Towards Automated Design of Complex Modular Systems Inspired by Nature

Katedra kybernetik

Performance modelling and analysis of olympic class sailing boats

PhD ThesisThe work in this thesis is preceded by a Master of Research in Marine Technology project between September 2004 and October 2005. The project was supervised by Professor Martin Downie and was carried out with significant time present in the field, working closely with Olympic sailors from multiple different classes. This project was funded by UK Sport and considered a pilot project to investigate the feasibility of using data logging equipment with GPS in the marine Olympic environment. A series of prototype systems were engineered to meet the requirements specified by the Royal Yachting Association. The engineering and validation of the software and hardware formed a key part of the project to ensure that the results obtained were accurate and repeatable. This included software design within two different software platforms as well as embedded hardware developments. Significant testing and development were implemented in the laboratory as well as on the water during the beginning of the project and as a continuous background task throughout the project. Over eighty days were spent in the field developing and testing hardware and software as well as determining the optimum performance analysis methods. Data loggers were fitted to several Olympic class boats during the evaluation process to ascertain the performance of the data logging system as well as the performance of the boat and crew. Data was logged from the onboard GPS and accelerometers and analysed post training. Later in the project, wind information was also collected and fused together with the onboard data post training. The hypothesis was to demonstrate performance gains in the participating classes through the means of quantitative analysis. Prior to the project the performance analysis had been almost entirely qualitative. Through the course of the project various techniques were developed allowing quantitative performance analysis to supplement the efforts of the training group and coach. Key performance factors were determined by data analysis techniques developed during the project. One of the significant tools developed was a tacking performance analysis routine which analysed multiple different styles of tacks, calculating the distance lost with respect to wind strength and course length resulting in an important strategic tool. Other tools relating to starting performance and straight line speed were also developed in custom software allowing rapid analysis of the data to feed back to the teams in the debrief

Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

Amergent Music: behavior and becoming in technoetic & media arts

Merged with duplicate records 10026.1/1082 and 10026.1/2612 on 15.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Technoetic and media arts are environments of mediated interaction and emergence, where meaning is negotiated by individuals through a personal examination and experience—or becoming—within the mediated space. This thesis examines these environments from a musical perspective and considers how sound functions as an analog to this becoming. Five distinct, original musical works explore the possibilities as to how the emergent dynamics of mediated, interactive exchange can be leveraged towards the construction of musical sound. In the context of this research, becoming can be understood relative to Henri Bergson’s description of the appearance of reality—something that is making or unmaking but is never made. Music conceived of a linear model is essentially fixed in time. It is unable to recognize or respond to the becoming of interactive exchange, which is marked by frequent and unpredictable transformation. This research abandons linear musical approaches and looks to generative music as a way to reconcile the dynamics of mediated interaction with a musical listening experience. The specifics of this relationship are conceptualized in the structaural coupling model, which borrows from Maturana & Varela’s “structural coupling.” The person interacting and the generative musical system are compared to autopoietic unities, with each responding to mutual perturbations while maintaining independence and autonomy. Musical autonomy is sustained through generative techniques and organized within a psychogeographical framework. In the way that cities invite use and communicate boundaries, the individual sounds of a musical work create an aural context that is legible to the listener, rendering the consequences or implications of any choice audible. This arrangement of sound, as it relates to human presence in a technoetic environment, challenges many existing assumptions, including the idea “the sound changes.” Change can be viewed as a movement predicated by behavior. Amergent music is brought forth through kinds of change or sonic movement more robustly explored as a dimension of musical behavior. Listeners hear change, but it is the result of behavior that arises from within an autonomous musical system relative to the perturbations sensed within its environment. Amergence propagates through the effects of emergent dynamics coupled to the affective experience of continuous sonic transformation.Rutland Port Authoritie

ANNTAX - an artificial intelligence based decision support system

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

An auto/biographical, cooperative study of ourrelationships to knowing

In this thesis, I explore the relationship between knowing and self-construction among education professionals. The work addresses questions about our relationship with different ways of knowing; and within what I term a psychosocial framework, how the road to selfhood may lie in integrating different ways of knowing, including the rational, emotional, imaginal, embodied, creative, and spiritual. It also questions the tendency to idealize ‘experts’ and disembodied forms of knowledge that are widespread in (higher) education, and even in social and therapeutic work. Auto/biographically oriented co-operative inquiry was my chosen methodology. The research involved two groups of co-researchers based in two different countries, and included interviews with members of my own family. Exploration of my own reflexive relationship with my object of study shaped it into a quest for meaning and voice. I composed a multi-layered, multimedia, performative and circular textual understanding via processes of ‘spiralling’ and unfolding that were solidly rooted in a constructivist epistemology. I analysed both individual and group processes in the co-operative inquiry, looking at metaphors and engaging with crises of knowing and self to produce a fresh perspective on transformative research and professional becoming. I also drew on the ‘writing as inquiry’ approach to intertwine myself as knower with my interpretation, thus constantly interrogating the role of prose and poetic writing in pursuing authenticity and selfhood in relation to knowledge. In addition, I explored the evocative use of ‘cultural objects’ as a strategy for integrating subjective and objective sources of knowing. I conclude my dissertation by offering what has provisionally become – for me as author – a satisfying theory. Taking a view of the self as contingent, developmental and potentially agentic, I claim that by engaging more holistically with feeling, emotion, intuition, imagination and intellect, we may come to experience ourselves as more ‘real’ and integrated knowers

Neuroimaging of fetal cell therapy in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease characterised by the elevated formation of α-synuclein-immunopositive intraneuronal proteinaceous inclusions (Lewy pathology) and the progressive loss of neuromelanin-laden dopaminergic cells of the substantia nigra pars compacta, resulting in the loss of striatal dopaminergic terminals and emergence of cardinal motor features including bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor and postural instability. Dopaminomimetic agents provide effective symptomatic relief in the early stages of illness, yet due to the inherently progressive nature of the disease and the induction of debilitating side effects their efficacy is eventually lost. Cellular restorative strategies involving intrastriatal transplantation of human fetal ventral mesencephalic (hfVM) tissue gained traction from the early 1990’s, when several multi-disciplinary teams reported drastic motoric improvements concomitant with graft-derived dopaminergic re-innervation. However, outcomes of double-blind randomised controlled trials and the presentation of novel dyskinetic movements persisting in the “off-state” called for substantial revision of cell delivery strategies. The current thesis utilises positron emission tomography to examine the effects of hfVM implantation under the Transeuro protocol on dopaminergic ([18F]FDOPA, [11C]PE2I) and serotonergic ([11C]DASB) systems in patients with Parkinson’s disease and elucidate the neural underpinnings of its clinical impact. The main findings are; 1) implanted hfVM tissue led to increases in putamenal dopamine synthesis and storage capacity, dopamine and serotonin transporter density as compared to non-transplanted patients; 2) modification to surgical procedures provided inhomogenous and inconsistent re-innervation; 3) hfVM transplantation was associated with clinical improvements in measures of bradykinesia, rigidity and tremor; 4) graft-related changes in posterior putamenal dopamine and serotonin transporter density predicted symptomatic relief of bradykinesia and tremor; 5) heterogeneity of posterior putamenal re-innervation may impact upon potential clinical benefit; 6) graft-induced dyskinesia was associated with greater post-operative increases in dopamine transporter expression in the anterior putamen; 7) there was no evidence that graft-induced dyskinesia was related to serotonergic hyperinnervation. The novel findings presented in this thesis have major implications for cell-based restorative strategies beyond the hfVM era and will likely foster informed [re]consideration of many aspects of therapeutic delivery and trial design. For its ability to provide mechanistic insight in vivo, neuroimaging may continue to play a central role in the optimisation of future interventions.Open Acces

New Fundamental Technologies in Data Mining

The progress of data mining technology and large public popularity establish a need for a comprehensive text on the subject. The series of books entitled by "Data Mining" address the need by presenting in-depth description of novel mining algorithms and many useful applications. In addition to understanding each section deeply, the two books present useful hints and strategies to solving problems in the following chapters. The contributing authors have highlighted many future research directions that will foster multi-disciplinary collaborations and hence will lead to significant development in the field of data mining