Experimental Simulations and Tort Reform: Avoidance, Error and Overreaching in Sunstein Et Al.’s ‘Punitive Damages’

This article addresses tort reform claims made in Cass R. Sunstein, et al.\u27s Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide (2002)and related articles, research that was largely underwritten by the Exxon Corporation. Based upon a series of simulation experiments, those authors have made a general claim that juries are incapable of making coherent judgments about punitive damages. In this article I raise serious methodological problems bearing on the validity of the research, and, therefore, its ability to provide judges and legislators with useful information about juries and punitive damages

The Mechanics of Embodiment: A Dialogue on Embodiment and Computational Modeling

Embodied theories are increasingly challenging traditional views of cognition by arguing that conceptual representations that constitute our knowledge are grounded in sensory and motor experiences, and processed at this sensorimotor level, rather than being represented and processed abstractly in an amodal conceptual system. Given the established empirical foundation, and the relatively underspecified theories to date, many researchers are extremely interested in embodied cognition but are clamouring for more mechanistic implementations. What is needed at this stage is a push toward explicit computational models that implement sensory-motor grounding as intrinsic to cognitive processes. In this article, six authors from varying backgrounds and approaches address issues concerning the construction of embodied computational models, and illustrate what they view as the critical current and next steps toward mechanistic theories of embodiment. The first part has the form of a dialogue between two fictional characters: Ernest, the �experimenter�, and Mary, the �computational modeller�. The dialogue consists of an interactive sequence of questions, requests for clarification, challenges, and (tentative) answers, and touches the most important aspects of grounded theories that should inform computational modeling and, conversely, the impact that computational modeling could have on embodied theories. The second part of the article discusses the most important open challenges for embodied computational modelling

Towards a Community Framework for Agent-Based Modelling

Agent-based modelling has become an increasingly important tool for scholars studying social and social-ecological systems, but there are no community standards on describing, implementing, testing and teaching these tools. This paper reports on the establishment of the Open Agent-Based Modelling Consortium, www.openabm.org, a community effort to foster the agent-based modelling development, communication, and dissemination for research, practice and education.Replication, Documentation Protocol, Software Development, Standardization, Test Beds, Education, Primitives

Towards A Theory-Of-Mind-Inspired Generic Decision-Making Framework

Simulation is widely used to make model-based predictions, but few approaches have attempted this technique in dynamic physical environments of medium to high complexity or in general contexts. After an introduction to the cognitive science concepts from which this work is inspired and the current development in the use of simulation as a decision-making technique, we propose a generic framework based on theory of mind, which allows an agent to reason and perform actions using multiple simulations of automatically created or externally inputted models of the perceived environment. A description of a partial implementation is given, which aims to solve a popular game within the IJCAI2013 AIBirds contest. Results of our approach are presented, in comparison with the competition benchmark. Finally, future developments regarding the framework are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, IJCAI 2013 Symposium on AI in Angry Bird

Automated system for integration and display of physiological response data

The system analysis approach was applied in a study of physiological systems in both 1-g and weightlessness, for short and long term experiments. A whole body, algorithm developed as the first step in the construction of a total body simulation system is described and an advanced biomedical computer system concept including interactive display/command consoles is discussed. The documentation of the design specifications, design and development studies, and user's instructions (which include program listings) for these delivered end-terms; the reports on the results of many research and feasibility studies; and many subcontract reports are cited in the bibliography

A New Computer-aided Technique for Planning the Aesthetic Outcome of Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery plays a major role in today health care. Planning plastic face surgery requires dealing with the elusive concept of attractiveness for evaluating feasible beautification of a particular face. The existing computer tools essentially allow to manually warp 2D images or 3D face scans, in order to produce images simulating possible surgery outcomes. How to manipulate faces, as well as the evaluation of the results, are left to the surgeon's judgement. We propose a new quantitative approach able to automatically suggest effective patient-specific improvements of facial attractiveness. The general idea is to compare the face of the patient with a large database of attractive faces, excluding the facial feature to be improved. Then, the feature of the faces more similar is applied, with a suitable morphing, to the face of the patient. In this paper we present a first application of the general idea in the field of nose surgery. Aesthetically effective rhinoplasty is suggested on the base of the entire face profile, a very important 2D feature for rating face attractivenes

Multi-level agent-based modeling - A literature survey

During last decade, multi-level agent-based modeling has received significant and dramatically increasing interest. In this article we present a comprehensive and structured review of literature on the subject. We present the main theoretical contributions and application domains of this concept, with an emphasis on social, flow, biological and biomedical models.Comment: v2. Ref 102 added. v3-4 Many refs and text added v5-6 bibliographic statistics updated. v7 Change of the name of the paper to reflect what it became, many refs and text added, bibliographic statistics update

An integrative approach to space-flight physiology using systems analysis and mathematical simulation

An approach was developed to aid in the integration of many of the biomedical findings of space flight, using systems analysis. The mathematical tools used in accomplishing this task include an automated data base, a biostatistical and data analysis system, and a wide variety of mathematical simulation models of physiological systems. A keystone of this effort was the evaluation of physiological hypotheses using the simulation models and the prediction of the consequences of these hypotheses on many physiological quantities, some of which were not amenable to direct measurement. This approach led to improvements in the model, refinements of the hypotheses, a tentative integrated hypothesis for adaptation to weightlessness, and specific recommendations for new flight experiments