Robotic agents, such as autonomous office couriers or robot tourguides, must be both reliable and efficient. Thus, they have to flexibly interleave their tasks, exploit opportunities, quickly plan their course of action, and, if necessary, revise their intended activities. This book makes three major contributions to improving the capabilities of robotic agents: - first, a plan representation method is introduced which allows for specifying flexible and reliable behavior - second, probabilistic hybrid action models are presented as a realistic causal model for predicting the behavior generated by modern concurrent percept-driven robot plans - third, the system XFRMLEARN capable of learning structured symbolic navigation plans is described in detail.
In this book, the author presents a new computational model of forestalling common flaws in autonomous robot behavior. To this end, robots are equipped with structured reactive plans (SRPs) which are concurrent control programs that can not only be interpreted but also be reasoned about and manipulated. The author develops a representation for SRPs in which declarative statements for goals, perceptions, and beliefs make the structure and purpose of SRPs explicit and thereby simplify and speed up reasoning about SRPs and their projections; furthermore a notation is introduced allowing for transforming and manipulating SRPs. Using this notation, a planning system can diagnose and forestall common flaws in robot plans that cannot be dealt with in other planning representations. Finally the language for writing SRPs is extended into a high-level language that can handle both planning and execution actions.
This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 30th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, KI 2007, held in Osnabrück, Germany, September 2007. The papers are organized in topical sections on cognition and emotion, semantic Web, analogy, natural language, reasoning, ontologies, spatio-temporal reasoning, machine learning, spatial reasoning, robot learning, classical AI problems, and agents.
Abraham Joshua Heschel and the Sources of Wonder is the first book to demonstrate how Heschel's political, intellectual, and spiritual commitments were embedded in his reading of Jewish tradition.
Robotic agents, such as autonomous office couriers or robot tourguides, must be both reliable and efficient. Thus, they have to flexibly interleave their tasks, exploit opportunities, quickly plan their course of action, and, if necessary, revise their intended activities. This book makes three major contributions to improving the capabilities of robotic agents: - first, a plan representation method is introduced which allows for specifying flexible and reliable behavior - second, probabilistic hybrid action models are presented as a realistic causal model for predicting the behavior generated by modern concurrent percept-driven robot plans - third, the system XFRMLEARN capable of learning structured symbolic navigation plans is described in detail.
In this book, the author presents a new computational model of forestalling common flaws in autonomous robot behavior. To this end, robots are equipped with structured reactive plans (SRPs) which are concurrent control programs that can not only be interpreted but also be reasoned about and manipulated. The author develops a representation for SRPs in which declarative statements for goals, perceptions, and beliefs make the structure and purpose of SRPs explicit and thereby simplify and speed up reasoning about SRPs and their projections; furthermore a notation is introduced allowing for transforming and manipulating SRPs. Using this notation, a planning system can diagnose and forestall common flaws in robot plans that cannot be dealt with in other planning representations. Finally the language for writing SRPs is extended into a high-level language that can handle both planning and execution actions.
This book provides a balanced but critical discussion of the contribution of American intelligence officials to the Nuremberg war crimes trials process, and reviews recently declassified CIA documents.
Based on the popular website, this exciting new volume examines the classic television programs, The Avengers and The New Avengers. Quite Quite Fantastic! provides insight into the behind-the-scenes production of both programs and their relevance to viewers today. Each episode is reviewed and analyzed, and the main characters and actors are profiled in depth. Plus, mini-biographies of dozens of guest actors, directors and writers are included. And the long-missing Season One is reconstructed with a special look at the newly recovered episode "Tunnel of Fear"!
Rabbi Samuel's book "Gentle Judaic Wisdom" is a brilliant work, very wise, easy to read, and deceptively simple. The book is filled with information. It is a rich cornucopia of wisdom quoted from sources such as the Torah, Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud, ancient rabbis, philosophers, and many more sources, even the New Testament. For, as Maimonides wrote when he quoted the pagan Aristotle in his Guide of the Perplexed, "The truth is the truth no matter what its source." As I read Rabbi Samuel's notes, I felt impressed by both the extent of his knowledge and how well he understood the many subjects he addressed. It is a perfect book to read either from the first page until the end; the reader may wish to select subjects of interest from the many provided and meditate about that section. It is also the perfect reference book to keep at home to peruse from time to time. We can read the book to enjoy the ideas they express. I enjoyed them this way, but I also found the quotes thought-provoking. They made me think, and they can and should do the same for other readers. What do you think of the quote you read? How can you apply the idea in it to your life? Does the quote cover all situations? Can we extend the idea further and go beyond what the sage said? If so, how? I hope that you enjoy this book as much as I did. I think you will. Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin, Foreword Should a man nourish anger against his fellow and expect healing from the LORD? Should a man refuse mercy to his fellows, and yet seek pardon for his own sins? If he who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? Remember your last days; set your enmity aside; remember death and decay; and cease from sin. Ben Sira 28:3-6 Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel is the son of a Holocaust survivor. He holds two rabbinic ordinations from the Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch Yeshiva of 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn and holds a D. Min degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary. He is an avid student of the Greek classics, Biblical and Talmudic scholarship, Jungian Psychology, Western Medieval Theology, Modern Philosophy, and 20th century psychology. He is the author of The Lord Is My Shepherd: The Theology of the Caring God (1996), Birth and Rebirth Through Genesis (2010), A Shepherd's Song: Psalm 23 and the Shepherd Metaphor In Jewish Thought (2014), Rediscovering Philo of Alexandria: A First Century Jewish Commentator (Volumes 1-5), (2014-2018), and Maimonides' Hidden Torah Commentary, Genesis 1-21 (2019).
With the words: "Now I have the feeling that there is a leaden weight over everything," Bodo Ramelow described the social mood in Germany on September 1, 2013, a few weeks before the federal election. At this time, Ramelow was still the parliamentary group leader of the Left Party (Die Linke) in the Thuringian State Parliament. With his "feeling," Ramelow, born on February 16, 1956 in Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Lower Saxony, was not alone. The society itself seemed on the verge of being crushed by a leaden burden, not just the mood within it. In those days, the final recourse of German politics had narrowed to the dogma of inevitability, and the ruling elite, in a grotesque manner, asserted a claim to political infallibility. In various coalitions, they had subjected the actions of the state to the paradigm of neoliberalism and called for market-radical globalization. They had reduced the role of the state to ensuring the functioning of the market. They treated its social responsibility towards the individual, society, and nature as a historical footnote. This paved the way for the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Many people had begun to oppose the dictate of supposed inevitability. The disillusioned turned away from the governing parties. Not a few ended up in right-wing extremist groups. Against this background, the interviewer conducted the following conversation with Bodo Ramelow. In the lead-up to the 2013 federal election, it was intended to shed light on the extent to which the party Die Linke had a concept for how to win over those disillusioned by the politics of the governing parties for a democratic and emancipatory society. A few months after the interview, Bodo Ramelow became the first Minister President of the party Die Linke in a German state. The outcome of the 2013 federal election arithmetically would have permitted a red-red-green coalition government. – But things turned out differently.
St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret’s monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret’s importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained. More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints’ Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints’ Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself.
By the late 1950s Canada's Francophone and Acadian minority communities were in rapid decline. Demographic, economic, socio-cultural, institutional, and political factors that had sustained both the concept and the reality of French Canada for well over a century were being eliminated or transformed at an unprecedented rate. To survive, these beleaguered minority communities set out to conquer the challenges of rebuilding their provincial and national organizations, training a new generation of leaders, redefining their respective provincial and national identities, elaborating new political and constitutional policies and strategies for survival and expansion, and then defending and securing full implementation of these policies and strategies. growth of their communities, revitalized Francophone organizations and leaders lobbied for constitutional entrenchment of official bilingualism and of a mandated Charter right to education in their own language, including the right to governance over their own schools and school boards. Having achieved their objectives in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Francophone provincial and national leaders learned the techniques of micro-constitutional politics to convince the Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba provincial governments to implement full and unfettered school governance by and for Francophone minority communities. a collectivist and remedial interpretation to the Charter's official language minority education rights section 23. The Canadian government assisted the Francophone minority in two ways: it made funds available to Francophone organizations and parents via the Court Challenges program and it signed lucrative financial agreements with the provinces to help defray the additional costs of establishing French-language schools and school boards. While the Francophone minority communities were pursuing implementation of their section 23 Charter rights, they found themselves drawn into the mega-constitutional negotiations and ratification procedures surrounding the controversial Meech Lake Constitutional Accord, 1987-90, and the omnibus Charlottetown Consensus Report, 1990-92. During the Quebec/Provincial Round, their Charter rights remained intact when the Meech Lake Accord failed to obtain ratification. conception of a pan-Canadian cultural and linguistic duality which helped minimize the constitutional and political impact of the Quebec government's insistence upon a territorial conception of duality, that is, an asymmetrical Canada/Quebec federation. When Canadians rejected the Charlottetown deal, neither conception achieved formal constitutional recognition. Nevertheless, Canada's Francophone minority communities were regenerated by the intertwined developments of constitutional renewal and their winning of school governance. A new, vigorous Francophone pan-Canadian national community emerged, one capable of ensuring the survival of its constituents communities well into the 21st century.
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