Preventing adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing symptoms : effects of the Penn Resiliency Program

This study reports secondary outcome analyses from a past study of the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP), a cognitive-behavioral depression prevention program for middle-school aged children. Middle school students (N = 697) were randomly assigned to PRP, PEP (an alternate intervention), or control conditions. Gillham et al., (2007) reported analyses examining PRP’s effects on average and clinical levels of depression symptoms. We examine PRP’s effects on parent-, teacher-, and self-reports of adolescents’ externalizing and broader internalizing (depression/anxiety, somatic complaints, and social withdrawal) symptoms over three years of follow-up. Relative to no intervention control, PRP reduced parent-reports of adolescents’ internalizing symptoms beginning at the first assessment after the intervention and persisting for most of the follow-up assessments. PRP also reduced parent-reported conduct problems relative to no-intervention. There was no evidence that the PRP program produced an effect on teacher- or self-report of adolescents’ symptoms. Overall, PRP did not reduce symptoms relative to the alternate intervention, although there is a suggestion of a delayed effect for conduct problems. These findings are discussed with attention to developmental trajectories and the importance of interventions that address common risk factors for diverse forms of negative outcomes.peer-reviewe

Model selection method for efficient signals processing from discrete data

The paper considers the problem of robust adaptiv

Snabb processreglering med transient börvärde

Syftet med detta arbete var att minimera insvängningstiden av en temperaturreglering. Det görs genom att påbörja regleringen medan börvärdet fortfarande är i den transienta delen av insvängningen. Detta innebär att börvärdet skall filtreras med ett digitalt lågpass filter för att ta bort mätbrus. Filtreringen i sin tur orsakar en fördröjning till den transienta delen av insvängningen. Därmed skall lågpass filtret vara grovt i början av processen för att inte någon märkbar fördröjning skall ske och sedan ändras filtret linjärt sådant att filtreringen blir fin mot slutet. Detta minimerar filtrets fördröjning till insvängningen. Genom att mäta derivatan för bör- och ärvärdet och sedan styra ärvärdets derivata mot börvärdet kan en optimal insvängning åstadkommas. Slutligen skall regulatorn vara adaptiv eftersom tidskonstanten för processen är okänd.The goal of this thesis is lower the settling time of a temperature control process. The process consists of a transient phase and a stable phase. Currently the controller doesn't react until the stable phase is reached. The improved controller will start controlling the process during the transient phase. This is made possible by implementing a digital low pass filter that linearly increases the smoothing of the measured setpoint. A digital low pass filter that applies excessive smoothing during the transient phase would cause a delay that would ultimately increase the settling time. As an additional control parameter the derivative of the setpoint is used to control the temperature during the transient phase. During the transient phase the controller relies on the derivative to controll the process while the error is used more during the stable phase. The controller can only apply heating not cooling.Tämän työn tavoitteena on lyhentää lämpöohjausprosessin asettumisaikaa. Prosessi koostuu kahdesta eri vaiheesta, ohimenevästä ja stabiilista. Lyhenetty asettumisaika saavutetaan aloittamalla säätäminen transientin vaiheen aikana. Alkuperäinen ohjain odottaa asetusarvon stabilisoitumista ennen kuin säätäminen aloitetaan. Uudella ohjaimella pyritään aloittamaan säätäminen transientin vaiheen aikana. Tämän mahdollistaa digitaalinen matalapäästösuodatin, jonka vahvuus muuttuu linearisesti prosessin aikana. Liiallinen suodattaminen prosessin alussa johtaa viiveeseen, joka pidentää asettumisaikaa. Transientin aikana käytetään erosuureen lisäksi asetusarvon sekä prosessin todellisen arvon derivaattaa. Näin pystytään ohjaamaan todellinen arvo seuraamaan asetusarvon käyttäytmistä transientin vaiheen aikana. Prosessiin voidaan ainoastaan vaikuttaa säätämällä lämpöä

Making space for proactive adaptation of rapidly changing coasts: a windows of opportunity approach

Coastlines are very often places where the impacts of global change are felt most keenly, and they are also often sites of high values and intense use for industry, human habitation, nature conservation and recreation. In many countries, coastlines are a key contested territory for planning for climate change, and also locations where development and conservation conflicts play out. As a “test bed” for climate change adaptation, coastal regions provide valuable, but highly diverse experiences and lessons. This paper sets out to explore the lessons of coastal planning and development for the implementation of proactive adaptation, and the possibility to move from adaptation visions to actual adaptation governance and planning. Using qualitative analysis of interviews and workshops, we first examine what the barriers are to proactive adaptation at the coast, and how current policy and practice frames are leading to avoidable lock-ins and other maladaptive decisions that are narrowing our adaptation options. Using examples from UK, we then identify adaptation windows that can be opened, reframed or transformed to set the course for proactive adaptation which links high level top-down legislative requirements with local bottom-up actions. We explore how these windows can be harnessed so that space for proactive adaptation increases and maladaptive decisions are reduced

Virtual environment UAV swarm management using GPU calculated digital pheromones

Our future military force will be complex: a highly integrated mix of manned and unmanned units. These unmanned units could function individually or within a swarm. The readiness of future warfighters to work alongside and utilize these new forces depends on the creation of usable interfaces and training simulators. The difficulty is that current unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control interfaces require too much operator attention and common swarm control methods require expensive computational power. This dissertation discusses how to improve upon current user interfaces and how to improve the performance of a common swarm control method, the digital pheromone field. This method uses digital pheromones to bias the movements of individual units within a swarm toward areas that are attractive and away from areas that are dangerous or unattractive. A more efficient method for performing pheromone field calculations is introduced, one that harnesses the power of the GPU (graphics processing unit) in today\u27s graphics cards by reshaping the ADAPTIV swarm control algorithm into a form acceptable to the GPU\u27s pipeline. The GPU ADAPTIV implementation is tested in scenarios that involve up to 50,000 virtual UAVs. When compared to its counterpart CPU implementation, the GPU version performed over 30 times faster than the CPU version. This gain translates directly into lower costs for training the future warfighter today and fielding the swarms of tomorrow. Finally, this dissertation presents a vision for combining these new interface ideas and performance enhancements into an effective swarm control interface and training simulator

Thin-Wall Machining of Light Alloys: A Review of Models and Industrial Approaches

Thin-wall parts are common in the aeronautical sector. However, their machining presents serious challenges such as vibrations and part deflections. To deal with these challenges, di erent approaches have been followed in recent years. This work presents the state of the art of thin-wall light-alloy machining, analyzing the problems related to each type of thin-wall parts, exposing the causes of both instability and deformation through analytical models, summarizing the computational techniques used, and presenting the solutions proposed by di erent authors from an industrial point of view. Finally, some further research lines are proposed

Walking Humanoids for Robotics Research

We present three humanoid robots aimed as platforms for research in robotics, and cognitive development in robotics systems. The 'priscilla' robot is a 180cm full scale humanoid, and the mid-size prototype is called 'elvis' and is about 70cm tall. The smallest size humanoid is the 'elvina' type, about 28 cm tall. Two instances of 'elvina' have been built to enable experiments with cooperating humanoids. The underlying ideas and conceptual principles, such as anthropomorphism, embodiment, and mechanisms for learning and adaptivity are introduced as well