Socially Constrained Management Of Power Resources For Social Mobile Robots

Autonomous robots acting as companions or assistants in real social environments should be able to sustain and operate over an extended period of time. Generally, autonomous mobile robots draw power from batteries to operate various sensors, actuators and perform tasks. Batteries have a limited power life and take a long time to recharge via a power source, which may impede human-robot interaction and task performance. Thus, it is important for social robots to manage their energy, this paper discusses an approach to manage power resources on mobile robot with regard to social aspects for creating life-like autonomous social robots

Perceptual Control Theory for Engagement and Disengagement of Users in Public Spaces

This paper presents Perceptual Control Theory-a model that explains behaviour as an attempt to keep sensory inputs in a desired range and demonstrates that it can be used to develop an approach designed to make robots capable of human interaction. In particular, we present an approach that embodies the most salient features of the theory through a feedback loop. This approach has been implemented on a Pepper robot, and a preliminary experiment has been performed by deploying the robot in the entrance hall of a university building. The results show that the robot effectively engages and disengages the attention of people in 43% and 39% of cases, respectively. This result has been obtained in a fully natural setting where people were unaware of being involved in an experiment and therefore behaved spontaneously

How Can a Robot Signal Its Incapability to Perform a Certain Task to Humans in an Acceptable Manner?

In this paper, a robot that is using politeness to overcome its incapability to serve is presented. The mobile robot “Alex” is interacting with human office colleagues in their environment and delivers messages, phone calls, and companionship. The robot's battery capacity is not sufficient to survive a full working day. Thus, the robot needs to recharge during the day. By doing so it is unavailable for tasks that involve movement. The study presented in this paper supports the idea that an incapability of fullfiling an appointed task can be overcome by politeness and showing appropriate behaviour. The results, reveal that, even the simple adjustment of spoken utterances towards a more polite phrasing can change the human's perception of the robot companion. This change in the perception can be made visible by analysing the human's behaviour towards the robot

Modulating the Non-Verbal Social Signals of a Humanoid Robot

In this demonstration we present a repertoire of social signals generated by the humanoid robot Pepper in the context of the EU-funded project MuMMER. The aim of this research is to provide the robot with the expressive capabilities required to interact with people in real-world public spaces such as shopping malls-and being able to control the non-verbal behaviour of such a robot is key to engaging with humans in an effective way. We propose an approach to modulating the non-verbal social signals of the robot based on systematically varying the amplitude and speed of the joint motions and gathering user evaluations of the resulting gestures. We anticipate that the humans' perception of the robot behaviour will be influenced by these modulations

The Levy-Lieb embedding of density functional theory and its Quantum Kernel: Illustration for the Hubbard Dimer using near-term quantum algorithms

The constrained-search formulation of Levy and Lieb provides a concrete mapping from N-representable densities to the space of N-particle wavefunctions and explicitly defines the universal functional of density functional theory. We numerically implement the Levy-Lieb procedure for a paradigmatic lattice system, the Hubbard dimer, using a modified variational quantum eigensolver approach. We demonstrate density variational minimization using the resulting hybrid quantum-classical scheme featuring real-time computation of the Levy-Lieb functional along the search trajectory. We further illustrate a fidelity based quantum kernel associated with the density to pure-state embedding implied by the Levy-Lieb procedure and employ the kernel for learning observable functionals of the density. We study the kernel's ability to generalize with high accuracy through numerical experiments on the Hubbard dimer.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Smart Energy Metering System

The objectives of this paper are to develop a system which can transmit the reading of energy meter to the nearest electric meter billing[11][12] and controlling station, to minimize tampering of the reading[20], to identify energy meter breakdown , to minimize administrative expenses, identify excessive power consumption[22] and to facilitate the customer to find its overall consumption of energy continuously. For this we replace analog electric meter with the digital circuitry to provide real time billing & reading to the customers by using Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)[13]. There are basically two ends, one is user end and the other is server end. Either the meter can be prepaid or postpaid, which is completely monitored and controlled by the server end using GPRS connectivity. The user can check its consumption pattern of its usage by login to the website. The unit of measurement is KVA because the Indian power sector faces a serious problem of lean revenue collection for the actual electric energy supplied in VA owing to losses of revenue. One of the prime reasons is the traditional billing system which is inaccurate many times[12], slow, costly, and lacking flexibility as well as reliability. The key elements of this research are micro controller, GSM/GPRS communication module, data sensing network. The whole system is revolving around the GSM/GPRS module and the microcontroller, where GSM/GPRS module is used for the wireless data transmission[7] and controller controls the whole operation of the system[23][24]

The interaction between voice and appearance in the embodiment of a robot tutor

Robot embodiment is, by its very nature, holistic and understanding how various aspects contribute to the user perception of the robot is non-trivial. A study is presented here that investigates whether there is an interaction effect between voice and other aspects of embodiment, such as movement and appearance, in a pedagogical setting. An on-line study was distributed to children aged 11–17 that uses a modified Godspeed questionnaire. We show an interaction effect between the robot embodiment and voice in terms of perceived lifelikeness of the robot. Politeness is a key strategy used in learning and teaching, and here an effect is also observed for perceived politeness. Interestingly, participants’ overall preference was for embodiment combinations that are deemed polite and more like a teacher, but are not necessarily the most lifelike. From these findings, we are able to inform the design of robotic tutors going forward

Baryons and Interactions in Magnetic Fields

The QCD external field problem allows one to probe the rich behavior of strongly interacting systems under external conditions, including the modification of hadron structure and interactions due to external electromagnetic fields. These dynamics, moreover, are likely relevant to describe the physics in the interiors of magnetars and in non-central heavy-ion collisions, for which large magnetic fields upwards of $10^{19}$ Gauss are conceivable. Additionally motivated by lattice QCD calculations in external fields, we study the behavior of single- and two-baryon (specifically, two-nucleon) systems in large magnetic fields. The dependence of single-baryon energies on magnetic fields is explored using chiral dynamics. Lattice calculations are argued to provide a valuable diagnostic on the chiral expansion for baryons. In particular, we show the unsatisfactory state of predictions for hyperon magnetic polarizabilities. Lattice calculations by the NPLQCD collaboration, furthermore, suggest that the unitary limit of two-nucleon interactions may be attained by tuning an external magnetic field. Toward the investigation of such universality using chiral effective field theory, we study a model system of two heavy fermions interacting with a light, charged scalar boson to address the modification of two-fermion interactions in large magnetic fields

Farmers’ suicides in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India: a qualitative exploration of their causes

Background: To explore the various perceived reasons for farmers’ suicides in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, their common factors, and to suggest solutions. METHODS: The present formative research was undertaken in the 23 villages surrounding the Anji Primary Health Centre, located in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India. A triangulation of free list and pile sort exercises was used. The data was analyzed by Anthropac 4.98.1/X software. This was followed by a semi-structured focus group discussion. To increase the validity of the results, these findings were presented to the participants and later they were circulated to the 26 farmers’ clubs in the villages for comment and discussion during their monthly, village-based meetings. RESULTS: Farmers perceived debt, addiction, environmental problems, poor prices for farm produce, stress and family responsibilities, government apathy, poor irrigation, increased cost of cultivation, private money lenders, use of chemical fertilizers and crop failure as the reasons for farmers’ suicides. Participants suggested solutions such as self-reliance and capacity building among farmers, a monitoring and support system for vulnerable farmers, support and counseling services, a village-level, transparent system for the disbursement of relief packages. CONCLUSIONS: Farmers’ suicides in Vidarbha are caused by the complex interplay of social, political and environmental constraints. Hence, a comprehensive intervention to ensure self-reliance and capacity building among farmers in modern farming techniques , monitoring and support system for vulnerable farmers, a village-level, transparent system for disbursement of relief packages is required to prevent farmer suicides in the near future. Apart from this, there is a need to strengthen the National Mental Health Program at primary health care level to offer support and counseling to vulnerable farmers in rural area