An adaptive human sensor framework for human–robot collaboration

Manufacturing challenges are increasing the demands for more agile and dexterous means of production. At the same time, these systems aim to maintain or even increase productivity. The challenges risen from these developments can be tackled through human–robot collaboration (HRC). HRC requires effective task distribution according to each party’s distinctive strengths, which is envisioned to generate synergetic effects. To enable a seamless collaboration, the human and robot require a mutual awareness, which is challenging, due to the human and robot “speaking” different languages as in analogue and digital. This challenge can be addressed by equipping the robot with a model of the human. Despite a range of models being available, data-driven models of the human are still at an early stage. For this purpose, this paper proposes an adaptive human sensor framework, which incorporates objective, subjective, and physiological metrics, as well as associated machine learning. Thus, it is envisioned to adapt to the uniqueness and dynamic nature of human behavior. To test the framework, a validation experiment was performed, including 18 participants, which aims to predict perceived workload during two scenarios, namely a manual and an HRC assembly task. Perceived workloads are described to have a substantial impact on a human operator’s task performance. Throughout the experiment, physiological data from an electroencephalogram (EEG), an electrocardiogram (ECG), and respiration sensor was collected and interpreted. For subjective metrics, the standardized NASA Task Load Index was used. Objective metrics included task completion time and number of errors/assistance requests. Overall, the framework revealed a promising potential towards an adaptive behavior, which is ultimately envisioned to enable a more effective HRC.

Treading Poetic Borders in Southwest China and Northeast India

Since the 1980s ethnic minority poets writing in the borderlands of Southwest China and Northeast India emerged on the world stage from within currents of dramatic environmental, political, economic, and demographic change, cresting in momentum by the 2010s. Within these borderlands of the Eastern Himalayas, burgeoning populations, propelled by sociopolitical agendas, ecological disasters, and other factors, stress borders and resources in areas increasingly open to exploitation by regional and international corporations and governments. Minority poetic voices throughout the region often respond to these radical environmental and cultural shifts with imagery of the environment delivered in very personal terms. Poets not only assume individual voices but also take on metonymic personae, speaking for concerns of their own groups via print, live performance, and digital formats. Mutual awareness of these cross-border poetries is slowly emerging, revealing that themes of poems from within these border areas are often parallel, with common concerns, though local characteristics. Cultural shifts and accommodation to new or revised modes of living and reactions to increasingly severe challenges to the local and regional environments surface repeatedly in the poetry. Some poems tread boundaries between the human and nonhuman inhabitants of these border areas, speaking for—or as—plants, animals, and geographic features.

Principal’s Strategies in Realizing Adiwiyata School: A Literature Review

The importance of the principal's strategies in realizing adiwiyata school (also called green school) drawn the author's interest in conducting a literature review. Environmental thoughtfulness is a mutual awareness and responsibility for every human being. Efforts are required for human to realize environmentally-thoughtful behavior. In the world of education, environmentally thoughtful behavior is applied at the adiwiyata school which is an environmental-based educational institution. As the school's highest leader, the principal is expected to have a plan in place to carry out a program. The research method used is literature review. The goal of this literature review is to obtain a theoretical foundation that can be used to support problem solving in relation to the principal's strategies in realizing adiwiyata schools. The result of the study on the principal's strategies indicate that the principal's strategies have an impact on the program's succession. The principal is in charge of carrying out management functions such as planning, organizing, implementing, and controlling the program.

An Adaptive Human Sensor Framework for Human-Robot Collaboration

Manufacturing challenges are increasing the demands for more agile and dexterous means of production. At the same time, these systems aim to maintain or even increase productivity. The challenges risen from these developments can be tackled through Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). HRC requires effective task distribution according to each parties’ distinctive strengths, which is envisioned to generate synergetic effects. To enable a seamless collaboration, the human and robot require a mutual awareness, which is challenging, due to the human and robot “speaking” different languages as in analogue and digital. Thus, this challenge can be addressed by equipping the robot with a model of the human. Despite a range of models being available, data-driven models of the human are still at an early stage. This paper proposes an adaptive human sensor framework, which incorporates objective, subjective, and physiological metrics, as well as associated Machine Learning. Thus, it is envisioned to adapt to the uniqueness and dynamic nature of human behavior. To test the framework, a validation experiment was performed, including 18 participants, which aims to predict Perceived Workload during two scenarios, namely a manual and an HRC assembly task. Perceived Workloads are described to have a substantial impact on a human operator’s task performance. Throughout the experiment physiological data from an electroencephalogram (EEG), an electrocardiogram (ECG), and respiration sensor was collected and interpreted. For subjective metrics, the standardized NASA Task Load Index was used. Objective metrics included task completion time and number of errors/assistance requests. Overall, the framework revealed a promising potential towards an adaptive behavior, which is ultimately envisioned to enable a more effective HRC.

Holistic Framework for Quality Assessment of Mediated Social Communication

Modern immersive multisensory communication systems can provide compelling mediated social communication experiences that approach face-to-face (F2F) communication. Existing frameworks to assess the quality of mediated social communication experiences are typically targeted at specific communication technologies and do not address all relevant aspects of social presence (i.e., the feeling of being in the presence of, and having an affective and intellectual connection with, other persons). Also, they are typically unsuitable for application to social communication in virtual (VR), augmented (AR) or mixed (MR) reality. Here we present a comprehensive and general holistic mediated social communication (H-MSC) framework and associated questionnaire (the H-MSC-Q) for measuring the quality of mediated social communication. The H-MSC framework comprises both the experience of Spatial Presence (i.e., the perceived fidelity, internal and external plausibility, and cognitive, reasoning and behavioral affordances of an environment) and the experience of Social Presence (i.e., perceived mutual proximity, intimacy, credibility, reasoning and behavior of the communication partners). Since social presence is inherently bidirectional (involving a sense of mutual awareness) the H-MSC-Q distinguishes between the internal (‘own’) and external (‘the other’) assessment perspectives. The H-MSC-Q is efficient and parsimonious, using only a single item to tap into each of the relevant processing levels in the human brain: sensory, emotional, cognitive, reasoning, and behavioral. It is also sufficiently general to measure social presence experienced with any (including VR, AR, and MR) type of multi-sensory (visual, auditory, haptic, and olfactory) mediated communication system.

Detecting joint attention events in mother-infant dyads: Sharing looks cannot be reliably identified by naïve third-party observers

Joint attention, or sharing attention with another individual about an object or event, is a critical behaviour that emerges in pre-linguistic infants and predicts later language abilities. Given its importance, it is perhaps surprising that there is no consensus on how to measure joint attention in prelinguistic infants. A rigorous definition proposed by Siposova & Carpenter (2019) requires the infant and partner to gaze alternate between an object and each other (coordination of attention) and exchange communicative signals (explicit acknowledgement of jointly sharing attention). However, Hobson and Hobson (2007) proposed that the quality of gaze between individuals is, in itself, a sufficient communicative signal that demonstrates sharing of attention. They proposed that observers can reliably distinguish “sharing”, “checking”, and “orienting” looks, but the empirical basis for this claim is limited as their study focussed on two raters examining looks from 11-year-old children. Here, we analysed categorisations made by 32 naïve raters of 60 infant looks to their mothers, to examine whether they could be reliably distinguished according to Hobson and Hobson’s definitions. Raters had overall low agreement and only in 3 out of 26 cases did a significant majority of the raters agree with the judgement of the mother who had received the look. For the looks that raters did agree on at above chance levels, look duration and the overall communication rate of the mother were identified as cues that raters may have relied upon. In our experiment, naïve third party observers could not reliably determine the type of look infants gave to their mothers, which indicates that subjective judgements of types of look should not be used to identify mutual awareness of sharing attention in infants. Instead, we advocate the use of objective behaviour measurement to infer that interactants know they are ‘jointly’ attending to an object or event, and believe this will be a crucial step in understanding the ontogenetic and evolutionary origins of joint attention.

Researchers working with city administrations: Reflecting on transdisciplinary collaboration under conditions of shared goals but different constraints

Academics and city administrations generally agree that environmental management decisions should be science based, which suggests the value of collaboration between city officials and researchers. Such collaboration, termed “ecology with cities”, is an example of translational ecology that should integrate ecological and social sciences to inform decision-makers. However, there has been insufficient reflection on whether ecology with cities achieves the expected development of practical social-ecological knowledge for the common good. We addressed this gap by asking city officials and researchers, in Switzerland and with whom we have collaborated in the past, about their motivations for, and experiences with, transdisciplinary collaboration. The respondents reported largely overlapping goals and an awareness of the mutual benefits of accessing the skills and resources of the other group. However, the reflections also unearthed latent tensions related to insufficient mutual awareness of institutional boundaries and limitations. We conclude that researchers should try to include collaboration partners who have experience in translational ecology practice and should establish learning processes early in a collaboration. Building good working relationships with city administrations and establishing such processes would facilitate the creation of realistic mutual expectations in which institutional limitations are considered so that common goals of maintaining or improving the ecological quality of cities can be amicably reached.

FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM FOR RESEARCHING THE COMPETITION OF TWO FIRMS TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THEIR MUTUAL AWARENESS

Исследование посвящено математическому моделированию ситуации конкурентного присутствия в рамках рыночной дуополии. Рассматривается ситуация чистой конкуренции и вариант взаимной осведомленности о стратегии конкурента. Результаты исследования имеют практическое значение для деятельности Инжинирингового центра технологий цифровой среды для обеспечения комплексной безопасности телекоммуникации, средств связи и энергоэффективности Орловского государственного университета им. И.С. Тургенева. Основные положения могут применяться при выборе стратегии поведения на рынке стратегически важных инновационных продуктов. Представленные в рамках данного исследования материалы и математическая модель, разработанные в соответствии с программой деятельности Инжинирингового центра, созданного на базе ОГУ им. И.С. Тургенева, по направлению технологий цифровой среды для обеспечения комплексной безопасности телекоммуникации, средств связи и энергоэффективности дают возможность осуществить прогнозный расчет экономически важных показателей и сопутствующих издержек в условиях конкурентного окружения. The study is devoted to mathematical modeling of the situation of competitive presence within the framework of a market duopoly. The situation of pure competition and the variant of mutual awareness of the competitor's strategy is considered. The results of the study are of practical importance for the activities of the Engineering Center for Digital Environment Technologies to ensure the integrated security of telecommunications, communications and energy efficiency of the Oryol State University. I.S. Turgenev. The main provisions can be applied when choosing a strategy of behavior in the market of strategically important innovative products. The materials and mathematical model presented in the framework of this research, developed in accordance with the program of activities of the Engineering Center, created on the basis of the OSU named after I.S. Turgenev, in the direction of digital environment technologies to ensure integrated security of telecommunications, communications and energy efficiency, make it possible to carry out a predictive calculation of economically important indicators and associated costs in a competitive environment.

New Working Practices: A Scientometric Review

Study on New Working Practices (NWPs), which is the subject of this review paper, has created a large body of literature. Studies in this research area are progressing quickly, and it is important to stay abreast of new trends and essential factors in the growth of mutual awareness. This study evaluates the global scientific output of New Working Practices (NWPs) research and explores their hotspots and frontiers from 1980 to 2018 (pre-COVID-19), using bibliometric methods. 850 relevant articles were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and analysed. Scientometric method and Citespace VI were used to analyse the bibliometric data. Reference citation and cocitation networks were plotted, while keywords were used to analyse the research hotspots and trends. There is a significant increase in the number of annual publications with time. The United Kingdom (UK) ranked highest in the countries with most publications, and the leading author is Friedhelm Nachreiner based on publication counts. The most cited author/organisation is the UK Department of Health. Performance, work, and flexible working are the research hotspots, while flexible working arrangement represents the prominent research domain. The study offers valuable references for researchers, industry practitioners and policymakers.

Researchers Working With City Administrations: Reflecting on Transdisciplinary Collaboration Under Conditions of Shared Goals but Different Constraints

Academics and city administrations generally agree that environmental management decisions should be science based, which suggests the value of collaboration between city officials and researchers. Such collaboration, termed “ecology with cities”, is an example of translational ecology that should integrate ecological and social sciences to inform decision-makers. However, there has been insufficient reflection on whether ecology with cities achieves the expected development of practical social-ecological knowledge for the common good. We addressed this gap by asking city officials and researchers, in Switzerland and with whom we have collaborated in the past, about their motivations for, and experiences with, transdisciplinary collaboration. The respondents reported largely overlapping goals and an awareness of the mutual benefits of accessing the skills and resources of the other group. However, the reflections also unearthed latent tensions related to insufficient mutual awareness of institutional boundaries and limitations. We conclude that researchers should try to include collaboration partners who have experience in translational ecology practice and should establish learning processes early in a collaboration. Building good working relationships with city administrations and establishing such processes would facilitate the creation of realistic mutual expectations in which institutional limitations are considered so that common goals of maintaining or improving the ecological quality of cities can be amicably reached.