Creating broadcast interactive drama in an NVE

By exploiting a networked virtual environment architecture, we produced the gaming part of an interactive television drama series, TypoToons. For decades TV show makers have been inventing tools and tricks to enhance the stories they tell. Equivalents of, and additions to these conventional tricks in interactive media can only mature an interactive television if multidisciplinary teams can obtain hands on experience of these newly emerging worlds. The production team for TypoToons and the interactively participating audience provided an excellent opportunity to develop such a team     

Architectural Methodology Based on Intentional Configuration of Behaviors

Intelligence has been an object of study for a long time. Different architectures try to capture and reproduce these aspects into artificial systems (or agents), but there is still no agreement on how to integrate them into a general framework. With this objective in mind, we propose an architectural methodology based on the idea of intentional configuration of behaviors. Behavior‐producing modules are used as basic control components that are selected and modified dynamically according to the intentions of the agent. These intentions are influenced by the situation perceived, knowledge about the world, and internal variables that monitor the state of the agent. The architectural methodology preserves the emergence of functionality associated with the behavior‐based paradigm in the more abstract levels involved in configuring the behaviors. Validation of this architecture is done using a simulated world for mobile robots, in which the agent must deal with various goals such as managing its energy and its well‐being, finding targets, and acquiring knowledge about its environment. Fuzzy logic, a topologic map learning algorithm, and activation variables with a propagation mechanism are used to implement the architecture for this agent.     

Performance lower bounds in stochastic robust and adaptive control

The fundamental issues of capability of robust and adaptive control in dealing with uncertainty are investigated in stochastic systems. It is revealed that to capture the intrinsic limitations of adaptive control, it is necessary to use sup_t types of transient and persistent performance, rather than lim sup_t types which reflect only asymptotic behavior of a system. For clarity and technical tractability, a simple first-order linear time-varying system is employed as a vehicle to explore performance lower bounds of robust and adaptive control. Optimal performances of nominal, robust and adaptive control are explicitly derived and their implications are discussed in an information framework. An adaptive strategy is scrutinized for its achievable performance bounds. The results indicate that intimate interaction and inherent conflict between identification and control result in a certain performance lower bound which does not approach the nominal performance even when the system varies very slowly. Explicit lower bounds are obtained when disturbances are either normally or uniformly distributed     

Identification of stable models in subspace identification by usingregularization

In subspace identification methods, the system matrices are usually estimated by least squares, based on estimated Kalman filter state sequences and the observed inputs and outputs. For a finite number of data points, the estimated system matrix is not guaranteed to be stable, even when the true linear system is known to be stable. In this paper, stability is imposed by using regularization. The regularization term used here is the trace of a matrix which involves the dynamical system matrix and a positive (semi) definite weighting matrix. The amount of regularization can be determined from a generalized eigenvalue problem. The data augmentation method of Chui and Maciejowski (1996) is obtained by using specific choices for the weighting matrix in the regularization term     

Three-dimensional simulation of time-coded emission tomography

In this paper we discuss the potentialities of a time-coded single photon emissive imaging system for thyroid tomography. We have performed three-dimensional simulation studies in order to answer two questions: 1) does this coded aperture device produce good quality reconstructions, and 2) can the reconstruction be carried out sufficiently fast on a microcomputer. Our study leads to the conclusion that both questions can be answered affirmatively. Hence, time-coded emission tomography is a potentially useful imaging technique for diagnostic clinical practice.     

Odour emission ability (OEA) and its application in assessing odour removal efficiency

Odourous emissions from sewer networks and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) can significantly impact a local population. Sampling techniques such as wind tunnels and flux hood chambers are traditionally used to collect area source samples for subsequent quantification of odour emission rates using dilution olfactometry, however these methods are unsuitable for assessing liquid samples from point sources due to the large liquid volumes required. To overcome this limitation, a gas phase sample preparation method was developed for assessing the total Odour Emission Ability (OEA) from a liquid sample. The method was validated using two volatile organic sulphur compounds (VOSCs), dimethyl-trisulphide (DMTS) and bismethylthiomethane (BMTM) that are frequently detected from sewers and WWTPs and are relatively stable compared with common VOSCs like mercaptan or methyl mercaptan. The recovery rates of DMTS and BMTM were quantified by injecting a known volume of a standard liquid sample into Tedlar bags using a static injection and a dynamic injection methodology. It was confirmed that both dynamic and static injection methods at ambient condition achieved high recovery rates with no need to consider increasing evaporation by elevating the temperature. This method can also be used to assess odour removal effectiveness of liquids by comparing the OEA before and after the treatment tests. Two application examples were presented.