NPCs as People, Too: The Extreme AI Personality Engine

PK Dick once asked “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” In video games, a similar question could be asked of non-player characters: Do NPCs have dreams? Can they live and change as humans do? Can NPCs have personalities, and can these develop through interactions with players, other NPCs, and the world around them? Despite advances in personality AI for games, most NPCs are still undeveloped and undeveloping, reacting with flat affect and predictable routines that make them far less than human— in fact, they become little more than bits of the scenery that give out parcels of information. This need not be the case. Extreme AI, a psychology-based personality engine, creates adaptive NPC personalities. Originally developed as part of the thesis “NPCs as People: Using Databases and Behaviour Trees to Give Non-Player Characters Personality,” Extreme AI is now a fully functioning personality engine using all thirty facets of the Five Factor model of personality and an AI system that is live throughout gameplay. This paper discusses the research leading to Extreme AI; develops the ideas found in that thesis; discusses the development of other personality engines; and provides examples of Extreme AI’s use in two game demos

Review of the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination Provider Group quality assurance processes

This report examined the quality assurance (QA) processes set up by the Award Provider Group when National Award for SEN Coordination oversight and funding (for teacher training) were withdrawn by the Department for Education in 2014. We interviewed 22 members of the Provider Group, including individuals from long-term and new (post-2014) providers. Data analysis showed that the QA processes worked well, providing the rigour and checks that the Provider Group were seeking. Members’ commitment to and belief in the importance of the National Award have led to the generation of a collaborative approach between competitors, and this is proving to be innovative, dynamic and supportive. However, to ensure they can continue to maintain the integrity and improve the quality of the National Award, the QA processes would benefit from: revisions to the Quality Standards Framework; creating an external reference group; involvement with external professional bodies such as the Chartered College of Teaching; continuing to publish a list of approved providers; public endorsement from an outside agency such as the DfE

Comparative Research on the Attitudinal Competence for Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe

The case study presented considers the challenges and rewards of undertaking cross-cultural comparative research. Through discussing a mixed method project, there is an exploration of how it is important not to assume shared understandings of both research approaches and subject-specific terminology. Research approaches vary across countries and what may seem straight forward for one partner in a cross-cultural project may not be for another and that time is needed to ensure a shared understanding. In analyzing the data, the issue of translation highlights that while we believe we are talking about the same terms, closer analysis of how terms are being used demonstrates the importance of asking questions of apparent similarities. Translation can often be a “best fit” where an exact translation is not possible, resulting in the true meaning becoming masked and hidden. Equally, differences identified can help to ask questions of taken for grant assumptions in one context, demonstrating the importance of understanding the cultural context for disentangling the data

Twice-Exceptional Students of Mathematics in England: What Do the Teachers Know?

Although they have the potential to excel, twice-exceptional (2e) students of mathematics do not usually have this opportunity as their special educational abilities, and special needs, are often misdiagnosed or “missed” diagnosed in schools due to the teachers’ lack of knowledge. The study explored this issue using an electronic survey for primary school teachers in four local authorities in England. It was planned as a pilot study to gather insights from a small number of schools aiming to identify areas for further study and larger-scale research. When comparing responses from teachers with gifted-related training and those without, the study found some knowledge of specific types of 2e students among both groups of teachers, but no significant difference between them. This raised concerns about the effectiveness of the training, as well as identifying areas that need further and more systematic research

Evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination

This report presents findings of an independent evaluation into the effectiveness and impact of the National Award for SEN Coordination. Questionnaire data were collected from 1,109 school staff, 532 parents/carers and 9 pupils; we also interviewed 20 SENCOs and 15 parents/carers of children with SEND. Key findings included: • Statistically-significant evidence that a majority of NASENCO Award-holders and trainees felt that the Award increased their confidence in some aspects of all three Award domains of Professional Knowledge and Understanding; Leading and Coordinating Provision; Personal and Professional Qualities. • Award-holding survey respondents commented on aspects of course delivery that allowed them to reflect on their SENCO role. These included discussion and sharing practice with other SENCOs, academic study and tasks, and the taught sessions. Some commented on the challenges of completing Master’s level study with their employment in school. • Issues that SENCOs thought should be addressed in the Award in future included practical advice that was applicable to the SENCO role; budget management and funding training; working with outside agencies; supporting pupils; training, supporting and managing staff; and understanding/implementing current legislation. • School staff who were not SENCOs were asked for their views of the support provided to them by their SENCO. The majority of respondents knew if their school SENCO had achieved the Award or not. A large majority reported that their SENCO supported them in almost all aspects of the three Award domains. The SENCO’s role in working with parents/carers was the aspect most often highly rated by school staff respondents; other highly-rated aspects were concerned with working strategically to develop support systems, both within and beyond the school, followed by supporting pupils’ learning and progress. • The majority of parents/carers who responded to the survey did not know if their child’s school SENCO held the Award. Most parent interviewees reported that they had not heard of the Award before completing the survey. • Around half of the pupils in our sample felt that they were able to get help at least some of the time at school, and that this help came mainly from staff at school or from family. The Report concludes with recommendations to government, Award providers, schools and individuals

Adaption reveals a neural code for the visual location of orientation change

We apply an adaptation technique to explore the neural code for the visual location of textures defined by modulation of orientation over space. In showing that adaptation to textures modulated around one orientation shifts the perceived location of textures modulated around a different orientation, we demonstrate the existence of a neural code for the location of orientation change that generalises across orientation content. Using competitive adaptation, we characterise the neural processes underlying this code as single-opponent for orientation, that is with concentric excitatory/inhibitory receptive areas tuned to a single orientation.<br /

Correlation of X-Ray CT Measurements to Shear Strength in Pultruded Composite Materials

Pultrusion is an emerging, economical manufacturing process for composite structures. In a pultrusion system, the composite tapes and fabrics are loaded onto a creel, and the materials are fed into a preform (or shaper), along with any fillers that may be needed. If the fiber is not yet preimpregnated with resin, it is run through a resin bath or resin is injected into the die the material is about to enter. The composite is pulled through the heated die and then cut from the system to produce either a fully or partially cured product. This handleable part is then placed in an autoclave for final cure. A number of variables go into the pultrusion process, including the type of fibers, the resin matrix material, pull rate and cure temperature. Destructive testing, such as shear testing of small sections, is the normal method for assessing the quality of the pultrusion manufacturing product. During manufacture, this cannot be performed on the actual product to be used but only on near neighbor test coupons. This can be time consuming, costly, and part of the product is destroyed

DroneHack Journalism: Educating & Inspiring Journalists in the Capacities & Possibilities of Unmanned Aerial Systems

The use of drones for journalism or newsgathering has been growing steadily over the past few years. The recent rise of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (also known as drones) as consumer products, along with the increasing civilian applications being developed has sparked interest in people outside the aviation industry – including journalists. Drone journalism as a practice and discipline is still relatively new. However, they offer great journalistic potential. Current practice is based on visual media. Primarily this comprises photographs and video, but virtual reality and spherical (360) video is starting to be explored. However, other non-visual drone payloads offer great potential for sensor and data journalism. DroneHack has been developed as an event to bring those with technological skills and know-how together with those with real-world needs, in order to generate ideas and rapidly prototype the next generation of civilian drone applications. It also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of regulations around drones and their use. This paper describes the DroneHack Journalism event which took place in January 2017 in conjunction with journalism.co.uk and Trinity Mirror in Manchester, United Kingdom. The paper also explains what a DroneHack is, how it was developed as a format and the origins and influences as well as an overview of previous DroneHacks and concludes with some possible directions which future DroneHacks could take

A common contrast pooling rule for suppression within and between the eyes

Recent work has revealed multiple pathways for cross-orientation suppression in cat and human vision. In particular, ipsiocular and interocular pathways appear to assert their influence before binocular summation in human but have different (1) spatial tuning, (2) temporal dependencies, and (3) adaptation after-effects. Here we use mask components that fall outside the excitatory passband of the detecting mechanism to investigate the rules for pooling multiple mask components within these pathways. We measured psychophysical contrast masking functions for vertical 1 cycle/deg sine-wave gratings in the presence of left or right oblique (645 deg) 3 cycles/deg mask gratings with contrast C%, or a plaid made from their sum, where each component (i) had contrast 0.5Ci%. Masks and targets were presented to two eyes (binocular), one eye (monoptic), or different eyes (dichoptic). Binocular-masking functions superimposed when plotted against C, but in the monoptic and dichoptic conditions, the grating produced slightly more suppression than the plaid when Ci $ 16%. We tested contrast gain control models involving two types of contrast combination on the denominator: (1) spatial pooling of the mask after a local nonlinearity (to calculate either root mean square contrast or energy) and (2) "linear suppression" (Holmes & Meese, 2004, Journal of Vision 4, 1080–1089), involving the linear sum of the mask component contrasts. Monoptic and dichoptic masking were typically better fit by the spatial pooling models, but binocular masking was not: it demanded strict linear summation of the Michelson contrast across mask orientation. Another scheme, in which suppressive pooling followed compressive contrast responses to the mask components (e.g., oriented cortical cells), was ruled out by all of our data. We conclude that the different processes that underlie monoptic and dichoptic masking use the same type of contrast pooling within their respective suppressive fields, but the effects do not sum to predict the binocular case