Methodological Flaws in Cognitive Animat Research

In the field of convergence between research in autonomous machine construction and biological systems understanding it is usually argued that building robots for research on auton- omy by replicating extant animals is a valuable strategy for engineering autonomous intelligent systems. In this paper we will address the very issue of animat construction, the ratio- nale behind this, their current implementations and the value they are producing. It will be shown that current activity, as it is done today, is deeply flawed and useless as research in the science and engineering of autonomy

Emotion and Metacontrol

In the ICEA Project we are concerned with the extraction of general designs from rat brains. We are interested in designs that capture the core integrational aspects of emotion and cognition

A Fuzzy Logic Programming Environment for Managing Similarity and Truth Degrees

FASILL (acronym of "Fuzzy Aggregators and Similarity Into a Logic Language") is a fuzzy logic programming language with implicit/explicit truth degree annotations, a great variety of connectives and unification by similarity. FASILL integrates and extends features coming from MALP (Multi-Adjoint Logic Programming, a fuzzy logic language with explicitly annotated rules) and Bousi~Prolog (which uses a weak unification algorithm and is well suited for flexible query answering). Hence, it properly manages similarity and truth degrees in a single framework combining the expressive benefits of both languages. This paper presents the main features and implementations details of FASILL. Along the paper we describe its syntax and operational semantics and we give clues of the implementation of the lattice module and the similarity module, two of the main building blocks of the new programming environment which enriches the FLOPER system developed in our research group.Comment: In Proceedings PROLE 2014, arXiv:1501.0169

Against Animats

Animats are artificial animals, a contraction of anima-materials. The term includes physical robots and virtual simulations. Animat research, a subset of Artificial Life studies, has become rather popular since Rodney Brooks' seminal paper "Intelligence without representation". The word was coined by S.W. Wilson in 1991, in the first proceedings of the Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour, which was also called From Animals to Animats

Biocontrol of root and crown rot in tomatoes under greenhouse conditions using Trichoderma harzianum and Paenibacillus lentimorbus. Additional effect of solarization

Indexación: ScieloTrichoderma harzianum 650 (Th650) and Paenebacillus lentimorbus 629 (Pl629) selected earlier for their ability to control Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium solani and F. oxysporum in vitro, were applied alone or combined with solarization (summer assay) and/or with methyl bromide (MeBr) (summer and winter assays) to a soil with a high inoculum level, for the control of tomato root rot caused by the complex F. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici - Pyrenochaeta lycopersici - Rhizoctonia solani. Evaluations were also performed independently for root damage caused by P. lycopersici, and also for R. solani in the summer assay. MeBr decreased tomato root damage caused by the complex from 88.7% to 21.2% and from 78.4% to 35.7% in the summer and in the winter assay, respectively. None of the bio-controllers could replace MeBr in the winter assay, but Th650 and Pl629 reduced root damage caused by this complex in the summer assay. Treatments with bio-controllers were improved by their combination with solarization in this season. Independent evaluations showed that the positive control of Th650 towards R. solani and the lack of effect on P. lycopersici correlates well with the endochitinase pattern expressed by Th650 in response to these phytopathogens. Root damage caused by R. solani can be controlled at a similar level as it does MeBr in summer assays, thus representing an alternative to the use of this chemical fungicide for the control of this phytopathogen.Financial support: Fondecyt 1990785

A differential game approach to urban drainage systems control

© 20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Urban drainage systems (UDSs) are complex large-scale systems that carry stormwater and wastewater throughout urban areas. During heavy rain scenarios, UDSs are not able to handle the amount of extra water that enters the network and flooding occurs. Usually, this might happen because the network is not being used efficiently, i.e., some structures remain underused while many others are overused. This paper proposes a control methology based on differential game theory that aims to efficiently use the existing network elements in order to minimize overflows and properly manage the water resource. The proposed controller is tested on a typical UDS and is compared with a centralized MPC achieving similar results in terms of flooding minimization and network usage, but only using local information on distributed controllers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The competitiveness of Spanish tomato export in the European Union

This paper examines the export performance of Spanish tomatoes in the European Union (EU). The origins and destinations of Spanish tomato exports are examined: Almeria is the main exporting province and Germany the biggest client. The performance of Spain’s North African competitors in the tomato market (mainly Morocco) is also examined, and the structural competitiveness of the countries that export tomatoes to the EU is analysed. Spain has the greatest advantage in this respect, and the largest inter-industry trade. An export model is developed. This model shows that the export of tomatoes from Almeria is not much influenced by shipments from Morocco.trade, price, competition, cointegration, Almería, strategy