It is still controversial whether mental practice – the internal rehearsal of movements to improve later performance – relies on processes engaged during physical motor performance and, if so, which processes these are. This series of experiments investigates this question. It utilizes a framework of ideomotor action planning theories, and tests whether mental practice may specifically draw upon planning- rather than execution-related motor processes, specifically those processes that “bind” intended action features to action plans. Experiments 1 to 4 utilize a classical stimulus response compatibility paradigm. Participants mentally practiced complex rhythms with either feet or hands while using the same or different body parts to respond to unrelated sounds. In contrast to previous work on stimulus response compatibility, we indeed found that responses were impaired – rather than facilitated – for those body parts that were concurrently used in mental practice. This result was found when participants mentally trained to memorize the rhythms (Experiment 1), to merely improve their performance (Experiment 3), when mental practice and execution directly followed one another and when separated by a different task (Experiment 4). These data link mental practice not to execution but planning related motor processes that are involved in binding intended action features to intended action plans. Experiment 5 and 6 then extend these results to imitation learning. Participants were instructed to learn the rhythms by observing somebody else, while again making unrelated responses with their hand and feet. While previous work on stimulus response compatibility focussed on testing automatic imitation processes, here imitation was therefore goal directed. We found, as in the previous experiments, that responses with the same body parts as used in the observed rhythms were impaired, suggesting that goal-directed imitation might rely on the same planning-related motor processes as the mental practice of action (Experiment 5). Importantly, these effects were only found as long as participants observed the actions with VI the purpose of imitating them later (i.e. formed action plans), but not when they merely tried to memorize the rhythms for later recognition (Experiment 6). The previous experiments suggest that mental practice and observation learning draw upon body-part specific planning processes. Ideomotor theories suggest, however, that action plans can be relatively abstract, and represented in terms of higher-level goals (i.e. the sequence of left and right button presses independent of the body part used). Experiment 7 and 8 therefore tested whether rhythms learned through mental practice or observation learning could be transferred to other body parts. As expected, we found a relatively high amount of potential transfer when rhythms were mentally practiced with one body part, and then had to be transferred to another body part (Experiment 7). However, this only held when participants learned the rhythms based on an abstract rhythm description, as in Experiments 1 to 4. If participants learned the same rhythms during action observation, any benefits were only obtained when the rhythms later had to be executed with the same (rather than a different) body part. Together, the present data suggest that mental practice does not rely on execution related-motor processes, and points to an involvement of planning related motor processes instead. We argue that such a planning-based account of mental practice is more compatible with the available evidence from body neuroscientific and behavioral studies, and allows one to resolve several debates. Moreover, it allows one to conceptualize goal-directed imitation in a similar manner as mental practice.

Darbe yra nagrinėjama tarpląstelinių plyšinių jungčių modeliavimo sistema (GJM – Gap Juncion Model, sukurta N. Paulausko - Kauno technologijos universiteto, informatikos fakulteto magistrantas). Pagrindinis tyrimo objektas yra optimizavimo uždavinys. Viename iš sistemos modulių, pasinaudojant globalaus optimizavimo metodais, yra ieškoma modelio parametrų, su kuriais modelio ir realių eksperimentų (gautų iš sistemos užsakovų Niujorko, Yeshiva universiteto, Alberto Einšteino medicinos koledžo laboratorijos (prof. Felikso Bukausko)) rezultatai skirtųsi minimaliai arba sutaptų. Šiuo atveju yra modeliuojama tarpląstelinių plyšinių jungčių laidumo priklausomybė nuo įtampos t.y imituojami elektro-fiziologiniai procesai. Optimizuojant modelio parametrų paiešką, darbe buvo surinkti rezultatai (atliko Nerijus Lukšys), modeliuojant su skirtingu skaičiumi iteracijų bei parenkant skirtingus optimizavimo metodus, realizuotus kitoje sistemoje. Buvo konsultuojamasi su akademiku habil. dr. prof. Jonu Mockumi. Iš gautų rezultatų įvertinamos metodų silpnosios ir stipriosios pusės bei jų pritaikymas Grid sistemai. Darbo tikslas, remiantis analizės rezultatais, realizuoti modelio parametrų paiešką Grid sistemoje (atliko Algirdas Žukauskas), panaudojant kelis optimizavimo metodus bei palyginti gautus rezultatus. / In this research we analyze optimization of cells gap junctions simulation model (GJM – Gap Junction Model, designed by N. Paulauskas – Kaunas University of Technology student). The main object of study is the optimization problem. In one module of the system, using global optimization methods, is looking for the model parameters to which the model and real experiments (obtained from the New York, Yeshiva University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine Laboratory (prof. Felikso Bukausko)) results differ minimally or overlap. In this case, we are simulating cells gap junction voltage dependence of conductivity (simulating electro-physiological processes). Optimizing the model parameters of the search were collected at the results of simulation with different number of iterations (solved by Nerijus Lukšys), and the choice of different optimization methods, realized in another system. There was consulting with academic habil. dr. prof. Jonas Mockus. The results showed methods weak and strong points and their application in Grid systems. The purpose of this problem was to implement gap junction simulation model on the Grid system (solved by Algirdas Žukauskas). Use several optimization methods and compare the results.

This thesis explores social learning in mother-reared and “enculturated” capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). At the outset a framework for understanding the social influence on learning is discussed, followed by a review of the social and cognitive abilities of capuchin monkeys, establishing the rationale for studying social learning in this species. Studies of wild capuchins suggest an important role for social learning but experiments with captive subjects have generally failed to support this. Some potential reasons for the lack of evidence in experimental settings are given. An example of using the two - method design to test social learning in acquiring behaviour by enculturated subjects is addressed. The results are related to findings with other species tested with a similar apparatus. Before testing mother-reared monkeys, an observational study of the object manipulation and tool-use repertoire of the subjects was carried out in order to facilitate the design of suitable social learning tasks for these monkeys. The first empirical study in Chapter 6 reports results of experiments with the enculturated and mother-reared capuchin monkeys employing the two -action method together with a third control group. The enculturated monkeys exhibited high fidelity copying that included the specific tool use technique witnessed while opening the foraging box. Mother-reared monkeys exhibited fidelity at a lower level, tending only to re-create the results the model had achieved. The second empirical study in Chapter 7 tested whether capuchin monkeys could show cumulative cultural learning manifested in the ability to switch from an established mode of manipulating a dipping box to a complex yet more advantageous one. Both populations were able to do so. The enculturated monkeys, as in the previous study, showed higher fidelity copying of the model. The last experiment was a preliminary study employing the “do as I do” method which was carried out with four of the enculturated monkeys. It provides suggestive evidence for at least one monkey's understanding of the task. The results of the studies are discussed in relation to previous experimental research as well as to data from capuchin monkeys in nature. The possible role of enculturation in social learning ability is considered.

Previous studies have suggested that short-term and long-term memory processes in- dependently affect performance in the sentence-imitation task. The multi-component working memory model by Baddeley and Hitch offers a suitable theoretical description of how these processes contribute to this performance. In order to examine the influence of language knowledge located in the long-term me- mory on performance in the sentence-imitation task while statistically controlling for the influence of short-term memory, we assigned to our participants different tasks testing their language knowledge, phonological short-term memory (phonological loop), com- plex short-term memory (central executive) and the sentence-repetition task. Results from hierarchical linear regression yield significant contribution of the tasks testing language knowledge to explaining the variance in the sentence-imitation task, while controlling for the contributions from the phonological and complex short-term memory tasks. These results are in accordance with previous research and the theory of multi-component working memory. Keywords: working memory, episodic buffer, sentence imitation

The diploma thesis is focused on medial models of the minority group's equal perception development by preschool aged children. The theoretical part discourses in the wider context of the socialisation process about aspects important in this relation. It turns to the topics of social learning, attitudes towards minorities, attitudes' formation, mass communication and its impact on preschool children. The empiric part focuses on analysis of the chosen both electronic and printed medial production assigned to Czech preschool children, including comparison between Czech and foreign production. Within the analysis the either presence or absence of such medial models is investigated, which might have an influence on Czech children's attitude forming towards minority groups. Consequently it is evaluated whether between identified models such models exist, which could have a potential for actuating recipient in the sense of equal perception development towards minority groups.

The importance of rhythm for speech communication was recognised by ancient orators. Since the forties of the last century, this phenomenon has become more systematic subject of interest of Speech Sciences and there has been a rapid development in this research area in the last decade. Throughout the years concerned, however, this concept was somewhat hazy due to the context, in which it was used in some studies. This master thesis begins with a selective overview of approaches to given issue in the field of phonetic research, trying to identify their critical moments, noticing used methodology and applicability of outputs in particular. Special attention is paid to the rhythmic aspects of Czech and issues of their description. We also bring a message of selected studies, which have already been made in this respect. The aim of this work lies in the experimental study focused on assessment of philologically oriented students' ability to imitate speech rhythm according to given pattern in following modes - word by word, on the monotone syllable and by tapping. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the imitation accuracy depends on the type of repetition - the overall data show significant differences in terms of the lowest, higher and the highest deviations from the model, respectively. To a...

A poesia de João Rodriguez de Sá de Meneses e João Rodriguez de Lucena preservadas no Cancioneiro Geral de Garcia de Resende colocou em evidência a presença da cultura clássica tão constante no imaginário quinhentista português. Esses poetas fizeram traduções de algumas das famosas epístolas de heroínas míticas como Penélope, Enone, Laudâmia e Dido , aos seus amados ausentes. Esse conjunto de cartas é conhecido como Heroides, do poeta romano Ovídio, poeta elegíaco que foi responsável, entre outras coisas, por ter servido de modelo para muito do que se produziu depois na Idade Média e Renascimento. A Imitação e a Tradução eram mecanismos frequentes naquela época e foram usadas com maestria nas traduções desses poetas do Cancioneiro. O porquê da escolha de determinadas cartas e não de todas também é relevante, já que se tratava do momento das navegações e, portanto, necessitava-se acalmar o coração das damas que permaneceram em terras lusitanas à espera de seus amados ausentes. E ainda, propor a elas um modelo de comportamento. / The poetry of João Rodriguez de Sá de Meneses and João Rodriguez de Lucena preserved in Garcia de Resendes Cancioneiro Geral puts in evidence the presence of the classical culture so constant at the cinquecentist Portuguese imaginary. These poets translated some of the famous epistles of mythical heroines - like Penelope, Oenone, Dido and Laodomia -, to their loved missing ones. This set of epistles are known as Heroides, from Ovid, the elegiac Roman poet who was responsible, among other things, to have served as a model for much of what was produced after in the Middle Age and Renaissance. Imitation and Translation were recurrent mechanisms at that time and were employed with propriety at the translations of those poets of the Cancioneiro. The reason why those determinate epistles were chosen and not all of them is also relevant, because it was the moment of navigation so, therefore, was necessary pacify the hearts of the ladies that stayed in Portuguese lands waiting for their lovers. And still, propose a model of conduct to those ladies.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T11:21:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AMELIA CARDOSO DE ALMEIDA.pdf: 1114741 bytes, checksum: 827432337aaa9ee0fbfa21870597c895 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-02-20 / This work aims investigate some trainers elements of a peculiar identity project of the Spanish-American, present in the Cuban José Julián Martí y Perez (1853-1895), great intellectual and also political leader of the nineteenth century, to identify echoes present in Martí concepts that dialogue with the area of post-colonial studies. The assumptions of Martí identity project were linked mainly in their quest for political independence of Cuba, his homeland, and also for cultural emancipation of which he called Nuestra America , to the detriment of imported cultural practices in Europe or the United States . Martí such assumptions are also present in the reviews made by postcolonial theorysts, especially with the cultural imitation of Latin American post- colonialism, but mostly post- colonial theory of Indian mother, especially the concepts developed by the Indian theorist Homi K. Bhabha. / Esta dissertação objetiva investigar alguns elementos formadores de um projeto de identidade peculiar à América hispânica presentes na obra do cubano José Julián Martí y Pérez (1853- 1895), intelectual e líder político do século XIX, para identificar ecos ou cotejamentos de seus ideais que dialogam com a área dos Estudos Pós-Coloniais. Os pressupostos do projeto identitário martiano se pautaram principalmente pela independência política de Cuba, sua pátria, e pela emancipação cultural da por ele denominada Nuestra América , em detrimento de práticas culturais importadas da Europa ou dos Estados Unidos. Tais pressupostos também estão presentes nas críticas feitas pelos teóricos pós-coloniais, principalmente a imitação cultural, tanto na vertente do pós-colonialismo latino-americano, mas, principalmente, na matriz indiana, nos conceitos desenvolvidos pelo teórico indiano Homí. K. Bhabha.

In order to enable more widespread application of robots, we are required to reduce the human effort for the introduction of existing robotic platforms to new environments and tasks. In this thesis, we identify three complementary strategies to address this challenge, via the use of imitation learning, domain adaptation, and transfer learning based on simulations. The overall work strives to reduce the effort of generating training data by employing inexpensively obtainable labels and by transferring information between different domains with deviating underlying properties. Imitation learning enables a straightforward way for untrained personnel to teach robots to perform tasks by providing demonstrations, which represent a comparably inexpensive source of supervision. We develop a scalable approach to identify the preferences underlying demonstration data via the framework of inverse reinforcement learning. The method enables integration of the extracted preferences as cost maps into existing motion planning systems. We further incorporate prior domain knowledge and demonstrate that the approach outperforms the baselines including manually crafted cost functions. In addition to employing low-cost labels from demonstration, we investigate the adaptation of models to domains without available supervisory information. Specifically, the challenge of appearance changes in outdoor robotics such as illumination and weather shifts is addressed using an adversarial domain adaptation approach. A principal advantage of the method over prior work is the straightforwardness of adapting arbitrary, state-of-the-art neural network architectures. Finally, we demonstrate performance benefits of the method for semantic segmentation of drivable terrain. Our last contribution focuses on simulation to real world transfer learning, where the characteristic differences are not only regarding the visual appearance but the underlying system dynamics. Our work aims at parallel training in both systems and mutual guidance via auxiliary alignment rewards to accelerate training for real world systems. The approach is shown to outperform various baselines as well as a unilateral alignment variant.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-05-15T12:59:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 NayaMenezesAdm.pdf: 620899 bytes, checksum: e0a8b381383b5379d63b628f7aec0bda (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-15T12:59:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NayaMenezesAdm.pdf: 620899 bytes, checksum: e0a8b381383b5379d63b628f7aec0bda (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Nenhuma / Este estudo objetiva em analisar: Como Adquirir e Criar o Conhecimento para o Processo de Produção de Fármacos Similares que perderam patente. Tem como intuito, de contribuir sobre a discussão da relação entre imitação e inovação no processo de produção. Medicamentos sem patente têm competido com base em preços, ao invés de inovação. Considerando que a competição não é baseada em inovações, recursos e conhecimento são necessários para melhorar o processo de produção destes medicamentos, como um caminho para obter um equilíbrio entre preço e qualidade. Este estudo investiga habilidades estratégicas específicas e diferentes conhecimentos que tem sido usado em casos particulares. Informações empíricas foram levantadas em laboratórios situados no Distrito Agroindustrial de Anápolis (DAIA, Brasil), que é o grupo principal de indústrias dedicadas à produção de medicamentos que estão fora da lei de patentes da América Latina. Os dados foram coletados após várias entrevistas, análises de documentos e observação direta. As evidências mostram que os conhecimentos científicos e tecnológicos têm melhorado a produção de tais medicamentos. Esse melhoramento depende de recursos internos dos laboratórios, assim como, fontes externas de Institutos de Pesquisas e Universidades. Finalmente, o estudo sugere que todo o processo necessário para imitar as fórmulas de medicamentos que ganharam domínio público, contribui para construir capabilities relacionadas à inovação. / This study intends to analyse how to acquire and create knowledge to improve the production process of medicines which are out of patent protection rules. It intends to contribute to the discussion about relations between imitation and innovation in industrial production. Medicines which are out of patent rules have been competing on a basis of price rather than on innovation. However, considering that even if competition is not based on innovation, knowledge resources are needed to improve the production processes of these medicines as a way to achieve an optimal balance between price and quality. This study investigates the specific strategic skills and kinds of knowledge that have been used in this particular case. Empirical data was obtained from labs situated at Anapolis District (DAIA, Brasil), which is the main cluster of industries dedicated to the production of medicines that are out of patent rules in Latin America. Data was collected through interviews, documents analysis and direct observation. The evidences show that scientific and technological knowledge have been improved on the production of these medicines. This improvement depends on internal resources of the lab as well on the interaction with external sources as research institutes and Universities. Finally, the study suggests that all the processes required to imitate dominated formulas of medicines which are out of patent rules contribute to build capabilities related to innovation.