In this paper we present the Triple-A Model intended as a framework for researchers and developers to incorporate ethics in the user-and robot-centered design of social companion robots. The purpose of the model is to help identifying potential ethical risks in the implementation of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios. We base our model on three interaction levels, which companion robots can offer: Assistance, Adaptation, and Attachment (Triple-A). Every single interaction level has its specific potential ethical risks, which can be addressed during the robot development phase. However, we especially focus on the prominent ethical risks of long-term human-robot attachment and its implications on human-robot relationships. We discuss the practical use and the theoretical foundation of the Triple-A model which is well-grounded in the social role theory from sociology and the human cognitive-mnestic structure from cognitive science.

Social roles are a design option for robots that behave in accordance with user expectations. We believe that robots have to exceed stereotypical role behaviors and dynamically provide roles that suit the people's living conditions in order to achieve long-term acceptance. We are introducing a new user-focused design method to develop social role repertoires for adaptive human-robot interaction (HRI). The method consists of five sequential steps: (1) user group and application scenario identification; (2) acquisition of users' mental associations; (3) derivation of role traits; (4) prioritization of these traits; and (5) synthesis of an adaptive social role repertoire. We tested our method with two specific user groups: elder adults living at home and those living in care facilities. The results reveal basic role concepts and specific preference clusters in each user group. The empirically based clusters are suitable for the parameterizations and development of robots with adaptive social roles.

The goal of the Swiss-Tx project is to develop, build and install the first Swiss tera-flop supercomputer called Swiss-T2, which is mainly based on commodity parts.Only the communication hardware and communication software is custom-made, because available off-theshelf products, such as Ethernet with the socket interface, do not offer the necessary bandwidth, latency, and functionality.In this paper, we present a new efficient communication architecture for commodity supercomputing called Fast Communication Interface (FCI), and we introduce T-NET, the custom-made high-performance communication hardware for the Swiss-Tx supercomputers.The highlights are low-latency, highbandwidth, and portability.Portability means that the communication hardware and software is mainly platform independent and that a large number of modern workstations and standard operating systems can be used as they are.A full implementation of the standardized MPI (Message Passing Interface), written entirely on top of FCI, is also available.