An Account of Intensional and Extensional Actions, and its Application to Belief, Nondeterministic Actions and Fallible Sensors

In general, an agent may have incomplete and inaccurate knowledge about its environment. As well, actions may not turn out as intended or may have nondeterministic effects, and sensors may on occasion give incorrect results. We present a general, qualitative approach to reasoning about action and change in such a setting. The approach is expressed as an extension to basic action theories in the situation calculus, where an agent's epistemic state is modelled by a set of situations, where each situation is assigned a non-negative integer representing its plausibility. The agent's epistemic state is updated by modifying these plausibility values after the execution of an action, taking into account the possibility of unexpected results. To this end, we consider actions to have an intensional aspect, under the control of and determined by the agent, and an extensional aspect, not directly accessible to the agent and controlled by "nature". This leads to two distinct but related related notions of belief, an extensional "bird's eye" view which models an agent's beliefs wrt actually-executed actions, and an intensional view representing beliefs from the agent's point of view. We argue that the approach is significantly more general and comprehensive than previous accounts, and leads to a unified view of failed actions and nondeterminism with respect to physical and sensing actions.

A Uniform Abstraction Framework for Generalized Planning

Generalized planning aims at finding a general solution for a set of similar planning problems. Abstractions are widely used to solve such problems. However, the connections among these abstraction works remain vague. Thus, to facilitate a deep understanding and further exploration of abstraction approaches for generalized planning, it is important to develop a uniform abstraction framework for generalized planning. Recently, Banihashemi et al. proposed an agent abstraction framework based on the situation calculus. However, expressiveness of such an abstraction framework is limited. In this paper, by extending their abstraction framework, we propose a uniform abstraction framework for generalized planning. We formalize a generalized planning problem as a triple of a basic action theory, a trajectory constraint, and a goal. Then we define the concepts of sound abstractions of a generalized planning problem. We show that solutions to a generalized planning problem are nicely related to those of its sound abstractions. We also define and analyze the dual notion of complete abstractions. Finally, we review some important abstraction works for generalized planning and show that they can be formalized in our framework.

Embodiment and Its Influence on Informational Costs of Decision Density—Atomic Actions vs. Scripted Sequences

The importance of embodiment for effective robot performance has been postulated for a long time. Despite this, only relatively recently concrete quantitative models were put forward to characterize the advantages provided by a well-chosen embodiment. We here use one of these models, based on the concept of relevant information, to identify in a minimalistic scenario how and when embodiment affects the decision density. Concretely, we study how embodiment affects information costs when, instead of atomic actions, scripts are introduced, that is, predefined action sequences. Their inclusion can be treated as a straightforward extension of the basic action space. We will demonstrate the effect on informational decision cost of utilizing scripts vs. basic actions using a simple navigation task. Importantly, we will also employ a world with “mislabeled” actions, which we will call a “twisted” world. This is a model which had been used in an earlier study of the influence of embodiment on decision costs. It will turn out that twisted scenarios, as opposed to well-labeled (“embodied”) ones, are significantly more costly in terms of relevant information. This cost is further worsened when the agent is forced to lower the decision density by employing scripts (once a script is triggered, no decisions are taken until the script has run to its end). This adds to our understanding why well-embodied (interpreted in our model as well-labeled) agents should be preferable, in a quantifiable, objective sense.

Auxiliary law enforcement actions of the creditor in obligations

We analyze some of the creditor’s law enforcement actions in obligations, which in the theory of civil law have become accepted to be called creditor obligations. We dispute the thesis that it is possible to classify as obligations those actions that help in the implementation of creditor’s subjective right and are part of the mechanism for its implementation. We provide an analysis of a number of creditor’s necessary actions, which act auxiliary to the basic action to implement the subjective right in obligation. We propose to abandon the concept of “obligation” in relation to those creditorial en-forcement actions, the failure of which entails sanctions that are not related to liability measures. We establish that in the obligation within the framework of mutual subjective rights and obligations, there are creditor actions that do not contain leading economic significance, but have an auxiliary nature, ensure the fulfillment of the main economic obligations arising in the basic commodity-money relationship. The creditor’s law enforcement actions include not only the acceptance of performance, but also other organizational actions of an actual nature, which, ultimately, are aimed at fulfilling the obligation by both parties. The non-fulfillment of the creditor's law enforcement actions does not entail direct responsibility for their non-fulfillment, only indirect possibilities of influencing the counterparty are established. The indirect means of influencing the creditor include the delay in fulfilling the obligation as a measure of operational impact.

A VIKOR AND TOPSIS FOCUSED REANALYSIS OF THE MADM METHODS BASED ON LOGARITHMIC NORMALIZATION

Decision and policy-makers in multi-criteria decision-making analysis take into account some strategies in order to analyze outcomes and to finally make an effective and more precise decision. Among those strategies, the modification of the normalization process in the multiple-criteria decision-making algorithm is still a question due to the confrontation of many normalization tools. Normalization is the basic action in defining and solving a MADM problem and a MADM model. Normalization is the first, also necessary, step in solving, i.e. the application of a MADM method. It is a fact that the selection of normalization methods has a direct effect on the results. One of the latest normalization methods introduced is the Logarithmic Normalization (LN) method. This new method has a distinguished advantage, reflecting in that a sum of the normalized values of criteria always equals 1. This normalization method had never been applied in any MADM methods before. This research study is focused on the analysis of the classical MADM methods based on logarithmic normalization. VIKOR and TOPSIS, as the two famous MADM methods, were selected for this reanalysis research study. Two numerical examples were checked in both methods, based on both the classical and the novel ways based on the LN. The results indicate that there are differences between the two approaches. Eventually, a sensitivity analysis is also designed to illustrate the reliability of the final results.

A Corpus-Based Investigation of Manner/State Complement Constructions in Mandarin Chinese

This study is an investigation of the complement constructions of manner and state (CM/S, e.g. ta de zi xie de hao‘s/he writes character well’) based on a corpus of written Chinese. We find that CM/S have preferred forms and functions. Formally speaking, a monosyllabic verb, preferably bian ‘change, become’, basic action verbs, or psychological state verbs tend to co-occur with complements of adjectival, clausal, or idiomatic expressions. CM/S are argued to be an assessment device indexing speaker evaluative stances. The loaded affective meanings, we contend, account for the larger and more complex forms than their standard assessment counterparts. The implications of these findings on Chinese syntactic research and on L2 learning are explored.

Actions and Abstractions

The philosophical analysis of action often leads to abstractions. I argue that we can avoid some of these abstractions by keeping in mind that actions are defined and individuated by their circumstances; they are always situated or contextual. I argue that the most appropriate way to think of actions and circumstances is to think of them as ordered according to the action’s highest realized affordance within an agentive situation. The concepts of affordance and agentive situation are both relational; they reference both the agent (including the agent’s intention) and the action environment (which is social and cultural). The concept of basic action can also lead to abstractions. To avoid an abstract snapshot analysis of action we need to think of action as a process, as something temporal and more dynamic.

Introduction

I outline the motivation for thinking about the connections between action and interaction. I then provide a preview of the remaining chapters. The first part of this book focuses on the nature of action, starting with questions about action individuation, context, the notion of “basic action,” and the temporal structure of action. These topics lead to questions about intention and the sense of agency and ultimately to the idea that we need to consider action in the social contexts of interaction. The second part looks at the role of interaction in discussions of social cognition, building a contrast between standard theory of mind, and embodied and enactive accounts. In the third part I explore possible implications of these considerations for some critical social-political questions concerning autonomy, recognition, justice, and the effects of norms and social institutions on our actions and interactions.

Action and Interaction

Action and Interaction is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the nature of action, starting with questions about action individuation, context, the notion of ?basic action? and the temporal structure of action. The importance of circumstance for understanding action is stressed. These topics lead to questions about intention and the sense of agency and ultimately to the idea that we need to consider action in the social contexts of interaction. The second part looks at the role of interaction in discussions of social cognition, building a contrast between standard theory- of-mind approaches and embodied/enactive accounts. Gallagher defends an enactive-interactionist account drawing on evidence from both phenomenology and empirical studies of development, ecological psychology, and studies of communicative and narrative practices, especially in more complex social practices. The third part transitions from considerations that focus on social-cognitive issues to understanding their implications for concepts that are basic to the development of a critical theory that addresses social and political issues, especially with respect to basic concepts of autonomy, recognition and justice, and the effects of norms and social institutions on our actions and interactions