The Day I Was Older

How Was Your Day?

We describe a ‘How was your day?’ (HWYD) Companion whose purpose is to establish a comforting and supportive relationship with a user via a conversation on a variety of work-related topics. The system has several fairly novel features aimed at increasing the naturalness of the interaction: a rapid ‘short loop’ response primed by the results of acoustic emotion analysis, and an ‘interruption man...

How was your day?: a companion ECA

We demonstrate a “Companion” ECA, which is able to provide advice and support to the user, taking into account emotions expressed by her through dialogue. The integration of all required multimodal I/O components is based on interaction strategies defining the shape of dialogue, on the ECA’s response times, and on the underlying affective strategy. The system supports free conversation on an ev...

I went; I saw: I was never the same!

AstroGenesis: And there was leptin on the sixth day

In the central nervous system (CNS), the hypothalamus plays a fundamental role in controlling food intake and energy expenditure as well as glucose homeostasis. Alterations in this control can lead to obesity, glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes in both rodents and humans [1]. The past two decades have witnessed major advances in our understanding of the control of energy balance by hypotha...

‘I Know it was Every Week, but I Can't be Sure if it was Every Day: Domestic Violence and Women with Learning Disabilities

BACKGROUND Domestic violence against women is well researched in the general population, but much less so in relation to women with learning disabilities. This qualitative research study interviewed 15 women with learning disabilities who had experienced domestic violence about their experiences, the impact of the violence on them and their children, their coping strategies and help seeking beh...