Who Wants to Grant Robots Rights?

The robot rights debate has thus far proceeded without any reliable data concerning the public opinion about robots and the rights they should have. We have administered an online survey (n = 439) that investigates layman's attitudes toward granting particular rights to robots. Furthermore, we have asked them the reasons for their willingness to grant them those rights. Finally, we have administered general perceptions of robots regarding appearance, capacities, and traits. Results show that rights can be divided in sociopolitical and robot dimensions. Reasons can be distinguished along cognition and compassion dimensions. People generally have a positive view about robot interaction capacities. We found that people are more willing to grant basic robot rights such as access to energy and the right to update to robots than sociopolitical rights such as voting rights and the right to own property. Attitudes toward granting rights to robots depend on the cognitive and affective capacities people believe robots possess or will possess in the future. Our results suggest that the robot rights debate stands to benefit greatly from a common understanding of the capacity potentials of future robots.

A phased framework for long-term user acceptance of interactive technology in domestic environments.

The temporal dimension of acceptance is under-researched in technology acceptance research. Yet, people's perceptions on technology use may change over time when gaining user experiences. Our 6-month home study deploying an interactive robot provides insight into the long-term use of use interactive technology in a domestic environment. We present a phased framework for the acceptance of interactive technology in domestic environments. Based on 97 interviews obtained from 21 participants living in different household types, the results provide an initial validation of our phased framework for long-term acceptance showing that acceptance phases are linked to certain user experiences which evolve over time when people gain experience with the technology. Involving end users in the early stages of development helps researchers understand the cultural and social contexts of acceptance and enables developers to apply this gained knowledge into their future designs.

Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of Multi-Stakeholder Platforms in Integrated Landscape Initiatives.

Integrated landscape initiatives typically aim to strengthen landscape governance by developing and facilitating multi-stakeholder platforms. These are institutional coordination mechanisms that enable discussions, negotiations, and joint planning between stakeholders from various sectors in a given landscape. Multi-stakeholder platforms tend to involve complex processes with diverse actors, whose objectives and focus may be subjected to periodic re-evaluation, revision or reform. In this article we propose a participatory method to aid planning, monitoring, and evaluation of such platforms, and we report on experiences from piloting the method in Ghana and Indonesia. The method is comprised of three components. The first can be used to look ahead, identifying priorities for future multi-stakeholder collaboration in the landscape. It is based on the identification of four aspirations that are common across multi-stakeholder platforms in integrated landscape initiatives. The second can be used to look inward. It focuses on the processes within an existing multi-stakeholder platform in order to identify areas for possible improvement. The third can be used to look back, identifying the main outcomes of an existing platform and comparing them to the original objectives. The three components can be implemented together or separately. They can be used to inform planning and adaptive management of the platform, as well as to demonstrate performance and inform the design of new interventions.

Determinants and outcome of unsuccessful referral after positive screening in a large birth-cohort study of population-based vision screening.

PURPOSE: The efficacy of population-based vision screening is hampered by unsuccessful referral after a positive screening test. We studied the nature and causes of unsuccessful referral in a 7-year birth cohort study of vision screening in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. METHODS: All parents of children who had been unsuccessfully referred were asked whether they recalled the referral. Reasons for noncompliance, if any, were identified using semi-structured interviews. Screening records were checked for written evidence of the referral. The parents' fluency in Dutch and their socioeconomic status were also assessed. RESULTS: Of the 561 screen-positive children, 129 (23%) had not been referred successfully. For the current study, 97 parents were successfully contacted. Of these, 14 parents had been willingly noncompliant and 83 said they were unaware of the referral, with 47% having poor to moderate fluency in Dutch. In 53 cases, the screening charts contained no written evidence of any referral. Amblyopia was identified in 3 of the unsuccessful referrals. CONCLUSIONS: In this population-based screening program, 1 of 4 positively screened children was not successfully referred. Apart from parental noncompliance, the unsuccessful referrals can be explained by miscommunication, deficient documentation, and physician noncompliance with screening guidelines. An effective monitoring feedback system may improve the efficacy of child vision screening.

Accuracy of GDx VCC, HRT I, and clinical assessment of stereoscopic optic nerve head photographs for diagnosing glaucoma.

AIMS: To determine and compare the accuracy and reproducibility of GDx variable cornea compensation (VCC) scanning laser polarimetry (SLP) with VCC, Heidelberg retina tomograph (HRT) I confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (CSLO), and clinical assessment of stereoscopic optic nerve head (ONH) photographs for diagnosing glaucoma. METHODS: One eye each of 40 healthy subjects, 48 glaucoma patients, and six patients with ocular hypertension were measured with SLP-VCC and CSLO. Simultaneous stereoscopic ONH photographs were also obtained. Sixteen photographs of healthy and glaucomatous eyes were duplicated for assessing intraobserver agreement. Four glaucoma specialists, four general ophthalmologists, four residents in ophthalmology, and four optometrists classified the ONH photographs as normal or glaucomatous. For SLP-VCC, the nerve fiber indicator (NFI) was evaluated. For CSLO, the Moorfields regression analysis (MRA) and the Bathija linear discriminant function (LDF) were used. Sensitivity, specificity, percentage of correctly classified eyes, and intra- and interobserver agreement, expressed as kappa (kappa) were calculated. RESULTS: SLP-VCC had the highest diagnostic accuracy, with a sensitivity, specificity, and overall correct classification of 91.7%, 95.0% and 93.2%, respectively. CSLO, expressed as Bathija LDF and MRA, had a diagnostic accuracy comparable to glaucoma specialists and general ophthalmologists with an overall accuracy of 89.8%, 86.4%, 86.7% and 85.2%, respectively. Residents classified the fewest eyes correctly. Intraobserver agreement for classifying the ONH photographs ranged between 0.48 (within residents) and 0.78 (within glaucoma specialists). The interobserver agreement ranged between 0.45 (between residents) and 0.74 (between glaucoma specialists). The agreement between observers and CSLO MRA (kappa, 0.68) was statistically significantly higher (p<0.001; paired t-test) than between observers and SLP-VCC NFI (kappa, 0.60) and CSLO Bathija LDF (kappa, 0.62). CONCLUSION: Automated analysis of measurements with GDx VCC and HRT had a similar diagnostic accuracy for glaucoma as classification of stereoscopic ONH photographs by glaucoma specialists, thus bringing all eye-care professionals to this desirable level. The intra- and interobserver agreement for ONH analysis was only moderate to good. We think these imaging techniques may assist clinicians in diagnosing glaucoma.