Update Task Research Articles

Optimistic belief updating despite inclusion of positive events

A recent methodology – namely, the belief update task – used in the study of unrealistic optimism has provided a mechanistic account of how people maintain positive illusions about their future in the face of disconfirming evidence. This methodology has been used in a series of neuroscientific studies and neural moderators of unrealistic optimism have been established. A subsequent critique of the belief update task by Shah et al. (2016) has cast doubt over the validity of these findings however, with the authors instead suggesting that apparent optimistic belief updating is in fact a statistical artefact resulting from a flawed methodology. Specifically, Shah et al. assert that the inclusion of positive events in the belief update task can help test the validity of the optimistic account of belief updating, while proponents have suggested that caution should be taken when adapting this task to study positive life events because there is a lack of accurate information regarding the likely frequency of such events. Using a subset of the life events used by Shah et al., the current paper demonstrates that optimistic belief updating should still be observed when positive life events are included in the belief update task.

Optimistic Belief Updating for Positive Life Events

A recent methodology – namely, the error update task – used in the study of unrealistic optimism has provided a mechanistic account of how people maintain positive illusions about their future in the face of disconfirming evidence. This methodology has been used in a series of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies and neural moderators of unrealistic optimism have been established. A subsequent critique of the error update task by Shah et al. (in press) has cast doubt over the validity of these findings however, with the authors instead suggesting that apparent optimistic belief updating is in fact a statistical artefact resulting from a flawed methodology. Specifically, Shah et al. assert that the inclusion of positive events in the update task can help test the validity of the optimistic account of belief updating, while proponents have suggested that caution should be taken when adapting this task to study positive life events because there is a lack of accurate information regarding the likely frequency of such events. Using a subset of the life events used by Shah et al., the current paper demonstrates that optimistic belief updating can still be observed when positive life events are included in the error update task.

Development of the Arithmetic Subtest of the School Achievement Test-Second Edition

The School Achievement Test (Teste de Desempenho Escolar, TDE) has been widely used in clinical and educational contexts for the past 22 years. Arithmetic disorders are frequent among children and teenagers, requiring new and updated tasks to assess as accurately as possible school achievement. The last decade has witnessed a growing recognition of the need for significant changes in educational assessment practices. Evidence provided by item response theory (IRT) enabled the link of more detailed information improving assessment quality. The aim of this study was to develop a revised and completely updated version of the Arithmetic Subtest for the School Achievement Test-Second Edition (Teste de Desempenho Escolar-Segunda Edicao, TDE-II). To this end, two studies were conducted. The first study focused on item and test construction, while the second study assessed the preliminary version of the instrument. The sample consisted of 302 students in grades 1 through 9 recruited from public and private schools. Factor analysis revealed two factors which explained 74 % of the variance in the data. Both dimensions were closely related to item complexity and difficulty. The subtest was therefore divided into two versions: one for students in grades 1 through 5 and the other for those in grades 6 through 9. Both versions were analyzed based on IRT models, which suggested that the items provided a comprehensive measure of the latent trait. The results provided satisfactory evidence of internal structure and reliability. Results indicated that the Arithmetic Subtest of the TDE-II has adequate psychometric properties for the assessment of arithmetic skills in primary education. Interpretation based on IRT analyses can be helpful for future studies about math education, discriminating even better between learning difficulty and typical groups, with the data to be the basis of math cognition stimulation programs.

Executive functions in patients with Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and cognitively healthy older adults

ObjectivesThe present study investigated whether the performance on executive function tasks of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is as impaired as that of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and to compare their performance with that of a group of cognitively healthy older adults. We also investigated whether glycosylated hemoglobin levels (HbA1c, a measure of glucose regulation) are related to performance on executive control tasks. MethodsThree groups of participants (AD, T2DM, and healthy older adults) completed medical and psychological evaluations and performed a series of computerized tasks, including processing speed (simple and choice reaction time) tasks, verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) updating (n-back) tasks, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), to assess processing speed and executive functioning. ResultsAs expected, the results showed that AD patients performed significantly worse than the healthy older adult group in all tasks. Executive functions deteriorated in the two groups of patients but more in the AD group. The T2DM group differed from healthy older controls but not from AD patients in the percentage of perseverations and the percentage of perseverative errors (WCST). ConclusionsThese findings revealed working memory (updating and maintenance) and executive control declines in the T2DM compared to healthy older controls but smaller than that suffered by the AD patients. The impairment of executive processing of T2DM patients despite the glycosylated hemoglobin control suggests that these patients are at risk of developing AD.

ATSSC: Development of an approach based on soft computing for text summarization

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the unique conversation between computers and human languages. It processes data through Lexical analysis, Syntax analysis, Semantic analysis, Discourse processing and Pragmatic analysis. An intelligent text summarization is one of the most challenging tasks in Natural language processing. It can be further used for applications like storytelling and question answering. This paper presents an automatic text summarizer for text documents using soft computing approach, consisting of SVO (Subject, Verb, and Object) Rules and Tag based training. This approach processes data through POS Tagger, NLP Parser, ambiguity removal, Semantic Representation, Sentence Reduction and Sentence Combination. At first, this paper defines the theme (title) of the document. After this operation, it preprocesses text document to perform pronominal reference resolution and text clustering. After these preprocessing operations, it identifies and removes ambiguity from the language using parser. And then, it calculates the score for the sentences using the title of the document, Semantic Sentence Similarity utility and n-gram Co-Occurrence relations of the words in a particular sentence. At last, sentences are combined with the SVO Rules after providing tag based training for simple and complex sentences. The summarizer was tested on the standard DUC 2007 dataset as well as a corpus of hundred text documents of different domains created by us. DUC 2007 Update Task produced accuracy F-scores of 0.13523 (ROUGE-2) and 0.112561 (ROUGE-SU4) for DUC 2007 documents and 0.4036 (ROUGE-2) and 0.3129 (ROUGE-SU4) for our corpus. Subjective evaluation was carried out by five language experts and twenty random individuals for system generated sample summaries.

Multi-Step Learning and Adaptive Search for Learning Complex Model Transformations from Examples

Model-driven engineering promotes models as main development artifacts. As several models may be manipulated during the software-development life cycle, model transformations ensure their consistency by automating model generation and update tasks. However, writing model transformations requires much knowledge and effort that detract from their benefits. To address this issue, Model Transformation by Example (MTBE) aims to learn transformation programs from source and target model pairs supplied as examples. In this article, we tackle the fundamental issues that prevent the existing MTBE approaches from efficiently solving the problem of learning model transformations. We show that, when considering complex transformations, the search space is too large to be explored by naive search techniques. We propose an MTBE process to learn complex model transformations by considering three common requirements: element context and state dependencies and complex value derivation. Our process relies on two strategies to reduce the size of the search space and to better explore it, namely, multi-step learning and adaptive search. We experimentally evaluate our approach on seven model transformation problems. The learned transformation programs are able to produce perfect target models in three transformation cases, whereas precision and recall values larger than 90% are recorded for the four remaining cases.

Guidelines for stem cell science and clinical translation.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research has released its updated guidelines for stem cell research in order to provide "assurance that stem cell research is conducted with scientific and ethical integrity and that new therapies are evidence-based." The guidelines were updated by a Guidelines Update Task Force consisting of twenty-five scientists, ethicists and experts in health care policy from nine countries. The chairpersons of this task force are Jonathan Kimmelman, George Daley and Insoo Hyun. There is no representative from India; the only person of Indian origin on it, Mahendra Rao, represents The New York Stem Cell Foundation.

To Switch or Not to Switch: Role of Cognitive Control in Working Memory Training in Older Adults.

It is currently not known what are the best working memory training strategies to offset the age-related declines in fluid cognitive abilities. In this randomized clinical double-blind trial, older adults were randomly assigned to one of two types of working memory training – one group was trained on a predictable memory updating task (PT) and another group was trained on a novel, unpredictable memory updating task (UT). Unpredictable memory updating, compared to predictable, requires greater demands on cognitive control (Basak and Verhaeghen, 2011a). Therefore, the current study allowed us to evaluate the role of cognitive control in working memory training. All participants were assessed on a set of near and far transfer tasks at three different testing sessions – before training, immediately after the training, and 1.5 months after completing the training. Additionally, individual learning rates for a comparison working memory task (performed by both groups) and the trained task were computed. Training on unpredictable memory updating, compared to predictable, significantly enhanced performance on a measure of episodic memory, immediately after the training. Moreover, individuals with faster learning rates showed greater gains in this episodic memory task and another new working memory task; this effect was specific to UT. We propose that the unpredictable memory updating training, compared to predictable memory updating training, may a better strategy to improve selective cognitive abilities in older adults, and future studies could further investigate the role of cognitive control in working memory training.

Online Mode Switch Algorithms for Maintaining Data Freshness in Dynamic Cyber-Physical Systems

Maintaining the freshness of real-time data is one of the crucial design issues in cyber-physical systems (CPS). Past studies have focused on designing update algorithms to minimize the workload imposed by a fixed set of update tasks while ensuring the temporal validity of data. In this paper, we revisit this problem in dynamic cyber-physical systems (DCPS) which may exhibit multi-modal behavior. Any solution to this problem must recognize that: (1) different update algorithms may be needed in different modes according to the workload in each mode, and (2) temporal validity of data must be maintained not only in each mode but also during the mode switch. To strike a balance between data freshness and system schedulability, we propose a utilization-based scheduling selection (UBSS) strategy. We first introduce two synchronous mode switch algorithms, named search-based switch (SBS) and adjustment-based switch (ABS) to search for the proper switch point online and execute all update tasks in the new mode synchronously. SBS checks for temporal validity at the beginning time slot of each idle period in the schedule, while ABS relaxes this restriction through schedule adjustment. To support immediate mode switch, we propose an asynchronous switch algorithm named instant switch (IS) to reduce the switch delay. IS schedules outstanding jobs from the old mode together with the jobs in the new mode using the least-available-laxity-first scheduling policy. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of these three algorithms. They also show that UBSS strategy can significantly outperform a single fixed update algorithm in terms of maintaining better data freshness while incurring only limited online switch overhead.

Supporting the Health and Wellness of Individuals With Psychiatric Disabilities

Purpose: Psychiatric rehabilitation is recognized as a field with specialized knowledge and skills required for practice. The certified psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner (CPRP) credential, an exam-based certification process, is based on a regularly updated job task analysis that, in its most recent iteration, identified the new core competency domain of “supporting health and wellness.” This article explains the relevance of this domain to the current practice of psychiatric rehabilitation.Methods: We present a multidimensional foundation model of wellness that describes the job tasks highlighted in the newest CPRP competency domain and examines implications for rehabilitation educators and practitioners who do not hold the CPRP credential but still provide rehabilitation services to individuals with psychiatric disabilities.Results: The health and wellness competencies identified for CPRPs may not translate directly into competencies needed by service providers in other roles; however, practices that involve experiencing personal goal setting and action plan implementation, especially around wellness goals, can be included across service domains.Conclusion: Attending to the health and wellness of people with psychiatric disabilities is imperative. Rehabilitation practitioners who embrace the multidimensional foundation model of wellness can effectively provide services that are holistic and promote recovery and achievement of rehabilitation goals.

Response mode-dependent differences in neurofunctional networks during response inhibition: an EEG-beamforming study.

Response inhibition processes are one of the most important executive control functions and have been subject to intense research in cognitive neuroscience. However, knowledge on the neurophysiology and functional neuroanatomy on response inhibition is biased because studies usually employ experimental paradigms (e.g., sustained attention to response task, SART) in which behavior is susceptible to impulsive errors. Here, we investigate whether there are differences in neurophysiological mechanisms and networks depending on the response mode that predominates behavior in a response inhibition task. We do so comparing a SART with a traditionally formatted task paradigm. We use EEG-beamforming in two tasks inducing opposite response modes during action selection. We focus on theta frequency modulations, since these are implicated in cognitive control processes. The results show that a response mode that is susceptible to impulsive errors (response mode used in the SART) is associated with stronger theta band activity in the left temporo-parietal junction. The results suggest that the response modes applied during response inhibition differ in the encoding of surprise signals, or related processes of attentional sampling. Response modes during response inhibition seem to differ in processes necessary to update task representations relevant to behavioral control.

Episcleral eye plaque dosimetry comparison for the Eye Physics EP917 using Plaque Simulator and Monte Carlo simulation.

This work is a comparative study of the dosimetry calculated by Plaque Simulator, a treatment planning system for eye plaque brachytherapy, to the dosimetry calculated using Monte Carlo simulation for an Eye Physics model EP917 eye plaque. Monte Carlo (MC) simulation using MCNPX 2.7 was used to calculate the central axis dose in water for an EP917 eye plaque fully loaded with 17 IsoAid Advantage 125I seeds. In addition, the dosimetry parameters Λ, gL(r), and F(r,θ) were calculated for the IsoAid Advantage model IAI‐125 125I seed and benchmarked against published data. Bebig Plaque Simulator (PS) v5.74 was used to calculate the central axis dose based on the AAPM Updated Task Group 43 (TG‐43U1) dose formalism. The calculated central axis dose from MC and PS was then compared. When the MC dosimetry parameters for the IsoAid Advantage 125I seed were compared with the consensus values, Λ agreed with the consensus value to within 2.3%. However, much larger differences were found between MC calculated gL(r) and F(r,θ) and the consensus values. The differences between MC‐calculated dosimetry parameters are much smaller when compared with recently published data. The differences between the calculated central axis absolute dose from MC and PS ranged from 5% to 10% for distances between 1 and 12 mm from the outer scleral surface. When the dosimetry parameters for the 125I seed from this study were used in PS, the calculated absolute central axis dose differences were reduced by 2.3% from depths of 4 to 12 mm from the outer scleral surface. We conclude that PS adequately models the central dose profile of this plaque using its defaults for the IsoAid model IAI‐125 at distances of 1 to 7 mm from the outer scleral surface. However, improved dose accuracy can be obtained by using updated dosimetry parameters for the IsoAid model IAI‐125 125I seed.PACS number: 87.55.K‐

Multiobjective based Event based Project Scheduling using Optimized Neural Network based ACO System

any software project management, developing third party software tools and scheduling tasks are challenging and important. Any software development projects are influenced by a large number of activities, which can greatly change the project plan. These activities may form groups of correlated tasks or event chains. Assessment planning is a crucial challenge in software engineering whose major goal is to schedule the persons to different tasks in such a way that the quality of the software product is optimal and the cost of the project should be minimum. In the traditional approach an event dependent scheduler ant colony optimization is applied on task scheduling.The ACO will develop an optimized plan, in the form of matrix, from all the iterations. And from that plan the EBS(Event Based Scheduler) will develop schedule based on events. ACO solves the problem of project scheduling, but it does not consider the updated task allocation matrix. The ACO is not a satisfactory model to solve the problem of project scheduling. The traditional ACO system also indicates the problem of allocating the identical activity for several numbers of employees in varying periods.In this proposed work, an improved ACO approach to optimal global search using a neural approach was introduced to schedule multiple tasks. An activity with specified number of tasks and relevant resources can be optimally scheduled using multi-objective approach. When an uncertain event occurs the remaining resources will be effectively calculated, also the remaining tasks to complete. And again a new schedule will be generated according to it. An enhanced Entropy method can be used to denote the level about how much threshold or information has been figured out into the pheromone trails and subsequently the heuristic parameter can be improved accordingly. Keywordsmanagement,scheduling,task partition.

Phase-change lines, scale breaks, and trend lines using Excel 2013.

The development of graphing skills for behavior analysts is an ongoing process. Specialized graphing software is often expensive, is not widely disseminated, and may require specific training. Dixon et al. (2009) provided an updated task analysis for graph making in the widely used platform Excel 2007. Vanselow and Bourret (2012) provided online tutorials that outline some alternate methods also using Office 2007. This article serves as an update to those task analyses and includes some alternative and underutilized methods in Excel 2013. To examine the utility of our recommendations, 12 psychology graduate students were presented with the task analyses, and the experimenters evaluated their performance and noted feedback. The task analyses were rated favorably.

Age differences in working memory updating: The role of interference, focus switching and substituting information

Working memory updating (WMU) tasks require different elements in working memory (WM) to be maintained simultaneously, accessing one of these elements, and substituting its content. This study examined possible developmental changes from childhood to adulthood both in focus switching and substituting information in WM. In addition, possible age-related changes in interference due to representational overlap between the different elements simultaneously held in these tasks were examined. Children (8- and 11-year-olds), adolescents (14-year-olds) and younger adults (mean age=22years) were administered a numerical updating memory task, in which updating and focus switching were manipulated. As expected, response times decreased and recall performance increased with age. More importantly, the time needed for focus switching was longer in children than in adolescents and younger adults. On the other hand, substitution of information and interference due to representational overlap were not affected by age. These results suggest that age-related changes in focus switching might mediate developmental changes in WMU performance.

Treating Atypical Femoral Fractures Related to Bisphosphonates.

Doctors widely prescribe osteoclast-inhibiting bisphosphonate drugs to treat osteoporosis, but long-term bisphosphonate use has been linked to an increased risk of atypical subtrochanteric femoral fractures. According to an updated task force report from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, the features that distinguish these atypical subtrochanteric fractures include transverse orientation, general lack of comminution, and localized cortical thickening at the fracture site. In addition, the prolonged healing times of these fractures challenge orthopaedists to obtain strong and stable fixation that outlasts the extended period required for fracture union. Intramedullary nailing is often used to treat these fractures, but related characteristics such as canal narrowing can make this fixation approach unfeasible. This month’s “Case Connections” looks at various techniques for repairing bisphosphonate-associated atypical femoral fractures. In the January 14, 2015, JBJS Case Connecto r , Yuasa et al. reported on the case of a sixty-nine-year-old woman who, one month prior to scheduled right hip arthroplasty to treat osteoarthritis, presented with severe right thigh pain after a low-trauma fall. History-taking revealed four-plus years of treatment with alendronate (Fosamax), and radiographs showed a noncomminuted transverse subtrochanteric fracture below an arthritic hip joint. During a single operation, the patient underwent cementless total hip arthroplasty using a modular stem/neck, followed by fracture reduction and fixation using a cable-and-plate system (Fig. 1). The patient was switched from alendronate to a …

Losing the rose tinted glasses: neural substrates of unbiased belief updating in depression.

Recent evidence suggests that a state of good mental health is associated with biased processing of information that supports a positively skewed view of the future. Depression, on the other hand, is associated with unbiased processing of such information. Here, we use brain imaging in conjunction with a belief update task administered to clinically depressed patients and healthy controls to characterize brain activity that supports unbiased belief updating in clinically depressed individuals. Our results reveal that unbiased belief updating in depression is mediated by strong neural coding of estimation errors in response to both good news (in left inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral superior frontal gyrus) and bad news (in right inferior parietal lobule and right inferior frontal gyrus) regarding the future. In contrast, intact mental health was linked to a relatively attenuated neural coding of bad news about the future. These findings identify a neural substrate mediating the breakdown of biased updating in major depression disorder, which may be essential for mental health.

Tactical Replanning Algorithms for Four-Dimensional Contracts in Air Traffic Control

Continuously growing air traffic density, mainly over Europe and the U.S., introduces a need for new concepts in air traffic control. One of such new concepts involves air traffic management using four-dimensional contracts. According to this approach, all the air traffic is preplanned and optimized in advance in four dimensions: three-dimensional location and time. Before takeoff, each aircraft is given a flyable conflict-free four-dimensional flight plan, called a four-dimensional contract. The aircraft is committed to comply with its contract during the entire flight. Whenever an aircraft cannot respect its prescribed four-dimensional contract, a new one should be recomputed for it. New contract computation is performed when the aircraft are airborne and, therefore, should be completed in a matter of minutes. The paper introduces an algorithm for replanning of four-dimensional contracts within the mentioned time limitation. The update task is treated as an optimization problem minimizing the influence of the contract change on the surrounding traffic. To increase the efficiency of the algorithm, only the neighboring traffic is considered during the replanning process. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the capabilities and performance of the proposed algorithm.

The Effect of Value Sequence on Value-directed Metamemory

Value-directed metamemory allows individuals to choose more important information to encode, preserve and retrieve in order to allocate their attention resources reasonably and maximize their effective memory performance when they are exposed to some information with different value. Previous research has mainly focused on the differences in value-directed metamomery between young and old people, as well as the impairment of value-directed metamemory in Alzheimer's disease and Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.However, there is little research concerning the factors affecting the level of value-directed metamomery.Value-directed metamemory improves memory efficacy by emphasizing high-value information. Therefore, it is of great importance to explore the factors promoting the Value-directed metamemory, such as the influence of value sequence on Value-directed metamemory. Value sequence refers to the Spatial or temporal sequence of value and words.In the present study, two experiments using a selectivity task were conducted to investigate the effect of value sequence on Value-directed metamemory, namely whether there was a value-sequence effect: one was to measure the memory capacity(mean number of words recalled), the other the memory efficiency/selectivity(the recall of high-value items relative to low-value items is the selectivity index, or SI). Subjects were told that they would be presented with six different lists of words, and that each list contained 12 words. They were informed that each word was paired with a number, and that this number indicated how much the word was "worth." They were told that the values ranged from 1 to 12. Their tasks were to study and recall high-value words as many as possible in order to maximize their score in the experiment. Two experiments were conducted with 2(value sequence: value-item/item-value) × 3(value category: high-value/medium-value/low-value) within-subject factorial design. Experiment 1 explored that whether there was a value-sequence effect on SI in spatial sequence of words and value, and the results showed that the main effect of value sequence was not significant on SI.Experiment 2 explored that whether there was a value-sequence effect on SI in temporal sequence of words and value, and the results showed that value-word sequence produced a better value-directed metamemory, compared with word-value sequence when item and value were presented sequentially, and the diffidence reached a distinct level.The results of 2 experiments are as follows: 1) there is no value-sequence effect when value and words are presented spatially; 2) there is a value-sequence effect when value and words are presented temporally. To be specific, the priority of value improves the level of value-directed metamemory, and also the subjects could make use of the task experience to encode, retrieve and utilize high-value words more efficiently. By contrast,the subjects' value-directed metamemory is relatively stable on the "words-value" condition, and they are not sensitive to updated task experience. In conclusion, our results reveal that there is an effect of value sequence on value-directed metamemory. The present findings do not only demonstrate how to promote people's metamemory during the learning process, but also extend the research method of value-directed metamemory.

Executive process training in young and old adults

ABSTRACTThere is a growing body of research on the modifiability of executive functions in different stages of life. Previous studies demonstrate robust training effects but limited transfer in younger and particularly in older adults. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a theoretically derived intervention for executive functioning, addressing several basic processes (updating, shifting, and inhibition), can induce transfer effects in early and late adulthood. Fifty-nine healthy adults, 29 young and 30 older adults, were randomly assigned to either training or no-contact control groups. The training groups received 15 sessions of executive process training for about 45 min/session during 5 weeks. A test battery including a criterion task and near, intermediate, and far transfer tasks was administered before and after training. Results showed pronounced age-equivalent gains on the criterion task. Near transfer was seen to non-trained updating and inhibition tasks for the young and older trained participants. However, only the young adults showed intermediate transfer to two complex working memory tasks. No far transfer effects were seen for either age group. These findings provide additional evidence for age-related constraints in the ability to generalize acquired executive skills, and specifically show that training of multiple executive processes is not sufficient to foster transfer beyond the very near in older adults.