Mitigating the Effects of Task Switching in Baggage Screeners

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 368-371
Author(s):  
Kevin Zish ◽  
Jesse Eisert ◽  
Jennifer Blanchard ◽  
Daniel Endres ◽  
David Band ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Task Switching ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Task Instruction ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Memory Decay ◽  
Baggage Screening ◽  
Frequent Switching ◽  
Memory Support

Using a simulated baggage screening task, we investigated two literature-supported mitigation strategies for reducing the negative effects of task switching, namely less frequent switching and memory support. The study replicates widely reported switching effects on a complex task. The results also show that people can improve performance when provided memory support. When task switching, people can struggle to retrieve the correct task instruction due to the automatic process behind functional memory decay. Memory support reduces the negative effects of functional decay by providing people a reminder.

When Reporting Undermines Performance: The Costs of Politically Constrained Organizational Autonomy in Foreign Aid Implementation

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Honig
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
International Development ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Development Organizations ◽  
Unpredictable Environments ◽  
Organizational Autonomy ◽  
Field Workers ◽  
Executive Boards

AbstractBureaucracies with field operations that cannot be easily supervised and monitored by managers are caught between two sources of dysfunction that may harm performance. The first source of dysfunction is straightforward: field workers can use operating slack and asymmetric information to their own advantage, thwarting an organization's objectives. The second source of dysfunction is often overlooked: attempts to limit workers’ autonomy may have deleterious effects, curbing agents’ ability to respond efficaciously to the environment. I find that the parliaments and executive boards to whom International Development Organizations (IDOs) are accountable differentially constrain IDO organizational autonomy, which in turn affects management's control of field agents. Tight management control of field agents has negative effects, particularly in more unpredictable environments. Attempts by politicians to constrain organizations in an effort to improve performance can sometimes be self-undermining, having net effects opposite those intended.

Teamwork on a cognitive task during a night of sleep deprivation and sustained operations

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (18) ◽  
pp. 1070-1072
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Vander Wood ◽  
Kristina L. O'Connell ◽  
June J. Pilcher
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Sleep Deprivation ◽  
Team Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Testing Session ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Complex Cognitive Task ◽  
Negative Effect

Research shows that sleep deprivation has a negative effect on performance on cognitive and vigilance tasks. However, little research has focused on the effects of sleep deprivation on team performance. This study examined the effect of sleep deprivation on a task requiring teamwork to maximize performance. Twenty-four college students remained awake for one night and completed a variety of tasks during each of four testing sessions. The Wombat, a complex cognitive task, required participants to work with a partner to maximize their overall scores. Results show that performance over the night increased while performance within each testing session decreased. This indicates that teamwork can help to improve performance over a night of sleep deprivation but does not entirely counteract the negative effects seen within the testing sessions. The current results suggest that team managers should be aware that teamwork may not counteract all negative effects of sleep deprivation on performance.

A Study on Methane Emissions and Its Mitigation Strategies in Present Scenario

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (02) ◽  
pp. 87-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virendra Kumar ◽  
Swati SachdevSanjeev Kumar ◽  
Sanjeev Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Organic Matter ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Methane Emission ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Methane Generation

Methane is an important gas of earth's environment. It emits from various naturally as well as anthropogenic sources and responsible for maintaining earth's global temperature favorable for humans and other organisms to live. In recent years many activities of human development led to generation of a large volume of methane which has exhibited catastrophic effect on humans as well as animal lives on earth. Methane poses high global warming potential and has been found second most abounded gas in the environment responsible for global warming of earth after carbon dioxide which is well documented in gigantic body of literature. Methane emission is projected to reach 254 Gg/ year by the year 2025. The sources of methane generation are scattered in nature that includes marshes, paddy crops, landfills and natural anaerobic decomposition of the organic matter present in the environment and digestion in ruminants as well handling and use of fossil fuels. The versatile sources of methane generation are uncontrolled and tough to be tamed. However, its emissions and negative effects could be reduced by effectively and efficiently managing its sources of emission and utilizing generated volume for energy production. This study emphasize on the harmful as well as beneficial aspects of the methane, its utilization and strategies to control emission from various sources.

scholarly journals Effects of stimulus features and instruction on response coding, selection, and inhibition: Evidence from repetition effects under task switching

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (10) ◽  
pp. 1573-1600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel D. Druey ◽  
Ronald Hübner
Keyword(s):  
Task Switching ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Middle Finger ◽  
Task Switch ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Repetition Effects ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Stimulus Features ◽  
Feature Overlap ◽  
Response Coding

The coding of stimuli and responses is crucial for human behaviour. Here, we focused primarily on the response codes (or response categories). As a method, we applied a combined dual-task and task-switch paradigm with a fixed task-to-hand mapping. Usually, negative effects (i.e., costs) are observed for response category repetitions under task switching. However, in several previous studies it has been proposed that such repetition effects do not occur, if the stimulus categories (e.g., “odd” if digits have to be classified according to their parity feature) are unequivocally mapped to specific responses. Our aim was to test this hypothesis. In the present experiments, we were able to distinguish between three different types of possible response codes. The results show that the participants generally code their responses according to abstract response features (left/right, or index/middle finger). Moreover, the spatial codes were preferred over the finger-type codes even if the instructions stressed the latter. This preference, though, seemed to result from a stimulus–response feature overlap, so that the spatial response categories were primed by the respective stimulus features. If there was no such overlap, the instructions determined which type of response code was involved in response selection and inhibition.

scholarly journals Implicit mind perception alters vigilance performance due to cognitive conflict processing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Wiese ◽  
Arielle Mandell ◽  
Tyler Shaw ◽  
Melissa Smith
Keyword(s):  
General Characteristic ◽  
Vigilance Task ◽  
Cognitive Conflict ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Conflict Processing ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
Negative Effect

Knowing the internal states of others is essential to predicting behavior in social interactions and requires that the general characteristic of ‘having a mind’ is granted to our interaction partners. Mind perception is a highly automatic process and can potentially cause a cognitive conflict when interacting with agents whose mind status is ambiguous, such as artificial agents. We investigate whether mind perception negatively impacts performance on tasks involving artificial agents due to cognitive conflict processing caused by a potentially increased difficulty to categorize them as human versus non-human. Experiment 1 shows that an ambiguous humanoid stimulus negatively impacts performance on a vigilance task that is known to be sensitive to the drainage of cognitive resources. This negative effect on performance vanishes when participants are pre-exposed to the stimulus be-fore the vigilance task (Experiment 2 and 3). The effect of pre-exposure on performance recovery is independent of whether participants explicitly resolve the cognitive conflict by answering mind-related questions (Experiment 2) or implicitly by judging the stimuli on a set of physical features (Experiment 3). Together, the findings suggest that mind perception is so automatic that it cannot be suppressed even if it has negative effects on cognitive performance.

scholarly journals A Taxonomy of Strategies For Supporting Time-Sharing With Non-Driving Tasks in Automated Driving

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 2088-2092
Author(s):  
Dengbo He ◽  
Dina Kanaan ◽  
Birsen Donmez
Keyword(s):  
Driver Distraction ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Time Sharing ◽  
Automated Vehicles ◽  
Automated Driving ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Spare Capacity ◽  
Control Automation ◽  
Driving Task

Driver distraction is one of the leading causes of vehicle crashes. The introduction of higher levels of vehicle control automation is expected to alleviate the negative effects of distraction by delegating the driving task to automation, thus enabling drivers to engage in non-driving-related tasks more safely. However, before fully automated vehicles are realized, drivers are still expected to play a supervisory role and intervene with the driving task if necessary while potentially having more spare capacity for engaging in non-driving-related tasks. Traditional distraction mitigation perspectives need to be shifted for automated vehicles from mainly preventing the occurrence of non-driving-related tasks to dynamically coordinating time-sharing between driving and non-driving-related tasks. In this paper, we provide a revised and expanded taxonomy of driver distraction mitigation strategies, discuss how the different strategies can be used in an automated driving context, and propose directions for future research in supporting time-sharing in automated vehicles.

Supply Chain Risk Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 176-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehsan Nikbakhsh
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chain Management ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Supply Chain Risk Management ◽  
Supply Chain Risk ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Chain Management ◽  
Risk Mitigation Strategies

During the past two decades, environments surrounding supply chains (SC) have faced many changes, which require SC managers to deal proactively with unknown situations and new risks. Therefore, one of the most important issues in supply chain management is managing uncertainties of a SC and mitigating negative effects of SC risks. In this chapter, an overview of supply chain risk management (SCRM) is given. First, fundamental concepts in SCRM are introduced. Next, sources of SC risks, SCRM and its process, and some robust SC risk mitigation strategies are introduced. Finally, an introduction to several mathematical models for SCRM is given.

scholarly journals Fenómenos meteorológicos y su efecto sobre la producción de café en la Zona Central de Veracruz

UVserva ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Paulo César Parada Molina ◽  
Mario Javier Gómez Martínez ◽  
Gustavo Celestino Ortiz Ceballos ◽  
Carlos Roberto Cerdán Cabrera ◽  
Juan Cervantes Pérez
Keyword(s):  
El Niño ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
El Nino ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Phenological Stages ◽  
Positive Effects

La producción de café se está viendo afectada por cambios en los patrones climáticos y por la aparición de fenómenos meteorológicos que coinciden con importantes etapas fenológicas para este cultivo. El café es más sensible a variaciones del clima cuando se encuentra en las etapas de floración y el inicio del crecimiento del fruto, en este periodo cuatro fenómenos están presentes, que de acuerdo con su intensidad podría incidir de manera negativa. La etapa de maduración y cosecha es impactada por cinco fenómenos mientras que durante la etapa de crecimiento y llenado del grano sólo dos fenómenos la afectan. El Niño Oscilación del Sur (ENSO), en su fase negativa, intensificaría los efectos negativos. Sin embargo, no debe pasar inadvertido los efectos positivos del ENSO, en fase fría, en la temporada seca (diciembre-abril). Se deben buscar y estudiar estrategias de mitigación a la variación climática producto de los fenómenos meteorológicos, donde los sistemas agroforestales pueden ser una alternativa para enfrentar esta problemática.Palabras clave: Desarrollo reproductivo; ENSO; etapas fenológicas; eventos climáticos; regiones cafetaleras; variabilidad climática. Abstract: Coffee production is being affected by changes in weather patterns and the appearance of meteorological phenomena that coincide with important phenological stages for coffee cultivation. The coffee is more sensitive to the variations of the climate when it is in the stages of flowering and the beginning of the growth of the product, in this period four phenomena are present, and according to its intensity it could have a negative impact. The stage of maturation and harvest is shocking by five phenomena while during the growth stage and the grain volumes only two phenomena stress. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in its negative phase, would intensify the negative effects. However, the positive effects of the ENSO, in the cold phase, during dry season (December-April) should not go unnoticed. Mitigation strategies for climate variation due to meteorological phenomena must be sought and studied, where agroforestry systems can be an alternative to address this problem.Keywords: Reproductive Development; ENSO; Phenological Stages; Climatic Events; Coffee Regions; Climatic Variability.

Minimal impact of consolidation on learned switch-readiness

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Bejjani ◽  
Audrey Siqi-Liu ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Memory Consolidation ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Task Switch ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Task Set ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Control Learning ◽  
Frequent Switching

Adaptive behavior is characterized by our ability to create, maintain, and update (or switch) rules by which we categorize and respond to stimuli across changing contexts (cognitive flexibility). Recent research suggests that people can link the control process of task-switching to contextual cues through associative learning, whereby the behavioral cost of switching is reduced for contexts that require frequent switching. However, the conditions that govern such learned cognitive flexibility are poorly understood. One major unanswered question is whether this type of learning benefits from memory consolidation effects. To address this question, we manipulated whether task-sets and/or specific task stimuli were more frequently linked with task-switching (vs. repeating), and ran participants over two experimental sessions, separated by a twenty-four-hour delay. We expected that consolidation would facilitate learned cognitive flexibility, resulting in a greater reduction of switch costs with increasing task-switch likelihood on session 2 compared to session 1. Across two experiments, we observed robust learning of stimulus and task-set related cognitive flexibility in both sessions. However, we found little evidence for effects of consolidation on learned cognitive flexibility, as learned switch-readiness did not increase from session 1 to session 2 in either experiment. Taken together, our results suggest that people reliably and quickly acquire task-set and stimulus-based switch associations, but that this form of control learning – unlike many instances of reward-based learning – does not benefit from long-term memory consolidation. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategies: Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a University Campus in Rome (Italy)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 7971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Battista ◽  
Luca Evangelisti ◽  
Claudia Guattari ◽  
Emanuele De Lieto Vollaro ◽  
Roberto De Lieto Vollaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Heat Island ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Heat Island ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Local Overheating ◽  
Urban Heat

The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is strictly related to climate changes and urban development. During summer, in urban areas, the lack of green zones and water sources causes local overheating, with discomfort and negative effects on buildings’ energy performance. Starting from this, an experimental and numerical investigating of the climatic conditions in a university area in Rome was achieved, also assessing the occurrence of the UHI phenomenon. The analyzed area was recently renewed, with solutions in contrast to each other: on one side, an old building was re-designed aiming at high performance; on the other hand, the neighboring areas were also refurbished leading to large paved surfaces, characterized by high temperatures during summer. A calibrated numerical model was generated through ENVI-met software and eight different scenarios were compared, to mitigate the overheating of this area and to analyze the influences of the proposed solutions in terms of air temperature reduction. The analysis of this case study provides information on potential mitigation solutions in the urban environment, showing that goals and priorities in the design phase should concern not only buildings but also external areas, also considering university areas.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document