Structural Health Monitoring of Large Structures Using Acoustic Emission-Case Histories

Acoustic emission (AE) techniques have successfully been used for assuring the structural integrity of large rocket motorcases since 1963 [...

An Application of Declarative Languages in Distributed Architectures: ASP and DALI Microservices

In this paper we introduce an approach to the possible adoption of Answer Set Programming (ASP) for the definition of microservices, which are a successful abstraction for designing distributed applications as suites of independently deployable interacting components. Such ASP-based components might be employed in distributed architectures related to Cloud Computing or to the Internet of Things (IoT), where the ASP microservices might be usefully coordinated with intelligent logic-based agents. We develop a case study where we consider ASP microservices in synergy with agents defined in DALI, a well-known logic-based agent-oriented programming language developed by our research group

The Divine Pedagogy: Theological Explorations of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Abstract Speculation regarding the plurality of worlds and its closely related subject of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials has remained an important question for Christian theology from antiquity until the modern age. Advancements in space science of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have revealed a vast universe containing trillions of galaxies, as well as new discoveries of exoplanets, which has provided an unprecedented greater context and perspective in consideration of the place of humanity, possible intelligent extraterrestrials, and the role of divinity in relation to creatures. This has led to increased importance to the question regarding the relation of extraterrestrials to the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and Redemption, which for centuries has evaded theological resolution. Historically, a handful of theologians have given limited attention to the question of the redemption of possible extraterrestrials, and since early Christianity have proposed several possible solutions, which are categorized according to four types: an exclusive view, asserting a single divine incarnation and salvation provided solely for humans on Earth, without access to potential extraterrestrials; an inclusive view, which includes extraterrestrials within the redemptive sacrifice of Christ on Earth; a multiple view, which posits multiple incarnations of the Logos in extraterrestrial civilizations for their redemption; and a varied view, which argues for the total freedom of divine plans in the salvation of intelligent extraterrestrials. This thesis will argue for the varied view in consideration of intelligent extraterrestrials, which allows for the ‘omni-properties’ of divinity in the creation and redemption of intelligent creatures according to divine prerogative. Examination of the history of developments in scientific and theological thought on extraterrestrials, from antiquity to the twenty-first century will demonstrate a consistent pattern of theological formulations of extraterrestrials and their relation to Christian Christology and Soteriology. In the discussion of this subject, an extraterrestrial ‘anthropology’, psychology, morphological possibilities, sociological compositions, extraterrestrial religions, implications of contact, and a ‘divine pedagogy’ of potential modalities of extra-mundus supernatural presence and action will be considered

Integrating Recognition and Decision Making to Close the Interaction Loop for Autonomous Systems

Intelligent systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in daily life. Mobile devices are providing machine-generated support to users, robots are coming out of their cages in manufacturing to interact with co-workers, and cars with various degrees of self-driving capabilities operate amongst pedestrians and the driver. However, these interactive intelligent systems\u27 effectiveness depends on their understanding and recognition of human activities and goals, as well as their responses to people in a timely manner. The average person does not follow instructions step-by-step or act in a formulaic manner, but instead varies the order of actions and timing when performing a given task. People explore their surroundings, make mistakes, and may interrupt an activity to handle more urgent matters. The decisions that an autonomous intelligent system makes should account for such noise and variance regardless of the form of interaction, which includes adapting action choices and possibly its own goals.While most people take these aspects of interaction for granted, they are complex and involve many specific tasks that have primarily been studied independently within artificial intelligence. This results in open-loop interactive experiences where the user must perform a fixed input command or the intelligent system performs a hard-coded output response---one of the components of the interaction cannot adapt with respect to the other for longer-term back-and-forth interactions. This dissertation explores how developments in plan recognition, activity recognition, intent recognition, and autonomous planning can work together to develop more adaptive interactive experiences between autonomous intelligent systems and the people around them. In particular, we consider a unifying perspective of recognition algorithms that provides sufficient information to dynamically produce short-term automated planning problems, and we present ways to run these algorithms faster for the real-time needs of interaction. This exploration leads to the introduction of the Planning and Recognition Together Close the Interaction Loop (PReTCIL) framework that serves as a first step towards identifying how we can address the problem of closing the interaction loop, in addition to new questions that need to be considered

The Principal Uncertainty: U.S. Atomic Intelligence, 1942-1949

ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PRINCIPAL UNCERTAINTY: U.S. ATOMIC INTELLIGENCE, 1942-1949 Vincent Jonathan Houghton, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jon T. Sumida Department of History The subject of this dissertation is the U. S. atomic intelligence effort against both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the period 1942-1949. Both of these intelligence efforts operated within the framework of an entirely new field of intelligence: scientific intelligence. Because of the atomic bomb, for the first time in history a nation's scientific resources - the abilities of its scientists, the state of its research institutions and laboratories, its scientific educational system - became a key consideration in assessing a potential national security threat. Considering how successfully the United States conducted the atomic intelligence effort against the Germans in the Second World War, why was the United States Government unable to create an effective atomic intelligence apparatus to monitor Soviet scientific and nuclear capabilities? Put another way, why did the effort against the Soviet Union fail so badly, so completely, in all potential metrics - collection, analysis, and dissemination? In addition, did the general assessment of German and Soviet science lead to particular assumptions about their abilities to produce nuclear weapons? How did this assessment affect American presuppositions regarding the German and Soviet strategic threats? Despite extensive historical work on atomic intelligence, the current historiography has not adequately addressed these questions

Robots and AI

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are powerful forces that will likely have large impacts on the size, direction, and composition of international trade flows. This book discusses how industrial robots, automation, and AI affect international growth, trade, productivity, employment, wages, and welfare. The book explains new approaches on how robots and artificial intelligence affect the world economy by presenting detailed theoretical framework and country-specific as well as firm-product level-specific exercises. This book will be a useful reference for those researching on robots, automation, AI and their economic impacts on trade, industry, and employment

Advanced Topics in Systems Safety and Security

This book presents valuable research results in the challenging field of systems (cyber)security. It is a reprint of the Information (MDPI, Basel) - Special Issue (SI) on Advanced Topics in Systems Safety and Security. The competitive review process of MDPI journals guarantees the quality of the presented concepts and results. The SI comprises high-quality papers focused on cutting-edge research topics in cybersecurity of computer networks and industrial control systems. The contributions presented in this book are mainly the extended versions of selected papers presented at the 7th and the 8th editions of the International Workshop on Systems Safety and Security—IWSSS. These two editions took place in Romania in 2019 and respectively in 2020. In addition to the selected papers from IWSSS, the special issue includes other valuable and relevant contributions. The papers included in this reprint discuss various subjects ranging from cyberattack or criminal activities detection, evaluation of the attacker skills, modeling of the cyber-attacks, and mobile application security evaluation. Given this diversity of topics and the scientific level of papers, we consider this book a valuable reference for researchers in the security and safety of systems

RISD XYZ Spring/Summer 2014: Natural Instincts | Full Issue

As ANIMALS, WE\u27RE ALL PART OF NATURE, sharing DNA with fish, trees, rocks—everything that came to be with the big bang. We’re also dependent on nature for everything: water, oxygen, food, life. And as the animals currently at the top of the food chain, we’re responsible for respecting and caring for it, too... So what do we do when faced with both the fury and fragility of nature? Do we shrug it off, thinking: “the planet is ruined and we’re screwed,” as Associate Professor Damian White asks (page 52)? Or do we take science seriously and recognize that whatever we do to the earth we do to ourselves? This is just the tip of the iceberg fueling a resurgence of interest among RISD artists and designers who are grappling with matters of human folly, sustainability, global warming and more... . From the editor\u27s message by Liisa Silanderhttps://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdxyz_springsummer2014/1004/thumbnail.jp