The calming effect of a new wearable device during the anticipation of public speech

We assessed the calming effect of doppel, a wearable device that delivers heartbeat-like tactile stimulation on the wrist. We tested whether the use of doppel would have a calming effect on physiological arousal and subjective reports of state anxiety during the anticipation of public speech, a validated experimental task that is known to induce anxiety. Two groups of participants were tested in a single-blind design. Both groups wore the device on their wrist during the anticipation of public speech, and were given the cover story that the device was measuring blood pressure. For only one group, the device was turned on and delivered a slow heartbeat-like vibration. Participants in the doppel active condition displayed lower increases in skin conductance responses relative to baseline and reported lower anxiety levels compared to the control group. Therefore, the presence, as opposed to its absence, of a slow rhythm, which in the present study was instantiated as an auxiliary slow heartbeat delivered through doppel, had a significant calming effect on physiological arousal and subjective experience during a socially stressful situation. This finding is discussed in relation to past research on responses and entrainment to rhythms, and their effects on arousal and mood

Sterowalność układu dynamicznego z czasem dyskretnym z zastosowaniem zadania aproksymującego

The paper is concerned with time-discrete dynamical systems, whose dynamics is described by a system of vector difference equations involving state and control vector functions. It is assumed that that the uncontrolled system (in which the control vectors are put to zero) admits steady states. The aim is to reach such a steady state by a suitable choice of control functions within finitely many time-steps starting with an initial state at time zero. We first give sufficient conditions for the solvability of this problem of controllability. Then, we develop a stepwise game-theoretical method for its solution. In the cooperative case this method can be combined with the solution of a suitable approximation problem and thereby lead to a solution of the problem of controllability within the smallest number of time steps, if the problem is solvable. Finally, we present a stepwise non-cooperative game theoretical solution.Artykuł dotyczy układów dynamicznych dyskretnych w czasie, których dynamika jest opisywana przy pomocy wektorowych równań różnicowych z wektorowymi funkcjami stanu i sterowania. Zakłada się, że układ nie sterowany (w którym wektory sterowań są równe zeru) przyjmuje stany ustalone. Celem jest osiągnięcie takiego stanu ustalonego poprzez odpowiedni dobór funkcji sterowania w skończonej liczbie kroków w czasie, startując z pewnego stanu w momencie zerowym. Najpierw podano warunki wystarczające rozwiązywalności tego zadania sterowalności. Następnie, przedstawiono metodę iteracyjną opartą na teorii gier do znajdywania rozwiązania. W przypadku gry kooperacyjnej metoda ta może być połączona z rozwiązaniem odpowiedniego zadania aproksymacji i w ten sposób prowadzić do rozwiązania zagadnienia sterowalności w najmniejszej liczbie kroków w czasie, jeśli zadanie ma rozwiązanie. Na koniec przedstawiono sposób rozwiązania krokowego dla przypadku gry nie-kooperacyjnej

Optimization of an n-person game under linear side conditions

This paper is concerned with n-person games which typically occur in mathematical conflict models [cf. cite{4}, cite{7},cite{9}]. These games are so called cost-games, in which every actor tries to minimize his own costs and the costs are interlinked by a system of linear inequalities. It is shown that, if the players cooperate, i.e., minimize the sum of all the costs, they achieve a Nash Equilibrium. In order to determine Nash Equilibria, the simplex method can be applied with respect to the dual problem. An important special case is discussed and numerical examples are presented

Ein hierarchisches Optimierungsproblem in der Bauplanung

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