Human-centred design methods : developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThis article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC1 project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions.Peer reviewe

Beyond The Cloud, How Should Next Generation Utility Computing Infrastructures Be Designed?

To accommodate the ever-increasing demand for Utility Computing (UC) resources, while taking into account both energy and economical issues, the current trend consists in building larger and larger data centers in a few strategic locations. Although such an approach enables to cope with the actual demand while continuing to operate UC resources through centralized software system, it is far from delivering sustainable and efficient UC infrastructures. We claim that a disruptive change in UC infrastructures is required: UC resources should be managed differently, considering locality as a primary concern. We propose to leverage any facilities available through the Internet in order to deliver widely distributed UC platforms that can better match the geographical dispersal of users as well as the unending demand. Critical to the emergence of such locality-based UC (LUC) platforms is the availability of appropriate operating mechanisms. In this paper, we advocate the implementation of a unified system driving the use of resources at an unprecedented scale by turning a complex and diverse infrastructure into a collection of abstracted computing facilities that is both easy to operate and reliable. By deploying and using such a LUC Operating System on backbones, our ultimate vision is to make possible to host/operate a large part of the Internet by its internal structure itself: A scalable and nearly infinite set of resources delivered by any computing facilities forming the Internet, starting from the larger hubs operated by ISPs, government and academic institutions to any idle resources that may be provided by end-users. Unlike previous researches on distributed operating systems, we propose to consider virtual machines (VMs) instead of processes as the basic element. System virtualization offers several capabilities that increase the flexibility of resources management, allowing to investigate novel decentralized schemes.Afin de supporter la demande croissante de calcul utilitaire (UC) tout en prenant en compte les aspects énergétique et financier, la tendance actuelle consiste à construire des centres de données (ou centrales numériques) de plus en plus grands dans un nombre limité de lieux stratégiques. Cette approche permet sans aucun doute de satisfaire la demande tout en conservant une approche centralisée de la gestion de ces ressources mais elle reste loin de pouvoir fournir des infrastructures de calcul utilitaire efficaces et durables. Après avoir indiqué pourquoi cette tendance n'est pas appropriée, nous proposons au travers de ce rapport, une proposition radicalement différente. De notre point de vue, les ressources de calcul utilitaire doivent être gérées de manière à pouvoir prendre en compte la localité des demandes dès le départ. Pour ce faire, nous proposons de tirer parti de tous les équipements disponibles sur l'Internet afin de fournir des infrastructures de calcul utilitaire qui permettront de part leur distribution de prendre en compte plus efficacement la dispersion géographique des utilisateurs et leur demande toujours croissante. Un des aspects critique pour l'émergence de telles plates-formes de calcul utilitaire ''local'' (LUC) est la disponibilité de mécanismes de gestion appropriés. Dans la deuxième partie de ce document, nous défendons la mise en oeuvre d'un système unifié gérant l'utilisation des ressources à une échelle sans précédent en transformant une infrastructure complexe et hétérogène en une collection d'équipements virtualisés qui seront à la fois plus simples à gérer et plus sûrs. En déployant un système de type LUC sur les coeurs de réseau, notre vision ultime est de rendre possible l'hébergement et la gestion de l'Internet sur sa propre infrastructure interne: un ensemble de ressources extensible et quasiment infini fourni par n'importe quel équipement constituant l'Internet, partant des gros noeud réseaux gérés par les ISPs, les gouvernements et les institutions acadèmiques jusqu'à n'importe quelle ressource inactive fournie par les utilisateurs finaux. Contrairement aux approches précédentes appliquées aux systèmes distribués, nous proposons de considérer les machines virtuelles comme la granularité élémentaire du système (à la place des processus). La virtualisation système offre plusieurs fonctionnalités qui améliorent la flexibilité de la gestion de ressources, permettant l'étude de nouveaux schémas de décentralisation

The Amazonia Third Way Initiative: The Role of Technology to Unveil the Potential of a Novel Tropical Biodiversity-Based Economy

Abstract For the last two decades, the Amazon development debate has been torn between attempts to reconcile two rather opposing views of land use: on one hand, a vision of setting aside large tracts of the Amazon forests for conservation purposes (referred hereafter to as The First Way) and, on the other hand, seeking a ‘sustainable’ resource-intensive development, mostly through agriculture/livestock, energy and mining (referred hereafter to as The Second Way). The decrease of Brazilian Amazon deforestation from 2005 to 2014 (about 75% decline) opens a window of opportunity to conceive a novel sustainable development paradigm: The Amazonia Third Way initiative (A3W). It can represent a new opportunity emerging to protect the Amazon ecosystems and the indigenous and traditional peoples who are their custodians and at the same time develop a vibrant, socially inclusive biodiversity-driven ‘green economy’ in the Amazon by harnessing Nature’s value through the physical, digital and biological technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). 4IR technologies are increasingly harnessing these assets across many industries from pharmaceutical to energy, food, cosmetics, materials and mobility, and making profits. A3W addresses ways to channel to the Amazon the benefits of the 4IR for the creation of bio-industries and local development as it protects the forests

A holonic manufacturing architecture for line-less mobile assembly systems operations planning and control

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2022.O Line-Less Mobile Assembly Systems (LMAS) é um paradigma de fabricação que visa maximizar a resposta às tendências do mercado através de configurações adaptáveis de fábrica utilizando recursos de montagem móvel. Tais sistemas podem ser caracterizados como holonic manufacturing systems (HMS), cujas chamadas holonic control architecture (HCA) são recentemente retratadas como abordagens habilitadoras da Indústria 4.0 devido a suas relações de entidades temporárias (hierárquicas e/ou heterárquicas). Embora as estruturas de referência HCA como PROSA ou ADACOR/ADACOR² tenham sido muito discutidas na literatura, nenhuma delas pode ser aplicada diretamente ao contexto LMAS. Assim, esta dissertação visa responder à pergunta \"Como uma arquitetura de produção e sistema de controle LMAS precisa ser projetada?\" apresentando os modelos de projeto de arquitetura desenvolvidos de acordo com as etapas da metodologia para desenvolvimento de sistemas holônicos multi-agentes ANEMONA. A fase de análise da ANEMONA resulta em uma especificação do caso de uso, requisitos, objetivos do sistema, simplificações e suposições. A fase de projeto resulta nos modelos de organização, interação e agentes, seguido de uma breve análise de sua cobertura comportamental. O resultado da fase de implementação é um protótipo (realizado com o Robot Operation System) que implementa os modelos ANEMONA e uma ontologia LMAS, que reutiliza elementos de ontologias de referência do domínio de manufatura. A fim de testar o protótipo, um algoritmo para geração de dados para teste baseado na complexidade dos produtos e na flexibilidade do chão de fábrica é apresentado. A validação qualitativa dos modelos HCA é baseada em como o HCA proposto atende a critérios específicos para avaliar sistemas HCA. A validação é complementada por uma análise quantitativa considerando o comportamento dos modelos implementados durante a execução normal e a execução interrompida (e.g. equipamento defeituoso) em um ambiente simulado. A validação da execução normal concentra-se no desvio de tempo entre as agendas planejadas e executadas, o que provou ser em média irrelevante dentro do caso simulado considerando a ordem de magnitude das operações típicas demandadas. Posteriormente, durante a execução do caso interrompido, o sistema é testado sob a simulação de uma falha, onde duas estratégias são aplicadas, LOCAL\_FIX e REORGANIZATION, e seu resultado é comparado para decidir qual é a opção apropriada quando o objetivo é reduzir o tempo total de execução. Finalmente, é apresentada uma análise sobre a cobertura desta dissertação culminando em diretrizes que podem ser vistas como uma resposta possível (entre muitas outras) para a questão de pesquisa apresentada. Além disso, são apresentados pontos fortes e fracos dos modelos desenvolvidos, e possíveis melhorias e idéias para futuras contribuições para a implementação de sistemas de controle holônico para LMAS.Abstract: The Line-Less Mobile Assembly Systems (LMAS) is a manufacturing paradigm aiming to maximize responsiveness to market trends (product-individualization and ever-shortening product lifecycles) by adaptive factory configurations utilizing mobile assembly resources. Such responsive systems can be characterized as holonic manufacturing systems (HMS), whose so-called holonic control architectures (HCA) are recently portrayed as Industry 4.0-enabling approaches due to their mixed-hierarchical and -heterarchical temporary entity relationships. They are particularly suitable for distributed and flexible systems as the Line-Less Mobile Assembly or Matrix-Production, as they meet reconfigurability capabilities. Though HCA reference structures as PROSA or ADACOR/ADACOR² have been heavily discussed in the literature, neither can directly be applied to the LMAS context. Methodologies such as ANEMONA provide guidelines and best practices for the development of holonic multi-agent systems. Accordingly, this dissertation aims to answer the question \"How does an LMAS production and control system architecture need to be designed?\" presenting the architecture design models developed according to the steps of the ANEMONA methodology. The ANEMONA analysis phase results in a use case specification, requirements, system goals, simplifications, and assumptions. The design phase results in an LMAS architecture design consisting of the organization, interaction, and agent models followed by a brief analysis of its behavioral coverage. The implementation phase result is an LMAS ontology, which reuses elements from the widespread manufacturing domain ontologies MAnufacturing's Semantics Ontology (MASON) and Manufacturing Resource Capability Ontology (MaRCO) enriched with essential holonic concepts. The architecture approach and ontology are implemented using the Robot Operating System (ROS) robotic framework. In order to create test data sets validation, an algorithm for test generation based on the complexity of products and the shopfloor flexibility is presented considering a maximum number of operations per work station and the maximum number of simultaneous stations. The validation phase presents a two-folded validation: qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative validation of the HCA models is based on how the proposed HCA attends specific criteria for evaluating HCA systems (e.g., modularity, integrability, diagnosability, fault tolerance, distributability, developer training requirements). The validation is complemented by a quantitative analysis considering the behavior of the implemented models during the normal execution and disrupted execution (e.g.; defective equipment) in a simulated environment (in the form of a software prototype). The normal execution validation focuses on the time drift between the planned and executed schedules, which has proved to be irrelevant within the simulated case considering the order of magnitude of the typical demanded operations. Subsequently, during the disrupted case execution, the system is tested under the simulation of a failure, where two strategies are applied, LOCAL\_FIX and REORGANIZATION, and their outcome is compared to decide which one is the appropriate option when the goal is to reduce the overall execution time. Ultimately, it is presented an analysis about the coverage of this dissertation culminating into guidelines that can be seen as one possible answer (among many others) for the presented research question. Furthermore, strong and weak points of the developed models are presented, and possible improvements and ideas for future contributions towards the implementation of holonic control systems for LMAS

Autonomía and Cultural Co-Design. Exploring the Andean minga practice as a basis for enabling design processes

The following contribution tackles autonomía by reflecting on the relationship between culture and space and, therefore, on the multiple actors involved in an urban project. This interaction and involvement are envisioned through the approach termed as ‘cultural co-design’. The work is divided into four main sections. First, the mega-minga, an initiative based on the collaboration between citizens and institutions to produce collective urban spaces in Ecuador, is introduced. This is followed by a critical analysis of the mega-minga itself through the specific case of the Comuna de Santa Clara de San Millán, located in Quito. The deficiencies and the potentials of this collaborative practice will be illustrated by contextualizing the mega-minga historically, and relating it back to an evolving customary practice based on reciprocity. The third section of the paper looks at the intrinsic characteristics of the minga practice, explores its decolonizing qualities and the opportunity it represents to re-orient mainstream client-based and for-profit urban design practices in Ecuador. The article concludes by turning once again to the case of Santa Clara de San Millán. It envisions a scenario where autonomi?a is attainable through alternatives supporting a more equitable ‘interaction’ between space, culture, citizens, and institutions.Keywords: minga, cultural co-design, autonomía, Quito

Analysis of Ongoing Transition Projects in Barcelona. An Approach to Transition Design from a Southern Perspective

This paper analyses a series of ongoing transition projects in the city of Barcelona and the region of Catalonia, using the Transition Design framework. The selected projects focus on rather structural elements of societal transition, such as work schedule, energy, housing, internet infrastructure and culture. The background of the study is a conference held in June 2017 under the title “Southern Perspectives on Transition Design” at EINA, the University of Design and Art of Barcelona (UAB). The study analyses each project using the Transition Case Study Template in order to generate reflections for each sector, coordinate their efforts and ascertain which southern perspectives – if any – emerge from local contexts.Este trabajo analiza una serie de proyectos de transición en curso en la ciudad de Barcelona y la región de Cataluña, utilizando el marco de Diseño para la Transición. Los proyectos seleccionados se centran en elementos bastante estructurales de la transición social, como el horario de trabajo, la energía, la vivienda, la infraestructura de Internet y la cultura. El fondo del estudio es una conferencia realizada en junio de 2017 bajo el título “Perspectivas del Sur en Diseño para la Transición” en EINA, la Universidad de Diseño y Arte de Barcelona (UAB). El estudio analiza cada proyecto utilizando la Plantilla de Estudio de Caso de Transición con el fin de generar reflexiones para cada sector, coordinar sus esfuerzos y determinar qué perspectivas del sur, si las hay, surgen de contextos locales.Este trabalho analisa uma série de projetos de transição que se desenvolvem na cidade de Barcelona e na região de Catalunha, utilizando o marco do Design para a Transição. Os projetos eleitos se centram em elementos estruturais da transição social, tal como o horário de trabalho, a energia, a habitação, a infraestrutura de Internet e a cultura. A base do estudo é uma palestra realizada em junho de 2017 denominada “Perspectivas do Sul em Design para a Transição” em EINA, a Universidade de Design e Arte de Barcelona (UAB). O estudo analisa cada projeto utilizando o modelo de Estudo de Caso de Transição com o propósito de gerar reflexões para cada setor, coordenar seus esforços e determinar que perspectivas do sul surgem de contextos locais

A theoretical and practical approach to a persuasive agent model for change behaviour in oral care and hygiene

There is an increased use of the persuasive agent in behaviour change interventions due to the agent‘s features of sociable, reactive, autonomy, and proactive. However, many interventions have been unsuccessful, particularly in the domain of oral care. The psychological reactance has been identified as one of the major reasons for these unsuccessful behaviour change interventions. This study proposes a formal persuasive agent model that leads to psychological reactance reduction in order to achieve an improved behaviour change intervention in oral care and hygiene. Agent-based simulation methodology is adopted for the development of the proposed model. Evaluation of the model was conducted in two phases that include verification and validation. The verification process involves simulation trace and stability analysis. On the other hand, the validation was carried out using user-centred approach by developing an agent-based application based on belief-desire-intention architecture. This study contributes an agent model which is made up of interrelated cognitive and behavioural factors. Furthermore, the simulation traces provide some insights on the interactions among the identified factors in order to comprehend their roles in behaviour change intervention. The simulation result showed that as time increases, the psychological reactance decreases towards zero. Similarly, the model validation result showed that the percentage of respondents‘ who experienced psychological reactance towards behaviour change in oral care and hygiene was reduced from 100 percent to 3 percent. The contribution made in this thesis would enable agent application and behaviour change intervention designers to make scientific reasoning and predictions. Likewise, it provides a guideline for software designers on the development of agent-based applications that may not have psychological reactance

Using social robots to encourage honest behaviours

This thesis presents a series of studies to understand if robots can promote more honest behaviours from people, when they are tempted to behave dishonestly. In Study 1 we see that a robot just presenting gaze behaviour inhibits cheating, but a robot doing small talk, does not. In Study 2 we see that participants cheated to an equal extent when doing the task in their homes alone or with a video of a robot looking at them. In Study 3 we find that including situation awareness in a robot (showing awareness of the participant behaviour), decreased cheating across the game. In Study 4 we see that priming participants for their relational self-concept does not enhance the situation awareness effect on cheating. In study 5 and 6 we explore participants perceptions, and we see that people consider it wrong to be dishonest towards a robot. However, they would feel low levels of guilt and justify it by the robots’ lack of capabilities, presence, and a human tendency for dishonesty. When prompted to evaluate what other’s/or their own attitudes would be regarding dishonesty, manipulating the caring behaviour of a robot, it shows no effect and people in general think others would be dishonest and hold themselves in a more neutral stance. Interestingly, people that show more negative attitudes towards robots tend to report that others will act more dishonestly as well as themselves. These are important considerations for the development of robots, in the future, to work alongside with humans.Esta tese apresenta uma série de estudos para perceber se os robôs podem promover comportamentos honestos nas pessoas. No Estudo 1 observa-se que um robô que apenas olha para o utilizador, inibe batota, mas um robô que apresenta algum comportamento verbal não tem o mesmo efeito. No estudo 2, vemos que os participantes fazem batota tanto sozinhos, nas suas casas, como na presença de um vídeo de um robô que simplesmente olha. No Estudo 3 incluindo no robô a capacidade de perceber as jogadas dos participantes e reagir a elas, diminui a batota ao longo do jogo. No Estudo 4 a inclusão de um priming para o auto-conceito relacional não aumenta o efeito encontrado no Estudo 3. Finalmente, no Estudo 5 e 6 exploram-se as perceções das pessoas, e verifica-se que consideram errado ser-se desonesto com um robô, mas reportando baixos níveis de culpa. Justificam a desonestidade por: falta de capacidades no robô, falta de presença e a existência de uma tendência humana para a desonestidade. Quando avaliadas as atitudes que os outros teriam ou eles próprios em ser-se desonesto, manipulando o carácter afetivo do robô, não existem efeitos e as pessoas no geral reportam que os outros serão desonestos mantendo-se a si mesmas numa posição neutra. Curiosamente, os que demonstram atitudes mais negativas face a interagirem com robôs, reportam mais desonestidade. Estas são considerações importantes para o desenvolvimento de robôs para colaborarem com humanos no futuro

Planning and Operation Framework of Smart Distributed Energy Resources in Emerging Distribution Systems

Smart grid technologies provoke a major paradigm shift in how power systems are planned and operated. The transition to a smarter system is happening gradually; however, researchers has reported that this transition is dealt with generally in a "react and provide" manner. Proper planning studies allow for this transition to be done in a predict and provide" fashion. Part of planning this transition is envisioning the future system. Technical, social, environmental, and economical challenges are foreseen and tackled in the literature; however, no generalized planning framework that addresses the overall picture of different involved parties' interests and their anticipated (and often conflicting) interactions to properly plan for a better and fair outcome has been developed. This work addresses the issue in several steps: 1) it provides a backbone framework architecture for asset sizing and allocation in the future Smart Distribution System (SDS), 2) it considers the daily optimal operation of these assets in the long-term planning problem, and 3) it considers the potential conflicts that happen on the long-term planning level and operational levels. This architecture requires the development of a framework capable of absorbing private investments, integrating new technologies, promoting smart grid applications, and yet remaining feasible to all involved parties. Strategic analysis of the involvement of each stakeholder has been conducted. Proceeding from this analysis, deductions and conclusions about venues for promoting and allowing a smoother transition to the new paradigm are drawn. In addition, this analysis highlighted potential conflicts that are showcased in two different case studies. Potential ways in which the conditions affect the planning procedure and how they can be overcome are proposed. The recommendations can be highlighted as follows: 1) promoting new smart grid technologies, 2) encouraging communications and cooperation between involved parties, 3) considering daily optimal operation of assets to fully take advantage of their new active nature to better allocate them in the long-term planning problem, and 4) consideration of stakeholders interests in the planning phase in order to better absorb investments and move to the new paradigm. To size and allocate assets in the long-term planning problem for the SDS, first a building algorithm has been developed to size and allocate DG units. This algorithm breaks the problem into two subproblems to overcome the modeling and computational challenges of the mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. The first subproblem is addressed using heuristic optimization techniques, namely a genetic algorithm, and the second involving deterministic analytical means of nonlinear optimization, utilizing the advancements made in branch-and-bound methods providing a proven global optimal solution to non-convex problems. Considering the daily optimal operation and both electric utilities' and investors' objectives, the planning problem has been developed. The results show greater private investments absorption, reduced costs to both parties, and higher system performance due to lowered energy losses. The expected increased numbers of customers opting to become resilient and have a more reliable service pose several operational and planning challenges. In this work, a novel consensus-based algorithm is introduced as an economically efficient tool for coordinating prosumers' interactions, within the feasible solution region. Several objectives are targeted in this work, among which the global economic benefit maximization of all interacting prosumers is the most salient. This economic benefit comprises the total cooperative payoff of the interacting prosumers. Each prosumer has its own private bounds defining the range of power production and consumption. A novel definition is proposed for prosumers' interaction in the hybrid microgrids. The developed scheme's importance stems from the dramatic change in the smart networks' paradigms. In addition, the individual prosumers' preferences are recognized via the comprehensive mathematical modeling for the evolved AC/DC network. The results are provided for a basic two-prosumer scenario. However, these results highlight the potential of the proposed approach in a practical system setting. More sophisticated case studies, i.e., multi-power levels, multi-prosumers, and different system topologies, could be also studied using the proposed work