Empathic Embarrassment Responses While Viewing Romantic-Rejection and General Embarrassment Situations

Empathic embarrassment occurs when an observer experiences embarrassment while viewing another person in an embarrassing situation. It was hypothesized that the type of embarrassment situation, the prior information provided about an embarrassed protagonist, perceived similarity to an embarrassed protagonist, ability to relate to an embarrassed protagonist, and embarrassability would influence empathic embarrassment responses. Participants (N = 208) either read a vignette containing general or specific information about a female embarrassed protagonist or received no prior information about her. They watched an embarrassment situation (romantic-rejection or general) featuring this protagonist and reported their empathic embarrassment responses. They then rated how similar they felt to the protagonist and how able they were to relate to her. Their embarrassability was also assessed. It was found that the general embarrassment situation evoked stronger empathic embarrassment responses than the romantic-rejection embarrassment situation. Further, the amount of prior information did not influence empathic embarrassment responses overall. High perceived similarity, high ability to relate, and high embarrassability all led to stronger empathic embarrassment responses for the romantic-rejection embarrassment situation. For the general embarrassment situation, however, these variables did not influence empathic embarrassment responses. Moreover, when embarrassability was taken into account, the difference in the empathic embarrassment responses between the embarrassment situations disappeared

Boncompagno da Signa da retore a storiografo

Analizzando il brevissimo giro d'anni in cui Boncompagno da Signa, magister di ars dictaminis compose e poi rivide il Liber de obsidione Ancone (1198-1201) e le parole del prologo dell'opera, si individua nella polemica consapevolezza autoriale di Boncompagno la motivazione che lo portò a comporre il Liber, con cui intese guadagnare la storiografia al dominio della retorica accademica; si inquadra inoltre il Liber come prodotto del tutto originale nel panorama della storiografia cittadina coeva.This paper examines the novelty of magister Boncompagno da Signa's Liber de obsidione Ancone (1198-1201) in comparison to the communal historiography. Starting from the Boncompagno's biography and works, and from the prologus of the Liber, it emphasizes Boncompagno's autorship as well as his attempt to acquire writing of history to the domain of academic rhetoric

Iterative Machine Learning for Precision Trajectory Tracking with Series Elastic Actuators

When robots operate in unknown environments small errors in postions can lead to large variations in the contact forces, especially with typical high-impedance designs. This can potentially damage the surroundings and/or the robot. Series elastic actuators (SEAs) are a popular way to reduce the output impedance of a robotic arm to improve control authority over the force exerted on the environment. However this increased control over forces with lower impedance comes at the cost of lower positioning precision and bandwidth. This article examines the use of an iteratively-learned feedforward command to improve position tracking when using SEAs. Over each iteration, the output responses of the system to the quantized inputs are used to estimate a linearized local system models. These estimated models are obtained using a complex-valued Gaussian Process Regression (cGPR) technique and then, used to generate a new feedforward input command based on the previous iteration's error. This article illustrates this iterative machine learning (IML) technique for a two degree of freedom (2-DOF) robotic arm, and demonstrates successful convergence of the IML approach to reduce the tracking error.Comment: 9 pages, 16 figure. Submitted to AMC Worksho

The GALATEA Test-Facility for High Purity Germanium Detectors

GALATEA is a test facility designed to investigate bulk and surface effects in high purity germanium detectors. A vacuum tank houses an infrared screened volume with a cooled detector inside. A system of three stages allows an almost complete scan of the detector. The main feature of GALATEA is that there is no material between source and detector. This allows the usage of alpha and beta sources as well as of a laser beam to study surface effects. A 19-fold segmented true-coaxial germanium detector was used for commissioning

An investigation of highly accurate and precise robotic hole measurements using non-contact devices

Industrial robots arms are widely used in manufacturing industry because of their support for automation. However, in metrology, robots have had limited application due to their insufficient accuracy. Even using error compensation and calibration methods, robots are not effective for micrometre (μm) level metrology. Non-contact measurement devices can potentially enable the use of robots for highly accurate metrology. However, the use of such devices on robots has not been investigated. The research work reported in this paper explores the use of different non-contact measurement devices on an industrial robot. The aim is to experimentally investigate the effects of robot movements on the accuracy and precision of measurements. The focus has been on assessing the ability to accurately measure various geometric and surface parameters of holes despite the inherent inaccuracies of industrial robot. This involves the measurement of diameter, roundness and surface roughness. The study also includes scanning of holes for measuring internal features such as start and end point of a taper. Two different non-contact measurement devices based on different technologies are investigated. Furthermore, effects of eccentricity, vibrations and thermal variations are also assessed. The research contributes towards the use of robots for highly accurate and precise robotic metrology