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Background It remains unclear whether executive control (EC) deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represent a failure in proactive EC (engaged and maintained before a cognitively demanding event) or in reactive EC (engaged transiently as the event occurs). We addressed this question by administering a paradigm investigating components of EC in a sample of individuals with ASD and typically developing individuals during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Methods During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 141 participants (64 ASD, 77 typically developing) completed a rapid preparing to overcome prepotency task that required participants to respond to an arrow probe based on the color of an initially presented cue. We examined functional recruitment and connectivity in the frontoparietal task control, cingulo-opercular task control, salience, and default mode networks during cue and probe phases of the task. Results ASD participants showed evidence of behavioral EC impairment. Analyses of functional recruitment and connectivity revealed that ASD participants showed significantly greater activity during the cue in networks associated with proactive control processes, but on the less cognitively demanding trials. On the more cognitively demanding trials, cue activity was similar across groups. During the probe, connectivity between regions associated with reactive control processes was uniquely enhanced on more-demanding (relative to less-demanding) trials in individuals with ASD but not in typically developing individuals. Conclusions The current data suggest that rather than arising from a specific failure to engage proactive or reactive forms of EC, the deficits in EC commonly observed in ASD may be due to reduced proactive EC and a consequent overreliance on reactive EC on more cognitively demanding tasks.

No momento em que há altos índices de manutenção corretiva em uma organização, isso indica que a gestão da manutenção não está adequada para tal e precisa ser revista. Nesse intuito foi realizado um estudo sobre manutenções em injetoras de polímero de uma empresa do ramo polimérico para propor uma solução ao alto número de manutenções corretivas. Utilizou-se a ferramenta MASP para compor a metodologia adotada que coletou dados, analisou-os e propôs soluções para os problemas encontrados. Nesse estudo observou-se que os principais problemas que resultam em manutenção corretiva em injetoras são vazamentos de óleo, falhas elétricas/eletrônicas e quebras. Sendo que as causas raízes para esses são basicamente a falta de controle de tarefas, falta de planejamento e a falta de treinamento. Por fim, foi proposto um plano de ação para a readequação da gestão da manutenção.

Open source product design is characterized by dynamic evolution, autonomous task control, loose organization structure, and frequent collaboration, which shows the process is full of high uncertai...

Background This study compared the effect of imagery rescripting (ImRs) of early autobiographical memories to ImRs of intrusive images and a no task control condition on eating disorder (ED) related core beliefs and ED symptoms in individuals at risk of developing an eating disorder. We qualitatively explored the content of ImRs scripts. Method Participants (N = 66, 87.8% females) were allocated to one of three conditions: ImRs of autobiographical memories, ImRs of intrusive images, or a no task control condition. Participants in the ImRs conditions received a 9-min self-guided ImRs intervention in the lab and practiced ImRs daily for the next 6 days online. Participants in the no task control condition took a 9-min break and did not do any further tasks. All participants attended a follow-up testing 1 week after the lab session. Results Both ImRs manipulations resulted in greater reductions in negative core beliefs and ED symptoms compared to the no task control group. However, there were no differences among the two ImRs groups. The most widely used rescripting strategy was self-compassion, followed by unhealthy, ED-confirming strategies. No significant associations were found between the ImRs strategies and any of the outcome measures. Conclusion ImRs may be a promising intervention for individuals with disordered eating and both early memories as well as intrusive images may be useful targets.

Exposure and ritual prevention (EX/RP) is an effective first-line treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but only some patients achieve minimal symptoms following EX/RP. Herein, we investigate whether task-based neural activity can predict who responds best to EX/RP. Unmedicated adult patients with OCD ( n = 36) and healthy participants ( n = 33) completed the Simon Spatial Incompatibility Task during high-resolution, multiband functional MRI (fMRI); patients were then offered twice-weekly EX/RP (17 sessions). Linear mixed-effects models were used to identify brain regions where conflict-related activity moderated the slope of change in Yale–Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) scores across treatment. Conflict-related activity in the left pallidum and 35 cortical parcels/regions significantly predicted symptom improvement with EX/RP for patients with OCD (false discovery rate-corrected P < 0.05). Significant parcels/regions included cingulo-opercular and default mode network regions, specifically the anterior insula and anterior and posterior cingulate. Summarizing across these parcels/regions, greater conflict-related activity predicted greater EX/RP response and which patients achieved remission (Y-BOCS score ≤ 12; Cohen’s d = 1.68) with >80% sensitivity and specificity. The association between brain activity and treatment response was partially mediated by patient EX/RP adherence (b = −2.99; 43.61% of total effect; P = 0.02). Brain activity and adherence together were highly predictive of remission. Together, these findings suggest that cingulo-opercular and default mode regions typically implicated in task control and introspective processes, respectively, may be targets for novel treatments that augment the ability of persons with OCD to resolve cognitive conflict and thereby facilitate adherence to EX/RP, increasing the likelihood of remission.

When prototyping AI experiences (AIX), interface designers seek useful and usable ways to support end-user tasks through AI capabilities. However, AI poses challenges to design due to its dynamic behavior in response to training data, end-user data, and feedback. Designers must consider AI’s uncertainties and offer adaptations such as explainability, error recovery, and automation vs. human task control. Unfortunately, current prototyping tools assume a black-box view of AI, forcing designers to work with separate tools to explore machine learning models, understand model performance, and align interface choices with model behavior. This introduces friction to rapid and iterative prototyping. We propose Model-Informed Prototyping (MIP), a workflow for AIX design that combines model exploration with UI prototyping tasks. Our system, ProtoAI, allows designers to directly incorporate model outputs into interface designs, evaluate design choices across different inputs, and iteratively revise designs by analyzing model breakdowns. We demonstrate how ProtoAI can readily operationalize human-AI design guidelines. Our user study finds that designers can effectively engage in MIP to create and evaluate AI-powered interfaces during AIX design.

Adolescence is a developmental period that dramatically impacts body and behavior, with pubertal hormones playing an important role not only in the morphological changes in the body but also in brain structure and function. Understanding brain development during adolescence has become a priority in neuroscience because it coincides with the onset of many psychiatric and behavioral disorders. However, little is known about how puberty influences the brain functional connectome. In this study, taking a longitudinal human sample of typically developing children and adolescents (of both sexes), we demonstrate that the development of the brain functional connectome better fits pubertal status than chronological age. In particular, centrality, segregation, efficiency, and integration of the brain functional connectome increase after the onset of the pubertal markers. We found that these effects are stronger in attention and task control networks. Lastly, after controlling for this effect, we showed that functional connectivity between these networks is related to better performance in cognitive flexibility. This study points out the importance of considering longitudinal nonlinear trends when exploring developmental trajectories, and emphasizes the impact of puberty on the functional organization of the brain in adolescence.Significance StatementUnderstanding the brain organization along development is a crucial challenge for Neuroscience. In particular, during adolescence there is a great impact in body and cognitive functions as well as substantial incidence of mental health disruptions. Here, we tested how brain organization changes along this period based on the properties of the functional connectome in a longitudinal pediatric sample. We found a nonlinear increase in the connectivity and the brain network efficiency, particularly after the onset of puberty. These effects were more prominent in association networks. In addition, higher connectivity in those areas was associated with better performance in cognitive flexibility. These results demonstrate the importance of considering pubertal assessment as well as nonlinear trends in developmental studies.

Perceived task control is proposed as an important belief and its relationship with use intentions is examined in the context of mobile services. Furthermore, the study examines ubiquity, alertness...

Recently, there is a concern about reducing the energy consumption of data centers and clusters for economical and environmental reasons. Furthermore, energy consumption on mobile devices is also important to improve battery life. In this work we address the performance-energy trade-off on shared-memory multicore devices in parallel programs. In particular, we assess the impact of task granularity in performance and energy consumption. Our aim is to give programmers the knowledge they need to understand how to maximize performance of parallel programs while minimizing energy spending. Parallel programs typically divide work in subproblems that are solved in parallel. Each subproblem can then be recursively subdivided until it is no longer worthwhile to spawn smaller tasks. Ideally, the number of parallel tasks should match the number of hardware threads in order to maximize performance and reduce scheduling overheads. Cut-off algorithms are used to stop spawning new parallel tasks and, thus, switching to sequential execution. We evaluate cut-off approaches such as MaxTasks, MaxLevel, Surplus, Adaptive Task Control and LoadBased to understand how they influence performance and energy consumption. Additionally, we also introduce and evaluate three novel approaches: MaxTasksInQueue, StackSize and MaxTasksWithStackSize. Our experiments and analysis show how branching, workload, depth and balance influence the execution time and energy spending over a set of synthetic and real world programs. We concluded that MaxLevel was the fastest overall, while MaxTasksInQueue was the most energy efficient algorithm. Also, despite MaxTasks being slower than the prior two, it can be used by a wider range of programs.

Background Previous cross-sectional findings from adolescents and adults with Bulimia Nervosa (BN) suggest disturbances in fronto-striatal and cingulo-opercular task control circuits that support self-regulatory processes, including the resolution of cognitive conflict. Herein, we used longitudinal data to examine the developmental trajectories of such disturbances and how the functioning of these circuits relates to changes in BN symptoms over adolescence. Methods Thirty-two adolescent females with BN symptoms and 28 healthy control (HC) adolescents participated in the study. Functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) during performance of a Simon task were acquired at three time points within 2-year intervals over adolescence. From the initial sample, 70% and 30% of the participants completed the second and third time points, respectively. Participants who completed all study time points did not differ from those lost to attrition on baseline demographic characteristics or any outcome measures. Using a region-of-interest approach, growth curve models tested group differences in the trajectory of conflict-related activation in task control circuits over time. Cross-lagged panel models examined transactional relationships between conflict-related activation in the same regions and BN symptoms over time. Results Growth curve models revealed different trajectories of conflict-related activation in right task control regions across BN and HC adolescents, such that HC but not BN adolescents showed activation decreases over time. These group differences were greatest when including only the BN adolescents whose symptoms remitted over time. Cross-lagged panel models revealed that less frequent bulimic episodes at first follow-up predicted later increases in conflict-related activation in bilateral task control regions. Conclusions These longitudinal findings suggest overengagement of task control circuits in BN adolescents, especially those most resilient to persistent illness. Such overengagement may compensate for regulatory disturbances, allowing them to regulate eating behaviors over development. Thus, task control circuits may constitute targets for early interventions that enhance self-regulatory control.

We expected a positive boosting effect of a performance-based extrinsic reward on motivation and performance for those with higher control-related resources (i.e., perceived task control and trait self-control) and a positive compensating effect for those who lacked these resources. Study 1 supported compensation. Those with lower resources experienced a beneficial effect of reward on motivation and performance (i.e., compared to no reward). In Study 2, coping was examined as a mechanism. Again, reward compensated for lower resources, enhancing motivation, and performance due to enhanced coping. For those with higher resources, reward boosted motivation and performance due to coping. Thus, the interactive effects of reward and resources are paradoxical: higher resources can maximize the utility of a reward, but reward can also compensate for low resources.

Cognitive control has traditionally been associated with pFC based on observations of deficits in patients with frontal lesions. However, evidence from patients with Parkinson disease indicates that subcortical regions also contribute to control under certain conditions. We scanned 17 healthy volunteers while they performed a task-switching paradigm that previously dissociated performance deficits arising from frontal lesions in comparison with Parkinson disease, as a function of the abstraction of the rules that are switched. From a multivoxel pattern analysis by Gaussian Process Classification, we then estimated the forward (generative) model to infer regional patterns of activity that predict Switch/Repeat behavior between rule conditions. At 1000 permutations, Switch/Repeat classification accuracy for concrete rules was significant in the BG, but at chance in the frontal lobe. The inverse pattern was obtained for abstract rules, whereby the conditions were successfully discriminated in the frontal lobe but not in the BG. This double dissociation highlights the difference between cortical and subcortical contributions to cognitive control and demonstrates the utility of multivariate approaches in investigations of functions that rely on distributed and overlapping neural substrates.

Studies of lean production's effect on working conditions are mixed but point toward worsened conditions. The aim of this longitudinal study was to assess how lean contributes to transforming work characteristics in a medium-sized specialized industrial family business. A mixed methods approach was used to combine an external assessment of work characteristics with self-reported employee questionnaires. Favorable psychosocial working conditions were indicated, with role conflicts decreasing over time. The assessment of work provided descriptions of how lean practices contributed to decreased task control due to standardized work and simplified work processes. At the same time, employees still had opportunities to influence their long-term work assignment. There was also a trend toward job enlargement through new, higher-skilled tasks, multiskilling, and extended opportunities to influence work through different continuous improvement activities. The participative lean approach and type of skilled jobs may have contributed to this transformation.

Susceptibility to interference increases with age but there is large inter-individual variability in interference control in older adults due to a number of biological and environmental factors. The present study aims at analyzing behavior and ERPs in a Stroop interference task with increasing difficulty in a sample of 246 young, middle-aged and healthy old participants. The old age group was divided into three subgroups based on performance scores. The results show a gradual performance reduction with increasing age and task difficulty. However, old high performers reached a performance level comparable to middle-aged subjects. The contingent negative variation (CNV) reflecting preparation and proactive task control and the target-locked P2/N2 complex associated with retrieval and implementation of S-R mappings during reactive task control were larger in the old high than low performers and similar to middle-aged or even young participants. High performance was limited to executive control tasks, while other cognitive functions were less affected. In addition, high performance was associated with higher level of education, usage of foreign languages and higher IQ. Thus, the performance differences in old age were discussed in the framework of cognitive reserve that constitutes individual differences in neural networks underlying task performance.

Animals vary considerably in size, shape, and physiological features across individuals, but yet achieve remarkably similar behavioral performances. We examined how animals compensate for morphophysiological variation by measuring the system dynamics of individual knifefish (Eigenmannia virescens) in a refuge tracking task. Kinematic measurements of Eigenmannia were used to generate individualized estimates of each fish’s locomotor plant and controller, revealing substantial variability between fish. To test the impact of this variability on behavioral performance, these models were used to perform simulated ‘brain transplants’—computationally swapping controllers and plants between individuals. We found that simulated closed-loop performance was robust to mismatch between plant and controller. This suggests that animals rely on feedback rather than precisely tuned neural controllers to compensate for morphophysiological variability., eLife digest People come in different shapes and sizes, but most will perform similarly well if asked to complete a task requiring fine manual dexterity – such as holding a pen or picking up a single grape. How can different individuals, with different sized hands and muscles, produce such similar movements? One explanation is that an individual’s brain and nervous system become precisely tuned to mechanics of the body’s muscles and skeleton. An alternative explanation is that brain and nervous system use a more “robust” control policy that can compensate for differences in the body by relying on feedback from the senses to guide the movements. To distinguish between these two explanations, Uyanik et al. turned to weakly electric freshwater fish known as glass knifefish. These fish seek refuge within root systems, reed grass and among other objects in the water. They swim backwards and forwards to stay hidden despite constantly changing currents. Each fish shuttles back and forth by moving a long ribbon-like fin on the underside of its body. Uyanik et al. measured the movements of the ribbon fin under controlled conditions in the laboratory, and then used the data to create computer models of the brain and body of each fish. The models of each fish’s brain and body were quite different. To study how the brain interacts with the body, Uyanik et al. then conducted experiments reminiscent of those described in the story of Frankenstein and transplanted the brain from each computer model into the body of different model fish. These “brain swaps” had almost no effect on the model’s simulated swimming behavior. Instead, these “Frankenfish” used sensory feedback to compensate for any mismatch between their brain and body. This suggests that, for some behaviors, an animal’s brain does not need to be precisely tuned to the specific characteristics of its body. Instead, robust control of movement relies on many seemingly redundant systems that provide sensory feedback. This has implications for the field of robotics. It further suggests that when designing robots, engineers should prioritize enabling the robots to use sensory feedback to cope with unexpected events, a well-known idea in control engineering.

Highlights • Higher flexibility in schizophrenia at the resting state network and node level. • Higher flexibility in the thalamus due to default-mode sensory/motor transitions. • Altered between sub-network dynamic modular configuration in schizophrenia. • Flexibility scores affected by methodological choices such as window size., Novel methods for measuring large-scale dynamic brain organisation are needed to provide new biomarkers of schizophrenia. Using a method for modelling dynamic modular organisation (Mucha et al., 2010), evidence suggests higher ‘flexibility’ (switching between multilayer network communities) to be a feature of schizophrenia (Braun et al., 2016). The current study compared flexibility between 55 patients with schizophrenia and 72 controls (the COBRE Dataset). In addition, novel methods of ‘between resting state network synchronisation’ (BRSNS) and the probability of transition from one community to another were used to further describe group differences in dynamic community structure. There was significantly higher schizophrenia group flexibility scores in cerebellar (F (1124) = 9.33, p (FDR) = 0.017), subcortical (F (1124) = 13.14, p (FDR) = 0.005), and fronto-parietal task control (F (1124) = 7.19, p (FDR) = 0.033) resting state networks (RSNs), as well as in the left thalamus (MNI XYZ: -2, -13, 12; F(1, 124) = 17.1, p (FDR) < 0.001) and the right crus I (MNI XYZ: 35, -67, -34; F (1, 124) = 19.65, p (FDR) < 0.001). Flexibility in the left thalamus reflected transitions between communities covering default mode and sensory-somatomotor RSNs. BRSNS scores suggested altered dynamic inter-RSN modular configuration in schizophrenia. This study suggests less stable community structure in a schizophrenia group at an RSN and node level and provides novel methods of exploring dynamic community structure. Mediation of group differences by mean time window correlation did however suggest flexibility to be no better as a schizophrenia biomarker than simpler measures and a range of methodological choices affected results.

In the previous chapter, we looked at a couple of features that you can use while setting up Azure build pipelines with the classic editor. Those included the capability to use different source control systems, applying common step templates to set up a build, usage of multiple jobs inside a build, and parallelism including multi-configuration builds. Further, you explored the capability to add tasks or build steps to a build pipeline and even getting additional tasks by installing the marketplace extensions. Then you had a good look at the task control conditions and usage of custom conditions to satisfy for various scenarios.

Task conflict is a type of conflict that emerges when a stimulus triggers two or more competing tasks. In the Stroop task, task conflict occurs between the relevant color-naming task and irrelevant word reading task and can be observed mainly on congruent trials, which only involve task conflict and are devoid of additional conflict types. We hypothesized that task conflict also manifests in the affordances task between the relevant task (e.g., classifying manipulatable objects), and the automatic task afforded by the object (e.g., grasping the object), and is mostly evident on congruent trials. Using an individual differences design we assessed the relationship between control mechanisms operating on Stroop congruent and affordances congruent trials under conditions of high and low cognitive control requirements. We hypothesized that task control is employed in both tasks. One-hundred and twenty-three participants performed an affordances task and two blocks of a Stroop task, each requiring a different level of task control (high vs. low). In a hierarchical regression model, we found a significant and specific correlation between affordances congruent and Stroop congruent conditions only in the high-control block, designed to greatly engage participants' task control, thus linking the task control mechanism in both tasks. These results indicate that task control underlies diverse modalities of response (visuomotor and linguistic), independently of other conflict types. We suggest that the affordances task may serve as a supplementary tool for the assessment of task control in the lab.

Functional connectivity studies have identified at least two large-scale neural systems that constitute cognitive control networks – the frontoparietal network (FPN) and cingulo-opercular network (CON). Control networks are thought to support goal-directed cognition and behavior. It was previously shown that the FPN flexibly shifts its global connectivity pattern according to task goal, consistent with a “flexible hub” mechanism for cognitive control. Our aim was to build on this finding to develop a functional cartography (a multi-metric profile) of control networks in terms of dynamic network properties. We quantified network properties in (male and female) humans using a high-control-demand cognitive paradigm involving switching among 64 task sets. We hypothesized that cognitive control is enacted by the FPN and CON via distinct but complementary roles reflected in network dynamics. Consistent with a flexible “coordinator” mechanism, FPN connections were varied across tasks, while maintaining within-network connectivity to aid cross-region coordination. Consistent with a flexible “switcher” mechanism, CON regions switched to other networks in a task-dependent manner, driven primarily by reduced within-network connections to other CON regions. This pattern of results suggests FPN acts as a dynamic, global coordinator of goal-relevant information, while CON transiently disbands to lend processing resources to other goal-relevant networks. This cartography of network dynamics reveals a dissociation between two prominent cognitive control networks, suggesting complementary mechanisms underlying goal-directed cognition.Significance StatementCognitive control supports a variety of behaviors requiring flexible cognition, such as rapidly switching between tasks. Furthermore, cognitive control is negatively impacted in a variety of mental illnesses. We used tools from network science to characterize the implementation of cognitive control by large-scale brain systems. This revealed that two systems – the frontoparietal (FPN) and cingulo-opercular (CON) networks – have distinct but complementary roles in controlling global network reconfigurations. The FPN exhibited properties of a flexible coordinator (orchestrating task changes), while CON acted as a flexible switcher (switching specific regions to other systems to lend processing resources). These findings reveal an underlying distinction in cognitive processes that may be applicable to clinical, educational, and machine learning work targeting cognitive flexibility.

Dual tasking is known to yield performance costs. Corresponding research has often focused on early or central task processing stages, that is, on features related to stimulus processing or response selection. Here, we demonstrate the important role of the final (late) stage of task processing by studying effects of effector system combinations. We used pairwise combinations of tasks requiring oculomotor, manual, vocal, and pedal responses, triggered by visual/auditory stimuli. Across task combinations, we compared dual-task costs among effector systems (e.g., oculomotor, vocal, and pedal) under controlled conditions, that is, when combined with the same "context effector" (e.g., manual) in the other task. The dual-task cost pattern was strongly determined by the particular combination of effector systems in line with the assumption of an ordinal effector-based prioritization pattern (oculomotor > pedal > vocal > manual), and could not be explained by classic "first-come, first-served" accounts of central processing. Stimulus modality and its mapping to effector systems affected reaction times (RTs), but the impact on the general prioritization scheme was negligible, suggesting a more substantial influence of output (compared with input) system characteristics on dual-task capacity scheduling. The results call for a distinct effector system weighting mechanism in models of dual-task control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Stimulus-driven behaviors are triggered by the specific stimuli with which they are associated. For example, words elicit automatic reading behavior. When stimulus-driven behaviors are incongruent with one’s current goals, task conflict can emerge, requiring the activation of a task control mechanism. The Stroop task induces task conflict by asking participants to focus on color naming and ignore the automatic, stimulus-driven, irrelevant word reading task. Thus, task conflict manifests in Stroop incongruent as well as in congruent trials. Previous studies demonstrated that when task control fails, reaction times in congruent trials slow down, leading to a reversed facilitation effect. In the present mini-review, we review the literature on the manifestation of task conflict and the recruitment of task control in the Stroop task and present the physiological and behavioral signatures of task control and task conflict. We then suggest that the notion of task conflict is strongly related to the concept of stimulus-driven behaviors and present examples for the manifestation of stimulus-driven task conflict in the Stroop task and additional tasks, including object-interference and affordances tasks. The reviewed literature supports the illustration of task conflict as a specific type of conflict, which is different from other conflict types and may manifest in different tasks and under diverse modalities of response.