Charmonium photoproduction in ultra-peripheral p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC with the ALICE experiment

Vector mesons are copiously produced in ultra-peripheral collisions. In these collisions, the impact parameter is larger than the sum of the radii of two projectiles, implying that electromagnetic processes become dominant. The cross section for this process is sensitive to the gluon distribution and can therefore probe nuclear gluon shadowing (Pb-Pb) and the gluon structure function in the nucleon (p-Pb). The ALICE Collaboration has performed the first measurement of the coherent J/$\psi$ and $\psi$(2S) photoproduction cross section in Pb-Pb collisions and that for exclusive J/$\psi$ photoproduction off protons in ultra-peripheral proton-lead collisions at the LHC. The results are compared to STARLIGHT and to QCD based models.Comment: Presented At The Second Annual Conference on Large Hadron Collider Physics, Columbia University, New York, U.S.A, June 2-7, 201

Identification and Dynamical Properties of Asteroid Families

Asteroids formed in a dynamically quiescent disk but their orbits became gravitationally stirred enough by Jupiter to lead to high-speed collisions. As a result, many dozen large asteroids have been disrupted by impacts over the age of the Solar System, producing groups of fragments known as asteroid families. Here we explain how the asteroid families are identified, review their current inventory, and discuss how they can be used to get insights into long-term dynamics of main belt asteroids. Electronic tables of the membership for 122 notable families are reported on the Planetary Data System node.Comment: Asteroids IV chapte

Talking About Task Progress: Towards Integrating Task Planning and Dialog for Assistive Robotic Services

The use of service robots to assist ageing people in their own homes has the potential to allow people to maintain their independence, increasing their health and quality of life. In many assistive applications, robots perform tasks on people’s behalf that they are unable or unwilling to monitor directly. It is important that users be given useful and appropriate information about task progress. People being assisted in homes and other realworld environments are likely be engaged in other activities while they wait for a service, so information should also be presented in an appropriate, nonintrusive manner. This paper presents a human-robot interaction experiment investigatingwhat type of feedback people prefer in verbal updates by a service robot about distributed assistive services. People found feedback about time until task completion more useful than feedback about events in task progress or no feedback. We also discuss future research directions that involve giving non-expert users more input into the task planning process when delays or failures occur that necessitate replanning or modifying goals

The interaction between voice and appearance in the embodiment of a robot tutor

Robot embodiment is, by its very nature, holistic and understanding how various aspects contribute to the user perception of the robot is non-trivial. A study is presented here that investigates whether there is an interaction effect between voice and other aspects of embodiment, such as movement and appearance, in a pedagogical setting. An on-line study was distributed to children aged 11–17 that uses a modified Godspeed questionnaire. We show an interaction effect between the robot embodiment and voice in terms of perceived lifelikeness of the robot. Politeness is a key strategy used in learning and teaching, and here an effect is also observed for perceived politeness. Interestingly, participants’ overall preference was for embodiment combinations that are deemed polite and more like a teacher, but are not necessarily the most lifelike. From these findings, we are able to inform the design of robotic tutors going forward

Inflammasomes in Host Defense and Autoimmunity

Inflammasomes are large multi-protein complexes that control host defense and inflammation during infections with pathogens. Their clinical importance however reaches beyond infectious disease, since dysregulated inflammasome activity has also been linked to many auto-inflammatory disorders. This article gives a short overview on the basics of inflammasome signaling, their activation mechanisms and their role in autoimmunity