Alignment to the Actions of a Robot

Alignment is a phenomenon observed in human conversation: Dialog partners’ behavior converges in many respects. Such alignment has been proposed to be automatic and the basis for communicating successfully. Recent research on human–computer dialog promotes a mediated communicative design account of alignment according to which the extent of alignment is influenced by interlocutors’ beliefs about each other. Our work aims at adding to these findings in two ways. (a) Our work investigates alignment of manual actions, instead of lexical choice. (b) Participants interact with the iCub humanoid robot, instead of an artificial computer dialog system. Our results confirm that alignment also takes place in the domain of actions. We were not able to replicate the results of the original study in general in this setting, but in accordance with its findings, participants with a high questionnaire score for emotional stability and participants who are familiar with robots align their actions more to a robot they believe to be basic than to one they believe to be advanced. Regarding alignment over the course of an interaction, the extent of alignment seems to remain constant, when participants believe the robot to be advanced, but it increases over time, when participants believe the robot to be a basic version

Spindle Assembly Checkpoint Protein Dynamics Reveal Conserved and Unsuspected Roles in Plant Cell Division

Background: In eukaryotes, the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) ensures that chromosomes undergoing mitosis do not segregate until they are properly attached to the microtubules of the spindle. Methodology/Principal Findings: We investigated the mechanism underlying this surveillance mechanism in plants, by characterising the orthogolous SAC proteins BUBR1, BUB3 and MAD2 from Arabidopsis. We showed that the cell cycle-regulated BUBR1, BUB3.1 and MAD2 proteins interacted physically with each other. Furthermore, BUBR1 and MAD2 interacted specifically at chromocenters. Following SAC activation by global defects in spindle assembly, these three interacting partners localised to unattached kinetochores. In addition, in cases of 'wait anaphase', plant SAC proteins were associated with both kinetochores and kinetochore microtubules. Unexpectedly, BUB3.1 was also found in the phragmoplast midline during the final step of cell division in plants. Conclusions/Significance: We conclude that plant BUBR1, BUB3.1 and MAD2 proteins may have the SAC protein functions conserved from yeast to humans. The association of BUB3.1 with both unattached kinetochore and phragmoplast suggests that in plant, BUB3.1 may have other roles beyond the spindle assembly checkpoint itself. Finally, this study of the SAC dynamics pinpoints uncharacterised roles of this surveillance mechanism in plant cell division

Degradation of haloaromatic compounds

An ever increasing number of halogenated organic compounds has been produced by industry in the last few decades. These compounds are employed as biocides, for synthetic polymers, as solvents, and as synthetic intermediates. Production figures are often incomplete, and total production has frequently to be extrapolated from estimates for individual countries. Compounds of this type as a rule are highly persistent against biodegradation and belong, as "recalcitrant" chemicals, to the class of so-called xenobiotics. This term is used to characterise chemical substances which have no or limited structural analogy to natural compounds for which degradation pathways have evolved over billions of years. Xenobiotics frequently have some common features. e.g. high octanol/water partitioning coefficients and low water solubility which makes for a high accumulation ratio in the biosphere (bioaccumulation potential). Recalcitrant compounds therefore are found accumulated in mammals, especially in fat tissue, animal milk supplies and also in human milk. Highly sophisticated analytical techniques have been developed for the detection of organochlorines at the trace and ultratrace level

An Examination of Whether People Prefer Agents Whose Gestures Mimic Their Own

Abstract. Do people prefer gestures that are similar to their own? There is evidence that in conversation, people will tend to adopt the postures, gestures and mannerisms of their interaction partners [1]. This mirroring, sometimes called the “chameleon effect”, is associated with affiliation, rapport and liking. It may be that a useful way to build rapport in human-agent/robot interaction is to have the agent/robot perform gestures similar to the human. As a step towards that, this study explores if people prefer gestures similar to their own over gestures similar to those of other people. Participants were asked to evaluate a series of agent motions, some of which mimic their own gestures, and rate their preference. A second study first showed participants videos of their own gesturing to see if self-awareness would impact their preference. Different scenarios for soliciting gesture behavior were also explored. Evidence suggests people do have some preference for motions similar to their own, but self-awareness has no effect

Requirements and Building Blocks for Sociable Embodied Agents

Kopp S, Bergmann K, Buschmeier H, Sadeghipour A. Requirements and Building Blocks for Sociable Embodied Agents. In: Mertsching B, Hund M, Aziz Z, eds. KI 2009: Advances in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009: 508-515.To be sociable, embodied interactive agents like virtual characters or humanoid robots need to be able to engage in mutual coordination of behaviors, beliefs, and relationships with their human interlocutors. We argue that this requires them to be capable of flexible multimodal expressiveness, incremental perception of other’s behaviors, and the integration and interaction of these models in unified sensorimotor structures. We present work on probabilistic models for these three requirements with a focus on gestural behavior

Comparison of multimodal annotation tools: Workshop report

Rohlfing K, Loehr D, Duncan S, et al. Comparison of multimodal annotation tools: Workshop report. Gesprächsforschung. 2006;7