University of Central Florida

About: University of Central Florida is a education organization based out in Orlando, Florida, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Laser & Population. The organization has 18822 authors who have published 48679 publications receiving 1234422 citations. The organization is also known as: UCF.

Evolving a diversity of virtual creatures through novelty search and local competition

Abstract: An ambitious challenge in artificial life is to craft an evolutionary process that discovers a wide diversity of well-adapted virtual creatures within a single run. Unlike in nature, evolving creatures in virtual worlds tend to converge to a single morphology because selection therein greedily rewards the morphology that is easiest to exploit. However, novelty search, a technique that explicitly rewards diverging, can potentially mitigate such convergence. Thus in this paper an existing creature evolution platform is extended with multi-objective search that balances drives for both novelty and performance. However, there are different ways to combine performance-driven search and novelty search. The suggested approach is to provide evolution with both a novelty objective that encourages diverse morphologies and a local competition objective that rewards individuals outperforming those most similar in morphology. The results in an experiment evolving locomoting virtual creatures show that novelty search with local competition discovers more functional morphological diversity within a single run than models with global competition, which are more predisposed to converge. The conclusions are that novelty search with local competition may complement recent advances in evolving virtual creatures and may in general be a principled approach to combining novelty search with pressure to achieve.

Review: power and information technology research: a metatriangulation review

Abstract: This study uses a metatriangulation approach to explore the relationships between power and information technology impacts, development or deployment, and management or use in a sample of 82 articles from 12 management and MIS journals published between 1980 and 1999. We explore the multiple paradigms underlying this research by applying two sets of lenses to examine the major findings from our sample. The technological imperative, organizational imperative, and emergent perspectives (Markus and Robey 1988) are used as one set of lenses to better understand researchers' views regarding the causal structure between IT and organizational power. A second set of lenses, which includes the rational, pluralist, interpretive, and radical perspectives (Bradshaw-Camball and Murray 1991), is used to focus on researchers' views of the role of power and different IT outcomes. We apply each lens separately to describe patterns emerging from the previous power and IT studies. In addition, we discuss the similarities and differences that occur when the two sets of lenses are simultaneously applied. We draw from this discussion to develop metaconjectures, (i.e., propositions that can be interpreted from multiple perspectives), and to suggest guidelines for studying power in future research.

Floor Fields for Tracking in High Density Crowd Scenes

Abstract: This paper presents an algorithm for tracking individual targets in high density crowd scenes containing hundreds of people. Tracking in such a scene is extremely challenging due to the small number of pixels on the target, appearance ambiguity resulting from the dense packing, and severe inter-object occlusions. The novel tracking algorithm, which is outlined in this paper, will overcome these challenges using a scene structure based force model. In this force model an individual, when moving in a particular scene, is subjected to global and local forces that are functions of the layout of that scene and the locomotive behavior of other individuals in the scene. The key ingredients of the force model are three floor fields, which are inspired by the research in the field of evacuation dynamics, namely Static Floor Field (SFF), Dynamic Floor Field (DFF), and Boundary Floor Field (BFF). These fields determine the probability of move from one location to another by converting the long-range forces into local ones. The SFF specifies regions of the scene which are attractive in nature (e.g. an exit location). The DFF specifies the immediate behavior of the crowd in the vicinity of the individual being tracked. The BFF specifies influences exhibited by the barriers in the scene (e.g. walls, no-go areas). By combining cues from all three fields with the available appearance information, we track individual targets in high density crowds.

Virtual spaces and real world places: transfer of route knowledge

Abstract: It has been widely suggested, but rarely demonstrated, that virtual environments (VEs) are effective training media. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate how well a VE model of a complex office building trained individuals to navigate in the actual building. Sixty participants studied route directions and landmark photographs, then rehearsed the route using either the VE model, the actual building, or verbal directions and photographs. The VE model was presented in real time via a head-tracked display. Half of the participants in each rehearsal group also studied route maps. Everyone's route knowledge was then measured in the actual building. Building configuration knowledge was also measured. VE rehearsal produced more route knowledge than verbal rehearsal, but less than with rehearsal in the actual building. Type of rehearsal had no effect on configuration knowledge. Map study influenced neither route nor configuration knowledge. These results suggest that VEs that adequately represent real world complexity can be effective training media for learning complex routes in buildings, and should be considered whenever the real world site is unavailable for training.