Human Learning of Unknown Environments in Agile Guidance Tasks

Trained human pilots or operators still stand out through their efficient, robust, and versatile skills in guidance tasks such as driving agile vehicles in spatial environments or performing complex surgeries. This research studies how humans learn a task environment for agile behavior. The hypothesis is that sensory-motor primitives previously described as interaction patterns and proposed as units of behavior for organization and planning of behavior provide elements of memory structure needed to efficiently learn task environments. The paper presents a modeling and analysis framework using the interaction patterns to formulate learning as a graph learning process and apply the framework to investigate and evaluate human learning and decision-making while operating in unknown environments. This approach emphasizes the effects of agent-environment dynamics (e.g., a vehicle controlled by a human operator), which is not emphasized in existing environment learning studies. The framework is applied to study human data collected from simulated first-person guidance experiments in an obstacle field. Subjects were asked to perform multiple trials and find minimum-time routes between prespecified start and goal locations without priori knowledge of the environment.Comment: 49 pages, 22 figure

Positive youth development in swimming: clarification and consensus of key psychosocial assets

The purpose of this study was to gain a more cohesive understanding of the assets considered necessary to develop in young swimmers to ensure both individual and sport specific development. This two stage study involved (a) a content analysis of key papers to develop a list of both psychosocial skills for performance enhancement and assets associated with positive youth development, and (b) in-depth interviews involving ten expert swim coaches, practitioners and youth sport scholars. Five higher order categories containing seventeen individual assets emerged. These results are discussed in relation to both existing models of positive youth development and implications for coaches, practitioners and parents when considering the psychosocial development of young British swimmers

Smart Context-aware Rejuvenation of Engagement on Urban Ambient Augmented Things

The concern over global urbanization trend imposes smart-city as enabling information and communication technology (ICT) to improve urban governance. However, the light trance on better living space is stimulated by socioeconomic impact of escalated senior generation. Hence, ambient assisted living (AAL) emerges for the autonomous provisioning of pervasive things or objects from relevant perturbation for advanced scientific instrumentation. Meanwhile, citizens are observed in being transfixed by lively stimuli of monotonous urban events with the advent of virtual reality or augmented things. Thus, due to the involvement of situation-awareness or contextualization, engagement/participation information as a utility promises to improve urban experience. However, it is complex to grapple meaningful concepts due to personalization obstacles, such as citizen psychology, information gap, service-visualization. Moreover, recommended practices deficit adaptation to monochromatic choice, disparate impairments, mobility and annotation-richness in urban space. Hence, rejuvenation of engagement relates to monitoring and quantification of 'service consumption and graceful degradation' of experience. However, paramount challenges are imposed on this stipulation, such as, unobservability, independence and composite relationship of contexts. Therefore, a parametric Bayesian based model is envisioned to address observability and scalability of contexts and its conjugal relationship with engagement. Last but not the least, systematic framework is demonstrated, which pinpoints key goals of context-aware engagement from participants' opinions, usages and feed-backs

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Robotics Challenges and Vision (RCV2013)

Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Robotics Challenges and Vision (RCV2013)Comment: http://compbio.cs.wayne.edu/robotics/rcv2013/proceedings-emb.pd

The practice of Coaching: origin and development

Coaching is a modern technique for managing and enhancing the individual's internal resources. Through the research of Tart, Csíkszentmihályi, Assagioli and others, Coaching assumes critical depth and finds in Humanistic Psychology the appropriate critical implications. These implications are the foundation of a discipline that brings tradition to compete modernity. Based on moral suasion and the non-verbal communication, Coaching promotes the explosion of individual and spiritual creativity, useful for exceeding goals and achieving success; it also leads to inner invention by discovering new work management method

Multi-Agent Path Planning with Asymmetric Interactions In Tight Spaces

By starting with the assumption that motion is fundamentally a decision making problem, we use the world-line concept from Special Relativity as the inspiration for a novel multi-agent path planning method. We have identified a particular set of problems that have so far been overlooked by previous works. We present our solution for the global path planning problem for each agent and ensure smooth local collision avoidance for each pair of agents in the scene. We accomplish this by modeling the trajectories of the agents through 2D space and time as curves in 3D. Global path planning is solved using a modified Djikstra's algorithm to ensure that initial trajectories for agents do not intersect. We then solve for smooth local trajectories using a quasi-Newton interior point solver, providing the trajectory curves with a radius to turn them into rods. Subsequently, resolving collision of the rods ensures that no two agents are in the same spatial position at the same time. This space-time formulation allows us to simulate previously ignored phenomena such as highly asymmetric interactions in very constrained environments. It also provides a solution for scenes with unnaturally symmetric agent alignments without the need for jittering agent positions or velocities

Living to Work: The Effects of Occupational Calling on Mental Health at Work

While many employees work to live, others live to work. Those who experience work this way are described as having a calling. Occupational calling refers to employees who feel emotional ties to their work, viewing their work as both important and rewarding resulting from a transcendent summons, having purposeful work, or a prosocial orientation. Many positive outcomes have been linked to calling, but less is known about the potential negative outcomes that may also occur. Although a few studies have begun to investigate the negative effects of having a calling, less research has focused on distinguishing when positive versus negative outcomes may occur for these employees. The present study investigated whether individuals with a calling may experience either positive or negative consequences based on the type of demand they are faced with or the number of hours worked. Results indicated that the relationships between hindrance stressors and mental health symptoms were magnified when participants reported higher levels of occupational calling, whereas calling did not influence the outcomes of challenge stressors. Occupational calling was also associated with increased rates of working excessively and working compulsively, and these workaholism dimensions were linked to increased mental health symptoms and work-family conflict. A multiple mediation model was examined where the three dimensions of occupational calling were related to mental health symptoms and work-family conflict through the two dimensions of workaholism. Findings indicated that the three calling dimensions were indirectly related to worse mental health through working excessively. The present study builds on recent research that has shown that while calling provides numerous positive outcomes, negative effects may also occur. Given the passion and drive to work in one’s career path, employees with a calling can be an organization’s best resource. The results of the present study hold potential for interventions to minimize the negative outcomes that can result from possessing an occupational calling

Because the sky is the limit: Interpretive phenomenological analysis of millennial elementary school teachers using digital technology in the classroom

The population of millennials who work as elementary school teachers is currently increasing because it replaces the previous generation who will retire. This generation grows surrounded by technology and educates technology savvy too. This study aims to explore the experience of millennial teacher related to the use of technology in learning in primary schools. Two research questions were proposed, namely: 1) How did millennial teacher experience their role as teacher for elementary school students? ; 2) What is the experience of millennial teacher when using technology in learning for students in elementary schools. This study uses a qualitative method with the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were conducted on 6 elementary school teacher. The analysis showed four emergent themes, namely: (1) Interpersonal experience; (2) Technology as a learning tool; (3) Barriers to integrating technology in learning; (4) Strategy to overcome obstacles. Collaborative, and collegial relationships will help the subject to make an active contribution at work. Familiarity with technology helps millennial teachers in innovating learning and interacting with students

Роль мобільних додатків у подоланні післявоєнної психотравми

The paper is focused on the theoretical review of appropriateness of mental health mobile applications to help Ukrainians in a post-war psychotrauma overcoming. The advantages are seen in: convenience of access and use; accessing the capabilities built into the smartphone; resource preservation; stigma overcoming; scope of influence; flexibility and range of functionality; alignment with traditional methods; gamification; and user autonomy. The obstacles for effective usage of apps are shown as: user’s features; technical problems; costs issues; doubtful efficacy; ethical issues; user incompetence; and inappropriateness for severe disorders. The certain apps for post-war psychotraumatization decreasing are described: from English-language “PTSD Coach” etc. to Ukrainian-language “Socio-Psychological Adaptation of Veterans”, “Mobile psychological help”, and “PFA Mobile Ukraine”. The recommendations of appropriate apps for post-war rehabilitation usage are presented: utilizing as a conjunctive treatment modality, creating guidelines for individual use and choosing apps with high validity and specific design.Статтю присвячено теоретичному огляду доречності використання мобільних додатків для ментального здоров’я у подоланні українцями післявоєнної психотравми. Переваги додатків представлено як: зручність доступу і користування; використання технічних можливостей смартфону; подолання стигматизації; адаптованість під користувача і варіативність функцій; узгодженість із традиційними методами психологічної допомоги; іграїзація; і автономність користувача. Перешкодами для ефективного застосування додатків є: особливості користувачів; технічні незручності; фінансові питання; сумнівна ефективність; етичні негаразди; некомпетентність користувачів; недоцільність при важких розладах. Описано також конкретні додатки для подолання післявоєнної психотравматизацї: від англомовного “PTSD Coach” та інших до україномовних “Соціально-психологічна адаптація ветеранів”, “Мобільна психологічна допомога”, “PFA Mobile Ukraine”. Надано рекомендації щодо використання доречних мобільних додатків для післявоєнної реабілітації: застосування як супровідної форми інтервенцій, створення керівних вказівок для самостійного користування, вибір додатків із високим рівнем надійності та специфічним дизайном

Heuristic Satisficing Inferential Decision Making in Human and Robot Active Perception

Inferential decision-making algorithms typically assume that an underlying probabilistic model of decision alternatives and outcomes may be learned a priori or online. Furthermore, when applied to robots in real-world settings they often perform unsatisfactorily or fail to accomplish the necessary tasks because this assumption is violated and/or they experience unanticipated external pressures and constraints. Cognitive studies presented in this and other papers show that humans cope with complex and unknown settings by modulating between near-optimal and satisficing solutions, including heuristics, by leveraging information value of available environmental cues that are possibly redundant. Using the benchmark inferential decision problem known as ``treasure hunt", this paper develops a general approach for investigating and modeling active perception solutions under pressure. By simulating treasure hunt problems in virtual worlds, our approach learns generalizable strategies from high performers that, when applied to robots, allow them to modulate between optimal and heuristic solutions on the basis of external pressures and probabilistic models, if and when available. The result is a suite of active perception algorithms for camera-equipped robots that outperform treasure-hunt solutions obtained via cell decomposition, information roadmap, and information potential algorithms, in both high-fidelity numerical simulations and physical experiments. The effectiveness of the new active perception strategies is demonstrated under a broad range of unanticipated conditions that cause existing algorithms to fail to complete the search for treasures, such as unmodelled time constraints, resource constraints, and adverse weather (fog)