Robotics calls for papers / publications

Call for Chapters: Machine Medical Ethics, Edited Collection

You are warmly invited to submit your research chapter for possible inclusion in an edited collection entitled Machine Medical Ethics. Target publication date: 2014.

The new field of Artificial Intelligence called Machine Ethics is concerned with ensuring that the behaviour of machines towards human users and other machines is ethical. This unique edited collection aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for researchers in this field to present new research and developments in Machine Medical Ethics. Areas of interest for this edited collection include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Foundational Concepts

What is medical ethics?

What is machine medical ethics?

What are the consequences of creating or not creating ethical medical machines?

Can medical machines be autonomous?

Ought medical machines to operate autonomously, or under (complete or partial) human physician control?

Theories of Machine Medical Ethics

What theories of machine medical ethics are most theoretically plausible and most empirically supported?

Ought machine medical ethics be rule-based (top-down), case- based (bottom-up), or a hybrid view of both top-down and bottom-up?

Is an interdisciplinary approach suited to designing a machine medical ethical theory? (e.g., collaboration between philosophy, psychology, AI, computational neuroscience…)

Medical Machine Training

What does ethical training for medical machines consist in: ethical principles, ethical theories, or ethical skills? Is a hybrid approach best?

What training regimes currently tested and/or used are most successful?

Can ethically trained medical machines become unethical?

Can a medical machine learn empathy (caring) and skills relevant to the patient-physician relationship?

Can a medical machine learn to give an apology for a medical error?

Ought medical machines to be trained to detect and respond to patient embarrassment and/or issues of patient privacy? What social norms are relevant for training?

Ought medical machines to be trained to show sensitivity to gender, cultural and age-differences?

Ought machines to teach medicine and medical ethics to human medical students?

Patient-Machine-Physician Relationship

What role ought imitation or mimicry to play in the patient-machine-physician relationship?

What role ought empathy or caring to play in the patient-machine-physician relationship?

What skills are necessary to maintain a good patient-machine-physician relationship?

Ought medical machines be able to detect patient fakery and malingering?

Under what conditions ought medical machines to operate with a nurse?

In what circumstances should a machine physician consult with human or other machine physicians regarding patient assessment or diagnosis?

Medical Machine Physical Appearance

Is there a correlation between physical appearance and physician trustworthiness?

Ought medical machines to appear human or non-human?

Is a highly plastic human-like face essential to medical machines? Or, is a static face sufficient?

What specific morphological facial features ought medical machines to have?

Ought medical machines to be gendered or androgynous?

Ought medical machines to possess a human-like body with mobile limbs?

What vocal characteristics ought medical machines to have?

As a new field, the target audiences are expected to be from the scientists, researchers, and practitioners working in the field of machine ethics and medical ethics. The target audience will also include various stakeholders, like academics, research institutes, and individuals interested in this field, and the huge audience in the public sector comprising health service providers, government agencies, ministries, education institutions, social service providers and other types of government, commercial and not-for-profit agencies.

Please indicate your intention to submit your full paper by email to the editor who emails you with the title of the paper, authors, and abstract. The full manuscript, as PDF file, should be emailed to that same editor by the deadline indicated below. Authoring guidelines will be mailed to you after we receive your letter of intent.

Please feel free to contact the editors, Simon van Rysewyk or Dr. Matthijs Pontier, if you have any questions or concerns. Many thanks!

IMPORTANT DATES:

Intent to Submit: June 10, 2013

Full Version: October 20, 2013

Decision Date: November 10, 2013

Final Version: December 31, 2013

Editors:

Simon van Rysewyk

School of Humanities
University of Tasmania
Private Bag 41
Hobart
Tasmania 7001
Australia

Email: simonvanrysewyk@utas.edu.au

Dr. Matthijs Pontier

Post-Doctoral Researcher
The Centre for Advanced Media Research (CAMeRA)
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Buitenveldertselaan 3
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Email: matthijspon@gmail.com

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of the Digital Human: Digital Human Devices – What They Can Do and How They Can Do It

Guest Editor: Dr. Shana Smith, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

The goal of this special issue is to present a comprehensive multi-disciplinary view of digital human devices – of what they can do and how they can do it.

The emphasis of the special issue will be on digital human devices with novel and exceptional abilities, and on both hardware and software elements. Manuscripts must therefore contain appropriate and interesting theoretical, experiential and application single-views and comparative-views of novel and exceptional digital human devices.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The state of the art in digital human devices

• Novel and exceptional visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory sensing abilities

• Novel and exceptional information integration and perception abilities

• Novel and exceptional higher-level cognition and decision-making abilities

• Novel and exceptional activation, action, response, feedback and adaptation abilities

• Trends in digital human devices

• Future trends in digital human devices

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All submissions should begin with a letter of intent (100-200 words) that describes the goals, content and results of the study (to be emailed to the Guest Editor at ssmith@ntu.edu.tw).

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our information on preparing and submitting articles.

Important Dates

Deadline for letter of intent (100-200 words): 31 August, 2013 (email submission)

Deadline for full paper: 30 November, 2013 (online submission)

First review completed: 31 January, 2014

Deadline for revised paper: 31 March, 2014 (online submission)

Second review completed: 31 May, 2014

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of the Digital Human:Digital Human Models – What They Can Do and How They Can Do It

Guest Editor:

Dr. Shana Smith, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

The goal of this special issue is to present a comprehensive multi-disciplinary view of digital human models – of what they can do and how they can do it.

The emphasis of the special issue will be on digital human models with novel and exceptional abilities, and on only software elements. Manuscripts must therefore contain appropriate and interesting theoretical, experiential and application single-views and comparative-views of novel and exceptional digital human models.

Subject Coverage

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The state of the art in digital human models

• Novel and exceptional visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory sensing abilities

• Novel and exceptional information integration and perception abilities

• Novel and exceptional higher-level cognition and decision-making abilities

• Novel and exceptional activation, action, response, feedback and adaptation abilities

• Trends in digital human models

• Future trends in digital human models

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. (N.B. Conference papers may only be submitted if the paper has been completely re-written and if appropriate written permissions have been obtained from any copyright holders of the original paper).

All papers are refereed through a peer review process.

All submissions should begin with a letter of intent (100-200 words) that describes the goals, content and results of the study (to be emailed to the Guest Editor at ssmith@ntu.edu.tw).

All papers must be submitted online. To submit a paper, please read our information on preparing and submitting articles.

Important Dates

Deadline for letter of intent (100-200 words): 31 August, 2013 (email submission)

Deadline for full paper: 30 November, 2013 (online submission)

First review completed: 31 January, 2014

Deadline for revised paper: 31 March, 2014 (online submission)

Second review completed: 31 May, 2014

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics: Human-Robot Interaction

Guest Editors:

Zhaojie Ju (University of Portsmouth, UK)

Rainer Palm (Orebro University, Sweden)

Branislav Borovac (University of Novi Sad, Serbia)

Recent innovations in motors, sensors, and computer technologies offer the promise of adaptation of robots into human living environments. In the near future, we may confidently expect robots with sophisticated skills in action, perception and communication, to serve us in a wide variety of situations such as: cleaning houses, entertaining children, taking care of the elderly, etc. Human-Robot interaction is therefore of critical importance to improve people's working efficiency, convenience, and safety. Research in Human-Robot interaction aims to elucidate principles and algorithms, which permit more intuitive and effective communication with robots through speech, gestures, facial expressions, etc. Multidisciplinary in character, Human-Robot Interaction, brings together researchers and practitioners in engineering (such as electronics and mechanics), computer science (such as artificial intelligence, natural language understanding, and computer vision), social science (such as psychology, anthropology, and human factors), and humanities (such as ethics and philosophy).

This special issue aims to promote the dissemination of high-quality research in methods, theories, and applications concerning the interactions between humans and robots. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed, and selected on the basis of their topicality, originality, presentation, and novelty.

Topics of Interest include, but not limited to:

• Multi-modal interaction

• Natural interfaces

• Assistive/social/medical/ healthcare robotics

• Cognitive modeling

• Human-robot cooperation

• Human-guided learning

• Human-robot team interaction

• Long term interaction with robots

• Natural language understanding

• Human gesture/motion recognition

• Case studies in human-robot interaction

Submission of Papers

Authors should follow the guidelines of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (IJHR). The format is described at: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/ijhr/submission-guidelines

Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their completed manuscripts through the on-line submission system at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/ijhr/default.asp?pg=login.asp with the note "This paper is submitted to the Special Issue on Human-Robot Interaction" according to the following submission schedule.

Submission Schedule:

- Paper deadline: 11th August 2013

- Notification: 10th November 2013

- Final paper due: 15th December 2013

- To appear in the issue of March 2014

Please address enquiries to zhaojie.ju@port.ac.uk