Paul E. Baxter

Summer School on Social Human-Robot Interaction

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:48:00 +0000

On the off-chance that there's anyone reading this who may be interested, but who hasn't heard this elsewhere (...), then I'd like to mention a research-oriented summer school on Social Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) that will take place this coming August at Cambridge University, U.K. from the the 26th to 30th of August 2013. Organised primary under the purview of the project I am employed by (ALIZ-E), and also involving the Accompany project, the aim of the school is to provide both theoretical background and practical skills to support researchers in the area of Social HRI. In stating...

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Robotics and Legal Responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 01:40:00 +0000

With robotic devices increasingly prevalent in 'real life', and the prospect of ever more autonomous robots, there is a need for legislation to be updated to reflect the changing conditions. An article I read on Wired a few days ago reminded of an EU project that started last year: RoboLaw, which has the aim of exploring how emerging robotics technologies influence and are affected by the law (see also this, which I've just come across). This issue is brought into sharper focus in the case of something going wrong, where the question of responsibility arises. For instance, there's been a lot...

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Review of "How to Build a Bionic Man"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:47:00 +0000

This was a Channel 4 documentary on a week or two ago (I believe it's still viewable for those based in the U.K.) - I wasn't going to write a review of it at first. But then today, I noticed that there was a review of it on the IEEE Robotics and Automation blog. My first opinions of the documentary were unrelentingly poor. As a programme as a whole, I thought it was awful (the mostly inane voice-over commentary didn't help) - the thread that supposedly holds this together is the goal "...to create the worlds first bionic man, that can get off the slab and walk among us" (approx 1:10...

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The work of von Foerster: summary of a summary

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:28:00 +0000

The academic work of Heinz von Foerster was, and remains, highly influential in a number of disciplines, namely due to the pervasive implications of his distinction between first and second order cybernetics (and its antecedent ideas). Where first order cybernetics may be simply described as the study of feedback systems by observation, second-order cybernetics extends this observation of a system to incorporate the observer itself: it is reflexive in that the observation of the feedback system is itself a feedback system to be explained. While I am familiar with this...

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Uncertainty in Science

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:52:00 +0000

Just came across an interesting article on Wired: Science today. Written by Stuart Firenstein, a biological scientist and active in the public understanding of science. It's on how uncertainty and doubt are actually good things, fundamental drivers of the scientific method; and not something to be brushed under the carpet or made out to indicate complete certainty or ignorance as it frequently is by politicians and activists on all sides of a politically charge argument, or jumped on by the media (e.g. the MMR jab fiasco a few years ago) . Taking the hot topic (hehe...) of of global...

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I'm a good Scientist

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:44:00 +0000

I must be a Good Scientist, as I make lots of mistakes... [Image attribution: I honestly can't remember where I got this from]-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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Book: "Dreaming in Code"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Cover of "Dreaming in Code", by Scott Rosenberg As I mentioned previously, I have been reading a book on programming called "Dreaming in Code" (by S. Rosenberg, full ref may be found below). Seeing as I've just finished it now, I thought I would share a few brief thoughts on it. In all, I enjoyed reading it. It wasn't what I was expecting, and I read it relatively slowly, over the past month, reading a half-to-full chapter at a time. In all, whilst it is about programming, with a particular emphasis on large projects/programmes, it covers history, basic software engineering concepts, and...

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World's smallest frog discovered

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:31:00 +0000

The story on the BBC News website that the world's smallest frog has been discovered. Really? Wow! Smallest frog? Picture from the BBC News story. /rant No!! Have they taken a measurement and not bothered to look up the standard measurements of other frogs? Are they now certain that there are no more species of frog that could ever be found? Perhaps even they have discovered some theoretical reason why a frog could never possibly be smaller? Maybe I'm being overly pedantic, but surely it should be (along the lines of) "a new species of frog has been discovered, which is now the...

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CFP: AAAI'12 special track on Cognitive Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:22:00 +0000

At the 26th AAAI conference this year (in Toronto, Canada) there will be a special track on Cognitive Systems: In an attempt to return to the original goals of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, this special track invites papers in human-level intelligence, integrated intelligent systems, cognitive architectures, situated embodied cognition, and related areas that aim to explain intelligence in computational terms and reproduce a range of human cognitive abilities in computational artifacts. The track will focus on various cognitive capabilities in the context of artificial...

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MATLAB alternatives (free, of course...)

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:33:00 +0000

I don't use MATLAB very much at the moment, or even in recent years. Production of a couple of graphs perhaps, maybe a little data processing, but nothing that can't really be done using any other piece of software available to me (MS Excel, LO Calc, or a bit of my own code). I have used MATLAB extensively in the past, mostly Simulink though, for some signal processing and control stuff, so know it can be a very useful tool. However, given my current MATLAB inactivity, and that where I work doesn't have an endless supply of licenses for research (and these are fairly expensive as you may have...

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Software Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:18:00 +0000

I do not regard myself as a software engineer. Sure, I 'do' programming (usually with some C-based language if you're interested), but such programming is to implement some functionality that I want or need for some purpose - to implement a model or a data processing tool for instance - which has been for my own use. As such, there has been minimal effort put into inherent extend-ability or modalarisation of my code. I've always paid relatively good attention to code commenting and some flexibility of use (personal, that is), but that mainly stems from my inability to remember...

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CFP: AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:31:00 +0000

An upcoming event with which I have a minor involvement is the 4th incarnation of the AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, which is due to take place in Birmingham, U.K., between the 2nd and 6th of July 2012. The AISB convention is this year being held in conjunction with the International Association of Computing And Philosophy (IACAP), and will mark the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birthday. There are 16 different symposia at this convention in all, all with varying emphases on the interaction between AI/Computing and Philosophy. For those of bent in that particular...

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Me: films and robots

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:09:00 +0000

My first post in over a year, so lets start with something silly :-) I'm sure that anyone who is working, or has worked, with robots has been influenced in some way (if not inspired) by some depiction in a work of fiction - most likely film - whether they choose to admit it or not (those who don't are probably lying). I'm quite happy to admit to this - and can point to two such robotic intelligent devices. What precisely about them gave rise to this influence I don't know - and I don't really want to deconstruct it in case it turns out to be ridiculous and/or trivial - but here...

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Thesis finally published

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:14:00 +0000

I am pleased to say that my thesis has now finally been published and submitted, with my graduation ceremony next week. After that, I will have truly finished the long and arduous road that was my PhD. Since I've stayed in academia (so far at least...) I'm going to engage in a little self-promotion (what's a blog for otherwise?), and give the thesis abstract for those (very few) of you who may be interested. Foundations of a Constructivist Memory-Based approach to Cognitive Robotics: Synthesis of a Theoretical Framework and Application Case Studies Cognitive robotics are applicable to many...

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What's the point of having evidence..

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:04:00 +0000

... if it's not going to be used, or ignored because it doesn't match the current state of public opinion. Sometimes it's frankly just embarrassing... The removal of a few lines from a piece of paper (admittedly legislation) is going to remove the requirement for formal scientific advice in the determination of drug policy in the U.K. (noted though that it doesn't necessarily mean that no scientists will form part of the relevant committee - but it's surely not a good sign: these are politicians we're talking about.) I would have hoped that the change in government might have meant that...

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On Memory, from St. Augustine

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:51:00 +0000

I've been sitting on this quote for a while. I somehow came across it a few years ago (though I can no longer remember how I first found it), and used part of it as the opening quote of my thesis (in that quest to find a really old, obscure, but relevant way of opening the first chapter - I guess as a means of 'showing off' your supposed breadth of research...):"There are all things preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having enetered by its own avenue, as light, and all colors and forms of bodies, by the eyes; by the ears all sorts of sounds; all smells by the avenue of the...

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Robotic companions in the news

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:29:00 +0000

There was a minor flurry of media activity a week or so ago concerning the ALIZ-E project, just after the university put out a press release: -> "Robot Companions to Befriend Sick Kids at European Hospital" in the IEEE Spectrum magazine. -> "Cyber Sensitive: Therapeutic Buddy Bots Get Emotional" in Scientific American. -> And a bit closer to home, is "Robots developed in Plymouth to befriend sick children" on the BBC Devon News website. In a somewhat surreal event, we were also invited for a radio interview, in which our Nao robot was a speaking guest! There seems to be a common picture with...

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ALIZ-E videos and dancing robot

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0000

With my work on the ALIZ-E project, I get to play around (by play, I mean work...) with the Nao humanoid robot (it's a cute little thing). One of things I've been getting it to do recently is dance. Actually, a summer project student did most of the low-level implementation (the time consuming definition of angle joints etc), so I've just been dealing with how to use these behaviours. This video is the first and really simplistic example: The video is actually pretty poor quality, and I've somehow managed to squash the picture (my first awful attempt at a youtube video...), but it shows the...

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What is a PhD?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:24:00 +0000

I like this pictorial description of what a PhD is supposed to be. Not a perfect metaphor (the increasingly important training aspect, for U.K. institutions at least, isn't really incorporated), but it's nice nonetheless. Whilst it could be interpreted as a bit bleak, I would say it puts things into a little perspective :-) -> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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Coming to the end of a chapter

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:38:00 +0000

I had my PhD viva last week. Happily, it went quite well, and I passed, with minor corrections to complete. Looking back on the viva, it passed relatively quickly (for the four hours it lasted) considering the building anxiety I felt for the couple of weeks or so beforehand. While I've not finished the PhD yet (the aforementioned corrections), and I've been fortunate enough to find a postdoc before this final milestone, I thought this would be a good opportunity to mention a couple of things that helped me through the process. I would of course appreciate any additions or other feedback on...

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Error bars

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:12:00 +0000

Error bars are a necessary part of science reporting, but (as so eloquently described here) they are often misunderstood and frequently misused (including of course by myself). Whilst there has been much written about it (not to mention the descriptions in actual statistics books...), I came across a short paper on the use of error bars in the field of experimental biology. Eight rules are proposed to help with the use and interpretation of error bars, but they aren't specific to biology, so I thought I'd summarise them: Rule 1:When showing error bars, always describe in the figure legends...

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A slow shift to cloud computing...

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:58:00 +0000

This is my first post in a while, I realise. I can't promise that this is the start of more frequent posting, but can say that I still like the idea of blogging (in preference to all these twitter-like update methods, including facebook updates, which I see as ultimately pointless and a little annoying, except for in very limited contexts), and don't want this little blog to die completely... ...and now moving on. Cloud computing approaches and applications have been around for a while, and are becoming ever more prevalent. It's quite involved, but they are essentially those programmes that...

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Reinforcement Learning illustrated...

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:55:00 +0000

Friends always seems to be on television here, several times a day, every day of the week. Once they reach the end, the whole thing is shown again from the beginning. I was watching an episode this evening, and this little gem of a quote came up: Ross: I'm really impressed that you were able to memorize all this so quickly. Joey: I'm an actor. I can memorize anything. Last week I had to say "Frontal Temporal Zygomatic Craniotomy." Ross: Wow, what does that mean? Joey: No idea. But the guy I said it to dies in the next scene, so I guess it means, you're going to get eaten by a bear. From the...

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Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:09:00 +0000

Happy New Year to all :-) PS I didn't take the photo - I just found it...-> Combining Cognits - http://paul-baxter.blogspot.com

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A brief update - and Twittering

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Baxter) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:56:00 +0000

I've not posted on here for a while now. I'm in the process of writing up my PhD thesis now, and additional writing for this blog is beyond me at the moment. I don't, however, want this blog to die as I wish to continue using it to post notes and thoughts as I (hopefully at least...) begin a career in academia. Incidentally, I have recently given in to a certain amount of hype, and a personal recommendation, and signed up to Twitter (with the alias one_paulie). Now, at this moment in time, I don't see it being a particularly useful tool (or even a very interesting one), but there was one...

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