Hard Goals Research Articles

Overfitting-avoiding goal-guided exploration for hard-exploration multi-goal reinforcement learning

In hard-exploration multi-goal reinforcement learning tasks, the agent faces challenges to achieve a series of distant goals with sparse rewards. Directly exploring to pursue these hard goals can hardly succeed, because the agent is unable to acquire learning signals applicable to these goals. To progressively enhance agent ability and promote exploration, goal-guided exploration methods generate easier auxiliary goals that gradually approach the original hard goals for the agent to pursue. However, due to the neglect of the growth of agent generalizability, the goal generation region of the previous methods is limited, which causes overfitting and traps the exploration for further goals. In this paper, after modeling the multi-goal RL as a distribution-matching process, we propose an overfitting-avoiding goal-guided exploration method (OGE), where the generation of auxiliary goals follows the Wasserstein-distance-based optimal transport geodesic, and the generation region is in the Lipschitz-constant-delimited generalizability margin. Our OGE is compared with state-of-the-art methods in hard-exploration multi-goal robotic manipulation tasks. Apart from showing the highest learning efficiency, in those tasks where all the prior methods meet overfitting and fail, our method can still successfully guide the agent to achieve the hard goals.

Clinical features and management of manic episodes in adolescents. A case review

IntroductionAssessment and management of bipolar disorder, and particularly manic episodes in adolescents means a challenge. The presence of comorbid disorders, and divergent interpretations of manic symptoms in the context of the adolescent natural inmaturity, can make diagnosis and treatment hard goals to achieve. The existence of juvenile specific criteria for bipolar disorder is a debate topic. This concept emerged from an attempt to solve diagnosis issues and involves a wide range of definitions for mania.ObjectivesLiterature review concerning bipolar disorder in young population: Main comorbidities, psychosocial problems, prognosis. Clinical presentation: Shared and specific features compared to adult population. Available treatment options. Issues related to safety and tolerability.MethodsWe present a case of a 16 year old woman diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, hospitalised in an inpatient adolescent unit in 2021. Review of the literature available (clinical guidelines, PubMed).ResultsPatient initially oriented as a Bipolar II disorder, after depressive episodes followed by hypomanic symptoms in the past years. The following clinical course was conditioned by personality traits. Emotional disregulation and a complex family environment made affective symptoms difficult to evaluate, leading to a diagnostic hypothesis of personality-related disorder. After a period of outpatient treatment in a day hospital, she debuted with a clinical picture of manic symptoms, mixed features and rapid mood cycling.ConclusionsAfter an initial trial, stabilization was achieved with aripiprazole and asenapine. Combination therapy might be necessary in longer-term treatment, according to existing evidence. Diagnosis and treatment concerns are interfered by the limited number of trials.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

Improving Plan Quality through Heuristics for Guiding and Pruning the Search: A Study Using LAMA

Admissible heuristics are essential for optimal planning in the context of search algorithms like A*, and they can also be used in the context of suboptimal planning in order to find quality-bounded solutions. In satisfacing planning, on the other hand, admissible heuristics are not exploited by the best-first search algorithms of existing planners even when a time window is available for improving the first solution found. For example, in the well-know planner LAMA, better solutions within such a time window are sought by restarting a Weighted-A* search guided by inadmissible heuristics, each time a better solution is found. In this paper, we investigate the use of admissible heuristics in the context of LAMA for pruning nodes that cannot lead to better solutions. The revised search of LAMA is experimentally evaluated using two alternative admissible heuristics for pruning and three types of problems: planning with soft goals, planning with action costs, and planning with both action costs and soft goals. Soft goals are compiled into hard goals following the approach of Keyder and Geffner. The empirical results show that the use of admissible heuristics in LAMA can be of great help to improve the planner performance.

Opportunistic Planning in Autonomous Underwater Missions

This paper explores the execution of planned autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) missions where opportunities to achieve additional utility can arise during execution. The missions are represented as temporal planning problems, with hard goals and time constraints. Opportunities are soft goals with high utility. The probability distributions for the occurrences of these opportunities are not known, but it is known that they are unlikely, so it is not worth trying to anticipate their occurrence prior to plan execution. However, as they are high utility, it is worth trying to address them dynamically when they are encountered, as long as this can be done without sacrificing the achievement of the hard goals of the problem. We formally characterize the opportunistic planning problem, introduce a novel approach to opportunistic planning, and compare it with an on-board replanning approach in the domain of AUVs performing pillar expection and chain-following tasks. Note to Practitioners —This paper concerns high-level intelligent automation of unmanned vehicle operations in the context of undersea inspection and maintenance. The objective is to provide a robust long-term autonomy, enabling the vehicle to make its own decisions about how to prioritize goals and use its resources. Plans to achieve large numbers of goals over time are constructed autonomously by a planning system using models of activity and resource consumption. In order to avoid running up against resource bounds in a way that would compromise robustness, models of resource consumption are conservative. An important aspect of long-term autonomy concerns how unused resources that accumulate over time because of conservative assumptions can be used to increase overall utility. The approach we describe is deterministic: we do not model uncertainty or allow the planner to reason with contingencies. Instead, we focus on how to exploit resource intelligently to obtain the best available utility, in a way that does not undermine the reliability or predictability of operational behavior.

Energy efficiency tools for residential users

Residential energy consumption reserves a significant portion of the total energy consumption in modern cities. The rates of construction of new buildings as well as the rates of renovation on existing ones are generally very low. At the same time, unlike centrally operated large commercial buildings, the installation of energy management systems is a rather expensive solution leaving residential users with limited means to improve their energy efficiency as results are not evident. Considering that to drive energy efficient behaviour, we have to first raise awareness, then provide evidence through measurements and then support further, more elaborate, energy efficiency actions, we capitalise on ICT as soft measures towards reaching hard goals. We propose a novel incremental solution starting from a rather simple mobile application exploiting the sensors available in our smartphones and tablets to proceed to more intelligent advice provisioning towards energy efficiency. We present its implementation architecture and discuss certain market-wise challenges to prove its potential.

An Approach For Prioritising Soft and Hard Goals In Self Adaptive Software Systems

An Approach For Prioritising Soft and Hard Goals In Self Adaptive Software Systems

Trait anxiety and goal difficulty on learning to climb the Bachman ladder.

This study examined the effects of trait anxiety and goal setting on learning of the Bachman ladder. It was hypothesized that easy goals would increase learning for individuals with high trait anxiety while hard goals would increase learning for individuals with low trait anxiety. 80 high school students (40 boys, 40 girls; M age = 15 yr., SD = 1.0) filled out the Brazilian State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) for trait anxiety. The experiment was divided into four phases: acquisition, immediate transfer (after 5 min.), delayed transfer, and retention (after 24 hr.). On the transfer phases, the participants started climbing the ladder with the foot opposite of that used in acquisition. Participants were assigned to one of four experimental groups combining high and low anxiety traits and hard and easy goals. Variances were analyzed with repeated measurements on the last factor of all phases. The results showed the performance increased during the acquisition phase and no effects were observed in any phases.

The Interactive Effects of Self-Esteem, Goal Instructions, and Incentives on Personal Goals and Goal Attainment

An individual's personal goal is one of the strongest motivators, yet its determinants and processes are not well understood, especially those dealing with person–situation interaction. This research examines the interactive effects of monetary incentive types, self-set goal level instructions, and self-esteem on personal goals and goal attainment. A laboratory research study with a sample of 300 students found a statistically significant three-way interaction among monetary incentive types (pay for performance [piece rate], pay for goal attainment [GA-bonus], and pay for participation [hourly flat rate]), self-set goal level instructions (an instruction to set hard, easy, any, and no goals), and self-esteem in influencing personal goals and goal attainment. The highest level of personal goals (and the lowest level of goal attainment) was achieved by high-self-esteem participants who were paid for performance and instructed to set hard goals. This research shows that person–situation interaction is the mo...

Integrating a Closed World Planner with an Open World Robot: A Case Study

In this paper, we present an integrated planning and robotic architecture that actively directs an agent engaged in an urban search and rescue (USAR) scenario. We describe three salient features that comprise the planning component of this system, namely (1) the ability to plan in a world open with respect to objects, (2) execution monitoring and replanning abilities, and (3) handling soft goals, and detail the interaction of these parts in representing and solving the USAR scenario at hand. We show that though insufficient in an individual capacity, the integration of this trio of features is sufficient to solve the scenario that we present. We test our system with an example problem that involves soft and hard goals, as well as goal deadlines and action costs, and show that the planner is capable of incorporating sensing actions and execution monitoring in order to produce goal-fulfilling plans that maximize the net benefit accrued.

Corporate ethics in TQM: management versus employee expectations and perceptions

PurposeThe objective of this research is to develop and describe a conceptual framework of corporate ethics in total quality management (TQM).Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a summarised in‐depth and longitudinal case illustration. The summarised case describes corporate ethics in an intra‐corporate relationship.FindingsTQM requires human resources and failing to care for them will affect accordingly the success of TQM. The case description illustrates the evolution of management versus employee expectations and perceptions of corporate ethics. It has an emphasis on the human resources of a company that strives towards TQM. As the quality of corporate ethics decreases the outcome of TQM is also affected (i.e. directly or indirectly). The case is initialised in an atmosphere of management and employee optimism and positivism of corporate ethics, which is a requisite from both parties in order to ensure prosperous TQM. The successive change towards pessimism and negativism of corporate ethics in the intra‐corporate relationship concludes the in‐depth case description.Research limitations/implicationsFour parameters of corporate ethics are used to incorporate corporate ethics into TQM, namely management versus employee expectations and perceptions. Internal corporate quality management should always be regarded as dependent upon the achieved equilibrium between management and employee perceptions. It is also dependent upon the derived equilibrium between management and employee previous expectations.Practical implicationsAn important insight of this research is that TQM requires the continuous attention to the management versus employee expectations and perceptions inherent in corporate ethics of internal business operations. Furthermore, corporate ethics is complementary to business ethics.Originality/valueThe case description has shown that TQM may be running well and accomplishing the hard goals. However, TQM is not only about figures, profits and costs. It is also a business approach that should penetrate all activities inside and outside that are related to the company, including the soft issues.

Explaining the Assigned Goal-Incentive Interaction: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Personal Goals

This study was designed to replicate conceptually and to explain the goal-level vs. incentive-type interaction reported by Mowen, Middlemist, and Luther (1981) based on goal setting and social cognitive theories. Mowen et al. found that subjects performed more poorly with hard goals than medium goals under a bonus pay system, the opposite of what was found for a piece-rate system. In the present study, an hourly pay condition was added. Mowen et al.‘s interaction was replicated using a two-trial design in which subjects could obtain feedback about their ability to attain the incentive bonuses between trials. The experimental effects were completely mediated by personal goals and self-efficacy. Goal commitment was related to performance, but did not mediate the experimental conditions. The implications for the design of incentive systems are discussed.

Explaining the assigned goal-incentive interaction: The role of self-efficacy and personal goals

This study was designed to replicate conceptually and to explain the goal-level vs. incentive-type interaction reported by Mowen, Middlemist, and Luther (1981) based on goal setting and social cognitive theories. Mowen et al. found that subjects performed more poorly with hard goals than medium goals under a bonus pay system, the opposite of what was found for a piece-rate system. In the present study, an hourly pay condition was added. Mowen et al.'s interaction was replicated using a two-trial design in which subjects could obtain feedback about their ability to attain the incentive bonuses between trials. The experimental effects were completely mediated by personal goals and self-efficacy. Goal commitment was related to performance, but did not mediate the experimental conditions. The implications for the design of incentive systems are discussed.

Locus of Control and Goal-Setting

Effects of goal-setting and locus of control were studied in 188 undergraduate men in a laboratory setting using a card-sorting task. Two trials were employed with one of three goals assigned on Trial 2 (easy, moderately difficult, or hard goals representing, respectively, a 10%, 20%, or 50% increase over Trial 1 card sort). A curvilinear relationship moderated the relationship between goal-setting and card sorting when differences in locus of control were examined. However, when these individual differences were partialled out, a linear relation between goal-setting and card sorting typical of the goal-setting literature was obtained.

Relationship of goal level to valence and instrumentality.

Eight experiments were conducted to explore the relationships between goal level, valence, and instrumentality. Valence, measured in terms of anticipated satisfaction across a range of performance levels, was strongly but negatively related to goal level. This finding was explained by showing that low goals entail using less stringent standards for self-evaluation than do high goals. Instrumentality was positively associated with goal level. Subjects believed that trying for hard goals would be more likely to give them a sense of achievement, develop their skills, and prove them competent than would trying for easy goals. Subjects also believed that high goals would lead to more practical (job and life) benefits, as well as more pride and self-respect, than would low goals.

A Dissenting View of MBO

The argument of the article is to question the core assumptions upon which MBO theory rests. While MBO, in various of its practical versions may succeed here or there, defective theory is not cured by select citations of effective practice. MBO has not produced a coherent theory in which to ground its prescriptions. Rather, it derives legitimacy from other disciplines. Drucker's classical formulation of MBO is pseudo-participative despite his claim that its essence is employee collaboration and input into setting their work objectives. Drucker critically fails to give specific detailed protection to the subordinate in the MBO process against superior manipulation or arbitrariness nor recourse to via any appeals procedure. Nor does Drucker complement the obligations set by the MBO process with correspondingly concrete rewards for fulfillment. This basic asymmetry fundamentally flaws the process as does the psychologically unrealistic alternating roles for the judge-turned-subordinate. Reformist critics call for such reformulations as panels of judges, genuine adult-to-adult models for MBO negotiators, and a differential approach to the types of subordinates—high achievers versus low achievers—enlisted in the process. Others advocate the critical need to set hard goals and to enlist commitment—above all else—to the goals by individuals. Yet, we are lost in a fog as to how goal commitments are obtained or why goal setting affects subordinate performance more than Drucker's central inducement of participation. Indeed, according to certain critics, authoritarian MBO is more effective than participative MBO. In conclusion, MBO must stand or fall as a practical management tool, or if it aspires to theoretical validity, strive to co-opt the on-going theoretical research of goal setting theory. As it now stands, it is characterized by inadequate conceptualization of variables and glib generalizations from idiosyncratic laboratory conditions to the multifarious real world of many non-homogeneous industries and professions. In ignoring the raw material of the labor force—how it derives its ideas and attitudes—it utterly fails to account for the variety of that material and its built-in resistances to manipulation. The labor force cannot be regarded as so much homogeneous clay to be molded by any combination of ego psychology or the setting of hard goals in either a pseudo-participative or authoritarian process. MBO must proceed from an analysis of the concrete material conditions through which it must function, MBO must either aspire to the realm of theory or shrink to the level of a hit-or-miss performance appraisal procedure.

A meta-analytic study of the effects of goal setting on task performance: 1966–1984

A meta-analytic study was conducted involving primarily published research from 1966 to 1984 and focusing on the relationship between goal-setting variables and task performance. Two major sets of studies were analyzed, those contrasting hard goals (goal difficulty) versus easy goals, and those comparing specific hard goals (goal specificity/difficulty) versus general goals, “do best” instructions, or no goal. As expected, strong support was obtained for the goal difficulty and goal specificity/difficulty components of E. A. Locke's (1968a, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 3, 157–189) theory. A two-stage approach was employed to identify potential moderators of the goal difficulty and goal specificity/difficulty—performance relationships. Setting (laboratory versus field) was identified as a moderator of the relationship between goal specificity/difficulty and task performance. Two supplemental meta-analyses yielded support for the efficacy of combining specific hard goals with feedback versus specific hard goals without feedback and for participatively set goals versus assigned goal setting (when goal level is held constant), although this latter finding was interpreted as inconclusive based on the limited studies available. Implications for future research are addressed.

The Impact of Supervisory Characteristics on Goal Acceptance

Numerous studies have documented the important role that goals play in regulating task motivation and performance (9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17). These studies have been conducted in laboratory situations with college students (9) as well as in real world organizations with managers involved in MBO programs (14). Most of the research has focused on the performance consequences of various aspects of the goal setting process. In particular, Locke and his colleagues have shown that hard goals produce a higher level of performance than easy goals or goals of the do your best type (10). In most of the studies conducted by Locke, subjects have been assigned goals at various difficulty levels by the experimenter. Locke and Bryan argue, however, that goal instructions not inevitably or automatically affect an individual's behavior (11). Only when assigned goals have been consciously accepted by individuals have significant relationships been discovered between goal level and performance. This suggests that supervisors must select the appropriate goal assignment method if subordinates are to accept difficult goals and thus perform at high levels. Unfortunately, little research has examined the relationship between the methods by which goals are set and the degree to which those goals are accepted by the performer.

Effectiveness of Goal Setting as a Management Device: Research Note

Previous research regarding the effects of the specification of goals on performance has shown that hard goals produce a higher performance level than a goal of 'do your best' (Bryan & Locke, 1967). The data reported here support this finding and generalize it to a rather complex industrial situation. Although it is a truism to say that employees assigned to work at a certain rate are more likely to work at that rate than are other employees not so assigned, the situation under investigation here has ramifications which might work to reduce the difference in performance between employees with and without specific assignment. The dara were generated as part of the evaluation of an incentive program the purpose of which was to induce soft-drink salesmen and servicemen to adjust soft-drink coolers to a temperature deemed optimal for sales (Hewes. Leidy, & Blumenfeld, 1968). For each unit yhecked, salesmen and servicemen turned in a card which, in fact, granted them certain bonus sales points and constituted an entry in a national sweepstakes drawing. In addition to the national drawing, many local drawings and contests were held. Therefore, in addition to the influence managerial directives might have on employee behavior, in this situation direct and indirect financial rewards were also explicitly associated with high perform- ance levels. At the end of the program, participating bottlers were mailed a questionnaire intended to provide an over-all evaluation of the success of the program. The data cited here were developed from the responses made by 55 responding bottlers to two items included in the questionoaire. These were: (1) Were your men instructed to check a specified number of units each day? and (2) How many units did the typical salesman check each day? Cross-tabulating these two items indicated a positive relationship between the number of units assigned and the number actually checked (xa = 7.528, df = 2, p < .05). The obtained contingency coefficient was .35.

Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives

This paper summarizes and integrates research concerned with a long-neglected topic in psychology: the relationship between conscious goals and intentions and task performance. The basic promise of this research is that an individual's conscious ideas regulate his actions. Studies are cited demonstrating that: (1) hard goals produce a higher level of performance (output) than easy goals; (2) specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than a goal of “do your best”; and (3) behavioral intentions regulate choice behavior. The theory also views goals and intentions as mediators of the effects of incentives on task performance. Evidence is presented supporting the view that monetary incentives, time limits, and knowledge of results do not affect performance level independently of the individual's goals and intentions. A theoretical analysis supports the same view with respect to three other incentives: participation, competition, and praise and reproof. Finally, behavioral intentions were found to mediate the effects of money and “verbal reinforcement” on choice behavior. It is concluded that any adequate theory of task motivation must take account of the individual's conscious goals and intentions. The applied implications of the theory are discussed.