Vision-Guided Robot Hearing

International audienceNatural human-robot interaction (HRI) in complex and unpredictable environments is important with many potential applicatons. While vision-based HRI has been thoroughly investigated, robot hearing and audio-based HRI are emerging research topics in robotics. In typical real-world scenarios, humans are at some distance from the robot and hence the sensory (microphone) data are strongly impaired by background noise, reverberations and competing auditory sources. In this context, the detection and localization of speakers plays a key role that enables several tasks, such as improving the signal-to-noise ratio for speech recognition, speaker recognition, speaker tracking, etc. In this paper we address the problem of how to detect and localize people that are both seen and heard. We introduce a hybrid deterministic/probabilistic model. The deterministic component allows us to map 3D visual data onto an 1D auditory space. The probabilistic component of the model enables the visual features to guide the grouping of the auditory features in order to form audiovisual (AV) objects. The proposed model and the associated algorithms are implemented in real-time (17 FPS) using a stereoscopic camera pair and two microphones embedded into the head of the humanoid robot NAO. We perform experiments with (i)~synthetic data, (ii)~publicly available data gathered with an audiovisual robotic head, and (iii)~data acquired using the NAO robot. The results validate the approach and are an encouragement to investigate how vision and hearing could be further combined for robust HRI

Party control, party competition and public service performance

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleThis article assesses party effects on the performance of public services. A policy-seeking model, hypothesizing that left and right party control affects performance, and an instrumental model, where all parties strive to raise performance, are presented. The framework also suggests a mixed model in which party effects are contingent on party competition, with parties raising performance as increasing party competition places their control of government at increasing risk. These models are tested against panel data on English local governments’ party control and public service performance. The results question the traditional account of left and right parties, showing a positive relationship between rightwing party control and performance that is contingent on a sufficiently high level of party competition. The findings suggest left–right models should be reframed for the contemporary context

Driving vascular endothelial cell fate of human multipotent Isl1+ heart progenitors with VEGF modified mRNA

Distinct families of multipotent heart progenitors play a central role in the generation of diverse cardiac, smooth muscle and endothelial cell lineages during mammalian cardiogenesis. The identification of precise paracrine signals that drive the cell-fate decision of these multipotent progenitors, and the development of novel approaches to deliver these signals in vivo, are critical steps towards unlocking their regenerative therapeutic potential. Herein, we have identified a family of human cardiac endothelial intermediates located in outflow tract of the early human fetal hearts (OFT-ECs), characterized by coexpression of Isl1 and CD144/vWF. By comparing angiocrine factors expressed by the human OFT-ECs and non-cardiac ECs, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A was identified as the most abundantly expressed factor, and clonal assays documented its ability to drive endothelial specification of human embryonic stem cell (ESC)-derived Isl1+ progenitors in a VEGF receptor-dependent manner. Human Isl1-ECs (endothelial cells differentiated from hESC-derived ISL1+ progenitors) resemble OFT-ECs in terms of expression of the cardiac endothelial progenitor- and endocardial cell-specific genes, confirming their organ specificity. To determine whether VEGF-A might serve as an in vivo cell-fate switch for human ESC-derived Isl1-ECs, we established a novel approach using chemically modified mRNA as a platform for transient, yet highly efficient expression of paracrine factors in cardiovascular progenitors. Overexpression of VEGF-A promotes not only the endothelial specification but also engraftment, proliferation and survival (reduced apoptosis) of the human Isl1+ progenitors in vivo. The large-scale derivation of cardiac-specific human Isl1-ECs from human pluripotent stem cells, coupled with the ability to drive endothelial specification, engraftment, and survival following transplantation, suggest a novel strategy for vascular regeneration in the heart

Sanctions, Benefits, and Rights: Three Faces of Accountability

As countries throughout the world democratize and decentralize, citizen participation in public life should increase. In this paper, I suggest that democratic participation in local government is enhanced when citizens can reply affirmatively to at least three questions about their ability to hold local officials accountable for their actions: Can citizens use the vote effectively to reward and punish the general or specific performance of local public officials and/or the parties they represent? Can citizens generate response to their collective needs from local governments? Can citizens be ensured of fair and equitable treatment from public agencies at local levels? The findings of a study of 30 randomly selected municipalities in Mexico indicate that, over the course of a decade and a half, voters were able to enforce alternation in power and the circulation of elites, but not necessarily to transmit unambiguous messages to public officials or parties about performance concerns. More definitively, citizens were able to build successfully on prior political experiences to extract benefits from local governments. At the same time, the ability to demand good performance of local government as a right of citizenship lagged behind other forms of accountability

Systematizing Policy Learning: From Monolith to Dimensions

notes: The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Norwegian Political Science Association Annual Conference, 6 January 2010, University of Agder, Kristiansand, participants of the ‘Establishing Causality in Policy Learning’ panel at the American Political Science Association (APSA) annual meeting,2–5 September 2010,Washington DC, and the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Joint Sessions, St Gallen, 12–17 April 2011, workshop 2. Dunlop and Radaelli gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Research Council, grant on Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance, ALREG, http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/ceg/research/ALREG/index.php.publication-status: AcceptedThe definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com and also from DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00982.xThe field of policy learning is characterised by concept stretching and lack of systematic findings. To systematize them, we combine the classic Sartorian approach to classification with the more recent insights on explanatory typologies. At the outset, we classify per genus et differentiam – distinguishing between the genus and the different species within it. By drawing on the technique of explanatory typologies to introduce a basic model of policy learning, we identify four major genera in the literature. We then generate variation within each cell by using rigorous concepts drawn from adult education research. Specifically, we conceptualize learning as control over the contents and goals of knowledge. By looking at learning through the lenses of knowledge utilization, we show that the basic model can be expanded to reveal sixteen different species. These types are all conceptually possible, but are not all empirically established in the literature. Up until now the scope conditions and connections among types have not been clarified. Our reconstruction of the field sheds light on mechanisms and relations associated with alternatives operationalizations of learning and the role of actors in the process of knowledge construction and utilization. By providing a comprehensive typology, we mitigate concept stretching problems and aim to lay the foundations for the systematic comparison across and within cases of policy learning.European Research Council, grant no 230267 on Analysis of Learning in Regulatory Governance, ALREG

Consultocracy and its discontents : A critical typology and a call for a research agenda

Peer reviewe

What is the 'dominant model' of British policymaking? Comparing majoritarian and policy community ideas

The aim of this article is to help identify the fundamental characteristics of the British policymaking system. It highlights an enduring conflict of interpretation within the literature. On the one hand, most contemporary analysts argue that the ‘Westminster model' is outmoded and that it has been replaced by modern understandings based on ‘governance'. On the other, key ideas associated with the Westminster model, regarding majoritarian government and policy imposition, are still in good currency in the academic literature, which holds firm to Lijphart's description of the United Kingdom as a majoritarian democracy. These very different understandings of British government are both commonly cited, but without much recognition that their conclusions may be mutually incompatible. To address this lack of comparison of competing narratives, the article outlines two main approaches to describe and explain the ‘characteristic and durable' ways of doing things in Britain: the ‘policy styles' literature initiated by Richardson in Policy Styles in Western Europe and the Lijphart account found in Democracies and revised in 1999 as Patterns of Democracy. The article encourages scholars to reject an appealing compromise between majoritarian and governance accounts

Managing the Process of Decentralization: Transforming Old Public Entities into New Agencies in the Agricultural Sector

In an effort to reconfigure the system for the delivery of agricultural services, the Regional Government of Sardinia in Italy decided, in 2006, to suppress five public entities, and to establish three regional agencies in their place. Based on interviews conducted with managers and staff within these agencies, this paper narrates the episode of implementing the organizational restructuring of this part of the regional government's agricultural policy. Drawing on this case, this paper then presents an explanation of the process of carrying out organizational transformations (namely, mergers and demergers) within sub-national governments' administrative systems. The study finds that policy process features and context conditions figure prominently as explanatory factors for the path and outcome of the implementation of the organizational restructuring. On the whole, the research argument made in this paper suggests some qualifications of existing generalizing arguments about the management of organizational transformations in the public sector