecom) is a field of research that has seen a growing number of publications in recent years, aiming to develop artificial agents capable of using natural language in a way that goes beyond simple discriminative tasks and can effectively communicate and learn new concepts. In this review, we present Emecom under two aspects. Firstly, we delineate all the common proprieties we find across the literature and how they relate to human interactions. Secondly, we identify two subcategories and highlight their characteristics and open challenges. We encourage researchers to work together by demonstrating that different methods can be viewed as diverse solutions to a common problem and emphasize the importance of including diverse perspectives and expertise in the field. We believe a deeper understanding of human communication is crucial to developing machines that can accurately use natural language in human-machine interactions.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

Becoming The Monster: The Use of Monstrous Role with Queer Adults in a Partial Hospitalization Program

There is an established history of horror genres being used as an allegory for otherness, especially in regard to queer identity. For much of western media history, these monstrous roles were one of the few ways queer individuals could see themselves in stories. While these depictions were primarily negative, queer people nevertheless found a way to positively identify with the experience of the monster. This positive identification with traditionally negative depictions inspired the creation of a role method-based intervention for use with queer adults in a partial hospitalization program. Two back-to-back 45-minute groups were conducted on two separate occasions to explore this framework. After each series, the thesis writer recorded a monologue as their own monstrous role to identify themes that emerged from the group. Through this process, it became clear that while monstrous identification can be a powerful tool for better understanding oneself regarding otherness, the depth of related work needs to be spread over a longer period of care for full integration and understanding

Managing Hunger and Desire : Self-Restraint and the Body in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series

Stephenie Meyers fyrdelade bokserie Twilight (2005–2008) om tonårsflickan Bella Swan och hennes kärlek till den evigt unga vampyren Edward Cullen var en kommersiell storsuccé och böckerna gav upphov till såväl filmatiseringar som populärvetenskapliga och akademiska studier. Ett bärande tema i böckerna är självkontroll: Edward och hans vampyrfamilj vägrar dricka människoblod av etiska skäl. I stället livnär de sig på djurblod. Edward älskar Bella men samtidigt törstar han efter hennes blod. Han och Bella är därför tvungna att vara fysiskt avhållsamma trots den stora passion och kärlek de känner för varandra. Edward Cullens vägran att ge efter för sina drifter och dricka människoblod är inte ett nytt fenomen i vampyrlitteraturen. Han ingår i en lång tradition av motvilliga, ”sympatiska” vampyrer, en trend som fick sitt stora genombrott med Anne Rices Interview with the Vampire (1976) och som nu är en etablerad fåra inom genren. Den moderna vampyren är ung, vacker, rik, odödlig och törstande. Den uttrycker i många avseenden konsumtionskulturens ideal och paradoxer men också kampen mellan att styra sina drifter eller styras av dem. Det som gör Twilight till ett säreget fenomen är att Stephenie Meyer är medlem i Jesu Kristi Kyrka av Sista Dagars Heliga, dvs. mormon. Böckerna har därför av många analyserats ur det perspektivet, inte minst på grund av deras budskap om sexuell avhållsamhet. I min avhandling undersöker jag temana kropp och självkontroll i böckerna samt vilka berättartekniska och andra strategier Meyer använder för att konstruera sina karaktärer. Som referensramar använder jag såväl mormonismens läror i tillämpliga delar som akademiska texter om konsumtionskulturens relation till kropp och självkontroll. Min tes är att trots att Twilight uttrycker tydliga ideal i Meyers tro så öser hon även ur konsumtionskulturens ideal och navigerar mellan dessa två på ett mångskiftande sätt

"Once upon a time there was a girl...": an analysis of bad girls in feminist revisionary fairytales

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Inglês: Estudos Linguísticos e Literários, Florianópolis, 2017.Abstract : Women have for a long time been regarded as secondary characters inhuman history. They had to sacrifice their potential to fit in thepatriarchal norms of good behavior in order to be socially accepted. Theaim of this study is to analyze feminist revisionary fairytales in search ofportrayals of women who rebel against those norms, disobeyingPatriarchal ideology, and offering alternative femininities. Becausepopular narratives such as myths and fairytales take part in shapingone?s identity, it is important to look at them from a critical perspective;and revisionism highlights the importance of women?s re-telling ofstories in order to re-think themselves and their positions, and re-definetheir identities. The works analyzed are: the short stories ?The BloodyChamber,? ?The Snow Child,? ?The Werewolf,? ?The Company ofWolves,? and ?Wolf-Alice,? by Angela Carter; ?Snow White,? by theMerseyside Fairy Story Collective; ?Bluebeard?s Egg,? by MargaretAtwood; and the poem ?Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,? by AnneSexton.Por muito tempo mulheres foram relegadas a personagens secundárias na história humana. Elas tiveram que sacrificar seus potenciais e se encaixar nas normas patriarcais de bom comportamento para serem socialmente aceitas. O objetivo desse estudo é analisar contos de fadas revisionistas feministas em busca de representações de mulheres que se rebelam contra essas normas, desobedecendo a ideologia patriarcal e oferecendo femininidades alternativas. Por narrativas populares como mitos e contos de fadas tomarem parte na formação da identidade, é importante examina-los através de uma perspectiva crítica. O revisionismo em questão enfatiza a importância da recontagem de historias sob uma perspectiva feminina para que as mulheres repensem suas posições e redefinam suas identidades. Os trabalhos analisados são: os contos The Bloody Chamber , The Snow Child , The Werewolf , The Company of Wolves , e Wolf-Alice , de Angela Carter; Snow White , do coletivo Merseyside Fairy Story Collective; Bluebeard s Egg , de Margaret Atwood; e o poema Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , de Anne Sexton

The wolf and literature

This thesis explores how wolves, and other animals, are represented in a variety of literary texts. At stake in these explorations is the shifting and problematic border between the human and the animal, culture and nature, civilisation and the wild. Because of its biological proximity to the domestic dog, as well as the ways in which it has been figured as both the ultimate expression of wild savagery and of maternal love, the wolf is an exemplary guide to this border. The wolf traces the ways in which the human/animal border has been constructed, sustained and transgressed. These border crossings take on a special resonance given the widespread sense of a contemporary environmental crisis. In this respect this thesis amounts to a contribution to the field of ecocriticism and pays special attention to the claim that the environmental crisis is also a 'crisis of the imagination', of our ideational and aesthetic relationship to the nonhuman world. With this in mind I look closely at some of the main currents of ecocriticism with a view to showing how certain psychoanalytic and poststructuralust approaches can enhance an overall ecocritical stance. It is an analysis which will also show how the sense of environmental emergency cannot be divorced from other critical and political concerns, including those concerns highlighted by feminist and postcolonial critics. In the words of a much favoured environmentalist slogan, 'everything connects to everything else'. Ultimately this thesis shows that how we imagine the wolf, and nature in general, in literary texts, is inextricably bound up with our relationship to, and treatment of, the natural world and the animals, including human beings, for whom that world is home

Metamorphosis and Human-Animal Relationships in Angela Carter’s Fairy Tales: Liminal Subjectivities in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

This dissertation focuses on the analysis of the female characters and human-animal relationships in Angela Carter collection of fairy tales The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979) and examines how Carter’s reassessments of traditional fairy tales address the construction of women’s identity in its full complexity, thus departing from reductionist, binary oppositions by offering a satisfactory communion between animality and humanity. I argue that the use of liminal metamorphosis and animal transformation in Carter’s narratives serve the purpose of deconstructing traditional gender roles in literary fairy tales in order to create an idiosyncratic conception of female subjectivity and sexuality. The different formal and ideological possibilities of the short story genre are explored in connection to Carter’s postmodern rewritings. This dissertation is also informed by significant findings in the field of animal studies in order to deal with the symbolic and empirical treatment of animals and women through anthropomorphism and zoomorphism