Smart Conversational Agents for Reminiscence

In this paper we describe the requirements and early system design for a smart conversational agent that can assist older adults in the reminiscence process. The practice of reminiscence has well documented benefits for the mental, social and emotional well-being of older adults. However, the technology support, valuable in many different ways, is still limited in terms of need of co-located human presence, data collection capabilities, and ability to support sustained engagement, thus missing key opportunities to improve care practices, facilitate social interactions, and bring the reminiscence practice closer to those with less opportunities to engage in co-located sessions with a (trained) companion. We discuss conversational agents and cognitive services as the platform for building the next generation of reminiscence applications, and introduce the concept application of a smart reminiscence agent

Study and optimization of ion-irradiated High-Tc Josephson nanoJunctions by Monte Carlo simulations

High Tc Josephson nanoJunctions (HTc JnJ) made by ion irradiation have remarkable properties for technological applications. However, the spread in their electrical characteristics increases with the ion dose. We present a simple model to explain the JnJ inhomogeneities, which accounts quantitatively for experimental data. The spread in the slit's width of the irradiation mask is the limiting factor.Monte Carlo simulations have been performed using different irradiation conditions to study their influence on the spread of the JnJ charcateristics. A "universal" behavior has been evidenced, which allows to propose new strategies to optimize JnJ reproducibility.Comment: 14 pages, 6 Figures. accepted in Journal of Applied Physic

The evolution of regional productivity disparities in the European Union, 1975-2000

The aim of this paper is to assess the evolution of regional productivity disparities in the European Union. Using a sample of 205 regions and 8 sectors on the 1975-2000 period, we use Esteban’s (2000) shift-share analysis to investigate the extent to which the existing interregional inequalities in productivity can be attributed to differences in sectoral composition between regions and/or to uniform productivity gaps across sectors. After a specification search on the bivariate functional forms that relate productivity differentials to their shift-share decomposition, the difference between regional and EU average productivity is regressed on the three shift-share components: industry-mix, differential and allocative (i.e. the covariance between the first two components). In that purpose, spatial seemingly unrelated (SUR) regressions are carried out to study the evolution of the impact of the components on the productivity gap over time, while allowing for intertemporal covariance. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation is also included in the SUR regressions, and its evolution over the period is analyzed. Results indicate that both spatio-temporal dependencies are essential in model specification.European regions, productivity disparities, spatial autocorrelation, SUR