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1. Norm Enforcement with a Soft Touch: Faster Emergence, Happier Agents

   Tzeng, Sz-Ting; Ajmeri, Nirav; Singh, Munindar P (May 2024, IFAAMAS)

   A multiagent system is a society of autonomous agents whose interactions can be regulated via social norms. In general, the norms of a society are not hardcoded but emerge from the agents’ interactions. Specifically, how the agents in a society react to each other’s behavior and respond to the reactions of others determines which norms emerge in the society. We think of these reactions by an agent to the satisfactory or unsatisfactory behaviors of another agent as communications from the first agent to the second agent. Understanding these communications is a kind of social intelligence: these communications provide natural drivers for norm emergence by pushing agents toward certain behaviors, which can become established as norms. Whereas it is well-known that sanctioning can lead to the emergence of norms, we posit that a broader kind of social intelligence can prove more effective in promoting cooperation in a multiagent system. Accordingly, we develop Nest, a framework that models social intelligence via a wider variety of communications and understanding of them than in previous work. To evaluate Nest, we develop a simulated pandemic environment and conduct simulation experiments to compare Nest with baselines considering a combination of three kinds of social communication: sanction, tell, and hint. We find that societies formed of Nest agents achieve norms faster. Moreover, Nest agents effectively avoid undesirable consequences, which are negative sanctions and deviation from goals, and yield higher satisfaction for themselves than baseline agents despite requiring only an equivalent amount of information. 

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2. Comparing Student Outcomes From Four Iterations of an Engineering Learning Community

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36519  

   Howland Cummings, Miriam; Darbeheshti, Maryam; Simon, Gregory; Schupbach, William; Jacobson, Michael; Altman, Tom; Goodman, Katherine (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)
3. A Soft, Insect-Inspired, Distributed Tactile Sensor Enables Effective Touch Perception

   https://doi.org/10.1177/21695172261425596  

   McDonnell, Parker; Meng, Lingsheng; Prasad, Hari_Krishna Hari; Hedrick, Alexander; Miscles, Eduardo; Gilinsky, Samuel; Mongeau, Jean-Michel; Jayaram, Kaushik (March 2026, Soft Robotics)

   Insects navigate cluttered environments using slender, flexible antennae densely packed with mechanosensors, a lightweight, energy-efficient solution for tactile perception. We introduce CITRAS (Cockroach-Inspired Tactile Robotic Antenna Sensor), a miniature, compliant, multi-segment tactile probe aimed at enabling similarly capable close-range perception on insect-scale robots under stringent size, mass, and power constraints. CITRAS (total size: $\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}73.7\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}15.6\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{mm}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}2.11\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}$mm; mass: $\mathrm{}491\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{mg}$) features eight flexural hinge segments, each with high-resolution capacitive sensors embedded within a compliant multilayer laminate structure, that detect femtofarad-scale capacitance changes induced by hinge deflection. Through systematic mechanical and sensing characterization under both quasi-static and dynamic conditions, we demonstrate sub-degree angular precision (max error $\mathrm{\le \hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{}0.8$∘), accurate shape reconstruction, and consistent repeatable performance with minimal hysteresis in slow bending. Under rapid interactions, CITRAS exhibits low damping and rich dynamic responses that encode environmental features. We further validate the system in three core tactile tasks: estimating body-to-wall distance (error $\mathrm{\le \hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{}8\mathrm{\%}$), measuring object gap width (error $\mathrm{\le \hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{}7\mathrm{\%}$), and discriminating between smooth and rough surface textures via spatiotemporal tactile images. These results show that CITRAS delivers a compact, distributed, bioinspired tactile modality capable of reliable environment sensing, filling a critical gap in perception for insect-scale robots. Furthermore, the antenna consumes only $\mathrm{}32\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}}\mathrm{mW}$(excluding MCU), making it suitable for future full deployment onboard insect-scale robots and thus paves the way for autonomous navigation and interaction in confined, unstructured, or delicate environments at this scale. 

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4. Transforming Undergraduate Research Experiences With Experiential Learning

   https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-1202.2023.11  

   Burcin, Rachel; Mruthyunjaya, Vishwas; Dolan, John M (June 2023, The International Academic Forum)
5. Engaging families around museum exhibits: comparing tangible and multi-touch interfaces

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3392063.3394443  

   Horn, Michael; Banerjee, Amartya; Bar-El, David; Wallace, Izaiah (June 2020, IDC '20: Proceedings of the Interaction Design and Children Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Over the last decade, large multitouch displays have become commonplace in museums and other public spaces. While there is preliminary evidence that exhibits based on tangible technologies can be more attractive and engaging for visitors than displays alone, very little empirical research has directly compared tangible to large multitouch displays in museums. In this paper, we present a study comparing the use of a tangible and a multitouch tabletop interface in an exhibit designed to explore musical rhythms. From an observation pool of 791 museum visitors, a total of 227 people in 82 groups interacted with one of the two versions of our exhibit. We share the exhibit design, experimental setup, and methods and measures. Our findings highlight advantages of tangible interaction in terms of attracting and engaging children and families. However, the two exhibits were equally effective at supporting collaborative interaction within visitor groups. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for museum exhibit design vis-à-vis visitor engagement and learning. 

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