Exploring haptic interfacing with a mobile robot without visual feedback

Search and rescue scenarios are often complicated by low or no visibility conditions. The lack of visual feedback hampers orientation and causes significant stress for human rescue workers. The Guardians project [1] pioneered a group of autonomous mobile robots assisting a human rescue worker operating within close range. Trials were held with fire fighters of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. It became clear that the subjects by no means were prepared to give up their procedural routine and the feel of security they provide: they simply ignored instructions that contradicted their routines

Sustainability, Externalities and Economics: The Case of Temperate Perennial Grazing Systems in NSW

The replacement of perennial grass species by undesirable annual grass weeds not only results in lower productivity but is also contributes to a range of external costs. In particular, shallow rooted annuals result in greater deep drainage and therefore a greater potential for salinity, and greater volumes of runoff of poor quality water to streams. In this paper an economic framework for examining the sustainability issues of a perennial grazing system on the NSW Central Tablelands is presented. This involves a combination of simulation and dynamic programming models, with the state of the system represented by variables for the perennial grass composition and soil fertility. The paper examines a range of management strategies that increase the perennial grass composition in terms of net income from grazing, and the impact upon the externalities.perennial pasture, sustainability, externalities, bioeconomic modelling, dynamic programming, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, 160,

Language - the transparent tool: reflections on reflexivity and instrumentality

'There are no first-order objects of any kind' in language, as Nigel Love puts it. And yet first-order linguistic communication is crowded with identifiable 'linguistic objects' of innumerable kinds – from names, labels, lists, and words of one syllable to requests, greetings, interviews, jokes and lies. Such metalinguistic reflexivity is fundamental to our linguistic experience and testimony to the 'transparency' of communicative acts and events in relation to the social practices to which they contribute. The paper sets out to explore a range of scholarly insights into this communicational 'transparency' in pursuit of answers to the following questions: 1. Is there value in extending Heidegger's notion of ‘transparent technology’ to linguistic and metalinguistic activity? 2. Is Love's distinction between ‘first-order’ and ‘second-order’ language better viewed as a relationship between different ‘first-order’ linguistic or communicative practices? 3. How does the vital communicational transparency on display in lay analytic linguistic reflection differ from the analytic discourse of the professional linguist? In coming to a position on each question, the paper argues that an understanding of the 'socio-transparency' in evidence in language use warrants a distinction between the 'instrumental abstraction' of the ordinary language user and the 'formal abstraction' of the linguist

‘Coordination’ (Herbert H Clark), ‘integration’ (Roy Harris) and the foundations of communication theory: common ground or competing visions?

The paper explores the relationship between Herbert H Clark’s conception of language use as ‘coordination’ in joint action and Roy Harris’s view of sign-making as an ‘integration’ of activities. On the face of it, the two approaches have much in common. Both Clark and Harris have raised fundamental objections to traditional linguistic approaches: Clark has counterposed an 'action tradition' to a prevailing 'product tradition', while Harris has proposed an 'integrational' view in opposition to a prevailing 'segregational' approach, both scholars insisting on seeing the production and interpretation of signs as embedded in contexts of activity. However, clear differences between the two approaches revolve around their respective attitudes to common ground in joint action and to the existence of languages as conventionally theorised. The paper explores these differences in relation to the role of intention and shared knowledge in meaning-making and to the status of conventional meaning in linguistic communication. The paper argues that Clark's approach overall ultimately proves vulnerable to Harris's critique of the reifying tendencies and ideology of the western language tradition and ends with a brief reflection on the wider socio-political implications of debates over linguistic methodology.</p

Integrationist reflections on the place of dialogue in our communicational universe: laying the ghost of segregationism?

Roy Harris identifies the “main flaw” in J L Austin's account of language as a “failure to consider to what extent being able to ‘do things with words’ is parasitic on being able to do things without them”. Harris's comment here serves as a springboard for a critical evaluation of communicational theories based around “talk-in-interaction” or dialogic principles. The primacy thereby given to linguistic interaction arguably entails a mystification of communication processes and the dis-integration of the social world into which our communicational experiences are intervowen. Consequently, the ghost of segregationism, in the shape of Harris’s “fallacy of verbalism”, continues to haunt, at times faintly, at times aggressively, the assumptions and methodologies of the approaches in question

An Economic Evaluation of Research into the Improved Management of the Annual Grass Weed Vulpia in Temperate Pastures in South-Eastern Australia

NSW Agriculture has a history of research investment in managing weed problems in the temperate pasture areas. One focus of that research has been on the development of improved management practices for the major annual grass weed vulpia. Recent surveys have found that weeds comprised up to 80% of pasture biomass in some temperate areas and that typical vulpia contents are between 30 and 40% of pasture biomass. Temperate pasture degradation is recognised as being a major contributor to the wider environmental problems of soil erosion, salinity and acidity. This evaluation related to a project (1996-2002) that focussed on the vulpia problem in the New South Wales temperate pasture areas. The benefits of that research were measured as the difference in the economic returns from the project (the with-research scenario) and those that would have resulted if the project had not been initiated (the without-research scenario). The results indicated high levels of economic benefits from the vulpia project. The annual net project benefit had a mean value of $58 million. The benefit-cost analysis generated a mean NPV of$196.9 million and a mean BCR of 22.2. These results demonstrate that research by NSW Agriculture into the improved management of vulpia has the potential to generate substantial long-term economic benefits. Other socio-economic aspects of the results showed that wool producers outside the New South Wales temperate areas lost economic surplus (from a mean -$21.7 million to -$47.8 million) because they were unable to adopt the cost-reducing technology and faced a reduced wool price. All wool consumers gained from vulpia research because of expanded wool production and lower wool prices. Improved vulpia management is also considered to produce important environmental benefits by encouraging a greater use of deep-rooted perennial grasses and the beneficial effects of these on mitigating soil problems and reducing water table discharges.benefit cost analysis, research evaluation, annual grass weeds, vulpia, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q160,

Azimuthal correlations of forward di-hadrons in d+Au collisions at RHIC in the Color Glass Condensate

We present a good description of recent experimental data on forward di-hadron azimuthal correlations measured in deuteron-gold collisions at RHIC, where monojet production has been observed. Our approach is based on the Color Glass Condensate effective theory for the small-x degrees of freedom of the nuclear wave function, including the use of non-linear evolution equations with running QCD coupling. Our analysis provides further evidence for the presence of saturation effects in RHIC data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in PR

Towards human technology symbiosis in the haptic mode

Search and rescue operations are often undertaken in dark and noisy environments in which rescue teams must rely on haptic feedback for exploration and safe exit. However, little attention has been paid specifically to haptic sensitivity in such contexts or to the possibility of enhancing communicational proficiency in the haptic mode as a life-preserving measure. Here we discuss the design of a haptic guide robot, inspired by careful study of the communication between blind person and guide dog. In the case of this partnership, the development of a symbiotic relationship between person and dog, based on mutual trust and confidence, is a prerequisite for successful task performance. We argue that a human-technology symbiosis is equally necessary and possible in the case of the robot guide. But this is dependent on the robot becoming 'transparent technology' in Andy Clark's sense. We report on initial haptic mode experiments in which a person uses a simple mobile mechanical device (a metal disk fixed with a rigid handle) to explore the immediate environment. These experiments demonstrate the extreme sensitivity and trainability of haptic communication and the speed with which users develop and refine their haptic proficiencies in using the device, permitting reliable and accurate discrimination between objects of different weights. We argue that such trials show the transformation of the mobile device into a transparent information appliance and the beginnings of the development of a symbiotic relationship between device and human user. We discuss how these initial explorations may shed light on the more general question of how a human mind, on being exposed to an unknown environment, may enter into collaboration with an external information source in order to learn about, and navigate, that environment