Situation assessment through multi-modal sensing of dynamic environments to support cognitive robot control

Awareness of emerging situations in a dynamic operational environment of a robotic assistive device is an essential capability of such a cognitive system, based on its effective and efficient assessment of the prevailing situation. This allows the system to interact with the environment in a sensible (semi)autonomous / pro-active manner without the need for frequent interventions from a supervisor. In this paper, we report a novel generic Situation Assessment Architecture for robotic systems directly assisting humans as developed in the CORBYS project. This paper presents the overall architecture for situation assessment and its application in proof-of-concept Demonstrators as developed and validated within the CORBYS project. These include a robotic human follower and a mobile gait rehabilitation robotic system. We present an overview of the structure and functionality of the Situation Assessment Architecture for robotic systems with results and observations as collected from initial validation on the two CORBYS Demonstrators.

Can a native rodent species limit the invasive potential of a non-native rodent species in tropical agroforest habitats?

BACKGROUND Little is known about native and non-native rodent species interactions in complex tropical agro-ecosystems. We hypothesised that the native non-pest rodent Rattus everetti may be competitively dominant over the invasive pest rodent Rattus tanezumi within agroforests. We tested this experimentally by using pulse removal for three consecutive months to reduce populations of R. everetti in agroforest habitat and assessed over 6-months the response of R. tanezumi and other rodent species. RESULTS Following removal, R. everetti individuals rapidly immigrated into removal sites. At the end of the study period, R. tanezumi were larger and there was a significant shift in their microhabitat use with respect to the use of ground vegetation cover following the perturbation of R. everetti. Irrespective of treatment, R. tanezumi selected microhabitat with less tree canopy cover, indicative of severely disturbed habitat, whereas, R. everetti selected microhabitat with a dense canopy. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that sustained habitat disturbance in agroforests favours R. tanezumi, whilst the regeneration of agroforests towards a more natural state would favour native species and may reduce pest pressure in adjacent crops. In addition, the rapid recolonisation of R. everetti suggests this species would be able to recover from non-target impacts of short-term rodent pest control.

Improving a global model from the boundary layer: total turbulent energy and the neutral limit Prandtl number

Model intercomparisons have identified important deficits in the representation of the stable boundary layer by turbulence parametrizations used in current weather and climate models. However, detrimental impacts of more realistic schemes on the large-scale flow have hindered progress in this area. Here we implement a total turbulent energy scheme into the climate model ECHAM6. The total turbulent energy scheme considers the effects of Earth’s rotation and static stability on the turbulence length scale. In contrast to the previously used turbulence scheme, the TTE scheme also implicitly represents entrainment flux in a dry convective boundary layer. Reducing the previously exaggerated surface drag in stable boundary layers indeed causes an increase in southern hemispheric zonal winds and large-scale pressure gradients beyond observed values. These biases can be largely removed by increasing the parametrized orographic drag. Reducing the neutral limit turbulent Prandtl number warms and moistens low-latitude boundary layers and acts to reduce longstanding radiation biases in the stratocumulus regions, the Southern Ocean and the equatorial cold tongue that are common to many climate models.

L'effet de compensation morale ou comment les 'bonnes actions' peuvent aboutir à une situation indésirable

Des recherches récentes arguent qu’une « bonne action » pourrait contribuer à « désinhiber » l’individu en lui permettant d’entreprendre des actions « moins souhaitables » par la suite. Cet effet de compensation morale reste un domaine peu étudié, en dépit des conséquences potentielles considérables sur l’efficacité des politiques publiques. L’objectif de notre contribution est de définir et de caractériser cet effet tout en soulignant les risques d’effets pervers associés. Nous utilisons à cet effet des études et des exemples tirés de divers domaines, comme la consommation alimentaire ou les comportements prosociaux, et identifions des pistes de recherche visant à mieux comprendre les conséquences directes et indirectes de cet effet, tout en mentionnant quelques stratégies envisageables afin d’atténuer ce biais.