Creation of devices and mechanisms which help people has a long history. Their inventors always targeted practical goals such as irrigation, harvesting, devices for construction sites, measurement, and, last but not least, military tasks for different mechanical and later mechatronic systems. Development of such assisting mechanisms counts back to Greek engineering, came through Middle Ages and...

We present spectra of three M subdwarfs which are common proper motion companions to F or G subdwarfs of known metallicity. The assumption that the companions have the same composition allows us to test the Gizis (1997, AJ, 113, 806) M subdwarf classification system and its correspondence to metallicity. The results are in excellent agreement with the Gizis (1997) scale, thereby showing that th...

We study the capture of dark matter particles by neutron stars in close binary systems. By performing a direct numerical simulation, we find that there is a sizable amplification of the rate of dark matter capture by each of the companions. In the case of the binary pulsar PSR J1906+0746 with the orbital period of 4 hours the amplification factor is approximately equal to 3.5. This amplificatio...

Non-player character companions in video games should cooperate with players, understand them, and follow their lead during gameplay. In current games, however, companions tend to exhibit mainly static behaviours, and rarely live up to player expectations. In general, our work is aimed at improving this situation, developing both techniques and tools which allow companion NPCs to behave more ap...

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study that explores player game experience by implementing the ERiSA Framework in games. A study with Action Role-Playing Game (RPG) was designed to evaluate player interactions with game companions, who were imbued with social and emotional skill by the ERiSA Framework. Players had to complete a quest in the Skyrim game, in which players had to ...

We present a refinement of Pous’ companion-based coinductive proof technique and apply it to CCS with general fixed points. We construct companions based on inductive towers and thereby obtain a powerful induction principle. Our induction principle implies a new sufficient condition for soundness of up-to techniques subsuming respectfulness and compatibility. For bisimilarity in CCS, companions...