This paper introduces “outside-in design” as a collaborative approach to social robot design and human-robot interaction research. As an interdisciplinary group of social and computer scientists, we follow an iterative practice of collecting and analyzing data from realworld interaction, designing appropriate robotic perception and control mechanisms, developing models of interaction through automatic coding of behaviors and evaluation by human subjects, and validating the models in embodied human-robot interaction. We apply this approach in the context of shadow puppeteering, a constrained interaction space which allows us to study the foundational elements of synchronous interaction and apply them to a robot. We contribute to both social and computer sciences by combining the study of human social interaction with the design of socially responsive robot control algorithms. Interaction with robotic technologies in the real world poses both social and technical challenges. For a robot to collaborate seamlessly with humans in an everyday activity, it has to be situationally aware, able to take advantage of the human’s knowledge of the world, and adapt its behavior accordingly. To enable a socially interactive robot to perceive and display relevant social behaviors, designers must solve complex problems in real-time perception and control involving multiple mechanical and computational systems. Designing robots for social interaction also calls for expertise in analyzing social behavior to understand the factors that make people respond to robots as social actors. The challenges of social human-robot interaction suggest that it is difficult to neatly ‘divide and conquer’ social robot design through partial solutions bounded off within social and computational disciplines. This paper describes a collaborative practice bringing together computational and social expertise in the exploration and design of social human-robot interaction. We use an “outside-in” 1 design strategy, iterating between real

Virgin forests are relatively rare in the European temperate zone. This is due to the continuous use of forests historically and to increasing high population densities. Virgin forests are forests where the structure and dynamics have developed entirely under natural conditions, without any human interference or influence. This article assesses the Plješevica forest in Bosnia Herzegovina to establish whether it can be classified as a virgin forest. The structure and components of the forest were assessed in a 1 ha sample plot and four 400 m2 quadrats. The values of the biodiversity indexes (as defined by Shannon and Weaver, Krebs and Meyer), species richness and evenness, the distribution of the different stand development stages and the proportion of deadwood lead to the conclusion that Plješevica forest presents a set of structural and dynamic characteristics close to the ones typical for virgin forests in Europe, so in order to maintain its status as such, in the meantime, it should undergo a protection management program.

We explore phonon decay processes necessary to the design of efficient rough semiconductor nanowire (NW) thermoelectric devices. A novel approach to surface roughness-limited thermal conductivity of Si, Ge, and GaAs NW with diameter D < 500 nm is presented. In particular, a frequency-dependent phonon scattering rate is computed from perturbation theory and related to a description of the surface through the root-mean-square roughness height Δ and autocovariance length L. Using a full phonon dispersion relation, the thermal conductivity varies quadratically with diameter and roughness as (D/Δ)2. Computed results are in agreement with experimental data, and predict remarkably low thermal conductivity below 1 W/m/K in rough-etched 56 nm Ge and GaAs NW at room temperature.

We study phonons produced by transitions between the equivalent X valleys in silicon. We use the Monte Carlo method first to select stochastically the time between phonon collisions, and then to select a final-state pair of phonons from the probability distribution for anharmonic decay. Our results show that intervalley phonons decay into one near-equilibrium transverse acoustic phonon and another intermediate longitudinal phonon either on the acoustic or optical branch. This second phonon has energies between 40 and 50 meV and undergoes another decay before turning into a pair of near-equilibrium transverse acoustic phonons, presenting an additional potential bottleneck.