Ghost-in-the-Machine reveals human social signals for human-robot interaction

© 2015 Loth, Jettka, Giuliani and de Ruiter. We used a new method called "Ghost-in-the-Machine" (GiM) to investigate social interactions with a robotic bartender taking orders for drinks and serving them. Using the GiM paradigm allowed us to identify how human participants recognize the intentions of customers on the basis of the output of the robotic recognizers. Specifically, we measured which recognizer modalities (e.g., speech, the distance to the bar) were relevant at different stages of the interaction. This provided insights into human social behavior necessary for the development of socially competent robots. When initiating the drink-order interaction, the most important recognizers were those based on computer vision. When drink orders were being placed, however, the most important information source was the speech recognition. Interestingly, the participants used only a subset of the available information, focussing only on a few relevant recognizers while ignoring others. This reduced the risk of acting on erroneous sensor data and enabled them to complete service interactions more swiftly than a robot using all available sensor data. We also investigated socially appropriate response strategies. In their responses, the participants preferred to use the same modality as the customer's requests, e.g., they tended to respond verbally to verbal requests. Also, they added redundancy to their responses, for instance by using echo questions. We argue that incorporating the social strategies discovered with the GiM paradigm in multimodal grammars of human-robot interactions improves the robustness and the ease-of-use of these interactions, and therefore provides a smoother user experience

Small scale enterprises in Greece and economic integration within the E.E.C.

The likely effects of Greece's membership of the European Economic Community on the rather large number of small-scale enterprises in Greek manufacturing industry has caused some considerable concern to the business community and to the governments. This thesis undertakes theoretical and empirical analysis of the 'question. The Heckscher-Ohlin model combined with Rybczynski Theorem as elaborated by H.G. Johnson would predict a shrinkange in the importance of small-scale manufacturing sector. Additional "market structure" consideration would strengthen this conclusion. The predictions of the theoretical analysis were tested by multiple regressions and the "beta coefficients" technique.The empirical evidence suggests that small-scale enterprises have successfully withstood foreign competition during the first seven years of Greece's association with E.E.G. The theoretical and empirical analysis of my study, thus, permit a certain optimism regarding the successful integration of Greek small enterprises within the European Economic Community

Small scale enterprises in Greece and economic integration within the E.E.C.

The likely effects of Greece's membership of the European Economic Community on the rather large number of small-scale enterprises in Greek manufacturing industry has caused some considerable concern to the business community and to the governments. This thesis undertakes theoretical and empirical analysis of the 'question. The Heckscher-Ohlin model combined with Rybczynski Theorem as elaborated by H.G. Johnson would predict a shrinkange in the importance of small-scale manufacturing sector. Additional "market structure" consideration would strengthen this conclusion. The predictions of the theoretical analysis were tested by multiple regressions and the "beta coefficients" technique.The empirical evidence suggests that small-scale enterprises have successfully withstood foreign competition during the first seven years of Greece's association with E.E.G. The theoretical and empirical analysis of my study, thus, permit a certain optimism regarding the successful integration of Greek small enterprises within the European Economic Community