198,821 research outputs found
Robotic mental well-being coaches for the workplace: An in-the-wild study on form
No full textThe World Health Organization recommends that employers take action to protect and promote mental well-being at work. However, the extent to which these recommended practices can be implemented in the workplace is limited by the lack of resources and personnel availability. Robots have been shown to have great potential for promoting mental well-being, and the gradual adoption of such assistive technology may allow employers to overcome the aforementioned resource barriers. This paper presents the frst study that investigates the deployment and use of two diferent forms of robotic well-being coaches in the workplace in collaboration with a tech company whose employees (26 coachees) interacted with either a QTrobot (QT) or a Misty robot (M). We endowed the robots with a coaching personality to deliver positive psychology exercises over four weeks (one exercise per week). Our results show that the robot form signifcantly impacts coachees' perceptions of the robotic coach in the workplace. Coachees perceived the robotic coach in M more positively than in QT (both in terms of behaviour appropriateness and perceived personality), and they felt more connection with the robotic coach in M. Our study provides valuable insights for robotic well-being coach design and deployment, and contributes to the vision of taking robotic coaches into the real world
Adaptive Robotic MentalWell-being Coaches
No full textMental well-being issues such as anxiety and depression are increasing, and as provisions by healthcare systems are insufficient to meet people's needs, new technology is being used to improve mental well-being. In this doctoral thesis, we examine the iterative and user-centred design, implementation and evaluation of a robotic mental well-being coach-i.e., a robot that could help people maintain and focus on their well-being. In this article, we discuss the studies we have already conducted. These have examined coach and user preferences, the design of a robotic well-being coach, how to computationally implement such a coach, and how such a robot is experienced in the short (laboratory setting) and long term (workplace setting). We then discuss future work, which includes data analysis of a longitudinal study where a robotic coach interacted with a group, the implementation and testing of an longitudinal adaptation model for the robotic coach, and a survey of the state of the art in affective robotics for well-being
Robotic Coaches Delivering Group Mindfulness Practice at a Public Cafe
No full textGroup meditation is known to keep people motivated and committed over longer periods of time, as compared to individual practice. Robotic coaching is a promising avenue for engaging people in group meditation and mindfulness exercises. However, the deployment of robotic coaches to deliver group mindfulness sessions in real-world settings is very scarce. We present the first steps in deploying a robotic mindfulness coach at a public cafe, where participants could join robot-led meditation sessions in a group setting. We conducted two studies with two robotic coaches: the toy-like Misty II robot for 4 weeks ( = 4), and the child-like QTrobot for 3 weeks ( = 3). This paper presents an exploratory qualitative analysis of the data collected via group discussions after the sessions, and researcher observations during the sessions. Additionally, we discuss the lessons learned and future work related to deploying a robotic coach in a real-world group setting
An algebraic multilevel iteration method for finite element matrices
No full textAbstractTo solve a sparse linear system of equations resulting from the finite element approximation of elliptic self-adjoint second-order boundary-value problems an algebraic multilevel iteration method is presented. The new method can be considered as an extension of methods, which have been defined by Axelsson and Eijkhout (1991) for nine-point matrices and later generalized by Axelsson and Neytcheva (1994) for the Stieltjes matrices, on a more wider class of sparse symmetric positive-definite matrices. The rate of convergence and the computational complexity of the method are analyzed. Experimental results on some standard test problems are presented and discussed
"Sprache ist der Boden, auf dem wir tanzen"- Mehr-Sprachlichkeit im Theaterstück ROSE ROSE ROSE von Malin Axelsson und Karin Serres
No full textTrotz einer inzwischen langen Tradition von Mehrsprachigkeit im Theater scheinen deren Ausdruckspotentiale und möglichen Funktionen bei weitem noch nicht ausgeschöpft zu sein. Das Theaterstück ROSE ROSE ROSE von Malin Axelsson und Karin Serres (2015), in dem auf den ersten Blick die Verwendung von schwedischen, französischen und englischen Redeabschnitten auffällt, scheint kein Novum darzustellen, zumal es sich auch hinsichtlich anderer Aspekte in die Tradition einer avantgardistischen Theaterpraxis einreiht, die insbesondere das schwedische Jugendtheater stark geprägt hat. Doch bei einer genaueren Analyse des Textes und seiner spezifischen sprachlichen Beschaffenheit zeigt sich schnell, auf welch vielfältige Weise sich hier Mehrsprachigkeit bzw. Mehr-Sprachlichkeit manifestiert und dass diese – auf verschiedenen Ebenen – eine zentrale Rolle im Stück übernimmt. Sie bildet die einmalige ›Gestalt‹ des Stückes heraus, konstituiert seinen Experimentierraum und erweist sich zugleich als ›Akteurin‹ im gesamten Handlungskomplex. Dies versuchen wir in unserem Beitrag darzulegen, indem wir verschiedene Verfahren der Mehr-Sprachlichkeit im Text herausstellen und exemplarisch eine detailliertere Analyse eines ausgewählten Kapitels durchführen
Sleep problems and language development in toddlers with Williams syndrome
No full textSleep and related maternal beliefs were assessed in a narrow age range of 18 children with Williams syndrome (WS) and 18 typically developing (TD) children. WS is a rare genetic disorder characterised by a complex physical, cognitive and behavioural phenotype. High prevalence of sleep difficulties in older children and adults with WS have been reported. Parents completed 6 questionnaires: the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire, Infant Sleep Vignettes Interpretation Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index of Parents, Child Behaviour Checklist, MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory for Infants - Words and Gestures, and the Major (ICD-10) Depression Inventory. Compared to TD children, those with WS had shorter night sleep, more night wakings and wakefulness according to parental report. Regression analyses revealed that a proportion of the variance in language development scores in WS children could be explained by night sleep duration. Compared to control parents, the mothers of the WS group were more likely to describe their child's sleep as problematic and had higher rates of involvement with child sleep, yet they had a lesser tendency to interpret sleep problems as signs of distress and a greater tendency to emphasise limit setting. Approximately half of both groups of mothers experienced poor sleep quality. This was also related to maternal mood, and night wakefulness in the children with WS. This is the first study to quantify sleep difficulties in young children with WS in a narrow age range using maternal report. The possible negative effects on maternal sleep and mood, and the link between night sleep and language development in young children with WS, requires further detailed investigation
Dr. Duane M. Jackson, Morehouse College, July 2011
No full textThis video is a conversation with Dr. Duane M. Jackson. Dr. Jackson talks about his paper, "Recall and the Serial Position Effect: The Role of Primacy and Recency on Accounting Students' Performance." Jackie Daniel, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
Health Anxiety in a Disease-Avoidance Framework: Effects of Cognitive Behavior Therapy on Disease Perception in Responses to Sickness Cues
No full textThe aim of this study was to investigate treatment effects for severe health anxiety within an evolutionary disease-avoidance framework. The dataset contains data from three occasions: screening, pre-treatment, and post-treatment. Data comes from 132 patients with health anxiety, 99 underwent a cognitive behavioral therapy and 33 were put on a waiting list and received no treatment. Cross-sectional screening data pertaining to disease avoidance and the perception of sickness cues has been previously analysed and published (Hedman et al. 2016a) but longitudinal analyses of these outcomes have not been conducted.
Reference:
Hedman, E., Lekander, M., Karshikoff, B., Ljótsson, B., Axelsson, E., & Axelsson, J. (2016a). Health anxiety in a disease-avoidance framework: Investigation of anxiety, disgust and disease perception in response to sickness cues. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(7), 868
"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.
No full text"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states.
By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement.
To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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