Urban robotic experimentation: San Francisco, Tokyo and Dubai

Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and automation have the potential to transform cities and urban social life. However, robotic restructuring of the city is complicated and contested. Technology is still evolving, robotic infrastructure is expensive and there are technical, trust and safety challenges in bringing robots into dynamic urban environments alongside humans. This article examines the nascent field of ‘urban robotics’ in three emblematic yet diverse national-urban contexts that are leading centres for urban robotic experimentation. Focusing on the experimental application of autonomous social robots, the article explores: (i) the rationale for urban robotic experiments and the interests involved, and (ii) the challenges and outcomes of creating meaningful urban spaces for robotic experimentation. The article makes a distinctive contribution to urban research by illuminating a potentially far-reaching but under-researched area of urban policy. It provides a conceptual framework for mapping and understanding the highly contingent, spatially uneven and socially selective processes of robotic urban experimentation

Bounding the Attractor of an IFS

Fractal images defined by an iterated function system (IFS) are specified by a finite number of contractive affine transformations. In order to plot the attractor of an IFS on the screen of a digital computer, it is necessary to determine a bounding area for the attractor. Given a point on the plane, we obtain a formula for the radius of a circle centred on that point that contains the attractor of the IFS. We then describe an algorithm to find the point on the plane such that the bounding circle centred on that point has minimum radius

Generative adversarial networks: an overview

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) provide a way to learn deep representations without extensively annotated training data. They achieve this by deriving backpropagation signals through a competitive process involving a pair of networks. The representations that can be learned by GANs may be used in a variety of applications, including image synthesis, semantic image editing, style transfer, image superresolution, and classification. The aim of this review article is to provide an overview of GANs for the signal processing community, drawing on familiar analogies and concepts where possible. In addition to identifying different methods for training and constructing GANs, we also point to remaining challenges in their theory and application

The urban bioeconomy: extracting value from the ecological and biophysical

Cities have tended to be seen as net consumers of ecological goods and exporters of ecological bads. However, over recent years urban metabolism, circular economy and bioeconomy concepts have sought to rebalance this seemingly parasitical relationship by seeing the urban as an ecological resource to be exploited for profit. In this review paper, we investigate the ways in which the assets and metabolic flows of the city are being recharacterised as a source of value to be maintained, extracted, enhanced and exploited. Our approach is twofold. First, we examine areas of latent potential for urban bioeconomic exploitation and issues raised in terms of fair and just cities. Second, we examine issues, tensions and challenges in reimagining the city as a site of bioeconomic value. The paper makes a distinctive contribution to the literature by defining and critically analysing the new urban bioeconomy as a form of environmental value creation

Regulating sidewalk delivery robots as a disruptive new urban technology

Sidewalk delivery robots are increasingly being deployed in diverse urban contexts, raising issues about the most appropriate form of regulation to maintain pedestrian flows and protect the public. This paper examines the evolution of sidewalk robot governance in a “hot spot” of urban robotic application in the State of California (USA), where different municipal authorities have experimented with prohibitive, permissive and collaborative forms of sidewalk re-regulation in response to the various potential disruptions and risks associated with the new technology. Combining detailed policy analysis and interviews, the paper takes forward literature on the regulatory challenges and opportunities in making space for urban robotics as a disruptive technology

Empowering householders: Identifying predictors of intentions to use a home energy management system in the United Kingdom

Trials of technologies designed to promote residential demand-side energy management (DSM) have found aggregate levels of load-shifting behaviour and curtailment in energy use. These aggregate data, however, mask considerable differences in people's engagement in DSM at an individual household level. We present the findings of a quantitative exploration of people's intentions to use a home energy management system (HEMS) for residential DSM in the United Kingdom. The technology acceptance model (TAM) was used in conjunction with constructs measuring psychological empowerment and environmental attitudes to explore participants' acceptance of a HEMS to facilitate load-shifting. Findings from a mediation analysis showed perceptions of the usefulness of the HEMS and its ease of use were important predictors of people's intentions to use one. They also highlight a potential conflict between an individual's home energy consumption goals and national DSM goals. The implications of these findings for understanding end-user acceptance of HEMS are discussed. We conclude that seeking opportunities to promote shared, internalised goals for residential DSM may be an avenue for increasing the uptake and use of technologies designed to enable load-shifting (and other energy conservation behaviours) among end-users

Emergency department contact prior to suicide in mental health patients

ObjectivesTo describe attendance at emergency departments (EDs) in the year prior to suicide for a sample of mental health patients. To examine the characteristics of those who attended (particularly those who attended frequently) prior to suicide.DesignCase review of ED records for 286 individuals who died within 12 months of mental health contact in North West England (2003-2005).MethodCases identified through the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide were checked against regional EDs to establish attendance in the year prior to death. Records were examined to establish the number of attendances, reason for the final, non-fatal attendance, treatment offered and outcome.ResultsOne hundred and twenty-four (43%) individuals had attended the ED at least once in the year prior to their death, and of these, 35 (28%) had attended the ED on more than three occasions. These frequent attenders died by suicide significantly sooner after their final, non-fatal attendance than other attenders. A clinical history of alcohol misuse was also associated with early death following ED attendance.ConclusionsOver 40% of our clinical sample attended an ED in the year prior to death, and some individuals attended particularly frequently. EDs may therefore represent an important additional setting for suicide prevention in mental health patients. The majority of attendances prior to suicide were for self-harm or to request psychiatric help. Clinicians should be alert to the risk associated with such presentations and to the possible association between frequent attendance and suicide

Urban AI in China: social control or hyper-capitalist development in the post-smart city?

Research and wider societal debates has explored the potentially transformative role of AI in extended social control and hyper-capitalist development in China. In this paper, we use those debates to reflect on experiments with Urban AI in China. The key issue is whether AI offers something distinctive or different compared with the logics and imaginaries of ideas of the smart city. Analysis of emblematic sites of urban AI management in the cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou demonstrates: the resonances and dissonances between urban AI and smart. But they also demonstrate distinctive and complex landscape of urban AI experiments that is not neatly captured in social control and free market applications perspectives on AI. Moreover, the urban experimental contexts in which AI is being rolled, reveal aspirations for creating new “digital empires,” exploring new limits on data power and potential social resistance. The paper makes a distinctive contribution by providing a new framework for comparing logics of computational urban management in the context of emerging AI applications. As such the paper provides a distinctive framework for situating future applications of urban AI management in China and identifies the future urban research priorities