A motion system for social and animated robots

This paper presents an innovative motion system that is used to control the motions and animations of a social robot. The social robot Probo is used to study Human-Robot Interactions (HRI), with a special focus on Robot Assisted Therapy (RAT). When used for therapy it is important that a social robot is able to create an "illusion of life" so as to become a believable character that can communicate with humans. The design of the motion system in this paper is based on insights from the animation industry. It combines operator-controlled animations with low-level autonomous reactions such as attention and emotional state. The motion system has a Combination Engine, which combines motion commands that are triggered by a human operator with motions that originate from different units of the cognitive control architecture of the robot. This results in an interactive robot that seems alive and has a certain degree of "likeability". The Godspeed Questionnaire Series is used to evaluate the animacy and likeability of the robot in China, Romania and Belgium

Singular Vector Based Targeted Observations of Atmospheric Chemical Compounds

Measurements of the earth's environment provide only sparse snapshots of the state of the system due to their insufficient temporal and spatial density. In face of these limitations, the measurement configurations need to be optimized to get a best possible state estimate. One possibility to optimize the state estimate is provided by targeted observations of sensitive system states, where measurements are of great value for forecast improvements. In the recent years, numerical weather prediction adapted singular vector analysis with respect to initial values as a novel method to identify sensitive locations. In the present work, this technique was transferred from meteorological to chemical forecast. Besides initial values, emissions were introduced as controlling variables. Since time-variant amounts of emissions continuously act on the chemical evolution, targeting observations of emissions is a challenging task. Alternatively, uncertainties in the amplitude of the diurnal profile of emissions are analyzed, yielding emission factors as target variables. Special operators were designed to address specific questions of atmospheric chemistry, like the VOC- versus NOx-sensitivity of the ozone formation. The concept of adaptive observations was studied on two levels of complexity: At first, targeted singular vectors were implemented in a chemistry box model which only treats chemical reaction kinetics. Due to the absence of spatial dimensions, the chemistry box model only provides ranking lists of measurement priorities for different compounds. In the second step, singular vector analysis was implemented in a chemical transport model to additionally determine optimal placements of measurements. Both models have been tested and evaluated by conducting a comprehensive set of case studies. Particular questions of specific interest for the chemical system were examined, where the newly designed operators were applied. Results show large differences in sensitivities of different compounds. Consequently, an optimal measurement configuration benefits from omitting measurements of compounds of low sensitivity. It is demonstrated how targeted observations of chemical compounds depend on the considered simulation interval, meteorological conditions, and the underlying chemical composition. Accomplished studies clearly identify strong differences between meteorological and chemical target areas. These differences reveal the importance of the chemical composition and emphasize the significance of chemical singular vectors for effective campaign planing

Poemas.

Víctor Díaz Goris (biografía): Nació en 1966 en San José de las Matas, República Dominicana. Estudió psicología en la UASD. Posteriormente hizo una maestría en Gerencia de Marketing en la Universidad APEC y una maestría en Educación Superior, mención Ciencias Sociales, a través del proyecto UNAPEC-Universidad de Camagüey. Es poeta. Fue miembro del grupo de poetas Juglares de la Academia, de la Academia Dominicana de la Lengua. Es profesor adscrito al Decanato de Estudios Generales de la Universidad APEC

Minirrelatos

Víctor Díaz Goris (biografía): Licenciado en Psicología, en la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), 1990. Inglés como segunda lengua (ESL), Universidad APEC, 1991. Maestría en Gerencia de Marketing, Unapec, 2001. Maestría en Educación Superior, Proyecto Unapec-Camagüey, 2005. Posgrado en Educación Virtual, Virtualeduca, 2013. Desde 1991 es docente de la Escuela de Idiomas y desde 2002 imparte docencia de diversas asignaturas del área de Psicología, ambos en Unapec.Como poeta y ensayista ha publicado artículos en las revistas Ágora y Vetas, en la versión digital del periódico Listín Diario y el periódico El Nacional. Ha obtenido numerosos reconocimientos, entre ellos “Poeta destacado del mes” y “Poema destacado del mes”. Su poema “El Quetzal y Tú” obtuvo Mención de Honor en Argentina, sus poemas han sido incluidos en varias antologías internacionales. Fue miembro del grupo de poetas Juglares de la Academia, de la Academia Dominicana de la Lengua

Promising Practices in Christian Schools: Mission to Practice

This article was originally presented at the 1996 B. J. Haan Education Conference at Dordt College