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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Modeling User Transportation Patterns Using Mobile Devices, Erfan Davami
Modeling User Transportation Patterns Using Mobile Devices, Erfan Davami
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Participatory sensing frameworks use humans and their computing devices as a large mobile sensing network. Dramatic accessibility and affordability have turned mobile devices (smartphone and tablet computers) into the most popular computational machines in the world, exceeding laptops. By the end of 2013, more than 1.5 billion people on earth will have a smartphone. Increased coverage and higher speeds of cellular networks have given these devices the power to constantly stream large amounts of data. Most mobile devices are equipped with advanced sensors such as GPS, cameras, and microphones. This expansion of smartphone numbers and power has created a sensing …
Autonomous Quadcopter Videographer, Quiquia Rey Coaguila
Autonomous Quadcopter Videographer, Quiquia Rey Coaguila
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In recent years, the interest in quadcopters as a robotics platform for autonomous photography has increased. This is due to their small size and mobility, which allow them to reach places that are difficult or even impossible for humans. This thesis focuses on the design of an autonomous quadcopter videographer, i.e. a quadcopter capable of capturing good footage of a specific subject. In order to obtain this footage, the system needs to choose appropriate vantage points and control the quadcopter. Skilled human videographers can easily spot good filming locations where the subject and its actions can be seen clearly in …
Modeling Learner Mood In Realtime Through Biosensors For Intelligent Tutoring Improvements, Keith Brawner
Modeling Learner Mood In Realtime Through Biosensors For Intelligent Tutoring Improvements, Keith Brawner
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Computer-based instructors, just like their human counterparts, should monitor the emotional and cognitive states of their students in order to adapt instructional technique. Doing so requires a model of student state to be available at run time, but this has historically been difficult. Because people are different, generalized models have not been able to be validated. As a person’s cognitive and affective state vary over time of day and seasonally, individualized models have had differing difficulties. The simultaneous creation and execution of an individualized model, in real time, represents the last option for modeling such cognitive and affective states. This …
Novelty-Assisted Interactive Evolution Of Control Behaviors, Brian G. Woolley
Novelty-Assisted Interactive Evolution Of Control Behaviors, Brian G. Woolley
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The field of evolutionary computation is inspired by the achievements of natural evolution, in which there is no final objective. Yet the pursuit of objectives is ubiquitous in simulated evolution because evolutionary algorithms that can consistently achieve established benchmarks are lauded as successful, thus reinforcing this paradigm. A significant problem is that such objective approaches assume that intermediate stepping stones will increasingly resemble the final objective when in fact they often do not. The consequence is that while solutions may exist, searching for such objectives may not discover them. This problem with objectives is demonstrated through an experiment in this …
Exploiting Opponent Modeling For Learning In Multi-Agent Adversarial Games, Kennard R. Laviers
Exploiting Opponent Modeling For Learning In Multi-Agent Adversarial Games, Kennard R. Laviers
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
An issue with learning effective policies in multi-agent adversarial games is that the size of the search space can be prohibitively large when the actions of both teammates and opponents are considered simultaneously. Opponent modeling, predicting an opponent’s actions in advance of execution, is one approach for selecting actions in adversarial settings, but it is often performed in an ad hoc way. In this dissertation, we introduce several methods for using opponent modeling, in the form of predictions about the players’ physical movements, to learn team policies. To explore the problem of decision-making in multi-agent adversarial scenarios, we use our …
Spatio-Temporal Negotiation Protocols, Yi Luo
Spatio-Temporal Negotiation Protocols, Yi Luo
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Canonical problems are simplified representations of a class of real world problems. They allow researchers to compare algorithms in a standard setting which captures the most important challenges of the real world problems being modeled. In this dissertation, we focus on negotiating a collaboration in space and time, a problem with many important real world applications. Although technically a multi-issue negotiation, we show that the problem can not be represented in a satisfactory manner by previous models. We propose the "Children in the Rectangular Forest" (CRF) model as a possible canonical problem for negotiating spatio-temporal collaboration. In the CRF problem, …
Episodic Memory Model For Embodied Conversational Agents, Miguel Elvir
Episodic Memory Model For Embodied Conversational Agents, Miguel Elvir
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) form part of a range of virtual characters whose intended purpose include engaging in natural conversations with human users. While works in literature are ripe with descriptions of attempts at producing viable ECA architectures, few authors have addressed the role of episodic memory models in conversational agents. This form of memory, which provides a sense of autobiographic record-keeping in humans, has only recently been peripherally integrated into dialog management tools for ECAs. In our work, we propose to take a closer look at the shared characteristics of episodic memory models in recent examples from the field. …
Robust Dialog Management Through A Context-Centric Architecture, Victor C. Hung
Robust Dialog Management Through A Context-Centric Architecture, Victor C. Hung
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation presents and evaluates a method of managing spoken dialog interactions with a robust attention to fulfilling the human user’s goals in the presence of speech recognition limitations. Assistive speech-based embodied conversation agents are computer-based entities that interact with humans to help accomplish a certain task or communicate information via spoken input and output. A challenging aspect of this task involves open dialog, where the user is free to converse in an unstructured manner. With this style of input, the machine’s ability to communicate may be hindered by poor reception of utterances, caused by a user’s inadequate command of …
Concept Learning By Example Decomposition, Sameer Joshi
Concept Learning By Example Decomposition, Sameer Joshi
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
For efficient understanding and prediction in natural systems, even in artificially closed ones, we usually need to consider a number of factors that may combine in simple or complex ways. Additionally, many modern scientific disciplines face increasingly large datasets from which to extract knowledge (for example, genomics). Thus to learn all but the most trivial regularities in the natural world, we rely on different ways of simplifying the learning problem. One simplifying technique that is highly pervasive in nature is to break down a large learning problem into smaller ones; to learn the smaller, more manageable problems; and then to …
An Analysis Of Misclassification Rates For Decision Trees, Mingyu Zhong
An Analysis Of Misclassification Rates For Decision Trees, Mingyu Zhong
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The decision tree is a well-known methodology for classification and regression. In this dissertation, we focus on the minimization of the misclassification rate for decision tree classifiers. We derive the necessary equations that provide the optimal tree prediction, the estimated risk of the tree's prediction, and the reliability of the tree's risk estimation. We carry out an extensive analysis of the application of Lidstone's law of succession for the estimation of the class probabilities. In contrast to existing research, we not only compute the expected values of the risks but also calculate the corresponding reliability of the risk (measured by …
Applications Of Artificial Intelligence In Military Training Simulation, Igor V. Golovcsenko
Applications Of Artificial Intelligence In Military Training Simulation, Igor V. Golovcsenko
Retrospective Theses and Dissertations
This report is a survey of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology contributions to military training. It provides an overview of military training simulation and a review of instructional problems and challenges which can be addressed by AI. The survey includes current as well as potential applications of AI, with particular emphasis on design and system integration issues. Applications include knowledge and skills training in strategic planning and decision making, tactical warfare operations, electronics maintenance and repair, as well as computer-aided design of training systems. The report describes research contributions in the application of AI technology to the training world, and it …
The Application Of Expert Systems To Automated Storage And Retrieval, Robert E. Mcdonald
The Application Of Expert Systems To Automated Storage And Retrieval, Robert E. Mcdonald
Retrospective Theses and Dissertations
This report discusses the major functions, decisions, and strategies of automated storage and retrieval systems (AR/RS). The report surveys the essential features of expert systems and discusses how they can be applied in automated warehousing environments. A blackboard expert system architecture was examined and found to be a flexible and responsive control system for automated warehousing applications. A simple AR/RS expert system was constructed using an expert system software package. A warehousing simulation was performed which compared the expert system’s performance to a typical AR/RS control system. The expert system produced increased efficiency of operation because of the intelligent rules …
The Combination Of Artificial Intelligence And Robotics For A Mobile Robot Application, Leslie D. Interrante
The Combination Of Artificial Intelligence And Robotics For A Mobile Robot Application, Leslie D. Interrante
Retrospective Theses and Dissertations
The combination of artificial intelligence and robotics led to more flexibility and powerful mobile robot applications. The robot and its environment were simulated with a microcomputer to gather statistical information. An application was demonstrated in the laboratory with a mobile robot. The robot recognized an obstacle in its path and generated the necessary changes in its environment so that it could successfully complete a required task.
A Learning Machine For Job Sequencing In A General-Purpose Computer System, Richard Jon Taylor
A Learning Machine For Job Sequencing In A General-Purpose Computer System, Richard Jon Taylor
Retrospective Theses and Dissertations
No abstract provided.