The relationship between child maltreatment and exposure to traumatic events during later adolescence and young adulthood

Abstract Objective: The present study investigated the relationship between different types of childhood maltreatment (emotional abuse, sexual abuse, multiple abuse types, and no abuse) and the occurrence of later traumatic events during later adolescence and young adulthood. Method: Data were collected from a Danish national study conducted by The Danish National Centre for Social Research in 2008 and 2009. A sample of 4718 young adults who were 24 years old was randomly selected using the total birth cohort of children born in 1984. A structured interview was conducted during which participants were asked about a range of traumatic and abusive experiences. Results: A response rate of 63% was achieved for a total sample size of 2980. Chi-squared analyses revealed significant relationships between all child maltreatment groups and direct exposure to 10 of the 13 traumatic events; there were also significant relationships between all child maltreatment groups and indirect exposure to 12 of the 13 traumatic events. Conclusion: The results showed that childhood maltreatment was associated with increased risk of exposure to traumatic events, both directly and indirectly, during adolescence and young adulthood. The findings of this study suggest there is an increased risk of being exposed to both direct and indirect traumas during later adolescence and young adulthood after any form of child maltreatment

German children's processing of morphosyntactic cues in wh-questions

Two experiments investigated the effects of case and verb agreement cues on the comprehension and production of which-questions in typically developing German children (aged 7–10) and adults. Our aims were to determine (a) whether they make use of morphosyntactic cues (case marking and verb agreement) for the comprehension of which-questions, (b) how these questions are processed, and (c) whether the presence and position of morphosyntactic cues available for the listener influence the speaker’s production of which-questions. Performance on a picture selection task with eye tracking shows that children with low working memory make less use of morphosyntactic cues than children with high working memory and adults when interpreting object questions. Gaze data of both groups reveal garden-path effects and revisions for object and passive questions, which can be explained by a constraint-based account. Furthermore, children’s difficulties with object questions are related to the type of disambiguation cue. In a question elicitation task with patient-initial items, children overall prefer production of passives, whereas adults’ productions depend on the availability of disambiguation cues for the listener

Problem - oriented studies on plant - soil - water relations : sowing strategies for maize in rainfed agriculture in Southern Mozambique : water management in bog relicts in the Netherlands

Plant-soil-water models are applied in two case studies. Attention is given to the desired level of accuracy in (agro-)hydrological. research when applied in problem-oriented studies. In the case studies it is shown that when decision criteria are only roughly known and when only little information is available about the other aspects relevant to the problem, simple plant-soil-water models should be used.A simple water balance and crop growth model was applied to simulate production of maize in southern Mozambique. For different sowing strategies, varying from a scattered one to sowing once a year, the available maize for consumption for an average family farming unit wasdetermined. Different model parameters were varied to study their impact upon sowing strategies.For maximizing yearly consumption the preferred strategy almost fully depended on losses by pests and diseases and post-harvest losses. However, regarding the decision criterion of minimizing the periods with food shortage the preferred sowing strategy greatly depended on water-availability and potential production levels.Both field and model studies were carried out to study the water balance of bog relicts in the Netherlands. In the field experiments special attention was given to the hydrophysical properties of the upper peat layers and to the evapotranspiration ofSphagnum papillosumand Molinia caerulea .A simple model was applied to simulate the water level fluctuations in a bog relict under different water management options. Both external measures (e.g. hydrological bufferzone's) and internal measures (water conservation) were analysed. Which option has to be preferred depends on the hydrological conditions in the bog relict and on the ecological constraints for bog regeneration, which are not fully known.For an understanding of the hydrology of bogs and bog relicts detailed knowledge of the plant-soil-water relations is required. However, given the high spatial diversity in these areas, simple plant-soil-water models should be used.</TT

Safe trajectory planning of AV

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2006.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-163).This thesis presents a novel framework for safe online trajectory planning of unmanned vehicles through partially unknown environments. The basic planning problem is formulated as a receding horizon optimization problem using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) to incorporate kino-dynamic, obstacle avoidance and collision avoidance constraints. Agile vehicle dynamics are captured through a hybrid control architecture that combines several linear time-invariant modes with a discrete set of agile maneuvers. The latter are represented by affine transformations in the state space and can be described using a limited number of parameters. We specialize the approach to the case of a small-scale helicopter flying through an urban environment. Next, we introduce the concept of terminal feasible invariant sets in which a vehicle can remain for an indefinite period of time without colliding with obstacles or other vehicles. These sets are formulated as affine constraints on the last state of the planning horizon and as such are computed online. They guarantee feasibility of the receding horizon optimization at future time steps by providing an a priori known backup plan that is dynamically feasible and obstacle-free.(cont.) Vehicle safety is ensured by maintaining a feasible return trajectory at each receding horizon iteration. The feasibility and safety constraints are essential when the vehicle is maneuvering through environments that are only partially characterized and further explored online. Such a scenario was tested on an unmanned Boeing aircraft using scalable loiter circles as feasible invariant sets. The terminal feasible invariant set concept forms the basis for the construction of a provably safe distributed planning algorithm for multiple vehicles. Each vehicle then only computes its own trajectory while accounting for the latest plans and invariant sets of the other vehicles in its vicinity, i.e., of those whose reachable sets intersect with that of the planning vehicle. Conflicts are solved in real-time in a sequential fashion that maintains feasibility for all vehicles over all future receding horizon iterations. The algorithm is applied to the free flight paradigm in air traffic control and to a multi-helicopter relay network aimed at maintaining wireless line of sight communication in a cluttered environment.by Tom Schouwenaars.Ph.D