How Certain Robot Attributes Influence Human-to-Robot Social and Emotional Bonds

A growing population of humans are feeling lonely and isolated and may therefore benefit from social and emotional companionship. However, other humans cannot always be available to fulfill these needs, and such in-need individuals often cannot care for pets. Therefore, we explore how robot companions may be designed to facilitate bonds with humans. Our preliminary examination of 115 participants in a quasi-experimental study suggests that humans are more likely to develop social and emotional bonds with robots when those robots are good at communicating and conveying emotions. However, robots’ anthropomorphic attributes and responsiveness to external cues were found to have no impact on bond formulation

How Certain Robot Attributes Influence Human-to-Robot Social and Emotional Bonds

A growing population of humans are feeling lonely and isolated and may therefore benefit from social and emotional companionship. However, other humans cannot always be available to fulfill these needs, and such in-need individuals often cannot care for pets. Therefore, we explore how robot companions may be designed to facilitate bonds with humans. Our preliminary examination of 115 participants in a quasi-experimental study suggests that humans are more likely to develop social and emotional bonds with robots when those robots are good at communicating and conveying emotions. However, robots’ anthropomorphic attributes and responsiveness to external cues were found to have no impact on bond formulation

Using Chatbots and Digital Humans to Collect Online Reviews

AI-controlled digital humans that look and sound highly human-realistic are beginning to appear in place of text-based chatbots for a variety of routine customer service tasks. We used an online experiment to examine how people respond to digital humans and chatbots when providing online reviews. The results show that participants perceived the digital human interface to be more effective, efficient, and satisfying. Participants found the digital human to be more human-like, which elicited a stronger emotional response and led to higher satisfaction. Participants used more casual and friendly language when interacting with the digital human and provided longer feedback than with the chatbot. Overall, people preferred the digital human interface over the chatbot. These findings suggest that using highly realistic digital humans in customer service could be a beneficial and worthwhile option to consider

Asynchronous Video Interviews and Artificial Intelligence: A Multi-Study Exploration

Asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) provide scalable, low-cost opportunities for matching interviewees and organizations. However, the implications of a shift from synchronous interviews aren’t fully understood, especially when design choices such as AI evaluations are employed. To better understand the impact of AVIs, we undertook an exploratory qualitative study in addition to an experiment. The first study involves 100 qualitative responses and exploratory quantitative tests on the relationships between coded values and demographic and trait variables of the respondents. Our second study tests the impact of AI feedback using a large online AVI service while accounting for various disadvantaged groups that could experience discrimination in their AVI interactions. We developed 5 propositions regarding the interaction of interviewee traits and AVI design. Additionally, we did not find support that AI feedback increases the performance of interviewees, though we identify several traits that lead to high AI scores and human-rater performance

Highly refractory Archaean peridotite cumulates: Petrology and geochemistry of the Seqi Ultramafic Complex, SW Greenland

This paper investigates the petrogenesis of the Seqi Ultramafic Complex, which covers a total area of approximately 0.5 km2. The ultramafic rocks are hosted by tonalitic orthogneiss of the ca. 3000 Ma Akia terrane with crosscutting granitoid sheets providing an absolute minimum age of 2978 ± 8 Ma for the Seqi Ultramafic Complex. The Seqi rocks represent a broad range of olivine-dominated plutonic rocks with varying modal amounts of chromite, orthopyroxene and amphibole, i.e. various types of dunite (s.s.), peridotite (s.l.), as well as chromitite. The Seqi Ultramafic Complex is characterised primarily by refractory dunite, with highly forsteritic olivine with core compositions having Mg# ranging from about 91 to 93. The overall high modal contents, as well as the specific compositions, of chromite rule out that these rocks represent a fragment of Earth’s mantle. The occurrence of stratiform chromitite bands in peridotite, thin chromite layers in dunite and poikilitic orthopyroxene in peridotite instead supports the interpretation that the Seqi Ultramafic Complex represents the remnant of a fragmented layered complex or a magma conduit, which was subsequently broken up and entrained during the formation of the regional continental crust. Integrating all of the characteristics of the Seqi Ultramafic Complex points to formation of these highly refractory peridotites from an extremely magnesian (Mg# ~ 80), near-anhydrous magma, as olivine-dominated cumulates with high modal contents of chromite. It is noted that the Seqi cumulates were derived from a mantle source by extreme degrees of partial melting (>40%). This mantle source could potentially represent the precursor for the sub-continental lithospheric mantle (SCLM) in this region, which has previously been shown to be ultra-depleted. The Seqi Ultramafic Complex, as well as similar peridotite bodies in the Fiskefjord region, may thus constitute the earliest cumulates that formed during the large-scale melting event(s), which resulted in the ultra depleted cratonic keel under the North Atlantic Craton. Hence, a better understanding of such Archaean ultramafic complexes may provide constraints on the geodynamic setting of Earth’s first continents and the corresponding SCLM.Department of Geological Sciences, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Quebec, Canada Department of Geology, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, 223 62 Lund, Sweden School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Main Building, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom College of Science, University of Derby, Derby, DE22 1GB, U

Large animal models of cardiovascular disease

The human cardiovascular system is a complex arrangement of specialized structures with distinct functions. The molecular landscape, including the genome, transcriptome and proteome, is pivotal to the biological complexity of both normal and abnormal mammalian processes. Despite our advancing knowledge and understanding of cardiovascular disease (CVD) through the principal use of rodent models, this continues to be an increasing issue in today's world. For instance, as the ageing population increases, so does the incidence of heart valve dysfunction. This may be because of changes in molecular composition and structure of the extracellular matrix, or from the pathological process of vascular calcification in which bone-formation related factors cause ectopic mineralization. However, significant differences between mice and men exist in terms of cardiovascular anatomy, physiology and pathology. In contrast, large animal models can show considerably greater similarity to humans. Furthermore, precise and efficient genome editing techniques enable the generation of tailored models for translational research. These novel systems provide a huge potential for large animal models to investigate the regulatory factors and molecular pathways that contribute to CVD in vivo. In turn, this will help bridge the gap between basic science and clinical applications by facilitating the refinement of therapies for cardiovascular disease. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Refining the accuracy of validated target identification through coding variant fine-mapping in type 2 diabetes

We aggregated coding variant data for 81,412 type 2 diabetes cases and 370,832 controls of diverse ancestry, identifying 40 coding variant association signals (P &lt; 2.2 × 10-7); of these, 16 map outside known risk-associated loci. We make two important observations. First, only five of these signals are driven by low-frequency variants: even for these, effect sizes are modest (odds ratio ≤1.29). Second, when we used large-scale genome-wide association data to fine-map the associated variants in their regional context, accounting for the global enrichment of complex trait associations in coding sequence, compelling evidence for coding variant causality was obtained for only 16 signals. At 13 others, the associated coding variants clearly represent 'false leads' with potential to generate erroneous mechanistic inference. Coding variant associations offer a direct route to biological insight for complex diseases and identification of validated therapeutic targets; however, appropriate mechanistic inference requires careful specification of their causal contribution to disease predisposition.</p

Opportunities for Information Systems Scholars to Help Address Global Crises

As of yet, most applied information systems (IS) research has been concentrated on the problems facing privately owned institutions in developed nations. Now that the IS field has matured and applied research has begun to take a bigger role in the IS community, we have the opportunity to tackle not only traditional information systems problems but also global crises affecting billions of people. There are an abundance of major societal, global, and environmental crises that information systems scholars can help address. In this paper, we review the AIS Senior Scholars’ Basket of Eight (AIS-8) journals to determine their coverage of 135 critical global crises across 6894 articles. Our findings indicate that, though the study of these crises has been increasing within the IS field, such studies still make up only a modest share of research. We, therefore, identify many untapped research opportunities that the IS scholarly community can pursue