Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia de controle de posição das juntas passivas de um manipulador subatuado de uma maneira subótima. O termo subatuado se refere ao fato de que nem todas as juntas ou graus de liberdade do sistema serem equipados com atuadores, o que ocorre na prática devido a falhas ou como resultado de projeto. As juntas passivas de manipuladores desse tipo são indiretamente controladas pelo movimento das juntas ativas usando as características de acoplamento da dinâmica de manipuladores. A utilização de redundância de atuação das juntas ativas permite a minimização de alguns critérios, como consumo de energia, por exemplo. Apesar da estrutura cinemática de manipuladores subatuados ser idêntica a do totalmente atuado, em geral suas características dinâmicas diferem devido a presença de juntas passivas. Assim, apresentamos a modelagem dinâmica de um manipulador subatuado e o conceito de índice de acoplamento. Este índice é utilizado na seqüência de controle ótimo do manipulador. A hipótese de que o número de juntas ativas seja maior que o número de passivas permite o controle ótimo das juntas passivas, uma vez que na etapa de controle destas há mais entradas (torques nos atuadores das juntas ativas), que elementos a controlar (posição das juntas passivas). Neste ponto reside a contribuição desta tese ao estado da arte, uma vez que não há até o momento publicação que proponha o controle ótimo das juntas passivas neste caso. / This work presents a control methodologie for the position of the passive joints of an underactuated manipulator in a suboptimal way. The term underactuated refers to the fact that not all the joints or degrees of freedom of the system are equipped with actuators, which occurs in practice due to failures or as design result. The passive joints of manipulators like this are indirectly controlled by the motion of the active joints using the dynamic coupling characteristics. The utilization of actuation redundancy of the active joints allows the minimization of some criteria, like energy consumption, for example. Although the kinematic structure of an underactuated manipulator is identical to that of a similar fully actuated one, in general their dynamic characteristics are different due to the presence of passive joints. Thus, we present the dynamic modelling of an underactuated manipulator and the concept of coulpling index. This index is used in the sequence of the optimal conirol of the manipulator. The hipotheses that the number of active joints is greatter than the number of passives (na>np) allows the optimal control of the passive joints, since there are more inputs (torques at the actuators of the active joints), than elements to be controlled (position of the passive joints). At this point resides the contribution of this dissertation to the state of the art, once there is no publication that proposes the optimal control of the passive joints in this case.

Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia de controle de posição das juntas passivas de um manipulador subatuado de uma maneira subótima. O termo subatuado se refere ao fato de que nem todas as juntas ou graus de liberdade do sistema serem equipados com atuadores, o que ocorre na prática devido a falhas ou como resultado de projeto. As juntas passivas de manipuladores desse tipo são indiretamente controladas pelo movimento das juntas ativas usando as características de acoplamento da dinâmica de manipuladores. A utilização de redundância de atuação das juntas ativas permite a minimização de alguns critérios, como consumo de energia, por exemplo. Apesar da estrutura cinemática de manipuladores subatuados ser idêntica a do totalmente atuado, em geral suas características dinâmicas diferem devido a presença de juntas passivas. Assim, apresentamos a modelagem dinâmica de um manipulador subatuado e o conceito de índice de acoplamento. Este índice é utilizado na seqüência de controle ótimo do manipulador. A hipótese de que o número de juntas ativas seja maior que o número de passivas permite o controle ótimo das juntas passivas, uma vez que na etapa de controle destas há mais entradas (torques nos atuadores das juntas ativas), que elementos a controlar (posição das juntas passivas). Neste ponto reside a contribuição desta tese ao estado da arte, uma vez que não há até o momento publicação que proponha o controle ótimo das juntas passivas neste caso. / This work presents a control methodologie for the position of the passive joints of an underactuated manipulator in a suboptimal way. The term underactuated refers to the fact that not all the joints or degrees of freedom of the system are equipped with actuators, which occurs in practice due to failures or as design result. The passive joints of manipulators like this are indirectly controlled by the motion of the active joints using the dynamic coupling characteristics. The utilization of actuation redundancy of the active joints allows the minimization of some criteria, like energy consumption, for example. Although the kinematic structure of an underactuated manipulator is identical to that of a similar fully actuated one, in general their dynamic characteristics are different due to the presence of passive joints. Thus, we present the dynamic modelling of an underactuated manipulator and the concept of coulpling index. This index is used in the sequence of the optimal conirol of the manipulator. The hipotheses that the number of active joints is greatter than the number of passives (na>np) allows the optimal control of the passive joints, since there are more inputs (torques at the actuators of the active joints), than elements to be controlled (position of the passive joints). At this point resides the contribution of this dissertation to the state of the art, once there is no publication that proposes the optimal control of the passive joints in this case.

Individuals experience risk ubiquitously, but measuring risk taking is difficult. The balloon analogue risk task (BART) was developed in order to assess risk taking through having subjects press a key that accrues reward but also risk losing all reward with each press. In humans, greater responding in this task is associated with other maladaptive risk taking behaviors. The present research modeled this relationship in pigeons due to their previously shown propensity towards risk taking behavior. Experiment 1 used an unsignaled balloon task in which losing could only occur after 5 pecks. Results showed below optimal performance with greater pecks associated with faster acquisition of risk taking in the suboptimal choice task and evidence of modulation by delay discounting measures. Experiment 2 signaled the number of pecks with colors and tested multiple hoppers as a reinforcement modality to increase performance. Results showed only signaling the number of pecks improved performance and was related to performance in the high risk BART task. Both the low and high risk variants were associated with slower suboptimal choice acquisition and again had evidence of modulation by delay discounting measures. Potential shared underlying mechanisms are discussed.

Background Worldwide, one-third of all produced food is going to waste, and the number is increasing every year which consequently calls for action. A substantial share of the food waste is the outcome of grocery stores throwing away suboptimal food which yet is eatable but due to the date labeling, damaged packaging or in terms of appearance standards cannot be sold. Throughout the last years, numerous unique businesses have been formed in Sweden to offer suboptimal food both online and in physical stores. Still, Swedish grocery stores stand for 30 000 tons of food being wasted which is directly linked to the still evident unwillingness to offer, purchase and consume suboptimal food. By no means, this is a significant problem and need to be changed in order to reach a more sustainable world. Till this day, qualitative research on the topic is scare. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to understand which components that affected Swedish grocery shoppers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards suboptimal food in-store. Method In order to fulfil the purpose of this study, a qualitative methodology has been utilized. The qualitative data has been collected through semi-structured interviews amongst Swedish grocery shoppers. To explore the attitudes and purchase intentions towards suboptimal food product, an abductive research approach was applied to strengthen previous research findings and attempt to discover possible new theory.  Conclusion The empirical findings revealed that Swedish grocery shoppers in this research study hold an overall positive attitude towards suboptimal food. The study further reports four prominent barriers towards Swedish grocery shoppers’ purchase intentions of suboptimal food. In result, even though an overall positive attitude presented, the intention to purchase suboptimal food could be severely weakened by substantial restrictions encountered in grocery stores.

O presente trabalho investiga a relação entre a prática consciente e sua influência na prevenção do desencadeamento e no enfrentamento do processo de prejuízo da performance musical em condições de pressão (choking). Participaram do estudo três estudantes do Curso Superior de Instrumento da Escola de Música e Belas Artes do Paraná – Campus I – UNESPAR, Curitiba, PR. Foram utilizados os Guias de Execução (performance cues) propostos por Chaffin e colaboradores (2002, 2006, 2008) como suporte para o desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas. Os procedimentos metodológicos utilizados para coleta de dados consistiram de questionários, relatos verbais obtidos de entrevistas semiestruturadas, relatos de estudo, registro em áudio e vídeo da obra escolhida e relatos de guias de execução assinalados nas partituras como registro de decisões interpretativas deliberadas. O suporte cognitivo fornecido pelo trabalho com os Guias de Execução proporcionou segurança emocional suficiente para o enfrentamento das situações de estresse de exposição e principalmente de avaliação e autoavaliação. A partir da compreensão dos elementos teóricos encontrados na literatura e dos resultados deste trabalho com a abordagem metodológica de Chaffin, proponho um modelo conceitual de performance musical afetada pela ansiedade e centrado nos processos de controle e gerenciamento da informação durante a performance musical. Relacionado à hipótese levantada nos estágios iniciais de elaboração da pesquisa, esse modelo permite explorar a presença e manutenção de afetos e pensamentos negativos durante a prática instrumental individual e sua relação com a ocorrência de eventos de choking, e a suposição de que o desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas, relacionadas ao planejamento, monitoração e avaliação da prática instrumental, possa reforçar os processos de controle e gerenciamento do estado ansioso, ao permitir um suporte cognitivo que minimize o sentimento de vulnerabilidade, incontrolabilidade e imprevisibilidade inerentes ao estado ansioso, contribuindo, assim, para a melhoria e prevenção de eventos de déficits cognitivo-motores em performance sob pressão. / This study investigates the relationship between conscious practice, and its influence in prevention and coping with the decrement process in musical performance under pressure (choking under pressure). The study included three students of the bachelor degree of instrument in Escola de Música e Belas Artes do Paraná – Campus I – UNESPAR, Curitiba, PR. Performance Cues proposed by Chaffin and colleagues (2002, 2006, 2008) were used as support for the development of cognitive skills. Methodological procedures used for data collection consisted of questionnaires, verbal reports obtained from semi-structured interviews, practice reports, audio and video records of the chosen work and analysis of performance cues assigned in the scores as records of deliberate interpretative decisions. Cognitive support provided by working with Performance Cues provide enough emotional security for dealing with stress exposure situations and especially with evaluation and self-evaluation. Based on the understanding of theoretical elements found in the literature and the results of this study with the Chaffin methodological approach, I propose a conceptual model of musical performance affected by anxiety focused on process control and information management during the musical performance. Related to the hypothesis in the early stages of the research, this model explores the presence and maintenance of negative feelings and thoughts during the individual instrumental practice and its relation to the occurrence of choking event. The model also explores the assumption that the development of metacognitive skills, related to planning, monitoring and evaluation of instrumental practice can improve the control and management process of the anxious state. This control can be achieved by allowing a cognitive support that minimizes the feeling of vulnerability, uncontrollability and unpredictability, thus contributing to the improvement and prevention of cognitive-motor deficits events in performance under pressure.

The main goal of this study is to investigate stimulus that can be used to increase consumers purchase intentions toward suboptimal food products. Consumers seem to have low preferences to buy fruits and vegetables with unusual appearance, products with damaged package and close to the expiration date, usually called suboptimal food products. However, rejection of suboptimal food is an important contributor to food waste levels. Interventions aimed at encouraging the purchase of suboptimal food are scarce, however needed. This study used the theory of normative influence to test the effect of both descriptive and injunctive norms on a product with an unusual appearance, a product with a reduced expiration date and a product with a damaged package. The first study tested different messages appeals to create a realistic norm in study 2. From this study, it was selected the social message appeal and the frequencies of purchase toward each product, using them in the messages as the prevalent norm The second study analysed the effect of injunctive and descriptive norms of purchase intentions toward suboptimal food and also tested the effect of environmental concern and food waste problem awareness. Results show that both environmental concern and food waste problem awareness impact purchase intentions toward suboptimal food. Additionally, appeals employing social norms proved to affect purchases intentions toward these products. However, this effect only occurred for the vegetable with an unusual appearance and the product with a package damaged. For the product with a reduced expiration date the norms had no effect. Moreover, for the product with an unusual appearance, food waste problem awareness mediated the effect of injunctive norm on purchase intentions. Based on the results, this study contributes to the theory of normative influences by showing that, in a general way, this theory is applied to food waste reduction issues, more specifically, with suboptimal food consumption. However, it is necessary to consider the type of sub-optimally and the context where the influence is applied. Additionally, was discussed how social norms can be used to tackle food waste and the implications for marketing and policy actions.

Suboptimal growth and nutritional status are problematic for children with cystic fibrosis (CF). Optimal nutrition predicts better lung function and longevity. Daily nutrition therapy for children with CF requires adequate food resources, knowledge of appropriate nutrition and behavior management skills, and confidence in one's ability to correctly apply the necessary skills. The Mountain West Cystic Fibrosis Consortium Questionnaire (MWCFC-Q) was designed as an educational needs assessment for parents of children with CF. The goal was to identify areas of concern that could be targeted for educational intervention to ultimately improve children's growth and nutritional status. Data analyzed from 305 returned surveys included household food security, use of food assistance programs, knowledge of nutrition and general CF therapy, and self-confidence in ability to manage CF care. Questions regarding food security and knowledge of CF nutrition and general therapies were multiple choice. A ten point Likert-type scale was employed for determining confidence around management of CF related issues. Respondents' median accuracy for questions regarding nutrient content of commonly used foods was 71.4% and 57.9% for CF nutrition therapy, respectively. Although overall confidence in CF management was high, scores for confidence in nutrition and behavioral management were significantly lower than for confidence in CF respiratory/medical management and CF Center recommendations. In the second phase of this project, a pilot study using the chronic care model was developed for enhancement of nutrition and behavior management skills of parents of children with CF. Participants attended a series of four classes, each with a short didactic presentation, group activity, and discussion. Important features of this evidence-based educational program included nutrition and behavior management, self-efficacy, problem solving skills, and peer mentoring. A pre-, post-, follow-up, follow-up format was used to evaluate changes in participants' knowledge and self-confidence regarding nutrition and behavioral management. Comparisons were made with responses to the mailed survey using the same questionnaire. Secondary outcomes were changes in the rate of weight gain and growth for participants' children with CF. Participants showed statistically significant improvement in knowledge of nutrition therapy for CF at post-intervention compared with respondents to the mailed survey.

No description available.

Many single-agent search algorithms have parameters that need to be tuned. Although settings found by offline tuning will exhibit strong average performance, properly selecting parameter settings for each problem can result in substantially reduced search effort. We consider the use of dovetailing as a way to deal with this issue. This procedure performs search with multiple parameter settings simultaneously. We present results testing the use of dovetailing with the weighted A*, weighted IDA*, weighted RBFS, and BULB algorithms on the sliding tile and pancake puzzle domains. Dovetailing will be shown to significantly improve weighted IDA*, often by several orders of magnitude, and generally enhance weighted RBFS. In the case of weighted A* and BULB, dovetailing will be shown to be an ineffective addition to these algorithms. A trivial parallelization of dovetailing will also be shown to decrease the search time in all considered domains.

O presente trabalho investiga a relação entre a prática consciente e sua influência na prevenção do desencadeamento e no enfrentamento do processo de prejuízo da performance musical em condições de pressão (choking). Participaram do estudo três estudantes do Curso Superior de Instrumento da Escola de Música e Belas Artes do Paraná – Campus I – UNESPAR, Curitiba, PR. Foram utilizados os Guias de Execução (performance cues) propostos por Chaffin e colaboradores (2002, 2006, 2008) como suporte para o desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas. Os procedimentos metodológicos utilizados para coleta de dados consistiram de questionários, relatos verbais obtidos de entrevistas semiestruturadas, relatos de estudo, registro em áudio e vídeo da obra escolhida e relatos de guias de execução assinalados nas partituras como registro de decisões interpretativas deliberadas. O suporte cognitivo fornecido pelo trabalho com os Guias de Execução proporcionou segurança emocional suficiente para o enfrentamento das situações de estresse de exposição e principalmente de avaliação e autoavaliação. A partir da compreensão dos elementos teóricos encontrados na literatura e dos resultados deste trabalho com a abordagem metodológica de Chaffin, proponho um modelo conceitual de performance musical afetada pela ansiedade e centrado nos processos de controle e gerenciamento da informação durante a performance musical. Relacionado à hipótese levantada nos estágios iniciais de elaboração da pesquisa, esse modelo permite explorar a presença e manutenção de afetos e pensamentos negativos durante a prática instrumental individual e sua relação com a ocorrência de eventos de choking, e a suposição de que o desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas, relacionadas ao planejamento, monitoração e avaliação da prática instrumental, possa reforçar os processos de controle e gerenciamento do estado ansioso, ao permitir um suporte cognitivo que minimize o sentimento de vulnerabilidade, incontrolabilidade e imprevisibilidade inerentes ao estado ansioso, contribuindo, assim, para a melhoria e prevenção de eventos de déficits cognitivo-motores em performance sob pressão. / This study investigates the relationship between conscious practice, and its influence in prevention and coping with the decrement process in musical performance under pressure (choking under pressure). The study included three students of the bachelor degree of instrument in Escola de Música e Belas Artes do Paraná – Campus I – UNESPAR, Curitiba, PR. Performance Cues proposed by Chaffin and colleagues (2002, 2006, 2008) were used as support for the development of cognitive skills. Methodological procedures used for data collection consisted of questionnaires, verbal reports obtained from semi-structured interviews, practice reports, audio and video records of the chosen work and analysis of performance cues assigned in the scores as records of deliberate interpretative decisions. Cognitive support provided by working with Performance Cues provide enough emotional security for dealing with stress exposure situations and especially with evaluation and self-evaluation. Based on the understanding of theoretical elements found in the literature and the results of this study with the Chaffin methodological approach, I propose a conceptual model of musical performance affected by anxiety focused on process control and information management during the musical performance. Related to the hypothesis in the early stages of the research, this model explores the presence and maintenance of negative feelings and thoughts during the individual instrumental practice and its relation to the occurrence of choking event. The model also explores the assumption that the development of metacognitive skills, related to planning, monitoring and evaluation of instrumental practice can improve the control and management process of the anxious state. This control can be achieved by allowing a cognitive support that minimizes the feeling of vulnerability, uncontrollability and unpredictability, thus contributing to the improvement and prevention of cognitive-motor deficits events in performance under pressure.