Direct Aggression and the Balance between Status and Affection Goals in Adolescence

Previous studies have shown that status goals motivate direct forms of interpersonal aggression. However, status goals have been studied mostly in isolation from affection goals. It is theorized that the means by which status and affection goals are satisfied change during adolescence, which can affect aggression. This is tested in a pooled sample of (pre)adolescents (N = 1536; 49% girls; ages 10-15), by examining associations between status goals and direct aggression and the moderating role of affection goals. As hypothesized, with increasing age, status goals were more strongly associated with direct aggression. Moreover, for older adolescents, status goals were only associated with aggression when affection goals were weak. These findings support the changing relationship between status goals and direct aggression during adolescence

EKF-based 3D SLAM for Structured Environment Reconstruction

This paper presents the extension and experimental validation of the widely used EKF1-based SLAM2 algorithm to 3D space. It uses planar features extracted probabilistically from dense three-dimensional point clouds generated by a rotating 2D laser scanner. These features are represented in compliance with the Symmetries and Perturbation model (SPmodel) in a stochastic map. As the robot moves, this map is updated incrementally while its pose is tracked by using an Extended Kalman Filter. After showing how three-dimensional data can be generated, the probabilistic feature extraction method is described, capable of robustly extracting (infinite) planes from structured environments. The SLAM algorithm is then used to track a robot moving through an indoor environment and its capabilities in terms of 3D reconstruction are analyzed

A Goal-Framing Perspective on the Drivers of Value Creation

Scholars increasingly seek to proffer microfoundations for macro management theory, notably strategic management theory. These microfoundations naturally revolve around human resources. We argue that proper microfoundations for strategic management theory must recognize that the management of motivation is first and foremost a matter of the management of cognitions of organizational members, an insight that we found in goal-framing theory, an emerging perspective based on cognitive science, behavioral economics, and social psychology. Building on this insight, we argue that a key reason why strategic goals matter to firm performance──that is, firm-level value creation and value capture and sustained competitive heterogeneity──is that such goals influence value creation rooted in employee motivations. Unfolding this idea allows us to generate new insight in the relations between value creation, strategic leadership and strategic goals

Generation of Interpersonal Stressful Events:The Role of Poor Social Skills and Early Physical Maturation in Young Adolescents-The TRAILS Study

This study developed two specifications of the social skills deficit stress generation hypothesis: the "gender-incongruence" hypothesis to predict peer victimization and the "need for autonomy" hypothesis to predict conflict with authorities. These hypotheses were tested in a prospective large population cohort of 2,064 Dutch young adolescents. Social skills and pubertal timing were measured when the sample was about 11 years old, and stressful life events were measured 2.5 years later at follow-up. As predicted by the gender-incongruence hypothesis, poor assertion in boys and poor self-control in girls were associated with peer victimization. Consistent with the need for autonomy hypothesis, poor self-control was associated with conflict with authorities, in both boys and girls. Furthermore, early physical maturation exacerbated the effect of poor self-control on conflict with authorities for both genders. These specific associations provide more insights in the pathways that result in the experience of interpersonal stressors in young adolescents.</p

Multiresolution mapping and informative path planning for UAV-based terrain monitoring

© 2017 IEEE. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can offer timely and cost-effective delivery of high-quality sensing data. However, deciding when and where to take measurements in complex environments remains an open challenge. To address this issue, we introduce a new multiresolution mapping approach for informative path planning in terrain monitoring using UAVs. Our strategy exploits the spatial correlation encoded in a Gaussian Process model as a prior for Bayesian data fusion with probabilistic sensors. This allows us to incorporate altitude-dependent sensor models for aerial imaging and perform constant-time measurement updates. The resulting maps are used to plan information-rich trajectories in continuous 3-D space through a combination of grid search and evolutionary optimization. We evaluate our framework on the application of agricultural biomass monitoring. Extensive simulations show that our planner performs better than existing methods, with mean error reductions of up to 45% compared to traditional 'lawnmower' coverage. We demonstrate proof of concept using a multirotor to map color in different environments

Transcriptomic characterization of two major Fusarium resistance quantitative trait loci (QTLs), Fhb1 and Qfhs.ifa-5A, identifies novel candidate genes

Fusarium head blight, caused by Fusarium graminearum, is a devastating disease of wheat. We developed near-isogenic lines (NILs) differing in the two strongest known F. graminearum resistance quantitative trait loci (QTLs), Qfhs.ndsu-3BS (also known as resistance gene Fhb1) and Qfhs.ifa-5A, which are located on the short arm of chromosome 3B and on chromosome 5A, respectively. These NILs showing different levels of resistance were used to identify transcripts that are changed significantly in a QTL-specific manner in response to the pathogen and between mock-inoculated samples. After inoculation with F. graminearum spores, 16 transcripts showed a significantly different response for Fhb1 and 352 for Qfhs.ifa-5A. Notably, we identified a lipid transfer protein which is constitutively at least 50-fold more abundant in plants carrying the resistant allele of Qfhs.ifa-5A. In addition to this candidate gene associated with Qfhs.ifa-5A, we identified a uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glycosyltransferase gene, designated TaUGT12887, exhibiting a positive difference in response to the pathogen in lines harbouring both QTLs relative to lines carrying only the Qfhs.ifa-5A resistance allele, suggesting Fhb1 dependence of this transcript. Yet, this dependence was observed only in the NIL with already higher basal resistance. The complete cDNA of TaUGT12887 was reconstituted from available wheat genomic sequences, and a synthetic recoded gene was expressed in a toxin-sensitive strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This gene conferred deoxynivalenol resistance, albeit much weaker than that observed with the previously characterized barley HvUGT13248

A Modular Approach for a Family of Ground Mobile Robots

This paper deals with Epi.q, a family of mobile robots whose main characteristic is a wheel-legged hybrid locomotion. These multi-purpose robots can be successfully exploited for security and surveillance tasks. The document presents state of the art security robotics, the Epi.q mechanical architecture, the concept behind the robot driving unit, three prototypes and the design of a new on

A Fast and Robust 3D Feature Extraction Algorithm for Structured Environment Reconstruction

This paper describes an algorithm for generating compact feature-based 3D models of indoor environments with a mobile robot. The emphasis lies on the high performance of the algorithm, its possible incremental use, as well as its wide applicability to a variety of sensors as it does not assume any structure in the raw data at all. It recovers planar surfaces of physical environments based on a set of unorganized points and generates a compact, real-time renderable 3D model