DigitalMobilEuropan Campus Rottal-InnBeitrag (Sammelband oder Tagungsband)
V. Dürr, P. Arena, H. Cruse, Ch.J. Dallmann, A. Drimus, T. Hoinville, T. Krause, Stefan Mátéfi-Tempfli, J. Paskarbeit, L. Patane, M. Schilling, J. Schmitz, R. Strauss, A. Vitanza, A. Schneider
Integrative Biomimetics of Autonomous Hexapedal Locomotion
Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) [November 3-8, 2019; Macau, China]
2019
Abstract anzeigen
Despite substantial advances in many different fields of neurorobotics in general, and biomimetic robots in particular, a key challenge is the integration of concepts: to collate and combine research on disparate and conceptually disjunct research areas in the neurosciences and engineering sciences. We claim that the development of suitable robotic integration platforms is of particular relevance to make such integration of concepts work in practice. Here, we provide an example for a hexapod robotic integration platform for autonomous locomotion. In a sequence of six focus sections dealing with aspects of intelligent, embodied motor control in insects and multipedal robots—ranging from compliant actuation, distributed proprioception and control of multiple legs, the formation of internal representations to the use of an internal body model—we introduce the walking robot HECTOR as a research platform for integrative biomimetics of hexapedal locomotion. Owing to its 18 highly sensorized, compliant actuators, light-weight exoskeleton, distributed and expandable hardware architecture, and an appropriate dynamic simulation framework, HECTOR offers many opportunities to integrate research effort across biomimetics research on actuation, sensory-motor feedback, inter-leg coordination, and cognitive abilities such as motion planning and learning of its own body size.
GesundAngewandte GesundheitswissenschaftenEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
N. Moller, Irmgard Tischner
Young people’s perceptions of fat counsellors: “How can THAT help me?”
Qualitative Research in Psychology, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 34-53
2019
DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2018.153638
Abstract anzeigen
Being fat is widely recognised as a stigmatised identity which disproportionately impacts women, both personally and professionally. Women are numerically dominant as therapy practitioners, and we use this group to explore the ways a “fat counsellor” is imagined in the context of counselling. A qualitative story completion task, about a woman starting therapy, was presented to 203 British young people ages 15–24. Participants were 75% female, 88% white, 93% heterosexual, and 98% able-bodied. The story stem did not specify the sex of the counsellor, who was identified as fat; the vast majority of stories assumed the counsellor was female. Overall, fatness was perceived as negatively affecting therapy and the counsellor’s professional credibility because fatness was equated with a lack of psychological health, which rendered fat counsellors professionally “unfit.” This finding extends the literature on “weight bias” in professional settings and has implications for counsellors of all body sizes.
GesundAngewandte GesundheitswissenschaftenEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
Irmgard Tischner
Tomorrow is the start of the rest of their life – so who cares about health? Exploring constructions of weight-loss motivations and health using story completion
Qualitative Research in Psychology, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 54-73
2019
DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2018.1536385
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In Western societies, health is closely associated with body weight and weight loss, achieved through individual health behaviour. I examined such associations in constructions of weight-loss motivations and health in stories generated using the novel method of story completion. The story stem featured either a female or male protagonist deciding to lose weight; 148 women and 22 men (ages 18–24) provided stories in response. A social constructionist thematic analysis identified five themes: health as clothing size and means to an end; weight-loss activity as good for every woman; tomorrow is going to be the start of the rest of their life; tell me when I’m okay — it’s not about wellbeing; and weight loss as signifier of the “true self.” Considering the adverse social and psychological consequences reflected in the stories and the longstanding elusiveness of successful weight-loss methods, I support calls to review the dominant weight-focused approach to public health.
NachhaltigAngewandte Naturwissenschaften und WirtschaftsingenieurwesenEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
F. Gabrielli, W. Maschek, Rui Li, C. Matzerath Boccaccini, M. Flad, S. Gianfelici, B. Vezzoni, A. Rineiski
Probabilistic evaluation of the energetics upper bound during the transition phase of an unprotected loss of flow accident for a sodium cooled fast reactor by using a Phenomenological Relationship Diagram
Nuclear Engineering and Design, vol. 341, no. 146-154
2019
DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2018.11.004
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One of the main research goals of the GEN-IV systems is enhancing their safety compared with the former Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) designs. A key issue is the capability of accidents prevention as well as of demonstrating that their consequences do not violate the safety criteria. In order to fulfill such requirements, risk analyses of severe core disruptive accidents are performed. Since the beginning of the SFR development, Hypothetical Core Disruptive Accidents (HCDAs) have played an outstanding role. Numerous safety analyses have been performed for developing and licensing past SFR designs and nowadays a large database of results is available. In particular, a large amount of results of the mechanistic SIMMER-II and SIMMER-III/IV analyses for various core designs and different power classes is available at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). The current paper describes the probabilistic approach based on the Phenomenological Relationship Diagram (PRD), which is used to evaluate the Probability Distribution Function (PDF) of the thermal energy release during the transition phase of an unprotected loss of flow accident scenario for a SFR. The technique allows taking into account the mechanistic nature of the accident scenario. In fact, the available results of the mechanistic analyses of HCDAs in SFRs are used to assess the PDFs of the dominant phenomena affecting the thermal energy release, which are propagated in the PRD by employing a Monte Carlo method.
GesundEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
E. Faiola, I. Meyhöfer, M. Steffens, Anna-Maria Kasparbauer, V. Kumari, U. Ettinger
Combining Trait and State Model Systems of Psychosis: The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Cognitive Functions in Schizotypal Individuals
Psychiatry Research, vol. 270, no. December, pp. 639-648
2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.10.033
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Model systems of psychosis play an important role in pathophysiology and drug development research. Schizotypal individuals display similar cognitive impairments as schizophrenia patients in several domains. Therefore, schizotypy may be interpreted as a trait model system of psychosis. In addition, experimentally controlled sleep deprivation is a putative state psychosis model that evokes subclinical psychosis-like states. We aimed to further validate these model systems by examining them in relation to central cognitive biomarkers of schizophrenia. Most of all, we were interested in investigating, for the first time, effects of their combination on cognitive function. Healthy subjects with high (N = 17) or low (N = 19) levels of schizotypy performed a cognitive task battery after one night of normal sleep and after 24 h of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation impaired performance in the go/nogo and n-back tasks relative to the normal sleep control condition. No differences between groups or interactions of group with sleep condition were found. The role of sleep deprivation as a model of psychosis is thus supported to some extent by impairments in inhibitory control. However, classical measures of cognition may be less able to detect deficits in schizotypy, in line with evidence of more basic information processing dysfunctions in schizotypy.
GesundEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
M. Steffens, C. Neumann, Anna-Maria Kasparbauer, B. Becker, B. Weber, M. Mehta, R. Hurlemann, U. Ettinger
Effects of ketamine on brain function during response inhibition
Psychopharmacology, vol. 235, pp. 3559-3571
2018
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-018-5081-7
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Introduction
The uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor (NMDAR) antagonist ketamine has been proposed to model symptoms of psychosis. Inhibitory deficits in the schizophrenia spectrum have been reliably reported using the antisaccade task. Interestingly, although similar antisaccade deficits have been reported following ketamine in non-human primates, ketamine-induced deficits have not been observed in healthy human volunteers.
Methods
To investigate the effects of ketamine on brain function during an antisaccade task, we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects study on n = 15 healthy males. We measured the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response and eye movements during a mixed antisaccade/prosaccade task while participants received a subanesthetic dose of intravenous ketamine (target plasma level 100 ng/ml) on one occasion and placebo on the other occasion.
Results
While ketamine significantly increased self-ratings of psychosis-like experiences, it did not induce antisaccade or prosaccade performance deficits. At the level of BOLD, we observed an interaction between treatment and task condition in somatosensory cortex, suggesting recruitment of additional neural resources in the antisaccade condition under NMDAR blockage.
Discussion
Given the robust evidence of antisaccade deficits in schizophrenia spectrum populations, the current findings suggest that ketamine may not mimic all features of psychosis at the dose used in this study. Our findings underline the importance of a more detailed research to further understand and define effects of NMDAR hypofunction on human brain function and behavior, with a view to applying ketamine administration as a model system of psychosis. Future studies with varying doses will be of importance in this context.
GesundEuropan Campus Rottal-InnZeitschriftenartikel
A. Kupferberg, M. Iacoboni, V. Flanagin, M. Huber, Anna-Maria Kasparbauer, T. Baumgartner, G. Hasler, F. Schmidt, C. Borst, S. Glasauer
Fronto-parietal Coding of Goal-Directed Actions Performed by Artificial Agents
Human Brain Mapping, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 1145-1162
2018
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23905
Abstract anzeigen
With advances in technology, artificial agents such as humanoid robots will soon become a part of our daily lives. For safe and intuitive collaboration, it is important to understand the goals behind their motor actions. In humans, this process is mediated by changes in activity in fronto-parietal brain areas. The extent to which these areas are activated when observing artificial agents indicates the naturalness and easiness of interaction. Previous studies indicated that fronto-parietal activity does not depend on whether the agent is human or artificial. However, it is unknown whether this activity is modulated by observing grasping (self-related action) and pointing actions (other-related action) performed by an artificial agent depending on the action goal. Therefore, we designed an experiment in which subjects observed human and artificial agents perform pointing and grasping actions aimed at two different object categories suggesting different goals. We found a signal increase in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and the premotor cortex when tool versus food items were pointed to or grasped by both agents, probably reflecting the association of hand actions with the functional use of tools. Our results show that goal attribution engages the fronto-parietal network not only for observing a human but also a robotic agent for both self-related and social actions. The debriefing after the experiment has shown that actions of human-like artificial agents can be perceived as being goal-directed. Therefore, humans will be able to interact with service robots intuitively in various domains such as education, healthcare, public service, and entertainment.
MobilEuropan Campus Rottal-InnBeitrag (Sammelband oder Tagungsband)
Katerina Volchek, H. Song, R. Law, D. Buhalis
Forecasting London Museum Visitors Using Google Trends Data
Proceedings of the ENTER2018 eTourism Conference
2018
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Information search is an indicator of tourist interest in a specificservice and potential purchase decision. User online search patterns are a well-known toolfor forecasting pre-trip consumerbehaviour, such as hotel demand and international tourist arrivals. However, the potential of search engine data for estimating thedemand for tourist attractions, which is created both before and during a trip, remains underexplored. This research note investigates the relationships between Google search queries for the most popular London museums and actual visits to theseattractions. Preliminary findings indicatehigh correlation between monthly series data. Search query data isexpected togenerate reliable forecasts ofvisits toLondon museums.
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