高齢者とともに歩行する社会的支援ヒューマノイドに関する研究

筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Talking to computers

A popular belief amongst UX designers is that the more voice user interfaces (i.e. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant) speak and behave like people, the more functional they will be. But, conversational mimicry is not the only way a screenless computer can communicate information. The scope of sounds humans can interpret, manipulate, and make is broad. This project seeks to identify ways designers can mine this domain for interaction cues that promote a deeper understanding of digital content and the systems that deliver it

Artificial Intelligence: Robots, Avatars, and the Demise of the Human Mediator

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Artificial Intelligence: Robots, Avatars, and the Demise of the Human Mediator

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Artificial Intelligence: Robots, Avatars and the Demise of the Human Mediator

As technology has advanced, many have wondered whether (or simply when) artificial intelligent devices will replace the humans who perform complex, interactive, interpersonal tasks such as dispute resolution. Has science now progressed to the point that artificial intelligence devices can replace human mediators, arbitrators, dispute resolvers and problem solvers? Can humanoid robots, attractive avatars and other relational agents create the requisite level of trust and elicit the truthful, perhaps intimate or painful, disclosures often necessary to resolve a dispute or solve a problem? This article will explore these questions. Regardless of whether the reader is convinced that the demise of the human mediator or arbitrator is imminent, one cannot deny that artificial intelligence now has the capability to assume many of the responsibilities currently being performed by alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practitioners. It is fascinating (and perhaps unsettling) to realize the complexity and seriousness of tasks currently delegated to avatars and robots. This article will review some of those delegations and suggest how the artificial intelligence developed to complete those assignments may be relevant to dispute resolution and problem solving. “Relational Agents,” which can have a physical presence such as a robot, be embodied in an avatar, or have no detectable form whatsoever and exist only as software, are able to create long term socio-economic relationships with users built on trust, rapport and therapeutic goals. Relational agents are interacting with humans in circumstances that have significant consequences in the physical world. These interactions provide insights as to how robots and avatars can participate productively in dispute resolution processes. Can human mediators and arbitrators be replaced by robots and avatars that not only physically resemble humans, but also act, think, and reason like humans? And to raise a particularly interesting question, can robots, avatars and other relational agents look, move, act, think, and reason even “better” than humans

Situating documentary film in a speculative future: an exploration in multi species entanglements

This practice-based research is a formal experiment in situating documentary film in an immanent future and, by doing so, puts forward propositions on what it means to be human in an entangled multispecies world. The research consists of A Terrible Beauty, a feature length documentary, and this dissertation. The film was largely shot in Yiwu, home to one of the largest wholesale markets in the world and an important node in the New Silk Road. Set in the world of anthropomorphic goods and objects, including dolls, mannequins and androids, the film follows two timetravellers as they confront questions of time, mortality and what it means to be human in the Anthropocene. The dissertation describes the practice methodology that I developed in the course of the research and reflects on the propositions that the film offers for the future. The research poses the question of how documentary film practice may be situated in a quotidian future and what the value of such a future orientation may be. At the methodological level, I suggest that there are extremely productive overlaps between science fiction and documentary film, and the dissertation reflects on the conceptual journey and experimental routes that I took to arrive at the idea of “speculative fictioning” as a method for documentary practice. The research is in conversation with – and also contributes to – critical concepts from science and technology studies. In particular, I draw on the work of Donna Haraway and extend her insights on human-animal relationalities (“companion species”) to the world of anthropomorphic objects and develop the idea of “companion copies” as a way of rethinking human-nonhuman interactions. If to be human has always entailed being human with other species, I ask what would it mean to discover our humanity with our companion copies such as robots and androids? The research serves as an invitation to think about how an ontological regard for things may allow us to cultivate a better regard for fellow humans as well

Transformation of German IT Infrastructure Sales Ecosystems during the Course of Digitalisation

The businesses of IT infrastructure product and service manufacturers in Germany are exposed to a variety of opportunities and risks. Some of the opportunities they face emerge from the rapid pace of technological development and the resulting business potential in artificial intelligence, big data analytics, internet of things and cloud technologies. These technologies offer their customers a vast amount of opportunities to innovate their business models and design their digital transformation to compete. IT infrastructure vendors can benefit from associated investments. However, these developments also entail certain business risks for vendors, such as those arising from the availability of innovative public cloud offerings, which can replace commoditised IT infrastructure. As a result, IT Infrastructure vendors experience significant changes in customer (purchasing) behaviour, which threatens their business success. Some of these changes are of a disruptive nature and affect both the manufacturers and also their indirect sales partners in the IT infrastructure sales ecosystem. Based on a Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) research approach, this study has aimed to improve the understanding of these market dynamics and to provide a transformation framework that enables vendors and their partners to adapt to the changes. Data collection was carried out by conducting twenty-four semi-structured interviews with business professionals who reported on their long-term experiences and observations in this regard. The study analysed which relevant influencing factors have to be considered and how the affected sales ecosystems are structurally changing. As the findings of the study indicate, successful IT infrastructure sales ecosystem transformations depend on a variety of influencing factors. From a customer perspective, these factors relate to the necessity of a modified vendor sales differentiation strategy, providing added value to clients during digital business transformation. Corresponding activities build on the prior development of the skills of the vendors' sales teams. Furthermore, the study underlines the relevance of developing and expanding the sales partner landscape to provide customers with a scalable ecosystem with all digitalisation-relevant core competencies during the increasingly demanding sales process. The study also revealed an increased need to particularly take into account individual sales employee needs and concerns during transformation efforts and to promote improved procedural and organisational agility. For each of these aspects, the study presents and discusses a variety of adequate action strategies. Compared to the existing literature, the findings particularly suggest a different way of thinking during transformation that takes into account the relevance of ambidexterity, trust and empowerment of employees and partners to ensure transformation success. As a further contribution to both theory and practice the study provides the so-called “A.C.T.I.V.A.T.E.” model for managing transformational change, which integrates the identified influencing factors and provides concrete strategies to handle them. For this purpose, the framework allows the assessment of the individual maturity level of sales ecosystems and suggests concrete recommendations to develop them further. This approach enables vendors and their partners to exploit and explore both existing and new market opportunities and to mitigate transformation risks to the same extent

State of the art of audio- and video based solutions for AAL

Working Group 3. Audio- and Video-based AAL ApplicationsIt is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals (e.g., speech recordings). Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary 4 debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely (i) lifelogging and self-monitoring, (ii) remote monitoring of vital signs, (iii) emotional state recognition, (iv) food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, (v) activity and personal assistance, (vi) gesture recognition, (vii) fall detection and prevention, (viii) mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and (ix) cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed.publishedVersio

Centring Human Connections in the Education of Health Professionals

Many of today’s learning environments are dominated by technology or procedure-driven approaches that leave learners feeling alone and disconnected. The authors of Centring Human Connections in the Education of Health Professionals argue that educational processes in the health disciplines should model, integrate, and celebrate human connections because it is these connections that will foster the development of competent and caring health professionals. Centring Human Connections in the Education of Health Professionals equips educators working in clinical, classroom, and online settings with a variety of teaching strategies that facilitate essential human connections. Included is an overview of the educational theory that grounds the authors’ thinking, enabling the educators who employ the strategies included in the book to assess their fit within curriculum requirements and personal teaching philosophies and understand how and why they work.illustrato