2,238 research outputs found
Cognitive robotics for the modelling of cognitive dysfunctions: A study on unilateral spatial neglect
© 2015 IEEE. Damage to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) can cause patients to fail to orient toward, explore, and respond to stimuli on the contralesional side of the space. PPC is thought to play a crucial role in the computation of sensorimotor transformations that is in linking sensation to action. Indeed, this disorder, known as Unilateral Spatial Neglect (USN), can compromise visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory modalities and may involve personal, extra-personal, and imaginal space [1], [2]. For this reason, USN describes a collection of behavioural symptoms in which patients appear to ignore, forget, or turn away from contralesional space [3]. Given the complexity of the disease and the difficulties to study human patients affected by USN, because of their impairments, several computer simulation studies were carried out via artificial neural networks in which damage to the connection weights was also found to yield neglect-related behaviour [4]-[6]
Nucleon Spin Structure with hadronic collisions at COMPASS
In order to illustrate the capabilities of COMPASS using a hadronic beam, I
review some of the azimuthal asymmetries in hadronic collisions, that allow for
the extraction of transversity, Sivers and Boer-Mulders functions, necessary to
explore the partonic spin structure of the nucleon. I also report on some Monte
Carlo simulations of such asymmetries for the production of Drell-Yan lepton
pairs from the collision of high-energy pions on a transversely polarized
proton target.Comment: talk delivered to the "International Workshop on Structure and
Spectroscopy", Freiburg, March 19-21, 2007; 18 pages, RevTeX4 style, 8
figures with 10 .eps file
Social robots for older users: a possibility to support assessment and social interventions
In the last decades, various researches in the field of robotics have
created numerous opportunities for innovative support of the older population.
The goal of this work was to review and highlight how social robots can help
the daily life of older people, and be useful also as assessment tools. We will
underline the aspects of usability and acceptability of robotic supports in the
psychosocial work with older persons. The actual usability of the system influences the perception of the ease of use only when the user has no or low experience, while expert users’ perception is related to their attitude towards the robot. This finding should be more deeply analysed because it may have a strong
influence on the design of future interfaces for elderly-robot interaction. Robots
can play an important role to tackle the societal challenge of the growing older
population. The authors report some recent studies with older users, where it
was demonstrated that the acceptability of robotics during daily life activities,
and also in cognitive evaluation, could be supported by social robot
Affect Recognition in Autism: a single case study on integrating a humanoid robot in a standard therapy.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a multifaceted developmental disorder that comprises a mixture of social impairments, with deficits in many areas including the theory of mind, imitation, and communication. Moreover, people with autism have difficulty in recognising and understanding emotional expressions. We are currently working on integrating a humanoid robot within the standard clinical treatment offered to children with ASD to support the therapists. In this article, using the A-B-A' single case design, we propose a robot-assisted affect recognition training and to present the results on the child’s progress during the five months of clinical experimentation. In the investigation, we tested the generalization of learning and the long-term maintenance of new skills via the NEPSY-II affection recognition sub-test. The results of this single case study suggest the feasibility and effectiveness of using a humanoid robot to assist with emotion recognition training in children with ASD
Transverse-momentum distributions in a diquark spectator model
All the leading-twist parton distribution functions are calculated in a
spectator model of the nucleon, using scalar and axial-vector diquarks. Single
gluon rescattering is used to generate T-odd distribution functions. Different
choices for the diquark polarization states are considered, as well as a few
options for the form factor at the nucleon-quark-diquark vertex. The results
are listed in analytic form and interpreted in terms of light-cone wave
functions. The model parameters are fixed by reproducing the phenomenological
parametrization of unpolarized and helicity parton distributions at the lowest
available scale. Predictions for the other parton densities are given and,
whenever possible, compared with available phenomenological parametrizations.Comment: 42 pages, 13 figures in .eps format. RevTeX style. Minor typos
corrected, added one referenc
Multipolar terahertz absorption spectroscopy ignited by graphene plasmons
AbstractTerahertz absorption spectroscopy plays a key role in physical, chemical and biological systems as a powerful tool to identify molecular species through their rotational spectrum fingerprint. Owing to the sub-nanometer scale of molecules, radiation-matter coupling is typically dominated by dipolar interaction. Here we show that multipolar rotational spectroscopy of molecules in proximity of localized graphene structures can be accessed through the extraordinary enhancement of their multipolar transitions provided by terahertz plasmons. In particular, specializing our calculations to homonuclear diatomic molecules, we demonstrate that a micron-sized graphene ring with a nano-hole at the core combines a strong near-field enhancement and an inherently pronounced field localization enabling the enhancement of the dipole-forbidden terahertz absorption cross-section of
H
2
+
by 8 orders of magnitude. Our results shed light on the strong potential offered by nano-structured graphene as a robust and electrically tunable platform for multipolar terahertz absorption spectroscopy at the nanoscale
Collision quenching in the ultrafast dynamics of plasmonic materials
We explore the nonlinear response of plasmonic materials driven by ultrashort
pulses of electromagnetic radiation with temporal duration of few femtoseconds
and high peak intensity. By developing the Fokker-Planck-Landau theory of
electron collisions, we solve analytically the collisional integral and derive
a novel set of hydrodynamical equations accounting for plasma dynamics at
ultrashort time scales. While in the limit of small light intensities we
recover the well established Drude model of plasmas, in the high intensity
limit we observe nonlinear quenching of collision-induced damping leading to
absorption saturation. Our results provide a general background to understand
electron dynamics in plasmonic materials with promising photonic applications
in the manipulation of plasma waves with reduced absorption at the femtosecond
time scale
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