ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2012) ? Using deceptive behavioral patterns of squirrels and birds, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed robots that are able to deceive each other.
The research is funded by the Office of Naval Research and is led by Professor Ronald Arkin, who suggests the applications could be implemented by the military in the future. The research is highlighted in the November/December 2012 edition of IEEE Intelligent Systems.
Arkin and his team learned by reviewing biological research results that squirrels gather acorns and store them in specific locations. The animal then patrols the hidden caches, routinely going back and forth to check on them. When another squirrel shows up, hoping to raid the hiding spots, the hoarding squirrel changes its behavior. Instead of checking on the true locations, it visits empty cache sites, trying to deceive the predator.
Arkin and his Ph.D. student Jaeeun Shim implemented the same strategy into a robotic model and demonstration. The deceptive behaviors worked. The deceiving robot lured the "predator" robot to the false locations, delaying the discovery of the protected resources.
"This application could be used by robots guarding ammunition or supplies on the battlefield," said Arkin, a Regents Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing. "If an enemy were present, the robot could change its patrolling strategies to deceive humans or another intelligent machine, buying time until reinforcements are able to arrive."
Arkin and his student Justin Davis have also created a simulation and demo based on birds that might bluff their way to safety. In Israel, Arabian babblers in danger of being attacked will sometimes join other birds and harass their predator. This mobbing process causes such a commotion that the predator will eventually give up the attack and leave.
Arkin's team investigated whether a simulated babbler is more likely to survive if it fakes or feigns strength when it doesn't exist. The team's simulations, based on biological models of dishonesty and the handicap principle, show that deception is the best strategy when the addition of deceitful agents pushes the size of the group to the minimum level required to frustrate the predator enough for it to flee. He says the reward for deceit in a few of the agents sometimes outweighs the risk of being caught.
"In military operations, a robot that is threatened might feign the ability to combat adversaries without actually being able to effectively protect itself," said Arkin. "Being honest about the robot's abilities risks capture or destruction. Deception, if used at the right time in the right way, could possibly eliminate or minimize the threat."
From the Trojan Horse to D-Day, deception has always played a role during wartime. In fact, there is an entire Army field manual on its use and value in the battlefield. But Arkin is the first to admit that there are serious ethical questions regarding robot deception behavior with humans.
"When these research ideas and results leak outside the military domain, significant ethical concerns can arise," said Arkin. "We strongly encourage further discussion regarding the pursuit and application of research on deception for robots and intelligent machines."
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American Chemical Society launches major new resource on climate sciencePublic release date: 3-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042 American Chemical Society
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, today launched a new web-based resource to enhance understanding and communication of the science underpinning global climate change. Intended for ACS' more than 164,000 members and others, the American Chemical Society Climate Science Toolkit is available at www.acs.org/climatescience.
The project, more than a year in development, was one of the major initiatives that Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., ACS president, put forth for his year in office. Shakhashiri, the William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described the toolkit as a unique resource, with a sharp focus on the scientific concepts that determine Earth's climate.
"The ACS Climate Science Toolkit fills a need for education, and equips scientists with the information and other resources necessary to develop a robust intellectual structure to communicate on this key topic," said Shakhashiri. "Climate change affects everyone and everything on Earth, and ranks as one of the greatest global challenges of the early 21st century."
Shakhashiri explained that the ACS is among the major scientific organizations with position statements acknowledging the reality of climate change and recommending action. The ACS policy statement mentions that people need a basic understanding of climate science in order to make informed personal decisions. And it describes climate change education for the public as "essential." Not explicit in the statement, however, is the responsibility of individual ACS members to take active roles in this education process as both scientists and citizens.
"Scientist-citizens must use their expertise and credibility as scientists ? as the ACS Mission Statement expresses so eloquently ? 'for the benefit of Earth and its people,'" Shakhashiri added. "Recruiting individual scientists to take on this responsibility requires encouragement and exhortation. It also requires providing convenient access to reliable tools for doing so."
The ACS Climate Science Toolkit discusses greenhouse gases, how the Earth's heating mechanism works, how the vibrational energy from molecules changes into translational kinetic energy and much more. The toolkit also provides a package of "Climate Science Narratives" that can be adapted and personalized when scientists have the opportunity to speak about climate science to other audiences. Those may include students, schoolteachers, college and university faculty, industrial scientists and business leaders, civic and religious groups, professional science and educational organizations, and elected public officials at all levels and in all branches of government.
Work on the toolkit began in 2011, when Shakhashiri formed the ACS Presidential Working Group on Climate Science, a panel of distinguished scientists and science communicators chaired by physical chemist and science educator Jerry A. Bell, Ph.D. The panel worked on two tasks. One was to develop a toolkit that ACS members and others could use for self-education on climate science, to understand the fundamental chemical and physical processes that determine Earth's climate. The second was an ongoing task of developing strategies for using the toolkit in communicating about climate change to other audiences.
This week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine, contains a Comment article http://cenm.ag/climatescience in which Shakhashiri discusses the toolkit and its importance.
Members of the working group:
Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jerry A. Bell, Ph.D., chair, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Joseph S. Francisco, Ph.D., William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry, Purdue University
Peter Mahaffy, Ph.D., King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and co-director of the King's Centre for Visualization in Science
Kathleen M. Schulz, Ph.D., president of Business Results Inc., Albuquerque, N.M., and a member of the ACS Board of Directors
Susan Solomon, Ph.D., Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John Wiesenfeld, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University
Rudy M. Baum, consultant, former editor-in-chief of Chemical & Engineering News
Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts, Ph.D., consultant, University of California-Irvine
Mario J. Molina, Ph.D., consultant, University of California-San Diego
Michael Woods, ACS staff liaison, assistant director, science communications, ACS Office of Public Affairs
Katie Cottingham, Ph.D., ACS staff liaison, senior science writer, science communications, ACS Office of Public Affairs
Darcy Gentleman, Ph.D., ACS staff liaison, ACS Science & the Congress Project, ACS Office of Public Affairs
###
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
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American Chemical Society launches major new resource on climate sciencePublic release date: 3-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042 American Chemical Society
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2012 The American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, today launched a new web-based resource to enhance understanding and communication of the science underpinning global climate change. Intended for ACS' more than 164,000 members and others, the American Chemical Society Climate Science Toolkit is available at www.acs.org/climatescience.
The project, more than a year in development, was one of the major initiatives that Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., ACS president, put forth for his year in office. Shakhashiri, the William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described the toolkit as a unique resource, with a sharp focus on the scientific concepts that determine Earth's climate.
"The ACS Climate Science Toolkit fills a need for education, and equips scientists with the information and other resources necessary to develop a robust intellectual structure to communicate on this key topic," said Shakhashiri. "Climate change affects everyone and everything on Earth, and ranks as one of the greatest global challenges of the early 21st century."
Shakhashiri explained that the ACS is among the major scientific organizations with position statements acknowledging the reality of climate change and recommending action. The ACS policy statement mentions that people need a basic understanding of climate science in order to make informed personal decisions. And it describes climate change education for the public as "essential." Not explicit in the statement, however, is the responsibility of individual ACS members to take active roles in this education process as both scientists and citizens.
"Scientist-citizens must use their expertise and credibility as scientists ? as the ACS Mission Statement expresses so eloquently ? 'for the benefit of Earth and its people,'" Shakhashiri added. "Recruiting individual scientists to take on this responsibility requires encouragement and exhortation. It also requires providing convenient access to reliable tools for doing so."
The ACS Climate Science Toolkit discusses greenhouse gases, how the Earth's heating mechanism works, how the vibrational energy from molecules changes into translational kinetic energy and much more. The toolkit also provides a package of "Climate Science Narratives" that can be adapted and personalized when scientists have the opportunity to speak about climate science to other audiences. Those may include students, schoolteachers, college and university faculty, industrial scientists and business leaders, civic and religious groups, professional science and educational organizations, and elected public officials at all levels and in all branches of government.
Work on the toolkit began in 2011, when Shakhashiri formed the ACS Presidential Working Group on Climate Science, a panel of distinguished scientists and science communicators chaired by physical chemist and science educator Jerry A. Bell, Ph.D. The panel worked on two tasks. One was to develop a toolkit that ACS members and others could use for self-education on climate science, to understand the fundamental chemical and physical processes that determine Earth's climate. The second was an ongoing task of developing strategies for using the toolkit in communicating about climate change to other audiences.
This week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine, contains a Comment article http://cenm.ag/climatescience in which Shakhashiri discusses the toolkit and its importance.
Members of the working group:
Bassam Z. Shakhashiri, Ph.D., William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jerry A. Bell, Ph.D., chair, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Joseph S. Francisco, Ph.D., William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry, Purdue University
Peter Mahaffy, Ph.D., King's University College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and co-director of the King's Centre for Visualization in Science
Kathleen M. Schulz, Ph.D., president of Business Results Inc., Albuquerque, N.M., and a member of the ACS Board of Directors
Susan Solomon, Ph.D., Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John Wiesenfeld, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University
Rudy M. Baum, consultant, former editor-in-chief of Chemical & Engineering News
Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts, Ph.D., consultant, University of California-Irvine
Mario J. Molina, Ph.D., consultant, University of California-San Diego
Michael Woods, ACS staff liaison, assistant director, science communications, ACS Office of Public Affairs
Katie Cottingham, Ph.D., ACS staff liaison, senior science writer, science communications, ACS Office of Public Affairs
Darcy Gentleman, Ph.D., ACS staff liaison, ACS Science & the Congress Project, ACS Office of Public Affairs
###
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter | Facebook
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
On December 3rd, 1992 in the little town of Newbury, Berkshire, a UK programmer sent his best mate a few lines of greeting using a unique new technique called Short Messaging Service. The programmer, Neil Papworth, was a test engineer for the Sema Group, and sent the message via PC to the phone of Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone employee. The message was "Merry Christmas." Vodafone intended the service as a fun and easy way to communicate internally.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More mannequins are on the floors of J.C. Penney stores. About 40,000 more.
They are one of the most visible changes J.C. Penney Co Inc Chief Creative Officer Michael Fisher has made to try to revive the 110-year-old department store chain, whose sales plunged 26.6 percent last quarter and whose shares have tumbled more than 50 percent this year.
Penney has a plan to transform its 700 larger stores by 2015: each store will contain 100 boutiques, offering brand-name fashion and home merchandise ranging from Levi's to PVH Corp's Izod to Martha Stewart.
Eight boutiques have been rolled out so far and the feedback has been good. But these chic spaces take up only a small part of a store, and about 89 percent of the floor is still the so-called "Old J.C. Penney."
That's where Fisher's new mannequins come in. The goal is to spruce up old store areas and stem the sales slide as more boutiques are introduced.
"Customers don't know what to buy. They love a mannequin that shows you how to put the outfit together," said Fisher, 55, as he gave Reuters a tour of Penney's Manhattan store last week.
"We find anything we put on a mannequin sells out."
That may sound like Retail 101 but it reflects a radical rethinking of the Penney shopping experience under CEO Ron Johnson, who joined the company from Apple Inc in late 2011. He poached Fisher from Apple in February this year.
Their strategy is to make Penney look like an upscale specialty store that still offers inexpensive wares, not a bazaar overflowing with ordinary merchandise and discount signs.
Pants, ties and shirts used to be presented in separate blocks in the men's section, but are now mingled together to make it easier for a shopper to imagine mixing and matching - and to encourage customers to buy more than one item. Plastic wrapping has been removed from men's dress shirts for a more upmarket presentation.
Another trick of the trade Fisher is using is the "ballet bar" clothing rack, which has one bar set a few inches above another - so tops and bottoms can be displayed together, again to suggest a whole outfit to the shopper.
These changes are not without risk - they could backfire and alienate Penney's traditional, discount-obsessed shopper.
"It's going to be for people who have more money," said long-time Penney shopper Elizabeth Sadallah, 52, as she hunted for bargains at a Penney store in Elmhurst, New York.
Patty Edwards, chief investment officer at Trutina Financial, warned that Penney may be overdoing the overhaul, even as she called the new boutiques "gorgeous" and "Apple-esque" in their design.
"Here's my concern: that's not their consumer," she said, adding that it was more urgent for Penney to improve its marketing to convince shoppers they are getting good deals.
Penney, which has about 1,100 stores, has stagnated for years, and was slow to recover from the last recession compared with Macy's Inc or Kohl's Corp . But analysts blame the hemorrhage in revenue this year to Johnson's move to scrap most coupons and sales events in favor of an "everyday low price" strategy.
Edwards said Penney's recent effort to highlight its relatively low prices by putting manufacturers' suggested retail price on price tags is a step in the right direction.
AIMING HIGHER
Fisher and Johnson worked together on Apple's stores, which are widely admired and generate $6,060 in annual sales per square foot, according to research from RetailSales.
While Apple's 390 stores are very different from Penney's much larger chain, there is clearly room for improvement.
Johnson has said Penney's new boutiques are generating sales at an annual rate of $269 a square foot, twice what the old parts of the stores do. Johnson also has said Penney can eventually get to numbers comparable to a specialty chain's. Last year, Gap Inc posted sales of $391 per square foot.
Fisher, who worked for Bloomingdale's for 17 years and guided Coach Inc's expansion in Japan, grew up in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and remembers a time when shopping at the local Penney was a special treat - a nicer place than the local Sears , he said.
That is the Penney he wants to help recreate, from sprucing up the kids sections to offer more than basics, to taking a page from IKEA for the home section, where products will be displayed as they would appear in a room.
Fisher said the importance of de-cluttering struck him one day when he saw a woman struggling to get to merchandise as she pushed a stroller at the Penney store in Manhattan.
"That's been my challenge, to turn 'J.C. Penney' into 'jcp' and treat it as a fashion specialty store," he said, referring to the hipper name the company is rebranding itself as.
Fisher sees signs of progress. Pointing to a young, hip shopper in red, skinny jeans, sneakers and a hoodie, he said he doubted that guy would have shopped in a Penney store before.
(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Edward Tobin, Tiffany Wu and Maureen Bavdek)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker John Boehner said White House and Republican negotiators had made no progress in talks to avert the "fiscal cliff" of sharp tax hikes and deep spending cuts that looms early in January.
"We're nowhere" Boehner, the top House Republican, said on "Fox News Sunday."
"We've put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there. ... But the White House has responded with virtually nothing," he said.
Boehner said Congress will never agree to the White House suggestion that the federal debt limit be raised without a congressional vote. "Congress is never going to give up that power. ... It is the only way to leverage the political process." he said.
(Reporting by Jackie Frank; Editing by Bill Trott)
Don't think the festivities surrounding Pong's 40th are limited to official channels. Sander Veerhof of the Netherlands is marking the occasion in his own way with an augmented reality version built as a Layar plugin. Instead of batting the ball across a TV screen, players play across whole continents: anyone who's been online recently is fair game as a fresh target, and the camera's field of view gives a sense of where opponents reside in real life. Games won't be nearly as fast-paced as you might remember from that classic system from the arcade or living room. However, they'll still be reminders that people worldwide have a soft spot for the Nolan Bushnell title that arguably started the video game industry -- and global Pong sure beats a game of global thermonuclear war.
Study provides first direct evidence linking TB infection in cattle and local badger populations
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Transmission of tuberculosis between cattle and badgers has been tracked at a local scale for the first time, using a combination of bacterial whole genome DNA sequencing and mathematical modelling. The findings highlight the potential for the use of next generation sequencing as a tool for disentangling the impact of badgers on TB outbreaks in cows at the farm level.
The role of badgers in the transmission of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) amongst cattle remains controversial, with the government's proposal to implement a widespread badger cull in England recently delayed and meeting with extensive criticism over the evidence base for this approach.
Previous studies have used lower resolution genetic typing of bacteria and information observed during an outbreak to identify links between cattle and badgers. However, until now, direct evidence of transmission of the bacteria between the two hosts at the farm scale has been lacking.
In this study, researchers made use of advances in genetic technologies to sequence whole genomes of bacteria that had been isolated from twenty six cows and four badgers from a group of neighbouring farms in Northern Ireland over a decade long history of repeated bTB outbreaks. This approach enabled the team to retrospectively trace changes in the bacteria's DNA as it passed from animal to animal.
The findings reveal that the bacteria isolated from badgers and cattle were extremely closely related, with often indistinguishable bacterial types obtained from badgers and nearby cattle farms. Moreover, the bacteria isolated from the two species were more closely related to each other than they were to farms even a few kilometers away.
"This study provides the first direct evidence of the close relationship between tuberculosis infections in cows and local badgers, at a very local scale," explains Prof. Rowland Kao, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow who led the study jointly conducted by the University of Glasgow and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Northern Ireland. "However, only with a larger study might we be able to quantify the extent and direction of transmission between cattle and badgers and reliably inform disease control policies."
The mathematical models used in this study show that different herd outbreaks were usually characterised by genetically distinct groups of bacteria, while bacteria from within single outbreaks were usually closely related, highlighting the potential to use of next generation sequencing for tracking spread of the bacteria from herd to herd.
Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an important disease of both livestock and wildlife with severe impacts on animal health and subsequent economic consequences. Although the disease in cattle is caused by a different bacteria from human disease, Mycobacterium bovis rather than Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. bovis is believed to have been a major historical contributor to human cases of TB worldwide and remains a health concern in both developed and developing countries.
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Wellcome Trust: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
Thanks to Wellcome Trust for this article.
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Public release date: 3-Dec-2012
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On December 3rd, 1992 in the little town of Newbury, Berkshire, a UK programmer sent his best mate a few lines of greeting using a unique new technique called Short Messaging Service. The programmer, Neil Papworth, was a test engineer for the Sema Group, and sent the message via PC to the phone of Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone employee. The message was "Merry Christmas." Vodafone intended the service as a fun and easy way to communicate internally.