Quantitative Framework For Social Cultural Interactions

For an autonomous robot or software agent to participate in the social life of humans, it must have a way to perform a calculus of social behavior. Such a calculus must have explanatory power (it must provide a coherent theory for why the humans act the way they do), and predictive power (it must provide some plausible events from the predicted future actions of the humans). This dissertation describes a series of contributions that would allow agents observing or interacting with humans to perform a calculus of social behavior taking into account cultural conventions and socially acceptable behavior models. We discuss the formal components of the model: culture-sanctioned social metrics (CSSMs), concrete beliefs (CBs) and action impact functions. Through a detailed case study of a crooked seller who relies on the manipulation of public perception, we show that the model explains how the exploitation of social conventions allows the seller to finalize transactions, despite the fact that the clients know that they are being cheated. In a separate study, we show that how the crooked seller can find an optimal strategy with the use of reinforcement learning. We extend the CSSM model for modeling the propagation of public perception across multiple social interactions. We model the evolution of the public perception both over a single interaction and during a series of interactions over an extended period of time. An important aspect for modeling the public perception is its propagation - how the propagation is affected by the spatio-temporal context of the interaction and how does the short-term and long-term memory of humans affect the overall public perception. We validated the CSSM model through a user study in which participants cognizant with the modeled culture had to evaluate the impact on the social values. The scenarios used in the experiments modeled emotionally charged social situations in a cross-cultural setting and with the presence of a robot. The scenarios model conflicts of cross-cultural communication as well as ethical, social and financial choices. This study allowed us to study whether people sharing the same culture evaluate CSSMs at the same way (the inter-cultural uniformity conjecture). By presenting a wide range of possible metrics, the study also allowed us to determine whether any given metric can be considered a CSSM in a given culture or not

The role of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the evaluation of hepatobiliary lesions and its correlation with pathological findings

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in assessing hepatobiliary lesions, and to correlate the findings of CEUS for hepatobiliary lesions with those of pathological examination performed through fine needle aspiration. Material and methods: This prospective observational study included 50 patients with hepatobiliary lesions, who were referred for CEUS. The findings of CEUS were correlated with pathological findings. Results: CEUS was determined to be a highly sensitive and specific imaging modality for the detection and characterization of hepatobiliary lesions, with the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of CEUS being 100.0%, 96.8%, 66.7%, 100.0%, and 96.7%, respectively, when correlated with pathological findings. Conclusions: CEUS is a highly sensitive and specific imaging modality for the detection and characterization of hepatobiliary lesions, with wide availability in the present scenario

Towards a computational model of social norms

We describe a computational model of social norms based on identifying values that a certain culture finds desirable such as dignity, generosity and politeness. The model quantifies these values in the form of Culture-Sanctioned Social Metrics (CSSMs) and treats social norms as the requirement to maximize these metrics from the perspective of the self, peers and public. This model can be used to create realistic social simulations, to explain or predict human behavior in specific scenarios, or as a component of robots or agents that need to interact with humans in specific social-cultural settings. We validate the model by using it to represent a complex deception scenario and showing that it can yield non-trivial insights such as the explanation of apparently irrational human behavior

Intra- and Inter-specific variation of four Acetess species (Crustacea: Decapoda: Sergestidae) sampled along the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia

The intra- and inter-specific variation of Acetes shrimps were evaluated based on samples collected from in-shore catches and off-shore trawling around the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Species captured were identified as Acetes indicus, A. serrulatus, A. japonicus and A. sibogae. A region of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene comprising 552 base pairs (bp) was amplified from 159 Acetes specimens. The sequence alignment analysis generated phylogenetic trees which depicted the four major clades that were consistent with the species identified morphologically. These four species varied considerably for haplotype and nucleotide diversity, with A. indicus and A. serrulatus showing different demographic histories. Furthermore, the observation of two clades in the A. indicus and A. sibogae lineages, with relatively high levels of intraspecific divergence, suggests that cryptic diversity is possibly present in these two taxa. This study has contributed to the knowledge of the distribution patterns and molecular phylogenetics of four Acetes spp. in the Straits of Malacca

Reporting of T1520I and F1534C knockdown resistance (kdr) mutations in Aedes albopictus from northern West Bengal (India) by Modak & Saha (2022) is a probable case of Aedes aegypti contamination or misidentification

Recently, Modak & Saha (2022)1 reported the presence of two knockdown resistance (kdr) mutations—T1520I and F1534C, in the voltage-gated sodium channel of Aedes albopictus collected from northern West Bengal (India). Here, we provide plausible evidence that the reported DNA haplotypes (wild, and with T1520I+F1534C mutations) are originated from Aedes aegypti, not from Ae. albopictus

Soldiers, Robots And Local Population - Modeling Cross-Cultural Values In A Peacekeeping Scenario

We consider a near-future peacekeeping scenario, where a group of soldiers of various ranks and a robot interact with the local population. The goal is to quantify, analyze and predict the public perception of the soldiers and the robot. Instead of integrative statistical approaches, we develop a model which traces individual interactions. Our model assumes that human beings are considering collections of concrete and intangible values which are not, in general, directly and linearly convertible into each other. We argue that satisfactory modeling accuracy can be achieved by restricting the considered intangibles to a small set of culture sanctioned social values. For these values, the culture provides a name, calculation methods, as well as associated rules of conduct. We validate our model by comparing the predicted values with the judgment of a large group of human observers cognizant of the modeled culture. We use the model to evaluate the tradeoffs between various long term strategies to maintain security as well as to increase the trust and goodwill of the local population

The Education Of A Crook: Reinforcement Learning In Social-Cultural Settings

The ability to manipulate social and cultural values in order to achieve one\u27s own goals is a hard-to-teach but profitable skill. In this paper we represent a complex social scenario, the Spanish Steps flower selling scam, using a social calculus framework based on culture sanctioned social metrics (CSSMs) and concrete beliefs (CBs). Then, we show how a crooked seller can learn a profitable strategy through reinforcement learning. Although the search space defined by the social calculus is large, we found that function approximation based Q-learning allows us to successfully learn efficient strategies in a relatively small number of runs. The learned strategy allows the seller to manipulate an unprepared tourist\u27s social values of politeness and dignity, as well as his perception of the peers and crowds opinion. This allows the seller to manipulate some of his opponents to act against their own interests by purchasing an overpriced flower while well-knowing that they are being cheated

Idiopathic clubbing: A case report

Clubbing of the fingers and toes has been recognized as a clinical manifestation of intra thoracic disease from the earliest times. Hippocrates particularly described the condition as occurring with advanced phthisis and empyema and emphasized the importance of the changes as diagnostic of purulent pleural effusion. Many subsequent authors have described clubbing of the fingers associated with chronic disease of the heart or lungs, but it is still rare in medical literature to find the condition mentioned as being of primary origin. We here present the case of 24 years old female having developed clubbing of all fingers that had no found secondary cause after an extensive search and so thought to be of primary origin