Pay Them No Mind: the Influence of Implicit and Explicit Robot Mind Perception on the Right to be Protected

Mind perception is a fundamental part of anthropomorphism and has recently been suggested to be a dual process. The current research studied the influence of implicit and explicit mind perception on a robot’s right to be protected from abuse, both in terms of participants condemning abuse that befell the robot as well as in terms of participants’ tendency to humiliate the robot themselves. Results indicated that acceptability of robot abuse can be manipulated through explicit mind perception, yet are inconclusive about the influence of implicit mind perception. Interestingly, explicit attribution of mind to the robot did not make people less likely to mistreat the robot. This suggests that the relationship between a robot’s perceived mind and right to protection is far from straightforward, and has implications for researchers and engineers who want to tackle the issue of robot abuse

Modulating Myeloid Immune Cell Migration Using Multivalently Presented Monosaccharide Ligands for Advanced Immunotherapy

Due to their importance for the outcome of the inflammatory response, the motile myeloid cells are a focus of novel treatment options. The interplay of selectins and their ligands with leukocytes and endothelial cells, which mediate endothelial attachment and transmigration of immune cells, can be modulated by selectin‐binding structures. Here, a library of selectin‐targeting ligands coupled to either gold, silver, iron oxide nanospheres, or quantum dots of 5–10 nm in size is used to systematically study their impact on immune cell motility. The multivalent presentation of the carbohydrate mimetics results in very low sub‐nanomolar binding to L ‐selectin. Using human primary monocytes, granulocytes, lymphocytes, and macrophages, it is shown that the ligands exhibit only minor effects on uptake, whereas the motility of leukocytes is critically affected as observed in migration assays evaluated by flow cytometry. The carbohydrate mimetic ring structure, sulfation, in particular, and the degree of ligand presentation, are constituents which cohere in this process. Specific carbohydrate ligands can thus selectively regulate leukocyte subsets. These data form the basis for advanced immunotherapy which inhibits the amplification of inflammation by restricting leukocyte influx to injured tissue sites. Furthermore, the targeting ligands may complement existing treatment options for inflammatory diseases

One-Step Fabrication of Biocompatible Multifaceted Nanocomposite Gels and Nanolayers

Nanocomposite gels are a fascinating class of polymeric materials with an integrative assembly of organic molecules and organic/inorganic nanoparticles, offering a unique hybrid network with synergistic properties. The mechanical properties of such networks are similar to those of natural tissues, which make them ideal biomaterial candidates for tissue engineering applications. Existing nanocomposite gel systems, however, lack many desirable gel properties, and their suitability for surface coatings is often limited. To address this issue, this article aims at generating multifunctional nanocomposite gels that are injectable with an appropriate time window, functional with bicyclononynes (BCN), biocompatible and slowly degradable, and possess high mechanical strength. Further, the in situ network-forming property of the proposed system allows the fabrication of ultrathin nanocomposite coatings in the submicrometer range with tunable wettability and roughness. Multifunctional nanocomposite gels were fabricated under cytocompatible conditions (pH 7.4 and T = 37 °C) using laponite clays, isocyanate (NCO)-terminated sP(EO-stat-PO) macromers, and clickable BCN. Several characterization techniques were employed to elucidate the structure-property relationships of the gels. Even though the NCO-sP(EO-stat-PO) macromers could form a hydrogel network in situ on contact with water, the incorporation of laponite led to significant improvement of the mechanical properties. BCN motifs with carbamate links were used for a metal-free click ligation with azide-functional molecules, and the subsequent gradual release of the tethered molecules through the hydrolysis of carbamate bonds was shown. The biocompatibility of the hydrogels was examined through murine macrophages, showing that the material composition strongly affects cell behavior. © 2016 American Chemical Society

The end of the beginning: a reflection on the first five years of the HRI conference

This study presents a historical overview of the International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI). It summarizes its growth, internationalization and collaboration. Rankings for countries, organizations and authors are provided. Furthermore, an analysis of the military funding for HRI papers is performed. Approximately 20% of the papers are funded by the US Military. The proportion of papers from the US is around 65% and the dominant role of the US is only challenged by the strong position of Japan, in particular by the contributions by ATR

The fruits of collaboration in a multidisciplinary field

Collaboration between researchers and between research organizations is generally considered a desirable course of action, in particular by some funding bodies. However, collaboration within a multidisciplinary community, such as the Computer–Human Interaction (CHI) community, can be challenging. We performed a bibliometric analysis of the CHI conference proceedings to determine if papers that have authors from different organization or countries receive more citations than papers that are authored by members of the same organization. There was no significant difference between these three groups, indicating that there is no advantage for collaboration in terms of citation frequency. Furthermore, we tested if papers written by authors from different organizations or countries receive more best paper awards or at least award nominations. Papers from only one organization received significantly fewer nominations than collaborative papers

Relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations. A case study in Spanish computer science production in 2000-2009.

This paper analyzes the relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations of computer science research activity. It analyzes the number of documents and citations and how they vary by number of authors. They are also analyzed (according to author set cardinality) under different circumstances, that is, when documents are written in different types of collaboration, when documents are published in different document types, when documents are published in different computer science subdisciplines, and, finally, when documents are published by journals with different impact factor quartiles. To investigate the above relationships, this paper analyzes the publications listed in the Web of Science and produced by active Spanish university professors between 2000 and 2009, working in the computer science field. Analyzing all documents, we show that the highest percentage of documents are published by three authors, whereas single-authored documents account for the lowest percentage. By number of citations, there is no positive association between the author cardinality and citation impact. Statistical tests show that documents written by two authors receive more citations per document and year than documents published by more authors. In contrast, results do not show statistically significant differences between documents published by two authors and one author. The research findings suggest that international collaboration results on average in publications with higher citation rates than national and institutional collaborations. We also find differences regarding citation rates between journals and conferences, across different computer science subdisciplines and journal quartiles as expected. Finally, our impression is that the collaborative level (number of authors per document) will increase in the coming years, and documents published by three or four authors will be the trend in computer science literature