Optimising Humanness: Designing the best human-like Bot for Unreal Tournament 2004

This paper presents multiple hybridizations of the two best bots on the BotPrize 2014 competition, which sought for the best humanlike bot playing the First Person Shooter game Unreal Tournament 2004. To this aim the participants were evaluated using a Turing test in the game. The work considers MirrorBot (the winner) and NizorBot (the second) codes and combines them in two different approaches, aiming to obtain a bot able to show the best behaviour overall. There is also an evolutionary version on MirrorBot, which has been optimized by means of a Genetic Algorithm. The new and the original bots have been tested in a new, open, and public Turing test whose results show that the evolutionary version of MirrorBot apparently improves the original bot, and also that one of the novel approaches gets a good humanness level.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Mixed Integer Linear Programming for Feature Selection in Support Vector Machine

This work focuses on support vector machine (SVM) with feature selection. A MILP formulation is proposed for the problem. The choice of suitable features to construct the separating hyperplanes has been modelled in this formulation by including a budget constraint that sets in advance a limit on the number of features to be used in the classification process. We propose both an exact and a heuristic procedure to solve this formulation in an efficient way. Finally, the validation of the model is done by checking it with some well-known data sets and comparing it with classical classification methods.Comment: 37 pages, 20 figure

The stratified p-center problem

This work presents an extension of the p-center problem. In this new model, called Stratified p-Center Problem (SpCP), the demand is concentrated in a set of sites and the population of these sites is divided into different strata depending on the kind of service that they require. The aim is to locate p centers to cover the different types of services demanded minimizing the weighted average of the largest distances associated with each of the different strata. In addition, it is considered that more than one stratum can be present at each site. Different formulations, valid inequalities and preprocessings are developed and compared for this problem. An application of this model is presented in order to implement a heuristic approach based on the Sample Average Approximation method (SAA) for solving the probabilistic p-center problem in an efficient way.Comment: 32 pages, 1 pictur

Generalized Lions-Peetre methods of constants and means and operator ideals

We establish results on interpolation of Rosenthal operators, Banach-Saks operators, Asplund operators and weakly compact operators by means of generalized Lions-Peetre methods of constants and means. Applications are presented for the $K$-method space generated by the Calderón-Lozanovskii space parameters

Activated sludge response to detergent spill in sewage

Motivation: The aim of this study is to determine the response of activated sludge microorganisms to detergent spill events that occurs sporadically in the Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs). This detergent spill can cause loss of floccular structures and the disappearance of part of the microbiota constituent of the mixed liquor. Methods: The pilot plant used for the study consists of four series-connected lagoons, with aeration systems in three of them, and a feed tank of 25L. The lagoon stabilization process allows the generation and maturation of activated sludge necessary for wastewater treatment. The mixed liquor was sampled to identify its functional groups present in the water allowing a later comparative after applying detergent. Four spills in total, based on Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) were carried out and its effects studied. Results: Observations showed the existence of floccular structures of remarkable resistance of as well as the presence of  many functional groups of microorganisms in the detergent spills up to 37,5mg/l. Higher spills from 60mg/l to 120mg/l increase floccular damages and microbiota mortality. It was observed a proliferation of filamentous bacteria Beggiatoa on the surface of activated sludge after spills, as well as Paramecium association to it. Conclusions: Lagooning system seems to respond well to detergent discharges lower than 40mg / l SDS, keeping floccular structures very compacts and the presence of groups of microorganisms. Discharges of 60mg / l to 120mg / l significantly increase the mortality rate of activated sludge microbiota and the loss of structure at the floc, especially in the first two ponds. The system seems to cushion the spills in the first ponds reducing further damage in rear lagoons. The third lagoon had the highest average number of individuals per milliliter that can be due to a lower impact by detergent spills and the contribution of aeration system. Beggiatoa proliferation could be motivated by an oxygen descent in lagoons associated to detergent discharges

The daily price and income elasticity of natural gas demand in Europe

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG[Abstract] Data from 15 European countries is analysed to provide novel estimates of daily own-price, cross-price and income elasticities of natural-gas-demand from 2016 to 2020. The results show that: first, there is a strong-seasonal component in the October–February period during which residential-demand has a higher share on total demand, and gas price is not a determinant factor for most of the countries. This seasonal profile makes price-based tools more effective modifying end-consumer behaviours from March to August when estimated own-price elasticities present larger values in absolute terms. Second, there are estimated positive own-price elasticities from October to February in Bulgaria, Luxemburg, Poland, the UK, and Portugal. The first four countries present natural gas prices below the EU-28 average during the analysed period and it is argued that positive elasticities may reflect a disconnection between the price traded on the organized markets and the real price perceived by end-customers. For Portugal, who is currently carrying out a very aggressive policy to become coal-free by the end of 2021, natural gas and coal are mainly consumed in power sector to provide flexibility and back up renewable generation. The limited alternatives to provide these services may explain why coal and natural gas are found to be complementary. Finally, it is found that lockdowns due to covid-19 highly impacted on natural gas demand, confirming for the first time in the literature a “double heating effect”. Our results help to find when price-based tools by policymakers will influence more effectively natural-gas-demand following economic and environmental goals.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación ; PGC2018-101327-B-100Xunta de Galicia ; ED431C 2020/2

SUVS: Secure Unencrypted Voting Scheme

[EN] In this paper, we propose a light-weight electronic voting protocol. The approach used by our protocol to conceal the ballots does not imply encryption, and guarantees the privacy of the direction of the vote unless all the contestants (parties) agree to do so. Our method is based on the division of the ballot into different pieces of information, which separately reveal no information at all, and that can be latter aggregated to recover the original vote. We show that, despite its simplicity, this scheme is powerful, it does not sacrifice any of the security properties demanded in a formal electronic voting protocol, and, furthermore, even in post-quantum scenarios, neither the casted votes can be tampered with, nor the identity of any elector can be linked with the direction of her vote.Results related to Spanish Patent Application number P202131209.Larriba, AM.; López Rodríguez, D. (2022). SUVS: Secure Unencrypted Voting Scheme. Informatica. 33(4):749-769. https://doi.org/10.15388/22-INFOR50374976933

How to grant anonymous access

[EN] In this paper, we propose three protocols to share, among a set of N competing entities, the responsibility to grant anonymous access to a resource. The protocols we propose vary in their settings to take into account central or distributed registration. We prove that any subset of guardian authorities can neither tamper with, nor forge, new access-key tokens. Besides, two of the methods we propose are resistant to the eventual appearance of quantum computers. The protocols we propose permit new approaches for cryptographic applications such as electronic voting or blockchain access.Larriba, AM.; López Rodríguez, D. (2023). How to grant anonymous access. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. 18:613-625. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2022.32265616136251