Contingent autonomy: Robotic encounters in an uncertain world

The title of this paper suggests two distinct aspects of the models that we propose and consider. The first of these is the modelling of other agents by motivated agents. That is to say that the act of modelling is itself motivated and constrained by the agent doing that modelling. The second aspect is that all such models will also be of motivated agents. It is not sufficient merely to know what other agents are like, but also to know why they are like that. This why aspect is what provides the extra information that allows a greater understanding of the interactions between entities in the world, and consequently provides for more resilient agents capable of effectively dealing with new and unforeseen circumstances in an uncertain world. Previous work has described a formal framework for agency and autonomy in which agents are viewed as objects with goals, and autonomous agents are agents with motivations. This paper considers the nature of cooperation within that framework. We identify distinct kinds of interaction, depending on the nature of the entities involved. In particular, we describe and specify the differences that arise in these interactions which we characterise as engagements of non-autonomous agents, and cooperation between autonomous agents.

Transformative or Tokenistic?

We have developed an online path planning algorithm that directs an autonomous mobile robot called a nonholonomic robot to a goal while avoiding obstacles in an uncertain world. The developed autonomous mobile robot runs on two wheels and is equipped with a visual sensor (CCD) camera having a restricted view field. In addition, this robot identifies its self-position with dead-reckoning by a wheel measuring a running distance. We propose an algorithm for the mobile robot that improves the convergence to a goal using a parking motion.

Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI by Rodney A. Brooks

The ecclesial community's call to duty and ability to carry out its mission is centered on how relevant it must become to the existential realities of those living in the public sphere. Jürgen Moltmann makes what can only be considered as a concise statement when he states that, to make Christianity accessible to the masses, theology must openly uphold the universal concerns of God's coming Kingdom. The church, following its own faith principles, must demonstrate "general concern in the light of hope in Christ for the kingdom of God" by becoming "political in the name of the poor and the marginalized in a given society, by thinking critically about the religious and moral values of the societies in which it exists." Christian theology continues to be the mouthpiece of the church. This article's goal is to discuss Jürgen Moltmann's straightforward explanation of the church's public relevance in helping people remember why it exists in all forms of human sociality. This article's reflections aim to highlight the fact that the Christian church can only be seen to be fulfilling its mission when it is perceived as the voice of the voiceless, bringing God's fullness to human flourishing, and providing true meaning to human tranquillity in a difficult and uncertain world.

本研究では, 単眼の二自由度視覚センサを搭載した非全方位車輪型移動ロボットを用い, スタートとゴールが与えられた未知空間においてゴールに確実に到達するパスプランニングアルゴリズムの開発を行っている。今回は, 狭路のある未知空間においてランドマークを用いて障害物を回避しながらゴールへ到達する走行法を開発した。

Theory-based inductive learning: An integration of symbolic and quantitative methods : Spencer Star Department of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

Visual context is the environment, background, and settings within which objects and associated behaviours are observed visually. A semantic interpretation of behaviour depends largely on knowledge of spatial and temporal context defining where and when it occurs, and correlational context specifying the expectation on the behaviours of correlated other objects in its vicinity. In this chapter, we address the problem of how to model computationally behavioural context for context-aware behavioural anomaly detection in a visual scene. We consider models for learning three types of behavioural context: spatial context, correlational context and temporal context. Behaviour spatial context provides situational awareness about where a behaviour is likely to take place. A public space can often be segmented by activities into a number of distinctive regions, called “semantic regions”. Behaviours of certain characteristics are expected in one region but differ from those observed in other regions. Behaviour correlational context specifies how the interpretation of a behaviour can be affected by behaviours of other objects either nearby in the same semantic region or further away in other regions. Object behaviours in a complex scene are often correlated and need be interpreted together rather than in isolation. Behaviour temporal context provides information regarding when different behaviours are expected to happen both inside each semantic region and across regions.

Dynamic participation processes for policy packaging in transport backcasting studies

This paper describes a distributed autonomous swimming robot which can acquire environment oriented behaviour through learning. We demonstrate the approach by implementing the robot on the water surface where the environment is similar to an unstable and uncertain real world. Since the robot control is difficult, and it takes many repetitions before the target behaviour can be acquired. We introduce oscillation action patterns suitable for providing the motion through water for fast learning. As a result, the robot can acquire the active target-approaching behaviour using only the local learning, and the behaviour is almost the same as that in the centralized control.

A promise of urban gardening (UG) is allowing individuals to shape and engage with the built environment, bringing people together in public space. Municipalities may promote UG in public space for a wide variety of reasons such as enabling integration, reducing crime, or promoting area attractivity. While there is a general sense that UG can contribute to inclusive public space in these efforts, previous research provides ambiguous findings. UG in public space requires balancing inclusive and exclusive practices to create common values, as a select group of engaged members inherently shape space in their interest. UG initiatives vary considerably with respect to their aims, organisational forms, and spatial contexts – affecting inclusion in public space in different manners. The article seeks to unpack how urban settings, organisational forms, and municipal enabling affect UG practices towards inclusion in public space. To do so, the article draws on the theory of urban commons and intertwines it with research on inclusion in public space. This provides an understanding of multi-faceted UG governance and its exclusionary aspects. A framework is not only developed and applied to critically, but also constructively, to review how municipalities enable UG. A comparative analysis of UG initiatives in three Northern European municipalities explores both municipal enabling and the co-production of inclusive public space. The research abductively refines the framework for understanding the co-production of inclusive public space in UG. We argue that the findings and resulting framework have implications for research and for municipal enabling of UG towards inclusive public space.

StraboSpot is an open-source, US NSF-funded, FAIR-aligned, and community-driven data system that enables researchers to collect, store, and share spatially referenced geologic data across scales. StraboSpot's development has been a collaborative initiative, shaped through a series of community workshops initially focused on providing tools that enhance research in structural geology. Over time, other communities have expanded these efforts to include diverse geological subdisciplines. Community workshops have played a crucial role in establishing shared metadata standards, a unified vocabulary, and workflows tailored to meet the unique needs of each user community. This inclusive approach has been instrumental in creating an infrastructure that integrates diverse data types and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration while minimizing barriers to data entry.The "Spot" approach provides a flexible framework for characterizing spatial areas across all scales, facilitating seamless integration of data ranging from micro-scale laboratory measurements to regional-scale field data. By allowing Spots to nest indefinitely within one another, users can preserve critical information about spatial context, scale, orientation, and inter-relationships. The StraboSpot ecosystem comprises three core applications: StraboMicro, a desktop tool designed for managing and contextualizing laboratory-derived micro-scale data; StraboField, a mobile application tailored for mapping and field-based research; and StraboExperimental, designed for data derived from rock deformation experiments. All data are tied to a shared database that preserves provenance and context. Additionally, researchers can link data to external repositories, such as EarthChem, further enhancing data interoperability.In response to clear community priorities, StraboSpot is actively enhancing its functionality to support enhanced collaboration and improve data reusability. Current developments include the implementation of Group Workflows, which enable collaboration in both field and laboratory settings while maintaining data provenance and robust version control. Additionally, a Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) framework is being developed to improve confidence in shared observational data. This QA/QC system will provide a transparent and systematic mechanism for evaluating data quality and completeness, facilitating the use of shared data sets within and between disciplines.

Foreword

Dominant discourses on telecare technologies often celebrate the erasure of distance and place. This paper provides a critical intervention into these discourses by investigating how spaces still matter, despite the move from physical to virtual encounters between healthcare professionals and patients. I argue that science and technology studies (STS) research on telecare, as well as other technologies, can be enriched by including a focus on place to understand the dynamic interactions between people and things. Adopting insights of human geographers, I show how places in which technologies are used affect how technologies enable or constrain human actions and identities. Whereas some spaces may facilitate the incorporation of technologies, others may resist technologies. A focus on how places matter is important for understanding how telecare technologies reorder and redefine healthcare. Although other healthcare technologies are also important actors in transforming healthcare, telecare technologies do this in a very specific way: they redefine the spatial dimensions of healthcare. To capture and further explore this changing spatial configuration of healthcare, I introduce the notion of technogeography of care. This concept provides a useful heuristic to study how places matter in healthcare. Although telecare technologies introduce virtual encounters between healthcare providers and patients, the use of telecare devices still largely depends on locally grounded, situated care acts. Based on interviews with users of several cardiac telecare applications, including healthcare professionals and patients in Germany and The Netherlands, the paper shows how patients' homes and public spaces are important for shaping the implementation and use of telecare technologies, and vice versa. Last, but not least, telecare devices are implicated as well. The paper emphasizes the place-dependency of the use and meaning of technical devices by showing how the same technological device can do and mean different things in different places.

The aim of the research was to identify the role of landscape architecture means in the creation of urban public spaces as well as the possible ways they can be used in. In this respect, public urban spaces of three European metropolises were explored: Rome, Paris and Prague. These were chosen based on their specific affinity as they are within a broad cultural range of western European civilization. We have specified basic types of urban public spaces as streets, squares, parks, roof terraces and gardens, waterfronts, and “spaces between houses”. The basic means of landscape architecture used in urban public spaces are relief and paving, water, artwork, vegetation, furniture, minor constructions and light and time. Spatial and functional performance of the particular components was explored within the particular public spaces. As the functions of compositional principles are universal, their exploration can lead to some generalization. Naturally, the uniqueness of each place, its history and spatial context need to be taken into account. Only an exploration of public spaces in the largest possible scope and searching for mutual, often hidden or indirect parallels will yield new knowledge and understanding. The study has proven that these exist among the three selected European cities and they can serve as a guideline for further designs of public urban spaces.