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"Morris, Robert"
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Towards an Artificially Empathic Conversational Agent for Mental Health Applications: System Design and User Perceptions
Conversational agents cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways that account for the unique circumstances of the user. Agents that possess this faculty could be used to enhance digital mental health interventions.
We sought to design a conversational agent that could express empathic support in ways that might approach, or even match, human capabilities. Another aim was to assess how users might appraise such a system.
Our system used a corpus-based approach to simulate expressed empathy. Responses from an existing pool of online peer support data were repurposed by the agent and presented to the user. Information retrieval techniques and word embeddings were used to select historical responses that best matched a user's concerns. We collected ratings from 37,169 users to evaluate the system. Additionally, we conducted a controlled experiment (N=1284) to test whether the alleged source of a response (human or machine) might change user perceptions.
The majority of responses created by the agent (2986/3770, 79.20%) were deemed acceptable by users. However, users significantly preferred the efforts of their peers (P<.001). This effect was maintained in a controlled study (P=.02), even when the only difference in responses was whether they were framed as coming from a human or a machine.
Our system illustrates a novel way for machines to construct nuanced and personalized empathic utterances. However, the design had significant limitations and further research is needed to make this approach viable. Our controlled study suggests that even in ideal conditions, nonhuman agents may struggle to express empathy as well as humans. The ethical implications of empathic agents, as well as their potential iatrogenic effects, are also discussed.
Journal Article
Amine(imine) diphosphine Iron Catalysts for Asymmetric Transfer Hydrogenation of Ketones and Imines
A rational approach is needed to design hydrogénation catalysts that make use of Earth-abundant elements to replace the rare elements such as ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium that are traditionally used. Here, we validate a prior mechanistic hypothesis that partially saturated amine(imine) diphosphine ligands (P-NH-N-P) activate iron to catalyze the asymmetric reduction of the polar bonds of ketones and imines to valuable enantiopure alcohols and amines, with isopropanol as the hydrogen donor, at turnover frequencies as high as 200 per second at 28°C. We present a direct synthetic approach to enantiopure ligands of this type that takes advantage of the iron(ll) ion as a template. The catalytic mechanism is elucidated by the spectroscopic detection of iron hydride and amide intermediates.
Journal Article
Fundamentals and applications of photocatalytic CO2 methanation
The extraction and combustion of fossil natural gas, consisting primarily of methane, generates vast amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. However, as a result of recent research efforts, “solar methane” can now be produced through the photocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide and water to methane and oxygen. This approach could play an integral role in realizing a sustainable energy economy by closing the carbon cycle and enabling the efficient storage and transportation of intermittent solar energy within the chemical bonds of methane molecules. In this article, we explore the latest research and development activities involving the light-assisted conversion of carbon dioxide to methane.
While natural gas and fossil fuels power human activities, increasing concerns over fuel reserves and environmental impacts require finding alternative, renewable resources. Here, authors review the fundamental science and progress on solar-powered conversion of carbon dioxide to methane.
Journal Article
Exploring the Effect of Exposure to Short-Term Solitary Confinement Among Violent Prison Inmates
Objectives
This study tracked the behavior of male inmates housed in the general inmate populations of 70 different prison units from a large southern state. Each of the inmates studied engaged in violent misconduct at least once during the first 2 years of incarceration (n = 3,808). The goal of the study was to isolate the effect of exposure to short-term solitary confinement (SC) as a punishment for their initial act of violent behavior on the occurrence and timing of subsequent misconduct.
Methods
This study relied upon archival longitudinal data and employed a multilevel counterfactual research design (propensity score matching) that involved tests for group differences, event history analyses, and trajectory analyses.
Results
The results suggest that exposure to short-term solitary confinement as a punishment for an initial violence does not appear to play a role in increasing or decreasing the probability, timing, or development future misconduct for this particular group on inmates.
Conclusions
Upon validation, these findings call for continued research and perhaps a dialog regarding the utility of solitary confinement policies under certain contexts. This unique study sets the stage for further research to more fully understand how solitary impacts post-exposure behavior.
Journal Article
Floater Stories: Assessing the Potential Benefits of Vitrectomy
Symptomatic vitreous opacities (SVO, \"floaters\") in the mobile, aging vitreous that substantially interfere with daily visual activities (DVA) constitute degenerative vitreous syndrome (DVS). DVS is best distinguished from common \"nuisance\" floaters by use of \"floater stories\" written by presenting patients describing their symptoms. Here I discuss why vitreous opacity vitrectomy, though curative, has been adopted only belatedly and is still controversial, and I describe my long-term experience with its use for this disease.
Journal Article