Altering shyness mindset : enhancing treatment for social performance anxiety

Advisors: David P. Valentiner.Committee members: Amanda Durik; Patrick McGrath; Nina Mounts; Laura D. Pittman; Kevin D. Wu.The current study looked to extend previous research on the meta-cognitive variable of shyness mindset. The objectives were to demonstrate the ability to promote an incremental view of shyness in a clinical population, provide evidence for this change's ability to enhance the reduction of social performance anxiety symptoms via exposure therapy, and elucidate the possible mechanisms involved. Participants were recruited from an intensive outpatient program for the treatment of anxiety disorders, and assigned to either receive an intervention designed to alter shyness mindset, or treatment as usual. Results indicated that shyness mindset was malleable in a clinical population. The effect of shyness mindset on social performance anxiety symptoms was less clear, though the most parsimonious interpretation of the data suggested that the two constructs do not have a causal relationship. The mechanisms of any possible relationship remained unclarified.Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy

DETC2005-84349 HYBRID TARGET TRACKING MANIPULATION THEORIES FOR COMBINED FORCE AND POSITION CONTROL IN OPEN AND CLOSED LOOP MANIPULATORS

ABSTRACT This paper presents a new manipulation theory for controlling compliant motions of a robotic manipulator. In previous closed loop control methods, both direct kinematics and inverse kinematics of a manipulator must be resolved to convert feedback force and position data from Cartesian space to joint space. However, in many cases, the solution of direct kinematics in a parallel manipulator or the solution of inverse kinematics in a serial manipulator is not easily available. In this study, the force and position data are packed into one set of "motion feedback," by replacing the force errors with virtual motion quantities, or one set of "force feedback," by replacing motion errors with virtual force quantities. The joint torques are adjusted based on this combined feed back package. Since only Jacobian of direct kinematics or Jacobian of inverse kinematics is used in the control scheme, the computational complexity is reduced significantly. The applications of this theory are demonstrated in simulation experiments with both serial and parallel manipulators. KEYWORDS Target tracking, open loop, closed loop, manipulation, hybrid control INTRODUCTION In many applications such as deburring, grinding, scribing and contour following, a manipulator is required to follow a predefined position trajectory in the tangent direction of a surface while maintaining a contact force in the normal direction. These tasks need appropriate control of motion and force. In the beginning, a typical force control strategy was used to command an actuator torque. This strategy combined feedback of force with feedback of position (and velocity) and corrected the error through a common controlle

The Symmetric Rank One Formula and its Application in Discrete Nonlinear Optimization

Introduction Currently, the recursive quadratic programming (RQP) method is widely recognized as one of the most efficient and robust approaches for continuous optimizatio

The application of input shaping to a system with varying parameters

The original input shaping technique developed by Singer and Seering is summarized and a different definition for residual vibration is proposed. The new definition gives better insight into the ability of input shaping method to reduce vibration. The extension of input shaping to a system with varying parameters, e.g. natural frequency, is discussed and the effect of these variations is shown to induce vibration. A modified command shaping technique is developed to eliminate this unwanted motion

E. Sachs

Introduction 1.1 Motivation. Two needs which are key to industrial productivity and competitiveness are the reduction in time to market for new products and the flexible manufacture of products in small quantities. This work targets a critical subset of the problems that must be overcome in order to achieve shorter product development cycles and flexible manufacturing for mechanical parts. The problems addressed are rapid prototyping, rapid fabrication of tooling, and the low cost manufacture of tooling. A major contributor to the time to market for new products is the time required to fabricate prototypes. Rapid prototyping can shorten the product development cycle and improve the design process by providing rapid and effective feedback to the designer. Some applications require rapid prototyping of nonfunctional parts for use in assessing the aesthetic aspect of a design or the fit and assembly of a design. Other applications require functional parts. Often, it is advantageous if the functional part is fabricated by the same process that will be used in production. A second major contributor to the time to market is the time required to develop tooling, such as molds and dies. For some types of tooling, such as injection molding dies, the turnaround time for the design and fabrication of a tool routinely extends to several months. The long lead times are due to the fact that tooling is generally one of a kind and can be extremely complex, requiring a great deal of human attention to detail