Transparency, teleoperation, and children's understanding of social robots

Teleoperation or Wizard-of-Oz control of social robots is commonly used in human-robot interaction (HRI) research. This is especially true for child-robot interactions, where technologies like speech recognition (which can help create autonomous interactions for adults) work less well. We propose to study young children's understanding teleoperation, how they conceptualize social robots in a learning context, and how this affects their interactions. Children will be told about the teleoperator's presence either before or after an interaction with a social robot. We will assess children's behavior, learning, and emotions before, during, and after the interaction. Our goal is to learn whether children's knowledge about the teleoperator matters (e.g., for their trust and for learning outcomes), and if so, how and when it matters most (e.g. at what age)

Young Children Treat Robots as Informants

Children ranging from 3 to 5 years were introduced to two anthropomorphic robots that provided them with information about unfamiliar animals. Children treated the robots as interlocutors. They supplied information to the robots and retained what the robots told them. Children also treated the robots as informants from whom they could seek information. Consistent with studies of children's early sensitivity to an interlocutor's non-verbal signals, children were especially attentive and receptive to whichever robot displayed the greater non-verbal contingency. Such selective information seeking is consistent with recent findings showing that although young children learn from others, they are selective with respect to the informants that they question or endorse

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Mediates PAR-Induced Bladder Pain.

INTRODUCTION: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, is constitutively expressed in urothelial cells that also express protease-activated receptors (PAR). Urothelial PAR1 receptors were shown to mediate bladder inflammation. We showed that PAR1 and PAR4 activator, thrombin, also mediates urothelial MIF release. We hypothesized that stimulation of urothelial PAR1 or PAR4 receptors elicits release of urothelial MIF that acts on MIF receptors in the urothelium to mediate bladder inflammation and pain. Thus, we examined the effect of activation of specific bladder PAR receptors on MIF release, bladder pain, micturition and histological changes. METHODS: MIF release was measured in vitro after exposing immortalized human urothelial cells (UROtsa) to PAR1 or PAR4 activating peptides (AP). Female C57BL/6 mice received intravesical PAR1- or PAR4-AP for one hour to determine: 1) bladder MIF release in vivo within one hour; 2) abdominal hypersensitivity (allodynia) to von Frey filament stimulation 24 hours after treatment; 3) micturition parameters 24 hours after treatment; 4) histological changes in the bladder as a result of treatment; 5) changes in expression of bladder MIF and MIF receptors using real-time RT-PCR; 6) changes in urothelial MIF and MIF receptor, CXCR4, protein levels using quantitative immunofluorescence; 7) effect of MIF or CXCR4 antagonism. RESULTS: PAR1- or PAR4-AP triggered MIF release from both human urothelial cells in vitro and mouse urothelium in vivo. Twenty-four hours after intravesical PAR1- or PAR4-AP, we observed abdominal hypersensitivity in mice without changes in micturition or bladder histology. PAR4-AP was more effective and also increased expression of bladder MIF and urothelium MIF receptor, CXCR4. Bladder CXCR4 localized to the urothelium. Antagonizing MIF with ISO-1 eliminated PAR4- and reduced PAR1-induced hypersensitivity, while antagonizing CXCR4 with AMD3100 only partially prevented PAR4-induced hypersensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: Bladder PAR activation elicits urothelial MIF release and urothelial MIF receptor signaling at least partly through CXCR4 to result in abdominal hypersensitivity without overt bladder inflammation. PAR-induced bladder pain may represent an interesting pre-clinical model of Interstitial Cystitis/Painful Bladder Syndrome (IC/PBS) where pain occurs without apparent bladder injury or pathology. MIF is potentially a novel therapeutic target for bladder pain in IC/PBS patients

Exploring the logic of mobile search

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence of what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Current research on mobile search has applied a limited set of methodologies and has also generated a narrow outcome of meaningful results. This article covers new ground, exploring the use and visions of mobile search with a users' interview-based qualitative study. Its main conclusion builds upon the hypothesis that mobile search is sensitive to a mobile logic different than today's one. First, (advanced) users ask for accessing with their mobile devices the entire Internet, rather than subsections of it. Second, success is based on new added-value applications that exploit unique mobile functionalities. The authors interpret that such mobile logic involves fundamentally the use of personalised and context-based services

Flat vs. Expressive Storytelling: Young Children’s Learning and Retention of a Social Robot’s Narrative

Prior research with preschool children has established that dialogic or active book reading is an effective method for expanding young children’s vocabulary. In this exploratory study, we asked whether similar benefits are observed when a robot engages in dialogic reading with preschoolers. Given the established effectiveness of active reading, we also asked whether this effectiveness was critically dependent on the expressive characteristics of the robot. For approximately half the children, the robot’s active reading was expressive; the robot’s voice included a wide range of intonation and emotion (Expressive). For the remaining children, the robot read and conversed with a flat voice, which sounded similar to a classic text-to-speech engine and had little dynamic range (Flat). The robot’s movements were kept constant across conditions. We performed a verification study using Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) to confirm that the Expressive robot was viewed as significantly more expressive, more emotional, and less passive than the Flat robot. We invited 45 preschoolers with an average age of 5 years who were either English Language Learners (ELL), bilingual, or native English speakers to engage in the reading task with the robot. The robot narrated a story from a picture book, using active reading techniques and including a set of target vocabulary words in the narration. Children were post-tested on the vocabulary words and were also asked to retell the story to a puppet. A subset of 34 children performed a second story retelling 4–6 weeks later. Children reported liking and learning from the robot a similar amount in the Expressive and Flat conditions. However, as compared to children in the Flat condition, children in the Expressive condition were more concentrated and engaged as indexed by their facial expressions; they emulated the robot’s story more in their story retells; and they told longer stories during their delayed retelling. Furthermore, children who responded to the robot’s active reading questions were more likely to correctly identify the target vocabulary words in the Expressive condition than in the Flat condition. Taken together, these results suggest that children may benefit more from the expressive robot than from the flat robot

Regional clusters of innovative activity in Europe: Are social capital and geographical proximity the key determinants?

Finding proper policy instruments to promote productivity growth features prominently on the Lisbon agenda and is central in many national as well as European policy debates. In view of the increased mobility of high-skilled workers in Europe, ongoing globalization and increased interregional and international co-operation, location patterns of innovative activity may be subject to drastic changes. A proper understanding of location patterns of innovative outputs can enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of national and European innovation policies. Building on the literature on the knowledge production function the aim of this paper is to explain the observed differences in the production of innovative output across European regions. Our main research question is whether geographical proximity and social capital are important vehicles of knowledge transmission for the production of innovative output in Europe. Several other variables are used to control for structural differences across European regions. We find support for the hypothesis that both social capital and geographical proximity are important factors in explaining the differences in the production of innovative output across European regions

Pressure and Flow Properties of Cannulae for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation I: Return (Arterial) Cannulae

Adequate extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support in the adult requires cannulae permitting blood flows up to 6-8 L/minute. In accordance with Poiseuille's law, flow is proportional to the fourth power of cannula inner diameter and inversely proportional to its length. Poiseuille's law can be applied to obtain the pressure drop of an incompressible, Newtonian fluid (such as water) flowing in a cylindrical tube. However, as blood is a pseudoplastic non-Newtonian fluid, the validity of Poiseuille's law is questionable for prediction of cannula properties in clinical practice. Pressure-flow charts with non-Newtonian fluids, such as blood, are typically not provided by the manufacturers. A standardized laboratory test of return (arterial) cannulae for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was performed. The aim was to determine pressure-flow data with human whole blood in addition to manufacturers' water tests to facilitate an appropriate choice of cannula for the desired flow range. In total, 14 cannulae from three manufacturers were tested. Data concerning design, characteristics, and performance were graphically presented for each tested cannula. Measured blood flows were in most cases 3-21% lower than those provided by manufacturers. This was most pronounced in the narrow cannulae (15-17 Fr) where the reduction ranged from 27% to 40% at low flows and 5-15% in the upper flow range. These differences were less apparent with increasing cannula diameter. There was a marked disparity between manufacturers. Based on the measured results, testing of cannulae including whole blood flows in a standardized bench test would be recommended.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio