Agent based cooperative theory formation in pure mathematics

The HR program, Colton et al. (1999), performs theory formation in domains of pure mathematics. Given only minimal information about a domain, it invents concepts, make conjectures, proves theorems and finds counterexamples to false conjectures. We present here a multi-agent version of HR which may provide a model for how individual mathematicians perform separate investigations but communicate their results to the mathematical community, learning from others as they do. We detail the exhaustive categorisation problem to which we have applied a multi-agent approach.

Multinational Enterprises in the New Europe: Are They Really Global?

Despite a pervasive belief that the world’s largest firms compete globally, the vast majority have most of their sales in their home region. Of the top 500 firms for which regional sales data are available, 118 are from Europe, and they compete predominantly within the European region. On average, 62.8% of their sales are in their home region; only three are global, 8 are host-region oriented and 16 are bi-regional, while 86 are home-region based. To illustrate the four categories, we present case studies of 9 European multinationals — Carrefour, TotalFinaElf, Deutsche Bank, Nokia, Philips, GlaxoSmithKline, L’Oréal Paris, Diageo,and AstraZeneca. We analyze the geographical distribution of their operations and their current structure. We also show that management research is strongly focusedon the special cases of global and bi-regional firms, rather than on the large majority of home-region firms. This implies that managing in the new Europe needs tobe regional, not global.

From missions to systems : generating transparently distributable programs for sensor-oriented systems

Early Wireless Sensor Networks aimed simply to collect as much data as possible for as long as possible. While this remains true in selected cases, the majority of future sensor network applications will demand much more intelligent use of their resources as networks increase in scale and support multiple applications and users. Specifically, we argue that a computational model is needed in which the ways that data flows through networks, and the ways in which decisions are made based on that data, is transparently distributable and relocatable as requirements evolve. In this paper we present an approach to achieving this using high-level mission specifications from which we can automatically derive transparently distributable programs.Postprin

Representing the Process of Machine Tool Calibration in First-order Logic

Machine tool calibration requires a wide range of measurement techniques that can be carried out in many different sequences. Planning a machine tool calibration is typically performed by a subject expert with a great understanding of International standards and industrial best-practice guides. However, it is often the case that the planned sequence of measurements is not the optimal. Therefore, in an attempt to improve the process, intelligent computing methods can be designed for plan suggestion. As a starting point, this paper presents a way of converting expert knowledge into first-order logic that can be expressed in the PROLOG language. It then shows how queries can be executed against the logic to construct a knowledge-base of all the different measurements that can be performed during machine tool calibration

Investigation of a new method for improving image resolution for camera tracking applications

Camera based systems have been a preferred choice in many motion tracking applications due to the ease of installation and the ability to work in unprepared environments. The concept of these systems is based on extracting image information (colour and shape properties) to detect the object location. However, the resolution of the image and the camera field-of- view (FOV) are two main factors that can restrict the tracking applications for which these systems can be used. Resolution can be addressed partially by using higher resolution cameras but this may not always be possible or cost effective. This research paper investigates a new method utilising averaging of offset images to improve the effective resolution using a standard camera. The initial results show that the minimum detectable position change of a tracked object could be improved by up to 4 times

Investigation of global lightning and the ionosphere using high frequency induction coils

In June 2012, the British Geological Survey Geomagnetism team installed two high frequency (100 Hz) induction coil magnetometers at the Eskdalemuir Observatory, in the Scottish Borders of the United Kingdom. The induction coils permit us to measure the very rapid changes of the magnetic field. The Eskdalemuir Observatory is one of the longest running geophysical sites in the UK (beginning operation in 1904) and is located in a rural valley with a quiet magnetic environment. The data output from the induction coils are digitized and logged onsite before being collected once per hour and sent to the Edinburgh office via the Internet. We intend to run the coils as a long term experiment. We present results from our analysis of the Madden-Julian Oscillation and highlight some of the interesting spectral features visible in the induction coil data set