Integrating Constrained Experiments in Long-term Human-Robot Interaction using Task– and Scenario–based Prototyping

© 2015 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis© Dag Sverre Syrdal, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Kheng Lee Koay, and Wan Ching Ho. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. Please check the License conditions for the work which you wish to reuse. Full and appropriate attribution must be given. This permission does not cover any third party copyrighted material which may appear in the work requested.In order to investigate how the use of robots may impact everyday tasks, 12 participants interacted with a University of Hertfordshire Sunflower robot over a period of 8 weeks in the university’s Robot House.. Participants performed two constrained tasks, one physical and one cognitive , 4 times over this period. Participant responses were recorded using a variety of measures including the System Usability Scale and the NASA Task Load Index . The use of the robot had an impact on the experienced workload of the participants differently for the two tasks, and this effect changed over time. In the physical task, there was evidence of adaptation to the robot’s behaviour. For the cognitive task, the use of the robot was experienced as more frustrating in the later weeks.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The structural fragmentation in Zwilich’s Millennium Fantasy

This study explores Zwilich’s Millennium Fantasy (2000), which not only exemplifies the nature of Zwilich’s personal creativity, but also reveals different musical influences on the composer. In her music Zwilich employs a variety of techniques to promote different playful impressions and surprises. The continuous playing of tricks on listeners throughout the two movements is one of the musical characters of the piece. In most cases, the sense of fragmentation created in the composition also results from Zwilich’s playful musical construction. In addition, jazz, popular and traditional idioms are nicely and evenly treated in the composition; the composition is not confined to one musical style. This piece might serve as a model of the perfect balance which Zwilich strikes between traditional and popular styles

In good company? : Perception of movement synchrony of a non-anthropomorphic robot

Copyright: © 2015 Lehmann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Recent technological developments like cheap sensors and the decreasing costs of computational power have brought the possibility of robotic home companions within reach. In order to be accepted it is vital for these robots to be able to participate meaningfully in social interactions with their users and to make them feel comfortable during these interactions. In this study we investigated how people respond to a situation where a companion robot is watching its user. Specifically, we tested the effect of robotic behaviours that are synchronised with the actions of a human. We evaluated the effects of these behaviours on the robot’s likeability and perceived intelligence using an online video survey. The robot used was Care-O-bot®3, a non-anthropomorphic robot with a limited range of expressive motions. We found that even minimal, positively synchronised movements during an object-oriented task were interpreted by participants as engagement and created a positive disposition towards the robot. However, even negatively synchronised movements of the robot led to more positive perceptions of the robot, as compared to a robot that does not move at all. The results emphasise a) the powerful role that robot movements in general can have on participants’ perception of the robot, and b) that synchronisation of body movements can be a powerful means to enhance the positive attitude towards a non-anthropomorphic robot.Peer reviewe

Formal verification of an autonomous personal robotic assistant

Human–robot teams are likely to be used in a variety of situations wherever humans require the assistance of robotic systems. Obvious examples include healthcare and manufacturing, in which people need the assistance of machines to perform key tasks. It is essential for robots working in close proximity to people to be both safe and trustworthy. In this paper we examine formal verification of a high-level planner/scheduler for autonomous personal robotic assistants such as Care-O-bot ™ . We describe how a model of Care-O-bot and its environment was developed using Brahms, a multiagent workflow language. Formal verification was then carried out by translating this to the input language of an existing model checker. Finally we present some formal verification results and describe how these could be complemented by simulation-based testing and realworld end-user validation in order to increase the practical and perceived safety and trustworthiness of robotic assistants

Biosorption of basic dyes by water hyacinth roots

Laboratory investigations of the potential of the biomass of non-living, dried, roots of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) to remove two basic dyes, methylene blue and Victoria blue, from aqueous solutions were conducted. Parameters studied included pH, sorbent dosage, contact time and initial concentrations. The Langmuir isotherm was found to represent the measured sorption data well. Maximum sorption capacities of water hyacinth roots for methylene blue and Victoria blue were 128.9 and 145.4 mg/g respectively. Water hyacinth roots could represent a cheap source of biosorbent for basic dyes as they are readily available in great abundance

Column studies of copper(II) and nickel(II) ions sorption on palm pressed fibres

The efficiency of palm pressed fibres (PPF) in removing copper(II) and nickel(II) ions from solution was investigated in column experiments. Homogeneous column studies show that metal sorption increased with lower flow rate, higher bed-depth and lower metal ion concentration. Bed-depth service time (BDST) studies show that the results agree with the BDST model proposed by Hutchins [1]. The mixed media studies using sand-soil PPF combination demonstrated that PPF can be an efficient sorbent in the prevention of leaching of metal ions in landfill

Removal of reactive dyes by quaternized coconut husk

Coconut husk modified through the use of N-(3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl)- trimethylammonium chloride was evaluated for its ability to remove reactive dyes from aqueous solution. Sorption of dyes was pH dependent and favorable sorption occurred at low pH. In contrast, natural coconut husk showed very little uptake of these reactive dyes. The maximum sorption capacities of the modified coconut husks for Reactive Blue 2, Reactive Yellow 2, Reactive Orange 16 and Reactive Blue 4 were 128.9, 182.2, 254.5 and 423.7 mg/g respectively. Column experiments using textile effluent showed that the reactive and disperse dyes in the effluent could be successfully removed

DNA fingerprinting of red jungle fowl, village chicken and broilers

The genomic mapping of Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus), local Village Chicken, and broiler was carried out by random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD) technique. Two different sets of arbitrary primers were used (Operon OPAO1-20 and Genemed GM01-50). All the genomes of the three species of chickens were amplified with OPA01-20 primers. The genomes of the Red Jungle Fowl and local Village Chicken were further amplified with GM01-50 primers. Analysis of the results based on band sharing (BS) and the molecular size of individually amplified DNA fragments showed that Red Jungle Fowl and local Village Chicken shared the species similarity of 66% with Operon primers 01-20, 64% between local Village Chicken and broiler, and 63% when DNA bands between Red Jungle Fowl and broiler were compared. With GM01-50, the BS between Red Jungle Fowl and local village chicken increased to 72%. The results showed that the local village chicken is more closely related to Red Jungle Fowl than to broiler in the genetic distance. On the other hand, broiler is 1% closer in genetic distance to local village chicken than to Red Jungle Fowl. The results also indicated that primers like OPA-7, 8 and 9 can be used as species specific DNA markers for these three species of chickens