INFO2009 Group 8 Censorship

INFO2009 Group 8 Censorshi

Conversational user interfaces in smart homecare interactions: a conversation analytic case study

Policymakers are increasingly interested in using virtual assistants to augment social care services in the context of a demographic ageing crisis. At the same time, technology companies are marketing conversational user interfaces (CUIs) and smart home systems as assistive technologies for elderly and disabled people. However, we know relatively little about how today’s commercially available CUIs are used to assist in everyday homecare activities, or how care service users and human care assistants interpret and adapt these technologies in practice. Here we report on a longitudinal conversation analytic case study to identify, describe, and share how CUIs can be used as assistive conversational agents in practice. The analysis reveals that, while CUIs can augment and support new capabilities in a homecare environment, they cannot replace the delicate interactional work of human care assistants. We argue that CUI design is best inspired and underpinned by a better understanding of the joint coordination of homecare activitie

Variational message passing for online polynomial NARMAX identification

We propose a variational Bayesian inference procedure for online nonlinear system identification. For each output observation, a set of parameter posterior distributions is updated, which is then used to form a posterior predictive distribution for future outputs. We focus on the class of polynomial NARMAX models, which we cast into probabilistic form and represent in terms of a Forney-style factor graph. Inference in this graph is efficiently performed by a variational message passing algorithm. We show empirically that our variational Bayesian estimator outperforms an online recursive least-squares estimator, most notably in small sample size settings and low noise regimes, and performs on par with an iterative least-squares estimator trained offline.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted to the American Control Conference 202

A probe into process-level attack detection in industrial environments from a side-channel perspective

Process-level detection of cyberattacks on industrial control systems pertain to observing the physical process to detect implausible behavior. State-of-the-art techniques identify a baseline of the normal process behavior from historical measurements and then monitor the system operation in real time to detect deviations from the baseline. Evidently, these techniques are intended to be connected to the control flow to be able to acquire and analyze the necessary measurement data, which makes them susceptible to compromise by the attacker. In this paper, we approach process-level attack detection from a side-channel perspective, where we investigate the feasibility and efficacy of monitoring industrial machines through external sensors. The sensors measure physical properties of the process that are bound to change during a cyberattack. We demonstrate the viability of our approach through simulations and experiments on real industrial machines

Experimental and Numerical Studies of Cavities, Flows, and Waves in Arched Flux Ropes

This dissertation details various studies of arched flux ropes using both scalable laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. This work can be divided into three major classes: studies of flux rope motion and shape, development of supporting simulations, and development of new experimental diagnostics. The primary scientific results in this work are the characterization of new mechanisms for flux rope motion and morphology. These studies are done on two separate experiments, the single loop and double loop, which produce arched flux ropes with non-dimensional evolution equivalent to solar prominences. Measurements taken on these experiments characterize three flux rope mechanisms: (1) how variation in a flux rope minor radius can drive axial flows and collimation, (2) how non-uniform axial density can perturb flux rope shape and inhibit the kink instability, and (3) how changing flux rope current can repel background plasma and form density cavities around the flux rope. These mechanisms are each relevant to a different aspect of solar prominences: the collimation mechansim (1) can explain why solar loops are denser and more collimated than expected, the work on density perturbations (2) puts a higher limit on prominence stability, and the cavity mechanism (3) provides the first model to explain why coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are observed to have a three part structure. Two numerical simulations were developed in support of the experiments: a 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of the single loop experiment and a 3D spline model simulating flux ropes as interacting current carrying wires. The MHD simulation uses the solver module from the Los Alamos COMPutational Astrophysics Simulation Suite (LA-COMPASS) to evolve B, v, rho, and P on a 96^3 Cartesian grid using the dimensionless ideal MHD equations. The resulting simulation has excellent agreement with experimental observations in shape, velocity, and magnetic field and quantitatively reproduces the mechanisms (2,3) observed in the single loop experiment. The spline simulation models the flux ropes experiments as plasma systems of thin current paths in a 3D space with no background plasma. This model is shown to be useful for reproducing flux rope evolution, testing new experimental configurations, evaluating the magnetic fields generated from complex 3D current paths, and testing the robustness of analytic flux rope models. The last body of work concerns the development of two novel diagnostics: a high frequency (1-100 MHz) wave probe designed to measure both the magnetic field B, and current density J, of passing waves and a high frequency (100 MHz) 1D coded aperture camera. The wave probe consists of four 3-axis Bdot-probes arranged in a tetrahedron. This additional spatial resolution allows the calculation of both J and the wavevector k. Measurements taken by this probe on the plasma jet experiment identify short whistler wave pulses emitted from magnetic reconnection events. These waves are identified by measurements of the background conditions, the wave polarization, and comparisons with the theoretical whistler dispersion relation. The pulses also occur simultaneously with bursts of X-ray emissions, indicating that non-MHD physics (i.e. two-fluid or kinetic effects) are important during the reconnection event. The coded aperture camera is a fast (100MHz) 1D visible light system developed as a prototype for imaging plasma experiments in the EUV/X-ray bands. In the low signal limit, the system demonstrates 40-fold increase in throughput and a signal-to-noise gain of ~7 over that of a pinhole camera of equivalent parameters.</p

All-cavity electromagnetically induced transparency and optical switching: semiclassical theory

The transmission of a probe field experiencing electromagnetically induced transparency and optical switching in an atomic medium enclosed in an optical cavity is investigated. Using a semiclassical input-output theory for the interaction between an ensemble of four-level atoms and three optical cavity fields coupled to the same spatial cavity mode, we derive the steady-state transmission spectra of the probe field and discuss the dynamics of the intracavity field buildup. The analytical and numerical results are in good agreement with recent experiments with ion Coulomb crystals [M. Albert et al., Nature Photon. 5, 633 (2011)].Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

AIDA: An Active Inference-based Design Agent for Audio Processing Algorithms

In this paper we present AIDA, which is an active inference-based agent that iteratively designs a personalized audio processing algorithm through situated interactions with a human client. The target application of AIDA is to propose on-the-spot the most interesting alternative values for the tuning parameters of a hearing aid (HA) algorithm, whenever a HA client is not satisfied with their HA performance. AIDA interprets searching for the "most interesting alternative" as an issue of optimal (acoustic) context-aware Bayesian trial design. In computational terms, AIDA is realized as an active inference-based agent with an Expected Free Energy criterion for trial design. This type of architecture is inspired by neuro-economic models on efficient (Bayesian) trial design in brains and implies that AIDA comprises generative probabilistic models for acoustic signals and user responses. We propose a novel generative model for acoustic signals as a sum of time-varying auto-regressive filters and a user response model based on a Gaussian Process Classifier. The full AIDA agent has been implemented in a factor graph for the generative model and all tasks (parameter learning, acoustic context classification, trial design, etc.) are realized by variational message passing on the factor graph. All verification and validation experiments and demonstrations are freely accessible at our GitHub repository

Comparing Body Density of Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) to Different Operational Welfare Indicators

Farmed lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) are commonly used as cleaner fish in the salmonid aquaculture industry, but a knowledge gap exists with regards to their body density. Filling this knowledge gap is of importance, as the lumpfish has no swim bladder and thus relies on alternative methods for buoyancy, i.e., the body density difference between the fish and its surroundings. The aims of this study were to measure the body density of lumpfish and investigate the correlation between body density and different operational welfare indicators. A total of 138 lumpfish were sampled at five different aquaculture sites situated in the Faroe Islands. Weight in water and air was measured, body density was calculated, and operational welfare was assessed. The average body density of the juvenile lumpfish was 1.030 g mL−1. Fulton’s K, stomach score, and length were negatively correlated to body density, while the hepatosomatic index was positively correlated to body density. Liver colour was correlated to body density, but the groupings were too broad for a final definitive conclusion. The knowledge gained from this study might help the industry improve their understanding of the operational welfare indicators used for lumpfish. Additionally, the knowledge might also help the aquaculture industry improve their husbandry and feeding practices.publishedVersio