Achieving Goals using Reward Shaping and Curriculum Learning

Real-time control for robotics is a popular research area in the reinforcement learning community. Through the use of techniques such as reward shaping, researchers have managed to train online agents across a multitude of domains. Despite these advances, solving goal-oriented tasks still requires complex architectural changes or hard constraints to be placed on the problem. In this article, we solve the problem of stacking multiple cubes by combining curriculum learning, reward shaping, and a high number of efficiently parallelized environments. We introduce two curriculum learning settings that allow us to separate the complex task into sequential sub-goals, hence enabling the learning of a problem that may otherwise be too difficult. We focus on discussing the challenges encountered while implementing them in a goal-conditioned environment. Finally, we extend the best configuration identified on a higher complexity environment with differently shaped objects.Comment: To be published at Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 202

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes

Community Robotics:A New Paradigm for Robotic Design and Innovation

This paper introduces Community Robotics, a new paradigm for robotic design and innovation that centres communities as users and stakeholders. Community Robotics involves designing and innovating to create robotic and autonomous systems that work in service of community and for social value. The paper argues that the values and needs of communities are different from traditional enterprises and individual consumers and as such need dedicated consideration by roboticists in the design of robotic and autonomous systems. Different design approaches are also required, with parallels drawn with existing community design and innovation practices from across design disciplines. These practices indicate the importance of including the needs of communities in the design and development of technology more broadly. However, we argue that robotic and autonomous systems are a special case and require separate examination. We propose that research and development into community robotics is relevant across the field of robotics as it works to extend the possible contexts and enrich the research and innovation space, it unlocks additional opportunities for technology and knowledge creation. Finally, we propose a conceptual framework for Community Robotics, applying it to three robotic application scenarios, and suggest research avenues for future work within this new area

Advances in Autonomous RoboticsJoint Proceedings of the 13th Annual TAROS Conference and the 15th Annual FIRA RoboWorld Congress, Bristol, UK, August 20-23, 2012 /

XVI, 469 p. 135 illus.online resource

Author Correction: EMPReSS: standardized phenotype screens for functional annotation of the mouse genome

International audienceCorrection to: Nature Genetics, published online 1 November 2005.In the version of this article initially published, members of the Eumorphia Consortium appeared in the Supplementary Information but were not included in the main article. The full list of members appears below