Food calls enhance visual discrimination learning in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus).

The study was funded by the National Swiss Foundation (grant number: SNF 31003A_166458).Social learning is of universal importance to animal life, and communication is likely to foster it. How do animals recognize when others produce actions that lead to relevant new information? To address this, we exposed 4 chimpanzees to an arbitrary learning task, a 2-choice visual discrimination paradigm presented on a touch screen that led to food reward. In each trial, images were paired with 1 of 4 acoustic treatments: (a) relevant or (b) irrelevant chimpanzee calls (“rough grunts” to food; “pant grunts” to a dominant conspecific), (c) a mechanical noise (hammer knocking sounds) and (d) silence. As we were interested in the effect of food calls on learning speed as compared to control stimuli, each chimpanzee was tested with the food call treatment, and 1 of the 3 control stimuli (either the pant grunt, mechanical noise, or silence condition). We found that learning was significantly enhanced in the contextually correct “rough grunt” condition, suggesting that food calls may play a role in the cultural transmission of food preferences, by priming individuals about a learning opportunity. We discuss these findings and propose that, at least in chimpanzees, the enhancing effect of these vocalizations may be related to the way they affect receivers’ motivational/emotional and/or attentional systems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)PostprintPeer reviewe

Do chimpanzee food calls bias listeners toward novel items?

The study was funded by the National Swiss Foundation grant number: SNF 31003A_166458 and the NCCR Evolving Language, Swiss National Science Foundation Agreement #51NF40_180888.Social learning is beneficial in almost every domain of a social animal's life, but it is particularly important in the context of predation and foraging. In both contexts, social animals tend to produce acoustically distinct vocalizations, alarms, and food calls, which have remained somewhat of an evolutionary conundrum as they appear to be costly for the signaller. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that food calls function to direct others toward novel food items, using a playback experiment on a group of chimpanzees. We showed chimpanzees novel (plausibly edible) items while simultaneously playing either conspecific food calls or acoustically similar greeting calls as a control. We found that individuals responded by staying longer near items previously associated with food calls even in the absence of these vocalizations, and peered more at these items compared with the control items, provided no conspecifics were nearby. We also found that once chimpanzees had access to both item types, they interacted more with the one previously associated with food calls than the control items. However, we found no evidence of social learning per se. Given these effects, we propose that food calls may gate and thus facilitate social learning by directing listeners' attention to new feeding opportunities, which if integrated with additional cues could ultimately lead to new food preferences within social groups.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Organizational Design and Structure

There is a relationship between organizational design and structure because of different factors. Organization size, organizational life-cycle, strategy, environment and technology work together to form a complete organization

Numerical analysis of compounded cross-sections with methods of mathematical optimisation

Zur Tragwerksanalyse bzw. zu Tragfähigkeits- und Bemessungsaufgaben dienen Betrachtungen an ausgewählten Querschnitten der Tragelemente. Besonders interessieren Normalspannungs- und Dehnungsverteilungen sowie Grenzbeanspruchungsniveaus und Grenzkapazitäten am Querschnitt. Die statische Wirksamkeit von Verbundquerschnitten basiert auf Verbundwirkung zwischen Querschnittsanteilen unterschiedlicher Materialeigenschaften (z.B. Verbundbau) oder unterschiedlicher Zeitpunkte ihrer statischen Mitwirkung (z.B. nachträgliche Querschnittsergänzungen). Hierbei kommt es häufig zu Fehlinterpretationen des prinzipiellen Tragverhaltens. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden numerische Berechnungsmodelle zur Querschnittsanalyse vorgestellt und das Tabellenkalkulationsprogramm MS EXCEL zur Lösung der iterativen Berechnungsalgorithmen genutzt. Betrachtet werden Querschnitte üblicher Konstruktionen des Massiv-, Stahl- und Verbundbaus (Baustahl-Beton) unter ein- oder zweiachsiger Biegebeanspruchung und Normalkraft. Zur annähernden Erfassung des realen Tragverhaltens zu ausgewählten Zeitpunkten sind nichtlineare Spannungs-Dehnungs-Beziehungen der Materialien, Vordeformationen von einzelnen Querschnittsanteilen, nachträgliche Ergänzungen zu neuen statisch wirksamen Verbundquerschnitten sowie Rissbildungsmodelle im Beton berücksichtigt. Die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entstandene programmtechnische Umsetzung „VerbQ“ (auf Basis von MS EXCEL und MS VISUAL BASIC) wurde anhand von Beispielrechnungen vorgestellt und erläutert.Closer inspections on special cross-sections of structural elements conduce to describe the structural analysis or rather to find structural abilities and for designing tasks. The normal stress- and normal strain distribution is from exceptionally interest as well as the limit of stress- and limit capacity of the cross-sections. The static effectivity of compound structures is based on the compound effect of the cross-section-parts with different material properties (for example composite structures) or different moments of their static effectivity (for example later additions of cross-sections). The principal structural behaviour is often misinterpreted. Numerical calculation methods to analyse cross-sections are shown in the following paper. To calculate the problem iterative the spreadsheet programme MS EXCEL was used and is shown for uniaxial and biaxial bending as well as axial force on typical cross-sections of reinforced, steel, compound and pre-stressed constructions. For the approached description of realistic structural behaviour on selected moments are nonlinear stress-strain-relations of the cross-section materials, pre-deformations of several cross-section-parts, later additions of constructions to new static cross-sections and as well crack models of concrete are taken into considerations. In connection with this paper the program „VerbQ” was developed (based on MS EXCEL and MS VISUAL BASIC) and some elementary examples were demonstrated

Safe physical human-robot interaction for a protontherapy robotic system

Cette thèse se place dans un contexte médical de traitements oncologiques, plus particulièrement en protonthérapie robotisée. L’objectif de cette thèse, réalisée sous contrat Cifre avec la société LEONI CIA Cable Systems, est le développement d’une commande en co-manipulation sûre dédiée à un robot médical sériel. Cette commande doit permettre à un opérateur de manipuler intuitivement et précisément un robot de grande inertie positionneur de patients. Les contributions portent sur deux axes, d’une part le développement et l’implémentation sur le robot Orion de l’entreprise LEONI CIA Cable Systems d’une commande en admittance ainsi que la comparaison de trois dispositifs haptiques, et d’autre part le développement d’un mécanisme de détection de collisions proprioceptif permettant l’amélioration de la sécurité de fonctionnement. À partir d’une revue de la littérature concernant les commandes compliantes, nous avons développé et implémenté une commande en admittance dédiée au robot Orion en tenant compte de la discrétisation de la commande par le contrôleur spécifique de ce robot. Une expérience de comparaison sur le robot nous a permis d’identifier le dispositif haptique le mieux adapté au cas clinique considéré. Après une étude de l’état de l’art des mécanismes de détection de collisions, une approche fréquentielle de la modélisation du couple axial prenant en compte les rapports de réduction élevés et de technologie différente du robot a été proposée. Elle permet de modéliser finement le couple théoriquement fourni par les moteurs ; celui-ci est ensuite comparé avec la mesure du couple réellement produit afin de détecter une éventuelle collision.This PhD thesis takes place in a medical context of oncological treatments, more particularly in robotised protontherapy. The objective of this thesis, carried out under a CIFRE contract with LEONI CIA Cable Systems, is the development of a safe comanipulation control dedicated to a serial medical robot. This control law should allow an operator to intuitively and precisely manipulate a robot of high inertia for accurate patients positioning. The contributions of this thesis focus on the development and implementation of an admittance-controlled Orion robot from LEONI CIA Cable Systems and the comparison of three haptic devices, and on the other hand, on the development of a proprioceptive collision detection mechanism allowing the improvement of operational safety. Based on a review of the literature on compliant controls, we have developed and implemented an admittance control approach dedicated to the Orion robot, taking into account the discretization of the control by the controller specific to this robot. A comparison experiment on the robot allowed us to identify the haptic device best suited to the clinical case considered. Based on a state of the art of collision detection mechanisms analysis, a frequency approach of the modeling of the axial torque taking into account the high reduction ratios and different robot technology has been proposed. It allows us to finely model the torque theoretically provided by the motors ; The latter is then compared with the measurement of the torque actually produced in order to detect a possible collision

Co-manipulation sûre d’un robot de protonthérapie

This PhD thesis takes place in a medical context of oncological treatments, more particularly in robotised protontherapy. The objective of this thesis, carried out under a CIFRE contract with LEONI CIA Cable Systems, is the development of a safe comanipulation control dedicated to a serial medical robot. This control law should allow an operator to intuitively and precisely manipulate a robot of high inertia for accurate patients positioning. The contributions of this thesis focus on the development and implementation of an admittance-controlled Orion robot from LEONI CIA Cable Systems and the comparison of three haptic devices, and on the other hand, on the development of a proprioceptive collision detection mechanism allowing the improvement of operational safety. Based on a review of the literature on compliant controls, we have developed and implemented an admittance control approach dedicated to the Orion robot, taking into account the discretization of the control by the controller specific to this robot. A comparison experiment on the robot allowed us to identify the haptic device best suited to the clinical case considered. Based on a state of the art of collision detection mechanisms analysis, a frequency approach of the modeling of the axial torque taking into account the high reduction ratios and different robot technology has been proposed. It allows us to finely model the torque theoretically provided by the motors ; The latter is then compared with the measurement of the torque actually produced in order to detect a possible collision.Cette thèse se place dans un contexte médical de traitements oncologiques, plus particulièrement en protonthérapie robotisée. L’objectif de cette thèse, réalisée sous contrat Cifre avec la société LEONI CIA Cable Systems, est le développement d’une commande en co-manipulation sûre dédiée à un robot médical sériel. Cette commande doit permettre à un opérateur de manipuler intuitivement et précisément un robot de grande inertie positionneur de patients. Les contributions portent sur deux axes, d’une part le développement et l’implémentation sur le robot Orion de l’entreprise LEONI CIA Cable Systems d’une commande en admittance ainsi que la comparaison de trois dispositifs haptiques, et d’autre part le développement d’un mécanisme de détection de collisions proprioceptif permettant l’amélioration de la sécurité de fonctionnement. À partir d’une revue de la littérature concernant les commandes compliantes, nous avons développé et implémenté une commande en admittance dédiée au robot Orion en tenant compte de la discrétisation de la commande par le contrôleur spécifique de ce robot. Une expérience de comparaison sur le robot nous a permis d’identifier le dispositif haptique le mieux adapté au cas clinique considéré. Après une étude de l’état de l’art des mécanismes de détection de collisions, une approche fréquentielle de la modélisation du couple axial prenant en compte les rapports de réduction élevés et de technologie différente du robot a été proposée. Elle permet de modéliser finement le couple théoriquement fourni par les moteurs ; celui-ci est ensuite comparé avec la mesure du couple réellement produit afin de détecter une éventuelle collision

How well does knowledge transfer result in improved clinical care?

In der modernen Anästhesie erlangen Patientenzufriedenheit und Wirtschaftlichkeit immer mehr an Bedeutung. PONV beeinträchtigt diese Qualitätsmarker wesentlich. Ohne Prophylaxe und unter Verwendung von Inhalationsanästhetika leiden 30% aller Patienten darunter. Um die Inzidenz zu reduzieren wurde in unserer Klinik eine SOP entwickelt. Diese empfiehlt ein abwartendes Verhalten bei niedrigem Risiko (0 bis 1 Risikofaktor), die Gabe einer antiemetischen Intervention bei mittleren Risiko (2 Risikofaktoren) und die Anwendung einer Kombinationsprophylaxe von zwei Interventionen bei hohem Risiko (3 Risikofaktoren). Ziel dieser Untersuchung war, herauszufinden, ob die SOP für PONV von den behandelnden Anästhesisten eingehalten wurde, und ob dies zu einer geringeren Inzidenz führte. Es wurde ein Gesamtkollektiv von 2729 Patienten in einer prospektiven Observationsuntersuchung mit Post-ad-hoc- Analyse untersucht. Die Einschlusskriterien waren die Beherrschung der deutschen Sprache, die Fähigkeit sich verbal zu äußern, ein Alter über 14 Jahre, Zustand nach Allgemeinanästhesie und eine postoperative Behandlung im Aufwachraum. Nach dem vereinfachten Risikoscore nach Apfel et al. wurden 725 Patienten (26,6%) in die Niedrigrisikogruppe, 1050 Patienten (38,5%) in die Gruppe mit mittlerem Risiko und 954 Patienten (35,0%) in die Hochrisikogruppe eingeteilt. 46,0% (n=1256) aller Patienten wurden SOP-konform behandelt. Dabei wurde bei 688 Patienten (92,1%) der Gruppe mit niedrigem Risiko, bei 373 Patienten (35,5%) der Gruppe mit mittlerem Risiko und bei 177 Patienten (18,6%) der Gruppe mit hohem Risiko ein SOP-konformes Regime angewandt. In der Hochrisikogruppe erhielten 565 Patienten (59,2%) zumindest ein Antiemetikum. Patienten mit einer SOP-konformen Behandlung hatten eine um 7,3% niedrigere PONV-Inzidenz im Aufwachraum. Patienten mit einer PONVSymptomatik hatten eine im Durchschnitt 12 Minuten längere Liegedauer im Aufwachraum (p=0,048). Durch ein SOP-konformes Regime konnte die PONV-Inzidenz bei Patienten mit mittlerem und hohem Risiko, unter die gemäß Risikovorhersage zu erwartende Inzidenz, gesenkt werden. Allerdings wurden die klinikinternen Behandlungsrichtlinien orientierend am geschätzten Risiko nur unzureichend umgesetzt. In dieser Hinsicht besteht deutlich ein Verbesserungsbedarf. Um dies zu erreichen stehen verschiedene Ansätze, wie zum Beispiel eine generelle PONV-Prophylaxe oder der Einsatz von Remindern, zur Diskussion.In modern anesthesia, patient satisfaction and cost become increasingly important. PONV affect these quality markers significantly. Using inhalational anesthetics and without prophylaxis 30% of all patients suffer from it. In order to reduce the incidence our department created a SOP. This recommends wait and see for patients at low risk (0 to 1 risk factor), the administration of one antiemetic intervention at intermediate risk (2 risk factors) and the application of a combination of two interventions for high-risk (3 to 4 risk factors). The aim of this study was to find out whether PONV prophylaxis according to our SOP was followed by the attending anesthesiologist, and whether this led to a lower incidence of PONV. A total of 2729 patients were examined in a prospective observational study with post-ad hoc analysis. The inclusion criteria were the command of the German language, the ability to express themselves verbally, an age over 14 years, state after general anesthesia and postoperative care in the recovery room. According to the simplified risk score by Apfel et al. 725 patients (26.6%) were classified into the low risk group, 1050 patients (38.5%) into the moderate-risk group and 954 patients (35.0%) into the high risk group. 46.0% (n = 1256) of patients treated compliant SOP. 688 patients (92.1%) of the low-risk group, 373 patients (35.5%) of the moderate-risk group and 177 patients (18.6%) of the high risk group were treated according to our SOP. In the high risk group 565 patients (59.2%) received at least one anti-emetic. Patients with SOP- compliant treatment had a lower incidence of 7.3% to suffer from PONV in the recovery room. Patients with PONV symptoms were cared for in average 12 min longer in the recovery room (p=0.048). A SOP-compliant regime reduced the incidence of PONV in patients with intermediate and high risk, lower than expected according to the risk prediction. However, our clinical treatment guidelines using the estimated risks were implemented inadequately. In this regard, there is a clear need for improvement. To achieve this, different approaches, such as a general PONV prophylaxis or the use of reminders, needs to be discussed

The Path-Goal Theory and Leadership Styles

Path-Goal is a type of leadership theory that focuses on establishing a clear path to goal achievement. Leadership styles that are associated with this theory include: achievement-oriented, directive, participative and supportive leadership