This paper deals with keeping the formation of a group of mobile robots. A set of virtual targets (points) form a virtual structure of the same shape as the desired formation. Hence, to join and to keep this formation, each robot has only to track one of these targets. The objective of the paper is to propose a cooperative strategy between the robots in order to rapidly join the virtual structu...

Central bank spending on the operation of inter-bank funds transfer systems may range from below one million to nearly a billion US dollars annually. This paper examines how such costs are incurred and recovered to pursue payment systems efficiency in different countries and under alternative policy approaches. The key findings are as follows. First, strong scale economy effects were found, wit...

In this paper, an attempt at summarizing the evolution and the state of the art in the field of robot hands is made. In such exposition, a critical evaluation of what in the author’s view are the leading ideas and emerging trends is privileged with respect to exhaustiveness of citations. The survey is focused mainly on three types of functional requirements a machine hand can be assigned in an ...

We give arguments explaining why, when adopting a minimalist approach to constructive mathematics as that formalized in our two-level minimalist foundation, the choice for a pointfree approach to topology is not just a matter of convenience or mathematical elegance, but becomes compulsory. The main reason is that in our foundation real numbers, either as Dedekind cuts or as Cauchy sequences, do...

Ubiquitous interaction places the user in the centre of dynamic configurations of technology, where work not necessarily is performed through a single personal computer, but supported by a multiplicity of technologies and physical devices. This paper presents an activity-theoretically based framework for analyzing ubiquitous substitution, i.e. a set of mediators that are or can be continuously ...

The tracking of individual cells in time-lapse microscopy facilitates the assessment of certain characteristics of different cell types. Since manual tracking of an adequate number of cells over a considerable number of frames is tedious and sometimes not feasible, there is a vital interest in automated methods. We present a rather minimalistic approach for the tracking of unstained cells in ce...

This paper proposes and explores an approach to express emotions which intends to minimize the user’s expectations. The approach uses a flock of virtual beings where each virtual being is represented as a simple smiley. Emotions are represented in terms of the arousal and the valence dimensions and they are visually expressed in a simple way through the behaviour and appearance of the individua...

Derivations in the minimalist programm (MP) frequently encounter competition between elementary operations. A way in MP to resolve such competitions is to assume preference principles, the most prominent being “Merge before Move” (Chomsky 2000). Assmann, Georgi et al. (2013) discuss competition between Agree and Move. ere, either Agree must be procrastinated in favor of Move or the other way ro...