An Ethically-Guided Domain-Independent Model of Computational Emotions

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Advancement of artificial intelligence research has supported the development of intelligent autonomous agents. Such intelligent agents, like social robots, are already appearing in public places, homes and offices. Unlike the robots intended for use in factories for mechanical work, social robots should not only be proficient in capabilities such as vision and speech, but also be endowed with other human skills in order to facilitate a sound relationship with human counterparts. Phenomena of emotions is a distinguishable human feature that plays a significant role in human social communication because ability to express emotions enhances the social exchange between two individuals. As such, artificial agents employed in social settings should also exhibit adequate emotional and behavioural abilities to be easily adopted by people. A critical aspect to consider when developing models of artificial emotions for autonomous intelligent agents is the likely impact that the emotional interaction can have on the human counterparts. For example, an that shows an angry expression along with a loud voice may scare a young child more than a - that only denies a request. Indeed, most modern societies consider a strong emotional reaction towards a young child to be unacceptable and even unethical. How can a robot select a socially acceptable emotional state to express while interacting with people? I answer this question by providing an association between emotion theories and ethical theories – which has largely been ignored in the existing literature. A regulatory mechanism for artificial agents inspired by ethical theories is a viable way to ensure that the emotional and behavioural responses of the agent are acceptable in a given social context. As such, an intelligent agent with emotion generation capability can establish social acceptance if its emotions are regulated by ethical reasoning mechanism. In order to validate the above statement, in this work, I provide a novel computational model of emotion for artificial agents – EEGS (short name for thical motion eneration ystem) and evaluate it by comparing the emotional responses of the model with emotion data collected from human participants. Experimental results support that

Evaluation of Antimicrobial Potentialities of Leaves Extract of the Plant Cassia tora Linn. (Leguminosae/Caesalpinioideae)

SUMMARYCassia tora L. (Family Leguminosae/Caesalpinioideae), is a plant with enormous medicinal values. The chloroform, methanol and aqueous extract of leaves of Cassia tora L. showed antibacterial activity (0-5000 μg/ml) against 38, 58 and 29 bacterial strains respectively out of 120 various bacterial strains and also methanol extracts showed antifungal activity (0-64mg/ml) against 3 strains out of 4 strains. Five strains of Shigella dysenteriae, four strains of Staphylococcus aureus, and three strains of Escherichia coli, have shown sensitivity against in vitro treatment of the methanol extracts up to 2000 μg/ml concentration. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ranges from 2–64 mg/ml for dermatophytes. Minimal Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) value lies in the range of 2000-2500 μg/ml against Escherichia coli ATCC25938 and Shigella dysenteriae 1. Phytochemical study indicates that the leaf extract contains flavonoids, saponins, resins, phytosterol, alkaloids and carbohydrates. The traditional claim of leaves of C. tora as an antimicrobial property have been confirmed as the extracts displayed activity against some bacteria and fungi which cause skin infection and gastro-intestinal disorder.Key words: Cassia tora plant, Phytochemical study, Antimicrobial activity, MIC and MBC Gouranga Das et al. Evaluation of Antimicrobial Potentialities of Leaves Extract of the Plant Cassia tora Linn. (Leguminosae/Caesalpinioideae). J Phytol 2/5 (2010)  64-72

An examination of the effectiveness of the lower houses of the legislatures of Queensland (Australia) and Uttar Pradesh (India) in scrutinising and influencing the executive

The notion of parliamentary democracy lies in the supremacy of the legislature where it is the source of policy, law and power; however, the capacity of the legislature to hold the executive accountable has been questioned in academic and political circles. It is a commonplace opinion nowadays that legislative institutions have become redundant or ‘rubber stamps’ of the executive because they are ineffective in providing surveillance of the executive branch of government. The decline in the powers and status of the legislature is usually attributed to the existence of disciplined party structures and the level of resources commanded by the executive. Others argue a contrary view that legislatures have not declined but rather adapted to new situations and developed new legislative mechanisms to influence and scrutinise the executive in the contemporary period. Most scholars have noted that the relative powers of legislatures may be easy to discuss in general terms but it is difficult to make definitive generalisations without detailed examination of specific cases. Therefore, rather than merely speculating from the divergent theories on the effectiveness of legislatures, this study takes a nuanced approach to the performance of legislatures by comparing two cases from widely different contexts. It is accepted that party organisations and the expanded range of government activity have diminished the wider constitutional functions in both contexts. The main questions investigated here relate to the capacity of legislatures to influence the behaviour of the executive and scrutinise its decisions - what factors make legislatures effective or ineffective and in what areas and how can their effectiveness be increased? The two cases selected for the study are the state Legislative Assembly of Queensland (Australia) and the state Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh (India). Archival documents were analysed and interviews were conducted with former and current Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly in both places. The mechanisms for exerting the legislature’s influence or ensuring executive accountability operate through various parliamentary devices and procedures which were therefore the primary focuses of the thesis. The devices examined in the two cases were based on Reid and Forrest’s classification of legislative procedures and devices. These are financial legislation which includes budgetary debates and scrutiny of the estimates; non-financial legislation which includes scrutiny of bills; and non-legislative measures which include parliamentary questions, debates/discussion during plenary session and the work of parliamentary committees. The two case studies provide four conclusions. Firstly, the legislature as an institution has not declined in all aspects as it is still relevant and useful for functioning democracies. It performs several functions which no other institution can perform. Secondly, parliamentary scrutiny and accountability of the executive was found to be relatively weak in both cases; however, the legislatures were able to effectively discuss and ventilate public grievances and influence the executive to some extent. Thirdly, executive domination and manipulation of the legislature was observed in both cases, which meant that accountability functions operated only to an extent that they did not cause political embarrassment or challenge the survival of the executive. Fourthly, in Queensland the perceived ‘decline of parliament’ was associated with members’ perception of its role as a ‘theatre’ for serving party political interests and individual career advancement whereas in Uttar Pradesh the decline was due to members’ disengagement from parliamentary business compared to other roles. The thesis will conclude by suggesting recommendations based on this analysis to improve the effectiveness of the legislatures in scrutinising and influencing the executive

An analysis of the effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the uttar pradesh state legislative assembly (India)

Parliamentary questions are the most popular and visible tool for making the executive accountable to the legislature. However, their use, purpose and effectiveness vary in different countries. In this study, 4023 parliamentary questions asked in the Uttar Pradesh State Legislative Assembly were analysed. The results show that half of the total members of the Assembly used this device. Contrary to findings in the Australian parliamentary system, there was no evidence of ‘Dorothy Dix’ and party influence on parliamentary questions. Furthermore, 30% of the questions were aimed at seeking information and 70% pressed for action. The government provided the required information in 95% of the questions in the former category but only took action in 37% in the latter category. The study concludes that parliamentary questions serve as an effective legislative tool in the Uttar Pradesh Legislatur

An analysis of parliamentary questions raised by opposition in the Uttar Pradesh (India) state Legislative assembly

The use of parliamentary questions is the most popular and visible tool in the hands of the Opposition as a means to make government accountable. Their main purpose is to seek information or press for action. Contemporary parliamentary literature from the UK, Canada, and Australia, however, suggests that parliamentary questions have lost their effectiveness. The literature points out that Question Time in parliaments has become a battle ground between Ruling and Opposition parties in their fight to gain maximum political advantage. In this context, the effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the Indian state legislatures has not been investigated. The aim of this study, therefore, is to analyse the use, purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the State Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh (India) to explore differences, if any, between Ruling and Opposition parties. In this study, 4023 parliamentary questions asked in the Uttar Pradesh State Legislative Assembly were analysed. The effectiveness of answers was also analysed qualitatively. The results show that half of the total members of the Assembly used this device, out of which 60% of the questions were asked by the Opposition party members. 31% of the questions from the Opposition were seeking information and 69% were pressing for action. The government provided the required information in 96% of the questions in the former category and took action in only 35% of the latter category. Furthermore, 60% of the questions raised by the Opposition were related to constituency matters and the remaining 40% were related to policy issues or public welfare. Comparing the data with the ruling party, the results indicate that the use,purpose and effectiveness of parliamentary questions were similar to that of the Opposition except some minor differences. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of any ‘Dorothy Dix’ questions. The study concludes parliamentary question is an effective device in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh

An analysis of effectiveness of parliamentary questions in the Queensland Parliament

Parliamentary questions are an integral part of most Westminster parliamentary systems, serving as\ud a major form of legislative oversight and constituency service (Glassman 2008). There are two\ud types of parliamentary questions, ‘questions without notice’ and ‘questions on notice’. Questions\ud without notice are asked and answered orally during ‘Question Time’. Questions on notice are\ud asked in writing and the relevant minister provides the answer in writing. Parliamentary questions\ud provide a mechanism to seek the accountability of the executive on the floor of the House and\ud barely ‘any aspect of the executive department’s powers and activities can be shielded from\ud questions’ (Crick 1964: 237). In terms of media coverage, this practice is the most widely reported\ud legislative device. Therefore, to a casual observer, the working of parliament is synonymous with\ud Question Time

Computational Emotion Models: A Thematic Review

Several computational models of emotions have been proposed to enable artificial agents to generate emotions of their own. However, there are barriers that limit the full capabilities of these models. One issue is the need to enable emotion generation in autonomous agents in wide range of interaction situations instead of designing specific scenarios. Additionally, it is not practically easy task to ‘effectively’ integrate other human characteristics in emotion generation process of artificial agents, which is essential for variation in behavioural responses of such agents. Moreover, although theoretically it is believed that appraisal variables are associated with emotion intensities, existing emotion literature does not offer a generalisable mechanism to computationally achieve such a mapping—thereby leading to ad-hoc implementations. It is also important to note that emotions expressed by intelligent autonomous agents like robots can have deep impact on people and society, therefore, it is crucial to ensure ethical implications of emotional responses of such systems. In this paper, we endeavour to review the emotion models proposed in the last two decades based on the aspects discussed above and provide recommendations for the development of future computational models of emotion. Our review will mainly revolve around the emotion models that implement the concept of appraisal theory of emotion. Our finding suggests that none of the existing computational models of emotion using appraisal theory implement all the characteristics we identify thereby providing further research opportunities

A Domain-Independent Approach of Cognitive Appraisal Augmented by HigherCognitive Layer of Ethical Reasoning

According to cognitive appraisal theory, emotion in an indi-vidual is the result of how a situation/event is evaluated by theindividual. This evaluation has different outcomes among peo-ple and it is often suggested to be operationalised by a set ofrules or beliefs acquired by the subject throughout develop-ment. Unfortunately, this view is particularly detrimental forcomputational applications of emotion appraisal. In fact, it re-quires providing a knowledge base that is particularly difficultto establish and manage, especially in systems designed forhighly complex scenarios, such as social robots. In addition,according to appraisal theory, an individual might elicit morethan one emotion at a time in reaction to an event. Hence, de-termining which emotional state should be attributed in rela-tionship to a specific event is another critical issue not yet fullyaddressed by the available literature. In this work, we showthat: (i) the cognitive appraisal process can be realised withouta complex set of rules; instead, we propose that this processcan be operationalised by knowing only the positive or nega-tive perceived effect the event has on the subject, thus facili-tating extensibility and integrability of the emotional system;(ii) the final emotional state to attribute in relation to a specificsituation is better explained by ethical reasoning mechanisms.These hypotheses are supported by our experimental results.Therefore, this contribution is particularly significant to pro-vide a more simple and generalisable explanation of cognitiveappraisal theory and to promote the integration between theo-ries of emotion and ethics studies, currently often neglected bythe available literature