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Schanche, Anders. "Human - Virtual Agent Interaction." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för innovation, design och teknik, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-17181.
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This thesis was carried out at Imagination Studios in Uppsala. IMS is a motion capture studio that alsodoes animation. Motion capture is the capturing of (generally) human motions to make 3Danimations look more realistic. In motion capture, the actors have to imagine the scene. The goal ofthis thesis is to help the motion capture actor by creating a tool that lets the actor interact with avirtual agent that represents his acting partner. Scenarios and a video sketch were created todescribe how the interaction can work. The Microsoft Kinect is used to capture the motions of theactor and recognize gestures. These gestures are then responded to by a virtual agent that isdisplayed in a 3D environment created in the Unreal Development Kit. Programming was done in C++and UnrealScript to make this solution work. Motions were recorded and applied to the virtual agentto create realistic animations that are played in response to the actor's gestures. The final product isan interactive application that can be used to immerse a person in an acting scenario.
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Xu, Yong. "Developing Mutually Adaptive Human Agent Interface." 京都大学 (Kyoto University), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/120378.
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林衛華 and Wai-wa Lam. "Multi-agent based human immune system." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1999. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31221117.
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Lam, Wai-wa. "Multi-agent based human immune system /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1999. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B2093337X.
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de, Almeida André Lúcio Santos. "Agent particularism : the effects of human dignity." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2018. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/80285/.
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The thesis proposes an ethics centred on the notion of human dignity. In Chapter One I introduce the position the thesis proposes, Agent Particularism, according to which who you are is relevant to determining what you ought to do. I reject the thesis of the universalizability of moral judgements that says that if you judge that X is the right thing for you to do, you are necessarily committed to the view that X is the right thing for everybody to do in relevantly similar circumstances. In Chapter Two I present an Agent-Particularist conception of freedom. I offer an Agent-Particularist conception of the self. I make a distinction between negative freedom, which is being free from external interference, and positive freedom, which is developing into the ideal version of yourself (in accord with your particular nature). In Chapter Three I present Agent Particularism as a kind of virtue ethics. I offer a solution to an epistemological problem that the thesis faces: once I have rejected the existence of exceptionless moral principles, how can there be moral knowledge and what kind of knowledge that would be? I argue that the problem can be solved by understanding moral knowledge as consisting on the deliverances of a perceptual capacity. I position Agent Particularism in relation to traditional virtue ethics. In Chapter Four I present the Agent-Particularist conception of human dignity. I show that the Agent-Particularist position developed in the first three chapters issues in a peculiar conception of human dignity. I present the basic elements of an Agent-Particularist conception of dignity. I present Kant's conception of dignity and contrast it with the Agent-Particularist conception.
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Yasapala, Sumana Nilahthi. "Reactivation of Organophosphorus agent inhibited-human acetylcholinesterase." Diss., University of Iowa, 2016. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2169.
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Organophosphorus compounds (OPs) are used as pesticides, e.g. parathion, which is converted in the body to paraoxon, and chemical warfare nerve agents, such as sarin, soman, cyclosarin, VX, and tabun. Even small amounts of OP exposure can be fatal, depending on the toxicity of the compound. Great stocks of highly toxic chemical warfare nerve agents exit around the world and are considered a serious threat to national security and international stability.
OPs exert their toxicity by covalent irreversible inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) that prevents the enzyme from hydrolyzing acetylcholine (ACh), a neurotransmitter in the central and peripheral nervous systems (CNS and PNS). Therefore, ACh accumulates in the cholinergic synapses throughout the body, which results in overstimulation of the ACh receptors. Removal of the phosphyl moiety from the OP-bound AChE active site has been a promising method to restore AChE’s catalytic activity. However, a secondary process called aging also occurs in the OP-AChE complex. Once aging occurs, currently available oximes are ineffective in removing the phosphyl moiety from the enzyme’s active site, and hence are ineffective as antidotes against the aged enzyme.
Several families of alkylating and acylating agents including several classes of agents that combine alkylating moieties with known active site or peripheral cite (PAS) binding motifs were synthesized and evaluated. The general aim of the research was that successful alkylation or acylation of the phosphonate monoanion of aged AChE would produce neutral phosphyl complexes that would either spontaneously reactivate or would be reactivatable in the presence of oxime antidotes.
Methoxylamine analogs of the oxime antidote 2-PAM were synthesized with the aim that methyl transfer to the aged AChE adduct would produce a neutral phosphyl AChE adduct simultaneously with 2-PAM in situ, and subsequent 2-PAM nucleophilic attack would reactivate the newly formed neutral phosphyl-AChE adduct. However, none of these 2-PAM analogs resurrected the activity of aged AChE.
Another strategy for resurrecting the activity of aged AChE utilizes N-methylpyridiniums that are substituted at the 2-position with a beta-lactam moiety. For these compounds, opening of the electrophilic beta-lactam unmasks a nucleophilic amidine function which could putatively attack at phosphorus to expel the free enzyme. For this class of agents, only the active site directed compound that possessed the 5-CF₃ substituent showed possible resurrection of the activity of aged AChE, though activities in both the control and treated samples were low.
Methyl transfers are common in Nature, and the natural transfer agent is S-adenosylmethionine, a sulfonium methyl donor. Consequently, the array of sulfonium compounds were evaluated on the expectation that they would bind to the AChE active site and transfer a methyl group to the phosphonate monoanion of the aged enzyme. Though high-affinity binding was noted for these compounds, none of these resurrected the activity of the aged AChE complex.
Finally, several selected agents were evaluated on reactivating the initial OP-AChE complex before aging has occurred. It was observed that degraded samples of selected inhibitors are capable of reactivating initial complexes of sarin and soman inhibited AChE at low concentration that is an important character of efficient reactivators. However, the structure of reactivator is still unknown.
Two major challenges still face researchers in the quest to design effective medicinal agents for counteracting poisoning by AChE-inhibiting nerve agents. The first is that there is no universal oxime antidote. Oximes that are effective against certain nerve agents are ineffective against others. The second is that, despite extensive efforts that span two generations, aged phosphyl-AChE adducts have never been reactivated. However, given the powerful tools of modern structural biology, medicinal chemistry and molecular biology, there is still hope that these considerable challenges can be met.
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Nawwab, Fahd Saud. "Agents with a human touch : modeling of human rationality in agent systems." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2010. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/1363/.
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Will it be possible to create a self-aware and reasoning entity that has the capacity for decision making similar to that we ascribe to human beings? Modern agent systems, although used today in various applications wherever intelligence is required, are not ready for applications where human rationalities are usually the only option in making important decisions in critical or sensitive situations. This thesis is a contribution to this area: a decision-making methodology is introduced to address the different characteristics that an agent should have in order to be better trusted with such critical decisions. The work begins with a study of philosophy in the literature (Chapter 2), which reveals that trust is based on emotions and faith in performance. The study concludes that a trustworthy decision has five main elements: it considers options and their likely effects; it predicts how the environment and other agents will react to decisions; it accounts for short- and long-term goals through planning; it accounts for uncertainties and working with incomplete information; and, finally, it considers emotional factors and their effects. The first four elements address decision making as a product of "beliefs"; the last addresses it as a product of "emotions". A complete discussion of these elements is provided in Section 2.1. This thesis is divided into two main parts: the first treats trust as a product of beliefs and the second treats trust as a product of emotions. The first part builds the decision-making methodology based on argumentation through a five-step approach where first the problem situation representing the actions available to the agent and their likely consequences is formulated. Next, arguments to perform these actions are constructed by instantiating an argumentation scheme designed to justify actions in terms of the values and goals they promote. These arguments are then subjected to a series of critical questions to identify possible counter arguments so that all the options and their weaknesses have been identified. Preferences are accommodated by organising the resulting arguments into an Argumentation Framework (we use Value-Based Argumentation [VAF] for this approach). Arguments acceptable to the agents will be identified through the ranking of the agent's values, which may differ from agent to agent. In the second part (Chapters 5 and 6), this methodology is extended to account for emotions. Emotions are generated based on whether other agents relevant to the situation support or frustrate the agent's goals and values; the emotional attitude toward the other agents then influences the ranking of the agent's values and, hence, influences the decision. In Chapters 4 and 6, the methodology is illustrated through an example study. This example has been implemented and tested on a software program. The experimental data and some screen shots are also given in the appendix.
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Hennings, Chad F. "Designing realistic human behavior into multi-agent systems." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2001. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA397090.
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Thesis (M.S. in Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES))--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2001.Thesis advisors: Hiles, John ; Darken, Rudolph. "September 2001." Includes bibliographical references (p. 59). Also Available in print.
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Wen, Zhigang. "Real time animated human agent in virtual environments." Thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.413437.
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Baskar, Jayalakshmi. "Adaptive human-agent dialogues for reasoning about health." Licentiate thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-96756.
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The aim of this research is to develop new theories, methods and technology, which enables adaptive and personalised dialogues between a human and a software agent, to handle everyday queries about health that are perceived as meaningful and useful to the human. Some of the challenges to build such human-agent dialogue system are the following. The agent needs to have knowledge about the human, the topic of the dialogue, the knowledge domain of the topic, and also about the physical and social environment. Moreover, the agent must know about itself, its role, purpose and limitations. It must know how to be cooperative and be able to behave and express with empathy while conducting a dialogue activity. In some situations, it needs to reason and make decisions about a topic together with the human and about its own behavior. To be able to do this, it needs the capability to evaluate its behavior in the context in which the dialogue takes place. These challenges are addressed by developing formal semantic models to provide the agent with tools to build their knowledge and to be able to reason and make decisions. These models were developed based on literature studies, theories of human activity, argumentation theory, personas and scenarios. The models were formalised and implemented using Semantic Web technology, and integrated into a human-agent dialogue system. The system was evaluated with a group of therapists and a group of elderly people, who showed curiosity and interest in having dialogues with a software agent on various topics. The formal models that the agent constructs are adapted to the specific situation and to the human actor participating in a dialogue. They are based on four models: a model with knowledge about the human actor, a model of itself, a domain model, and a dialogue activity model. The dialogue activity is based on argumentation schemes, which function as patterns of reasoning and for the dialogue execution. These models allow the agent and the human actor to conduct flexible and nested sub-dialogues with different purposes within a main dialogue about a topic. The agent can adapt its moves to the human actor's trail of reasoning, to the human's priorities and goals, and to some human's emotional state. A method for the agent to be able to evaluate its behavior was also developed and evaluated. The proportion of appropriate moves in relation to the local context of earlier moves in the dialogue was 90% in the pilot study, which indicates that the agent's strategies for selecting moves can be improved. Future research will focus on further development of reasoning methods, learning and assessment methods, and interface design. The results will be applied to additional knowledge domains to test its domain independence and will be evaluated with different groups of potential users.
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Dybalova, Daniela. "Flexible autonomy and context in human-agent collectives." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2017. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43397/.
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Human-agent collectives (HACs) are collaborative relationships between humans and software agents that are formed to meet the individual and collective goals of their members. In general, different members of a HAC should have differing degrees of autonomy in determining how a goal is to be achieved, and the degree of autonomy that should be enjoyed by each member of the collective varies with context. This thesis explores how norms can be used to achieve context sensitive flexible autonomy in HACs. Norms can be viewed as defining standards of ideal behaviour. In the form of rules and codes, they are widely used to coordinate and regulate activity in human organisations, and more recently they have also been proposed as a coordination mechanism for multi-agent systems (MAS). Norms therefore have the potential to form a common framework for coordination and control in HACs. The thesis develops a novel framework in which group and individual norms are used to specify both the goal to be achieved by a HAC and the degree of autonomy of the HAC and/or of its members in achieving a goal. The framework allows members of a collective to create norms specifying how a goal should (or should not) be achieved, together with sanctions for non-compliance. These norms form part of the decision making context of both the humans and agents in the collective. A prototype implementation of the framework was evaluated using the Colored Trails test-bed in a scenario involving mixed human-agent teams. The experiments confirmed that norms can be used for coordination of HACs and to facilitate context related flexible autonomy.
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Surie, Dipak. "An agent-centric approach to implicit human-computer interaction." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-52476.
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Humans live in physical world and perform activities that are physical, natural and biological. But humans are forced to shift explicitly from physical world to virtual world and vice-versa in performing computer aided physical activities. The research reported here is investigating: How implicit human-computer interaction can be used as a means to bridge the gap between physical world and virtual world. An agent-centric approach is introduced to extend ubiquitous computing to unlimited geographical space and a framework for implicit human-computer interaction is also discussed. The benefits of standardized ontologies are used as a base upon which this framework is built. This semantic approach together with agent-centric approach is discussed to visualize the visions of implicit Human-Computer Interaction (i-HCI).PHYVIR project
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Pepe, Aaron. "APPLYING THE APPRAISAL THEORY OF EMOTIONTO HUMAN-AGENT INTERACTION." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2007. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/2606.
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Autonomous robots are increasingly being used in everyday life; cleaning our floors, entertaining us and supplementing soldiers in the battlefield. As emotion is a key ingredient in how we interact with others, it is important that our emotional interaction with these new entities be understood. This dissertation proposes using the appraisal theory of emotion (Roseman, Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001) to investigate how we understand and evaluate situations involving this new breed of robot. This research involves two studies; in the first study an experimental method was used in which participants interacted with a live dog, a robotic dog or a non-anthropomorphic robot to attempt to accomplish a set of tasks. The appraisals of motive consistent / motive inconsistent (the task was performed correctly/incorrectly) and high / low perceived control (the teammate was well trained/not well trained) were manipulated to show the practicality of using appraisal theory as a basis for human robot interaction studies. Robot form was investigated for its influence on emotions experienced. Finally, the influence of high and low control on the experience of positive emotions caused by another was investigated. Results show that a human – robot live interaction test bed is a valid way to influence participants' appraisals. Manipulation checks of motive consistent / motive inconsistent, high / low perceived control and the proper appraisal of cause were significant. Form was shown to influence both the positive and negative emotions experienced, the more lifelike agents were rated higher in positive emotions and lower in negative emotions. The emotion gratitude was shown to be greater during conditions of low control when the entities performed correctly,suggesting that more experiments should be conducted investigating agent caused motive-conducive events. A second study was performed with participants evaluating their reaction to a hypothetical story. In this story they were interacting with either a human, robotic dog, or robot to complete a task. These three agent types and high/low perceived control were manipulated with all stories ending successfully. Results indicated that gratitude and appreciation are sensitive to the manipulation of agent type. It is suggested that, based on the results of these studies, the emotion gratitude should be added to Roseman et al. (2001) appraisal theory to describe the emotion felt during low-control, motive-consistent, other-caused events. These studies have also shown that the appraisal theory of emotion is useful in the study of human-robot and human-animal interactions.Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Sciences
Modeling and Simulation PhD
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Stocker, Richard. "Towards the formal verification of human-agent-robot teamwork." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2013. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/11773/.
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The formal analysis of computational processes is by now a well-established field. However, in practical scenarios, the problem of how we can formally verify interactions with humans still remains. This thesis is concerned with addressing this problem through the use of the Brahms language. Our overall goal is to provide formal verification techniques for human-agent teamwork, particularly astronaut-robot teamwork on future space missions and human-robot interactions in health-care scenarios modelled in Brahms.
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Richards, Mina. "Human-Agent Interaction and Web-based Systems: A Study of User Performance and Software Agent Learning." NSUWorks, 2004. http://nsuworks.nova.edu/gscis_etd/803.
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The last decade has seen the Internet as an enabler to assist the user on query searching and information needs. Searching for information on the Internet differs in significant ways. To adequately support retrieval tasks, search engines require an array of emerging technologies. As supporting tools, they are of great value to the user by providing relevant results specific to a given query. This study examined Internet agents from the perspective of fixed learning and evolutionary learning with selected search engines.
Internet agents refer to the intelligent software residing in search engines to process and access information on behalf of the user. The goal of this research was to measure whether user performance varies as a result of retrieving information across selected agent types. The literature in software agents and intelligent interfaces emphasize that two fields of study guide their general development, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This study applied seminal models in Information Systems as the theoretical base. Norman's seven-stage model of interaction, Simon's satisficing theory, and Goodhue's Task Technology Fit model are introduced to help explain the user interaction with Internet agents.
Two field experiments were performed to empirically test four hypotheses and answer one research question. The study was conducted at the California State University Los Angeles, Computer Information Systems department, using a sample of 60 students. User performance and personalization features were evaluated with four search engines. Using primary data, the study indicates that Internet agent types were positively associated with finding relevant results for the user. Conversely, self-evaluations on user performance were not significantly different between agent types. Research limitations are discussed as well as the contributions to the field and recommendations for future studies.
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Perez, Jorge (Jorge I. ). "Designing interaction for human-machine collaboration in multi-agent scheduling." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106007.
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Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 57-58).
In the field of multi-agent task scheduling, there are many algorithms that are capable of minimizing objective functions when the user is able to specify them. However, there is a need for systems and algorithms that are able to include user preferences or domain knowledge into the final solution. This will increase the usability of algorithms that would otherwise not include some characteristics desired by the end user but are highly optimal mathematically. We hypothesize that allowing subjects to iterate over solutions while adding allocation and temporal constraints would allow them to take advantage of the computational power to solve the temporal problem while including their preferences. No statistically significant results were found that supported that such algorithm is preferred over manually solving the problem among the participants. However, there are trends that support the hypothesis. We found statistically significant evidence (p=0.0027), that subjects reported higher workload when working with Manual Mode and Modification Mode rather than Iteration Mode and Feedback Iteration Mode. We propose changes to the system that can provide guidance for future design of interaction for scheduling problems.
by Jorge Perez.
M. Eng.
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Fang, Bing. "A Framework for Human Body Tracking Using an Agent-based Architecture." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77135.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to present our agent-based human tracking framework, and to evaluate the results of our work in light of the previous research in the same field.
Our agent-based approach departs from a process-centric model where the agents are bound to specific processes, and introduces a novel model by which agents are bound to the objects or sub-objects being recognized or tracked. The hierarchical agent-based model allows the system to handle a variety of cases, such as single people or multiple people in front of single or stereo cameras. We employ the job-market model for agents' communication. In this dissertation, we will present several experiments in detail, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the agent-based tracking system.
Per our research, the agents are designed to be autonomous, self-aware entities that are capable of communicating with other agents to perform tracking within agent coalitions. Each agent with high-level abstracted knowledge seeks evidence for its existence from the low-level features (e.g. motion vector fields, color blobs) and its peers (other agents representing body-parts with which it is compatible). The power of the agent-based approach is its flexibility by which the domain information may be encoded within each agent to produce an overall tracking solution.Ph. D.
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Clark, Leigh M. H. "Exploring vague language use and voice variation in human-agent interaction." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2016. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37863/.
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This thesis addresses the linguistic phenomenon of vague language (VL) and its effect on the creation of identity in the emerging and developing field of human-agent interaction (HAI). Current research on VL has focused on human interaction, while similar existing literature on language in HAI has focused on politeness theory and facework. This thesis brings the two research fields together and uses them as a focusing lens to investigate the issue of identity in agents – software with varying degrees of autonomy and intelligence. Agents are increasingly common in our everyday lives, particularly in the role of an instructor. Intelligent personal assistants are a frequent feature on smartphones, automated checkout systems pervade supermarkets both large and small, and satellite navigation systems have been a mainstay for over a decade now. Despite their frequency, there is relatively little research into the communication challenges surrounding HAI. Much like other people, the language and voice of agents have the ability to affect our perceptions and of them, and shape the way in which we create their identities. Instruction giving, amongst other facets of talk, in human communication can be mitigated through the use of VL. This can reduce the imposition we have on interaction partners, pay respect to a listener’s face, and establish and maintain a positive rapport with our interlocutors. This can have a profound effect on the desire to interact with someone again. Furthermore, agents that use speech to communicate are assigned one of two varieties of voice – synthesised or pre-recorded human speech, both of which have documented benefits and drawbacks. Given the rise of agents in the modern world, it is in the best interest of all parties to understand the salient variables that affect our perceptions of agents, and what effect VL and other variables such as voice in language and voice may have in our interactions with them. This thesis provides a novel approach to investigating both VL and voice in HAI. A general framework is presented with the use of a specific VL model to apply in the interactions, which is designed around verbal agents giving people instructions on how to construct Lego models. The first study compares the effects of a vague and non-vague verbal agent in this context, while the second study focuses on the comparative use of synthesised text-to-speech voices and professional human recordings in the same context. The results from the investigation reveal key findings regarding the use of VL in a verbal agent instructive context. The first study indicated that a synthesised agent voice is better suited to using non-vague instructions, while the second study revealed that a professional voice actor is a preferable candidate for using VL in comparison to two different synthesised voices. These findings discuss the issue of identities in HAI. They reveal that, when an agent instructor is perceived to have a voice that is non-human and machinelike, it is more likely that its use of VL will be received less positively. This is often because the combination of voice and language do not mix, but is also a result of a clash of perceived group identities between agent and human speech. As agents are typically direct, the use of “humanlike” VL can create a large disparity between a person’s expectations of agent speech and the reality of the interaction. Similarly, if an agent’s voice has more of a humanlike feel to it, then its use of VL will create less disparity and has the potential to bridge the gap between these two group identities. This poses discussions on the nature of agent identity and how it compares to those in humans. The thesis concludes with reflection on the findings in light of existing linguistic theories, and how further research into this field may assist agent designers, researchers, and agent users alike. A suggestion of employing a corpus linguistics approach to HAI is proposed, which may pave the way for future success in this area.
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Trümpler, Urs Manuel. "Human lactoferrin: a potential agent for antibacterial prophylaxis in neutropenic patients /." [S.l : s.n.], 1987. http://www.ub.unibe.ch/content/bibliotheken_sammlungen/sondersammlungen/dissen_bestellformular/index_ger.html.
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Ofemile, Abdulmalik Caxton Yusuf. "Listenership in human-agent collectives : a study of unidirectional instruction-giving." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49255/.
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Research in nonverbal listenership behaviour and instruction-giving has focused on interaction with people while paying inadequate attention to human-agent interaction even as recent research indicates that, increasing pervasive computing is significantly changing how humans interact with intelligent software agents and extending the boundaries of discourse to contexts including satellite navigation systems giving directions to drivers, self-checkout machines in supermarkets and intelligent personal assistants on smartphones. This thesis reports studies that use spontaneous listener facial actions and gestures to understand the nature and pattern of spontaneous nonverbal listenership behaviours, identification and communication in instruction-giving contexts. The research methodology used is as follows. Participants who are all L1 speakers of English (forty-eight in Study 1, six in Study 2) were tasked with assembling two Lego models using vague verbal instructions from a computer interface in Study 1 and a human instructor in Study 2 with a 15-minute time limit per iteration. The interface in study1uses three voices of which two are synthesised and one is non-synthesised human recording by a voice actor while Study 2 used a live human voice. A 24-hour long multimodal corpus was built and analysed from interactions between participants and the interface in Study 1 while a 3-hour multimodal corpus was developed from Study 2. The multimodal corpus was annotated for marked facial actions and gestures occurring at points when participants requested that instructors repeat instructions. Participant requests were nonverbal in HAI and a combination of nonverbal and verbal instructions in HHI contexts. The repetitions were quantified and classified into nine typologies. The results reveal key findings regarding the use of spontaneous nonverbal listenership behaviours as pragmatic markers indicating listener comprehension or incomprehension of instructions, perception of instructor-identities, projection of attitudes, meaning-development, task-execution strategies and interaction management even though, the agent could not attend to them in the same way a human can. Using these results, the thesis submits that there are potentials for applied linguistics theories and research to be used to identify and understand pathways to make agents more responsive to human behaviour, make human-agent interaction more credible and provides a theoretical foundation for future multidisciplinary research.
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Miwa, Kazuhisa. "ANALYSIS OF HUMAN-HUMAN AND HUMAN-COMPUTER AGENT INTERACTIONS FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF DESIGN OF AND ATTRIBUTION TO A PARTNER." INTELLIGENT MEDIA INTEGRATION NAGOYA UNIVERSITY / COE, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2237/10419.
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Foen, Nancy (Nancy V. ). "Exploring the human-car bond through an Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA)." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77002.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-110).
As the amount of time spent inside vehicles increases, there is an ever more pressing need for safe interfaces that support drivers while they are multi-tasking. We present an Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA), a sociable robot designed to sit at the dashboard of a vehicle and behave as a friendly assistant. This highly expressive robot was designed to receive signals from the vehicle and use an Android phone as its face and main computational unit to manage the information that must be delivered to the driver. AIDA communicates with the driver through speech, imitating the interaction model that exists between a driver and another passenger. This research platform explores the possibility of using a sociable robot as an interface to connect driver and car, creating a stronger bond between them.
by Nancy Foen.
M.Eng.
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Tierney, Lauren. "An Agent-Based Model of Wildlife Migratory Patterns in Human-Disturbed Landscapes." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/19266.
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In recent years, human decision-making has led to significant landscape impacts in the western United States. Specifically, migratory wildlife populations have increasingly been impacted by rural urban development and energy resource development. This research presents the application of agent-based modeling to explore how such impacts influence the characteristics of migratory animal movement, focusing on mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in Western Wyoming. This study utilizes complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling frameworks to increase understanding of migratory patterns in a changing landscape and explores thresholds of interference to migration patterns due to increased habitat degradation and fragmentation. The agent-based model utilizes GPS-collar data to examine how individual processes lead to population-level patterns of movement and adaptation. The assessment incorporates elements from both human and natural systems to explore potential future scenarios for human development in the natural landscape and incorporates adaptive behaviors, as well as animal-movement ecology, in changing landscapes.
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Orwick, Ogden Sherri L. "Agent for Interactive Student Assistance: A Study of an Avatar-Based Conversational Agent's Impact on Student Engagement and Recruitment at BGSU's College of Technology." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1319804597.
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Steiglechner, Peter. "A Spatially Explicit Agent-Based Model of Human-Resource Interaction on Easter Island." Thesis, KTH, Numerisk analys, NA, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-277730.
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The history of Easter Island, with its cultural and ecological mysteries, has attracted the interests of archaeologists, anthropologists, ecologists, and economists alike. Despite the great scientific efforts, uncertainties in the available archaeological and palynological data leave a number of critical issues unsolved and open to debate. The maximum size reached by the human population before the arrival of Europeans and the temporal dynamics of deforestation are some of the aspects still fraught with controversies. By providing a quantitative workbench for testing hypotheses and scenarios, mathematical models are a valuable complement to the observational-based approaches generally used to reconstruct the history of the island. Previous modelling studies, however, have shown a number of shortcomings in the case of Easter Island, especially when they take no account of the stochastic nature of population growth in a temporally and spatially varying environment. Here, I present a new stochastic, Agent-Based Model characterised by (1) realistic physical geography of the island and other environmental constraints (2) individual agent decision-making processes, (3) non-ergodicity of agent behaviour and environment, and (4) randomised agent-environment interactions. I use the model and the best available data to determine plausible spatial and temporal patterns of deforestation and other socioecological features of Easter Island prior to the European contact. I further identify some non-trivial connections between microscopic decisions or constraints (like local confinement of agents' actions or their adaptation strategy to environmental degradation) and macroscopic behaviour of the system that can not easily be neglected in a discussion about the history of Easter Island before European contact.Påsköns historia har, med dess kulturella och ekologiska mysterier, väckt intressen hos arkeologer, antropologer, ekologer och ekonomer. Trots de stora vetenskapliga ansträngningarna lämnar osäkerheten i de tillgängliga arkeologiska och palynologiska data ett antal kritiska frågor olösta och öppna för debatt. Den maximala storleken som den mänskliga befolkningen nådde före européernas ankomst, och avskogningens tidsmässiga dynamik, är några av de aspekter som fortfarande är fyllda med kontroverser. Genom att tillhandahålla en kvantitativ arbetsbänk för att testa hypoteser och scenarier är matematiska modeller ett värdefullt komplement till de observationsbaserade metoder som vanligtvis används för att rekonstruera öns historia. Tidigare modelleringsstudier har emellertid visat ett antal brister i fallet med Påskön, särskilt när de inte tar hänsyn till den stokastiska karaktären av befolkningsökningen i en tillfällig och rumsligt varierande miljö. Här presenters en ny stokastisk, agentbaserad modell som kännetecknas av (1) realistisk fysisk geografi av ön och andra miljömässiga begränsningar, (2) individuella beslutsprocesser av agenter, (3) icke-ergodicitet av agentens beteende och miljö och (4) randomiserade agent-miljöinteraktioner. Modellen används tillsammans med de bästa tillgängliga data för att bestämma rimliga rumsliga och temporära mönster av avskogning och andra socioekologiska egenskaper på Påskön före européers ankoms. Vidare identifieras några icke-triviala förbindelser mellan mikroskopiska beslut eller begränsningar (till exempel lokal inneslutning av agentens handlingar eller deras anpassningsstrategi till miljöförstöring) och makroskopiskt beteende hos systemet som inte lätt kan försummas i en diskussion om påsköns historia före europeisk kontakt.
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Appaji, Naga Sai Dattu. "Comparison of Searching Algorithms in AI Against Human Agent in the Snake Game." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-20539.
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De, Freitas Declan. "An investigation of EPO as a tissue protective agent in human kidney transplantation." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2011. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/an-investigation-of-epo-as-a-tissue-protective-agent-in-human-kidney-transplantation(eb3c96da-f5b8-4cf4-93e4-222cf8064185).html.
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Ischaemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) has been identified as a major contributor to both short and long term kidney transplant failure. Experimental evidence from the literature suggests that Erythropoietin (EPO) is tissue protective, reducing both inflammation and apoptosis following IRI. We performed a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial examining the tissue protective effect of high dose EPO (100,000iu over 3 days) in 39 recipients of an extended criteria donor kidney or a non-heart-beating donor kidney. The primary endpoints of the study were difference in plasma and urinary biomarker levels (NGAL, IL-18 and KIM-1) in addition to changes in gene expression. Secondary endpoints included safety, clinical data and differences in metabolomics profiles. There was no difference detected between the treatment groups in terms of biomarkers, gene expression, metabolomics profiling or clinical parameters. No adverse events related to EPO therapy were recorded. In addition, we developed a cell model of kidney transplantation using primary tubulo-epithelial cells and HMEC-1 cells, with which to confirm the protective effects of EPO. Treatment with 50U/ml one hour prior to undergoing cold hypoxia resulted in the maximum degree of tissue protection, as measured using an MTT and an LDH assay. No evidence of EPO toxicity was demonstrated. Tubulo-epithelial cells expressed EPOR mRNA and protein. No CD131 receptor could be demonstrated. In summary, EPO confers tissue protection in a cell model of kidney transplantation but this has not been shown to occur in a clinical trial using high dose EPO in recipients of marginal donor kidneys.
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Kim, Hojung. "Human centred design of software agent in social network service against privacy concerns." Thesis, Brunel University, 2016. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/12165.
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The rapid growth and influence of social network services has led many scholars to focus on privacy issues. However, the research described in this thesis was motivated by the small number of design studies that have focused on practical approaches to identifying tacit information from users’ instant non-verbal responses to privacy issues. The research therefore aimed to propose persona models as a design solution for software agent development based on the analysis of users’ emotional and behavioural responses, so as to address privacy issues in social network services. In the definition phase, 21 stakeholders belonging to three key stakeholder groups were recruited for unstandardised semistructured email interviews. Three main considerations for the design of software agents in social network services emerged from the interviews, which were classified into the following categories: comprehensive understanding of users’ perceptions of privacy; user type recognition algorithm for software agent development; and existing software agent enhancement. In the development phase, 50 participants were recruited for the Facebook case study, which included three research strategies: perceptions of privacy questionnaire for user typology; emotional response measurement using Geneva Emotion Wheel; and behavioural response observation using a contextual inquiry method. The participants were classified into four user types by means of cluster analysis: uninformed, trustful, suspicious and neglectful. Each user type’s key emotional responses were identified using Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test, and key behavioural responses using affinity diagrams. This generated persona models of each user type that reflected the correlations between users’ perceptions of privacy, key emotional responses and key behavioural responses. Two fundamental features of the software agent were also proposed based on the persona models: confirmation and guidance. In the validation phase, software agent prototypes were created based on the proposed persona models. A total of 206 participants completed the online survey which included two sections: perceptions of privacy questionnaire for user typology replication, and key emotional responses measurement before and after the intervention of the software agent prototypes. Cluster analysis replication validated the proposed user typology, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test of key emotional responses validated the proposed persona models. By implementing the research outcomes, the software agent described in this thesis would be able to provide users with appropriate services based on their user types, to reduce the number of those who are still unaware of privacy practice and those who neglect their accounts, and to expand the size of a user group pursuing sound relationships.
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Arvidsson, Fredrik. "DESIGNING A HUMAN CENTERED INTERFACE FOR A NOVEL AGRICULTURAL MULTI-AGENT CONTROL SYSTM." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för innovation, design och teknik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-44608.
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The subject of this report is the Command and Control (CaCS) system which is a component whose purpose is to simplify planning, scheduling and surveying work done on a farm in a goal-oriented way. CaCS is part of a larger project, the Aggregate Farming in the Cloud platform (AFarCloud),whose purpose is to simplify the use of contemporary technology to increase the efficiency of farms. AFarCloud is an EU project spanning between 2018 to 2020 and as such, the CaCS is in its infancy. Since the intended users of AFarCloud and CaCS is small to medium sized agricultural businesses,the interface of the CaCS should be constructed in such a way that it is useful and easy to learn. In order to live up to those standards, a combination of live interviews, prototype evaluationsand a comparison with similar software were performed and then compared with the International Standard document on Human-Centered Design for Interactive Systems (ISO 9241-210). The results indicate that a modular interface, where only the information relevant for the unique user’s farm is displayed, is preferable in order to increase the usability of the CaCS. Furthermore, useof icons and explanatory text must be made in consideration of the mental models of the users in order to improve learnability and avoid confusion.
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Roddy, Kimberly A. Dickson Michael R. "Modeling human and organizational behavior using a relation-centric multi-agent system design paradigm /." Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2000. http://edocs.nps.edu/npspubs/scholarly/theses/2000/Sep/00Sep_Roddy.pdf.
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Thesis (M.S. in Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES))--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2000."September 2000." Thesis advisor(s): Michael Zyda, John Hiles. CD-ROM titled: RELATE: A relation-centric MAS simulation development package. Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-137). Also available online.
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Roddy, Kimberly A., and Michael R. Dickson. "Modeling human and organizational behavior using a relation-centric multi-agent system design paradigm." Thesis, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/7739.
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Today's modeling and simulation communities are being challenged to create rich, detailed models incorporating human decision-making and organizational behavior. Recent advances in distributed artificial intelligence and complex systems theory have demonstrated that such ill-defined problems can be effectively modeled with agent-based simulation techniques using multiple, autonomoous, adaptive entities. RELATE, a relation-centric design paradigm for multi-agent systems (MAS), is presented to assist developers incorporate MAS solutions into their simulations. RELATe focuses the designer on six key concepts of MAS simulations: relationships, environment, laws, agents, things, and effectors. A library of Java classes is presented which enables the user to rapidly prototype an agent-based simulation. This library utilizes the Java programming language to support cross-platform and web based designs. All Java classes and interfaces are fully documented using HTML Javadoc format. Two reference cases are provided that allow for easy code reuse and modification. Finally, an existing metworked DIS-Java-VRML simulation was modified to demonstrate the ability to utilize the RELATE library to add agents to existing applications. LCDR Kim Roddy focused on the development and refinement of the RELATE design paradigm, while LT Mike Dickson focused on the actual Java implementation. Joint work was conducted on all research and reference cases
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Kim, Joseph Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Improving team's consistency of understanding in meetings : intelligent agent participation and human subject studies." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98691.
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Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2015.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 61-66).
Upon concluding a meeting, participants can occasionally leave with different understandings of what had been discussed. For meetings that result in immediate subsequent action, such as emergency response planning, all participants must share a common understanding of the decisions reached by the team in order to ensure successful execution of their mission. Thus, detecting inconsistencies in understanding among meeting participants is a desired capability for an intelligent system designed to monitor meetings and provide feedback to spur stronger shared understanding within a group. In this thesis, we present a computational model for the automatic prediction of consistency among team members' understanding of their group's decisions. The model utilizes dialogue features focused on capturing the dynamics of group decisionmaking. We trained our model using one of the largest publicly available meeting datasets and achieved a prediction accuracy rate of 64.2%, as well as robustness across different meeting phases. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first to automatically predict levels of shared understanding using natural dialogue. We then implemented our model in an intelligent system that participated in human team planning meetings about a hypothetical emergency response mission. The system suggested discussion topics that the team would derive the most benefit from reviewing with one another. Through human subject experiments with 30 participants, we evaluated the utility of such a feedback system, and observed a statistically significant mean increase of 17.5% in objective measures of the consistency of the teams' understanding compared with that obtained using a baseline interactive system.
by Joseph Kim.
S.M.
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Schill, Caroline. "Human Behaviour in Social-Ecological Systems : Insights from economic experiments and agent-based modelling." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-141696.
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Progress towards sustainability requires changes in our individual and collective behaviour. Yet, our fundamental understanding of behaviour in relation to environmental change remains severely limited. In particular, little attention has been given to how individual and collective behaviours respond to, and are shaped by, non-linear environmental change (such as ‘regime shifts’) and its inherent uncertainties. The thesis makes two main contributions to the literature: 1) it provides one of the first accounts of human behaviour and collective action in relation to ecological regime shifts and associated uncertainties; and 2) extends the incipient behavioural common-pool resource literature that acknowledges social-ecological dynamics and ecological complexity. The overarching aim of this thesis is to further advance an empirically grounded understanding of human behaviour in social-ecological systems. In particular, the thesis attempts to unravel critical social-ecological factors and mechanisms for the sustainability of common-pool resources. This is especially relevant for contexts in which livelihoods can be more directly threatened by regime shifts. The following methods are applied: behavioural economic experiments in the lab (with students; Papers I and II) and in the field (with small-scale fishers from four different communities in the Colombian Caribbean; Paper III), and agent-based modelling empirically informed by a subset of the lab experiments (Paper IV). Paper I tests the effect of an endogenously driven regime shift on the emergence of cooperation and sustainable resource use. Paper II tests the effect of different risk levels of such a regime shift. The regime shift in both papers has negative consequences for the productivity of the shared resource. Paper III assesses the effect of different degrees of uncertainty about a climate-induced threshold in stock dynamics on the exploitation patterns; as well as the role of social and ecological local context. Paper IV explores critical individual-level factors and processes affecting the simultaneous emergence of collective action and sustainable resource use. Results cumulatively suggest that existing scientific knowledge indicating the potential for ecological regime shifts should be communicated to affected local communities, including the remaining uncertainties, as this information can encourage collective action for sustainable resource use. Results also highlight the critical role of ecological knowledge, knowledge-sharing, perceived ecological uncertainties, and the role local contexts play for sustainable outcomes. This thesis enriches the literature on social-ecological systems by demonstrating how a behavioural experimental approach can contribute new insights relevant for sustainability. Overall, these insights indicate that, given the opportunity and the willingness of people to come together, share knowledge, exchange ideas, and build trust, potential ecological crises can encourage collective action, and uncertainties can be turned into opportunities for dealing with change in constructive ways. This provides a hopeful outlook in the face of escalating environmental change and inherent uncertainties.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.
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Ozkan, Baris Egemen. "Autonomous agent-based simulation of a model simulating the human air-threat assessment process." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2004. http://library.nps.navy.mil/uhtbin/hyperion/04Mar%5FOzkan.pdf.
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Meister, Gabriel T. "Antiviral mechanism(s) of the experimental immunosuppressive agent leflunomide against human cytomegalovirus and polyomavirus." Connect to this title online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1111428519.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 127 p.; also includes graphics (some col.) Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-127). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center
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Bai, Wei. "Agent-based Interface Approach with Activity Theory : Human-Computer interaction in diabetic health care system." Thesis, Växjö University, School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:vxu:diva-915.
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IMIS (Integrated Mobile Information System for Diabetic Healthcare) aims at providing healthcare on both stationary and mobile platform, which is based on Engström’s triangle model in Activity Theory. It focuses on the need for communication and information accessibility between care-providers and their shared patients. Based on the identified need in the target area, IMIS has decided to construct a network-based communication system to support communication and accessibility to patients’ journal. Since the system integrates various roles from the heath care organization, it is a challenge to provide a useful software program to the group members. In order to facilitate the application and enhance the Human-Computer interaction of the system, agent technology is applied to increase the flexibility factor so that the system could be self-adapted to a wider range group of users.
Besides, this thesis also introduces the approach of using social-psychology — Activity theory in HCI, and discuss the integration of these different disciplines. The Multi-agents System is applied with Gaia methodology from micro perspectives. From the macro perspective Activity theory constructs the coordination mechanism of the different agents. A prototype is applied based on the different model of our research.
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Forsgren, Mikael Fredrik. "Human Whole Body Pharmacokinetic Minimal Model for the Liver Specific Contrast Agent Gd-EOB-DTPA." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Medicinsk radiofysik, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-76328.
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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the liver is an important non-invasive tool for diagnosing liver disease. A key application is dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). With the use of the hepatocyte specific contrast agent (CA) Gd-EOB-DTPA it is now possible to evaluate the liver function. Beyond traditional qualitative evaluation of the DCE-MRI images, parametric quantitative techniques are on the rise which yields more objective evaluations. Systems biology is a gradually expanding field using mathematical modeling to gain deeper mechanistic understanding in complex biological systems. The aim of this thesis to combine these two fields in order to derive a physiologically accurate minimal whole body model that can be used to quantitatively evaluate liver function using clinical DCE-MRI examinations. The work is based on two previously published sources of data using Gd-EOB-DTPA in healthy humans; i) a region of interest analysis of the liver using DCE-MRI ii) a pre-clinical evaluation of the contrast agent using blood sampling. The modeling framework consists of a system of ordinary differential equations for the contrast agent dynamics and non-linear models for conversion of contrast agent concentrations to relaxivity values in the DCE-MRI image volumes. Using a χ2-test I have shown that the model, with high probability, can fit the experimental data for doses up to twenty times the clinically used one, using the same parameters for all doses. The results also show that some of the parameters governing the hepatocyte flux of CA can be numerically identifiable. Future applications with the model might be as a basis for regional liver function assessment. This can lead to disease diagnosis and progression evaluation for physicians as well as support for surgeons planning liver resection.
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Alderisio, Francesco. "Coordination and leadership in complex multi-agent systems : analysis, control and application to human ensembles." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2017. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.752718.
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Singh, Meghendra. "Human Behavior Modeling and Calibration in Epidemic Simulations." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/87050.
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Human behavior plays an important role in infectious disease epidemics. The choice of preventive actions taken by individuals can completely change the epidemic outcome. Computational epidemiologists usually employ large-scale agent-based simulations of human populations to study disease outbreaks and assess intervention strategies. Such simulations rarely take into account the decision-making process of human beings when it comes to preventive behaviors. Absence of realistic agent behavior can undermine the reliability of insights generated by such simulations and might make them ill-suited for informing public health policies. In this thesis, we address this problem by developing a methodology to create and calibrate an agent decision-making model for a large multi-agent simulation, in a data driven way. Our method optimizes a cost vector associated with the various behaviors to match the behavior distributions observed in a detailed survey of human behaviors during influenza outbreaks. Our approach is a data-driven way of incorporating decision making for agents in large-scale epidemic simulations.Master of Science
In the real world, individuals can decide to adopt certain behaviors that reduce their chances of contracting a disease. For example, using hand sanitizers can reduce an individual‘s chances of getting infected by influenza. These behavioral decisions, when taken by many individuals in the population, can completely change the course of the disease. Such behavioral decision-making is generally not considered during in-silico simulations of infectious diseases. In this thesis, we address this problem by developing a methodology to create and calibrate a decision making model that can be used by agents (i.e., synthetic representations of humans in simulations) in a data driven way. Our method also finds a cost associated with such behaviors and matches the distribution of behavior observed in the real world with that observed in a survey. Our approach is a data-driven way of incorporating decision making for agents in large-scale epidemic simulations.
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Brown, Lloyd Philip. "Agent based simulation as an exploratory tool in the study of the human dimension of combat." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 2000. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA377686.
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Pousti, Hamidreza. "Applying wireless and mobile agent technologies for human decision making in the mission critical emergency environments." Access electronically, 2005. http://www.library.uow.edu.au/adt-NWU/public/adt-NWU20051021.121211/index.html.
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Gawri, Rahul. "Link-N Peptide: a potential therapeutic agent for biological repair of early degenerated human intervertebral discs." Thesis, McGill University, 2014. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=121429.
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Chronic low back pain is a disease affecting a big portion of the population with 70% having at least one episode of low back during their lives. Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is the most common cause of low back pain. It is associated with degradation and loss of proteoglycans, mainly aggrecan. Currently main treatment modalities offered for treating IVD degeneration are surgical and mainly target end stage disc disease. Medical therapies are being developed to treat and retard IVD degeneration and growth factor therapy is one such upcoming modality. Link protein is a component of IVD matrix. Link-N is a 16 amino acid peptide, cleaved from the N terminal of Link protein. It is found in the matrix of degenerating IVDs and is thought to have an effect on IVD metabolism including stimulation of proteoglycan synthesis. To test the regenerative potential of Link-N in degenerating human discs, IVD cells were exposed to the peptide. Link-N exposure resulted in a dose dependent increase in proteoglycan synthesis, stimulated proteoglycan synthesis and modulated protease production in an inflammatory environment. Organ culture models are commonly used tools for understanding disease process and action of potential therapeutic agents. There was no ideal model for studying IVD pathophysiology in humans; therefore a whole organ culture model was developed. This model maintained cell viability up to 4 months and Link-N peptide was able to stimulate sustained proteoglycan synthesis in the discs. In order to ensure a sustained effect of treatment, sustained activity is important. The stability of Link-N peptide was evaluated in the presence of IVD cells. Link-N was processed by IVD cells generating a new peptide retaining the bioactive properties of the parent peptide. Thus, the present study establishes Link-N peptide as a promising bioactive agent for treating IVD degeneration by regenerating degenerated discs and by retarding the ongoing degenerative process.La lombalgie est une maladie chronique affectant 70% de la population de plus de 60 ans. La dégénération des disques intervertébraux (DIVs) est la principale cause de lombalgie. Elle est associée à la degradation et la perte de protéoglycans, principalement de l'aggrécane. Les traitements présentement offerts, comme la chirurgie, visent les stades avancés de la maladie. Des facteurs de croissance ont aussi été utilisés pour traiter et/ou retarder la dégénération des DIVs. La protéine Link est une composante de la matrice des DIVs. Link-N est un peptide de 16 acides aminés produit par le clivage de la section N-terminale de la protéine Link. Link-N est retrouvé dans la matrice des disques en cours de dégénération et notre hypothèse est qu'il aurait un effet positif sur le métabolisme des DIVs. Afin de vérifier le potentiel régénérateur de Link-N, des cellules des DIVs ont été exposées au peptide. Nos résultats démontraient que Link-N induisait la synthèse de protéoglycans de façon dose-dépendante et modulait la production de protéases dans un environnement inflammatoire. Il n'existe pas de modèle idéal pour étudier la physiopathologie des DIVs humains. Nous avons donc développé un modèle de culture de DIVs entiers. La viabilité cellulaire a été maintenue jusqu'à 4 mois dans ce modèle. Aussi, Link-N fut capable de stimuler une synthèse soutenue de protéoglycans dans le disque, condition essentielle afin d'assurer un effet soutenu d'un traitement. Les études de la stabilité de Link-N dans les IVDs démontaient que le peptide était transformé et que le nouveau peptide généré par l'activité cellulaire conservait les propriétés bioactives du peptide parent. La présente étude établie donc le peptide Link-N comme un agent bioactif prometteur dans le traitement de la dégénération des DIVs et le ralentissement du processus dégénératif en cours.
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Dermouche, Soumia. "Leveraging the dynamics of non-verbal behaviors : modeling social attitude and engagement in human-agent interaction." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Sorbonne université, 2019. https://accesdistant.sorbonne-universite.fr/login?url=https://theses-intra.sorbonne-universite.fr/2019SORUS271.pdf.
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Dans le contexte de l'interaction humain-agent, notre objectif était d'améliorer la qualité de l'interaction en: (1) dotant l'agent de la capacité d'exprimer des attitudes sociales telles que la dominance ou l'amicalité ce qui renforcent ses compétences sociales; (2) adaptant le comportement de l'agent selon le comportement de l'utilisateur, par conséquent l'agent et l'utilisateur s'influencent mutuellement par le biais d'une boucle interactive; (3) prédisant le niveau d'engagement de l'utilisateur et adaptant en conséquence le comportement de l'agent, ce qui contribue à maintenir l'intérêt et la motivation de l'utilisateur. Nous nous basons sur les progrès récents dans le domaine de l'apprentissage automatique, plus particulièrement de l'extraction de séquences temporelles et des réseaux de neurones. Le premier est utilisé pour apprendre des séquences pertinentes de signaux non-verbaux qui représentent au mieux les variations d'attitude, puis les reproduire par l'agent. Le seconde est utilisé pour englober la dynamique des signaux non verbaux. Deux cas d'utilisation ont été explorés à l'aide du modèle LSTM : l'adaptation du comportement de l'agent en fonction de l’historique de comportement de l'agent et de l'utilisateur; et la prédiction de l'engagement de l'utilisateur basée sur son propre historique de comportement. La pertinence des modèles et des algorithmes implémentés a été validée au moyen de nombreuses études approfondies et d'une évaluation quantitative rigoureuse des résultats obtenus. De plus, les travaux réalisés ont été intégrés dans une plateforme d'agents virtuelsSocial interaction implies exchange between two or more persons, where they adapt their behaviors to each others. With the growing interest in human-agent interactions, it is desirable to make these interactions natural and human like. In this context, we aimed at enhancing the quality of the interaction between users and Embodied Conversational Agents ECAs by (1) endowing the ECA with the capacity to express social attitudes, such as being friendly or dominant depending its role or relationship with its interaction partners; (2) adapting the agent's behavior according to the user's behavior, hence, the conversation partners influence each others through an interaction loop, thus, enhancing the interaction quality; (3) predicting the user's engagement level and adapting the agent's behavior accordingly. We take advantage of the recent advances in machine learning, more specifically, temporal sequence mining and neural networks to model these capacities in the ECA. The first model is used to learn relevant patterns (sequences) of non-verbal signals that best represent attitude variations, and then reproduce them on the agent. The latter is used to encompass the dynamics of non-verbal signals. Two use cases have been explored using the well-known LSTM model: agent's behavior adaptation based on both agent's and user's behavior history, and user's engagement prediction based on his/her own behavior history. The implemented models and algorithms have been validated through a number of perceptive studies as well as through rigorous quantitative analysis of the obtained results. In addition, the realized models have been integrated into a virtual-agent platform
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Vegvari, Carolin. "Agent-based simulation modelling of the evolution and diversification of human cultures in their environmental context." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708433.
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Ahlberg, Sofie. "Human-in-the-Loop Control Synthesis for Multi-Agent Systems under Metric Interval Temporal Logic Specifications." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Reglerteknik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-251666.
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With the increase of robotic presence in our homes and work environment, it has become imperative to consider human-in-the-loop systems when designing robotic controllers. This includes both a physical presence of humans as well as interaction on a decision and control level. One important aspect of this is to design controllers which are guaranteed to satisfy specified safety constraints. At the same time we must minimize the risk of not finding solutions, which would force the system to stop. This require some room for relaxation to be put on the specifications. Another aspect is to design the system to be adaptive to the human and its environment. In this thesis we approach the problem by considering control synthesis for multi-agent systems under hard and soft constraints, where the human has direct impact on how the soft constraint is violated. To handle the multi-agent structure we consider both a classical centralized automata based framework and a decentralized approach with collision avoidance. To handle soft constraints we introduce a novel metric; hybrid distance, which quantify the violation. The hybrid distance consists of two types of violation; continuous distance or missing deadlines, and discrete distance or spacial violation. These distances are weighed against each other with a weight constant we will denote as the human preference constant. For the human impact we consider two types of feedback; direct feedback on the violation in the form of determining the human preference constant, and direct control input through mixed-initiative control where the human preference constant is determined through an inverse reinforcement learning algorithm based on the suggested and followed paths. The methods are validated through simulations.I takt med att robotar blir allt vanligare i våra hem och i våra arbetsmiljöer, har det blivit allt viktigare att ta hänsyn till människan plats i systemen när regulatorerna för robotorna designas. Detta innefattar både människans fysiska närvaro och interaktion på besluts- och reglernivå. En viktig aspekt i detta är att designa regulatorer som garanterat uppfyller givna villkor. Samtidigt måste vi minimera risken att ingen lösning hittas, eftersom det skulle tvinga systemet till ett stopp. För att uppnå detta krävs det att det finns rum för att mjuka upp villkoren. En annan aspekt är att designa systemet så att det är anpassningsbart till människan och miljön. I den här uppsatsen närmar vi oss problemet genom att använda regulator syntes för multi-agent system under hårda och mjuka villkor där människan har direkt påverkan på hur det svaga villkoret överträds. För att hantera multi-agent strukturen undersöker vi både det klassiska centraliserade automata-baserade ramverket och ett icke-centraliserat tillvägagångsätt med krockundvikning. För att hantera mjuka villkor introducerar vi en metrik; hybrida avståndet, som kvantifierar överträdelsen. Det hybrida avståndet består av två typer av överträdelse (kontinuerligt avstånd eller missandet av deadlines, och diskret avstånd eller rumsliga överträdelser) som vägs mot varandra med en vikt konstant som vi kommer att kalla den mänskliga preferens kontanten. Som mänsklig påverkan överväger vi direkt feedback på överträdelsen genom att hon bestämmer värdet på den mänskliga preferens kontanten, och direkt påverkan på regulatorn där den mänskliga preferens konstanten bestäms genom en inverserad förstärkt inlärnings algoritm baserad på de föreslagna och följda vägarna. Metoderna valideras genom simuleringar.
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Oryani, Maryam. "Applying Agent-Based Modeling to Studying Emergent Behaviors of the Immune System Cells." Thesis, KTH, Reglerteknik, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-147196.
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Huge amount of medical data has been generated in practical experiments which makes data analysis a challenging problem. This requires novel techniques to be developed. The improvements in computational power suggest to use computerbased modeling approaches to process a large set of data. One of the important systems in the human body to be investigated is the immune system. The previous studies of medical scientists and ongoing experiments at Karolinska Institute provide information about the human immune system. This information includes attributes of human immune system’s blood cells and the interactions between these cells. This interactions are provided as ‘if-then’ logical rules. Each rule verifies a condition on the attribute of one cell and it may initiate interaction processes to modify the attributes of other cells. A specific temporal value is associated to each process to quantify the speed of that process in the body (i.e., slow, medium, fast). We propose an agent-based model (ABM) to study human immune system cells and their interactions. The ABM is selected to overcome the complexity of large amount of data and find emergent properties and behavior patterns of the cells. Immune system cells are modeled as autonomous agents which have interactions with each other. Different values of a cell attributes define possible states of the cell and the collection of states of all cells constructs the state of the whole agent-based model. In order to consider the state transitions of the cells, we used a finite state machine (FSM). The first state is constructed from the input initial values for the cells and considering the logical time of 1. In each step, the program goes one time unit further and computes next state by applying the changes based on the cells’ interactions rules. This evolution of states in time is similar to game of life (GOL) automaton. The final model based on three modeling approaches of ABM, FSM and GOL are used to test medical hypothesis related to human immune system. This model provides a useful framework for medical scientists to do experiments on the cells’ attributes and their interaction rules. Considering a set of cells and their interactions, the proposed framework shows emergent properties and behavior patterns of the human immune system.
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Lala, Divesh. "The design and implementation of dynamic interactive agents in virtual basketball." 京都大学 (Kyoto University), 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2433/199434.
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Murray-Rust, David. "Musical acts and musical agents : theory, implementation and practice." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/2561.
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Musical Agents are an emerging technology, designed to provide a range of new musical opportunities to human musicians and composers. Current systems in this area lack certain features which are necessary for a high quality musician; in particular, they lack the ability to structure their output in terms of a communicative dialogue, and reason about the responses of their partners. In order to address these issues, this thesis develops Musical Act Theory (MAT). This is a novel theory, which models musical interactions between agents, allowing a dialogue oriented analysis of music, and an exploration of intention and communication in the context of musical performance. The work here can be separated into four main contributions: a specification for a Musical Middleware system, which can be implemented computationally, and allows distributed agents to collaborate on music in real-time; a computational model of musical interaction, which allows musical agents to analyse the playing of others as part of a communicative process, and formalises the workings of the Musical Middleware system; MAMA, a musical agent system which embodies this theory, and which can function in a variety of Musical Middleware applications; a pilot experiment which explores the use of MAMA and the utility of MAT under controlled conditions. It is found that the Musical Middleware architecture is computationally implementable, and allows for a system which can respond to both direct musical communi- cation and extramusical inputs, including the use of a custom-built tangible interface. MAT is found to capture certain aspects of music which are of interest — an intuitive notion of performative actions in music, and an existing model of musical interaction. Finally, the fact that a number of different levels — theory, architecture and implementation — are tied together gives a coherent model which can be applied to many computational musical situations.
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Dinu, Razvan. "Web Agents : towards online hybrid multi-agent systems." Thesis, Montpellier 2, 2012. http://www.theses.fr/2012MON20126/document.
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Multi-agent systems have been used in a wide range of applications from computer-based simulations and mobile robots to agent-oriented programming and intelligent systems in real environments. However, the largest environment in which software agents can interact is, without any doubt, the World Wide Web and ever since its birth agents have been used in various applications such as search engines, e-commerce, and most recently the semantic web. However, agents have yet to be used on the Web in a way that leverages the full power of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, which have the potential of making life much easier for humans. This thesis investigates how this can be changed, and how agents can be brought to the core of the online experience in the sense that we want people to talk and interact with agents instead of "just using yet another application or website". We analyze what makes it hard to develop intelligent agents on the web and we propose a web agent model (WAM) inspired by recent results in multi-agent systems. Nowadays, a simple conceptual model is the key for widespread adoption of new technologies and this is why we have chosen the MASQ meta-model as the basis for our approach, which provides the best compromise in terms of simplicity of concepts, generality and applicability to the web. Since until now the model was introduced only in an informal way, we also provide a clear formalization of the MASQ meta-model.Next, we identify the three main challenges that need to be addressed when building web agents: integration of bodies, web semantics and user friendliness. We focus our attention on the first two and we propose a set of principles to guide the development of what we call strong web agents. Finally, we validate our proposal through the implementation of an award winning platform called Kleenk. Our work is just a step towards fulfilling the vision of having intelligent web agents mediate the interaction with the increasingly complex World Wide WebMulti-agent systems have been used in a wide range of applications from computer-based simulations and mobile robots to agent-oriented programming and intelligent systems in real environments. However, the largest environment in which software agents can interact is, without any doubt, the World Wide Web and ever since its birth agents have been used in various applications such as search engines, e-commerce, and most recently the semantic web. However, agents have yet to be used on the Web in a way that leverages the full power of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, which have the potential of making life much easier for humans. This thesis investigates how this can be changed, and how agents can be brought to the core of the online experience in the sense that we want people to talk and interact with agents instead of "just using yet another application or website". We analyze what makes it hard to develop intelligent agents on the web and we propose a web agent model (WAM) inspired by recent results in multi-agent systems. Nowadays, a simple conceptual model is the key for widespread adoption of new technologies and this is why we have chosen the MASQ meta-model as the basis for our approach, which provides the best compromise in terms of simplicity of concepts, generality and applicability to the web. Since until now the model was introduced only in an informal way, we also provide a clear formalization of the MASQ meta-model.Next, we identify the three main challenges that need to be addressed when building web agents: integration of bodies, web semantics and user friendliness. We focus our attention on the first two and we propose a set of principles to guide the development of what we call strong web agents. Finally, we validate our proposal through the implementation of an award winning platform called Kleenk. Our work is just a step towards fulfilling the vision of having intelligent web agents mediate the interaction with the increasingly complex World Wide Web
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Abdul, Majid Mazlina. "Human behaviour modelling : an investigation using traditional discrete event and combined discrete event and agent-based simulation." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2011. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11906/.
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This thesis presents a comparison between two simulation methods, namely Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Agent Based Simulation (ABS). In our literature review we identified a gap in comparing the applicability of these methods to modelling human centric service systems. Hence, we have focused our research on reactive and different level of detail of proactive of human behaviour in service systems. The aim of the thesis is to establish a comparison for modelling human reactive and different level of detail of proactive behaviour in service systems using DES and ABS. To achieve this we investigate both the similarities and differences between model results performance and the similarities and differences in model difficulty performance. The comparison of the simulation methods is achieved by using a case study approach. We have conducted three case studies, the choice of our case study systems taking into consideration the number of different key proactive behaviours that can be observed. In the first case study (fitting room services) we consider single proactive staff behaviour, in the second case study (international support services) we consider two proactive staff behaviours and, finally, the third case study (airline check-in services) considers three proactive staff behaviours. The proactive behaviours considered are: taking charge from experience, taking the initiative to fulfil a goal and supervising by learning. To conduct our case studies we have created two sets of simulation models. The first set consists of one DES model for each of the case studies. As service systems have an organisational structure we could not implement our agent-based simulation models purely as agent-based models. Instead, for the second set we have created combined DES/ABS models (one for each case study), where the DES part represents the system and the ABS part represents the active entities inside the system (i.e. the people).With these models we have carried out two sets of experiments: Set A is concerned with modelling results performance, while set B is related to model difficulty performance. We have then conducted statistical analysis on the results of these experiments. Evidence from the experiments reveals that DES and combined DES/ABS are found suitable to model the reactive and most levels of proactive behaviour modelled in this thesis. In addition, combined DES/ABS is found more suitable for modelling higher levels of proactive behaviour (complex behaviour). Another finding from the experiments is that it is only worth representing complex proactive behaviour if it occurs frequently in the real system (considering the relation between modelling effort and impact). The contribution made by this thesis to the body of knowledge is the comparison of DES and combined DES/ABS for modelling human reactive and different level of detail of human proactive behaviour in service systems. This comparison will assist modellers who are new to the field of service systems modelling to make an informed decision on the method they should use for their own modelling, based on the level of proactiveness inherent in the real system and on the levels of difficulties they should expect for each method.