Virtual environments and autism: a developmental psychopathological approach

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders supposedly have an affinity with information and communication technology (ICT), making it an ideally suited media for this population. Virtual environments (VEs) – both two‐dimensional and immersive – represent a particular kind of ICT that might be of special benefit. Specifically, this paper discusses the importance of psychological theory for VE designed for this population. I describe the contribution that different theories of autism (e.g., theory of mind, executive function, weak central coherence theory) have made and can make, as well as the potential of other non‐autism‐specific theories (e.g., embodied cognition). These technologies not only illuminate our understanding of autism, but they can also be used to develop new technologies for people without autism. So, as well as being an area of specialism, I argue that VE research in autism has extended – and will go onto – the boundaries of human–computer interaction more generally. This is because autism provides a unique window into human social communication and learning. Further, this field offers a chance for better inclusivity for individuals with autism within a digital society.     

Deploying intelligent systems on a global scale

Intelligent systems are rarely deployed in isolation. Furthermore, with the advent of the global Internet, corporate intranets, and the Web, the potential for interactions between intelligent systems has never been greater. However, new technologies such as Web services, the semantic Web, grid computing, and peer-to-peer networks have made it easier than ever to create intelligent applications that span not only multiple machines but also multiple sites and organizations. So, one great challenge in intelligent systems research is to harness these technologies to verify and apply longstanding theories from distributed AI, agent systems, and other areas of networked intelligent systems research. Although we can generate knowledge from models, simulations, and small-scale trials, gaining a thorough understanding of intelligent systems requires increasingly large-scale deployments in challenging environments. Unfortunately, such experimentation is time consuming and costly-often requiring significant infrastructure development, maintenance, and low-level implementation before we can tackle more challenging and innovative elements. As the environments in which we employ intelligent systems continue to grow, so do the costs of deploying, testing, and verifying such systems.     

Complex networks in advanced manufacturing systems

In recent years, with the rapid development of manufacturing, information, and management technology, advanced manufacturing systems (AMSs) have become increasingly more and more complex, which hinders the wider applications of many key theories and technologies in AMSs. Fortunately, in the last two decades, some dramatic advances have been made in the field of statistical physics theories, along with the extensive applications of complex network. It has provided an alternative approach to analyze AMSs. Many recent studies have focused on the theory of complex networks to describe and solve complicated manufacturing problems. Based on a great number of relevant publications, this paper presents an up-to-date literature review with the identified outstanding research issues, future trends and directions. Three critical issues are summarized after this investigation: (a) the focused areas of AMSs that have deployed the theory of complex networks, (b) the addressed issues and the corresponding approaches, and (c) the limitations and directions of the existing works.     

网络匿名度量研究综述

保护网络空间隐私的愿望推动了匿名通信系统的研究,使得用户可以在使用互联网服务时隐藏身份和通信关系等敏感信息,不同的匿名通信系统提供不同强度的匿名保护,如何量化和比较这些系统提供的匿名程度从开始就是重要的研究主题,如今正得到更多关注,成为新的研究焦点,需要开展更多的研究和应用.匿名度量可以帮助用户了解匿名通信系统提供的保护级别,帮助开发者在设计和改进匿名通信系统时提供客观和科学的依据.给出了匿名度量研究的通用框架,包含匿名通信、匿名攻击和匿名度量三个部分及其相互关系.综述了匿名度量领域的研究工作,寻找其发展脉络和特点,按时间线回顾和归纳基于多种理论和方法的匿名度量标准,结合匿名通信攻击技术对典型的度量方法各自的特点和相互关系进行梳理和比较,介绍度量研究新的进展,展望研究的下一步方向和发展趋势.分析表明,匿名度量有助于判断匿名通信系统是否提供了所承诺的匿名性,用于表达匿名程度的度量标准越来越多样,基于信息论的度量方法应用最为广泛,随着Tor等匿名通信系统的大规模部署,出现了基于统计数据针对真实系统和基础设施进行的匿名性评估.随着匿名技术的新发展,如何扩展度量标准应用于新出现的匿名技术,如何组合度量标准以适用于新的匿名系统,都是有应用前景的研究方向.     

社会控制论及其进展

本文综述控制论应用于社会系统和社会过程的研究及其取得的成就; 介绍社会控制论的诞生、定义和定位; 叙述社会控制论的发展沿革; 小结了社会系统控制论研究的主要方法; 阐明社会控制论的有关主要理论、原理和技术. 在几个实例中, 介绍了自反控制模型、人类活动理论应用、人类前景的研究、基于人工社会的教室行为动态研究和中美知识产权谈判研究等. 最后本文给出分析和评论.     

Parallel Factories for Smart Industrial Operations: From Big AI Models to Field Foundational Models and Scenarios Engineering

The rapid advancement of fundamental theories and computing capacity has brought artificial intelligence, internet of things, extended reality, and many other new intelligent technologies into our daily lives. Due to the lack of interpretability and reliability guarantees, it is extremely challenging to apply these technologies directly to real-world industrial systems. Here we present a new paradigm for establishing parallel factories in metaverses to accelerate the deployment of intelligent technologies in real-world industrial systems: QAII-1.0. Based on cyber-physical-social systems, QAII-1.0 incorporates complex social and human factors into the design and analysis of industrial operations and is capable of handling industrial operations involving complex social and human behaviors. In QAII-1.0, a field foundational model called EuArtisan combined with scenarios engineering is developed to improve the intelligence of industrial systems while ensuring industrial interpretability and reliability. Finally, parallel oil fields in metaverses are established to demonstrate the operating procedure of QAII-1.0.      

“范式变革”引领与“信息转换”担纲:机制主义通用人工智能的理论精髓

世界人工智能研究至今一直沿用着物质科学的科学范式(科学观和方法论),因此被分解为结构主义人工智能(人工神经网络)、功能主义人工智能(物理符号系统/专家系统)和行为主义人工智能(感知动作系统/智能机器人) 3个各自为战互不相容的学派。虽然各个学派都获得了一些精彩的局部性专用性成果,却没有通用性整体性的人工智能应用,更无法形成通用的人工智能整体理论,这成为人工智能研究与发展的最大痛点。目前,通用性整体性的人工智能理论越来越成为社会的紧迫需求。为此,本文依据作者四十多年研究的积累,总结和提出了“机制主义通用人工智能理论”,特别强调了“范式变革”和“信息转换”,希望引起学界的研讨和批评。     

On engineering game theory with its application in power systems

Due to its capability of solving decision-making problems involving multiple entities and objectives, as well as complex action sequences, game theory has been a basic mathematical tool of economists, politicians, and sociologists for decades. It helps them understand how strategic interactions impact rational decisions of individual players in competitive and uncertain environment, if each player aims to get the best payoff. This situation is ubiquitous in engineering practices. This paper streamlines the foundations of engineering game theory, which uses concepts, theories and methodologies to guide the resolution of engineering design, operation, and control problems in a more canonical and systematic way. An overview of its application in smart grid technologies and power systems related topics is presented, and intriguing research directions are also envisioned.     

A tutorial on modeling and analysis of dynamic social networks. Part II

Recent years have witnessed a significant trend towards filling the gap between Social Network Analysis (SNA) and control theory. This trend was enabled by the introduction of new mathematical models describing dynamics of social groups, the development of algorithms and software for data analysis and the tremendous progress in understanding complex networks and multi-agent systems (MAS) dynamics. The aim of this tutorial is to highlight a novel chapter of control theory, dealing with dynamic models of social networks and processes over them, to the attention of the broad research community. In its first part (Proskurnikov & Tempo, 2017), we have considered the most classical models of social dynamics, which have anticipated and to a great extent inspired the recent extensive studies on MAS and complex networks. This paper is the second part of the tutorial, and it is focused on more recent models of social processes that have been developed concurrently with MAS theory. Future perspectives of control in social and techno-social systems are also discussed.     

Theories with self-application and computational complexity

Applicative theories form the basis of Feferman’s systems of explicit mathematics, which have been introduced in the 1970s. In an applicative universe, all individuals may be thought of as operations, which can freely be applied to each other: self-application is meaningful, but not necessarily total. It has turned out that theories with self-application provide a natural setting for studying notions of abstract computability, especially from a proof-theoretic perspective. This paper is concerned with the study of (unramified) bounded applicative theories which have a strong relationship to classes of computational complexity. We propose new applicative systems whose provably total functions coincide with the functions computable in polynomial time, polynomial space, polynomial time and linear space, as well as linear space. Our theories can be regarded as applicative analogues of traditional systems of bounded arithmetic. We are also interested in higher-type features of our systems; in particular, it is shown that Cook and Urquhart’s system is directly contained in a natural applicative theory of polynomial strength.     

What drives global ICT adoption? Analysis and research directions

Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption is increasing globally and offers unique opportunities for information systems (IS) and electronic commerce researchers to undertake research that will have an impact. The purpose of this article is to survey the academic literature on this topic and provide research directions for future work. We analyze economic, social and other factors that drive global ICT adoption and the individual, organizational, industry and economy impacts. We do this with respect to a set of relevant problems, technology opportunities, theories, research methods, and solutions. The integration of these areas enables us to establish a balanced picture of the current state of global ICT adoption research. It also offers a useful means to analyze the kinds of research that needs to be pursued to make additional progress in the related area of e-commerce research. With these ideas in mind, we present five emerging research directions in three different categories: new economic geography, rational expectations theory, and new empirical methods. We also analyze several topics in the global arena of emerging technologies.     

专家系统研究现状及展望*

总结了自2000年以来专家系统在国内外的发展及应用情况,并根据知识表示方法的不同,对专家系统在各个领域的应用进行分类。结果显示：近五年来,伴随网络时代的到来及蓬勃发展,国内外专家系统发展迅速,一些新技术已经应用于专家系统,尤其是XML和W eb技术的应用,为专家系统的研究注入新的活力。同时对目前专家系统存在的一些问题以及今后的研究和发展进行了探讨。     

平行矿山: 从数字孪生到矿山智能

针对新时代下我国矿区智能化发展诉求与矿山无人化进程中遇到的复现难、协同难的技术问题, 本文融合智慧矿山理念、ACP (Artificial societies + computational experiments + parallel execution)平行智能理论和新一代智能技术, 设计并实现了智慧矿山操作系统 (Intelligent mine operation system, IMOS), 为平行矿山智能管理与控制一体化提出了解决方案. 本文首先分析露天煤矿产业发展趋势; 国内外露天矿山智能化发展情况; 面向露天矿山无人化与智能化需求, 深度融合数字四胞胎理论, 设计了虚实融合的IMOS架构; 详细阐述了IMOS子系统架构与功能, 包括: 单车作业系统、多车协同系统、车路协同系统、无人驾驶智能系统、调度管理系统、平行系统、监管系统、远程接管系统和通信系统; 并探讨了IMOS关键技术, 即平行矿山仿真建模技术、无人驾驶技术、矿区通信技术和协同作业技术. 该操作系统是国内首套露天矿山无人化与智能化的一体化解决方案, 并能够迁移到不同矿区不同作业场景, 推动矿区智能化无人化发展, 减少人工干预从而降低安全风险, 大幅度降低人工成本, 提高生产作业效率, 并可结合社会发展要素为实现绿色可持续发展矿区提供支撑.     

遥操作机器人系统时延控制方法综述

遥操作机器人系统的应用和研究是目前机器人学一个重要的研究领域.尤其是网络遥 操作系统的产生,更进一步扩大了应用领域,并对控制系统的设计带来了新的挑战.该文主要从 控制的角度,面向各种性质的时延(如确定的或未知的,时变的或固定的等)对遥操作系统所带 来的稳定性和透明度等问题,针对近年来为解决这些问题所提出的新的控制方法和理论进行系 统的综述和分析,指出现有各种方法的优缺点,并提出了今后控制方法的研究方向和应具有的 特点.     

Expert decision support system use,disuse, and misuse: a study using the theory of planned behavior

Researchers in the past decade have been actively investigating technology use and disuse among conventional and communications technologies. However, recent advancements in expert systems technology has led to new questions about technology use. Where communications technology, such as e-mail or group collaboration software, facilitates co-evolution of problem solving and decision making among people, expert systems create a transaction between user and computer where ultimately, the computer generates the recommended courses of action. This also differs from conventional decision support tools that merely gather information to inform a human decision maker.This empirical study used theory of planned behavior to formulate hypotheses about the use, disuse, and misuse of an expert system decision support (EDSS) technology. It was found that EDSS use was negatively related to errors, whereas misuse of EDSS was positively related to errors. More positive attitudes and social influences led to increased EDSS use, while perceptions of control had no apparent effect. The interaction of social influences and attitudes had a significant non-linear relationship with EDSS misuse.     

信息-物理融合系统若干关键问题综述

信息-物理融合系统(Cyber-Physical System,CPS)集成了计算系统与物理系统,并通过嵌入式计算机与网络实现了两者之间的协作和融合,将对人们的生产和生活方式产生重要影响.CPS是一个全新的研究领域,利用现有基础理论和技术设计CPS时面临着众多问题.介绍了CPS的概念、特点和体系结构,分析了与嵌入式系统、网络的关联,从计算系统、网络系统和控制系统3个方面概括了CPS设计面临的主要挑战,并着重探讨了当前一些可用于CPS设计的理论和技术以及CPS研究的最新进展,指出CPS当前的发展应以解决系统抽象层次设计、系统建模、体系结构设计、数据传输和管理、子系统集成方面的问题作为其下一步发展主要的研究方向,并提出了一些可行的解决办法,可为相关研究提供参考.     

On applying stochastic network calculus

Performance evaluation plays a crucial role in the design of network systems. Many theoretical tools, including queueing theory, effective bandwidth and network calculus, have been proposed to providemodeling mechanisms and results. While these theories have been widely adopted for performance evaluation, each has its own limitation. With that network systems have become more complex and harder to describe, where a lot of uncertainty and randomness exists, to make performance evaluation of such systems tractable, some compromise is often necessary and helpful. Stochastic network calculus (SNC) is such a theoretical tool. While SNC is a relatively new theory, it is gaining increasing interest and popularity. In the current SNC literature, much attention has been paid on the development of the theory itself. In addition, researchers have also started applying SNC to performance analysis of various types of systems in recent years. The aim of this paper is to provide a tutorial on the new theoretical tool. Specifically, various SNC traffic models and SNC server models are reviewed. The focus is on how to apply SNC, for which, four critical steps are formalized and discussed. In addition, a list of SNC application topics/areas, where there may exist huge research potential, is presented.     

e-Agricultural innovation using a human-centred systems lens,proposed conceptual framework

Historically, farmers have been amongst the most innovative people in the world. However, agriculture now lags behind other sectors in its uptake of new information technologies for the control and automation of farming systems. In spite of decades of research into innovation, we still do not have a good understanding as to why this is the case. With the globalisation of food markets, IT adoption in agricultural communities is perceived to be increasingly important by policy makers. As the most marginalised of rural communities, it is self-evident that agricultural communities in less developed countries are most in need of these systems. This paper proposes a new integral systems framework of e-agricultural adoption and innovation in less developed countries. It opens up a new avenue of research for control and automation systems theory and practice, which informs policy in respect of e-readiness of rural communities.     

人工智能军事应用的安全风险及其控制

同一切技术一样,人工智能技术也是一把双刃剑。它既可以是各国维护自身安全的手段,同时潜藏各种安全风险。作为颠覆性新兴技术,人工智能的军事应用正在加速,催生新的武器装备、作战理论和战争形态,改变国际力量对比,增加武装冲突的可能性,并引发一系列人道、伦理、法律和社会问题。尽管人工智能的军事应用以作战需求为牵引,现行国际法也没有对人工智能进行明确的限制,但这并不意味着人工智能的军事应用可以为所欲为,安全性和可靠性的内在要求,以及军事效率与人道主义要求之间的平衡是决策者必须考虑的因素。从长远上看,军备控制、安全治理和技术手段是确保人工智能安全发展和军事应用的重要途径。     

面向任务的多机器人协调运动控制

基于多智能体系统理论,研究在确定环境下,面向任务的多机器人协调控制系统的实现原理、方法和技术,以及控制集成方法。开发了机器人协调控制的实验平台,对规划、控制、传感、通讯、协调与合作的各关键技术进行了开发和集成,完成了地面2个机器人的实时跟踪,三机器人的协调运动控制。通过实验研究使多机器人分布式协调技术的研究能够直接面向实际应用。