This paper reports on a quiz robot experiment in which we explore similarities and differences in human participant speech, gaze, and bodily conduct in responding to a robot’s speech, gaze, and bodily conduct across two languages. Our experiment involved three-person groups of Japanese and English-speaking participants who stood facing the robot and a projection screen that displayed pictures related to the robot’s questions. The robot was programmed so that its speech was coordinated with its gaze, body position, and gestures in (...) relation to transition relevance places, key words, and deictic words and expressions in both languages. Contrary to findings on human interaction, we found that the frequency of English speakers’ head nodding was higher than that of Japanese speakers in human-robot interaction. Our findings suggest that the coordination of the robot’s verbal and non-verbal actions surrounding TRPs, key words, and deictic words and expressions is important for facilitating HRI irrespective of participants’ native language. Keywords: coordination of verbal and non-verbal actions; robot gaze comparison between English and Japanese; human-robot interaction ; transition relevance place ; conversation analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the logical strength of completeness theorems for intuitionistic logic along the program of reverse mathematics. Among others we show that is equivalent over to the strong completeness theorem for intuitionistic logic: any countable theory of intuitionistic predicate logic can be characterized by a single Kripke model.

In this paper, we generalize a result of Brown and Simpson [1] to prove that RCA0+Π0∞-BCT is conservative over RCA0 with respect to the set of formulae in the form ∃!Xφ, where φ is arithmetical. We also consider the conservation of Π00∞-BCT over Σb1-NIA+∇b1-CA.

Sleep is mandatory in most animals that have the nervous system and is universally observed in model organisms ranging from the nematodes, zebrafish, to mammals. However, it is unclear whether different sleep states fulfill common functions and are driven by shared mechanisms in these different animal species. Mammals and birds exhibit two obviously distinct states of sleep, i.e., non-rapid eye movement sleep and rapid eye movement sleep, but it is unknown why sleep should be so segregated. Studying sleep in other (...) animal models might give us clues that help solve this puzzle. Recent studies suggest that REM sleep, or ancestral forms of REM sleep might be found in non-mammalian or -avian species such as reptiles. These observations suggest that REM sleep and NREM sleep evolved earlier than previously thought. In this review, we discuss the evolutionary origin of the distinct REM/NREM sleep states to gain insight into the mechanistic and functional reason for these two different types of sleep. (shrink)

In the current model of visual transduction, the lifetime of active cGMP phosphodiesterase depends upon the period of its interaction with GTP-bound transducin. If recoverin regulates the lifetime of light-activated cGMP phosphodiesterase through inhibition of rhodopsin phosphorylation, rhodopsin should directly interact with cGMP phosphodiesterase and/or GTP-bound transducin complexed with cGMP phosphodiesterase. Is this true?

Este ensaio tem a intenção de trazer uma discussão sobre os pressupostos epistemológicos de Bachelard e Fleck, dois referenciais teóricos hoje muito utilizados em teses e pesquisas em Educação, Filosofia e Ensino. Estaremos argumentando que as duas referências têm interessantes convergências epistemológicas e que podem ser potencialmente úteis para pensar a educação científica.