Abstract: This paper describes an exploratory study on group interaction with a robot-guide in an open large-scale busy environment. For an entire week a humanoid robot was deployed in the popular Cosmocaixa Science Museum in Barcelona and guided hundreds of people through the museum facilities. The main goal of this experience is to study in the wild the episodes of the robot guiding visitors to a requested destination focusing on the group behavior during displacement. The walking behavior follow-me and the face to face communication in a populated environment are analyzed in terms of guide- visitors interaction, grouping patterns and spatial formations. Results from observational data show that the space configurations spontaneously formed by the robot guide and visitors walking together did not always meet the robot communicative and navigational requirements for successful guidance. Therefore additional verbal and nonverbal prompts must be considered to regulate effectively the walking together and follow-me behaviors. Finally, we discuss lessons learned and recommendations for robot’s spatial behavior in dense crowded scenarios.

Abstract: In the control of the PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell, the existence of both deliberative and reactive processes that facilitate the tasks of control resulting from a wide range of operating scenarios and range of conditions it is required. The latter is essential to adjust its parameters to the multiplicity of circumstances that may occur in the operation of the PEM stack. In this context, the design and development of an expert-agents based architecture for autonomous control of the PEM stack in top working conditions is presented. The architecture integrates perception and control algorithms using sensory and context information. It is structured in a hierarchy of levels with different time window and level of abstraction. The monitoring model and autonomic control of PEM stack has been validated with different types of PEM stacks and operating conditions demonstrating high reliability in achieving the objective of the proposed energy efficiency. Dynamic control of the wetting of the membrane is a clear example.

Abstract: How is software measurement addressed in undergraduate and graduate programs in universities? Do organizations consider that the graduating students they hire have an adequate knowledge of software measurement? To answer these and related questions, a survey was administered to participants who attended the IWSM-MENSURA 2010 conference in Stuttgart, Germany. Forty-seven of the 69 conference participants (including software development practitioners, software measurement consultants, university professors, and graduate students) took part in the survey. The results indicate that software measurement topics are: A) covered mostly at the graduate level and not at the undergraduate level, and B) not mandatory. Graduate students and professors consider that, of the measurement topics covered in university curricula, specific topics, such as measures for the requirements phase, and measurement techniques and tools, receive more attention in the academic context. A common observation of the practitioners who participated in the survey was that students hired as new employees bring limited software measurement-related knowledge to their organizations. Discussion of the findings and directions for future research are presented.

Abstract: This manuscript evaluates the behavior of classical feature point descriptors when they are used in images from long-wave infrared spectral band and compare them with the results obtained in the visible spectrum. Robustness to changes in rotation, scaling, blur, and additive noise are analyzed using a state of the art framework. Experimental results using a cross-spectral outdoor image data set are presented and conclusions from these experiments are given.