Dynamic Structures for Evolving Tactics and Strategies in Team Robotics

The autonomous robot systems of the future will be teams of robots with complementary specialisms. At any instant robot interactions determine relational structures, and sequences of these structures describe the team dynamics as trajectories through space and time. These structures can be represented in algebraic forms that are realizable as dynamic multilevel data structures within individual robots, as the basis of emergent team data structures. Such formalisms are necessary for robots to learn new individual and collective behaviours. The theory is illustrated by the example of robot soccer where robot interactions create structures and trajectories essential to the evolution of new tactics and strategies in a changing environment

On Defining Virtual Emotion Intelligence

In this paper virtual teams are defined as living systems and as such made up of people with different needs and characteristics. Groups generally perform better when they are able to establish a high level of group cohesion. According to Druskat and Wolff [2001] this status can be reached by establishing group emotional intelligence. Group emotional intelligence is reached via interactions among members and the interactions are allowed through the disposable linking factors. Virtual linking factors differ from traditional linking factors; therefore, the concept of Virtual Emotional Intelligence is here introduced in order to distinguish the group cohesion reaching process in virtual team

Robot kinematic structure classification from time series of visual data

In this paper we present a novel algorithm to solve the robot kinematic structure identification problem. Given a time series of data, typically obtained processing a set of visual observations, the proposed approach identifies the ordered sequence of links associated to the kinematic chain, the joint type interconnecting each couple of consecutive links, and the input signal influencing the relative motion. Compared to the state of the art, the proposed algorithm has reduced computational costs, and is able to identify also the joints' type sequence

Hypernetworks Analysis of RoboCup Interactions

Robotic soccer simulations are controlled environments in which the rich variety of interactions among agents make them good candidates to be studied as complex adaptive systems. The challenge is to create an autonomous team of soccer agents that can adapt and improve its behaviour as it plays other teams. By analogy with chess, the movements of the soccer agents and the ball form ever-changing networks as players in one team form structures that give their team an advantage. For example, the Defender’s Dilemma involves relationships between an attacker with the ball, a team-mate and a defender. The defender must choose between tackling the player with the ball, or taking a position to intercept a pass to the other attacker. Since these structures involve more that two interacting entities it is necessary to go beyond networks to multidimensional hypernetworks. In this context, this thesis investigates (i) is it possible to identify patterns of play, that lead a team to obtain an advantage ?, (ii) is it possible to forecast with a good degree of accuracy if a certain game action or sequence of game actions is going to be successful, before it has been completed ?, and (iii) is it possible to make behavioural patterns emerge in the game without specifying the behavioural rules in detail ? To investigate these research questions we devised two methods to analyse the interactions between robotic players, one based on traditional programming and one based on Deep Learning. The first method identified thousands of Defender’s Dilemma configurations from RoboCup 2D simulator games and found a statistically significant association between winning and the creation of the defender’s dilemma by the attackers of the winning team. The second method showed that a feedforward Artificial Neural Network trained on thousands of games can take as input the current game configuration and forecast to a high degree of accuracy if the current action will end up in a goal or not. Finally, we designed our own fast and simple robotic soccer simulator for investigating Reinforcement Learning. This showed that Reinforcement Learning using Proximal Policy Optimization could train two agents in the task of scoring a goal, using only basic actions without using pre-built hand-programmed skills. These experiments provide evidence that it is possible: to identify advantageous patterns of play; to forecast if an action or sequence of actions will be successful; and to make behavioural patterns emerge in the game without specifying the behavioural rules in detail

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae as Anodic Biocatalyst in Microbial Fuel Cell: Influence of Redox Mediator and Operative Conditions.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can generate electricity by oxidizing the organic substrates in domestic or industrial wastewater, using microorganisms as biocatalysts. The wastewater streams from the food industry based on yeasts could be directly purified and contemporary produce electricity in MFCs. However, the electron transfer mechanism between yeasts and electrodes has not been positively identified. Saccharomyces cerevisiae was implemented as biocatalyst in the anaerobic anodic compartment of an MFC using glucose as carbon source and methylene blue as electron mediator

L\u27ISTRIA IN ETÀ ROMANA - ROMANITÀ E ROMANIZZAZIONE: ASPETTI ECONOMICI, SOCIALI, AMMINISTRATIVI

Realtà politica e amministrativa dell\u27 Italia romana, delle province, dell\u27 Istria. Apporto romano e sviluppo economico dell \u27 lstria dopo la romanizzazione.U republikansko doba i za prva stoljeéa carstva, timska dr~ava nije imala centralizirano ustrojstvo koje bi na razne nacine davalo ili propisivalo za svoje stanovnike ista pravila i ravnopravnost uvjeta. Romanizacijaje fenomen kojije nikao iz ni~ih stmktura, a romanitet nije posve povrsinski premaz. Rimsko osvajanje koje je kompletirano u vrijeme pada Nezakcija, moti virano je raznim Cimbenicima i interesima, izmedu koji treba poglavito sagledati pomorske i trgovacke. Slijedilo je dugo razdoblje kapilarne romanizacije, izvrsene putem privatnih odnosa i investicija. Osnivanje kolonija u doba triumvirata (ili mo~da u cezarovo doba), nailazilo je na veé priprernljeni teren. Medutim, to je dalo znatni demografski, ekonomski, i urbanisticki doprinos razvoju gospodarstva Istre, znacajnom u vrijeme carstva

A Structural Language for Multilevel Dynamics in the Design of Robot Soccer Systems

Relational structure is ubiquitous in complex systems but very hard to implement in machines. Traditionally relational structures were hand-crafted using logic-based methods including various relational approaches to pattern recognition. Today the hope is that machines will find relational structures automatically by techniques of deep learning. Both approaches require new methods for representing relational structure for dynamic complex multilevel systems. We use the platform of robot soccer to investigate these ideas. This paper follows a previous paper which presented new dynamic structures for evolving tactics and strategies in team robotics. Here the notation is extended to include structures of structures of structures. For example a red defender robot r1 may closely mark a blue attacker robot b2 to create a structure . This may be part of another structure , b3; Rdefenders_dilemma > as another robot b3 joins in to change the relational structure. This approach is illustrated by a RoboCup simulation game. Our next step is to build a competitive player to show that the ideas are operational and may give tactical and strategic advantages

Evaluation of electrode and solution area-based resistances enables quantitative comparisons of factors impacting microbial fuel cell performance

Direct comparisons of microbial fuel cells based on maximum power densities are hindered by different reactor and electrode sizes, solution conductivities, and materials. We propose an alternative method here, the electrode potential slope (EPS) analysis, to enable quantitative comparisons based on anodeand cathode area-based resistances and operating potentials. Using EPS analysis, the brush anode resistance (RAn = 10.6 ± 0.5 mΩ m2) was shown to be 28% lower than the resistance of a 70% porosity diffusion layer (70% DL) cathode (RCat = 14.8 ± 0.9 mΩ m2) and 24% lower than the solution resistance (RΩ = 14 mΩ m2) (acetate in a 50 mM phosphate buffer solution). Using a less porous cathode (30% DL) did not impact the cathode resistance but did reduce the cathode performance due to a lower operating potential. With low conductivity domestic wastewater (RΩ = 87 mΩ m2), both electrodes had higher resistances [RAn = 75 ± 9 mΩ m2, and RCat = 54 ± 7 mΩ m2 (70% DL)]. Our analysis of the literature using EPS analysis shows how electrode resistances can easily be quantified to compare system performance when the electrode distances are changed or the sizes of the electrodes are different