Task Assignment and Trajectory Planning Algorithm for a Class of Cooperative Agricultural Robots

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ni Li ◽  
Charles Remeikas ◽  
Yunjun Xu ◽  
Suhada Jayasuriya ◽  
Reza Ehsani
Keyword(s):  
Trajectory Planning ◽  
Task Assignment ◽  
Agricultural Field ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Agricultural Robots ◽  
Hierarchical Decision ◽  
Planning Algorithm ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Citrus Harvesting ◽  
Level Performance

Agricultural field operations, such as harvesting for fruits and scouting for disease, are labor intensive and time consuming. With the recent push toward autonomous farming, a method to rapidly generate trajectories for a group of cooperative agricultural robots becomes necessary. The challenging aspect of solving this problem is to satisfy realistic constraints such as changing environments, actuation limitations, nonlinear heterogeneous dynamics, conflict resolution, and formation reconfigurations. In this paper, a hierarchical decision making and trajectory planning method is studied for a group of agricultural robots cooperatively conducting certain farming task such as citrus harvesting. Within the algorithm framework, there are two main parts (cooperative level and individual level): (1) in the cooperative level, once a discrete reconfiguration event is confirmed and replanning is triggered, all the possible formation configurations and associated robot locations for specific farming tasks will be evaluated and ranked according to the feasibility condition and the cooperative level performance index; and (2) in the individual level, a local pursuit (LP) strategy based cooperative trajectory planning algorithm is designed to generate local optimal cooperative trajectories for agricultural robots to achieve and maintain their desired operation formation in a decentralized manner. The capabilities of the proposed method are demonstrated in a citrus harvesting problem.

Cooperative Trajectory Planning for Automated Farming

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Remeikas ◽  
Yunjun Xu ◽  
Suhada Jayasuriya
Keyword(s):  
Trajectory Planning ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Computation Cost ◽  
Agricultural Robots ◽  
Planning Algorithm ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Citrus Harvesting ◽  
Low Computational Cost ◽  
Pursuit Strategy ◽  
Cooperative Planning

Many agricultural tasks, such as harvesting, are labor intensive. With the interests in autonomous farming, a method to rapidly generate trajectories for agricultural robots satisfying different realistic constraints becomes necessary. A hierarchical cooperative planning method is studied in this paper for a group of agricultural robots with a low computational cost. Two parts are involved in the method: once a reconfiguration event is confirmed, all the possible formation configurations will be evaluated and ranked according to their feasibility and performance index; a local pursuit strategy based cooperative trajectory planning algorithm is designed to generate optimal cooperative trajectories for robots to achieve and maintain their desired formation. To help reduce the computation cost associated with the cooperative planning algorithm, early termination conditions are proposed. The capabilities of the proposed cooperative planning algorithm are demonstrated in a simple citrus harvesting problem.

The impact of overeducated and undereducated workers on establishment-level productivity

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Grunau
Keyword(s):  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Educational Mismatch ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Hr Management ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Insight Into

Purpose – Many contributions to the educational mismatch literature address the productivity effects of both excess and deficit educational attainments for workers at the individual level. Due to the limited transferability of their results to establishment-level performance, especially when allowing for the possibility of spillover effects from mismatched workers to their well-matched colleagues, from an employer’s point of view, it is highly important to know the net effect of educationally mismatched employees on productivity at the establishment level. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyses the impact of overeducated and undereducated workers among an establishment’s workforce on its productivity, providing first representative evidence for Germany. Using linked employer-employee data from Germany, the author estimates dynamic panel production functions using a system GMM estimator. Findings – The author finds that undereducated workers among an establishment’s workforce impair its (establishment-level) productivity, implying that an establishment’s HR management should avoid the recruitment of undereducated workers, at least if they follow a short-term personnel policy. The effect for overeducated employees is also negative, albeit small and insignificant. Originality/value – The consideration of the phenomena of over and undereducation from the employer’s point of view provides further insight into the consequences of educational mismatch.

scholarly journals The emerging association of canonical finger patterns and quantity-number linkage in early childhood

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Bahnmueller ◽  
Roberta Barrocas ◽  
Korbinian Moeller ◽  
Stephanie Roesch
Keyword(s):  
Pattern Recognition ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Numerical Development ◽  
Numerical Magnitudes ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Level Performance

Through repeated use of fingers for counting and representing numerical magnitudes in early childhood, specific finger patterns become associated with mental representations of specific quantities. Although children as young as three years of age already use their fingers for representing numerical quantities, evidence on advantageous recognition of such canonical compared to non-canonical finger patterns as well as its association with numerical skills in young children is scarce. In this study, we investigated the performance of N=101 children aged around four years in canonical vs. non-canonical finger pattern recognition and its concurrent association with skills tapping into children’s’ knowledge about quantity-number linkage. Extending previous findings observed for older children, the present results indicated that despite considerable variability on the individual level performance in canonical finger pattern recognition was better compared to non-canonical finger pattern recognition on the group level. Moreover, both canonical and non-canonical finger pattern recognition was positively correlated with tasks tapping into quantity-number linkage. However, when controlling for verbal counting skills, correlations that remained significant were only found for canonical but not non-canonical finger pattern recognition performance. Overall, these results provide insights into the early onset and significance of the effect of canonicity in finger pattern recognition during early numerical development.

Differential Effects of Competence and Morality on Self-Esteem at the Individual and the Collective Level

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Wiktor Soral ◽  
Mirosław Kofta
Keyword(s):  
Self Esteem ◽  
Differential Effects ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. The importance of various trait dimensions explaining positive global self-esteem has been the subject of numerous studies. While some have provided support for the importance of agency, others have highlighted the importance of communion. This discrepancy can be explained, if one takes into account that people define and value their self both in individual and in collective terms. Two studies ( N = 367 and N = 263) examined the extent to which competence (an aspect of agency), morality, and sociability (the aspects of communion) promote high self-esteem at the individual and the collective level. In both studies, competence was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the individual level, whereas morality was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the collective level.

Metonymy in Dance: Ballet Bunheads Take a Cognitive Turn

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Edward C. Warburton
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Artistic Development ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Level I ◽  
Dance Educators ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

This essay considers metonymy in dance from the perspective of cognitive science. My goal is to unpack the roles of metaphor and metonymy in dance thought and action: how do they arise, how are they understood, how are they to be explained, and in what ways do they determine a person's doing of dance? The premise of this essay is that language matters at the cultural level and can be determinative at the individual level. I contend that some figures of speech, especially metonymic labels like ‘bunhead’, can not only discourage but dehumanize young dancers, treating them not as subjects who dance but as objects to be danced. The use of metonymy to sort young dancers may undermine the development of healthy self-image, impede strong identity formation, and retard creative-artistic development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of metonymy in dance and implications for dance educators.

Exploring the effect of weight loss on food reward at the individual level

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Oustric ◽  
Kristine Beaulieu ◽  
Nuno Casanova ◽  
Francois Husson ◽  
Catherine Gibbons ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Food Reward ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual

Personality change and environmental concerns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Hopwood ◽  
Ted Schwaba ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Personality Change ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Big Five Personality ◽  
German Population ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Sustainable Behavior ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

Personal concerns about climate change and the environment are a powerful motivator of sustainable behavior. People’s level of concern varies as a function of a variety of social and individual factors. Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009-2017 in the German population. However, individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, Big Five personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism and openness to experience. Indeed, changes in openness explained roughly 50% of the variance in changes in environmental concerns. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior at the individual level.

Reply to Connor and Evers (2020): Critique of the Bias of Crowds Model Simply Restates the Model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Core ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Individual

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.

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