Bilinguals frequently switch between languages. The present study examined cued language switching (CLS) longitudinally in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children with (n = 11) and without (n = 30) developmental language disorder (DLD) in a three-wave design with one-year intervals. We studied effects of dominance, indexed by language proficiency and exposure, on overall switching performance and the costs associated with switching between languages. Results show limited evidence for overall costs associated with language switching (i.e., only mixing costs in reaction times [RTs]). Further, accuracy on CLS increased with increasing dominance in the trial language. Moreover, better performance, and larger switching costs, were found in the majority (Dutch) compared to the minority (Turkish) language. These results are discussed in light of the sociolinguistic context. As hypothesized, more errors, longer RTs and slightly larger mixing costs were observed in children with DLD, suggesting overall word retrieval difficulties and difficulties with cognitive control.

Algeria’s micro-satellite, Alsat-1b, was successfully launched into a 680 km low Earth orbit onboard a PSLV-C35 rocket from Sriharikota, South India, on September 26, 2016. The spacecraft was conceived, built and launched as part of an 18-month technology transfer programme between Algeria’s Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) and the United Kingdom’s Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). This document details the Power Conditioning and Distribution Module’s (PCM-PDM) design and performance in orbit, critical component of a satellite electrical power system, responsible for converting, regulating and distributing power to various subsystems and payloads. The PCM-PDM developed and produced by SSTL was subjected to rigorous testing simulating harsh space conditions to assess its performance. The results of this comprehensive analysis indicate that the module can effectively withstand extreme environmental factors and function optimally in challenging settings. The analysis focused on the PCM-PDM’s ability to provide reliable and efficient power conditioning and distribution to the satellite, including its load management capabilities, overcurrent protection, protection against undervoltage and critical mode operations. The results of the performance analysis showed that the PCM-PDM met the required specifications and demonstrated reliable and efficient operation in different modes of the satellite’s mission. The study highlights the importance of careful design and rigorous testing of the PCM-PDM to ensure the reliable and efficient operation of the satellite and its payloads.

Previous research suggests that bilingual language control requires domain-general cognitive control. Recent research suggests that exploration of individual differences is key for understanding the relationship between bilingual language control and cognitive control. The current study used multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to examine within-subject patterns of fMRI activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during bilingual language switching and non-linguistic task-switching. We hypothesized that bilinguals would have identifiable, within-subject patterns of DLPFC activity for both types of switching and that bilinguals and monolinguals would differ in patterns of DLPFC activity for task-switching. We were unable to identify patterns of DLPFC activity associated with bilingual language switching. Task-switching was related to patterns of left DLPFC activity for both bilinguals and monolinguals, and there were identifiable patterns of right DLPFC activity for the bilinguals only. These findings suggest that the DLPFC is not the key brain structure connecting bilingual language and task-switching.

Recent studies suggest that heterogeneous bilingual experiences implicate different executive functions (EF) in children. Using a latent profile analysis, we conducted a more nuanced investigation of multifaceted bilingual experiences. By concurrently considering numerous bilingual indicators – age of L1 and L2 acquisition, interactional contexts of verbal exchanges, L1 and L2 proficiency, balance of language use at home and school, and receptive vocabulary – we identified three latent profiles (subgroups): balanced dual-language, dominant single-language, and mixed-interaction. We found that the balanced dual-language and dominant single-language profiles predicted significantly better switching than the mixed-interaction profile. However, no profile differences were found in working memory, prepotent response inhibition, or inhibitory control. These results held true when multiple covariates (age, sex, household income, and nonverbal intelligence) were controlled for. Using a person-centered approach, our study underscores that disparate bilingual experiences asymmetrically predict the shifting facet of EF during early childhood.

As nudge interventions have become more popular, academic research is developing that assesses to what extent these interventions are effective. My paper contributes to this stream of research: collating and synthesising evidence on the effectiveness of nudge interventions that aim to increase consumer search and switching in retail financial markets. Following a systematic search strategy, I identify 35 relevant papers, including qualitative studies, laboratory experiments, field experiments and ex post analyses, covering a range of retail financial products and different types of nudges. The review results in two main contributions. First, it demonstrates that different study designs serve different purposes in evidence accumulation. Second, based on over 400 estimates extracted from these papers, it establishes that the currently available evidence shows that nudges increase consumer search and switching in retail financial markets by 2–3 percentage points on average. Structural nudges that change the choice architecture more profoundly have a higher impact on search and switching than nudges that provide, simplify or highlight information. While nudge interventions may be efficient on a cost–benefit basis and can lead to a large increase in relative terms (e.g. doubling switching rates from 1% to 2%), regulators cannot expect them to significantly alter consumer behaviour.

Determinants of antipsychotic selection and response include parameters of the primary disorder, psychiatric and physical comorbidities, past treatment effects, patient preferences, availability and acceptability of different treatments and formulations, as well as expected efficacy and safety. In the absence of consistent and sufficiently large efficacy differences among antipsychotics (except for clozapine in refractory patients), and in view of a greater focus on physical health, functional outcomes and quality of life, relatively more predictable differences in adverse events have become an important management consideration. Treatments are often selected because of a relatively lower propensity for extrapyramidal and sexual side effects, sedation, and, especially, the reduced development of cardiometabolic risk states and disorders. In this context, differences in receptor binding affinity, intrinsic activity and in the half life of antipsychotics are crucial to adopt adequate dosing and switching strategies. Dopamine rebound phenomena can occur when the level of dopamine blockade is not kept relatively constant during the switch process. This can happen when the new antipsychotic is underdosed or not fully absorbed, the switch is too abrupt from an antipsychotic with a short half life to one with a much longer half life, or when a dopamine antagonist is switched too fast to an antipsychotic with markedly less dopamine affinity or to a partial dopamine agonist. Intra-switch destabilization can also occur when changing too quickly from antipsychotics with strong histaminergic and/or cholinergic blockade to ones with lower affinity to these receptors. Overlapping “plateau” switch strategies and transient co-treatment with calming medications, such as benzodiazepines, have emerged as potential solutions to these rebound phenomena that can complicate the early switch period. To optimize outcomes, antipsychotic treatment should be pharmacologically informed and measurement based, combining both acute and long-term management goals and balancing efficacy and adverse effect considerations.

The aim of this study was to investigate the foraging behavior of Aphidius matricariae (Haliday) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) as a biological control agent of Myzus persicae nicotianae Blackman (Hemiptera: Aphididae), a key and cosmopolitan pest of tobacco fields. To achieve a strategy for the control of this pest and a mass-rearing program of the parasitoid, host stage preference, switching, functional response, and mutual interference of A. matricariae were investigated at 25 ± 1°C, 70 ± 5% RH and 16:8 h L:D photoperiod. The parasitoid showed a preference for third- and fourth-instar nymphs of tobacco aphid in both choice and no-choice experiments. Using the Murdach's model, switching behavior was observed in A. matricariae between different density proportions of third- and fourth-instar nymphs. Further, the parasitoid exhibited a type II functional response when it was offered to third-instar nymphs of M. persicae nicotianae at six densities (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64). Based on the linear regression analysis, there was a significance difference between the logarithm of per capita searching efficiency and the logarithm of parasitoid density. As the wasp density increased, per capita searching efficiency decreased. The result of this study revealed that A. matricariae is an effective agent in the integrated management of M. persicae nicotianae. In addition, application of these results can be important in mass-rearing program of A. matricariae.

Recent theories propose that language-switching in bilinguals influences executive control. We investigated whether switching behaviour, shaped by the bilingual's interactional context as well as personal preferences impacted attentional control. We compared four groups – (i) Edinburgh monolinguals, (ii) Edinburgh non-switching late bilinguals, (iii) Edinburgh non-switching early bilinguals, and (iv) Singapore switching early bilinguals – on two tasks of attentional control. Effects of interactional context were observed, with Singapore bilinguals performing better on conflict resolution in the Attention Network Task and Edinburgh late bilinguals on attentional switching in the Elevator reversal (Test of Everyday Attention) subtest. Our results suggest that the interactional context of bilinguals could impact attentional control differently.

One key issue in bilingualism is how bilinguals control production, particularly to produce words in the less dominant language. Language switching is one method to investigate control processes. Language switching has been much studied in comprehension, e.g., in lexical decision task, but less so in production. Here we first present a study of language switching in Italian–English adult bilinguals in a naming task for visually presented words. We demonstrate an asymmetric pattern of time costs to switch language, where participants incurred a greater time cost to switch into naming in their dominant language (Italian). In addition, costs were greater where the stimuli were interlingual cognates or homographs than words existing in only one language, implicating lexical competition as a source of the cost. To clarify the operation of control processes, we then present two connectionist models of bilingual naming, based on the previous models of Seidenberg and McClelland (1989), Cohen, Dunbar and McClelland (1990), Gilbert and Shallice (2002), and Karaminis and Thomas (2010). Crucially, both models acquired their differential language dominance via an experience-dependent learning process. The models embody different assumptions about the language control processes that produce the switch cost. We consider which processing assumptions are sufficient to explain asymmetric language switch costs and word class effects on language switching in individual word reading, as well as generating novel predictions for future testing.

Decline in executive function has been noted in the prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and may presage more global cognitive declines. In this prospective longitudinal study, five measures of executive function were used to predict subsequent global cognitive decline in initially nondemented older adults. Of 71 participants, 15 demonstrated significant decline over a 1-year period on the Dementia Rating Scale (Mattis, 1988) and the remaining participants remained stable. In the year before decline, the decline group performed significantly worse than the no-decline group on two measures of executive function: the Color-Word Interference Test (CWIT; inhibition/switching condition) and Verbal Fluency (VF; switching condition). In contrast, decliners and non-decliners performed similarly on measures of spatial fluency (Design Fluency switching condition), spatial planning (Tower Test), and number-letter switching (Trail Making Test switching condition). Furthermore, the CWIT inhibition-switching measure significantly improved the prediction of decline and no-decline group classification beyond that of learning and memory measures. These findings suggest that some executive function measures requiring inhibition and switching provide predictive utility of subsequent global cognitive decline independent of episodic memory and may further facilitate early detection of dementia. (JINS, 2012, 18, 118–127)

This work is dedicated to the analysis of the application of active impedance control for the realisation of three objectives simultaneously: velocity regulation in free motion, impact attenuation and finally force tracking. At first, a brief analysis of active impedance control is made, deducing the value of each parameter in order to achieve the three objectives. It is demonstrated that the system may be made overdamped with the adequate selection of the parameters if the characteristics of the environment are known, avoiding high overshoots of force during the impact. The second and most important contribution of this work is an additional measure for impact control in the case when the characteristics of the environment are unknown. It consists in switching among different values of the parameters of the impedance in order to dissipate faster the energy of the system, limiting the peaks of force and avoiding losses of contact. The optimal switching criteria are deduced for every parameter in order to dissipate the energy of the system as fast as possible. The results are verified in simulation.

The semantic fluency task is a widely used assessment tool for evaluating memory-related cognitive deficits in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. The present study investigates individual differences in performance on this task in a normal population. The aim is to explore handedness differences in switching and clustering tendencies when performing this task. Consistent with our prediction, when asked to produce as many animal names as possible in 1 min, mixed handers demonstrated greater switching between different subcategories of animals than strong handers. These findings are interpreted in terms of the more diffuse spread of activation among conceptual representations in the right hemisphere, and greater access to right hemisphere processes in mixed handers. The findings have implications for the research communities using the semantic fluency task, irrespective of whether or not they are looking at handedness differences per se. (JINS, 2009, 15, 1023–1027.)

We consider a model for the control of a linear network flow system with unknown but bounded demandand polytopic bounds on controlled flows. We are interested in the problem of finding a suitable objective functionthat makes robust optimal the policy represented by the so-called linear saturated feedback control. We regard the problem as a suitable differential game with switching cost and study it in the framework of the viscosity solutions theory for Bellman and Isaacs equations.

In this paper, we propose a control method to achieve three objectives simultaneously: velocity regulation during free motion, impact damping and finally force reference tracking. During impact, the parameters are switched in order to dissipate the energy of the system as fast as possible and the optimal switching criteria are deduced. The possibility of sliding regimes is analysed and the theoretical results are verified in simulations.

Past research has been inconsistent with regard to the effects of normal aging and sex on strategy use during verbal fluency performance. In the present study, both Troyer et al.’s (1997) and Abwender et al.’s (2001) scoring methods were used to measure switching and clustering strategies in 60 young and 72 older adults, equated on verbal ability. Young adults produced more words overall and switched more often during both phonemic and semantic fluency tasks, but performed similarly to older adults on measures of clustering. Although there were no sex differences in total words produced on either fluency task, males produced larger clusters on both tasks, and females switched more frequently than males on the semantic but not on the phonemic fluency task. Although clustering strategies appear to be relatively age-insensitive, age-related changes in switching strategies resulted in fewer overall words produced by older adults. This study provides evidence of age and sex differences in strategy use during verbal fluency tests, and illustrates the utility of combining Troyer’s and Abwender’s scoring procedures with in-depth categorization of clustering to understand interactions between age and sex during semantic fluency tasks. (JINS, 2009, 15, 196–204.)

We consider a model in which foreign and domestic traders buy the assets of both of two countries. Speculators in both countries use chartist or fundamentalist rules for forecasting the exchange rate. Demand for the assets of each country is determined by these forecasts. Perceptions of the fundamentals in each country are not necessarily the same. Rules are used with a certain probability depending on an agent's previous experience with them. The demands of the fundamentalist and chartist agents in the two countries determine the temporary equilibrium exchange rate at each point in time. This is unique under certain assumptions. With traders of both nationalities there is no need, as in other models, for an exogenous supply of foreign exchange. The model produces realistic features of the equilibrium exchange rate series. Periods in which the exchange rate tracks the fundamentals of one of the countries alternate with others in which bubbles appear.

A meta-analysis of 68 studies with a total of 4644 participants was conducted to investigate the sensitivity of tests of verbal fluency to the presence of Parkinson's disease (PD) relative to healthy controls. Both phonemic and semantic fluency were moderately impaired but neither deficit qualified as a differential deficit relative to verbal intelligence or psychomotor speed. However, PD patients were significantly more impaired on semantic relative to phonemic fluency (rs = .37 vs. .33, respectively), and confrontation naming, a test of semantic memory that imposes only minimal demands upon cognitive speed and effortful retrieval, was associated with a deficit that was of a comparable magnitude to the deficits upon each of these types of fluency. Thus, the disorder appears to be associated with particular problems with semantic memory. Tests that impose heavy demands upon switching may also be disproportionately affected. Demented and non-demented PD patients differ quantitatively but not qualitatively in terms of the relative prominence of deficits on tests of phonemic and semantic fluency. However, patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type and demented PD patients can be differentiated from one another by the relative magnitude of deficits upon these two measures. (JINS, 2004, 10, 608–622.)