Machine Learning Driven Emotional Musical Prosody for Human-Robot Interaction

This dissertation presents a method for non-anthropomorphic human-robot interaction using a newly developed concept entitled Emotional Musical Prosody (EMP). EMP consists of short expressive musical phrases capable of conveying emotions, which can be embedded in robots to accompany mechanical gestures. The main objective of EMP is to improve human engagement with, and trust in robots while avoiding the uncanny valley. We contend that music - one of the most emotionally meaningful human experiences - can serve as an effective medium to support human-robot engagement and trust. EMP allows for the development of personable, emotion-driven agents, capable of giving subtle cues to collaborators while presenting a sense of autonomy. We present four research areas aimed at developing and understanding the potential role of EMP in human-robot interaction. The first research area focuses on collecting and labeling a new EMP dataset from vocalists, and using this dataset to generate prosodic emotional phrases through deep learning methods. Through extensive listening tests, the collected dataset and generated phrases were validated with a high level of accuracy by a large subject pool. The second research effort focuses on understanding the effect of EMP in human-robot interaction with industrial and humanoid robots. Here, significant results were found for improved trust, perceived intelligence, and likeability of EMP enabled robotic arms, but not for humanoid robots. We also found significant results for improved trust in a social robot, as well as perceived intelligence, creativity and likeability in a robotic musician. The third and fourth research areas shift to broader use cases and potential methods to use EMP in HRI. The third research area explores the effect of robotic EMP on different personality types focusing on extraversion and neuroticism. For robots, personality traits offer a unique way to implement custom responses, individualized to human collaborators. We discovered that humans prefer robots with emotional responses based on high extraversion and low neuroticism, with some correlation between the humans collaborator’s own personality traits. The fourth and final research question focused on scaling up EMP to support interaction between groups of robots and humans. Here, we found that improvements in trust and likeability carried across from single robots to groups of industrial arms. Overall, the thesis suggests EMP is useful for improving trust and likeability for industrial, social and robot musicians but not in humanoid robots. The thesis bears future implications for HRI designers, showing the extensive potential of careful audio design, and the wide range of outcomes audio can have on HRI.Ph.D

Data integrity within the biopharmaceutical sector in the era of Industry 4.0

Data Integrity (DI) in the highly regulated biopharmaceutical sector is of paramount importance to ensure decisions on meeting product specifications are accurate and hence assure patient safety and product quality. The challenge of ensuring DI within this sector is becoming more complex with the growing amount of data generated given increasing adoption of process analytical technology (PAT), advanced automation, high throughput microscale studies, and managing data models created by machine learning (ML) tools. This paper aims to identify DI risks and mitigation strategies in biopharmaceutical manufacturing facilities as the sector moves towards Industry 4.0. To achieve this, the paper examines common DI violations and links them to the ALCOA+ principles used across the FDA, EMA, and MHRA. The relevant DI guidelines from the ISPE's GAMP5 and ISA-95 standards are also discussed with a focus on the role of validated computerised and automated manufacturing systems to avoid DI risks and generate compliant data. The paper also highlights the importance of DI whilst using data analytics to ensure the developed models meet the required regulatory standards for process monitoring and control. This includes a discussion on possible mitigation strategies and methodologies to ensure data integrity is maintained for smart manufacturing operations such as the use of cloud platforms to facilitate the storage and transfer of manufacturing data, and migrate away from paper-based records

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

An Interactive Algorithmic Music System for EDM

Artiin is an interactive computer music system for live performance and composition of EDM. Artiin is able to function as an autonomous musical creator with no humaninput, or can generate one or more streams in response to human input: for example creating a ride cymbal pattern influenced by an incoming bass pattern. The system shows how developments in interactive music can be repurposed for a system designed to meet a DJs workflow. This article explores the design of Artiin as well as musical concepts that underpin this work and other systems that influenced its development. Artiin was designed by the author in Max for Live, with multiple custom externals written in Java. While the system is currently used by multiple musicians, it is not publicly available