Search

The purpose of this research is to study how technology impacts consumer behavior within the hospitality sector with the introduction of mobile and the Internet of Things and social media. With the rapid development of technologies, the social behavior habits of consumers have significantly changed and are no longer in line with non-internet era. As digital technologies have greater integration in our everyday life, the hospitality sector, in this case restaurants, needs to be adapted respectively with deeper integration of newer technologies within its environment. 203 respondents responded to a questionnaire launched online. Another 1534 were observed to solidify the survey results. Respondents and those observed were classified into three groups – students, working professionals, and travelers. Data were analyzed by statistical program SPSS to show the mean, standard deviation, t-test, and significant values. Our study shows that current mobile applications lack the integration of significant factors found essential to consumers in the hospitality industry. The factors are the venue quality, convenience, transportation time, parking space, and whom to go with. It is vital for the hospitality industry to capture these factors and integrate the Internet of Things.

A novel design of low cost 3D printed five degree of freedom ambidextrous robotic arm is presented in this letter. Due to its ambidextrous nature, it offers much greater range of movement than human arm as shown in table 2. One of the key challenges in robotic industry is to make robot learn from the observation of human behaviours. However, due to difference in human and robot mechanisms such as range of movements and mechanical structure, a robot may not imitate human’s movement precisely. For a robot arm, task is often not completed as efficiently as human counterpart does due to discrepancy in range of movements and flexibility of joints. The aim of this research is to develop a robot arm that offers greater range of motion and perform tasks faster than human. Structure of an ambidextrous arm is designed in Solidworks software and cost estimations are assessed systematically using SimMechanics. In joints, range of motion is defined by the level of flexibility. Greater the flexibility of joints, higher the range of movements. By using absolute range of motion values in each individual joint, human arm is compared with an ambidextrous arm. Solution based on forward kinematic and inverse kinematic approach is presented and results are verified using derived equation in Matlab.

Urban rail systems are facing increasing pressure to minimise their energy consumption and hence to reduce operational costs and environmental impact, while maintain acceptable service quality. However, the nature of such problem is nonlinear; therefore optimisation model of minimizing energy consumption with maximum cruising speed and optimal coasting position as decision variables, subject to speed limit range, travel time constraints, acceleration/braking rate, and commencing braking position constraints has been proposed. This model solved constraint optimisation with standard genetic algorithm (SGA) for real life problem. The train controls and decision variables have a significant impact on the overall traction energy consumption.

This paper describes a forecasting method that is suitable for long range predictions. Forecasts are made by a calculating machine of which inputs are the actual data and the outputs are the forecasted values. Furthermore, it is the Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP) algorithm that finds the best performing machine out of huge abundance of candidates via evolutionary strategy. The algorithm can cope with non-stationary highly multivariate data series, and it can reveal hidden relationships among the input variables. Multiple experiments were devised by looking at several time series from different industries. Forecast results were analysed and compared using average Symmetric Mean Absolute Percentage Error (SMAPE) across all datasets. Overall, CGP achieved comparable to Support Vector Machine algorithm and performed better than Neural Networks. Authors would like to thank the supporter of this work: Intel Corporation.

Human hands have natural ability to perform number of tasks precisely without exact knowledge. This paper investigates the key differences in performance when conventional controllers are combined with Neural Networks (NN). All the tests are performed on our uniquely designed 3d printed multi-finger ambidextrous robot hand. The ambidextrous hand is actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) and able to bend its fingers in both ways left side and right side offering full ambidextrous functionality. The approach followed here is to use force sensors intelligently by implementing them on fingertips of the hand. In our control method, grasping trajectory of each finger combines its data with the neighboring fingers to get an accurate result. Results gathered from the tests are summarized in the table 5.

Robot hands have attracted increasing research interest in recent years due to their high demand in industry and wide scope in number of applications. Almost all researches done on the robot hands were aimed at improving mechanical design, clever grasping at different angles, lifting and sensing of different objects. In this chapter, we presented the detail classification of control systems and reviewed the related work that has been done in the past. In particular, our focus was on control algorithms implemented on pneumatic systems using PID controller, Bang-bang controller and Backstepping controller. These controllers were tested on our uniquely designed ambidextrous robotic hand structure and results were compared to find the best controller to drive such devices. The five finger ambidextrous robot hand offers total of 13 degrees of freedom (DOFs) and it can bend its fingers in both ways left and right offering full ambidextrous functionality by using only 18 pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs). Anthony Huynh, Luke Steele, Michal Simko, Luke Kavanagh and Alisdair Nimmo

This paper presents the novel mechanical design of an ambidextrous finger specifically designed for an ambidextrous anthropomorphic robotic hand actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles. The ambidextrous nature of design allows fingers to perform both left and right hand movements. The aim of our design is to reduce the number of actuators, increase the range of movements with best possible range ideally greater than a common human finger. Four prototypes are discussed in this paper; first prototype is focused on the choice of material and to consider the possible ways to reduce friction. Second prototype is designed to investigate the tendons routing configurations. Aim of third and fourth prototype is to improve the overall performance and to maximize the grasping force. Finally, a unified design (Final design) is presented in great detail. Comparison of all prototypes is done from different angles to evaluate the best design. The kinematic features of intermediate mode have been analysed to optimize both the flexibility and the robustness of the system, as well as to minimize the number of pneumatic muscles. The final design of an ambidextrous finger has developed, tested and 3D printed.

The longevity of transportation networks dates back to the age of ancient civilization, since that time the main objective has in essence remained the same: to facilitate the transportation of goods from one location to another using the most cost effective mean available. To rephrase that in modern vernacular, the management and optimization of transportation networks in meeting business objectives. While the forces driving the interpretation of most cost effective means available have changed overtime with the introduction of new technologies, global trade links and governmental policies; the general expectation of a transportation network has remained constant. These driving forces have impacted on the perception of optimality; cost is not necessarily the sole objective these days. Optimization objectives such as energy costs and their variability, time, environmental impact but to name a few have growing in importance of late. Many of the existing approaches to supply chain management take a multi-objective optimization approach, combining several (possibly competing) objectives and optimize the network. As such there is a growing trend to perform balanced optimization across a number of objectives. Transportation networks are rapidly expanding due to the globalization of business and supply chains; as such the size and complexity of transportation networks has increased considerably in the last decade. Transportation network optimization is known to be a difficult and complex problem to solve, a deterministic solution is often not applicable or indeed available for such problems and the problems themselves are therefore categorized as NP-hard problems. In response to the failure of deterministic algorithms to solve NP-hard problems, other optimization techniques have been developed and applied. The purpose of the paper is to review the current state of art in transportation network optimization. The paper is organized in five sections. In the Background section, we introduce the transportation problem, consider its theoretical aspects and implications, and perform a detailed analysis of the main contributions made in the field. In the Main Focus section, we present a critical analysis of the algorithms used, the objectives optimized and the complexity of the networks analyzed in the literature, and discuss the main problems that as yet remain to be addressed. In the Solutions and Recommendations section, we propose ideas, and possible solutions to these outstanding problems. Finally, in the Future Research Directions section, we discuss future and emerging trends.

This paper presents the mechanical design and development process of an ambidextrous robot hand driven by pneumatic muscles. The ambidextrous hand is capable of performing both right hand and left hand movements. In addition to ambidextrous movements, hand offers a range twice larger than common fingers. The mechanical design of an ambidextrous robot has been investigated in a way to reduce maximum possible number of actuators. Actuated by only 18 pneumatic muscles, the ambidextrous hand has a total of 13 degrees of freedom which permit to imitate equally a hand of each side. The ambidextrous hand is 3D printed after carefully analyzing the material, tendon routing, kinematic performance and overall design parameters. The main application areas of this project are in rehabilitation and physiotherapy after strokes and management of phantom pain for amputees by controlling the robotic prosthesis remotely via internet and social media interface. The ambidextrous feature of the robotic hand allows completing the tele-rehabilitation for both left and right hands using one robotic device.

In the development of robotic limbs, the side of members is of importance to define the shape of artificial limbs and the range of movements. It is mainly significant for biomedical applications concerning patients suffering arms or legs injuries. In this paper, the concept of an ambidextrous design for robot hands is introduced. The fingers can curl in one way or another, to imitate either a right hand or a left hand. The advantages and inconveniences of different models have been investigated to optimise the range and the maximum force applied by fingers. Besides, a remote control interface is integrated to the system, allowing both to send commands through internet and to display a video streaming of the ambidextrous hand as feedback. Therefore, a robotic prosthesis could be used for the first time in telerehabilitation. The main application areas targeted are physiotherapy after strokes or management of phantom pains for amputees by learning to control the ambidextrous hand. A client application is also accessible on Facebook social network, making the robotic limb easily reachable for the patients. Additionally the ambidextrous hand can be used for robotics research as well as artistic performances.

The VLE Strategy Working Group (VLESWG) was established in September 2009 by the Information Steering Group (ISG) for the purpose of developing a ‘vision for e-learning’ at Brunel, with particular focus on the best option for the continued provision of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Since 1992, year where Hugo de Garis has published the first paper on Evolvable Hardware (EHW), a period of intense creativity has followed. It has been actively researched, developed and applied to various problems. Different approaches have been proposed that created three main classifications: extrinsic, mixtrinsic and intrinsic EHW. Each of these solutions has a real interest. Nevertheless, although the extrinsic evolution generates some excellent results, the intrinsic systems are not so advanced. This paper suggests 3 possible solutions to implement the run-time configuration intrinsic EHW system: FPGA-based Run-Time Configuration system, JBits-based Run-Time Configuration system and Multi-board functional-level Run-Time Configuration system. The main characteristic of the proposed architectures is that they are implemented on Field Programmable Gate Array. A comparison of proposed solutions demonstrates that multi-board functional-level run-time configuration is superior in terms of scalability, flexibility and the implementation easiness., {"references":["H. de Garis. \"Evolvable Hardware: Principles and Practice\".\nCommunications of the Association for Computer Machinery (CACM\nJournal). August 1997.","X. Yao, T. Higuchi. \"Promises and challenges of evolvable hardware\"\nIEEE Trans. Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C, vol. 29, Pages. 87 -\n97, February 1999.","D. E. Goldberg. Genetic algorithm in search, optimization and machine\nlearning. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Incorporated, Reading,\nMassachusetts, 1989.","N. J. Macias. \"The PIG paradigm: the design and use of a massively\nparallel fine grained self-reconfigurable infinitely scalable architecture\".\nProceedings of the First NASA/DoD Workshop on, 19-21. pp: 175-180.\n1999.","A. Stoica, D. Keymeulen, D. Vu, R. Zebulum, I. Ferguson, T. Daud, T.\nArsian, G. Xin. \"Evolutionary recovery of electronic circuits from\nradiation induced faults\". Evolutionary Computation, 2004. CEC2004.\nCongress on, Volume: 2, 19-23. pp: 1786-1793. Vol.2. 2004.","J. Langeheine, K. Meier, J. Schemmel, M. Trefzer. \"Intrinsic evolution\nof digital-to-analog converters using a CMOS FPTA chip\". Evolvable\nHardware, 2004. Proceedings. 2004 NASA/DoD Conference on, 24-26.\npp: 18-25. 2004.","I. Kajitani, et al. \"A gate-level EHW chip: Implementing GA operations\nand reconfigurable hardware on a single LSI\". (Proc. of Second\nInternational Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to\nHardware (ICES1998)). Springer Verlag. pp. 1-12.","V. Baumgarte, F. May, A N├╝ckel, M. Vorbach, and M. Weinhardt.\n\"PACT XPP - A self-Reconfigurable Data Processing Architecture\".\nPresented at ERSA'01, Las Vegas, NV, (c) CSREA Press. 2001.","A. Thompson. \"Exploring Beyond the Scope of Human Design:\nAutomatic generation of FPGA configurations through artificial\nevolution.\" 8th Annual Advanced PLD & FPGA Conference 1998.\n[10] L. Sekanina, S. Friedl. \"On Routine Implementation of Virtual\nEvolvable Devices Using COMBO6\". In: Proc. of the 2004 NASA/DoD\nConference on Evolvable Hardware, Los Alamitos, US, ICSP. pp. 63-70,\nISBN 0-7695-2145-2. 2004.\n[11] M. Iwata, I. Kajitani, Y. Liu, N. Kajihara, T. Higuchi. \"Implementation\nof a Gate-Level Evolvable Hardware Chip.\" Evolvable Systems: From\nBiology to Hardware. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2210 (Proc. of\nICES2001). Springer Verlag. pp. 38-49. 2001.\n[12] G. Tufte, P. C. Haddow. \"Identification of functionality during\ndevelopment on a virtual Sblock FPGA\". Evolutionary Computation,\n2003. CEC '03. The 2003 Congress on. Volume: 1. pp. 8-12. Dec. 2003.\n[13] I. Rechenberg, \"Evolution Strategy\", in J. Zurada, R. Marks II, and C.\nRobinson (Eds.), Computational Intelligence: Imitating Life, 1994, pp.\n147-159.\n[14] J. Torresen, J. W. Bakke and L. Sekanina. \"Recognizing Speed Limit\nSign Numbers by Evolvable Hardware.\" In proc. of 8th International\nConference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN VIII). UK.\n2004.\n[15] Xilinx. \"Virtex-E 1.8V FPGA Complete Data Sheet\". 14/3/2003.\n[16] Xilinx. \"Spartan-II 2.5V FPGA Complete Data Sheet\". 9/3/2003.\n[17] T. Kalganova, J.F. Miller. \"Evolving more efficient digital circuits by\nallowing circuit layout evolution and multi-objective fitness\". Proc. of\nthe First NASA/DoD Workshop on Evolvable Hardware pp. 54-65.\n[18] Xilinx. \"XAPP151 - Virtex Series Configuration Architecture User\nGuide\", v1.6. 24/3/2003.\n[19] W. Huang, S. Mitra, E. J. McCluskey, \"Fast Run-Time Fault Location in\nDependable FPGA-Based Applications\", DFT 2001.\n[20] Xilinx. \"Virtex-II Platform FPGA User Guide\", v1.9. pp. 206-214.\n05/8/2004.\n[21] L. Sekanina, \"Towards Evolvable IP Cores for FPGAs\". In: Proc. of\nThe 2003 NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware, Los\nAlamitos, US, ICSP, pp. 145-154, ISBN 0-7695-1977-6. 2003.\n[22] http://unit.aist.go.jp/asrc/asrc-5/en/overview.html"]}

The evolutionary design of electronic circuits, or evolvable hardware, is a discipline that allows the user to automatically obtain the desired circuit design. The circuit configuration is under the control of evolutionary algorithms. Several researchers have used evolvable hardware to design electrical circuits. Every time that one particular algorithm is selected to carry out the evolution, it is necessary that all its parameters, such as mutation rate, population size, selection mechanisms etc. are tuned in order to achieve the best results during the evolution process. This paper investigates the abilities of evolution strategy to evolve digital logic circuits based on programmable logic array structures when different mutation rates are used. Several mutation rates (fixed and variable) are analyzed and compared with each other to outline the most appropriate choice to be used during the evolution of combinational logic circuits. The experimental results outlined in this paper are important as they could be used by every researcher who might need to use the evolutionary algorithm to design digital logic circuits., {"references":["N. Forbes. \"Evolution on a chip: evolvable hardware aims to optimize\ncircuit design\". Computing in Science & Engineering [see also IEEE\nComputational Science and Engineering]. Volume 3, Issue 3, May-June\n2001 Page(s):6 - 10.","G. W. Greenwood, \"On the practicality of using intrinsic reconfiguration\nfor fault recovery.\" IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.\nVolume 9, Issue 4. Pages: 398 - 405.","X. Yao, T. Higuchi. \"Promises and challenges of evolvable hardware\"\nIEEE Trans. Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C, vol. 29, Pages. 87 -\n97, February 1999.","J. Holland. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Ann Arbor,\nMI: University of Michigan Press, 1975.","I. Rechenberg, \"Evolution Strategy\", in J. Zurada, R. Marks II, and C.\nRobinson (Eds.), Computational Intelligence: Imitating Life, 1994, pp.\n147-159.","J. R Koza. Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by\nMeans of Natural selection. ISBN 0-262-11170-5. MIT Press, 1992.","E. Stomeo, T. Kalganova, C. Lambert. \"Generalized Disjunction\nDecomposition for Evolvable Hardware\" IEEE Trans. Systems, Man and\nCybernetics, Part B. 2006 (Accepted for publication).","Lee Altenberg \"The Evolution of Evolvability in Genetic Programming\".\nChapter 3 in Advances in Genetic Programming, ed. Kenneth Kinnear.\npp. 47-74. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1994.","M. Srinivas, L. M. Patnaik; \"Genetic algorithms: a survey\". IEEE JNL\nComputer, Volume: 27, Issue: 6, June 1994. Pages: 17 - 26.\n[10] T. Kalganova; \"Bidirectional incremental evolution in extrinsic\nevolvable hardware\". Proc. of the Second NASA/DoD Workshop on\nEvolvable Hardware. IEEE Computer Society, 13-15 July 2000.\nPages:65 - 74\n[11] J. Torresen, \"Increased complexity evolution applied to evolvable\nhardware\", ANNIE'99, November 1999, St. Louis, USA.\n[12] E. Stomeo, T. Kalganova, C. Lambert. \"Mutation Rate for Evolvable\nHardware\". International Conference on Computational Intelligence -\nICCI 2005 August 26-28, 2005. Prague, Czech Republic. Pages: 117 -\n124.\n[13] E. Stomeo, T. Kalganova, C. Lambert \"Chose the Right Mutation Rate\nfor Better Evolve Combinational Logic Circuits\". International Journal\nof Computational Intelligence (IJCI) (accepted for publication).\n[14] S. Bleuler, M. Brack, L. Thiele, E. Zitzler. \"Multiobjective genetic\nprogramming: reducing bloat using SPEA2\". Proceedings of the 2001\nCongress on Evolutionary Computation, 2001.Volume 1, 27-30 May\n2001. Page: 536 - 543.\n[15] M. Oltean. \"Solving even-parity problems using traceless genetic\nprogramming\". Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2004.\nCEC2004. Volume 2. 19-23 June 2004 Page: 1813 - 1819.\n[16] A. James Walker and Julian F. Miller, \"Evolution and Acquisition of\nModules in Cartesian Genetic Programming\", Proceedings of\nEuroGp2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 3003 / 2004.\nPages: 187 - 197. Maarten Keijzer, Una-May O-Reilly, Simon M.\nLucas, Ernesto Costa, Terence Soule (Eds.).\n[17] T. Bäck, F. Hoffmeister, and H. P. Schwefel. \"A survey of evolutionary\nstrategies\". In R. Belew and L. Booker, editors, Proceedings of the 4th\nInternational Conference on Genetic Algorithms, San Francisco, CA,\n1991. Morgan Kaufmann. Pages 2-9.\n[18] H.-P. Schwefel. Numerical Optimization of Computer Models. John\nWiley & Sons, Chichester, UK, 1981.\n[19] E. Stomeo, T. Kalganova, C. Lambert, N. Lipnitsakya, Y. Yatskevich.\n\"On Evolution of Relatively Large Combinational Logic Circuits\". The\nIEEE 2005 NASA/DoD Conference on Evolvable Hardware. June 29 -\nJuly 1, 2005, Washington DC, USA. IEEE Computer Society. Pages 59\n- 66."]}

Traditional ‘simple’ genetic algorithms are theoretically capable of solving the 3-D spatial problem represented by hydraulic and electrical harness design. However, the size of the ‘solution space’ to be searched, for even the simplest of problems can represent a computational load sufficient to limit any practical application. This research proposes a ‘key-point search’ which when used prior to the GA can successfully reduce the size of the computational task. It does this by identifying those points in the physical three dimensional space which are most likely to be useful in the final solution and producing an initial population of solutions from these points. This is shown to significantly reduce computation times to find valid solutions.

The modular inversion is a fundamental process in several cryptographic systems. It can be computed in software or hardware, but hardware computation proven to be faster and more secure. This research focused on improving an old scalable inversion hardware architecture proposed in 2004 for finite field GF(p). The architecture has been made of two parts, a computing unit and a memory unit. The memory unit is to hold all the data bits of computation whereas the computing unit performs all the arithmetic operations in word (digit) by word bases known as scalable method. The main objective of this project was to investigate the cost and benefit of modifying the memory unit to include parallel shifting, which was one of the tasks of the scalable computing unit. The study included remodeling the entire hardware architecture removing the shifter from the scalable computing part embedding it in the memory unit instead. This modification resulted in a speedup to the complete inversion process with an area increase due to the new memory shifting unit. Quantitative measurements of the speed area trade-off have been investigated. The results showed that the extra hardware to be added for this modification compared to the speedup gained, giving the user the complete picture to choose from depending on the application need. the British council in Saudi Arabia, KFUPM, Dr. Tatiana Kalganova at the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of Brunel University in Uxbridge

This paper proposes a new evolvable hardware (EHW) technique that allows one to design and optimise relatively complex PLA structures using direct evolutionary process. In order to improve the performance of the evolutionary strategy the authors proposed to introduce the dynamic mutation rate that will be variable to each gene in the chromosome. The experimental results carried out on MCNC benchmarks show that the developed technique significantly outperforms any standard evolvable hardware technique introduced earlier by a number of criteria: time required to evolve logic circuit; evolution of complex circuit using only one direct evolutionary process; guarantee of evolution of fully functional solution.

This essay proposes a new approach to risk evaluation using disease mathematical modeling. The mathematical model is an algebraic equation of the available database attributes and is used to evaluate the patient condition. If its value is greater than zero it means that the patient is ill (or in risk condition), otherwise healthy. In practice risk evaluation has been a very difficult problem mainly due its sporadic behavior (suddenly, the patient has a stroke, etc as a condition aggravation) and its database representation. The database contains, under the label of risk patient data, information of the patient condition that sometimes is in risk condition and sometimes is not, introducing errors in the algorithm training. The study was applied to Atherosclerosis database from Discovery Challenge 2003 - ECML/PKDD 2003 workshop.

Bidirectional incremental evolution (BIE) has been proposed as a technique to overcome the ”stalling” effect in evolvable hardware applications. However preliminary results show perceptible dependence of performance of BIE and quality of evaluated circuit on assembling strategy applied during reverse stage of incremental evolution. The purpose of this paper is to develop assembling strategy that will assist BIE to produce relatively optimal solution with minimal computational effort (e.g. the minimal number of generations).

Precocious diagnosis increases the survival time and patient quality of life. It is a binary classification, exhaustively studied in the literature. This paper innovates proposing the application of genetic programming to obtain a discriminate function. This function contains the disease dynamics used to classify the patients with as little false negative diagnosis as possible. If its value is greater than zero then it means that the patient is ill, otherwise healthy. A graphical representation is proposed to show the influence of each dataset attribute in the discriminate function. The experiment deals with Breast Cancer and Thrombosis & Collagen diseases diagnosis. The main conclusion is that the discriminate function is able to classify the patient using numerical clinical data, and the graphical representation displays patterns that allow understanding of the model.

Precocious diagnosis increases the survival time and patient quality of life. It is a binary classification, exhaustively studied in the literature. This paper innovates proposing the application of genetic programming to obtain a discriminate function. This function contains the disease dynamics used to classify the patients with as little false negative diagnosis as possible. If its value is greater than zero then it means that the patient is ill, otherwise healthy. A graphical representation is proposed to show the influence of each dataset attribute in the discriminate function. The experiment deals with Breast Cancer and Thrombosis & Collagen diseases diagnosis. The main conclusion is that the discriminate function is able to classify the patient using numerical clinical data, and the graphical representation displays patterns that allow understanding of the model.

Medical databases usually contain missing values due the policy of reducing stress and harm to the patient. In practice missing values has been a problem mainly due to the necessity to evaluate mathematical equations obtained by genetic programming. The solution to this problem is to use fill in methods to estimate the missing values. This paper analyses three fill in methods: (1) attribute means, (2) conditional means, and (3) random number generation. The methods are evaluated using sensitivity, specificity, and entropy to explain the exchange in knowledge of the results. The results are illustrated based on the breast cancer database. Conditional means produced the best fill in experimental results.

One of the actual problems in the evolvable hardware is the evolvability of logic circuits. In order to understand better the nature of existing problem, the probabilistic analysis can be used. This paper aims to investigate how the circuit layout evolution is carried out. This is interesting thing to do for two main reasons. Firstly, to investigate what type of genes mostly influence on the algorithm performance in evolvable hardware. Secondly, to see how effective an allocation of active logic gates might be in a digital circuit design task. In order to achieve this goal we investigate the genotypes of the best chromosomes which bring some improvements in evolutionary process. The logic circuits have been evolved using circuit layout evolution.

This paper examines the idea of a genetic or evolutionary algorithm being an inspirational or discovery engine. This is illustrated in the particular context of designing electronic circuits. We argue that by connecting pieces of logic together and testing them to see if they carry out the desired function it may be possible to discover new principles of design, and new algebraic techniques. This is illustrated in the design of binary circuits, particularly arithmetic functions, where we demonstrate that by evolving a hierarchical series of examples, it becomes possible to re-discover the well known ripple-carry principle for building adder circuits of any size. We also examine the much harder case of multiplication. We show also that extending the work into the field of multiple-valued logic, the genetic algorithm is able to produce fully working circuits that lie outside conventional algebra. In addition we look at the issue of principle extraction from evolved data.

This paper describes an original attempt to evolve aesthetic patterns by integrating the rules of colour psychology into a multi-agent evolutionary model. The system uses the principles of evolution to determine social relationships between agents. Communication plays an important role in the evolution of social behaviour. In our case the exchange of information between agents determines their behavioural characteristics. The interaction between agents and their social behaviour may be controlled and monitored using real-time image animation technique.

This paper reports first year students’ experiences with multimedia-based learning for programming and its influence on students obtained from two case studies at Napier and Brunel universities. Engineering students at the universities have taken programming courses from their first year and many have showed difficulties in their learning. The main reason is that it is a very abstract domain, which means that both lecturers and students can have difficulties in explaining and understanding abstract concepts verbally. Considering the strengths of Interactive Multimedia(IMM), i.e. interactivity and visualisation, we decided to use it to improve students’ learning. An empirical study was planned and IMM materials were designed for this. A trial and two case studies were carried out from December 2000 to June 2001. The designed materials were integrated into the curriculum as a teaching aid and self-guided learning materials. The data gathered from the case studies indicated that many students felt the multimedia-based learning helped their understanding of the programming concepts, and some became very motivated in programming. Also, using the interactive multimedia materials for both teaching and learning enhanced students’ learning experience. At last, we found educating both lecturers and students on what is multimedia-based learning prior to a course can increase its effectiveness.

Standard financial techniques neglect extreme situations and regards large market shifts as too unlikely to matter. Such approach accounts for what occurs most of the time in the market, but does not reflect the reality, as major events happen in the rest of the time and investors are ‘surprised’ by ‘unexpected’ market movements. An alternative fuzzy approach permits fluctuations well beyond the probability type of uncertainty and allows one to make fewer assumptions about the data distribution and market behaviour. Fuzzifying the present value criteria, we suggest a measure of the risk associated with each investment opportunity and estimate the project’s robustness towards market uncertainty. The procedure is applied to thirty-five UK companies traded on the London Stock Exchange and a neural network solution to the fuzzy criterion is provided to facilitate the decision-making process. Finally, we suggest a specific evolutionary algorithm to train a fuzzy neural net - the bidirectional incremental evolution will automatically identify the complexity of the problem and correspondingly adapt the parameters of the fuzzy network.

We use evolutionary search to design combinational logic circuits which is based on evolving the functionality and connectivity of a rectangular array of logic cells in addition to the layout of this array. The evolutionary process contains two main steps. Initially the genome fitness in given by the percentage of output bits, which are correct. Once 100% functional circuits have been evolved, the number of gates actually used in the circuit is taken into account in the fitness function. This allows us to evolve circuit with 100% functionality and minimise the number of active gates in circuit structure.

This poster paper summarizes ongoing dissertation research defining an evolvable hardware methodology for evolving combinational binary and multiple-valued logic circuits. This dissertation provides an overview of current evolvable hardware approaches; defines the combinational logic design problem; describes the gate and function level evolvable hardware technique; and develops a new methodology for evolving binary and multiple-valued combinational logic circuits with and without automatically defined functions. The new methodology promises significant improvements over current conventional algebraic techniques.

In this paper a gate-level evolvable hardware technique for designing multiple-valued (MV) circuits, which is easily adapted for the different types of MV gates associated with operations corresponding to different algebra types and can include other more complex logical expressions (e.g.T-gate) is proposed. The technique is based on evolving the functionality and connectivity of a rectangular array of logic cells. The evolved 3-valued 1- digit adder with carry circuit is examined as an example. The issue of choosing the optimal set of MV gates used to evolve circuit is also discussed. Prof. Vlad P. Shmerko and to prof. C. Moraga

The time complexity of the fast algorithm for generalized disjunctive decomposition of an rvalued function is studied.The considered algorithm to find the best decomposition is based on the analysis of multiple-terminal multiple-valued decision diagrams. It is shown that the time complexity for random rvalued functions depends on the such restriction as the number n1 of inputs in the first level circuit. In the case where the best partition of input variables is searched with restriction the time complexity is reduced in several times. The algorithm was simulated on a digital computer. The experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical predictions.