Critical Analysis of Programming in Societies of Behaviors

Programming in societies of behavior-agents is emerging as a promising method for creating mobile robot control systems that are responsive both to internal priorities for action and to external world constraints. It is essentially a new approach to finding modularities in real-time control systems in which module boundaries are sought not between separate information processing functions, but between separate task-achieving units. Task achieving units for complex behaviors are created by merging together the task-achieving units from simpler component behaviors into societies with competing and cooperating parts. This paper surveys the areas of agreement and disagreement in four approaches to programming with societies of behaviors. By analyzing where the systems differ, both on what constitutes a task-achieving unit and on how to merge such units together, this paper hopes to lay the groundwork for future work on controlling robust mobile robots using this approach.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Examining Collegiality and Social Justice in Academia and the Private Sector: an Exploratory SYMLOG Analysis

This research compares the perceptions of the private sector, high-technology employees to the perceptions of university faculty members regarding organizational culture, social justice and collegiality concepts. The SYMLOG assessment technique was used to record the perceptions of respondents to four different concepts of organizational culture, two different aspects of social justice and two measures of collegiality. Comparative findings of gender differences across the eight concepts raise key organizational culture, legal, measurement, governance, and social policy issues for academia and high tech organizations. The development of a conceptual framework to guide future research and a blueprint to discuss desired organizational change are highlighted

Exploring potential mechanisms involved in the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and nature connection

ArticleThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.A growing body of research demonstrates associations between nature connection and a wide variety of positive health and wellbeing outcomes. Yet, the interpretation of this research is restricted because underpinning mechanisms − particularly the psychological mechanisms of wellbeing enhancement as opposed to wellbeing restoration − remain largely unexplored. Understanding such mechanisms is important for theory development and for assisting policy-makers and urban planners to translate this theory into practice effectively. This essay examines the limitations in our current understanding of the psychological mechanisms involved in the relationship between nature connection and eudaimonic wellbeing. It also advances opportunities to move the field forward through exploring two potential mechanisms, namely satisfying the psychological need of relatedness and fostering intrinsic value orientation. These mechanisms may explain how an individual’s level of nature connection enhances their psychological wellbeing. Understanding such mechanisms could improve the implementation of targeted nature connection policies and interventions designed to enhance psychological wellbeing among complex urban populations with diverse needs

How do bidders’ organism reactions mediate auction stimuli and bidder loyalty in online auctions? The case of Taobao in China

© 2016 Elsevier B.V.Currently, it is critical to nurture bidder loyalty in the highly competitive online auction business. This study investigated the mediating effect of consumer perceptions between technological/brand stimuli and bidder loyalty to an online auction website by applying the traditional and evolutionary stimulus-organism-response models. We tested these models using 449 bidders from Taobao, an online auction service provider in China. Based on the results of covariance-based structural equation modelling, we showed that consumer perceptions fully mediate technological stimuli, but only partially mediate brand stimuli, and bidder loyalty. These results can be used to further improve the related research and practice.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

The ecology of exercise: mechanisms underlying Individual variation in behavior, activity, and performance: an introduction to symposium

Wild animals often engage in intense physical activity while performing tasks vital for their survival and reproduction associated with foraging, avoiding predators, fighting, providing parental care, and migrating. In this theme issue we consider how viewing these tasks as “exercise”—analogous to that performed by human athletes—may help provide insight into the mechanisms underlying individual variation in these types of behaviors and the importance of physical activity in an ecological context. In this article and throughout this issue, we focus on four key questions relevant to the study of behavioral ecology that may be addressed by studying wild animal behavior from the perspective of exercise physiology: (1) How hard do individual animals work in response to ecological (or evolutionary) demands?; (2) Do lab-based studies of activity provide good models for understanding activity in free-living animals and individual variation in traits?; (3) Can animals work too hard during “routine” activities?; and (4) Can paradigms of “exercise” and “training” be applied to free-living animals? Attempts to address these issues are currently being facilitated by rapid technological developments associated with physiological measurements and the remote tracking of wild animals, to provide mechanistic insights into the behavior of free-ranging animals at spatial and temporal scales that were previously impossible. We further suggest that viewing the behaviors of non-human animals in terms of the physical exercise performed will allow us to fully take advantage of these technological advances, draw from knowledge and conceptual frameworks already in use by human exercise physiologists, and identify key traits that constrain performance and generate variation in performance among individuals. It is our hope that, by highlighting mechanisms of behavior and performance, the articles in this issue will spur on further synergies between physiologists and ecologists, to take advantage of emerging cross-disciplinary perspectives and technologies