Tuesday, April 26, 2011

UWS Engineering's Capabilities on Show

Image: Ian Stone (Advance), Yashar Ahmet (Advance), Sasha Alexander (UWS) and Mithra Fernando (UWS) viewing UWS School of Engineering exhibits.








The UWS Engineering School engaged this week with long time friends of UWS, Ian Stone and Yashar Ahmet of Advance Metal Products. Ian and Yashar discussed and planned collaborations in material testing and the possibility of supporting development of undergraduates and graduates with exciting real world projects.

Engineering academics Drs Sasha Alexander and Mithra Fernando along with Innovation & Consulting representative Dr Fiona Cameron, took the visitors on a tour of the engineering facilities and the new Engineering building "Z" at Kingswood. During the tour the visitors were shown a large hole in the ground at the testing facility which has been prepared for Engineering's new heavy duty 1000 Tonne load testing equipment which will be arriving in May and will be unique in Australia.

The tour coincided with the UWS Career's annual expo held in Engineering and facilitated by UWS Careers doyenne Freny Tayebjee. The tour group is seen here looking at some of the civil engineering exhibits prepared for the students.

For further information on accessing Engineering facilities or collaboration please contact UWS I&C on ip@uws.edu.au

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Artificial intelligence takes a virtual leap

Image: Virtual agents interacting in the virtual world of Uruk








On February 16, NBC (A US television network) aired an episode of “Final Jeopardy” featuring Watson, an IBM supercomputer. Watson took on two human champions and the machine recorded a resounding victory over its human competitors. Watson’s performance has caused scientists, academics and businesspeople to ponder what future applications and business solutions could be addressed by such artificial intelligence (AI). Because of the difficulty and lack of success so far in building physical robots, there has been a tendency towards computer simulation where virtual agents in a virtual reality world attempt to achieve intelligent behaviour.

Important research in this field is happening in 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life, where they are becoming a new popular medium for a vast variety of so-called “serious games” applications. These games tackle problems like education, commerce, tourism etc. Significant advances are being made and some people are now wondering if the rise of AI platforms like Watson and those incorporated into programs like Second Life will mean the end of the live business agent model in the contact centre and customer care industry.

UWS research being conducted by Anton Bogdanovich is at the forefront of this field, and it is hoped that his research into the ability of a virtual agent to better interact in a dynamic virtual world will lead to better and more life-like AI. Anton’s work on the virtual city called Uruk recently placed 3rd at the 2011 Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge held by the US Army Research Laboratory – Simulation & Training Technology Centre, and we congratulate him on this great success.

UWS has filed a provisional patent based on Anton’s research and we encourage companies interested in co-development or commercial applications to contact Dr. Stephan Golla on 9685 9853 or email him at s.golla@uws.edu.au