The benefit of being physically present: A survey of experimental works comparing copresent robots,telepresent robots and virtual agents

The effects of physical embodiment and physical presence were explored through a survey of 33 experimental works comparing how people interacted with physical robots and virtual agents. A qualitative assessment of the direction of quantitative effects demonstrated that robots were more persuasive and perceived more positively when physically present in a user׳s environment than when digitally-displayed on a screen either as a video feed of the same robot or as a virtual character analog; robots also led to better user performance when they were collocated as opposed to shown via video on a screen. However, participants did not respond differently to physical robots and virtual agents when both were displayed digitally on a screen – suggesting that physical presence, rather than physical embodiment, characterizes people׳s responses to social robots. Implications for understanding psychological response to physical and virtual agents and for methodological design are discussed.     

Effect of the absence of lipoxygenase isoenzymes on the storage characteristics of rice grains

Three varieties of paddy rice with and three varieties without lipoxygenase (LOX) isoenzymes were stored at room temperature, in dark conditions for 42 months. Insect damage and viability were investigated during that time. Varieties without LOX-1,2 and their offspring were screened with a rapid method of estimating LOX isoenzymes, and subjected to an accelerated-ageing experiment. The results indicated that in varieties without LOX-1,2, after long storage, rice quality was normal, but for varieties with LOX-1,2, rice quality deteriorated. With increase of storage time, the germination rate of the seed of most varieties decreased greatly except for varieties without LOX-1,2 where there was almost no change in the germination rate. In varieties without LOX-1,2 and their offspring, after an accelerated ageing experiment the germination rate of some varieties changed slowly, but with others, the germination rate changed quickly. This indicated that a definitive factor, which influenced the life of seeds, may be the loss of LOX-1,2. During storage, there was also a significant difference in the degree of insect damage. In varieties without LOX-3 insect damage was lower, but in varieties with LOX-3 insect damage was higher. Therefore, the absence of LOX-3 may be very important in insect resistance in rice grain.     

基于SmartFoxServer 2X平台的移动应用程序开发

随着移动设备的发展,移动应用程序也变得丰富多彩。本文主要介绍如何在SmartFoxServer平台上开发移动互联网应用,并且实现实时与SmartFoxServer 2X服务器进行交互,更新和持久化玩家相关信息。简要介绍SmartFoxServer的Java扩展以及Android应用程序的构成,通过一个网络游戏系统的开发过程,详细说明其开发原理和开发流程。最后结合游戏应用程序的开发实现,进一步说明Android在SmartFoxServer 2X平台上的应用前景和巨大应用潜力。     

PRAND: GPU accelerated parallel random number generation library: Using most reliable algorithms and applying parallelism of modern GPUs and CPUs

The library PRAND for pseudorandom number generation for modern CPUs and GPUs is presented. It contains both single-threaded and multi-threaded realizations of a number of modern and most reliable generators recently proposed and studied in Barash (2011), Matsumoto and Tishimura (1998), L’Ecuyer (1999,1999), Barash and Shchur (2006) and the efficient SIMD realizations proposed in Barash and Shchur (2011). One of the useful features for using PRAND in parallel simulations is the ability to initialize up to 10¹⁹${10}^{19}$ independent streams. Using massive parallelism of modern GPUs and SIMD parallelism of modern CPUs substantially improves performance of the generators.     

The elusive role of the N-terminal extension of {beta}A3- and {beta}Al-crystallin

ß-Crystallins are structural lens proteins with aconserved two-domain structure and variable N- and C-terminalextensions. These extensions are assumed to be involved in quaternaryinteractions within the ß-crystallin oligomers orwith other lens proteins. Therefore, the production of ßA3-and ßAl-crystallin from the single ßA3/A1mRNA by dual translation initiation is of interest. These crystallinsare identical, except that ßAl has a much shorterN-terminal extension than ßA3. This rare mechanismhas been conserved for over 250 million years during the evolutionof the ßA3/A1 gene, suggesting that the generationof different N-terminal extensions confers a selective advantage.We therefore compared the stability and association behaviourof recombinant ßA3- and ßAl-crystallin.Both proteins are equally stable in urea- and pH-induced denaturationexperiments. Gel filtration and analytical ultracentrifugationestablished that ßA3 and ßA1 both form homodimers.In the water-soluble proteins of bovine lens, ßA3and ßA1 are present in the same molecular weight fractions,indicating that they oligomerize equally with other ß-crystallins.¹H-NMR spectroscopy showed that residues Met1 to Asn22 of theN-terminal extension of ßA3 have great flexibilityand are solvent exposed, excluding them from protein interactionsin the homodimer. These results indicate that the differentN-terminal extensions of ßA3 and ßA1 donot affect their homo- or heteromeric interactions.     

Interacting Socially with the Internet of Things (IoT): Effects of Source Attribution and Specialization in Human–IoT Interaction

This study investigates the theoretical mechanisms by which the variations in source attribution (multiple sources vs. single source) and specialization (multifunctionality vs. single functionality) of Internet of Things (IoT) devices influence the quality of human–IoT interaction. Results from a between‐subjects experiment (N = 100) indicate that IoT devices that elicit the sense of multiple agencies and are specialized in a single function induce greater social presence and perceived expertise, which, in turn, lead individuals to show a more positive attitude toward the devices and to ascribe greater quality to the information transmitted by them. The results also reveal that the effect of multiple source attribution is more pronounced for individuals for whom the content of the information has low personal relevance.     

Experiencing Nature: Embodying Animals in Immersive Virtual Environments Increases Inclusion of Nature in Self and Involvement With Nature

Immersive virtual environments (IVEs) produce simulations that mimic unmediated sensory experiences. 3 experiments (N = 228) tested how different modalities increase environmental involvement by allowing users to inhabit the body of animals in IVEs or watch the experience on video. Embodying sensory‐rich experiences of animals in IVEs led to greater feeling of embodiment, perception of being present in the virtual world, and interconnection between the self and nature compared to video. Heightened interconnection with nature elicited greater perceptions of imminence of the environmental risk and involvement with nature, which persisted for 1 week. Although the effect sizes were small to moderate, findings suggest that embodied experiences in IVEs may be an effective tool to promote involvement with environmental issues.     

Performance Evaluation of a Multi-Zone Application in Different OpenMP Approaches

We describe a performance study of a multi-zone application benchmark implemented in several OpenMP approaches that exploit multi-level parallelism and deal with unbalanced workload. The multi-zone application was derived from the well-known NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) suite that involves flow solvers on collections of loosely coupled discretization meshes. Parallel versions of this application have been developed using the Subteam concept and Workqueuing model as extensions to the current OpenMP. We examine the performance impact of these extensions to OpenMP and compare with hybrid and nested OpenMP approaches on several large parallel systems.     

The movement patterns and the experiential components of virtual environments

Human movement in virtual environments (VEs) is a largely unstudied area, and there are no well-established methods of measuring it in VEs. Consequently, it is unclear how movement affects the experiential side of VEs. We introduce a novel method of measuring and modelling human movement. A specific information entropy-based modelling method enabled us to identify different movement patterns and analyse the experiential components related to them. The data was collected by registering the movement patterns of 68 participants who were in a virtual house doing a search task. The experiential side of the VE was measured with the Experimental Virtual Environment Questionnaire (EVEQ). Four movement patterns were identified. In addition, fluent movement in VEs was related to a high sense of presence. Moreover, the participants who moved fluently in the environment assessed their skills high. The results show how movement is related the way in which people experience the VE. The movement analysis method introduced here is applicable to other related research areas as well.     

Some notes on Zadeh’s extensions

This paper shows that the Zadeh’s extensions of sendograph-metric-continuous fuzzy-valued functions are sendograph-metric-continuous fuzzy functions.