Views from within a narrative : Evaluating long-term human-robot interaction in a naturalistic environment using open-ended scenarios

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. Date of acceptance: 16/06/2014This article describes the prototyping of human–robot interactions in the University of Hertfordshire (UH) Robot House. Twelve participants took part in a long-term study in which they interacted with robots in the UH Robot House once a week for a period of 10 weeks. A prototyping method using the narrative framing technique allowed participants to engage with the robots in episodic interactions that were framed using narrative to convey the impression of a continuous long-term interaction. The goal was to examine how participants responded to the scenarios and the robots as well as specific robot behaviours, such as agent migration and expressive behaviours. Evaluation of the robots and the scenarios were elicited using several measures, including the standardised System Usability Scale, an ad hoc Scenario Acceptance Scale, as well as single-item Likert scales, open-ended questionnaire items and a debriefing interview. Results suggest that participants felt that the use of this prototyping technique allowed them insight into the use of the robot, and that they accepted the use of the robot within the scenarioPeer reviewe

The effects of abusive supervision, emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment on cyberloafing: a moderated-mediation examination

Purpose – Cyberloafing (employees’ non-work-related online activities at work) has become a common workplace problem for many organizations. Research investigating the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions under which abusive supervision influences cyberloafing remains largely underdeveloped. Drawing from social exchange theory and conservation of resources theory, we developed a moderated-mediation model in which emotional exhaustion was theorized as a unique mechanism underlining why employees are more likely to engage in cyberloafing under the supervision of abusive leaders. In addition, we proposed that organizational commitment to be a relevant boundary condition to influence such a relationship. Design/methodology/approach – We collected 255 data from employees working in public listed companies in Malaysia and used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the data. Findings – The results showed that the influence of abusive supervision on cyberloafing through emotional exhaustion is only significant when organizational commitment is low. Originality/value – This study constructed a moderated-mediation model by introducing the potential mediating effect of emotional exhaustion and the moderating effect of organizational commitment to reveal the mechanism through which abusive supervision related to cyberloafing

The Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients (CRAFT) survey

We are developing a purely commensal survey experiment for fast (<5s) transient radio sources. Short-timescale transients are associated with the most energetic and brightest single events in the Universe. Our objective is to cover the enormous volume of transients parameter space made available by ASKAP, with an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and field of view. Fast timescale transients open new vistas on the physics of high brightness temperature emission, extreme states of matter and the physics of strong gravitational fields. In addition, the detection of extragalactic objects affords us an entirely new and extremely sensitive probe on the huge reservoir of baryons present in the IGM. We outline here our approach to the considerable challenge involved in detecting fast transients, particularly the development of hardware fast enough to dedisperse and search the ASKAP data stream at or near real-time rates. Through CRAFT, ASKAP will provide the testbed of many of the key technologies and survey modes proposed for high time resolution science with the SKA.Comment: accepted for publication in PAS

Absence of Detectable Influenza RNA Transmitted via Aerosol during Various Human Respiratory Activities – Experiments from Singapore and Hong Kong

Two independent studies by two separate research teams (from Hong Kong and Singapore) failed to detect any influenza RNA landing on, or inhaled by, a life-like, human manikin target, after exposure to naturally influenza-infected volunteers. For the Hong Kong experiments, 9 influenza-infected volunteers were recruited to breathe, talk/count and cough, from 0.1 m and 0.5 m distance, onto a mouth-breathing manikin. Aerosolised droplets exhaled from the volunteers and entering the manikin’s mouth were collected with PTFE filters and an aerosol sampler, in separate experiments. Virus detection was performed using an in-house influenza RNA reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. No influenza RNA was detected from any of the PTFE filters or air samples. For the Singapore experiments, 6 influenza-infected volunteers were asked to breathe (nasal/mouth breathing), talk (counting in English/second language), cough (from 1 m/0.1 m away) and laugh, onto a thermal, breathing manikin. The manikin’s face was swabbed at specific points (around both eyes, the nostrils and the mouth) before and after exposure to each of these respiratory activities, and was cleaned between each activity with medical grade alcohol swabs. Shadowgraph imaging was used to record the generation of these respiratory aerosols from the infected volunteers and their impact onto the target manikin. No influenza RNA was detected from any of these swabs with either team’s in-house diagnostic influenza assays. All the influenza-infected volunteers had diagnostic swabs taken at recruitment that confirmed influenza (A/H1, A/H3 or B) infection with high viral loads, ranging from 105-108 copies/mL (Hong Kong volunteers/assay) and 104–107 copies/mL influenza viral RNA (Singapore volunteers/assay). These findings suggest that influenza RNA may not be readily transmitted from naturally-infected human source to susceptible recipients via these natural respiratory activities, within these exposure time-frames. Various reasons are discussed in an attempt to explain these findings.published_or_final_versio

Absolute Flux Density Calibration of the Greenland Telescope Data for Event Horizon Telescope Observations

Starting from the observing campaign in April 2018, the Greenland Telescope (GLT) has been added as a new station of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) array. Visibilities on baselines to the GLT, particularly in the North-South direction, potentially provide valuable new constraints for the modeling and imaging of sources such as M87*. The GLT's location at high Northern latitudes adds unique challenges to its calibration strategies. Additionally, the performance of the GLT was not optimal during the 2018 observations due to it being only partially commissioned at the time. This document describes the steps taken to estimate the various parameters (and their uncertainties) required for the absolute flux calibration of the GLT data as part of the EHT. In particular, we consider the non-optimized status of the GLT in 2018, as well as its improved performance during the 2021 EHT campaign.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, EHT Memo Series 2023-L1-0

Search for the Higgs boson in events with missing transverse energy and b quark jets produced in proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2)=1.96 TeV

We search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with an electroweak vector boson in events with no identified charged leptons, large imbalance in transverse momentum, and two jets where at least one contains a secondary vertex consistent with the decay of b hadrons. We use ~1 fb-1 integrated luminosity of proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2)=1.96 TeV recorded by the CDF II experiment at the Tevatron. We find 268 (16) single (double) b-tagged candidate events, where 248 +/- 43 (14.4 +/- 2.7) are expected from standard model background processes. We place 95% confidence level upper limits on the Higgs boson production cross section for several Higgs boson masses ranging from 110 GeV/c2 to 140 GeV/c2. For a mass of 115 GeV/c2 the observed (expected) limit is 20.4 (14.2) times the standard model prediction.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Measurement of Ratios of Fragmentation Fractions for Bottom Hadrons in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

This paper describes the first measurement of b-quark fragmentation fractions into bottom hadrons in Run II of the Tevatron Collider at Fermilab. The result is based on a 360 pb-1 sample of data collected with the CDF II detector in p-pbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. Semileptonic decays of B0, B+, and B_s mesons, as well as Lambda_b baryons, are reconstructed. For an effective bottom hadron p_T threshold of 7 GeV/c, the fragmentation fractions are measured to be f_u/f_d=1.054 +/- 0.018 (stat) +0.025-0.045(sys) +/- 0.058 (Br), f_s/(f_u+f_d)=0.160 +/- 0.005 (stat) +0.011-0.010 (sys) +0.057-0.034 (Br), and f_{Lambda_b}/(f_u+f_d)=0.281\pm0.012 (stat) +0.058-0.056 (sys) +0.128-0.086 (Br), where the uncertainty (Br) is due to uncertainties on measured branching ratios. The value of f_s/(f_u+f_d) agrees within one standard deviation with previous CDF measurements and the world average of this quantity, which is dominated by LEP measurements. However, the ratio f_{Lambda_b}/(f_u+f_d) is approximately twice the value previously measured at LEP. The approximately 2 sigma discrepancy is examined in terms of kinematic differences between the two production environments.Comment: Submitted to PRD, 54 pages, 53 plot

Two-Particle Momentum Correlations in Jets Produced in ppbar Collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV

We present the first measurement of two-particle momentum correlations in jets produced in $p\bar p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV. Results are obtained for charged particles within a restricted cone with an opening angle of 0.5 radians around the jet axis and for events with dijet masses between 66 and 563 GeV/c$^{2}$. A comparison of the experimental data to theoretical predictions obtained for partons within the framework of resummed perturbative QCD in the next-to-leading log approximation (NLLA) shows that the parton momentum correlations survive the hadronization stage of jet fragmentation, giving further support to the hypothesis of local parton-hadron duality. The extracted value of the NLLA parton shower cutoff scale $Q_\mathit{eff}$ set equal to $\Lambda_\mathit{QCD}$ is found to be $(1.4^{+0.9}_{-0.7})\times 100$ MeV.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.

Search for resonant ttbar production in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We report on a search for narrow-width particles decaying to a top and antitop quark pair. The data set used in the analysis corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 680 pb^{-1} collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab in Run II. We present 95% confidence level upper limits on the cross section times branching ratio. Assuming a specific topcolor-assisted technicolor production model, the leptophobic Z' with width \Gamma_{Z'}=0.012M_{Z'}, we exclude the mass range M_{Z'} < 725 GeV/c^2 at the 95% confidence level.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev. Let