Knowledge Manipulation Research Articles

The – weak – role of memory in tool use: Evidence from neurodegenerative diseases

ObjectiveAlthough tool use disorders are frequent in neurodegenerative diseases, the question of which cognitive mechanisms are at stake is still under debate. Memory-based hypotheses (i.e., the semantic knowledge hypothesis and the manipulation knowledge hypothesis) posit that tool use relies solely on stored information about either tools or gestures whereas a reasoning-based hypothesis (i.e., the technical-semantic hypothesis) suggests that loss of semantic knowledge can be partially compensated by technical reasoning about the physical properties of tools and objects. MethodThese three hypotheses were tested by comparing performance of 30 healthy controls, 30 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 13 patients with semantic dementia in gesture production tasks (i.e., pantomime of tool use, single tool use, real tool use) and tool or gesture recognition tasks (i.e., functional and contextual matching, recognition of tool manipulation). Individual, item-based patterns of performance were analyzed to answer the following question: Could participants demonstrate the use of tools about which they had lost knowledge? With this aim in mind, “validation” and “rebuttal” frequencies were calculated based on each prediction. ResultsPredictions from the technical-semantic hypothesis were more frequently observed than memory-based predictions. A number of patients were able to use and demonstrate the use of tools for which they had lost either semantic or manipulation knowledge (or both). ConclusionsThese data lead to question the role of different types of memory in tool use. The hypothesis of stored, tool-specific knowledge does not predict accurately clinical performances at the individual level. This may lead to explore the influence of either additional memory systems (e.g., personal/impersonal memory) or other modes of reasoning (e.g., theory of mind) on tool use skills.

PMK-A Knowledge Processing Framework for Autonomous Robotics Perception and Manipulation.

Autonomous indoor service robots are supposed to accomplish tasks, like serve a cup, which involve manipulation actions. Particularly, for complex manipulation tasks which are subject to geometric constraints, spatial information and a rich semantic knowledge about objects, types, and functionality are required, together with the way in which these objects can be manipulated. In this line, this paper presents an ontological-based reasoning framework called Perception and Manipulation Knowledge (PMK) that includes: (1) the modeling of the environment in a standardized way to provide common vocabularies for information exchange in human-robot or robot-robot collaboration, (2) a sensory module to perceive the objects in the environment and assert the ontological knowledge, (3) an evaluation-based analysis of the situation of the objects in the environment, in order to enhance the planning of manipulation tasks. The paper describes the concepts and the implementation of PMK, and presents an example demonstrating the range of information the framework can provide for autonomous robots.

Indistinguishable from Magic: Perception, Knowledge, Technology, Art

The term magic has long been associated with both technology and art. Whether an illusion performed on stage or the search for the supernatural, magic is concerned with changing either reality itself or our perception of it. Each new technology takes on a magical role by increasing humans' power to manipulate the world around them. Similarly, magical practices are often labeled arts, and the manipulation of our perceptions by artists often creates quasi-magical experiences. Four approaches to magic in relation to digital art practice—illusionist, alchemist, necromancer and sorcerer—offer a mode of understanding the manipulation of perceptual reality by artists using digital technologies. The framework will then be applied to five such practitioners—Pascal Dombis, Anne-Sarah Le Meur, Antoine Schmitt, Dmitry Morozov and Zaven Paré—who demonstrate the quest for the unknown and the manipulation of knowledge to create a new reality.

Texte et images dans La (Grant) Nef des folles : de la « nef latine » à la « nef divine »

Written by Sebastian Brant and illustrated by Albrecht Dürer and his staff, the Narrenschiff ([The Ship of Fools], Basel, 1494) is a satirical work that enjoyed un unrivaled popularity in late-15th century and early-16th century Germany thanks to the improvement of printing techniques, including the development of more flexible links between the textual and visual media. Among the numerous adaptations of the Narrenschiff, the Stultiferae naves ([The Ships of Foolish Maidens] Paris, 1501) by the humanist Jodocus Badius Ascensius raises interest not only by providing an original interpretation of the theme of folly through the personification of the five senses as “foolish ships”. This work also stands out in the history of the book by a series of woodcuts representing vices attributed traditionally to women, well suited to making explicit the allegorical meanings of the text. However, a more heterogenous visual program underlies the translation into French of the Naves, which was carried out by Jean Drouyn under the title, The Ship of Foolish Maidens. While in the first edition published in Paris (ca 1498), the original woodcuts were reused freely along with several engravings taken from other sources, the Lyons editions (ca 1510) was based on a simplified, repetitive, and polysemous iconographic system that further weakened the referential function of the illustrations. The shifting relationships that developed between texts and images within the “ships” corpus are emblematic of the new methods of production, dissemination, and manipulation of knowledge made possible by the progress of the printing press.

Transferring Human Manipulation Knowledge to Industrial Robots Using Reinforcement Learning

Nowadays in the context of Industry 4.0, manufacturing companies are faced by increasing global competition and challenges, which requires them to become more flexible and able to adapt fast to rapid market changes. Advanced robot system is an enabler for achieving greater flexibility and adaptability, however, programming such systems also become increasingly more complex. Thus, new methods for programming robot systems and enabling self-learning capabilities to accommodate the natural variation exhibited in real-world tasks are needed. In this paper, we propose a Reinforcement Learning (RL) enabled robot system, which learns task trajectories from human workers. The presented work demonstrates that with minimal human effort, we can transfer manual manipulation tasks in certain domains to a robot system without the requirement for a complicated hardware system model or tedious and complex programming. Furthermore, the robot is able to build upon the learned concepts from the human expert and improve its performance over time. Initially, Q-learning is applied, which has shown very promising results. Preliminary experiments, from a use case in slaughterhouses, demonstrate the viability of the proposed approach. We conclude that the feasibility and applicability of RL for industrial robots and industrial processes, holds and unseen potential, especially for tasks where natural variation is exhibited in either the product or process.

Crafting Resistance through Narratives in Afghanistan

Narrative offers an evocative opportunity to understand the power of knowledge manipulation within the public policy system. Despite the influence of narratives in designing, formulating, and implementing of public policies, it is a relatively nascent concept in public policy studies.The war in Afghanistan truly represents a battle of narratives. This paper takes a Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) approach to explore the narratives used by resistance forces in Afghanistan within the belief system of a religion. It acknowledges that narratives matter and that by studying the same, one can construe their influence on policies. The paper finds that resistance groups such as the Taliban, mobilize support and operate in battlefields across Afghanistan; simultaneously bolstering their legitimacy and community influence garnering support from within and outside Afghanistan.

It's a Matter of Trust: Joint Inventorship and Traditional Knowledge Owners

This is a paper on joint inventorship for Indigenous Peoples, which subject matter is an intangible asset defined generally as Traditional Knowledge. We present arguments to deal with joint inventorship for such intangible collection of methods, processes and discoveries involving manipulation of plants and chemical knowledge belonging to Traditional Knowledge owners. As prospective patentees, their innovative techniques applied for therapeutical use on humans based on knowledge acquired from local plants should be acknowledged as an economic element in the intellectual property legal frame for a claimed invention. The second argument supports Traditional Knowledge owners as co-patent holders on their intangible subject matter for a just legal system. It is generally accepted that an inventor’s rights are inclusive from the time of conception, when ideas are in development, to regular practice, when the prototype is ready and workable. Joint inventorship is not a novel concept, but it has been used quite often with some good results. For instance, inventions based on business methods have been accepted as subject matter for a patent, which usually involves more than one inventor. However, co-ownership in inventions unveils issues with trust and transparency when one patent holder decides he is entitled to exercise exclusive rights. Having intellectual property protection to orally transmitted knowledge on use of plants with Indigenous therapeutic utility is novel. This paper discusses patent co-ownership based on international jurisprudence, particularly in Burroughs Welcome & Co v Barr Laboratories, which tested the limits of collaboration in independent research teams working in the same invention with non-contractual arrangements in pharmaceutical projects. Most recently an Australian joint patent application by The Chuulangun Aboriginal Corporation of a patent for medicinal use with the University of South Australia has illustrated an entrepreneurial activity in Aboriginal Australia to protect and commercialise medicinal flora associated to Traditional Knowledge. The question is whether intellectual property policies have welcomed such novelty or are stalling them from happening; if so, it is time to welcome trust among the parties involved, especially newcomers as Traditional Knowledge owners.

Clinical morphometry of male’s diaphragm in the sagittal plane.

Background. Individual spatial topography of the diaphragm is of great importance for understanding the organization of the body in a particular clinical case. For diagnostic and particularly therapeutic manipulation knowledge of the individual characteristics of each patient is required. This knowledge allows you to avoid damage to the internal organs of the abdominal and thoracic cavities when they puncture (catheterization) and more accurately determine the localization of the pathological process, choose the method further surgical or conservative treatment. Objectve. The purpose of our research was determination of the individual characteristics of the spatial topography of the human diaphragm in two vertical planes — sagittal and frontal based on SCT-research depending on gender, age and somatotype. Methods. According to the results of the measurements reveal the presence (or absence) of the relationship between individual characteristics and spatial topography of gender, age and the type of body structure. Results. The resulting data were also used to make individual 3D modeling programs for human diaphragm. Material the data of 75 patients surveyed in the last 2 years about various diseases of the abdominal and thoracic cavities. Any diaphragm with pathology was excluded. Analysis and image processing were performed on a workstation HP-Z820 c using the specialized program Vitrea 2. Gender-based cases were: male – 61 and female – 14 cases. Age interval from 26 to 82 years old, according to the type of the structure revealed the following relationships — male hypersthenics — 35%, normosthenics — 60%, asthenics — 15%; for female following ratio was 30%, 50% and 20% resp. Type of body structure was determined by the index of Pinue. Due to the limited amount of messages we do not give all the findings are limited to the minimum and maximum values. The height of the cupola of a diaphragm and angles of its attachment in the sagittal plane have been calculated. The study of angles of attachment of the human diaphragm in the sagittal plane was made along next lines: vertebral (vl), paravertebral (pvl), scapular (sl) and posterior axillary (pal) lines for left side and the same lines except vertebral line for right side of body. Statistical analysis of the measurements revealed little correlation between the age and height of diaphragmatic cupolas in male. Other parameters were not correlated with the studied values (sex and type of body structure). Conclusion. Individual spatial topography of the diaphragm is highly variable and is practically independent of sex, age and type of body structure. In some cases (10%) in both sexes the height of the cupola of the diaphragm more on the left side than the right. Obtained data should be taken into account in the interpretation of X-ray research data and performing thoracentesis left.

Developing WebQuest 2.0 model for promoting computational thinking skill

In this paper, we propose a new WebQuest model using Web 2.0 services to organize online learning activities by using OKMindmap for building WebQuest and suggest Scratch projects created by students for outcome. WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. WebQuests can be a valuable addition to a collaborative classroom. One of the goals is to increase critical thinking by employing higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. WebQuests can be a versatile tool for teaching students. OKMindmap is a useful, free, easy to use knowledge manipulation tool for content creation and management. It helps building an innovative collaborating environment for online class and provides a way to embed web service as a node. With this capability, any web service can be embedded as a node on a single map. Moreover, many users (about 40) can work on a same map together. Scratch is a free educational programming language that was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with over 21 million registered users and 25 million shared projects. Scratch is designed to be fun, educational, and easy to learn. It’s a programming language for all with the tools for creating interactive stories, games, art, simulations, and more, using block-based programming. Facebook is also used as a tool for connecting and sharing WebQuest with students. This model was experimented at the School of Education at Can Tho University, which brought us positive results through blended learning. Our desire is to build a WebQuest library in a simple, cost-effective way through this STEM-style education so that inservice and preservice teachers can share together for the best professional development during the current industrial revolution 4.0.

The Measures to Develop the Competence of Knowledge Manipulation in Real Life for Pupils through the System of Real Exercises with Metal Chemistry of Grade 12

The competence of knowledge manipulation to the life realities is a core competence needed to be established and developed for pupils in Chemistry. Various measures can be used in order to develop the competence of knowledge manipulation for pupils. This article offers the theoretical basis and four measures about the use of chemical knowledge through exercises in the classroom. Used in teaching as used when assigning homework to prepare new lessons; studying new texts; practicing and revision; experiments, practices to develop the competence of knowledge manipulation in many life realities such as health, medicine, environment, agriculture, food, industry,... for high school pupils of 12th grade through the system of metal chemistry exercises.

Organization of information support for business processes at aviation enterprises by means of ontological engineering

We propose using the deductive principle of inference, which takes into consideration child relations between concepts of a subject domain in the process of forming a reasoning chain and, thus, ensures correctness of knowledge, contained in an ontological system. In this case, an ontological system is directly the intelligence core of a decision support system for organization of business processes at an aviation enterprise. For implementation of the declared principle, three methods of knowledge manipulation in the environment of an ontological system were proposed: bottom-up, top-down and combined, which implies the alternating use of the first two methods. Application of the combined method gives the possibility to eliminate knowledge incompleteness and inconsistency. Formalization of inference process on the knowledge in the environment of an ontological system with the use of the proposed methods is based on a description of the internal relations between concepts, integrating a set of concepts and fields with the help of the language of operational semantics, as well as on the introduction of external relations that characterize structural relations of concepts, including hierarchical relations of aggregation and synthesis. The possibility of re-using, that is the multiple use of ontological information structures in making decisions on organization of business processes at aviation enterprises will make it possible to enhance efficiency of production decisions and their operative making. The obtained results create the methodological basis for the development of software of inference organization on knowledge directly in the environment of ontologies, which is proposed to use as part of the core of production DSS.

Facilitation of Function and Manipulation Knowledge of Tools Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).

Using a variety of tools is a common and essential component of modern human life. Patients with brain damage or neurological disorders frequently have cognitive deficits in their recognition and manipulation of tools. In this study, we focused on improving tool-related cognition using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Converging evidence from neuropsychology, neuroimaging and non- invasive brain stimulation has identified the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) as brain regions supporting action semantics. We observed enhanced performance in tool cognition with anodal tDCS over ATL and IPL in two cognitive tasks that require rapid access to semantic knowledge about the function or manipulation of common tools. ATL stimulation improved access to both function and manipulation knowledge of tools. The effect of IPL stimulation showed a trend toward better manipulation judgments. Our findings support previous studies of tool semantics and provide a novel approach for manipulation of underlying circuits.

Cortical circuits for mathematical knowledge: evidence for a major subdivision within the brain's semantic networks.

Is mathematical language similar to natural language? Are language areas used by mathematicians when they do mathematics? And does the brain comprise a generic semantic system that stores mathematical knowledge alongside knowledge of history, geography or famous people? Here, we refute those views by reviewing three functional MRI studies of the representation and manipulation of high-level mathematical knowledge in professional mathematicians. The results reveal that brain activity during professional mathematical reflection spares perisylvian language-related brain regions as well as temporal lobe areas classically involved in general semantic knowledge. Instead, mathematical reflection recycles bilateral intraparietal and ventral temporal regions involved in elementary number sense. Even simple fact retrieval, such as remembering that 'the sine function is periodical' or that 'London buses are red', activates dissociated areas for math versus non-math knowledge. Together with other fMRI and recent intracranial studies, our results indicated a major separation between two brain networks for mathematical and non-mathematical semantics, which goes a long way to explain a variety of facts in neuroimaging, neuropsychology and developmental disorders.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The origins of numerical abilities'.

Knowledge-based biomedical Data Science.

Computational manipulation of knowledge is an important, and often under-appreciated, aspect of biomedical Data Science. The first Data Science initiative from the US National Institutes of Health was entitled “Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K).” The main emphasis of the more than $200M allocated to that program has been on “Big Data;” the “Knowledge” component has largely been the implicit assumption that the work will lead to new biomedical knowledge. However, there is long-standing and highly productive work in computational knowledge representation and reasoning, and computational processing of knowledge has a role in the world of Data Science.Knowledge-based biomedical Data Science involves the design and implementation of computer systems that act as if they knew about biomedicine. There are many ways in which a computational approach might act as if it knew something: for example, it might be able to answer a natural language question about a biomedical topic, or pass an exam; it might be able to use existing biomedical knowledge to rank or evaluate hypotheses; it might explain or interpret data in light of prior knowledge, either in a Bayesian or other sort of framework. These are all examples of automated reasoning that act on computational representations of knowledge. After a brief survey of existing approaches to knowledge-based data science, this position paper argues that such research is ripe for expansion, and expanded application.

Conocimiento, escepticismo y poder en En la vida todo es verdad y todo mentira de Calderón

Previous critics of Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s late play En la vida todo es verdad y todo mentira have correctly pointed out the debt that the piece owes to skeptical premises, either from Graeco-Roman sources or from Renaissance recastings, but these treatments have generally not taken into consideration three factors which limit the degree to which En la vida could be termed a drama of skepticism: (1) Much of the uncertainty surrounding identities and events stems, not from a general incapacity of humans to possess certain knowledge, but from the manipulation of knowledge and ignorance by individual interests or for reasons of state. (2) Although the neo- Aristotelian tradition in dramatic theory was often rejected by Spanish baroque dramatists, they still accepted that each drama needed a comprehensible, summarizable story line, thus limiting the scope of plot ambiguity, no matter what ambiguities arose from other elements. (3) Calderon’s characters, no matter how much they may discourse on their inability to know certain facts, must at certain points take action and move the plot forward, often in spite of their uncertainty.

κ-PMP: Enhancing Physics-based Motion Planners with Knowledge-Based Reasoning

Physics-based motion planning is a challenging task, since it requires the computation of the robot motions while allowing possible interactions with (some of) the obstacles in the environment. Kinodynamic motion planners equipped with a dynamic engine acting as state propagator are usually used for that purpose. The difficulties arise in the setting of the adequate forces for the interactions and because these interactions may change the pose of the manipulatable obstacles, thus either facilitating or preventing the finding of a solution path. The use of knowledge can alleviate the stated difficulties. This paper proposes the use of an enhanced state propagator composed of a dynamic engine and a low-level geometric reasoning process that is used to determine how to interact with the objects, i.e. from where and with which forces. The proposal, called \k{appa}-PMP can be used with any kinodynamic planner, thus giving rise to e.g. \k{appa}-RRT. The approach also includes a preprocessing step that infers from a semantic abstract knowledge described in terms of an ontology the manipulation knowledge required by the reasoning process. The proposed approach has been validated with several examples involving an holonomic mobile robot, a robot with differential constraints and a serial manipulator, and benchmarked using several state-of-the art kinodynamic planners. The results showed a significant difference in the power consumption with respect to simple physics-based planning, an improvement in the success rate and in the quality of the solution paths.

Les multiples facettes des pantomimes d’utilisation d’outils

Pantomiming the use of familiar tools is a central test in the assessment of apraxia. Indeed, this task is quite sensitive to detect apraxia in patients with left brain damage, particularly when the lesions fall into the parietal lobe. However, surprisingly, the nature of the underlying cognitive mechanisms remains a matter of debate. It has been proposed that activation of manipulation knowledge was a prerequisite to perform pantomime actions. This type of knowledge informs individuals about how to manipulate tools (e.g., knowing that the use of a hammer is associated with oscillations of the elbow). In recent years, for the technical reasoning hypothesis, it has been argued that the ability to pantomime the use of a tool can be explained without invoking activation of manipulation knowledge. The demonstration by pantomime, like any other situation involving tool use, requires mechanical knowledge to create a representation of the action. Thus, pantomimes are not available in long-term memory and they have to be reconstructed de novo. In this review, we attempt to redefine pantomime of tool use activity according to recent results reported in the literature ; and to question the real function of pantomimes. To anticipate our conclusions, pantomime of tool use is a multi-determined task, which requires communication skills. Pantomime of tool use is also a powerful screening task, but its interest might be relatively limited when times come to infer impaired cognitive mechanisms.

Smart Spaces-Based Application Development

Smart spaces form now an emerging paradigm for application development in the various domains of ubiquitous, pervasive, mobile, embedded, and edge-centric computing. The smart space-based development still lacks matured methodologies appropriate for a wide range of application domains. The authors consider a particular class of smart spaces where interaction of many participants is information-driven and ontology-oriented using the indirect interaction models from multi-agent systems and knowledge manipulation technologies from the Semantic Web. The paper summarizes more than ten years of the authors' experience for this class of smart space-based application development. The M3 architecture (multidevice, multivendor, multidomain) for smart spaces enables concept development of service-oriented applications based on information sharing by software agents running on various devices and acting as knowledge processors. The Smart-M3 platform is an open source solution that implements the M3 architecture.

Ontology-based support for taxonomic functions

This paper reports on an investigation into the use of ontology technologies to support taxonomic functions. Support for taxonomy is imperative given several recent discussions and publications that voiced concern over the taxonomic impediment within the broader context of the life sciences. Taxonomy is defined as the scientific classification, description and grouping of biological organisms into hierarchies based on sets of shared characteristics, and documenting the principles that enforce such classification. Under taxonomic functions we identified two broad categories: the classification functions concerned with identification and naming of organisms, and secondly classification functions concerned with categorization and revision (i.e. grouping and describing, or revisiting existing groups and descriptions).Ontology technologies within the broad field of artificial intelligence include computational ontologies that are knowledge representation mechanisms using standardized representations that are based on description logics (DLs). This logic base of computational ontologies provides for the computerized capturing and manipulation of knowledge. Furthermore, the set-theoretical basis of computational ontologies ensures particular suitability towards classification, which is considered as a core function of systematics or taxonomy.Using the specific case of Afrotropical bees, this experimental research study represents the taxonomic knowledge base as an ontology, explore the use of available reasoning algorithms to draw the necessary inferences that support taxonomic functions (identification and revision) over the ontology and implement a Web-based application (the WOC). The contributions include the ontology, a reusable and standardized computable knowledge base of the taxonomy of Afrotropical bees, as well as the WOC and the evaluation thereof by experts.

Involvement of the Left Supramarginal Gyrus in Manipulation Judgment Tasks: Contributions to Theories of Tool Use.

Two theories of tool use, namely the gesture engram and the technical reasoning theories, make distinct predictions about the involvement of the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) in manipulation judgement tasks. The objective here is to test these alternative predictions based on previous studies on manipulation judgment tasks using transcranial magnetic stimulations (TMS) targeting the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG). We review recent TMS studies on manipulation judgement tasks and confront these data with predictions made by both tool use theories. The left SMG is a highly intertwined region, organized following several functionally distinct areas and TMS may have disrupted a cortical network involved in the ability to use tools rather than only one functional area supporting manipulation knowledge. Moreover, manipulation judgement tasks may be impaired following virtual lesions outside the IPL. These data are more in line with the technical reasoning hypothesis, which assumes that the left IPL does not store manipulation knowledge per se. (JINS, 2017, 23, 685-691).