Children\u27s understanding of intentions, emotions, and intention-emotion relationships

This study examined children\u27s understanding of the role of intentionality in social interactions. Four, six, and eight year olds were read stories, illustrated with simple pictures, depicting accidental or deliberate actions. The study used a forced choice paradigm that asked children to indicate which of two pictures showed (1) an intentional (or unintentional) act and (2) a situation in which the victim would be sad (or mad). Six and eight year olds, but not Four year olds, correctly identified deliberate actions at above chance levels. Eight year olds identified accidental actions and situations in which the victim would be mad at above chance. Understanding that anger was an expected emotional response to intentional harm, but not to accidental harm, increased with age

Partial breaking of global D=4 supersymmetry, constrained superfields, and 3-brane actions

We show that the connection between partial breaking of supersymmetry and nonlinear actions is not accidental and has to do with constraints that lead directly to nonlinear actions of the Born-Infeld type. We develop a constrained superfield approach that gives a universal way of deriving and using these actions. In particular, we find the manifestly supersymmetric form of the action of the 3-brane in 6-dimensional space in terms of N=1 superfields by using the tensor multiplet as a tool. We explain the relation between the Born-Infeld action and the model of partial N=2 supersymmetry breaking by a dual D-term. We represent the Born-Infeld action in a novel form quadratic in the gauge field strengths by introducing two auxiliary complex scalar fields; this makes duality covariance and the connection with the N=1 supersymmetric extension of the action very transparent. We also suggest a general procedure for deriving manifestly duality symmetric actions, explaining in a systematic way relations between previously discussed Lorentz covariant and noncovariant actions.Comment: 28 pages, harvmac. v4: a mistake in eq.(3.24) (pointed out by S. Kuzenko) correcte

THE IMPACT OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ON THE SOFTWARE’S SECURITY

Security is usually defined as the ability of a system to protect itself against accidental or deliberate intrusion1. Ensuring integrity, confidentiality, availability, and accountability requirements even in the presence of a determined, malicious opponent is essential for computer security. Sensitive data has to be manipulated and consulted by authorized users only (integrity, confidentiality). Furthermore, the system should resist “denial of service” attacks that attempt to render it unusable (availability). Also the system has to ensure the inability to deny the ownership of prior actions (accountability).security

Accidents and Crises: Panay, Liberty, and Stark

Throughout the past decade there has been growing concern over the possibility of a Soviet-American war inadvertently triggered by escalatory processes resulting from unintentional or accidental actions or incidents. A spate of studies has examined these escalatory processes and the actions or incidents that might spark them

The Effects Of Perspective Taking And Empathy On Moral Judgments Of Blame And Praise

Moral judgments arise from a consideration of mental state inferences and an assessment of the outcomes of a moral event. Perspective taking and empathizing with people involved in a moral situation were predicted to differentially influence moral judgments. Perspective taking was predicted to guide observers to focus on the mental states of an agent, whereas empathy was predicted to guide observers to be sensitive to the outcomes of an event and who is harmed or benefitted by the actions of a moral agent. In turn, perspective taking would intensify moral judgments of blame and praise for outcomes that were produced intentionally, and empathizing would intensify moral judgments for accidental actions. Two studies manipulated information about an agent’s mental state and event outcomes by having participants read vignettes that described accidental or attempted events. Participants were instructed to either take the perspective of or empathize with the people in the story and make judgments of blame and praise. Study 1 examined judgments of blame and Study 2 attempted to replicate and extend Study 1 by including praiseworthy vignettes. Empathizing was found to produce greater judgments of blame for accidental actions. Judgments of attempted acts did not robustly differ across instruction conditions

Structural behaviour of stainless steel frames. Safety against accidental seismic actions

Tesi amb menció de Doctorat Internacional(English) Stainless steel is one of the most promising construction materials due to its long service life, low maintenance requirements, excellent mechanical properties and high residual value. Nevertheless, for an efficient design with stainless steel, it is fundamental to account for the nonlinear effects of the material at all structural levels. Stainless steel design codes have improved significantly in recent decades, although they are still far from being as comprehensive as those for carbon steel, on which they are usually based. There has been little progress in the design of stainless steel structural systems subjected to static forces, and even less in the seismic design of stainless steel structures, for which no standard exists in Europe or the US. This thesis constitutes a significant step towards the understanding of the performance of stainless steel systems under different loading types, addressing aspects of the global behaviour of stainless steel structures under static and seismic forces with the aim of proposing design expressions that guarantee more optimised and safer structures. Thus, this thesis presents the first known comprehensive experimental programme on stainless steel systems, in which four austenitic portal frames were tested under vertical and horizontal loading, and a detailed explanation of the different problems encountered in the planning and testing process is given in the document. The obtained results made it possible to validate, with experimental evidence, the design prescriptions included the Eurocode for the consideration of second order effects accounting for the influence of the nonlinear response of the material through the amplification of the horizontal forces. In addition, an alternative design method for the in-plane design of stainless steel structures under static loading is presented. The method is based on performing a second order structural analysis, and the material nonlinearities and different structural imperfections are considered by reducing the stiffness of the members through a set of proposed factors, requiring only cross-section checks to be performed. In contrast to the commonly adopted European approach, where a first order nonlinear material analysis is performed, this alternative design approach is typical of the US regulatory framework. Regarding the cyclic behaviour of stainless steel structures, this thesis investigates experimentally and numerically the performance of stainless steel cold-formed rectangular hollow section members under cyclic loading, focusing on the rotation capacities. The correct estimation of the rotation capacity allows establishing the actual capacity of the structure. A simple formulation to estimate the rotation capacity is proposed in terms of the local slenderness, and calibrated for the three main stainless steel families, which in turn allows the description of the full moment-rotation curves. Furthermore, this thesis studies the seismic performance of stainless steel moment resisting frames designed according to the new European design rules for carbon steel systems. Design adaptations and a new design formula to effectively account for material nonlinearities in the seismic design of these structures are proposed. The actual behaviour factors of stainless steel frames are assessed from a number of case studies, and new values of the behaviour factors for stainless steel moment resisting frames in the European and US design frameworks are recommended. Finally, this thesis investigates the post-necking behaviour of stainless steels under monotonic loading and proposes preliminary values for the key parameters of two common ductile fracture models to provide a material model that defines the response of stainless steels up to failure. One possible application of such model would be in the simulation of joint failure, which can be implemented in new design approaches that study structures as a whole, such as the Direct Design Method.(Español) El acero inoxidable es uno de los materiales de construcción más prometedores debido a su larga vida útil, escasa necesidad de mantenimiento, excelentes propiedades mecánicas y alto valor residual. Sin embargo, para un diseño eficiente con acero inoxidable, es fundamental tener en cuenta los efectos no lineales del material en todos los niveles estructurales. Los códigos de diseño del acero inoxidable han mejorado notablemente en las últimas décadas, aunque aún distan mucho de ser tan exhaustivos como los del acero al carbono, en los que suelen basarse. Se ha avanzado poco en el proyecto de sistemas estructurales de acero inoxidable sometidos a cargas estáticas, y menos aún en el diseño sísmico de estructuras de acero inoxidable, para el que no existe ninguna norma en Europa ni en los Estados Unidos. Esta tesis constituye un avance significativo hacia la comprensión del comportamiento de los sistemas de acero inoxidable bajo diferentes tipos de carga, abordando aspectos del comportamiento global de las estructuras de acero inoxidable bajo cargas estáticas y sísmicas con el objetivo de proponer expresiones de cálculo que garanticen estructuras más optimizadas y seguras. Así, esta tesis presenta el primer programa experimental conocido sobre sistemas de acero inoxidable sometidos a cargas verticales y horizontales, y ofrece una explicación detallada de los diferentes problemas encontrados en el proceso de planificación y ensayo. Los resultados obtenidos permitieron validar, con pruebas experimentales, las prescripciones de cálculo incluidas en el Eurocódigo para la consideración de los efectos de segundo orden teniendo en cuenta la influencia de la respuesta no lineal del material a través de la amplificación de las fuerzas horizontales. Además, se presenta un método de cálculo alternativo para el diseño de estructuras de acero inoxidable bajo cargas estáticas. El método se basa en la realización de un análisis estructural de segundo orden, y las no linealidades del material y las diferentes imperfecciones estructurales se consideran reduciendo la rigidez de los elementos mediante un conjunto de factores propuestos, requiriendo únicamente la comprobación de la sección transversal. En cuanto al comportamiento cíclico de las estructuras de acero inoxidable, esta tesis investiga experimental y numéricamente el comportamiento de los elementos de acero inoxidable de sección hueca rectangular conformados en frío bajo cargas cíclicas, centrándose en las capacidades de rotación. La estimación correcta de la capacidad de rotación es de suma importancia porque permite establecer la capacidad real de la estructura. A partir de los resultados obtenidos, se propone una formulación sencilla para estimar la capacidad de rotación en términos de la esbeltez local, que se calibra para las tres principales familias de acero inoxidable, y que permite describir las curvas momento-rotación completas. Además, esta tesis estudia el comportamiento sísmico de pórticos resistentes a momento de acero inoxidable diseñados según las nuevas normas europeas de cálculo para sistemas de acero al carbono. Se proponen adaptaciones de las normas y una nueva fórmula para considerar la no linealidad del material en el diseño sísmico de estas estructura. También se evalúan los factores de comportamiento reales de los pórticos de acero inoxidable a partir de una serie de casos estudiados, y se recomiendan nuevos valores de estos factores en los marcos de diseño europeo y estadounidense. Por último, esta tesis investiga el comportamiento de los aceros inoxidables bajo cargas monotónicas después de alcanzar su resistencia última, y propone valores preliminares para los parámetros clave de dos modelos comunes de fractura dúctil. Una posible aplicación de dichos modelos sería en la simulación del fallo de uniones, que puede implementarse en nuevos enfoques de cálculo que estudian las estructuras en su conjunto, como el Método de Diseño Directo.Postprint (published version

Sense of agency predicts severity of moral judgments

Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the awareness of being the agent of our own actions. A key feature of SoA relies on the perceived temporal compression between our own actions and their sensory consequences, a phenomenon known as “Intentional Binding.” Prior studies have linked SoA to the sense of responsibility for our own actions. However, it is unclear whether SoA predicts the way we judge the actions of others – including judgments of morally wrong actions like harming others. To address this issue, we ran an on-line pilot experiment where participants underwent two different tasks designed to tap into SoA and moral cognition. SoA was measured using the Intentional Binding task which allowed us to obtain both implicit (Intentional Binding) and explicit (Agency Rating) measures of SoA. Moral cognition was assessed by asking the same participants to evaluate videoclips where an agent could deliberately or inadvertently cause suffering to a victim (Intentional vs. Accidental Harm) compared with Neutral scenarios. Results showed a significant relation between both implicit and explicit measures of SoA and moral evaluation of the Accidental Harm scenarios, with stronger SoA predicting stricter moral judgments. These findings suggest that our capacity to feel in control of our actions predicts the way we judge others’ actions, with stronger feelings of responsibility over our own actions predicting the severity of our moral evaluations of other actions. This was particularly true in ambiguous scenarios characterized by an incongruency between an apparently innocent intention and a negative action outcome

Problems and research issues associated with the hybrid control of force and displacement

The hybrid control of force and position is basic to the science of robotics but is only poorly understood. Before much progress can be made in robotics, this problem needs to be solved in a robust manner. However, the use of hybrid control implies the existence of a model of the environment, not an exact model (as the function of hybrid control is to accommodate these errors), but a model appropriate for planning and reasoning. The monitored forces in position control are interpreted in terms of a model of the task as are the monitored displacements in force control. The reaction forces of the task of writing are far different from those of hammering. The programming of actions in such a modeled world becomes more complicated and systems of task level programming need to be developed. Sensor based robotics, of which force sensing is the most basic, implies an entirely new level of technology. Indeed, robot force sensors, no matter how compliant they may be, must be protected from accidental collisions. This implies other sensors to monitor task execution and again the use of a world model. This new level of technology is the task level, in which task actions are specified, not the actions of individual sensors and manipulators

Increased moral condemnation of accidental harm in institutionalized adolescents

Social deprivation, as faced by children in institutional rearing, involves socio-cognitive deficits that may persist into adolescence. In particular, two relevant domains which prove sensitive to pre-adult neurodevelopment are theory of mind (ToM) and moral judgment (a complex skill which partially depend upon ToM). However, no study has assessed moral evaluation in adolescents with a history of institutional care, let alone its relationship with ToM skills. The present study aims to bridge this gap, focusing on moral evaluation of harmful actions in institutionalized adolescents (IAs). Relative to adolescents raised with their biological families, IAs exhibited less willingness to exculpate protagonists for accidental harms, suggesting an under-reliance on information about a person’s (innocent) intentions. Moreover, such abnormalities in IAs were associated with ToM impairments. Taken together, our findings extend previous findings of delayed ToM under social deprivation, further showing that the development of moral cognition is also vulnerable to the impact of institutionalization. These results could pave the way for novel research on the role of institutional rearing in ToM and moral development during adolescence.Fil: Baez, Sandra. Universidad de los Andes; ColombiaFil: Herrera, Eduar. Universidad Icesi; ColombiaFil: García, Adolfo Martín. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Huepe, David. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; ChileFil: Santamaría-García, Hernando. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; Colombia. Hospital Universitario San Ignacio; ColombiaFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe; Colombia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Chile. Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders; Australi