Attribution of autonomy and its role in robotic language acquisition

The false attribution of autonomy and related concepts to artificial agents that lack the attributed levels of the respective characteristic is problematic in many ways. In this article, we contrast this view with a positive viewpoint that emphasizes the potential role of such false attributions in the context of robotic language acquisition. By adding emotional displays and congruent body behaviors to a child-like humanoid robot’s behavioral repertoire, we were able to bring naïve human tutors to engage in so called intent interpretations. In developmental psychology, intent interpretations can be hypothesized to play a central role in the acquisition of emotion, volition, and similar autonomy-related words. The aforementioned experiments originally targeted the acquisition of linguistic negation. However, participants produced other affect- and motivation-related words with high frequencies too and, as a consequence, these entered the robot’s active vocabulary. We will analyze participants’ non-negative emotional and volitional speech and contrast it with participants’ speech in a non-affective baseline scenario. Implications of these findings for robotic language acquisition in particular and artificial intelligence and robotics more generally will also be discussed.

Universal motion of mirror-symmetric microparticles in confined Stokes flow

Comprehensive understanding of particle motion in microfluidic devices is essential to unlock additional technologies for shape-based separation and sorting of microparticles like microplastics, cells, and crystal polymorphs. Such particles interact hydrodynamically with confining surfaces, thus altering their trajectories. These hydrodynamic interactions are shape dependent and can be tuned to guide a particle along a specific path. We produce strongly confined particles with various shapes in a shallow microfluidic channel via stop flow lithography. Regardless of their exact shape, particles with a single mirror plane have identical modes of motion: in-plane rotation and cross-stream translation along a bell-shaped path. Each mode has a characteristic time, determined by particle geometry. Furthermore, each particle trajectory can be scaled by its respective characteristic times onto two master curves. We propose minimalistic relations linking these timescales to particle shape. Together these master curves yield a trajectory universal to particles with a single mirror plane.

Similarity analysis of turbulent transport and dissipation for momentum, temperature, moisture, and CO₂ during BLLAST

The budget equation components for turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and the variances of virtual potential temperature, specific humidity, and specific CO2 content have been estimated using the Inertial Dissipation and Eddy Covariance methods. A discussion with four examples is provided about the normalization used for comparing different tracer spectra, divided by the respective characteristic scale squared. A total of 124 high frequency sample segments of a 30-min period from 20 days of the Boundary Layer Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence field campaign were used in order to provide parameterizations for the dimensionless dissipation and residual (i.e. total transport) components as a function of the Atmospheric Surface Layer (ASL) stability parameter, ζ. The results show a similar linear relation for all tracers variance dissipation components, ΦDχ ≅ 0.4 + 0.2 ζ, during the convective ASL, i.e. −1 < ζ < −0.1. Although parameterizations were also proposed for the dimensionless dissipation rate of TKE and tracer variances during stable ASL, we conclude that in this regime, other mechanisms in addition to ζ may be significantly important. In the stable and near-neutral ASL stability regimes, the transport component for different tracers may not be considered the same. In these conditions, the dissipation component of TKE and tracer variances can have the same magnitude as the other terms in their respective budget equation.

Monitoring of Chemical Speciation of DEA – CO2 – Water System by Raman Spectroscopy

Carbon dioxide separation has gained immense importance since its detrimental effects towards our environment has been realized. Commercially, CO2has been captured by absorption in alkanolamines such as diethanolamine (DEA), since many years. The thermodynamics and kinetics of the process is a key factor towards its efficiency and significantly depends on its qualitative and quantitative speciation. In this work, the analysis of speciation for CO2loaded aqueous DEA has been performed by Raman spectroscopy. Experimentally determined CO2loading data and modified Kent Eisenberg equation was used to quantify the chemical species present. The speciation results were fitted with the respective characteristic Raman peaks of (CO3-, HCO3-, DEACOO-, DEA, DEA+, CO2) by Principal Component Regression (PCR). The fitted results showed good agreement with thermodynamically predicted chemical species.

Evaluation of X-Ray Microanalysis for Characterization of Dental Enamel

Elemental analysis of dental hard tissues is of importance. The aim of this study is to evaluate X-ray microanalysis (XRMA) of bovine enamel in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with different coatings. The buccal surface of bovine incisors was polished flat, one-third was coated with carbon, one-third with gold, leaving one-third uncoated for XRMA in an SEM equipped with an energy-dispersive microanalysis system. The elements oxygen, sodium, magnesium, phosphorous, chlorine, potassium, and calcium were analyzed using their respective characteristic K X-ray series. Comparisons were made with analyses of glass produced by fusion of the bovine enamel, showing that oxygen analyses using the K X-ray series are reliable and preferable to calculating oxygen by stoichiometry for natural enamel. For the gold-coated and uncoated analyses, carbon was also measured using the K X-ray series. Small area Analyses in small areas (80 × 80 μm) in variable pressure-SEM mode with low vacuum (20 Pa), without any coating, midway between 40 μm wide gold lines 140 μm apart to avoid build-up of electrostatic charge is the preferred method, especially if carbon is included in the analysis. The analyses of bovine enamel are sufficiently reproducible to be regarded as quantitative for all elements except carbon.

Respective characteristic from vascular and degenerative mild cognitive impairments

42 patients with dyscirculatory encephalopathy (DE) and 42 patients with Alzheimer desease were investigated. From neurologycal and neuropsychologycal tests and multyspiral computer tomography and electroencephalography it was exposed that vascular mild cognitive impairments (MCI) have dysfunction from neuroregulation and leucoareosis and lacunar inpharcts and hydrocephalia. Alzheimer desease MCI have cortical brain atrophy.

How to Use the Features of Total Reflection of X-Rays for Energy Dispersive XRF

The total reflection of X-rays is mainly determined by three parameters , that is the orltical angle, the reflectivity and the penetration depth. For X-ray fluorescence analysis the respective characteristic features can be exploited in two rather different fields of application. In the analysis of trace elements in samples placed as thin films on optical flats, detection limits as low as 2 pg or 0.05 ppb, respectively, have been obtained. In addition, a penetration depth in the nanometer regime renders Total Reflection XRF an inherently sensitive method for the elemental analysis of surfaces. This paper outlines the main physical and constructional parameters for instrumental design and quantitation in both branches of TXRF.

The Occurrence of Hybrid Swarms of Red and Black Spruces in Central New Brunswick

The data obtained by rating 50 plots in red × black spruce populations throughout central New Brunswick with a hybrid index indicate that red and black spruces have hybridized extensively. In the New Brunswick Lowland, gentle slopes and flat uplands form a continuum between characteristic habitats, permitting extensive contact between the two species. Where a considerable zone of contact was present, hybrid populations were established. Selection pressure is apparently strong, for despite the ideal opportunities for contact and the fertility of the hybrids, parental species remain phenotypically pure in their respective characteristic habitats (as far as these could be defined). The composition of hybrid populations was related to the extent of resemblance of 'intermediate' sites to parental site preferences. Introgressed black spruce predominated in hybrid populations, possibly due to the overriding influence of disturbances such as fire, logging, and damage to red spruce types by spruce budworm.