Intelligent configuration of social support networks around depressed persons

Helping someone who is depressed can be very important to the depressed person.A number of supportive family members or friends can often make a big difference.This paper addresses how a social support network can be formed, taking the needs of the support recipient and the possibilities of the potential support providers into account.To do so, dynamic models about the preferences and needs of both support providers and support recipients are exploited. The outcome of this is used as input for a configuration process of a support network. In a case study, it is show how such an intelligently formed network results in a reduced long term stress level

Designing a BDI agent model for behavioural change process

Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model is well suited for describing agent’s mental state.The BDI of an agent represents its motivational stance and are the main determinant of agent’s actions. Therefore, explicit understanding of the representation and modelling of such motivational stance plays a central role in designing BDI agent with successful behavioural change interventions.Nevertheless, existing BDI agent models do not represent agent’s behavioural factors explicitly.This leads to a gap between design and implementation where psychological reactance has being identified as the cause of BDI agent behavioural change interventions failure. Hence, this paper presents a generic representation of BDI agent model based on behavioural change and psychological theories.The objective of this proposed BDI agent model is to bridge the gap between agent design and implementation for successful agent-based interventions.The model will be realized in an agent-based application that motivates children towards oral hygiene

Agent support model for behaviour change intervention

Agent applications have been widely used in decision making process and behaviour change interventions nowadays which might be due to the four unique features of agent proactiveness, reactivity, social ability and autonomy.However, psychological reactance has been identified as a limiting cause of agent interventions. Although, many studies have investigated into both psychological reactance and behaviour change nevertheless the mechanism behind factors interaction that generate reactance during behaviour change interventions (BCI) have not be well studied. Also, how reactive intervention can be supported to obtain an improved behaviour change intervention is still lacking in most previous studies. Therefore, this paper explored dynamic system in differential equation analysis to obtained an agent support model for behaviour change intervention which explicitly describes factors interaction leading to reactance and behaviour change. The model depicts how reactive intervention can be supported to obtain an improved behaviour change intervention. Specifically, this model is tailored to computer or software mediated intervention like agent, avatar, and animation. This paper will aid and guide agent intervention designers to fully comprehend the mechanism behind factors that enhance successful and efficient intervention for their design

The Romantic Corporation: Trademark, Trust, and Tyranny

Humans in the United States, and many other market-centric nations, live in a world extensively populated by friendly, helpful, honest, charitable, patriotic beings worthy of our respect and support — none of whom exist. Yet these fellow-beings speak to us humans so often that they must be part of our ingrained perception of the world. Who are they? They are the marketing personas created by totally self-interested businesses. They harm humans not only by misdirection in specific instances, but by providing cover for our government\u27s improper prioritization of corporate interests over human interests. This systemic distortion of public perception is one aspect of the ongoing war between those who prioritize property and those who prioritize humans. In trade identity law, the romantic corporation is embodied in Judge Learned Hand\u27s classic statement that a reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator and another can use it only as a mask. Hand did not acknowledge that business entities with merely juristic personhood do not have faces; they only have masks. This article opens by interrogating Hand\u27s famous statement. Second, it places in historical perspective the big lie, used by corporate advocates to blind voters, that the welfare of large corporations is central to the United States\u27 national interest. Third, this article provides analytical and empirical support for the nonpersonhood of business entities and the mask-quality of their indicia of trade identity. Fourth, this article discusses and illustrates several ways businesses use their masks to manipulate the human public. Finally, the article explains the difficulty of using law to limit such manipulative tactics. [F]or a reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator and another can use it only as a mask. \u27 A final truth that needs to be emphasized — the most basic of all — is that corporations are not people... When companies are invested with anthropomorphic qualities... the public is misled into thinking companies resemble people

The Romantic Corporation: Trademark, Trust, and Tyranny

Humans in the United States, and many other market-centric nations, live in a world extensively populated by friendly, helpful, honest, charitable, patriotic beings worthy of our respect and support — none of whom exist. Yet these fellow-beings speak to us humans so often that they must be part of our ingrained perception of the world. Who are they? They are the marketing personas created by totally self-interested businesses. They harm humans not only by misdirection in specific instances, but by providing cover for our government\u27s improper prioritization of corporate interests over human interests. This systemic distortion of public perception is one aspect of the ongoing war between those who prioritize property and those who prioritize humans. In trade identity law, the romantic corporation is embodied in Judge Learned Hand\u27s classic statement that a reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator and another can use it only as a mask. Hand did not acknowledge that business entities with merely juristic personhood do not have faces; they only have masks. This article opens by interrogating Hand\u27s famous statement. Second, it places in historical perspective the big lie, used by corporate advocates to blind voters, that the welfare of large corporations is central to the United States\u27 national interest. Third, this article provides analytical and empirical support for the nonpersonhood of business entities and the mask-quality of their indicia of trade identity. Fourth, this article discusses and illustrates several ways businesses use their masks to manipulate the human public. Finally, the article explains the difficulty of using law to limit such manipulative tactics. [F]or a reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator and another can use it only as a mask. \u27 A final truth that needs to be emphasized — the most basic of all — is that corporations are not people... When companies are invested with anthropomorphic qualities... the public is misled into thinking companies resemble people

Abstracts 2013: Highlights of Student Research and Creative Endeavors

https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/abstracts/1005/thumbnail.jp

Expressive social exchange between humans and robots

Thesis (Sc.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-264).Sociable humanoid robots are natural and intuitive for people to communicate with and to teach. We present recent advances in building an autonomous humanoid robot, Kismet, that can engage humans in expressive social interaction. We outline a set of design issues and a framework that we have found to be of particular importance for sociable robots. Having a human-in-the-loop places significant social constraints on how the robot aesthetically appears, how its sensors are configured, its quality of movement, and its behavior. Inspired by infant social development, psychology, ethology, and evolutionary perspectives, this work integrates theories and concepts from these diverse viewpoints to enable Kismet to enter into natural and intuitive social interaction with a human caregiver, reminiscent of parent-infant exchanges. Kismet perceives a variety of natural social cues from visual and auditory channels, and delivers social signals to people through gaze direction, facial expression, body posture, and vocalizations. We present the implementation of Kismet's social competencies and evaluate each with respect to: 1) the ability of naive subjects to read and interpret the robot's social cues, 2) the robot's ability to perceive and appropriately respond to naturally offered social cues, 3) the robot's ability to elicit interaction scenarios that afford rich learning potential, and 4) how this produces a rich, flexible, dynamic interaction that is physical, affective, and social. Numerous studies with naive human subjects are described that provide the data upon which we base our evaluations.by Cynthia L. Breazeal.Sc.D

Relational provisions from pets in the context of the family : implications for perceived social support and human health

This thesis examines how the psychology of human relationships can be applied to the phenomenon of pet ownership. Current views on the origins of pet ownership and reasons for its popularity, and the application of concepts from the psychology of human-human relationships to human-pet relationships are reviewed. The most popular model, attachment theory, is critically evaluated and examined empirically in a preliminary study. Attachment seems not to provide a satisfactory model. A functional approach, investigating what human-pet relationships do rather than what relationships they resemble, was pursued in the remainder of the thesis. Individuals in a pet-owning family may all interact with the pet in quite different ways, yet are often all labelled equally as pet owners. Investigation of human-pet relationships in the family context facilitated an analysis of characteristics of owning a pet, such as exclusivity. Differences among human-pet relationships were examined according to family role of the owner, and pet species. Pets are frequently regarded as members of their owners' social network, and as a source of relational provisions at levels which are in some cases comparable to those from human relationships. For some pet owners, support from pets may have a buffering effect against stressful life events, and protect owners against adverse psychological symptoms. Important differences were found between species. Dogs provide higher levels of provisions than cats, and cats are rated more highly than other pet species. There is therefore a need for caution against generalising from one species to pets in general. The social provisions approach is shown to be productive, but it is not the only model from human social relationships that might be used, and alternative or complementary models should also be explored