ELA-14 (human)

For a service robot to serve travelers at an airport or for a social robot to live with a human partner at home, it is vital for robots to possess the ability to empathize with human partners and express congruent emotions accordingly. We conducted a systematic review of the literature regarding empathy in interpersonal, virtual agents, and social robots research with inclusion criteria to analyze empirical studies in a peer-reviewed journal, conference proceeding, or a thesis. Based on the review, we define empathy for human-robot interaction (HRI) as the robot's (observer) capability and process to recognize the human's (target) emotional state, thoughts, and situation, and produce affective or cognitive responses to elicit a positive perception of humans. We reviewed all prominent empathy theories and established a conceptual framework that illuminates critical components to consider when designing an empathic robot, including the empathy process, outcome, and theobserverandtargetcharacteristics. This model is complemented by empirical research involving empathic virtual agents and social robots. We suggest critical factors such as domain dependency, multi-modality, and empathy modulation to consider when designing, engineering, and researching empathic social robots.

The abilities of the human hand have always fascinated people, and many studies have been devoted to describing and understanding a mechanism so perfect and important for human activities. Hand loss can significantly affect the level of autonomy and the capability of performing the activities of daily life. Although the technological improvements have led to the development of mechanically advanced commercial prostheses, the control strategies are rather simple (proportional or on/off control). The use of these commercial systems is unnatural and not intuitive, and therefore frequently abandoned by amputees. The components of an active prosthetic hand are the mechatronic device, the decoding system of human biological signals into gestures and the control law that translates all the inputs into desired movements. The real challenge is the development of a control law replacing human hand functions. This paper presents a literature review of the control strategies of prosthetics hands with a multiple-layer or hierarchical structure, and points out the main critical aspects of the current solutions, in terms of human's functions replicated with the prosthetic device. The paper finally provides several suggestions for designing a control strategy able to mimic the functions of the human hand.

Streptococcus suis is a major porcine pathogen worldwide, and can be transmitted to human beings by close contact with sick or carrier pigs. S suis causes meningitis, septicaemia, endocarditis, arthritis, and septic shock in both pigs and human beings, and mortality is high. Human infection with S suis occurs mainly among certain risk groups that have frequent exposure to pigs or pork. Outbreaks of human S suis infection are uncommon, although several outbreaks have occurred in China in recent years. In July, 2005, the largest outbreak of human S suis infection occurred in Sichuan province, China, where 204 people were infected and 38 of them died. There have been 409 cases of human S suis infection worldwide, most of which have occurred in China, Thailand, and the Netherlands, and these infections have led to 73 deaths. This review provides background information on the biology and molecular characteristics of this Gram-positive bacterium, and describes the clinical signs, pathology, epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of human infection with S suis.