In this article we report that imitation and improvisation of tutor songs by eastern male cowbirds (Molothrus ater ater) differs when they are housed with conspecific females as opposed to nonconspecifics. When males, tutored with 12 different song types, were individually housed with females, they developed repertoires composed primarily of improvised and original song types, whereas the reper...

We find a new substellar companion to the Pleiades member star, Pleiades HII 3441, using 2 the Subaru telescope with adaptive optics. The discovery is made as part of the high-contrast imaging survey to search for planetary-mass and substellar companions in the Pleiades and young moving groups. The companion has a projected separation of 0.49 ± 0.02 (66 ± 2 AU) and a mass of 68 ± 5 MJ based on ...

Aims. We investigate a new approach to the detection of companions to extrasolar planets beyond the transit method. We discuss the possibility of the existence of “binary planets”. Methods. We develop a method based on the imaging of a planet-companion as an unresolved system (but resolved from its parent star). It makes use of planet-companion “mutual phenomena”, namely mutual transits and mut...

Memory is a vital capability for intelligent social Companions. In this paper, we introduce a simple memory model that allows a Companion to maintain a long-term relationship with the user by remembering past experiences in order to personalise interaction. Additionally, we implemented a situational forgetting mechanism that gives the Companion the ability to protect the user’s privacy by not d...

This pilot study reports how to portray open learner models as animal companions in order to motivate children to learn in the digital classroom environment. To meet two challenges of motivation and interactivity for open learner models, the concept of open learner models as animal companions is proposed based on the emotional attachment of humans towards pets. Animal companions adopt three str...

We present the results of a deep-imaging search for wide companions to lowmass stars and brown dwarfs using NSFCam on IRTF. We searched a sample of 132 M7-L8 dwarfs to magnitude limits of J ∼ 20.5 and K ∼ 18.5, corresponding to secondary-primary mass ratios of ∼ 0.5. No companions were found with separations between 2 to 31 (∼40 AU to ∼1000 AU). This null result implies a wide companion frequen...

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for elderly care in Japan due to the problems posed by a declining birthrate and an aging population. To deal with the problem, we aim to develop a multiple wheelchair robot system that moves with multiple companions collaboratively. In actual care, we noticed that for a group of four people, which included wheelchair users and their companio...

Ten new companions have emerged from the Keck precision Doppler velocity survey, with minimum (M sin i) masses ranging from 0.8 MJUP to 0.34 M . Five of these are planet candidates with M sin i < 12 MJUP, two are brown dwarf candidates with M sin i 30 MJUP, and three are low-mass stellar companions. Hipparcos astrometry reveals the orbital inclinations and masses for three of the (more massive)...

We searched the 9 M-dwarf primaries nearer than 5 pc and south of declination δ = −30◦ for companions with separations 1-10AU and found none. Taken togetherwith the 25 northern primaries studied by Henry and McCarthy (1990) the fraction of binaries and triples within the now complete sample of all M dwarfs within 5 pc is 9/34 = 26± 9%, and the average number of companions per system is 0.32± 0....

We describe an ongoing survey to directly detect substellar and planetary companions to nearby young stars. This survey uses adaptive optics and nonredundant aperture-masking interferometry to achieve typical contrast limits of ∆K ∼6 at the diffraction limit, probing a completely new regime of parameter space. These observations have revealed many new stellar companions, but only a few companio...