a cross-over longitudinal design

Background Frequent handwashing can prevent infections, but non-compliance to hand hygiene is pervasive. Few theory- and evidence-based interventions to improve regular handwashing are available. Therefore, two intervention modules, a motivational and a self-regulatory one, were designed and evaluated. Methods In a longitudinal study, 205 young adults, aged 18 to 26 years, were randomized into two intervention groups. The Mot-SelfR group received first a motivational intervention (Mot; risk perception and outcome expectancies) followed by a self-regulatory intervention (SelfR; perceived self-efficacy and planning) 17 days later. The SelfR-Mot group received the same two intervention modules in the opposite order. Follow-up data were assessed 17 and 34 days after the baseline. Results Both intervention sequences led to an increase in handwashing frequency, intention, self- efficacy, and planning. Also, overall gains were found for the self-regulatory module (increased planning and self-efficacy levels) and the motivational module (intention). Within groups, the self-regulatory module appeared to be more effective than the motivational module, independent of sequence. Conclusions Self-regulatory interventions can help individuals to exhibit more handwashing. Sequencing may be important as a motivation module (Mot) first helps to set the goal and a self-regulatory module (SelfR) then helps to translate this goal into actual behavior, but further research is needed to evaluate mechanisms

Self-organized control of an tendon driven arm by differential extrinsic plasticity

With the accelerated development of robot technologies, optimal control becomes one of the central themes of research. In traditional approaches, the controller, by its internal functionality, finds appropriate actions on the basis of the history of sensor values, guided by the goals, intentions, objectives, learning schemes, and so forth. The idea is that the controller controls the world---the body plus its environment---as reliably as possible. This paper focuses on new lines of self-organization for developmental robotics. We apply the recently developed differential extrinsic synaptic plasticity to a muscle-tendon driven arm-shoulder system from the Myorobotics toolkit. In the experiments, we observe a vast variety of self-organized behavior patterns: when left alone, the arm realizes pseudo-random sequences of different poses. By applying physical forces, the system can be entrained into definite motion patterns like wiping a table. Most interestingly, after attaching an object, the controller gets in a functional resonance with the object's internal dynamics, starting to shake spontaneously bottles half-filled with water or sensitively driving an attached pendulum into a circular mode. When attached to the crank of a wheel the neural system independently discovers how to rotate it. In this way, the robot discovers affordances of objects its body is interacting with

Habits and self‐efficacy moderate the effects of intentions and planning on physical activity

Objectives: Behavioural intentions as well as action planning can facilitate the adoption and maintenance of physical activity under certain conditions. The present study examined levels of plan‐specific self‐efficacy and habit strength as possible conditions that may modify this relationship. Design: As a secondary analysis of a larger randomized trial to improve physical activity, n = 225 recipients of a planning intervention were followed up at five measurement points over one year. Methods: Two‐level models were fit. Within‐person levels, that is, fluctuations of intention and action planning around person means, were modelled to predict self‐reported moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity. Moreover, between‐person, that is, average person, levels of self‐efficacy and habit strength were specified as putative moderators of this relationship. Results: The within‐person intention–activity relationship was moderated by between‐person levels of habit strength, yielding a compensatory effect: higher‐than‐usual intention predicted physical activity only when average activity habit levels were low. The within‐person planning–activity relationship was moderated by between‐person levels of self‐efficacy, yielding a synergistic effect: higher‐than‐usual planning combined with high average self‐efficacy resulted in highest physical activity levels. Conclusion: Higher‐than‐usual intention may only be required in the presence of low activity habits. Moreover, high self‐efficacy seems to be required to translate higher‐than‐usual action planning into augmented physical activity because self‐efficacious individuals may invest more efforts to enact their plans

Black box : an implementation using lasers, smoke and fluorescence

We present the optical implementation of the board game "black box" using a laser, fluorescence and smoke

Hardware faults that matter: Understanding and Estimating the safety impact of hardware faults on object detection DNNs

Object detection neural network models need to perform reliably in highly dynamic and safety-critical environments like automated driving or robotics. Therefore, it is paramount to verify the robustness of the detection under unexpected hardware faults like soft errors that can impact a systems perception module. Standard metrics based on average precision produce model vulnerability estimates at the object level rather than at an image level. As we show in this paper, this does not provide an intuitive or representative indicator of the safety-related impact of silent data corruption caused by bit flips in the underlying memory but can lead to an over- or underestimation of typical fault-induced hazards. With an eye towards safety-related real-time applications, we propose a new metric IVMOD (Image-wise Vulnerability Metric for Object Detection) to quantify vulnerability based on an incorrect image-wise object detection due to false positive (FPs) or false negative (FNs) objects, combined with a severity analysis. The evaluation of several representative object detection models shows that even a single bit flip can lead to a severe silent data corruption event with potentially critical safety implications, with e.g., up to (much greater than) 100 FPs generated, or up to approx. 90% of true positives (TPs) are lost in an image. Furthermore, with a single stuck-at-1 fault, an entire sequence of images can be affected, causing temporally persistent ghost detections that can be mistaken for actual objects (covering up to approx. 83% of the image). Furthermore, actual objects in the scene are continuously missed (up to approx. 64% of TPs are lost). Our work establishes a detailed understanding of the safety-related vulnerability of such critical workloads against hardware faults.Comment: 15 pages, accepted in safecomp22 conferenc

Health Demands Moderate the Link Between Willpower Beliefs and Physical Activity in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis

Background Regular physical activity (PA) was found to alleviate pain and improve functioning among patients with osteoarthritis of the knee (OAK). Heightened health demands due to OAK severity, body mass index (BMI), and depressive symptoms may require self-regulatory strategies to engage in more PA. Research on willpower—the capacity to exert self-control—suggests that believing that willpower is a nonlimited rather than a limited resource predicts effective self-regulation specifically when demands are high. The present study examines the association of OAK patients’ willpower beliefs with their daily PA as a function of health demands. Methods To identify the moderating role of OAK severity (WOMAC), BMI, and depressive symptoms (CES-D) on the link between willpower beliefs and objectively assessed PA over a 7-day period, baseline data of a registered randomized controlled trial with 243 patients (Mage = 65.47 years, SD = 0.49) were examined in secondary analyses. Results Moderation analyses revealed that overall positive associations of willpower beliefs with PA were further qualified by OAK severity, BMI, and depressive symptoms. When patients faced less health demands, believing that willpower is nonlimited was associated with more PA. When health demands were higher, willpower beliefs were not associated with PA. Conclusion OAK patients’ willpower beliefs were associated with PA. However, facing more health demands seemed to erase this beneficial link. Improving willpower beliefs by way of intervention may help to shed more light on predictive direction and ways to overcome barriers to regular physical activity

Feasibility and robustness of dynamic F-18-FET PET based tracer kinetic models applied to patients with recurrent high-grade glioma prior to carbon ion irradiation

The aim of this study was to analyze the robustness and diagnostic value of different compartment models for dynamic F-18-FET PET in recurrent high-grade glioma (HGG). Dynamic F-18-FET PET data of patients with recurrent WHO grade III (n:7) and WHO grade IV (n: 9) tumors undergoing re-irradiation with carbon ions were analyzed by voxelwise fitting of the time-activity curves with a simplified and an extended one-tissue compartment model (1TCM) and a two-tissue compartment model (2TCM), respectively. A simulation study was conducted to assess robustness and precision of the 2TCM. Parameter maps showed enhanced detail on tumor substructure. Neglecting the blood volume V-B in the 1TCM yields insufficient results. Parameter K-1 from both 1TCM and 2TCM showed correlation with overall patient survival after carbon ion irradiation (p = 0.043 and 0.036, respectively). The 2TCM yields realistic estimates for tumor blood volume, which was found to be significantly higher in WHO IV compared to WHO III (p = 0.031). Simulations on the 2TCM showed that K1 yields good accuracy and robustness while k(2) showed lowest stability of all parameters. The 1TCM provides the best compromise between parameter stability and model accuracy;however application of the 2TCM is still feasible and provides a more accurate representation of tracer-kinetics at the cost of reduced robustness. Detailed tracer kinetic analysis of F-18-FET PET with compartment models holds valuable information on tumor substructures and provides additional diagnostic and prognostic value

Self-efficacy, action control, and social support explain physical activity changes among Costa Rican older adults

Background: Self-efficacy, action control, and social support are considered to influence changes in physical activity levels in older adults. This study examines the relationship among these variables and explores the putative mediating and moderating mechanisms that might account for activity changes. Methods: A longitudinal study with 54 older adults (≥ 50 years of age) was carried out in Costa Rica. In a moderated mediation analysis, action control was specified as a mediator between self-efficacy and physical activity, whereas social support was specified as a moderator between self-efficacy and action control. Baseline physical activity, age, and sex were specified as covariates. Results: Action control mediated between self-efficacy and physical activity. An interaction between social support and self-efficacy on action control pointed to a synergistic effect at the first stage of the mediating process. Conclusions: The effect of self-efficacy on physical activity was partly explained by action control, providing evidence of action control as a proximal mediator of physical activity. Moreover, the moderator role of social support was confirmed: high social support appeared to compensate for low levels of self-efficacy.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

The Interplay Between Strictness of Policies and Individuals’ Self-Regulatory Efforts: Associations with Handwashing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background Patterns of protective health behaviors, such as handwashing and sanitizing during the COVID-19 pandemic, may be predicted by macro-level variables, such as regulations specified by public health policies. Health behavior patterns may also be predicted by micro-level variables, such as self-regulatory cognitions specified by health behavior models, including the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA). Purpose This study explored whether strictness of containment and health policies was related to handwashing adherence and whether such associations were mediated by HAPA-specified self-regulatory cognitions. Methods The study (NCT04367337) was conducted among 1,256 adults from Australia, Canada, China, France, Gambia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, and Switzerland. Self-report data on cross-situational handwashing adherence were collected using an online survey at two time points, 4 weeks apart. Values of the index of strictness of containment and health policies, obtained from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker database, were retrieved twice for each country (1 week prior to individual data collection). Results Across countries and time, levels of handwashing adherence and strictness of policies were high. Path analysis indicated that stricter containment and health policies were indirectly related to lower handwashing adherence via lower self-efficacy and self-monitoring. Less strict policies were indirectly related to higher handwashing adherence via higher self-efficacy and self-monitoring. Conclusions When policies are less strict, exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus might be higher, triggering more self-regulation and, consequently, more handwashing adherence. Very strict policies may need to be accompanied by enhanced information dissemination or psychosocial interventions to ensure appropriate levels of self-regulation