How to Psychoanalyze a Robot: Unconscious Cognition and the Evolution of Intentionality1

According to a common philosophical distinction, the `original' intentionality, or `aboutness' possessed by our thoughts, beliefs and desires, is categorically different from the `derived' intentionality manifested in some of our artifacts –- our words, books and pictures, for example. Those making the distinction claim that the intentionality of our artifacts is `parasitic' on the `genuine' intentionality to be found in members of the former class of things. In Kinds of Minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness, Daniel Dennett criticizes that claim and the distinction it rests on, and seeks to show that ``metaphysically original intentionality' is illusory by working out the implications he sees in the practical possibility of a certain type of robot, i.e., one that generates `utterances' which are `inscrutable to the robot's designers' so that we, and they, must consult the robot to discover the meaning of its utterances. I argue that the implications Dennett finds are erroneous, regardless of whether such a robot is possible, and therefore that the real existence of metaphysically original intentionality has not been undermined by the possibility of the robot Dennett describes.     

Computing Machinery and Emergence: The Aesthetics and Metaphysics of Video Games

We build on some of Daniel Dennetts ideas about predictive indispensability to characterize properties of video games discernable by people as computationally emergent if, and only if: (1) they can be instantiated by a computing machine, and (2) there is no algorithm for detecting instantiations of them. We then use this conception of emergence to provide support to the aesthetic ideas of Stanley Fish and to illuminate some aspects of the Chomskyan program in cognitive science.     

Parameterized Computation and Complexity： A New Approach Dealing with NP-Hardness

The theory of parameterized computation and complexity is a recently developed subarea in theoretical computer science. The theory is aimed at practically solving a large number of computational problems that are theoretically intractable.The theory is based on the observation that many intractable computational problems in practice are associated with a parameter that varies within a small or moderate range. Therefore, by taking the advantages of the small parameters, many theoretically intractable problems can be solved effectively and practically. On the other hand, the theory of parameterized computation and complexity has also offered powerful techniques that enable us to derive strong computational lower bounds for many computational problems, thus explaining why certain theoretically tractable problems cannot be solved effectively and practically. The theory of parameterized computation and complexity has found wide applications in areas such as database systems, programming languages, networks, VLSI design, parallel and distributed computing, computational biology, and robotics. This survey gives an overview on the fundamentals, algorithms, techniques, and applications developed in the research of parameterized computation and complexity. We will also report the most recent advances and excitements, and discuss further research directions in the area.     

The Chinese Room Argument Reconsidered: Essentialism,Indeterminacy, and Strong AI

I argue that John Searle's (1980) influential Chinese room argument (CRA) against computationalism and strong AI survives existing objections, including Block's (1998) internalized systems reply, Fodor's (1991b) deviant causal chain reply, and Hauser's (1997) unconscious content reply. However, a new ``essentialist' reply I construct shows that the CRA as presented by Searle is an unsound argument that relies on a question-begging appeal to intuition. My diagnosis of the CRA relies on an interpretation of computationalism as a scientific theory about the essential nature of intentional content; such theories often yield non-intuitive results in non-standard cases, and so cannot be judged by such intuitions. However, I further argue that the CRA can be transformed into a potentially valid argument against computationalism simply by reinterpreting it as an indeterminacy argument that shows that computationalism cannot explain the ordinary distinction between semantic content and sheer syntactic manipulation, and thus cannot be an adequate account of content. This conclusion admittedly rests on the arguable but plausible assumption that thought content is interestingly determinate. I conclude that the viability of computationalism and strong AI depends on their addressing the indeterminacy objection, but that it is currently unclear how this objection can be successfully addressed.     

A unified model of knowledge sharing behaviours: theoretical development and empirical test

Research and practice on knowledge management (KM) have shown that information technology alone cannot guarantee that employees will volunteer and share knowledge. While previous studies have linked motivational factors to knowledge sharing (KS), we took a further step to thoroughly examine this theoretically and empirically. We developed a unified model that is comprehensive and yet parsimonious, based on the decomposed theory of planned behaviour (DTPB) with three sets of critical antecedents: psychological, organisational and technological that are theorised to influence KS behaviours. Results of a field survey of knowledge workers support the majority of hypothesised relationships, and explained 41.3% of the variance in the actual KS behaviours and 60.8% of the variance in the intention to share knowledge. These results far exceed the predictive powers achieved by previous studies. Among our significant findings include a strong positive influence of perceived enjoyment in helping others (PEH) and a strong negative influence of perceived loss of knowledge power (PLK). Based on the findings, we discussed the study's implications for research and practice.     

A Class of OFT Controllers for Torque-Saturated Robot Manipulators: Lyapunov Stability and Experimental Evaluation

The trajectory tracking of robot manipulators is addressed in this paper. Two important practical situations are considered: the fact that robot actuators have limited power, and that only position measurements are carried out. Let us notice that a few solutions for the torque-bounded OFT (output feedback tracking) control has been proposed. In this paper we contribute to this subject by presenting a class of OFT controllers for torque-constrained robots. The theory of singularly perturbed systems is crucial in the analysis of the closed-loop system trajectories. As a second contribution of this paper, we present a detailed experimental study of six control schemes, which were tested in a two degrees-of-freedom direct-drive robot, confirming the advantages of the proposed methodology.     

高校机房软硬件平台建设的探讨与实践

针对高校计算机机房的规划、建设、管理、维护方面进行了探讨与实践,提出了一些参考建议和新观点,阐述了高校机房硬件、软件、作业、安全、管理平台建设的主要内容等。     

Silfide: A System for Open Access and Distributed Delivery of TEI Encoded Documents

This paper presents some aspects of the Silfide server, a system dedicated to the delivery of linguistic resources on the web. After presenting the main issues behind the design of such a system, we focus on the editorial choices related to the use of the Text Encoding Initiative to represent our textual documents. In particular, we focus on the accommodations we have had to carry with regards to the TEI header and address the trade-off between extensive enrichment and genericity of the primary data when one wants to precisely mark-up a given document content. As a whole, we show how essential the TEI has proven to be for a project such as ours both from a practical and conceptual point of view.     

A rescue robot designed for ease of use: development of exploration system using behavior of bombycid

Rescue operation is one of most effective applications of robots. However, previous rescue systems that use robots have a serious problem that is a shortage of professional operators. In this paper, we develop an exploration system of survivors using carbon dioxide, and to solve the problem we apply searching mechanism of bombycid to our system. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system, experiments have been conducted. This work was presented in part at the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 31–February 2, 2008     

Vector elimination: A technique for the implicitization, inversion, and intersection of planar parametric rational polynomial curves

In this paper vector techniques and elimination methods are combined to help resolve some classical problems in computer aided geometric design. Vector techniques are applied to derive the Bezout resultant for two polynomials in one variable. This resultant is then used to solve the following two geometric problems: Given a planar parametric rational polynomial curve, (a) find the implicit polynomial equation of the curve (implicitization); (b) find the parameter value(s) corresponding to the coordinates of a point known to lie on the curve (inversion). The solutions to these two problems are closed form and, in general, require only the arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. These closed form solutions lead to a simple, non-iterative, analytic algorithm for computing the intersection points of two planar parametric rational polynomial curves. Extensions of these techniques to planar rational Bezier curves are also discussed.     

A full and efficient machine tractable dictionary for natural language processing: A revised version of the CUVOALD

A lexicon is an essential part of any natural language processing system. The size, content and format of the lexicon is crucial in determining the power and sophistication of a natural language processing system. However, a lexicon which provides comprehensive, consistent and accurate lexical information and which is in a format facilitating fast retrieval is not easily available. This paper reports on a project which aims at the development of such a lexicon. The resulting lexicon is actually the modified and extended version of the machine tractable version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. The modification and extension concentrate mainly on the aspects of comprehensiveness, consistency, explicitness, accuracy and the dictionary format. The modified and extended version is considered a desirable source of lexical information for any natural language processing system.Si-Qing Chen received her Ph.D. in computational linguistics (1992) from Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages. His research interests include natural language processing, computer-assisted language teaching, and computational lexicography. She is currently furthering her study and research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has published several articles on psycholinguistics, language teaching, philosophy of language, and natural language processing in, amongst other journals, Language Learning and the CALICO Journal.Luomai Xu is an associate professor in the Department of English at Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages. He has been working on several projects and published several articles on natural language processing.     

Zippy: A Framework for Computation and Visualization on a GPU Cluster

Due to its high performance/cost ratio, a GPU cluster is an attractive platform for large scale general‐purpose computation and visualization applications. However, the programming model for high performance general‐purpose computation on GPU clusters remains a complex problem. In this paper, we introduce the Zippy frame‐work, a general and scalable solution to this problem. It abstracts the GPU cluster programming with a two‐level parallelism hierarchy and a non‐uniform memory access (NUMA) model. Zippy preserves the advantages of both message passing and shared‐memory models. It employs global arrays (GA) to simplify the communication, synchronization, and collaboration among multiple GPUs. Moreover, it exposes data locality to the programmer for optimal performance and scalability. We present three example applications developed with Zippy: sort‐last volume rendering, Marching Cubes isosurface extraction and rendering, and lattice Boltzmann flow simulation with online visualization. They demonstrate that Zippy can ease the development and integration of parallel visualization, graphics, and computation modules on a GPU cluster.     

An iterative learning scheme for motion control of robots using neural networks: A case study

In this paper, an iterative learning controller using neural networks has been studied for the motion control of robotic manipulators. Simulations of a two-link robot have demonstrated that the proposed control scheme for robotic manipulators can greatly reduce tracking errors after a few trials. Our modification of the original back-propagation algorithm is employed in the neural network, resulting in a much faster learning rate. The results of simulation have also shown that the proposed iterative learning controller has a faster rate of convergence and better robustness.     

Minds, Machines and Turing

Turing's celebrated 1950 paper proposes a very generalmethodological criterion for modelling mental function: total functionalequivalence and indistinguishability. His criterion gives rise to ahierarchy of Turing Tests, from subtotal (toy) fragments of ourfunctions (t1), to total symbolic (pen-pal) function (T2 – the standardTuring Test), to total external sensorimotor (robotic) function (T3), tototal internal microfunction (T4), to total indistinguishability inevery empirically discernible respect (T5). This is areverse-engineering hierarchy of (decreasing) empiricalunderdetermination of the theory by the data. Level t1 is clearly toounderdetermined, T2 is vulnerable to a counterexample (Searle's ChineseRoom Argument), and T4 and T5 are arbitrarily overdetermined. Hence T3is the appropriate target level for cognitive science. When it isreached, however, there will still remain more unanswerable questionsthan when Physics reaches its Grand Unified Theory of Everything (GUTE),because of the mind/body problem and the other-minds problem, both ofwhich are inherent in this empirical domain, even though Turing hardlymentions them.     

四素数RSA加密算法的研究与分析

RSA算法的密钥长度和执行效率之间的矛盾是RSA算法进一步发展的瓶颈,本文提出的四素数RSA算法是用四个短密钥,将密文分为四个模块,并运用中国剩余定理将高位宽大数的模幂运算转化为对低位宽相对较小的数进行模幂运算来快速实现解密的一种方法,来平衡加解密的计算成本。     

多机器人系统研发平台的的功能、结构与实现

本文介绍了一个自行研制的多机器人系统的研究开发平台。与一般实验系统不同,这个平台的特点是具有固定的控制结构,这增强了其可集成性和选择性而部分丧失了其通用性。在平台控制结构选择得当情况下,上述特点将有助于相关技术的研究成果向应用的转化。     

A compliant end-effector coupling for vertical assembly: design and evaluation

Many manipulation tasks require compliance, i.e. the robot's ability to comply with the environment and accomplish force as well as position control. Examples are constrained motion tasks and tasks associated with touch or feel in fine assembly. Few compliance-related tasks have been automated, and usually by active means of active compliance control: the need for passive compliance offered by the manipulator itself has been recognized and has led to the development of compliant end-effectors and/or wrists. In this paper we present a novel passively compliant coupling, the compliant end-effector coupling (CEEC), which aids automated precision assembly. It serves as a mechanical interface between the end of the robot arm and the end-effector. The coupling has 6 degrees of freedom. The design of the coupling is based on a “lock and free” assembly idea. The coupling is locked and behaves like a stiff member during robot motion, and is free (compliant) during constrained motion. It features an air bearing, a variable stiffness air spring and a center-locking mechanism. The end-effector assembly, being centrally unlocked, will float within the designed compliance limits assisted by the air bearing. These frictionless and constraint-free conditions facilitate a fast correction of any initial lateral and angular misalignments. In a peg insertion assembly, such accommodation is possible provided that the tip of the peg is contained within the chamfer of the hole. A variable stiffness air spring was incorporated in the design to allow variable and passive vertical compliance. This vertical compliance allows the accommodation of angular and vertical errors. The center-locking mechanism will return the end-effector assembly to its initial position upon an error correction. In a robot application program, the CEEC can be locked during rapid motion to securely transport a part or be set free during assembly or disassembly processes when the motions are constrained.     

招生咨询系统中的信息合成及其应用研究

文章以高校招生信息电话咨询作为实际应用对象,对人机对话系统中的不确定性推理进行了理论分析。并提出了基于证据理论的合成方法。在应用研究中给出了人机对话实验系统的基本算法。并对系统及数据库结构进行了探讨。     

物联网发展阶段及其关键技术

互联网实现了人与人之间的信息交换,那么物与物之间以及物与人间的信息交换靠什么来实现呢?那就是物联网。本文论述了物联网的实现阶段、工作原理以及物联网的关键技术。     

书法和篆刻:亟待重视的美术基础实践课程

在国内美术专业院校,目前的情况是书法和篆刻这一类中国传统美术基础课程成为各院校意向重视和表面重视的课程:要么开设为鉴赏课、理论课或选修课,要么只纳入国画专业的必修基础课程。这种收效甚微缺乏足够实践课时的课程设置,没有把其放到专业必修基础课的高度来认识。