BAREMO: How to Choose the Appropriate Software Component Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process

To select a software component from several similar candidates is a complex task, since each project pursues different objectives. We intend to use the Analytic Hierarchy Process in the taking of multicriteria decisions for software component reuse. This method is called BAREMO. It will help the software engineer to make estimations which will enable him/her to choose the appropriate component. The article presents a case study of the application of the method, where a project manager assesses a certain software component in order to consider its reuse in the domain of image processing

Selection of Ontologies for the Semantic Web

The development of the Semantic Web has encouraged the creation of ontologies in a great variety of domains. Web users currently looking for ontologies in order to incorporate them into their systems, just use their experience and intuition. This makes it difficult for them to justify their choices. Mainly, this is due to the lack of methods that help the user to measure that the most appropriate ontologies for the new system are. To solve this deficiency, this work proposes a method which allows the users to measure the suitability of the existent ontologies, regarding the requirements of their systems

Provably Safe Robot Navigation with Obstacle Uncertainty

As drones and autonomous cars become more widespread it is becoming increasingly important that robots can operate safely under realistic conditions. The noisy information fed into real systems means that robots must use estimates of the environment to plan navigation. Efficiently guaranteeing that the resulting motion plans are safe under these circumstances has proved difficult. We examine how to guarantee that a trajectory or policy is safe with only imperfect observations of the environment. We examine the implications of various mathematical formalisms of safety and arrive at a mathematical notion of safety of a long-term execution, even when conditioned on observational information. We present efficient algorithms that can prove that trajectories or policies are safe with much tighter bounds than in previous work. Notably, the complexity of the environment does not affect our methods ability to evaluate if a trajectory or policy is safe. We then use these safety checking methods to design a safe variant of the RRT planning algorithm.Comment: RSS 201

Sampling-Based Methods for Factored Task and Motion Planning

This paper presents a general-purpose formulation of a large class of discrete-time planning problems, with hybrid state and control-spaces, as factored transition systems. Factoring allows state transitions to be described as the intersection of several constraints each affecting a subset of the state and control variables. Robotic manipulation problems with many movable objects involve constraints that only affect several variables at a time and therefore exhibit large amounts of factoring. We develop a theoretical framework for solving factored transition systems with sampling-based algorithms. The framework characterizes conditions on the submanifold in which solutions lie, leading to a characterization of robust feasibility that incorporates dimensionality-reducing constraints. It then connects those conditions to corresponding conditional samplers that can be composed to produce values on this submanifold. We present two domain-independent, probabilistically complete planning algorithms that take, as input, a set of conditional samplers. We demonstrate the empirical efficiency of these algorithms on a set of challenging task and motion planning problems involving picking, placing, and pushing

PDDLStream: Integrating Symbolic Planners and Blackbox Samplers via Optimistic Adaptive Planning

Many planning applications involve complex relationships defined on high-dimensional, continuous variables. For example, robotic manipulation requires planning with kinematic, collision, visibility, and motion constraints involving robot configurations, object poses, and robot trajectories. These constraints typically require specialized procedures to sample satisfying values. We extend PDDL to support a generic, declarative specification for these procedures that treats their implementation as black boxes. We provide domain-independent algorithms that reduce PDDLStream problems to a sequence of finite PDDL problems. We also introduce an algorithm that dynamically balances exploring new candidate plans and exploiting existing ones. This enables the algorithm to greedily search the space of parameter bindings to more quickly solve tightly-constrained problems as well as locally optimize to produce low-cost solutions. We evaluate our algorithms on three simulated robotic planning domains as well as several real-world robotic tasks.Comment: International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS) 202

Ressenyes

Obra ressenyada: Philip PETTIT, On the People's Terms: a Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012

Propietat i llibertat al pensament social grecollatí

Els plans d'estudi de la carrera de sociologia al nostre país obvien l'ensenyament, a les assignatures d'història de la teoria social, de l'obra dels pensadors socials de la Grècia i la Roma clàssiques, quan en realitat aquesta conté la major part de les idees i hipòtesis que van servir a autors com Karl Marx per a bastir la moderna ciència social. Un estudi acurat de la seva obra revela, en particular, la centralitat que concedien, en el marc de la vida social, als conflictes de classe. Uns conflictes l'origen dels quals situaven inequívocament en la desigual distribució de la propietat, la qual deixava els elements més pobres de la societat en un estat de dependència respecte dels individus més rics. Dependència que, segons aquests autors, els definia com a no lliures i en conseqüència els inhabilitava per a la participació a la vida pública.The study plans of the Sociology career in our country forget the teaching, in the subjects of history of social theory, of the Greek and Roman social thinkers works, while actually it contains most of the ideas and hypotheses that enabled authors as Karl Marx to construct the modern Social Science. A careful study of their work reveals, especially, the importance they granted, in everything which deals with social life, to the class struggle. A conflict the origin of which they placed unequivocally in the unequal distribution of the property, which was placing the poorest elements of the society in a dependence condition under the rule of the richest individuals. Dependence which, according to these authors, defined them as non-free, so disqualified them for the participation in the public life.Los planes de estudio de la carrera de sociología en nuestro país obvian la enseñanza, en las asignaturas de historia de la teoría social, de la obra de los pensadores sociales de la Grecia y la Roma clásicas, cuando en realidad ésta contiene la mayor parte de las ideas e hipótesis que sirvieron a autores como Karl Marx para construir la moderna ciencia social. Un estudio cuidadoso de su obra revela, en particular, la centralidad que concedían, en el marco de la vida social, a los conflictos de clase. Unos conflictos cuyo origen situaban inequívocamente en la desigual distribución de la propiedad, la cual dejaba a los elementos más pobres de la sociedad en un estado de dependencia respecto de los individuos más ricos. Dependencia que, según estos autores, los definía como no libres y en consecuencia los inhabilitaba para la participación en la vida pública

El centro artesanal de iberorromano de la Maralaga (Sinarcas, Valencia)

En este artículo se ofrece una visión general sobre un horno alfarero iberorromano, perteneciente al territorio de Kelin. El estudio se centra en la caracterización de su producción cerámica. en la precisión de su cronología y en la distribución de sus productos en el territorio