Clark Elliott

Lifelike pedagogical agents and affective computing: an exploratory synthesis

Lifelike pedagogical agents have been the subject of increasing attention in the agents and knowledge-based learning environment communities [2, 17, 19—21]. In parallel developments, recent years have witnessed great strides in work on cognitive models of emotion and affective reasoning [4,18, 22]. As a result, the time is now ripe for exploring how affective reasoning can be incorporated into pedagogical agents to improve students’ learning experiences.

Autonomous Agents as Synthetic Characters

Humans are social creatures. Much of our intelligence derives from our ability to manipulate our environment through collaborative endeavors. Most extant computer programs and interfaces do little to take advantage of such manifestly human talents and interests, leaving broad avenues of human-computer communication unexplored. Although it is still considered controversial, there are many who believe the harnessing of social communication to be rich in possibilities for modern software. In this article, we look at a number of autonomous agent systems that embody their intelligence at least partially through the projection of a believable, engaging, synthetic persona. Among other topics, we touch briefly on samples of research that explore synthetic personality, representations of emotion, societies of fanciful and playful characters, intelligent and engaging automated tutors, and users projected as avatars into virtual worlds.

Story-morphing in the affective reasoning paradigm: generating stories semi-automatically for use with “emotionally intelligent” multimedia agents

A hollow fiber membrane-type fluid separation apparatus useful for selective separation of fluids in various techniques such as gas permeation, liquid permeation, dialysis, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, etc., which comprises at least one pair of unit structures which are arranged uniaxially in series within a cylindrical pressure vessel, said pair of unit structures comprising a pair of cylindrical hollow fiber assemblies having a selective permeability, a means for collecting permeated fluid, which is held between side tube sheets provided each at a terminal of the pair of cylindrical hollow fiber assemblies and is capable of collecting the fluid which passes through the side tube sheet, a permeation fluid pipe for taking out the permeated fluid, which penetrates perpendicularly the means for collecting a permeated fluid at the center, and a fitting means provided with a passageway for passing a concentrated fluid being not permeated, said passageway being arranged at around central region of the means for collecting a permeated fluid so as to surround the permeation fluid pipe.