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.The perception architecture allows robots to form, learn and remember navigation strategies without human intervention.SPARK-based robots are fitted with sophisticated tactile, aural and visual sensors, and programmed with basic reactions towards certain stimuli - for example, robots are directed to move themselves towards a specific sound source.However, the reflexive action is regulated by the robot, so that it can move efficiently through a changing environment, towards the sound source, without trapping itself.The ability of the robot to modulate its behavior allows it to learn from experience, and improvise.46Library of Congress – Federal Research Division IED Booklet 25“The SPARC architecture is a starting step toward emulating the essential perception-action architecture of living beings, where some basic behaviors are inherited, like escaping or feeding, while others are incrementally learned, leading to the emergence of higher cognitive abilities,”notes Paolo Arena, the project coordinator.“The robot will initially behave by using primarily the basic inherited behaviors,” says Arena.“Higher knowledge will be incrementally formed in the higher layer of the architecture, which is a neuron lattice based on the Reaction-Diffusion Cellular Non-linear Network (RD-CNN) paradigm, able to generate self-organizing dynamic patterns.”The potential applications for robots that can efficiently navigate through changing, dangerous environments are huge.If robots were programmed to reflexively move toward the aural stimulus of the human voice, and given the cognitive ability to seek a safe pathway through a changing environment, they could be of great use in search and rescue operations in dangerous or inaccessible environments.In order to develop the SPARC system, the SPARK research team investigated how visual, aural, and tactile senses create a spatial-temporal simplified dynamic representation of the environment.They then used this understanding of perception to create a pattern formation system, in which the “pattern” is the collected sensory data.This framework was then applied to robotic models, which underwent environmental tests.Research into insect brain neurobiology is continuing with the SPARK II project, which aims to refine, assess, and generalize the SPARKarchitecture.http://www.gizmag.com/spark-programs-robots-with-insect-perception/9311/gallery/47Library of Congress – Federal Research Division IED Booklet 25Strategy of Somalia’s Islamists SurvivesDeath of Militant Leader05/06/2008 - By Sunguta West (from Terrorism Focus, May 6) - Anti-terrorism officials in the Horn of Africa areon high alert following the killing of Shaykh Aden HashiAyro, the military leader of al-Shabaab, the youth wing ofthe Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Somalia, in a May 1strike by U.S.ship-launched Tomahawk missiles( SomaliNet, May 2; Daily Nation [Nairobi], May 2).Shaykh Ayro, trained in terrorist and insurgency methods inAfghanistan and believed to have been in his 30s, was killed in a house together with another five insurgents in the small central Somalia town of Dusamareb, 250 miles north of Mogadishu ( al-Jazeera, May 2).Those killed included Ayro’s brother, another commander, Muhiyadin Muhammad Umar, and several other insurgents.At least a dozen civilians in neighboring houses were also killed by the missiles.Soon after the attack, Shaykh Muqtar Robow Adumansur, the group’s spokesman, vowed the group would retaliate, setting off an alert in the Horn of Africa: “This does not deter us from continuing our holy war against Allah’s enemy; we will be on the right way; that is why we are targeted” ( The Standard [Nairobi], May 2).Thousands of people took to the streets of Dusamareb on May 4 to protest the attack ( AFP, May 4).Anti-terrorism officials fear the insurgents in Somalia—who are alleged by the United States to have close links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network—could be planning to stage revenge attacks on American interests, especially in Kenya.In mid-April, two Kenyans and two British nationals were killed when the Islamists carried out overnight attacks in a school in central Somalia ( Sunday Nation [Nairobi], May 4).The United States classifies al-Shabaab as a terrorist organization.Several months before the killing of Shaykh Ayro, its fighters intensified their daily attacks on Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is backed by Ethiopian army soldiers.These attacks yielded the control of substantial territories in central and southern Somalia.There is a similarity in al-Shabaab’s tactics of hit and run raids on TFG-held towns with those of Iraq’s militants.The fighters have been attacking soldiers and policemen, and in some instances have set free prisoners in the town they have captured.The fighters have also been planting roadside bombs, hurling grenades and carrying out assassinations at targeted persons
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