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Agents trained using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) are capable of meeting or exceeding human-levels of performance in multi-agent tasks. However, the behaviors exhibited by these agents are not guaranteed to be human-like or human-compatible. This poses a problem if the goal is to design agents capable of collaborating with humans in cooperative or team-based tasks. Previous approaches to encourage the development of human-compatible agents have relied on pre-recorded human data during training. However, such data is not available for the majority of everyday tasks. Importantly, research on human perceptual-motor behavior has found that task-directed behavior is often low-dimensional and can be decomposed into a defined set of dynamical perceptual-motor primitives (DPMPs). Accordingly, we propose a hierarchical approach to simplify DRL training by defining the action dynamics of agents using DPMPs at the lower level, while using DRL to train the decision-making dynamics of agents at the higher level. We evaluate our approach using a multi-agent shepherding task used to study human and multi-agent coordination. Our hierarchical, DRL-DPMP approach resulted in agents which trained faster than vanilla, black-box DRL agents. Further, the hierarchical agents reached higher levels of performance not only when interacting with each other during self-play, but also when completing the task alongside agents embodying models of novice and expert human behavior. Finally, the hierarchical DRL-DPMP agents developed decision-making policies that outperformed heuristic-based agents used in previous research in human-agent coordination.

Solving problems with others not only reduces the time required to complete a challenge but may also enable the discovery of novel strategies that qualitatively change how a problem is approached. At the dyadic level, the laboratory-based ‘shepherding task’ demonstrated that, when tasked to contain evasive agents to a centralized location, some participants discover a non-obvious but optimal strategy to solve the task. This paper quantified the interactions between participants engaged in the task using Multidimensional Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (MdCRQA), applied to each participant’s gaze and hand movements. The results demonstrated that strategy discoverers exhibited greater amounts of incidental coupling than non-discoverers prior to discovery. Once discovered, the strategy reduced the strength of coupling between participants, indicating that the strategy also reduced coordination demands. Future work will investigate whether differences in problem-solving can be attributable to differences in the perceptual features participants use which scaffold the discovery of task-optimal solutions.

Humans are social animals. Human cognition evolved in a social context. Human cognition develops in a social context. Thus, both the internal mechanisms of cognition and the information we use are social. In this workshop, we aim to extend the boundaries of cognitive sciences beyond individual minds. Following the lead of Dingemanse et al. (2023), we put interaction in focus as a complementary starting point for the study of human cognition.

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is capable of training agents that exceed human-levels of performance in multi-agent tasks. However, the behaviors exhibited by these agents are not guaranteed to be human-like or human-compatible. This poses a problem if the goal is to design agents capable of collaborating with humans or augmenting human actions in cooperative or team-based tasks. Indeed, recommender systems designed to augment human decision-making need to not only recommend actions that align with the task goal, but which also maintain coordinative behaviors between agents. The current study simultaneously explored skill learning performance of human learners when working alongside different artificial agents (AAs) during a collaborative problem-solving task, as well as evaluated the effectiveness of the same AAs as action decision recommender systems to aid learning. The action decisions of the AAs were either modelled by a heuristic model based on human performance or by a deep neural network trained by reinforcement learning using self-play. In addition to evaluating skill learning performance, the current study also tested the congruence between the decisions of the AAs with actual decisions made by humans. Results demonstrate that the performance of humans was significantly worse when working alongside the DRL AA compared to the heuristic AA. Additionally, the action decisions participants made also showed less allignment with the recommendations made by the DRL AA.

While communication is an essential part of life, it is not always easy and effortless. This is especially true when talking with someone in a noisy environment. Although communicating in noise is often the rule rather than the exception, very little research has investigated the behavioral processes individuals might use to minimize miscommunication when listening becomes challenged. Here we explored synergistic speech and movement processes that 22 pairs of adults used to hear and be heard when (mis)communicating in noise. The results revealed intricate dynamics both with respect to acoustic optimization of the speech produced and heard, as well as how individuals modulate interpersonal distance and behavioral coordination patterns.

Interpersonal coordination is a key determinant of successful social interaction but is disrupted for people who experience social anxiety. Effective coordination rests on individuals directing their attention toward others, an effect well-documented in previous literature. Yet, little research has considered the concurrent behaviour of interaction partners. Using a novel virtual reality task, we investigated how partner gaze (i.e., direct vs. averted) influenced the emergence of interpersonal coordination. The results revealed two novel effects: (i) spontaneous coordination was diminished in the averted (cf. direct) gaze condition; (ii) spontaneous coordination was positively related to symptoms of social anxiety, but only when partner gaze was averted. This latter finding contrasts the extant literature and points to interaction intensity as a factor governing the social anxiety-coordination association. More broadly, this work provides further evidence that emergent patterns of interpersonal coordination fluctuate as a function of changes in social context and the behaviour of others.

Collaboration and teaming are critical for solving complex problems. However, little is known about how group dynamics affect teaming behaviours and, ultimately, problem-solving effectiveness. The present study aimed to validate a novel measure of the dynamics of team communication – here termed turn-taking entropy – and to investigate what aspects of those dynamics affect collaborative-problem-solving performance. Thirty-two teams of 4 were asked to complete a simulated crisis-response task in which they had to rank 15 items in order of their importance to their team’s survival (first individually and then as a team). Group responses were better than the aggregated individual responses of team members (suggesting teaming benefits), and were better when team members had task-relevant skills and knowledge. However, response quality was not significantly related to task completion time. Additionally, the proposed entropy measure appeared to capture group communication dynamics, and appeared to differentiate stable an unstable patterns of communication. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Social motor coordination (SMC), defined as the intentional or unintentional coordination of movement between individuals in a social setting, has been linked to greater feelings of rapport and social connectedness. Here, we investigated this relationship using a silent disco paradigm where groups of 3 or 4 individuals danced to either the same music or different music. Visual information was manipulated by initially separating the participants with curtains (2 minutes), after which the curtains were opened (10 minutes). Head movements were recorded with a wireless motion tracking system attached to the silent disco headphones. Rapport and social connectedness measures were obtained using questionnaires completed after participation in the silent disco. Results showed that groups who listened to the same music exhibited a greater degree of SMC than groups that listened to different music. Greater degrees of SMC were also observed when group members were able to see one another. Finally, greater SMC was associated with perceptions of increased self-other overlap and interaction quality.

Perceptual-motor tasks offer redundant solutions to achieve a goal. However, not all solutions are equally robust to error-producing variability and thus, skill learning requires the search for behaviors that are error-tolerant. Throwing a ball to hit a target is a skill that has been studied via the “skittles” task, a simplified 2-dimensional throwing environment. The study investigated whether participants learning the skittles task benefit from task scaffolding via the placements of targets provided by either a human confederate posing as a teacher, or by the participant. These groups were compared to a third sample who received an unstructured curriculum consisting of randomly placed targets. The results demonstrate that participants in the unstructured training condition were better able to perceive the task’s underlying solution geometry, compared to scaffolding provided by a human. Future work will explore methods to design training curricula that are more efficient in facilitating perceptual-motor skill development.

Social cognition is shaped by cultural and social-psychological contexts. Depending on the social cues displayed, the cognitive processes that emerge during embodied social interactions can vary. This study explored the influence of gender diverse social cues on interpersonal coordination and decision-making during dyadic interaction in virtual reality. Participants embodied either a transgender or cisgender avatar and interacted with a transgender confederate (human-controlled virtual agent). Results suggest that transgender embodied women and men displayed more interpersonal affiliation, via their coordination dynamics with the confederate, after an explicit gender identity disclosure. Additionally, cognitive flexibility for ambiguous decisions was influenced by attributions of responsibility made toward the confederate. However, cisgender embodied men did not substantially change their decision-making behaviours or increase their coordination with the confederate. Viscerally taking on the perspective and appearance of a transgender person, achieved through virtual embodiment and interaction, may support positive interactions between cisgender and transgender communities.

As society embraces technology to support collaboration anywhere and at anytime, there is a growing opportunity for artificial agents to support such collaboration. However, little seems known about how such agents impact the behavioural performance of human teams. To answer this, we devised a Wizard of Oz study where teams of 3 participants located and corralled targets into a containment area in a virtual desert environment. The Wizard played the role of an artificial intelligent operator who had a map view showing the location of participants, targets and the containment area, and could verbally communicate this information. The Wizard operated under two conditions: they could solely use the map view to decide what responses to utter (non-responsive interaction) or could also listen to participant queries (responsive interaction). The results revealed that participant performance was unaffected by responsive interaction condition, despite having a significantly more favourable perception of a responsive agent.

Intention prediction often plays a crucial role in successful social interaction. Previous studies have attempted to understand this skill by focusing on the role of movement kinematics in isolation. However, this approach is limited as the same kinematics typically map to multiple action possibilities (affordances) and as a result, individual's also employ contextual information to predict others' intentions. In this study we present preliminary findings from a qualitative study aimed at investigating intention prediction in naturalistic contexts. Participants viewed an individual reaching for a cup with one of two object-directed intentions: to drink OR to clear the table. A third non-object-directed intention was also included where the observed individual placed their hand on the table next to the cup. For each intention the contextual information was varied by changing the environmental scene between (1) cups full of juice, (2) almost empty cups, and (3) half-empty cups. The findings reveal that participants perceived the cup's functional (most salient) affordance - drink - for the intention so far as the movement kinematics specified an object-directed intention (drink or clear) with a context that clearly afforded it (full and half-full cups). However, participants were also sensitive to the kinematic differences between the object-directed intentions when the context made the functional affordance seem improbable (almost empty cups).

Modeling human navigation and route selection in complex environments has used path planning in the past and more recently, dynamical models. The current study modeled the navigational movement trajectories of human herder agents tasked with corralling an autonomous target agent into a specified containment zone. Analyses of trajectories of participants completing a first-person herding game revealed that their movement entailed sequential (i) approach and then (ii) corral phases that were invariant to the initial location of the herder and target agents. More importantly, the trajectories of human herders could be captured using a low-dimensional environmentally coupled dynamical model. The novelty of this work is in extending the previous research in modeling navigational behaviors of humans to include moving targets that need to be manipulated into a desired position. Implications of the findings for the development of artificial agents for human-machine herding, as well as more general human-machine teaming are discussed.

Older patients and those who require interpreters are least likely to use telehealth for gynecologic oncology care, showing disparities which continued after statewide vaccinations.

Welcome. Here you will find all the data associated to the project entitled "Embodied Social Competence in ASD." Begin with the Readme File where you will find a description of all the available data.

Additional file 10. zoomable CRISP tree.pdf.

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-edm-10.1177_15553434221092930 for A Comparison of Dynamical Perceptual-Motor Primitives and Deep Reinforcement Learning for Human-Artificial Agent Training Systems by Lillian Rigoli, Gaurav Patil, Patrick Nalepka, Rachel W. Kallen, Simon Hosking, Christopher Best and Michael J. Richardson in Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making

Additional file 16. zoomable kunitz tree.pdf.

Additional file 25. zoomable SVMP propeptide tree.pdf.

Additional file 19. zoomable lectin tree.pdf.

Joint pick and place tasks occur in many interpersonal scenarios, such as when two people pick up and pass dishes. Previous studies have demonstrated that low-dimensional models can accurately capture the dynamics of pick and place motor behaviors in a controlled 2D environment. The current study models the dynamics of pick-up and pass decisions within a less restrictive virtual reality mediated 3D joint pick and place task. Findings indicate that reach-normalized distance measures, between participants and objects/targets, could accurately predict pick-up and pass decisions. Findings also reveal that participants took longer to pick-up objects where division of labor boundaries were less obvious and tended to pass in locations maximizing the dyad's efficiency. This study supports the notion that individuals are more likely to engage in interpersonal behavior when a task goal is perceived as difficult or unattainable (i.e., not afforded). Implications of findings for human-artificial agent interactions are discussed. CC BY 4.0Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)© 2022 The Author(s)MJR was supported by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100447). The authors would like to thank Dr. Patrick Nalepka for his helpful comments and suggestions throughout this work.

Additional file 22. zoomalbe PIII SVMP tree.pdf.

Additional file 7. Zoomable CNP tree.pdf.

Additional file 4. Tables: Toxin types recovered for each species; Raw illumina data for each species; Statistics for each species for cleaned data; Molecular modelling templates.

Additional file 3. Zoomable 3ftx tree.pdf.

Wnt dependency and Lgr5 expression define multiple mammalian epithelial stem cell types. Under defined growth factor conditions, such adult stem cells (ASCs) grow as 3D organoids that recapitulate essential features of the pertinent epithelium. Here, we establish long-term expanding venom gland organoids from several snake species. The newly assembled transcriptome of the Cape coral snake reveals that organoids express high levels of toxin transcripts. Single-cell RNA sequencing of both organoids and primary tissue identifies distinct venom-expressing cell types as well as proliferative cells expressing homologs of known mammalian stem cell markers. A hard-wired regional heterogeneity in the expression of individual venom components is maintained in organoid cultures. Harvested venom peptides reflect crude venom composition and display biological activity. This study extends organoid technology to reptilian tissues and describes an experimentally tractable model system representing the snake venom gland.

Molecular genetic data have recently been incorporated in attempts to reconstruct the ecology of the ancestral snake, though this has been limited by a paucity of data for one of the two main extant snake taxa, the highly fossorial Scolecophidia. Here we present and analyze vision genes from the first eye-transcriptomic and genome-wide data for Scolecophidia, for Anilios bicolor, and A. bituberculatus, respectively. We also present immunohistochemistry data for retinal anatomy and visual opsin-gene expression in Anilios. Analyzed in the context of 19 lepidosaurian genomes and 12 eye transcriptomes, the new genome-wide and transcriptomic data provide evidence for a much more reduced visual system in Anilios than in non-scolecophidian (=alethinophidian) snakes and in lizards. In Anilios, there is no evidence of the presence of 7 of the 12 genes associated with alethinophidian photopic (cone) phototransduction. This indicates extensive gene loss and many of these candidate gene losses occur also in highly fossorial mammals with reduced vision. Although recent phylogenetic studies have found evidence for scolecophidian paraphyly, the loss in Anilios of visual genes that are present in alethinophidians implies that the ancestral snake had a better-developed visual system than is known for any extant scolecophidian.

International audience; This document describes the minimal framework required for a new device, called a "pledge", to securely join a 6TiSCH (IPv6 over the Time-Slotted Channel Hopping mode of IEEE 802.15.4) network. The framework requires that the pledge and the JRC (Join Registrar/Coordinator, a central entity), share a symmetric key. How this key is provisioned is out of scope of this document. Through a single CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) request-response exchange secured by OSCORE (Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments), the pledge requests admission into the network, and the JRC configures it with link-layer keying material and other parameters. The JRC may at any time update the parameters through another request-response exchange secured by OSCORE. This specification defines the Constrained Join Protocol and its CBOR (Concise Binary Object Representation) data structures, and it describes how to configure the rest of the 6TiSCH communication stack for this join process to occur in a secure manner. Additional security mechanisms may be added on top of this minimal framework.

The current study explores the dynamics of interpersonal collision avoidance during an everyday coordination task. The task was a full body adaptation of the collision avoidance arm-movement task employed by Richardson et al. (2015) and required pairs of co-actors to avoid colliding into one another as they moved back and forth within a collaborative workspace. Specifically, participants were required to serve drinks to humanoid customers in a virtual bar where they needed to move back and forth between drink service and refill stations. As expected, stable patterns of movement coordination emerged between co-actors, with one participant in a pair exhibiting a more circular movement trajectory between the service and refill locations, while the second participant in a pair exhibited a more straight-line trajectory between the two locations. Consistent with the results of Richardson et al., (2015), this pattern was observed across nearly all pairs, indicating that the same dynamical processes governing simple hand-arm coordination tasks also regulate more complex, full-body and naturalistic goal-directed interpersonal coordination tasks.

The JIFX program exists to provide an opportunity for NPS faculty, students, private companies, and academia to demonstrate and evaluate new technologies related to the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense research in an operational field environment, and also to provide the operational community theopportunity to experiment with these technologies to better understand the capabilities that they may represent. This quick look report summarizes JIFX 21-3 held 24-27 May 2021 at concurrently in three venues: Camp Roberts, SLAMR, and in the cyber domain. Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Altering an individual’s identity during virtual tasks, such that it is incongruent with their own identity, can reduce unconscious biases and increase empathy and prosocial behavior. While such virtual embodiment has been investigated for race, age, and socioeconomic status, the question remains whether immersive perspective taking reduces implicit gender bias. Accordingly, we investigated the effect of gendered embodiment on gender bias related to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Undergraduate students (N=65) undertook a simulated virtual interview task, which included the rating and selection of male and female candidates. Females were significantly more empathetic than males. Greater empathy predicted higher candidate ratings, except for competence of the female candidate. Preliminary findings establish foundations for future comparative studies and contribute to elucidating the nature of empathy during and after virtual perspective taking, such that it may have a greater impact on males for modulating gender bias.

The JIFX program exists to provide an opportunity for NPS faculty, students, private companies, and academia to demonstrate and evaluate new technologies related to the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense research in an operational field environment, and also to provide the operational community theopportunity to experiment with these technologies to better understand the capabilities that they may represent. This quick look report summarizes JIFX 21-3 held 24-27 May 2021 at concurrently in three venues: Camp Roberts, SLAMR, and in the cyber domain. Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The aim of this study is to support the Commission in evaluating the actions taken in the Member States in response to the 2012 Council Recommendation on the validation of non-formal and informal learning (VNFIL). It focuses on whether the objectives of the Recommendation have been achieved in terms of enabling individuals: to identify and document their skills and competences acquired through nonformal or informal learning; and to obtain either full or part qualifications compliant with recognised national and European standards for the benefit of their professional and social development. The study finds that Member States have made good progress in developing VNFIL arrangements since 2012 even if service provision often remains asymmetrical or fragmented across different levels of education and training as well as different occupational sectors. The contribution of the Recommendation to the progress made is best visible in those Member States where VNFIL arrangements were mostly inexistent prior to 2012, but less apparent in the remaining Member States. Nevertheless, the Recommendation is deemed to have given some strategic direction to policy discussions on VNFIL across the Member States. This study concludes with possibilities to consider for enhancing the influence of EU interventions on Member States’ VNFIL policies and processes.

Entretien avec Rosalind Hoy de Zoo Co qui revient sur la décision de la compagnie de travail avec un comédien sourd. Les conséquences de ce choix sur le travail de la compagnie et son processus de création sont abordées. Interview with Rosalind Hoy of Zoo Co, outlining the decision to work with a deaf actor, and exploring the impact on the company and its creative processes.

Different EU documents, including the 2012 Council Recommendation on validation of non-formal and informal learning and the 2016 Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways, promote skills audits as one means to support individuals in their transition periods. In these documents skills audits are suggested as a practice to identify and document knowledge, skills and competence of individuals with a view to further inform decisions about career orientation, education or training. However, there is limited evidence about the extent to which skills audits are used and what they entail in practice. The purpose of this study was to improve the knowledge base about skills audits, to identify main types of skills audits, the methods and approaches used for skills audits as well as to assess the extent to which standards are used as part of the process. Considerations about effectiveness of skills audits were also analysed.

International audience

Supplemental material, Supplemental_material for Perception of another person’s maximum reach-with-jump height from walking kinematics by Julie A Weast-Knapp, Kevin Shockley, Michael A Riley, Sarah Cummins-Sebree, Michael J Richardson, Trenton D Wirth and Philip C Haibach in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Entretien avec Joanne Allan, directrice artistique du Theatraverse, compagnie bilingue de la région parisienne. L’entretien consista en une série d’échanges électroniques et d’entrevues de Septembre à Octobre 2017. Etude du répertoire de la compagnie de la dernière décennie, cet essai met à jour les techniques de Jacques Lecoq employées par Theatraverse, l’élaboration d’une esthétique théâtrale post-moderne bilingue lors de la collaboration avec l’auteur Seamus Collins, et l’importance de la corporalité dans les mises en scènes bilingues à destination d’un public non-bilingue. La contribution évoque enfin l’approche de la compagnie pour la mise en scène de Monsieur Somebody de Collins. Interview with Joanne Allan, artistic director of Theatraverse, a bilingual French/English company based in Paris. The interview was conducted by emails and one face to face meeting in September and October 2017. In exploring the repertoire tackled by the company in the last decade, this essay reveals the company’s grounding in the techniques of Jacques Lecoq, the development of a post-modern bilingual theatre aesthetic through working with writer Seamus Collins, and the importance of physicality in presenting a bilingual play to monolingual audiences. It concludes with a description of how the company’s aesthetic has been applied in the development of Collins’ latest play for Theatraverse: Monsieur Somebody.

Impairments in social interaction and communicating with others are core features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the specific processes underlying such social competence impairments are not well understood. An important key for increasing our understanding of ASD-specific social deficits may lie with the social motor synchronization that takes place when we implicitly coordinate our bodies with others. Here, we tested whether dynamical measures of synchronization differentiate children with ASD from controls and further explored the relationships between synchronization ability and motor control problems. We found (a) that children with ASD exhibited different and less stable patterns of social synchronization ability than controls; (b) children with ASD performed motor movements that were slower and more variable in both spacing and timing; and (c) some social synchronization that involved motor timing was related to motor ability but less rhythmic synchronization was not. These findings raise the possibility that objective dynamical measures of synchronization ability and motor skill could provide new insights into understanding the social deficits in ASD that could ultimately aid clinical diagnosis and prognosis. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1687-1699. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Entretien avec Jennifer K. Bates, Sophie Stone and Erin Siobahn Hutching, trois des quatre artistes principaux du Deaf and Hearing Ensemble, une companie qui utilise le bilinguisme (anglais et langue des signes britannique) le biculturalisme (malentendants et entendants) pour créer une forme théâtrale à la fois artistique et accessible à tous. L’entretien a été mené par courriels entre janvier et février 2017. Interview with Jennifer K. Bates, Sophie Stone and Erin Siobahn Hutching, three of the four lead artists of the Deaf and Hearing Ensemble, a company that uses bilingualism (English and British Sign Language) and biculturalism (Deaf and hearing) to create theatre that combines artistry with accessibility. The interview was conducted by emails in January and February 2017.

Venom systems have evolved on multiple occasions across the animal kingdom, and they can act as key adaptations to protect animals from predators [1]. Consequently, venomous animals serve as models for a rich source of mimicry types, as non-venomous species benefit from reductions in predation risk by mimicking the coloration, body shape, and/or movement of toxic counterparts [2; 3; 4 ; 5]. The frequent evolution of such deceitful imitations provides notable examples of phenotypic convergence and are often invoked as classic exemplars of evolution by natural selection. Here, we investigate the evolution of fangs, venom, and mimetic relationships in reef fishes from the tribe Nemophini (fangblennies). Comparative morphological analyses reveal that enlarged canine teeth (fangs) originated at the base of the Nemophini radiation and have enabled a micropredatory feeding strategy in non-venomous Plagiotremus spp. Subsequently, the evolution of deep anterior grooves and their coupling to venom secretory tissue provide Meiacanthus spp. with toxic venom that they effectively employ for defense. We find that fangblenny venom contains a number of toxic components that have been independently recruited into other animal venoms, some of which cause toxicity via interactions with opioid receptors, and result in a multifunctional biochemical phenotype that exerts potent hypotensive effects. The evolution of fangblenny venom has seemingly led to phenotypic convergence via the formation of a diverse array of mimetic relationships that provide protective (Batesian mimicry) and predatory (aggressive mimicry) benefits to other fishes [ 2 ; 6]. Our results further our understanding of how novel morphological and biochemical adaptations stimulate ecological interactions in the natural world.

Many common tasks require or are made more efficient by coordinating with others. In this paper we investigate the coordination dynamics of a joint action pick-and-place task in order to identify the behavioral dynamics that underlie the emergence of human coordination. More precisely, we introduce a task dynamics approach for modeling multi-agent interaction in a continuous pick-and-place task where two agents must decide to work together or alone to move an object from one location to another. Our aims in the current paper are to identify and model (1) the relevant affordance dynamics that underlie the selection of the different action modes required by the task and (2) the trajectory dynamics of each actor’s hand movements when moving to grasp, relocate, or pass the object. We demonstrate that the emergence of successful coordination can be characterized in terms of behavioral dynamics models which may have applications for artificial agent design.

Snake genome sequencing is in its infancy-very much behind the progress made in sequencing the genomes of humans, model organisms and pathogens relevant to biomedical research, and agricultural species. We provide here an overview of some of the snake genome projects in progress, and discuss the biological findings, with special emphasis on toxinology, from the small number of draft snake genomes already published. We discuss the future of snake genomics, pointing out that new sequencing technologies will help overcome the problem of repetitive sequences in assembling snake genomes. Genome sequences are also likely to be valuable in examining the clustering of toxin genes on the chromosomes, in designing recombinant antivenoms and in studying the epigenetic regulation of toxin gene expression.

Injuries of the anterior cruciate ligament are commonly encountered in clinical practice, and occur in a wide variety of settings, from sports-related injuries to polytrauma. Tears of the anterior cruciate ligament supersede osseous avulsion in the adult demographic; however, in the pediatric population, osseous avulsion reflects the most frequent injury. When osseous avulsion of the anterior cruciate ligament occurs in children or adults, the injury typically occurs at the level of the tibial eminence. Conversely, osseous avulsion injuries from the femur are rare, with all cases reported in the literature occurring in the skeletally immature. We report a case of a 47-year-old woman who suffered an osseous avulsion of her anterior cruciate ligament from her lateral femoral condyle. To our knowledge, this reflects the first reported case of femoral osseous avulsion of the anterior cruciate ligament origin in an adult.

This dataset contains site-level summaries of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The underlying database is being assembled as part of the [PREDICTS project](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/our-work/biodiversity/predicts.html) - Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems. A complete description of the data is given in [https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1303](https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1303).