Sorting out the interior ministry is one of the most pressing tasks in building the Iraqi state.

ECONOMIST: Mr Maliki’s challenge | The

Their mission is to facilitate collaborative tasks such as problem solving, exception handling, consensus building, and innovative brainstorming, tasks that cannot be pre-programmed into structured processes or workflows.

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Both amateur and professional roboticists entered their creations (which curiously, were required to house a small animal -- don't ask us) in one of two obstacle courses designed to simulate either combat driving or building infiltration -- tasks which were made even more difficult due to the fact that mission specifics were not revealed prior to the event.

ENGADGET: German army hosts military bot "competition"

Earlier this year the defence secretary, Des Browne, suggested that representatives from the weapons labs of all five official nuclear powers meet to see if some of the technologies mastered for weapons building could in future be turned to verification tasks.

ECONOMIST: The new nuclear pioneers

Building and maintaining coalitions is one of the most difficult tasks of a nation at war.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Coalitions, good and bad

For starters, Luan and Zhu are tackling the world of biotech labs, building a benchtop robot that will help coordinate and automate lab tasks.

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In a developing country like Turkey, where stringent building regulations exist but are seldom applied, and where governments have more pressing tasks than the organisation of earthquake drills, a natural disaster on this scale will unfortunately almost always kill many people.

ECONOMIST: Turkey, flattened and in shock