Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

Engineering Systems Integration

Dreamers may envision our future, but it is the pragmatists who build it. Solve the right problem in the right way, mankind moves forward. Solve the right problem in the wrong way or the wrong problem in the right way, however clever or ingenious the solution, neither credits mankind. Instead, this misfire demonstrates a failure to appreciate a crucial step in pragmatic problem solving: systems integration. The first book to address the underlying premises of systems integration and how to exposit them in a practical and productive manner, Engineering Systems Integration: Theory, Metrics, and Methods looks at the fundamental nature of integration, exposes the subtle premises to achieve integration, and posits a substantial theoretical framework that is both simple and clear. Offering systems managers and systems engineers the framework from which to consider their decisions in light of systems integration metrics, the book isolates two basic questions, 1) Is there a way to express the interplay of human actions and the result of system interactions of a product with its environment?, and 2) Are there methods that combine to improve the integration of systems? The author applies the four axioms of General Systems Theory (holism, decomposition, isomorphism, and models) and explores the domains of history and interpretation to devise a theory of systems integration, develop practical guidance applying the three frameworks, and formulate the mathematical constructs needed for systems integration. The practicalities of integrating parts when we build or analyze systems mandate an analysis and evaluation of existing integrative frameworks of causality and knowledge. Integration is not just a word that describes a best practice, an art, or a single discipline. The act of integrating is an approach, operative in all disciplines, in all we see, in all we do

Getting their acts together: A coordinated systems approach to extended cognition

A cognitive system is a set of processes responsible for intelligent behaviour. This thesis is an attempt to answer the question: how can cognitive systems be demarcated; that is, what criterion can be used to decide where to draw the boundary of the system? This question is important because it is one way of couching the hypothesis of extended cognition – is it possible for cognitive systems to transcend the boundary of the brain or body of an organism? Such a criterion can be supplied by what is called in the literature a ‘mark of the cognitive’. The main task of this thesis is to develop a general mark of the cognitive. The starting point is that a system responsible for intelligent behaviour is a coordinated coalition of processes. This account proposes a set of functional conditions for coordination. These conditions can then be used as a sufficient condition for membership of a cognitive system. In certain circumstances, they assert that a given process plays a coordination role in the system and is therefore part of the system. The controversy in the extended cognition debate surrounds positive claims of systemhood concerning ‘external’ processes so a sufficient condition will help settle some of these debates. I argue that a Coordinated Systems Approach like this will help to move the extended cognition debate forward from its current impasse. Moreover, the application of the approach to social systems and stygmergic systems - systems where current processes are coordinated partly by the trace of previous action – promises new directions for research

Engineering Systems Integration

Dreamers may envision our future, but it is the pragmatists who build it. Solve the right problem in the right way, mankind moves forward. Solve the right problem in the wrong way or the wrong problem in the right way, however clever or ingenious the solution, neither credits mankind. Instead, this misfire demonstrates a failure to appreciate a crucial step in pragmatic problem solving: systems integration. The first book to address the underlying premises of systems integration and how to exposit them in a practical and productive manner, Engineering Systems Integration: Theory, Metrics, and Methods looks at the fundamental nature of integration, exposes the subtle premises to achieve integration, and posits a substantial theoretical framework that is both simple and clear. Offering systems managers and systems engineers the framework from which to consider their decisions in light of systems integration metrics, the book isolates two basic questions, 1) Is there a way to express the interplay of human actions and the result of system interactions of a product with its environment?, and 2) Are there methods that combine to improve the integration of systems? The author applies the four axioms of General Systems Theory (holism, decomposition, isomorphism, and models) and explores the domains of history and interpretation to devise a theory of systems integration, develop practical guidance applying the three frameworks, and formulate the mathematical constructs needed for systems integration. The practicalities of integrating parts when we build or analyze systems mandate an analysis and evaluation of existing integrative frameworks of causality and knowledge. Integration is not just a word that describes a best practice, an art, or a single discipline. The act of integrating is an approach, operative in all disciplines, in all we see, in all we do

Applying the Free-Energy Principle to Complex Adaptive Systems

The free energy principle is a mathematical theory of the behaviour of self-organising systems that originally gained prominence as a unified model of the brain. Since then, the theory has been applied to a plethora of biological phenomena, extending from single-celled and multicellular organisms through to niche construction and human culture, and even the emergence of life itself. The free energy principle tells us that perception and action operate synergistically to minimize an organism’s exposure to surprising biological states, which are more likely to lead to decay. A key corollary of this hypothesis is active inference—the idea that all behavior involves the selective sampling of sensory data so that we experience what we expect to (in order to avoid surprises). Simply put, we act upon the world to fulfill our expectations. It is now widely recognized that the implications of the free energy principle for our understanding of the human mind and behavior are far-reaching and profound. To date, however, its capacity to extend beyond our brain—to more generally explain living and other complex adaptive systems—has only just begun to be explored. The aim of this collection is to showcase the breadth of the free energy principle as a unified theory of complex adaptive systems—conscious, social, living, or not

The development of a theory of life-environment disruption to account for the phenomenon of premature morbidities and mortalities associated with a radical change in a person’s living environment

The thesis originates in an unresolved phenomenon associated with moving into a nursing home and concerns the reports of emotional distress, depression and increased risk of morbidity and mortality associated with the move; shedding-life is used to capture the broad character of this phenomenon. Shedding-life has been the subject of scientific inquiry for seventy years and yet the phenomenon is still not understood and, possibly because of this, there appears to be no generally accepted approaches to ameliorate this harm. This thesis inquiries into the genesis of shedding life and presents a theory to account for it. The failure of existing research to account for shedding-life indicated an alternative approach was required. As shedding-life arises in the context of a significant change in a person’s living-environment it was surmised that the phenomenon involves the relationship between the person and the changing environment in which they live. Based on this, the approach taken was to use the philosophical research of Martin Heidegger concerning the structural relationship between the person and their living environment, an approach not previously explored. Heidegger’s research, undertaken within the empiricist tradition, identifies and describes the structural processes by which the person is both constituted by its formative socio-cultural environment and bound to it as the locus and source of its ongoing existence. This means that who the individual human person becomes is both contingent and dependent upon the living environment into which it is born and raised, where the concept of living environment is understood in terms of possibilities for a meaningful life. On this account if a person’s access to their living environment is materially disrupted they are at risk of experiencing a decline in the meaningfulness of their existence. As this is a naturalistic account, founded on the biological processes of the body, the loss of an appropriate living environment is reflected in psychological distress which in turn is frequently manifested in bodily morbidities; this is the basis of shedding life, a structural rather than a psychological phenomenon. This contingent account of the person is in stark contrast to the materialist approach that posits the person as essentially the biological body, independent of its environment. The materialist view informs the design and running of nursing homes resulting in a significant disruption to a person’s life-environment contributing to rather than ameliorating shedding-life, as such nursing homes are iatrogenic, i.e. cause harm. Left unaddressed nursing home environments will continue to cause harm and fail to assist older people live a meaningful life in their remaining years. While the thesis commenced from a concern about nursing homes, the phenomenon of shedding-life is a much broader phenomenon. The Theory of Life- Environment Disruption, derived from the structure of being a person, provides an account of shedding-life by identifying the essential relationship between the person and their life-environment. The theory predicts that whenever there is a material disruption to a person’s life-environment they are at risk of shedding life and as such the theory has broad applicability for human affairs more generallyThesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, The Joanna Briggs Institute, 201

Can humain association norm evaluate latent semantic analysis?

This paper presents the comparison of word association norm created by a psycholinguistic experiment to association lists generated by algorithms operating on text corpora. We compare lists generated by Church and Hanks algorithm and lists generated by LSA algorithm. An argument is presented on how those automatically generated lists reflect real semantic relations