Departmental structure, locus of control, and job stress: The effect of a moderator.

Examined the relation between mechanistic structural characteristics and perceived job stress among 278 health care personnel in a general hospital. Locus of control, as measured by a modification of Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale, was hypothesized to act as a moderator in these relations. As anticipated, formalization measured as job specificity was positively related to job stress among internals and negatively related to stress among externals. Other structural factors—hierarchy of authority, job codification, and lack of participation in decision making—did not interact significantly with locus of control to affect stress. Implications for staffing decisions are discussed. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental evaluation and mathematical description of the state of anisotropy in polycrystalline materials

An experimental technique for the evaluation of the state of anisotropy of cold rolled and recrystallized sheets of polycrystalline cubic metals is exposed. This method uses data from XRay diffraction to calculate the Orientation Distribution Function (O.D.F.) according to a mathematical procedure proposed by Bunge. Some practical recent applications are also reported.     

Adaptive observers for single output nonlinear systems

An adaptive version of the nonlinear observer obtained by A.J. Krener et al. (1983) is presented. This version involves the cancellation of nonlinear terms by output injection. As an intermediate step, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for transforming a nonlinear system by state-space change of coordinates into the special adaptive observer form that was used by Y. Bastin et al. (1988) to design adaptive observers     

Geometric properties of linearizable control systems

In this paper the distributions associated with a non-linear system of the form $$\frac{{dx}}{{dt}} = f(x) + \sum\limits_{\alpha = 1}^m {u_\alpha (t)g_\alpha (x)} ,f(0) = 0andx \in U_0 \subset R^n$$ are studied in relation to nonlinear state feedback $$u(x,v) = \hat a(x) + \hat S(x)v$$ withâ, u, v ∈ R ^m and ? a nonsingularm×m matrix withâ, ? functions ofx. Bothf andg are vector fields onU ₀, generally assumed to be real analytic. Two nested families of distributions {G ^j } and {M ^j } associated with the system are examined with emphasis on generic points ofU ₀, where it is shown that the usual conditions for feedback linearizability contain some redundancy. A characterization of state linearizability in terms of invariant factors of the equivalent linear form are given, and a criterion in terms of the distributions for a type of partial linearization is found.     

Humanoid odometric localization integrating kinematic,inertial and visual information

We present a method for odometric localization of humanoid robots using standard sensing equipment, i.e., a monocular camera, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), joint encoders and foot pressure sensors. Data from all these sources are integrated using the prediction-correction paradigm of the Extended Kalman Filter. Position and orientation of the torso, defined as the representative body of the robot, are predicted through kinematic computations based on joint encoder readings; an asynchronous mechanism triggered by the pressure sensors is used to update the placement of the support foot. The correction step of the filter uses as measurements the torso orientation, provided by the IMU, and the head pose, reconstructed by a VSLAM algorithm. The proposed method is validated on the humanoid NAO through two sets of experiments: open-loop motions aimed at assessing the accuracy of localization with respect to a ground truth, and closed-loop motions where the humanoid pose estimates are used in real-time as feedback signals for trajectory control.     

Prostate Cancer Visualization from MR Imagery and MR Spectroscopy

Prostate cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers among males, and the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been suggested for its detection. A framework is presented for scoring and visualizing various MR data in an efficient and intuitive manner. A classification method is introduced where a cumulative score volume is created which takes into account each of three acquisition types. This score volume is integrated into a volume rendering framework which allows the user to view the prostate gland, the multi‐modal score values, and the surrounding anatomy. A visibility persistence mode is introduced to automatically avoid full occlusion of a selected score and indicate overlaps. The use of GPU‐accelerated multi‐modal single‐pass ray casting provides an interactive experience. User driven importance rendering allows the user to gain insight into the data and can assist in localization of the disease and treatment planning. We evaluate our results against pathology and radiologists'determinations.     

Location of outliers in multiple regression using resampled values

Within the regression context, this method begins with the set of exactly fitted coefficients determined from each p-dimensional subset of the sample. Outlying points in this p-dimensional coefficient space correspond to outliers in the original n-dimensional data space. Resampled values are used to detect anomalous data points through a proposed detection rule that avoids masking and swamping and allows multiple outliers to be identified.     

Effects of discomfort glare on performance in attending peripheral visual information in displays

Large screens have become more popular in recent years. Because of the increasing size of displays, the amount of information presented in the peripheral visual field has gained importance in many tasks on visual display units. Users of displays are often exposed to some change or difference in luminance in or between different areas of a display, which in turn may produce a phenomenon known as discomfort glare. Discomfort glare is likely to affect cognitive performance. The performance in the visual periphery is more susceptible to disturbances as is the case for the performance in the central visual field.