The RACE Project: Robustness by Autonomous Competence Enhancement

This paper reports on the aims, the approach, and the results of the European project RACE. The project aim was to enhance the behavior of an autonomous robot by having the robot learn from conceptualized experiences of previous performance, based on initial models of the domain and its own actions in it. This paper introduces the general system architecture; it then sketches some results in detail regarding hybrid reasoning and planning used in RACE, and instances of learning from the experiences of real robot task execution. Enhancement of robot competence is operationalized in terms of performance quality and description length of the robot instructions, and such enhancement is shown to result from the RACE system

Polynomial function intervals for floating-point software verification

The focus of our work is the verification of tight functional properties of numerical programs, such as showing that a floating-point implementation of Riemann integration computes a close approximation of the exact integral. Programmers and engineers writing such programs will benefit from verification tools that support an expressive specification language and that are highly automated. Our work provides a new method for verification of numerical software, supporting a substantially more expressive language for specifications than other publicly available automated tools. The additional expressivity in the specification language is provided by two constructs. First, the specification can feature inclusions between interval arithmetic expressions. Second, the integral operator from classical analysis can be used in the specifications, where the integration bounds can be arbitrary expressions over real variables. To support our claim of expressivity, we outline the verification of four example programs, including the integration example mentioned earlier. A key component of our method is an algorithm for proving numerical theorems. This algorithm is based on automatic polynomial approximation of non-linear real and real-interval functions defined by expressions. The PolyPaver tool is our implementation of the algorithm and its source code is publicly available. In this paper we report on experiments using PolyPaver that indicate that the additional expressivity does not come at a performance cost when comparing with other publicly available state-of-the-art provers. We also include a scalability study that explores the limits of PolyPaver in proving tight functional specifications of progressively larger randomly generated programs

An ontology-based multi-level robot architecture for learning from experiences

One way to improve the robustness and flexibility of robot performance is to let the robot learn from its experiences. In this paper, we describe the architecture and knowledge-representation framework for a service robot being developed in the EU project RACE, and present examples illustrating how learning from experiences will be achieved. As a unique innovative feature, the framework combines memory records of low-level robot activities with ontology-based high-level semantic descriptions

Paleogeographic evolution of the Southern Pannonian Basin: 40Ar/39Ar age constraints on the Miocene continental series of notthern Croatia

The Pannonian Basin, originating during the Early Miocene, is a large extensional basin incorporated between Alpine, Carpathian and Dinaride fold-thrust belts. Back-arc extensional tectonics triggered deposition of up to 500-m-thick continental fluvio-lacustrine deposits distributed in numerous sub-basins of the Southern Pannonian Basin. Extensive andesitic and dacitic volcanism accompanied the syn-rift deposition and caused a number of pyroclastic intercalations. Here, we analyze two volcanic ash layers located at the base and top of the continental series. The lowermost ash from Mt. Kalnik yielded an 40Ar/39Ar age of 18.07 ± 0.07 Ma. This indicates that the marine-continental transition in the Slovenia-Zagorje Basin, coinciding with the onset of rifting tectonics in the Southern Pannonian Basin, occurs roughly at the Eggenburgian/ Ottnangian boundary of the regional Paratethys time scale. This age proves the synchronicity of initial rifting in the Southern Pannonian Basin with the beginning of sedimentation in the Dinaride Lake System. Beside geodynamic evolution, the two regions also share a biotic evolutionary history: both belong to the same ecoregion, which we designate here as the Illyrian Bioprovince. The youngest volcanic ash level is sampled at the Glina and Karlovac sub-depressions, and both sites yield the same 40Ar/39Ar age of 15.91 ± 0.06 and 16.03 ± 0.06 Ma, respectively. This indicates that lacustrine sedimentation in the Southern Pannonian Basin continued at least until the earliest Badenian. The present results provide not only important bench marks on duration of initial synrift in the Pannonian Basin System, but also deliver substantial backbone data for paleogeographic reconstructions in Central and Southeastern Europe around the Early–Middle Miocene transition

Komplexní geochemický výzkum interakcí a migrací organických a anorganických látek v horninovém prostředí:Výzkum havarijní kontaminace na lokalitě ELSTAV v Brně - Židenicích

Pro realizaci programu byl vybrán areál firmy ELSTAV v Brně. je situován v levobřežní části údolní nivy řeky Svitavy a geologicky je tvořen plastickými jíly neogénního stáří, které svými hydraulickými parametry tvoří bazální izolátor kvartérní zvodně. Byly realizovány vrtné práce, hydrodynamická zkouška, odběry vzorků zemin a podzemní vody a jejich laboratorní rozbory. Na zkoumané lokalitě bylo zastiženo výrazné znečištění horninového prostředí a podzemní vody zejména látkami typu NEL, v menší míře i CIU. Je uveden podrobný komentář, dokumentace a hodnocení realizovaných prací

Komplexní geochemický výzkum interakcí a migrací organických a anorganických látek v horninovém prostředí:Problematika CIU a ropných látek v literatuře

Předkládaná rešerše podává stručný přehled fyzikálních a chemických vlastností vybraných kontaminantů, jejich chování v horninovém prostředí nesaturované a saturované zóny a vliv na zdraví člověka a složky životního prostředí. Pozornost byla zaměřena na alifatické chlorované uhlovodíky (CIU), ropné látky (v parametru NEL - nepolární extrahovatelné látky), bromované těkavé organické látky, polychlorované bifenyly a polyaromatické uhlovodíky