Event Indexing Systems for Efficient Selection and Analysis of HERA Data

The design and implementation of two software systems introduced to improve the efficiency of offline analysis of event data taken with the ZEUS Detector at the HERA electron-proton collider at DESY are presented. Two different approaches were made, one using a set of event directories and the other using a tag database based on a commercial object-oriented database management system. These are described and compared. Both systems provide quick direct access to individual collision events in a sequential data store of several terabytes, and they both considerably improve the event analysis efficiency. In particular the tag database provides a very flexible selection mechanism and can dramatically reduce the computing time needed to extract small subsamples from the total event sample. Gains as large as a factor 20 have been obtained.Comment: Accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communication

Animal-Computer Interaction: the emergence of a discipline

In this editorial to the IJHCS Special Issue on Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in this emerging field, outlining the main scientific interests of its developing community, in a broader cultural context of evolving human-animal relations. We summarise the core aims proposed for the development of ACI as a discipline, discussing the challenges these pose and how ACI researchers are trying to address them. We then introduce the contributions to the Special Issue, showing how they illustrate some of the key issues that characterise the current state-of-the-art in ACI, and finally reflect on how the journey ahead towards developing an ACI discipline could be undertaken

Choreographic and Somatic Approaches for the Development of Expressive Robotic Systems

As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system's integration: knobs on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception, can identify simplified features of movement for human-robot interaction goals, and have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work is presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited.Comment: Under review at MDPI Arts Special Issue "The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century)" http://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/Machine_Artis

Trends in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Neuroscience

This paper presents current trends in philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, with a special focus on neuroscientists dealing with some topics usually discussed by philosophers of mind. The aim is to detect the philosophical views of those scientists, such as Eccles, Gazzaniga, Damasio, Changeux, and others, which are not easy to classify according to the standard divisions of dualism, functionalism, emergentism, and others. As the variety of opinions in these fields is sometimes a source of confusion, it is worth the effort to obtain an overall panorama of the topic. A general conclusion on epistemological and ontological issues, concerning the relationship between neurobiology and philosophy and the multi-level account of the embodied mind, is proposed

Mind vs. Media: A Civil War between Typography and the Mediated Image

The past thirty years have marked the start of a new kind of civil war in our digitally powered American society. There is a deep chasm between the cry for the lost art of typography and the mediated power of the Image. We are a culture battling a war in our own heads, attempting to assimilate Images without replacing the need for a written text. This thesis will argue that the mediated Image is not a death sentence to critical thinking; rather it is an undeniable, inescapable power that can be used to positively influence our culture. It will research the history of fear found in many revolutionary novelists and theorists, and how that fear has gone beyond the point of being a warning symbol, becoming a paralyzing lamentation for the lost art of the past. It will ultimately answer the nagging question of our present society: Has the rise of the mediated Image replaced the written text and its requirement to digest information in rational and analytical manner

Meta-história para robôs (bots): o conhecimento histórico na era da inteligência ar tificial

This text offers a theoretical reflection on the effects of the artificial intelligence and digital era on the historian’s métier. It is based on a set of experiments involved in the development of a cybernetic historian, dealing with hypotheses such as (ro)bots creating historical narratives and mastering methods of both quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as suggesting research problems. In other to do so, we present our own technology, in progress of development, and we problematize the steps to create a historian “bot”. The term robot is understood as a computer program executing tasks on a largely automated basis, without any relationship with a human user. In turn, tasks are complemented by an artificial intelligence system. This emergent reality raises an urgent debate on ethical issues, such as transparency and digital ethics, and it may also be useful to problematize the future of the historical profession in the contemporary world12291752COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESSem informaçãoEsse texto oferece uma reflexão teórica sobre os efeitos da inteligência artificial e do universo digital no ofício do historiador. A reflexão é baseada em um conjunto de experimentos relacionados com o desenvolvimento de um “historiador cibernético”, lidando com hipóteses tais como, robôs criando narrativas históricas e dominando métodos de análise qualitativa e quantitativa. Para isso, apresentamos nossa tecnologia própria em fase de desenvolvimento, problematizando as etapas para a criação de um "robô” historiador. O termo “robô" (ou “bot”) é entendido como um programa computacional que executa tarefas de forma quase inteiramente autônoma, sem qualquer relação com o usuário humano. Por sua vez, estas tarefas são complementadas por um sistema de inteligência artificial. Essa realidade emergente nos projeto em questões urgentes sobre transparência e ética no mundo digital, e pode ser uma poderosa ferramenta para problematizar o futuro da história no mundo contemporâne