50 research outputs found
How to Blend a Robot within a Group of Zebrafish: Achieving Social Acceptance through Real-time Calibration of a Multi-level Behavioural Model
We have previously shown how to socially integrate a fish robot into a group
of zebrafish thanks to biomimetic behavioural models. The models have to be
calibrated on experimental data to present correct behavioural features. This
calibration is essential to enhance the social integration of the robot into
the group. When calibrated, the behavioural model of fish behaviour is
implemented to drive a robot with closed-loop control of social interactions
into a group of zebrafish. This approach can be useful to form mixed-groups,
and study animal individual and collective behaviour by using biomimetic
autonomous robots capable of responding to the animals in long-standing
experiments. Here, we show a methodology for continuous real-time calibration
and refinement of multi-level behavioural model. The real-time calibration, by
an evolutionary algorithm, is based on simulation of the model to correspond to
the observed fish behaviour in real-time. The calibrated model is updated on
the robot and tested during the experiments. This method allows to cope with
changes of dynamics in fish behaviour. Moreover, each fish presents individual
behavioural differences. Thus, each trial is done with naive fish groups that
display behavioural variability. This real-time calibration methodology can
optimise the robot behaviours during the experiments. Our implementation of
this methodology runs on three different computers that perform individual
tracking, data-analysis, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, simulation of
the fish robot and adaptation of the robot behavioural models, all in
real-time.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Islands and despots
This paper challenges a conventional wisdom: that when discussing
political systems, small is democratic. And yet, can there be paradises
without serpents? The presumed manageability of small island spaces
promotes and nurtures dispositions for domination and control over
nature and society. In such dark circumstances, authoritarian rule is a
more natural fit than democracy. By adopting an inter-disciplinary
perspective, this paper argues that small island societies may be
wonderful places to live in, as long as one conforms to a dominant
cultural code. Should one deviate from expected and established
practices, the threat of ostracism is immense. Formal democratic
institutions may and often do exist, and a semblance of pluralism may
be manifest, but these are likely to be overshadowed by a set of
unitarist and homogenous values and practices to which many
significant social players, in politics and civil society, subscribe (at
least in public).peer-reviewe