Towards Learning ‘Self’ and Emotional Knowledge in Social and Cultural Human-Agent Interactions

Original article can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/articles/details.asp?ID=35052 Copyright IGI. Posted by permission of the publisher.This article presents research towards the development of a virtual learning environment (VLE) inhabited by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and modeling a scenario of inter-cultural interactions. The ultimate aim of this VLE is to allow users to reflect upon and learn about intercultural communication and collaboration. Rather than predefining the interactions among the virtual agents and scripting the possible interactions afforded by this environment, we pursue a bottomup approach whereby inter-cultural communication emerges from interactions with and among autonomous agents and the user(s). The intelligent virtual agents that are inhabiting this environment are expected to be able to broaden their knowledge about the world and other agents, which may be of different cultural backgrounds, through interactions. This work is part of a collaborative effort within a European research project called eCIRCUS. Specifically, this article focuses on our continuing research concerned with emotional knowledge learning in autobiographic social agents.Peer reviewe

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Hospitality Industry

Which hotels benefit from locating next to competitors? In this study of 14,995 hotels we provide evidence of both a price benefit and a detriment for specific hotels that co‐locate next to other hotels. Relying on the theoretical framework of agglomeration economics, the results reveal that hotels that co‐locate in the same geographic cluster with the highest quality segmented firms (luxury hotels) accrue a price premium compared to competitors in markets with larger proportions of lower‐segmented competitors. The strongest price premiums were obtained by midscale hotels without food and beverage in clusters with large proportions of luxury and upscale hotels. Similarly, high‐end hotels that pursue differentiation strategies experience price erosion when they are in the same geographic location as lower‐end hotels. Luxury hotels experienced the greatest price erosion when they operate in locations with large proportions of economy and midscale hotels. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for competitive dynamics and hotel location decisions

The Role of Emotions in Service Encounters

This article advances our understanding of the influence of affect in consumers’ responses to brief, non-personal service encounters. This study contributes to the services marketing literature by examining for mundane service transactions the impact of customer-displayed emotion and affect on assessments of the service encounter and the overall experience. Observational and perceptual data from customers were matched with frontline employees in 200 transaction-specific encounters. The results of this study suggest that consumers’ evaluations of the service encounter correlate highly with their displayed emotions during the interaction and post-encounter mood states. Finally, the findings indicate that frontline employees’ perceptions of the encounter are not aligned with those of their customers. The managerial implications of these findings are briefly discussed

Anisotropic Superconductivity in the Induced Pairing Model

The model of local electron pairs and itinerant fermions coupled via charge exchange mechanism, which mutually induces superconductivity in both subsystems is studied for anisotropic pairing symmetry. The phase diagram is presented and the phase fluctuations effects are analyzed within the Kosterlitz-Thouless scenario.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Physica B (in press), Proceedings of the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems, Ann Arbor, Michigan, August 6-10, 200

Diagn?stico de h?bitos lectores y apoyo familiar en h?bitos lectores en estudiantes de primero de primaria

161 p. Recurso Electr?nicoDentro del desarrollo integral de los estudiantes el componente de lenguaje es un ?rea fundamental. En el caso de los estudiantes de primero de primaria las competencias lectoras y escritoras son el eje principal de su formaci?n. En la Instituci?n Educativa San Luis Gonzaga sede 02 Carolita, existen desempe?os pobres en las competencias lectoras, medidos por las pruebas SABER 3, y reconocidos a trav?s de la observaci?n por los docentes. Se estableci? como prop?sito central de este trabajo realizar un diagn?stico de los h?bitos lectores y el apoyo familiar en dichos h?bitos, de los estudiantes de primero de primaria y sus acudientes de la Instituci?n Educativa San Luis Gonzaga sede 02 Carolita. Se plante? un estudio de enfoque mixto (cualitativocuantitativo), de tipo descriptivo y de corte transversal. Participaron 18 estudiantes de primero de primaria del a?o 2018 de la Instituci?n Educativa San Luis Gonzaga sede 02 Carolita, una docente siendo directora del grupo de estudiantes de primero de primaria. La recolecci?n de informaci?n se realiz? con la aplicaci?n de los cuestionarios: caracterizaci?n del grupo familiar, calidad del entorno de desarrollo, encuesta de diagn?stico de h?bitos lectores para estudiantes de grado primero, y una entrevista dirigida a la docente y directora del grupo de primero de primaria de la Instituci?n Educativa. Como principales hallazgos se destacan: se encontraron h?bitos lectores nulos y bajos, como falta de acompa?amiento de los padres de familia. Es necesario, que se cree un mecanismo que incremente el apoyo y acompa?amiento de los padres en el establecimiento de h?bitos lectores en los estudiantes de primero de primaria de la Instituci?n educativa. Palabras clave: H?bitos lectores, Diagn?stico, Apoyo familiar, Infancia.The development of students with a view to integral education, the importance of acquiring competences in different areas of knowledge is recognized; and language is fundamental. For students in first-year of school, reading and writing skills are one of the main axis of their training. At the Instituci?n Educativa San Luis Gonzaga, Sede 02 Carolita, there are poor performances in it, measured by the SABER 3 tests. It also was recognized by direct observation by professors and in personal conversations with their teachers. In this sense, it was established as central to diagnose reading habits and family support in these habits for first year students and their parents. A mixed approach (qualitative-quantitative), descriptive and cross-sectional study was proposed. All first grade students from the institutions in 2018 participated, 18 in total, their teacher and their families. The data collection was carried out through the questionnaires: characterization of the family group; quality of the development environment; diagnostic survey of reading habits and parent support; and through an interview with the main teacher of students of fist grade. As main findings it was noted that there were null and low reading habits and lack of accompaniment and support from parents. It is necessary to establish actions from the school that involve the family, the different actors from the school and the children as a mechanism to increase the reading habits and the support and accompaniment in this process for first grade students. Keywords: Reading habits, Diagnosis, Family support, Children

Dicke-Type Energy Level Crossings in Cavity-Induced Atom Cooling: Another Superradiant Cooling

This paper is devoted to energy-spectral analysis for the system of a two-level atom coupled with photons in a cavity. It is shown that the Dicke-type energy level crossings take place when the atom-cavity interaction of the system undergoes changes between the weak coupling regime and the strong one. Using the phenomenon of the crossings we develop the idea of cavity-induced atom cooling proposed by the group of Ritsch, and we lay mathematical foundations of a possible mechanism for another superradiant cooling in addition to that proposed by Domokos and Ritsch. The process of our superradiant cooling can function well by cavity decay and by control of the position of the atom, at least in (mathematical) theory, even if there is neither atomic absorption nor atomic emission of photons.Comment: 15 pages; 8 figure

Instanton picture of the spin tunneling in the Lipkin model

A consistent theory of the ground state energy and its splitting due to the process of tunneling for the Lipkin model is presented. For the functional integral in terms of the spin coherent states for the partition function of the model we accurately calculate the trivial and the instanton saddle point contributions. We show that such calculation has to be perfomed very accurately taking into account the discrete nature of the functional integral. Such accurate consideration leads to finite corrections to a naive continous consideration. We present comparison with numerical calculation of the ground state energy and the tunneling splitting and with the results obtained by the quasiclassical method and get excellent agreement.Comment: REVTEX, 32 pages, 3 figure

Magnon Exchange Mechanism of Ferromagnetic Superconductivity

The magnon exchange mechanism of ferromagnetic superconductivity (FM-superconductivity) was developed to explain in a natural way the fact that the superconductivity in $UGe_2$, $ZrZn_2$ and $URhGe$ is confined to the ferromagnetic phase.The order parameter is a spin anti-parallel component of a spin-1 triplet with zero spin projection. The transverse spin fluctuations are pair forming and the longitudinal ones are pair breaking. In the present paper, a superconducting solution, based on the magnon exchange mechanism, is obtained which closely matches the experiments with $ZrZn_2$ and $URhGe$. The onset of superconductivity leads to the appearance of complicated Fermi surfaces in the spin up and spin down momentum distribution functions. Each of them consist of two pieces, but they are simple-connected and can be made very small by varying the microscopic parameters. As a result, it is obtained that the specific heat depends on the temperature linearly, at low temperature, and the coefficient $\gamma=\frac {C}{T}$ is smaller in the superconducting phase than in the ferromagnetic one. The absence of a quantum transition from ferromagnetism to ferromagnetic superconductivity in a weak ferromagnets $ZrZn_2$ and $URhGe$ is explained accounting for the contribution of magnon self-interaction to the spin fluctuations' parameters. It is shown that in the presence of an external magnetic field the system undergoes a first order quantum phase transition.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Nonadiabatic Landau Zener tunneling in Fe_8 molecular nanomagnets

The Landau Zener method allows to measure very small tunnel splittings \Delta in molecular clusters Fe_8. The observed oscillations of \Delta as a function of the magnetic field applied along the hard anisotropy axis are explained in terms of topological quantum interference of two tunnel paths of opposite windings. Studies of the temperature dependence of the Landau Zener transition rate P gives access to the topological quantum interference between exited spin levels. The influence of nuclear spins is demonstrated by comparing P of the standard Fe_8 sample with two isotopically substituted samples. The need of a generalized Landau Zener transition rate theory is shown.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure