Self Monitoring Goal Driven Autonomy Agents

The growing abundance of autonomous systems is driving the need for robust performance. Most current systems are not fully autonomous and often fail when placed in real environments. Via self-monitoring, agents can identify when their own, or externally given, boundaries are violated, thereby increasing their performance and reliability. Specifically, self-monitoring is the identification of unexpected situations that either (1) prohibit the agent from reaching its goal(s) or (2) result in the agent acting outside of its boundaries. Increasingly complex and open environments warrant the use of such robust autonomy (e.g., self-driving cars, delivery drones, and all types of future digital and physical assistants). The techniques presented herein advance the current state of the art in self-monitoring, demonstrating improved performance in a variety of challenging domains. In the aforementioned domains, there is an inability to plan for all possible situations. In many cases all aspects of a domain are not known beforehand, and, even if they were, the cost of encoding them is high. Self-monitoring agents are able to identify and then respond to previously unexpected situations, or never-before-encountered situations. When dealing with unknown situations, one must start with what is expected behavior and use that to derive unexpected behavior. The representation of expectations will vary among domains; in a real-time strategy game like Starcraft, it could be logically inferred concepts; in a mars rover domain, it could be an accumulation of actions\u27 effects. Nonetheless, explicit expectations are necessary to identify the unexpected. This thesis lays the foundation for self-monitoring in goal driven autonomy agents in both rich and expressive domains and in partially observable domains. We introduce multiple techniques for handling such environments. We show how inferred expectations are needed to enable high level planning in real-time strategy games. We show how a hierarchical structure of Goal-driven Autonomy (GDA) enables agents to operate within large state spaces. Within Hierarchical Task Network planning, we show how informed expectations identify states that are likely to prevent an agent from reaching its goals in dynamic domains. Finally, we give a model of expectations for self-monitoring at the meta-cognitive level, and empirical results of agents equipped with and without metacognitive expectations

Complex Interactions between Multiple Goal Operations in Agent Goal Management

A significant issue in cognitive systems research is to make an agent formulate and manage its own goals. Some cognitive scientists have implemented several goal operations to support this issue, but no one has implemented more than a couple of goal operations within a single agent. One of the reasons for this limitation is the lack of knowledge about how various goals operations interact with one another. This thesis addresses this knowledge gap by implementing multiple-goal operations, including goal formulation, goal change, goal selection, and designing an algorithm to manage any positive or negative interaction between them. These are integrated with a cognitive architecture called MIDCA and applied in five different test domains. We will compare and contrast the architecture\u27s performance with intelligent interaction management with a randomized linearization of goal operations

Complex Interactions between Multiple Goal Operations in Agent Goal Management

A significant issue in cognitive systems research is to make an agent formulate and manage its own goals. Some cognitive scientists have implemented several goal operations to support this issue, but no one has implemented more than a couple of goal operations within a single agent. One of the reasons for this limitation is the lack of knowledge about how various goals operations interact with one another. This thesis addresses this knowledge gap by implementing multiple-goal operations, including goal formulation, goal change, goal selection, and designing an algorithm to manage any positive or negative interaction between them. These are integrated with a cognitive architecture called MIDCA and applied in five different test domains. We will compare and contrast the architecture\u27s performance with intelligent interaction management with a randomized linearization of goal operations

Goal Management in Multi-agent Systems

Autonomous agents in a multi-agent system coordinate to achieve their goals. However, in a partially observable world, current multi-agent systems are often less effective in achieving their goals. In much part, this limitation is due to an agent\u27s lack of reasoning about other agents and their mental states. Another factor is the agent\u27s inability to share required knowledge with other agents and the lack of explanations in justifying the reasons behind the goal. This research addresses these problems by presenting a general approach for agent goal management in unexpected situations. In this approach, an agent applies three main concepts: goal reasoning - to determine what goals to pursue and share; theory of mind - to select an agent(s) for goal delegation; explanation - to justify to the selected agent(s) the reasons behind the delegated goal. Our approach presents several algorithms required for goal management in multi-agent systems. We demonstrate that these algorithms will help agents in a multi-agent context better manage their goals and improve their performance. In addition, we evaluate the performance of our multi-agent system in a marine life survey domain and a rover domain. Finally, we compare our work to different multi-agent systems and present empirical results that support our claim

Foundations of Trusted Autonomy

Trusted Autonomy; Automation Technology; Autonomous Systems; Self-Governance; Trusted Autonomous Systems; Design of Algorithms and Methodologie

Human-Animal Relations. Agency, Inter-dependence, and Emotion between Humans and Assistance Dogs

In a society where sight and human autonomy hold high value, disabilities such as blindness and autism represent a disruption from the norm: a problem that needs resolving. Inevitably service provision becomes a part of the lives of those who experience these culturally defined debilities. The Guide Dogs Association of South Australia and Northern Territory is one such service provider and its policies and practices, staff, clients and dogs are the nucleus for my ethnographic research on the human-animal relationship. This ethnographic research consists of participant observation conducted between December 2009 and March 2011 in the city of Adelaide. I conducted both structured and informal interviews and employed other qualitative research methods (‘puppy-raising’ for example) for reflexive data collection. This thesis seeks to advance the academic understanding of how people think about and make use of assistance dogs; how the relationships between humans and animals is understood; the senses are referred to, made use of, and valued in the context of disability and animal assistance; and finally, how people’s everyday lives are facilitated by these animals. It is a taken-for-granted understanding in both the academic literature and this fieldsite that animals can and do facilitate the lives of humans. As a result, in this setting there are three foci – human, animal, and the coming together of the two – all of which I argue transpires under the authority of the organisation and encapsulated by the concept of need. I therefore ethnographically analyse aspects of the human-animal relationship central to this setting – training, characterising, assessing, matching, bonding, and work – and go on to argue that a triad of inter-dependence is demonstrated through power, choice and emotion and is the driving factor of this cross-species relationship. This setting sees dogs having careers and developing fluctuating bonds with various people. This propels a human-centric aim of providing assistance dogs for people with vision impairments, children and their families that experience autism, or to provide assistance at a companion level as ‘pets as therapy’ dogs. I describe these unique and finite stages of dogs’ careers, highlighting the notion that agency is distributed across the working team. The experiences of human and animal haptic1 senses also inform the relationship in this setting, with orientation and mobility essential to training and other everyday conduct – especially regarding a client’s interactions, their personal potential, and their abilities as individuals in society. I therefore contend that senses are fundamental to the distribution of agency in the working team, as well as a client’s choices, the way they feel about their disability, and the way they conduct themselves. When humans and animals are characterised and assessed, and matched and work with each other, there is an ongoing irresolvability or contradiction that comes to the fore between what are considered stable and what are considered fluid or mutable characteristics of humans and animals. For while individual human and animal behaviours are believed to exhibit the capacity for choice, ability, and consequent action, it is in reality, the staff who interpret and decipher these meaningful and distinguishing behaviours by virtue of explicit judgements, policies, and assessments. Staff attribute agency to the dogs and clients, and yet equally take it away when they do not perform in the manner congruent with ‘good’ service delivery. Ultimately, successful animal assistance is considered achieved when increased mobility, safety, and independence is attained. However, there are two key aspects of human-animal relations that are downplayed by the GD Services department. The first being, that the emotional facilitation experienced by clients and volunteers is disregarded by the staff in favour of the dogs acting as utilitarian tools; ultimately effecting client autonomy. The second is that while the GD Services staff (and organisation as a whole), retain much of the power and agency over each human-animal relationship that occurs here, their power over others is not explicitly taken into account or perceived to any large degree, regardless of its impact.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 201

Teaching Strategies Used to Promote EFL Autonomous Learning in Distance Education Undergraduate Students: An Initial Approach in the Framework of the Colombian Research Context

Este trabajo de naturaleza cualitativa se ocupa de las estrategias docentes utilizadas para promover el aprendizaje autónomo del inglés como lengua extranjera en la educación a distancia. Esto cobra sentido en el contexto colombiano donde la mayor parte de los estudiantes de educación superior son aprendices heterónomos y no alcanzan el nivel esperado como usuarios independientes de esta lengua extranjera. Este trabajo consiste en una investigación documental de las revistas colombianas sobre la investigación de la enseñanza de las lenguas extranjeras, con el propósito de recopilar estrategias de enseñanza que brinden los fundamentos para promover el aprendizaje autónomo del EFL en este contexto. Para lograr el propósito, se analizó una muestra de nueve (9) de 70 artículos de investigación contenidos en las revistas y fueron seleccionados siguiendo varios criterios de búsqueda. Durante este proceso se compilaron los datos torno a los tres principales constructos: educación a distancia en Colombia, las características del aprendizaje autónomo del inglés como lengua extranjera y las estrategias docentes aplicadas. Los hallazgos en torno al primer constructo muestran que el modelo educativo a distancia sobre el cual hay evidencia empírica se caracteriza por el componente a distancia sumado al presencial; del segundo constructo, el aprendizaje autónomo del inglés cuenta con una amplia cantidad de características psicológicas, cognitivas, metacognitivas y sociales; y del tercer constructo, la investigación-acción y casos estudios muestran que la promoción del aprendizaje autónomo requiere tener en cuenta la naturaleza y condiciones de la educación a distancia, el concepto de aprendizaje autónomo de EFL, los papeles de los instructores, la función de tutoría, el temario, materiales de auto-acceso, contenidos, herramientas, apoyo institucional, entre otros.This qualitative work deals with the teaching strategies used to promote English as a foreign language (EFL) autonomous learning in distance education. This makes sense within the Colombian context where most of the higher education students are heteronomous learners and do not reach the expected level as independent users of this foreign language. This work consists of a documentary investigation which takes data from Colombian research journals about teaching and learning foreign languages, to compile teaching strategies that provide the foundations to promote the EFL autonomous learning in undergraduate distance education students. To achieve this purpose, exploration, and analysis using a sample of nine (9) from 70 research articles according to various searching criteria were developed. During this process, data was compiled around three main constructs: distance education in Colombia, the characteristics of autonomous learning of English as a foreign language, and the teaching strategies applied. The findings around the first construct show that the Colombian distance education model used is characterized by the distance component added to the face-to-face component; about the second construct, autonomous English learning has a large number of psychological, cognitive, metacognitive, and social features; and the third construct, action-research and case studies show that promoting autonomous learning demands taking into account the nature and conditions of distance education, the concept of EFL autonomous learning, the roles of instructors, the tutoring function, the planning, and the syllabus, self-access materials, contents, tools, institutional support, among others

Beyond Idi Amin: Causes and Drivers of Political Violence in Uganda, 1971-1979

This thesis is a study of the causes and drivers of political violence during Idi Amin’s eight years as President of Uganda between 1971 and 1979. It is concerned with the relationship between political violence and order, the causes and function of political violence in post-colonial Africa, and the production and patterns of political violence, with a specific focus on the role of localised agency and coercive institutions in this production. It also seeks to contribute to a new wave of literature on the state and political life in Uganda under Amin. During Amin’s rule political violence became widespread, and hundreds of thousands of Ugandans are estimated to have been killed. The following chapters draw on a range of primary materials including Ugandan government records, oral interviews, and the testimonies given to two investigations into human rights abuses in 1974 and 1986 that have made a reappraisal of the period possible. This thesis argues that the power and reach of the Ugandan state under Amin has often been overestimated. Political violence in this period was the product of a weak state, struggling to successfully reproduce what Mitchell terms the ‘state effect’, in which the state comes to be regarded as separate to society, with a monopoly on deadly force. Uganda’s new rulers inherited the same constraints as their predecessors, and their approach to governance further undermined the functional capacity of the state apparatus. The spread of political violence that followed was driven by the vulnerability and insecurity of the new ruling clique, but it was also shaped by the localised agency and input of a wide range of state and non-state actors. Deteriorating and poorly controlled institutions, opportunistic crime and malicious denunciations, and the persistent failure of the new regime to impose and maintain consistent and disciplined practices within the repressive institutions through which they ruled all contributed to the apparently arbitrary and ‘chaotic’ pattern of violence for which the Amin era is typically remembered