关键词： Intertemporal choice   Evolutionary robotics   Ecological rationality   Delay discounting   Spatial discounting   Preferences  

摘要： In intertemporal choices, subjects face a trade-off between value and delay: achieving the most valuable outcome requires a longer time, whereas the immediately available option is objectively poorer. Intertemporal choices are ubiquitous, and comparative studies reveal commonalities and differences across species: all species devalue future rewards as a function of delay (delay aversion), yet there is a lot of inter-specific variance in how rapidly such devaluation occurs. These differences are often interpreted in terms of ecological rationality, as depending on environmental factors (e.g., feeding ecology) and the physiological and morphological constraints of different species (e.g., metabolic rate). Evolutionary hypotheses, however, are hard to verify in vivo, since it is difficult to observe precisely enough real environments, not to mention ancestral ones. In this paper, we discuss the viability of an approach based on evolutionary robotics: in Study 1, we evolve robots without a metabolism in five different ecologies;in Study 2, we evolve metabolic robots (i.e., robots that consume energy over time) in three different ecologies. The intertemporal choices of the robots are analyzed both in their ecology and under laboratory conditions. Results confirm the generality of delay aversion and the usefulness of studying intertemporal choice through experimental evolutionary robotics. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

关键词： ROBOTICS   COMPUTERS   SPECIAL issues of periodicals   KNOWLEDGE representation (Information theory)   COMPUTER research   PERIODICALS  

关键词： Human-robot interaction   Robot-robot interaction   Ontologies for robotics and automation   Knowledge representation   Ontology engineering   Spatial information  

摘要： Spatial notions play a key role when humans and robots interact. Robotics & Automation (R&A) often involves diverse scenarios where heterogeneous robots must share their spatial knowledge to achieve a given goal. Such scenarios may become more complex when humans are also involved. This means that humans and heterogeneous robots must share their spatial information about the world. For this purpose, the IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation (ORA) Working Group started developing an ontology, called POS, with the purpose of defining the core notions required to share spatial concepts in the R&A domain. This paper evaluates the proposed ontology through a use case scenario involving both heterogeneous robots and human-robot interactions, showing how to define new spatial notions using POS. We discuss the experiment results presenting the ontology strengths as well as the future directions to be taken by the ORA group. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

关键词： robotic surgery   robotics   oncology surgery  

摘要： Robotic surgery is an exciting technology that allows the surgeon to sit at a computer console near the operating table, using mechanical arms with surgical instruments attached to them. This type of surgery is minimally invasive, and the procedure is performed through tiny incisions. This technology is widely used in the United States and is expected to evolve over time with an increase in the number and types of procedures. At a Glance Robotic surgery will increasingly play a role in oncology surgery. Benefits include decreases in blood loss and postoperative pain. Barriers include the cost and maintenance of the systems.

关键词： Electric stimulation   FES   Randomized controlled trial, Rehabilitation   Robotics   Stroke   Upper extremity  

摘要： Objective: To compare response to upper-limb treatment using robotics plus motor learning (ML) versus functional electrical stimulation (PES) plus ML versus ML alone, according to a measure of complex functional everyday tasks for chronic, severely impaired stroke survivors. Design: Single-blind, randomized trial. Setting: Medical center. Participants: Enrolled subjects (N=39) were >1 year postsingle stroke (attrition rate=10%;35 completed the study). Interventions: All groups received treatment 5d/wk for 5b/d (60 sessions), with unique treatment as follows: ML alone (n=11) (5h/d partial- and whole-task practice of complex functional tasks), robotics plus ML (n=12) (3.5h/d of ML and 1.5h/d of shoulder/elbow robotics), and FES plus ML (n=12) (3.5h/d of ML and 1.5h/d of FES wrist/hand coordination training). Main Outcome Measures: Primary measure: Arm Motor Ability Test (AMAT), with 13 complex functional tasks;secondary measure: upper-limb Fugl-Meyer coordination scale (FM). Results: There was no significant difference found in treatment response across groups (AMAT: P >=.584;FM coordination: P >=.590). All 3 treatment groups demonstrated clinically and statistically significant improvement in response to treatment (AMAT and FM coordination: P <=.009). A group treatment paradigm of 1:3 (therapist/patient) ratio proved feasible for provision of the intensive treatment. No adverse effects. Conclusions: Severely impaired stroke survivors with persistent (>1y) upper-extremity dysfunction can make clinically and statistically significant gains in coordination and functional task performance in response to robotics plus ML, FES plus ML, and ML alone in an intensive and long-duration intervention;no group differences were found. Additional studies are warranted to determine the effectiveness of these methods in the clinical setting. (C) 2015 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine

关键词： ROBOTICS -- Law & legislation   INTERNET -- Law & legislation   TECHNOLOGY & law   DATA   FORESEEABILITY (Law)   ROBOTS   CRIMINAL intent   ADMINISTRATIVE law -- United States   UNITED States  

摘要： Two decades of analysis have produced a rich set of insights as to how the law should apply to the Internet's peculiar characteristics. But, in the meantime, technology has not stood still. The same public and private institutions that developed the Internet, from the armed forces to search engines, have initiated a significant shift toward developing robotics and artificial intelligence. This Article is the first to examine what the introduction of a new, equally transformative technology means for cyberlaw and policy. Robotics has a different set of essential qualities than the Internet and accordingly will raise distinct legal issues. Robotics combines, for the first time, the promiscuity of data with the capacity to do physical harm;robotic systems accomplish tasks in ways that cannot be anticipated in advance;and robots increasingly blur the line between person and instrument. Robotics will prove "exceptional" in the sense of occasioning systematic changes to law, institutions, and the legal academy. But we will not be writing on a clean slate: many of the core insights and methods of cyberlaw will prove crucial in integrating robotics and perhaps whatever technology follows.

关键词： Applied physics   Engineering   Mathematics and computing   Technology  

摘要： Four leading researchers share their concerns and solutions for reducing societal risks from intelligent machines.

关键词： society of robots   soft robotics   neighbor collision avoidance   multidisciplinary research in social robotics   hand synergies  

摘要： The sustainability of social robotics, like other ambitious research programs, depends on the identification of lines of inquiry that are coherent with its visionary goals while satisfying more stringent constraints of feasibility and near-term payoffs. Within these constraints, this article outlines one line of inquiry that seems especially viable: development of a society of robots operating within the physical environments of everyday human life, developing rich robot-robot social exchanges, and yet, refraining from any physical contact with human beings. To pursue this line of inquiry effectively, sustained interactions between specialized research communities in robotics are needed. Notably, suitable robotic hand design and control principles must be adopted to achieve proper robotic manipulation of objects designed for human hands that one finds in human habitats. The Pisa-IIT SoftHand project promises to meet these manipulation needs by a principled combination of sensorimotor synergies and soft robotics actuation, which aims at capturing how the biomechanical structure and neural control strategies of the human hand interact so as to simplify and solve both control and sensing problems.

关键词： automation   automata   industrial robots   domestic robots   social robots  

摘要： Industrial and domestic robotics provide fascinating and relevant perspective insights into current and possible trajectories for the development of contemporary societies. While industrial robotics has found its place since the 1960s, domestic robotics wherein humans interact with social robots is still an unsettled area. After reviewing data on the diffusion of social robots and on their use, the historical tradition from which social robots come is discussed. This discussion is followed by an analysis of the penetration of social robots in everyday life and the importance of interdisciplinary research is highlighted.