Preface

The following topics are dealt with: mobile robots; multi-robot systems; path planning; robot vision; service robots; collision avoidance; learning (artificial intelligence); legged locomotion; control engineering computing; production engineering computing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Automatic parameterization for expeditious modelling of virtual urban environments - a new hybrid metaheuristic

Expeditious modelling of virtual urban environments consists of generating realistic 3d models from limited information. It has several practical applications but typically suffers from a lack of accuracy in the parameter values that feed the modeller. By gathering small amounts of information about certain key urban areas, it becomes possible to feed a system that automatically compares and adjusts the input parameter values to find optimal solutions of parameter combinations that resemble the real life model. These correctly parameterized rules can then be reapplied to generate virtual models of real areas with similar characteristics to the referenced area. Based on several nature inspired metaheuristic algorithms such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and harmony search, this paper presents a new hybrid metaheuristic algorithm capable of optimizing functions with both discrete and continuous parameters and offer competitive results in a highly neglected field of application

HoldemML: A framework to generate No Limit Hold'em Poker agents from human player strategies

Developing computer programs that play Poker at human level is considered to be challenge to the A.I research community, due to its incomplete information and stochastic nature. Due to these characteristics of the game, a competitive agent must manage luck and use opponent modeling to be successful at short term and therefore be profitable. In this paper we propose the creation of No Limit Hold'em Poker agents by copying strategies of the best human players, by analyzing past games between them. To accomplish this goal, first we determine the best players on a set of game logs by determining which ones have higher winning expectation. Next, we define a classification problem to represent the player strategy, by associating a game state with the performed action. To validate and test the defined player model, the HoldemML framework was created. This framework generates agents by classifying the data present on the game logs with the goal to copy the best human player tactics. The created agents approximately follow the tactics from the counterpart human player, thus validating the defined player model. However, this approach proved to be insufficient to create a competitive agent, since the generated strategies were static, which means that they are easy prey to opponents that can perform opponent modeling. This issue can be solved by combining multiple tactics from different players. This way, the agent switches the tactic from time to time, using a simple heuristic, in order to confuse the opponent modeling mechanisms

A Methodology for Creating an Adapted Command Language for Driving an Intelligent Wheelchair

Intelligent wheelchairs (IW) are technologies that can increase the autonomy and independence of elderly people and patients suffering from some kind of disability. Nowadays the intelligent wheelchairs and the human-machine studies are very active research areas. This paper presents a methodology and a Data Analysis System (DAS) that provides an adapted command language to an user of the IW. This command language is a set of input sequences that can be created using inputs from an input device or a combination of the inputs available in a multimodal interface. The results show that there are statistical evidences to affirm that the mean of the evaluation of the DAS generated command language is higher than the mean of the evaluation of the command language recommended by the health specialist (p value = 0.002) with a sample of 11 cerebral palsy users. This work demonstrates that it is possible to adapt an intelligent wheelchair interface to the user even when the users present heterogeneous and severe physical constraints

Refletindo sobre a Prática Pedagógica no 1.º CEB. À descoberta das plantas com crianças do 2.º ano.

O relatório que se apresenta foi desenvolvido no âmbito do Mestrado em Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (CEB) e encontra-se dividido em duas partes: a Parte I diz respeito à dimensão reflexiva e a Parte II refere-se à dimensão investigativa. Na Parte I apresento uma reflexão crítica e fundamentada acerca do percurso realizado ao longo deste Mestrado, procurando evidenciar as experiências vivenciadas, bem como as aprendizagens realizadas ao longo dos diferentes contextos da Prática Pedagógica. Assim, serão apresentados diferentes referentes que considerei importantes e significativos para mim ao longo deste processo de desenvolvimento pessoal, profissional e social. Na Parte II apresenta-se a investigação realizada numa turma do 2.º ano de escolaridade. Esta investigação, de caráter qualitativo, incide sobre as ideias das crianças acerca das Plantas, antes e após a implementação de atividades práticas e experimentais. Assim, foi definida a seguinte questão de investigação: Qual a influência das atividades práticas e experimentais nas ideias dos alunos do 2.º ano de escolaridade sobre Plantas? Os dados recolhidos mostram que as atividades práticas e experimentais poderão ter contribuído para a aprendizagem dos alunos, uma vez que, se verificou que as suas ideias, acerca das Plantas, evoluíram para ideias cientificamente mais corretas e completas

An assessment classification of formative evaluation tools and digital tools

The theme “An assessment classification of formative assessment tools and digital tools” represents the meeting between a theme with a history in education - formative assessment, and another very current theme - the use of digital tools with an emphasis on commonly called apps (digital apps). The formative evaluation presents numerous scientific evidences of its potential in supporting students and teachers in overcoming weaknesses and deficiencies, with very positive impacts in terms of motivation, engagement, achievement and autonomy, thus justifying a study on the difficulties in rooting. Technology can guarantee a greater rootedness and a performance more aligned with inclusive education, considering the student's profile after leaving compulsory education. The qualitative methodology was adopted. The technological environment by nature stands out for its ease and efficiency in the collection, organization and treatment of data, thus meeting, one of the main limitations of formative assessment is the difficulty in collecting data on the interaction of learning and results as well as the analysis of formative feedback and evaluation. The results obtained allowed us to conclude that was possible and a new model of classification of apps for formative evaluation was built. The structure of our model comes from the correspondence between the characteristics and the purposes of the tools and / or techniques of formative assessment, and the potentialities and functionalities of applications for mobile devices, in an intrinsic link to Bloom's Taxonomy (2001). This classification was built from three classifications. One classification focuses on formative assessment techniques and cognitive development goals, another organizes apps by type of pedagogical activities, and finally, another organizes, not apps, but web tools serving cognitive development goals concerning a 1956 version of Bloom's TaxonomyCIEd – _Research Centre on Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho, projects UIDB/01661/2020 and UIDP/01661/2020, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-P

Towards an accurate evaluation of deduplicated storage systems

Deduplication has proven to be a valuable technique for eliminating duplicate data in backup and archival systems and is now being applied to new storage environments with distinct requirements and performance trade-offs. Namely, deduplication system are now targeting large-scale cloud computing storage infrastructures holding unprecedented data volumes with a significant share of duplicate content. It is however hard to assess the usefulness of deduplication in particular settings and what techniques provide the best results. In fact, existing disk I/O benchmarks follow simplistic approaches for generating data content leading to unrealistic amounts of duplicates that do not evaluate deduplication systems accurately. Moreover, deduplication systems are now targeting heterogeneous storage environments, with specific duplication ratios, that benchmarks must also simulate. We address these issues with DEDISbench, a novel micro-benchmark for evaluating disk I/O performance of block based deduplication systems. As the main contribution, DEDISbench generates content by following realistic duplicate content distributions extracted from real datasets. Then, as a second contribution, we analyze and extract the duplicates found on three real storage systems, proving that DEDISbench can easily simulate several workloads. The usefulness of DEDISbench is shown by comparing it with Bonnie++ and IOzone open-source disk I/O micro-benchmarks on assessing two open-source deduplication systems, Opendedup and Lessfs, using Ext4 as a baseline. Our results lead to novel insight on the performance of these file systems.This work is funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project RED FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-010156 and FCT by Ph.D scholarship SFRH-BD-71372-2010