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This paper embeds the early political economy of Friedrich August von Hayek in the intellectual milieu of German ordoliberalism. The urgency during the 1930s and 1940s to stabilize the disintegrating societal orders is identified as a crucial driver behind the parallelisms between Hayek and the ordoliberals. Their shared theoretical position is that in such moments, liberty can thrive sustainably only after a framework of general and stable rules has been established. Hayek’s proximity to ordoliberalism was most explicitly discernible in The Road to Serfdom and at the founding meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1947, culminating in the shared politico-economic vision of the competitive order. The contextual nature of Hayek’s ordoliberalism surfaced in the years after The Constitution of Liberty when his focus shifted, along with the postwar intellectual and institutional stabilization of the West: from how stable orders enable liberty, to how liberty enables the evolution of orders.
Model predictive control (MPC) is a promising approach to the lateral and longitudinal control of autonomous vehicles. However, the parameterization of the MPC with respect to high-level requirements such as passenger comfort, as well as lateral and longitudinal tracking, is challenging. Numerous tuning parameters and conflicting requirements need to be considered. In this paper, we formulate the MPC tuning task as a multi-objective optimization problem. Its solution is demanding for two reasons: First, MPC-parameterizations are evaluated in a computationally expensive simulation environment. As a result, the optimization algorithm needs to be as sample-efficient as possible. Second, for some poor parameterizations, the simulation cannot be completed; therefore, useful objective function values are not available (for instance, learning with crash constraints). In this work, we compare the sample efficiency of multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), a genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), and multiple versions of Bayesian optimization (BO). We extend BO by introducing an adaptive batch size to limit the computational overhead. In addition, we devise a method to deal with crash constraints. The results show that BO works best for a small budget, NSGA-II is best for medium budgets, and none of the evaluated optimizers are superior to random search for large budgets. Both proposed BO extensions are, therefore, shown to be beneficial.
Context: VR as an application to enhance well-being is sparsely researched in the elderly population. The aim of the pilot study was to analyze the effect of 360° videos of different categories on the state of mind of seniors in nursing facilities. Furthermore, for the implementation in everyday life, the usability of the system and the experience for seniors should be evaluated.
Methods: The VR experience was used as a supplement to existing care services in three facilities on eight subjects. Mood state was assessed using the Questionnaire for the Assessment of Happiness before and after the intervention. Demographic data and technology acceptance were collected beforehand. After the intervention, subjects were interviewed about confounding factors and side effects, and nursing home staff were interviewed about the usability of the system and the organizational concept of implementation.
Results: There was a positive effect on state of mind. Gender and spatial mobility turned out to be influencing factors. Categories containing people, animals and action achieved the highest increases in the state of mind. Interest in using technical devices correlated negatively with the change in mood state. None of the subjects found the VR goggles distracting or reported motion sickness. Very good usability was indicated by the employees.
Conclusion: A very high willingness to use this technology was found among nursing staff and residents. The tendencies of the positive effect of 360° videos on the state of mind, as well as differentiation based on the mentioned characteristics gender and spatial mobility, should be verified by a larger sample to empirically validate the use of this technology to increase the quality of life.
En 1985 inició el Ministerio de Educación en Venezuela el Modelo de Atención Integral al Niño Sordo, un cambio de la práctica oralista a un modelo bilingüe en las escuelas de sordos. Eso implicaba eliminar la enseñanza del español hablado como objetivo principal e introducir la Lengua de Señas Venezolana (LSV) a las escuelas. Se desencadenó así un intenso período de cambios que marcó indeleblemente a la comunidad sorda. Aquí se aborda el Modelo desde la perspectiva de la planeación lingüística, describiendo sus objetivos y sus efectos sobre la adquisición, la estructura (el corpus) y el estatus de la LSV: La LSV y el español señado fueron reubicados en la diglosia existente hasta entonces; surgió una variante académica de la LSV y aumentó el número de usuarios de la LSV. El estudio se basó en el análisis cualitativo de entrevistas realizadas a cinco testigos de aquel proceso.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between contextual work-related factors in terms of job demands (workload-WL) and job resources (work flexibility-WF), work-life conflict (WLC) and the burnout dimension emotional exhaustion (EE) in a large population-based sample. Building on the job demands resources model (JDRM), we have developed the hypothesis that WL has an indirect effect on EE that is mediated by WLC. We conducted a secondary analysis using data from the Dresden Burnout Study (DBS, N = 4246, mean age (SD) = 42.7 years (10.5); 36.4% male). Results from structural equation modelling revealed that EE is positively associated with WL (β = 0.15, p = 0.001) and negatively associated with WF (β = -0.13, p = 0.001), also after accounting for potential confounding variables (demography, depressive symptoms, and lifetime diagnosis of burnout). Both effects are mediated by WLC (β = 0.18; p = 0.001 and β = 0.08; p = 0.001, respectively) highlighting the important role of WLC in employee health. In summary, WF may help to reduce burnout symptoms in employees, whereas WL may increase them. Study results suggest that both associations depend on WLC levels.
Background: Proctoring represents a cornerstone in the acquisition of state‐of‐the‐art cardiovascular interventions. Yet, travel restrictions and containment measures during the COVID‐19 pandemic limited on‐site proctoring for training and expert support in interventional cardiology.
Methods and Results: We established a teleproctoring setup for training in a novel patent foramen ovale closure device system (NobleStitch EL, HeartStitch Inc, Fountain Valley, CA) at our institution using web‐based real‐time bidirectional audiovisual communication. A total of 6 patients with prior paradoxical embolic stroke and a right‐to‐left shunt of grade 2 or 3 were treated under remote proctorship after 3 cases were performed successfully under on‐site proctorship. No major device/procedure‐related adverse events occurred, and none of the patients had a residual right‐to‐left shunt of grade 1 or higher after the procedure. Additionally, we sought to provide an overview of current evidence available for teleproctoring in interventional cardiology. Literature review was performed identifying 6 previous reports on teleproctoring for cardiovascular interventions, most of which were related to the current COVID‐19 pandemic. In all reports, teleproctoring was carried out in similar settings with comparable setups; no major adverse events were reported.
Conclusions: Teleproctoring may represent a feasible and safe tool for location‐independent and cost‐effective training in a novel patent foramen ovale closure device system. Future prospective trials comparing teleproctoring with traditional on‐site proctoring are warranted.
Background: Stroke is one of the most frequent causes of death in Germany and the developed countries. After a stroke, those affected often suffer particularly from functional motor restrictions of the upper extremities. Newer techniques such as the BCI-FES systems aim to establish a communication channel between the brain and external devices with a neuromuscular intervention. The electrical activity of the brain is measured, processed, translated into control signals and can then be used to control an application.
Methods: As a mixed-methods design (exploratory design), eight guideline-based expert interviews were conducted first. For the quantitative expert survey, 95 chief physicians from the field of neuromedicine in rehabilitation facilities nationwide were subsequently invited to participate in an online survey.
Results: In our data analysis, we found that doctors are largely open-minded towards new technical rehabilitation systems. In addition to the proper functioning of the system, they consider the understanding of the functionality and the meaningfulness of the system to be particularly important. In addition, the system should be motivating for individuals, generate meaningful movements, be easy to use, evidence-based and quick to set up. Concerns were expressed regarding the understanding of the system’s processes, especially in the acute phase after a stroke, as well as the excessive expectation of results from the system on the part of the persons. The experts named stroke patients in rehabilitation phase C, which is about mobilization and recovery, as well as all persons who can understand the language requirements as benefiting groups of people.
Conclusion: The present study shows that more research should and must be done in the field of BCI-FES interfaces, and various development trends have been identified. The system has the potential to play a leading role in the rehabilitation of stroke patients in the future. Nevertheless, more work should be done on the improvement and implementation as well as the system’s susceptibility to interference in everyday patient life.
This paper deals with systematic approaches for the analysis of stability properties and controller design for nonlinear dynamical systems. Numerical methods based on sum-of-squares decomposition or algebraic methods based on quantifier elimination are used. Starting from Lyapunov’s direct method, these methods can be used to derive conditions for the automatic verification of Lyapunov functions as well as for the structural determination of control laws. This contribution describes methods for the automatic verification of (control) Lyapunov functions as well as for the constructive determination of control laws.