1,720,972 research outputs found
Artifact Metaphors: Gaining Capability Using "Wrong" Tools
No full textIn everyday life as well as in the asymmetric warfare domain, to achieve the intended goals, agents often don't exploit the designed and purpose-built tools but some other tools whose features simply fit for the purpose. Starting from the well established ideas carried out to build ontologies of functional concepts of artifacts, we propose to extend such ontologies with explicit recordings of physical features. A mechanism of similarity mapping between ontology classes, using feature-based similarity measures, will drive the research and retrieval of artifacts which are possible substitute for the proper tool
Arts and crafts robots or LEGO® MINDSTORMS robots? A comparative study in educational robotics
No full textWith the development of educational robotics, teachers of secondary and high school frequently request clear indications on which type of robot is most effective for strengthening students’ mental schemes on the robot. This paper investigates whether using crafts and recycled materials or structured materials to build robots is more effective in terms of pupils’ cognition in educational robotics. Some scholarship argues that using crafts and recycled materials to build a robot from scratch is more effective than using structured materials. The design of the educational research applied here, and in which we tested this hypothesis, included two different robotics activities, carried out in Italy with two classes of secondary school. In the first, we asked the students to build a robot from scratch using crafts and recycled materials, while in the other we asked the students to build a robot from structured materials. These two activities were preceded and followed by the completion, by students, of the same questionnaire about knowledge of mechanics, manual skills, conceptualization of robots, and beliefs about the robotization of everyday life machines, which were the learning outcomes identified in this study according to the concept of constructive alignment and outcome-based education. Results show that building a robot from scratch increases pupils’ knowledge and manual skills, while building a robot with structured materials increases their awareness of the robotization of machines. Thus, current scholarship’s approach is only partially confirmed. To conclude, although pupils’ appreciation involves equally both these robotics activities, each of these outlines a specific educational outcome
A scalable system for the monitoring of video transmission components in delay-sensitive networked applications
No full textThe paper addresses the issue of measuring the end-to-end video delay due to the grabbing, display, and transmission components in networked video communication. We discuss the design and implementation of a scalable tool for the analysis and design of applications involving video based networked interaction or teleoperation, such as remotely operated devices and collaborative environments. The tool is intended for providing an accurate measure of the video lag involved in the encoding and streaming of video over packet networks, and for assessing the impact that delays in the video communication has in terms of human performance. The system is demonstrated through two different tasks: first, the measurement of video end-to-end delay for different networking configurations. Then, a visuomotor experiment is reported in which a subject is requested to accomplish a remote control task by using delayed video feedback, under different delay conditions
Exploring the perceptions of cognitive and affective capabilities of four, real, physical robots with a decreasing degree of morphological human likeness.
Full text linkExploring the Perceptions of Cognitive and Affective Capabilities of Four, Real, Physical Robots with a Decreasing Degree of Morphological Human Likeness
Full text linkThis paper describes an investigation of student perceptions of the cognitive and affective capabilities of four robots that have a decreasing degree of morphological human likeness. We showed and illustrated the robots (i.e., InMoov, Padbot, Joy Robot and Turtlebot) to 62 students. After showing the students each of these robots, and explaining their main features and capabilities, we administered a fill-in questionnaire to the students. Our main hypothesis was that the perception of a robot’s cognitive and affective capabilities varied in correspondence with their appearance and in particular with their different degree of human likeness. The main results of this study indicate that the scores attributed to the cognitive and emotional capabilities of these robots are not modulated correspondingly to their different morphological similarity to humans. Furthermore, overall, the scores given to all of these robots regarding their ability to explicate mental functions are low, and even lower scores are given to their ability to feel emotions. There is a split between InMoov, the robot which has the highest degree of human likeness, and all of the others. Our results also indicate that: (1) morphological similarity of a robot to humans is not perceived automatically as such by observers, which is not considered a value in itself for the robot; and (2) even at lower levels of robot–human likeness, an uncanny valley effect arises but is quite mitigated by curiosity
Describing Capability Through Lexical Semantics Exploitation: Foundational Arguments
No full textIn everyday life as well as in asymmetric warfare domain, to achieve the intended goals, agents often do not make use of the designed and purpose-built tools, but some other tools whose features simply fit for the purpose. The present paper discusses the possibility of capturing and integrating relations and features from context that could drive the retrieval of possible candidate substitutes for the properly designed artifacts through
Lexical Semantics Exploitation. Generative Lexicon theory assumes a structure (Qualia Structure) organizing the semantic content carried by lexical items through roles. Among them, the Telic role exposes the function or purpose of the predicated entity and the Constitutive role exposes
its component parts. We argue that the typical function an entity has been thought for is related to its internal constituents. We also argue that a
knowledge base and a proper metrics can be conveniently built extracting Qualia elements from suitable text corpora
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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