The Effects of Question-Present Versus Item Present Conditions on Acquisition of Mands

A mand, often referred to as a request in lay terms, is a verbal operant that is under the control of an establishing operation and maintained by a specific reinforcer. Children with autism spectrum disorder often have difficulty learning mands and need supplemental training to learn this skill. The purpose of the present study was to extend the study by Bowen, Shillingsburg, and Carr (2012) and compare two mand training procedures to determine if a question-only or item-present condition would result in more rapid acquisition of mands. A multiple baseline design across participants, with an embedded alternating treatment design, was used to evaluate mand acquisition in two preschool children with autism. Results of the study showed that the item-present condition resulted in more rapid acquisition of mands than the question-only condition

Modelling the Minsky triad: A framework to perform reflexive MandS studies

In this paper, we propose a general framework to evaluate models of systems that are ill defined, incompletely known, and furthermore, which cannot be experimented in real conditions, such as the economical systems at the country scale, epidemics (for obvious ethical reasons) or any natural disasters, for instance where human lives are the main issue. Our framework relies on the generic Marvin Minsky's definition of a model and its specification in the frame of the Theory of Modelling and Simulation, initiated by B.P. Zeigler. Such a dynamic system implementation of the Marvin Minsky's model definition, we called the Minsky triad model, enables to address original questions. The Minsky triad model is a coupled model composed of the model of a real system, the model of this later model, and, in between, the model of the user of the later model. We argue that the Minsky triad model is very promising as a framework to design and to evaluate decision support systems for crisis management. (Résumé d'auteur

Evoking non-repertory verbal behavior across operant classes : the effects of motor echoic sign language training within the context of a motivating operation

The individual effects that echoic, mand, and sign language training procedures have on the acquisition of verbal behavior have been widely demonstrated, but more efficient strategies are still needed. This study combined all three treatment strategies into one treatment intervention in order to investigate the joint effects they may have on verbal behavior. Six participants took part in the study. Intervention totaled 1 hour/day for 5 days/week until mastery criterion for motor echoic behavior was achieved. Although motor echoic behavior were solely targeted for acquisition, significant increases in spontaneous motor mands were noted in all treatment participants. Additionally, 4 treatment participants also demonstrated significant gains in vocal echoics and spontaneous vocal mands. No significant increases were noted for the control participant. Results suggest that the aforementioned procedure may provide more efficient results as a first-step to teaching a functional repertoire of verbal behavior to developmentally delayed children

Aircraft control system

An aircraft control system is described which is particularly suited to rotary wing aircraft. Longitudinal acceleration and course rate commands are derived from a manual control stick to control translational velocity of the aircraft along a flight path. In the collective channel the manual controls provide vertical velocity commands. In the yaw channel the manual controls provide sideslip or heading rate commands at high or low airspeeds, respectively. The control system permits pilots to fly along prescribed flight paths in a precise manner with relatively low work load

Generator Power Optimisation for a More-Electric Aircraft by Use of a Virtual Iron Bird

A prodedure is developed to minimise the generator design power within the electric power system of a future more-/ all-electric aircraft. This allows to save weight on the generators and on other equipment of the electic power system. Execution of the optimisation procedure by hand demonstrates the complexity of the problem. An automation of the process shows the capabilities of integrated modelling, simulation and optimisation tools

Hacker Combat: A Competitive Sport from Programmatic Dueling & Cyberwarfare

The history of humanhood has included competitive activities of many different forms. Sports have offered many benefits beyond that of entertainment. At the time of this article, there exists not a competitive ecosystem for cyber security beyond that of conventional capture the flag competitions, and the like. This paper introduces a competitive framework with a foundation on computer science, and hacking. This proposed competitive landscape encompasses the ideas underlying information security, software engineering, and cyber warfare. We also demonstrate the opportunity to rank, score, & categorize actionable skill levels into tiers of capability. Physiological metrics are analyzed from participants during gameplay. These analyses provide support regarding the intricacies required for competitive play, and analysis of play. We use these intricacies to build a case for an organized competitive ecosystem. Using previous player behavior from gameplay, we also demonstrate the generation of an artificial agent purposed with gameplay at a competitive level

Bilevel shared control for teleoperators

A shared system is disclosed for robot control including integration of the human and autonomous input modalities for an improved control. Autonomously planned motion trajectories are modified by a teleoperator to track unmodelled target motions, while nominal teleoperator motions are modified through compliance to accommodate geometric errors autonomously in the latter. A hierarchical shared system intelligently shares control over a remote robot between the autonomous and teleoperative portions of an overall control system. Architecture is hierarchical, and consists of two levels. The top level represents the task level, while the bottom, the execution level. In space applications, the performance of pure teleoperation systems depend significantly on the communication time delays between the local and the remote sites. Selection/mixing matrices are provided with entries which reflect how each input's signals modality is weighted. The shared control minimizes the detrimental effects caused by these time delays between earth and space