Visualizations for an Explainable Planning Agent

In this paper, we report on the visualization capabilities of an Explainable AI Planning (XAIP) agent that can support human in the loop decision making. Imposing transparency and explainability requirements on such agents is especially important in order to establish trust and common ground with the end-to-end automated planning system. Visualizing the agent's internal decision-making processes is a crucial step towards achieving this. This may include externalizing the "brain" of the agent -- starting from its sensory inputs, to progressively higher order decisions made by it in order to drive its planning components. We also show how the planner can bootstrap on the latest techniques in explainable planning to cast plan visualization as a plan explanation problem, and thus provide concise model-based visualization of its plans. We demonstrate these functionalities in the context of the automated planning components of a smart assistant in an instrumented meeting space.Comment: PREVIOUSLY Mr. Jones -- Towards a Proactive Smart Room Orchestrator (appeared in AAAI 2017 Fall Symposium on Human-Agent Groups

Analytic solutions of the magnetic annihilation and reconnection problems. I. Planar flow profiles

The phenomena of steady-state magnetic annihilation and reconnection in the vicinity of magnetic nulls are considered. It is shown that reconnective solutions can be derived by superposing the velocity and magnetic fields of simple magnetic annihilation models. These solutions contain most of the previous models for magnetic merging and reconnection, as well as introducing several new solutions. The various magnetic dissipation mechanisms are classified by examining the scaling of the Ohmic diffusion rate with plasma resistivity. Reconnection solutions generally allow more favorable "fast" dissipation scalings than annihilation models. In particular, reconnection models involving the advection of planar field components have the potential to satisfy the severe energy release requirements of the solar flare. The present paper is mainly concerned with magnetic fields embedded in strictly planar flows—a discussion of the more complicated three-dimensional flow patterns is presented in Part II [Phys. Plasmas 4, 110 (1997)]

Benchmarking high fidelity single-shot readout of semiconductor qubits

Determination of qubit initialisation and measurement fidelity is important for the overall performance of a quantum computer. However, the method by which it is calculated in semiconductor qubits varies between experiments. In this paper we present a full theoretical analysis of electronic single-shot readout and describe critical parameters to achieve high fidelity readout. In particular, we derive a model for energy selective state readout based on a charge detector response and examine how to optimise the fidelity by choosing correct experimental parameters. Although we focus on single electron spin readout, the theory presented can be applied to other electronic readout techniques in semiconductors that use a reservoir.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure

Globalization of Taste and Modernity: Tracing the Development of Western Fast Food Corporations in Urban China

Food globalization has become an important topic in the discourse on globalization. There has been a rapidly rising trend of multinational food corporations integrating and dominating foreign agro-food markets. A clear example of this trend is present in China, whose economy and food industry experienced an influx of foreign direct investment and multinational retail and restaurant branches during the country’s economic opening in the 1980s. The aim of this research is to analyze the development of food globalization through the lens of Western fast food corporations and their successful integration into the Chinese market. The research also assesses the companies’ integration strategies. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications China’s case of food globalization has for further rhetoric on globalization and its impact

Mechanisms underlying the production of carapace vibrations and associated waterborne sounds in the American lobster, Homarus americanus

American lobsters produce carapace vibrations, which also lead to waterborne acoustic signals, by simultaneously contracting the antagonistic remotor and promotor muscles located at the base of the second antenna. These vibrations have a mean frequency of 183.1 Hz (range 87–261 Hz), range in duration from 68 to 1720 ms (mean 277.1 ms) and lead to waterborne sounds of similar frequencies. Lobsters most often produce these signals using only one pair of muscles at a time and alternate between the muscles of the left and right antennae when making a series of vibrations. Occasionally, they vibrate their carapace by simultaneously contracting both sets of muscles. While the remotor muscle is required for producing carapace vibrations, the promotor appears to play a secondary role. Electrical stimulation of the remotor, but not the promotor, results in the production of vibrations, while lesions of the remotor, but not promotor, eliminate the ability of lobsters to vibrate their carapace. Lobsters of all sizes and both sexes produce these signals when startled, grasped or threatened. However, at this time, the behavioral significance of vibration and/or sound production by American lobsters is not known

Dynamic planar magnetic reconnection solutions for incompressible plasmas

The planar magnetic reconnection problem for viscous, resistive plasmas is addressed. We show that solutions can be developed by superposing transient nonlinear disturbances onto quiescent “background” fields. The disturbance fields are unrestricted in form, but the spatial part of the background field must satisfy ∇2K= -λK. This decomposition allows previous analytic reconnection solutions, based on one-dimensional disturbance fields of “plane wave” form, to be recovered as special cases. However, we point out that planar disturbance fields must be fully two-dimensional to avoid the pressure problem associated with analytic merging models, that is, to avoid unbounded current sheet pressures in the limit of small plasma resistivities. The details of the reconnection problem are then illustrated using cellular background field simulations in doubly periodic geometries. The flux pile-up rate is shown to saturate when the pressure of the current sheet exceeds the hydromagnetic pressure of the background field. Although the presaturation regime is well described by one-dimensional current sheet theory, the nonlinear postsaturation regime remains poorly understood. Preliminary evidence suggests that, although after saturation the early evolution of the field can be described by slow Sweet-Parker scalings, the first implosion no longer provides the bulk of the energy release

Concept design of a fast sail assisted feeder container ship

An environmentally sustainable fast sail-assisted feeder-container ship concept, with a maximum speed of 25 knots, has been developed for the 2020 South East Asian and Caribbean container markets. The use of low-carbon and zero-sulphur fuel (liquefied natural gas) and improvements in operational efficiency (cargo handling and scheduling) mean predicted Green house gas emissions should fall by 42% and 40% in the two selected operational regions. The adoption of a Multi-wing sail system reduces power requirement by up to 6% at the lower ship speed of 15 knots. The predicted daily cost savings are respectively 27% and 33% in South East Asian and the Caribbean regions.Two hull forms with a cargo capacity of 1270TEU utilising different propulsion combinations were initially developed to meet operational requirements. Analysis & tank testing of different hydrodynamic phenomena has enabled identification of efficiency gains for each design. The final propulsion chosen is a contra-rotating podded drive arrangement. Wind tunnel testing improved Multi-wing sail performance by investigating wing spacing, wing stagger and sail-container interactions. The associated lift coefficient was increased by 32%. Whilst savings in sail-assisted power requirement are lower than initially predicted an unexpected identified benefit was motion damping.The fast feeder-container ship is a proposed as a viable future method of container transhipment

Technology enhanced learning as a tool for pedagogical innovation

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