This documental study has the qualitative approach of a case study. It analyzes how autonomy has been developed in nursing students process of knowledge construction, in a context mediated by the use of educational chat in Learning Management Systems (LMS). The analyzed materials were eight discussions promoted by students, professors, and monitors in the chat session of TelEduc LMS. The software NVivo was used to categorize data and Content Analysis for the analysis of information. Data analysis used Freire as a reference point, revealing that nursing students need to develop their autonomy by acknowledging their incompleteness. Professors can aid this process by problematizing and developing critical dialogical relations. The potential of the educational chat as a pedagogical tool is highlighted because it encourages students to autonomously seek knowledge.
Doc 302 : Prevalence and predictors of unsolicited exposure to and involvement in online sexual activites among young Internet users in Lagos metropolis
The study draws empirical evidence from adolescents (aged 10 to 19 years) and young adults (20 to 24 years) who use the Internet in exploring the relationship between two sets of independent variables – background characteristics and context of Internet use and two sets of dependent variables – unsolicited exposure to online materials with sexual contents, and involvement in online sexual activities. The background characteristics explored in the study are age, sex, autonomy (whether living alone or with parents), access to funds and parent-child communication, while the Internet use context variables are place of access, all-night Internet use and intensity of use. The study reveals that close to half of the subjects had been involved in at least one online sexual activity with intensity and time of Internet use as the strongest predictors of involvement. doi: 10.11564/27-1-3
Doc 303 : Internet Taxation and U.S. Intergovernmental Relations: From Quill to the Present
One of the most contentious issues involving federal, state, and local relations today is Internet taxation. Internet taxation is a significant battleground because it involves issues of great import to federalism, including state and local autonomy and revenue adequacy. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Quill v. North Dakota, the taxability of online transactions has been governed by the court’s physical presence nexus rule. This nexus rule has recently been called into question by various organizations, corporations, and elected officials. Proposals to alter the nexus rule abound from various sources. This article examines the roles played by these various actors in the Internet taxation debate and explores the potential implications of changes to the nexus forfederalism and intergovernmental relations.
Doc 304 : Cracking down on autonomy: three challenges to design in IT Law
The paper examines how technology challenges conventional borders of national legal systems, as shown by cases that scholars address as a part of their everyday work in the fields of information technology (IT)-Law, i.e., computer crimes, data protection, digital copyright, and so forth. Information on the internet has in fact a ubiquitous nature that transcends political borders and questions the notion of the law as made of commands enforced through physical sanctions. Whereas many of today’s impasses on jurisdiction, international conflicts of law and diverging interpretations of statutes can be addressed by embedding legal safeguards in ICT and other kinds of technology, to overcome the ineffectiveness of state action by design entails its own risks, e.g., threats of paternalism hinging on the regulatory tools of technology. Rather than modelling people’s behaviour by design, the article suggests that design policies should respect individual and collective autonomy by decreasing the impact of harm-generating behaviour (e.g., security measures and default settings for data protection), or by widening the range of people’s choices (e.g., user friendly interfaces).
Doc 305 : Parenting as a performance: Parents as consumers and (de)constructors of mythic parenting and childhood ideals
The existing critical literature on constructions of childhood and parenthood is only beginning to listen to what parents have to say. As a result, parents may paradoxically be viewed as passive victims and therefore reduced to be the spectators of what is supposed to be their ‘problem’. The present study analyses dominant parent advice texts in the Flemish community of Belgium, as well as the voices of parents on the Internet. The study confirms the tendencies noticed in critical literature: the tendency to individualize responsibilities and the focus on autonomy in the neoliberal era. In addition it unveils the double bind nature of autonomy in expert discourse. It also illustrates the performative agency of parents, as co-constructors of dominant discourse as well as contesting this discourse. In so doing, the study complements the existing vein of literature with the way in which parents think of and experience the dominant parenting discourse.
Doc 306 : Relationship Contingency and Sexual Motivation in Women: Implications for Sexual Satisfaction
Deriving self-worth from romantic relationships (relationship contingency) may have implications for women’s sexual motives in relationships. Because relationship contingency enhances motivation to sustain relationships to maintain positive self-worth, relationship contingent women may engage in sex to maintain and enhance their relationships (relational sex motives). Using structural equation modeling on Internet survey data from a convenience sample of 462 women in heterosexual and lesbian relationships, we found that greater relationship contingency predicted greater relational sex motives, which simultaneously predicted both sexual satisfaction and dissatisfaction via two distinct motivational states. Having sex to improve intimacy with one’s partner was associated with greater sexual satisfaction and autonomy, while having sex to earn partner’s approval was associated with sexual dissatisfaction and inhibition. While some differences exist between lesbian and heterosexual relationships, relationship contingency had sexual costs and benefits, regardless of relationship type.
Doc 307 : Using Tittle’s control balance theory to understand computer crime and deviance
This article studies Tittle’s control balance theory that bases criminal and deviant behaviour on the desire to increase levels of autonomy and uses this to deconstruct Internet crime. It suggests that anonymity and deindividuation are facets of opportunity and means of reducing the likelihood that normal constraints will interfere and questions their position as causative elements of computer mediated crime. It suggests that the control balance theory can help to understand why there may be high levels of computer crime and why individuals who might refrain from deviance in the real world may participate in deviant behaviour on-line. Finally, there are tentative suggestions for policy initiatives as well as a recognition that both these and the application of control balance in this area would benefit from further analysis.
Doc 308 : Mentorship Modes: Strategies for Influencing Interactive Learners
In the age of the Internet, students are clamoring for immersive and participatory learning experiences, but how can teachers share autonomy without losing control of their classrooms? In an effort to address this important question, this article suggests three mentorship modes that educators can employ in order to effectively engage with today’s interactive learners. Lecture-based instruction is a single mode form of teaching in which information is disseminated by a lone authority-figure. In contrast, learning-centered mentorship is a three-mode process in which autonomy is shared and authority flows in multiple directions at once: bottom-up (modeling), laterally (collaborating), and topdown (organizing and supervising). This work draws on research and theories related to student-centered pedagogy, as well as the trial and error experimentation of the author and interviews with successful participatory educators working at Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy in Chicago, a school devoted almost exclusively to problem-based and project-based learning.
Doc 309 : Computation and Networking - Compunetics - promoting digital inclusion of elderly, cognitively impaired, and Alzheimer??s patients
Our society is aging fast, and the prevalence of chronic, potentially disabling diseases is increasing exponentially, with a sizeable proportion of cognitively impaired and demented people. We urgently need new strategies for large scale physical and cognitive rehabilitation in our aging societies. The size of the need, however, contrasts with the scarcity of resources of the existing health systems. The degree of dependence on the activities of the daily living (ADLs) and the measure of cognitive impairment are good health indicators. Computation and cooperative networking can be extremely instrumental to help meet the demands of daily life. Health promotion might be well supported by interactive devices like personal computers, cell phones, global positioning devices, and electronic banking. These technologies can be reached by the Internet, ubiquitous computation, artificial intelligence, and telecommunications and they can be fundamental to maintain autonomy and independence of cognitively impaired people, helping them through their ADLs. Digital inclusion of the aged and cognitively impaired is a promising challenge, and should be based on the sound principles of human-computer interaction, networking, neuroscience and gerontology. The core objective is to construct environments that could empower cognitively impaired people and Alzheimer´s patients, enabling them to exercise their citizenship, participate and share with their community their life experiences and aspirations.
Doc 310 : Human Decision Making Model for Autonomic Cyber Systems
Real-time autonomy is a key element for system which closes the loop between observation, interpretation, planning, and action, commonly found in UxV, robotics, smart vehicle technologies, automated industrial machineries, and autonomic computing. Real-time autonomic cyber system requires timely and accurate decision making and adaptive planning. Autonomic decision making understands its own state and the perceived state of its environment. It is capable of anticipating changes and future states and projecting the effects of actions into future states. Understanding of current state and the knowledge/model of the world are needed for extrapolating actions and deriving action plans. This position paper proposes a hybrid, statistical-formal approach toward achieving realtime autonomy.
Doc 311 : Toward a model of NGO media diplomacy in the Internet age: Case study of Washington Profile
Abstract This qualitative study explores values, perceived effectiveness and factors that affect effectiveness of the public diplomacy-oriented international news services by a U.S.-based non-governmental, not-for-profit organization. In-depth, semi-structured interviews are conducted with the staff of the organization. Results show that the key values that guide the operations include independence from government, journalistic objectivity and balance as well as reader education. The perceived effectiveness of NGO international news service is much higher than government-sponsored news programs in terms of reaching audiences, affecting elite groups and return of investment. The factors that affect the effectiveness include use of local journalists and editors as decision-makers, the Internet, censorship by governments of the target region, vision of the NGO leaders, dialogue approach, non-governmental funding, and target elite niche audience.
Doc 312 : Learner Autonomy through Smartphone Applications Vis-À-Vis Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of The Oppressed
Paulo Freire’s classical book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), written in Portuguese, calls for a pedagogy that would assume a new relationship between student, teacher and society. Freire christens traditional peda- gogy a banking system, for it considers the student an empty shell waiting to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. He argues strongly for education to treat the student a co-creator of knowledge. The younger generation need not meekly accept society’s status quo and education should help them to deal with reality critically and creatively so that they can transform their worlds. This paper explores how a tech savvy student can learn a new language, based on the dictum of Friere, using smartphone apps such as Mango and Mosalingua. It explains how a gadget like smartphone can offer learner autonomy which guarantees vocabulary enrichment, pronunciation models, visualization, and comprehension of cultural complexities in respect of a new language. Smartphones and Tablets have revolutionized our way of living. Initially, we were only aware of such applications as emails and search engines. But with the advent of new breeds of smart- phones, thousands of new applications are being uploaded into the Android and the iOS markets. Only the creme de la creme of the population knows about the benefits and the usage of these applications. A majority of students are unaware of the existence of these applications, which can be used as part of cus- tomized learning pedagogy where the learner can learn at his/ her own pace and convenience. In this context, the relationship between the power of smartphone applications and a theory of pedagogy meant for the support of the oppressed needs our keen attention. Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was written at the time of decolonization when former colonies like Africa, Asia, and Latin America became autonomous countries. Decoloniza- tion is an important subject of the book. This book is not about nation’s transformation but about individual and collective hu- man development. The discussion is about the internal colo- nization which is nothing but being oppressed even after the colonial forces and the military forces have left the state. The colonization discourses still remain. Still there are such ques- tions around as, which culture, caste, or language is superior to other? Freire’s book is about healing the self. The important issue in it is how the pedagogy of the oppressed helps people to coun- ter the internal oppression. It tells us about a pedagogy which can help people, especially students, from oppression. There are two propositions. The first one is to identify the subject dis- courses like the economic and social ties that keep people down. The second proposition is that transformation of the oppressed is possible when such people can liberate themselves from op- pression.
Doc 313 : Knowledge transfer: analysis of three Internet acquisitions
The importance of knowledge as the fundamental resource from the strategic viewpoint is widely recognized. Acquisitions are a means of complementing and renewing the knowledge base of the firm. In this study we analyse different variables of the implementation process (autonomy, retention, interaction, cultural similarity) in three acquisitions. We observe that the degree of autonomy granted to the acquired firm is influenced by the nature of the knowledge to be transferred, whereas retention and the means of interaction are not. The results with regard to cultural similarity are not conclusive.
Doc 314 : French validation and adaptation of the perceived autonomy support scale for exercise settings to the sport context
Abstract Recently, Hagger, Chatzisarantis, Hein, Pihu, Soos, and Karsai (2007) presented a new questionnaire, the Perceived Autonomy Support Scale for Exercise Settings (PASSES), designed to evaluate perceived autonomy support toward exercise. The present research investigated the psychometric properties of a French adaptation of this scale to the sport setting in two studies. In Study 1, the French version of the PASSES (i.e., I’Echelle des Perceptions du Soutien a I’Autonomie en Sport; EPSAS) was adapted for sport and completed by 134 athletes. Results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed a unidimensional structure with factor loadings ranging from .63 to .85. Results also showed satisfactory internal consistency (qc = .91). In Study 2 (N = 203), a confirmatory factor analysis provided further support for the unidimensional structure of the questionnaire. Convergent validity of the instrument was also obtained through correlations with meaningful constructs, namely intrinsic motivation and identif…
Doc 315 : Contribuições da neurociências para a educação matemática de uma pessoa com necessidades educativas especiais intelectivas
This article presents a framework from a qualitative research, which is a case study, conducted with a student who has Spina Bifida, implementing an individualized electronic didactic sequence, which has as its central objective to qualify his autonomy in mathematics. The investigated student was 14 years old and attended the 7th grade of elementary school in 2012. The guiding question of this research was: can a person with a mild level of Intellective Special Educational Needs overcome cognitive difficulties in Mathematics involving an electronic didactic sequence? We emphasize the importance of neuroscience advances in educational process of people with Intellective Special Educational Needs, the multimodality of stimuli offered by Information and Communication Technology and the frameworks from the experiment results carried out between 2010 and 2012, with weekly meetings between researchers and the student, which indicate an evolution related to mathematical concepts such as cardinality, ordinality, place value, additive structure, comprehension of units of time, Brazilian monetary system and resolution of problems involving these concepts, especially those related to the additive field.
Doc 316 : Privacy by Design: essential for organizational accountability and strong business practices
An accountability-based privacy governance model is one where organizations are charged with societal objectives, such as using personal information in a manner that maintains individual autonomy and which protects individuals from social, financial and physical harms, while leaving the actual mechanisms for achieving those objectives to the organization. This paper discusses the essential elements of accountability identified by the Galway Accountability Project, with scholarship from the Centre for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams LLP. Conceptual Privacy by Design principles are offered as criteria for building privacy and accountability into organizational information management practices. The authors then provide an example of an organizational control process that uses the principles to implement the essential elements. Initially developed in the ’90s to advance privacy-enhancing information and communication technologies, Dr. Ann Cavoukian has since expanded the application of Privacy by Design principles to include business processes.
Doc 317 : Digitally mastered? Technology and transition in the experience of taught postgraduate students
Taught Master’s students have been largely overlooked in research into learners’ engagement with digital technologies. This article reports work to redress this imbalance, in which an extended email correspondence was conducted with 23 Master’s students. Specifically, it investigates (1) the extent to which these students start their courses both functionally competent in the use of IT and digitally literate, and (2) the relationship between students’ engagement with digital technologies and their experience of transition to postgraduate study in five areas: knowledge and skills, autonomy, ‘deeper’ learning, enculturation into an academic community, and self-concept. Findings suggest that students may initially be less functionally competent in IT than might be expected, but use these tools in an informed manner. Engagement with a wider range of digital technologies parallels their shift from novice to expert practice and their developing self-concept as researchers; however, non-digital means also remain…
Doc 318 : Unbinding Biological Autonomy: Francisco Varela’s Contributions to Artificial Life
To say that artificial life is a young discipline in name only is to exaggerate, but it would be mistaken to think that its goals are new. The marriage of synthetic scientific aims with computational techniques makes artificial life a product of the last fifteen years, but its motivations have much deeper roots in cybernetics, theoretical biology, and the age-old drive to comprehend the mysteries of life and mind. Little wonder that a good part of the work in this field has been one of rediscovery and renewal of hard questions. Other disciplines have sidestepped such questions, often for very valid reasons, or have put them out of the focus of everyday research; yet these questions are particularly amenable to be treated with novel techniques such as computational modeling and other synthetic methodologies. What is an organism? What is cognition? Where do purposes come from? To rediscover and reinvent can be a pleasurable but difficult job. As historians of science know very well, concepts and methods evolve, disfavored theories get buried under successful ones (and not necessarily because they are any less valuable), metaphors and languages change, and social perception and pressures influence the directions of research. In view of this, how fortunate that an exceptional and multifaceted scientist like Francisco Varela has not only provided us with a rich legacy of ideas that, both in content and in perspective, are worthy of serious and active (re-)discovery and exploration, but has also himself been a predecessor and supporter of the field. Concrete examples of his work follow the methods of artificial life, both from when the label did not exist and from afterwards. We also have direct collaborators, many of whom are contributors to this special issue, who worry about many of the same problems as Varela did and whose work is directly connected to research lines in this field. Varela’s key scientific worry was the understanding of biological systems in their full autonomy—neither as a collection of inert components nor as something magical, but as introducing into the universe of physical interactions a special kind of novelty: an autonomously organized system with a formal identity and a point of view. This central worry led him in the 1970s to formulate, together with Humberto Maturana, the theory of autopoiesis, which radically alters the perspective on many biological phenomena by taking seriously (actually by founding itself on) the self-producing nature of bounded metabolic activity. The organism provides us with our primary biological unity, not only as an ontological foundation for biology but, more importantly, from an everyday pragmatic and scientific perspective. Dobzhansky’s famous motto could well be paraphrased as: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of the organism.” The obviousness in the new version is apparent, for understanding what makes an organism remains our problem and is what separates biology from physics. Following the principle of biological autonomy has allowed Varela to formulate radically novel theoretical proposals for key unsolved problems such as the origin of life, the artificial synthesis of minimal cells, the somatic ecology of the extra-cellular
Doc 319 : How Digital Convergence is Changing Cultural Theory
Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of cultural field loses its explanatory power when economic value dominates the symbolic and when institutions such as museums and publishers depend on market forces. This loss of autonomy is accentuated with digital convergence, which integrates texts and images, the factories that produce them and the habitus of readers, spectators, and Internet users. This process gives rise to new conceptual and political challenges, such as the question of whether new televisual cultures can exist or the autonomy of media which are now resituated in an intermedia communication framework, or immersed in globalized or intercultural contexts.
Doc 320 : Üksildus küberruumis: autori individuaalsus ja teksti autonoomia. Solitude in Cyberspace: the Individuality of an Author and the Autonomy of a Text
The keywords in analyses of digital literature and cybertexts (literature that has been created by and is read on a computer) mostly derive from the vocabulary of increasing collectivism: shared authorship, readerviewer interaction, their active participation in creating text etc. However, this article focuses on the opposite phenomenon: the essence of individualism in the process of digital text creation, that is, solitude. At the same time, the paradoxes related to collectivism and solitude are also addressed. In this article, solitude is regarded as a technical term, indicating the number of different agents in a creative process. This primarily means: whether the text can be associated with one author and his intention, or whether authorship is distributed between several people who have participated in the creation of the text, as well as if and how much texts presume activity on the part of the reader. We can claim that when writers write their texts they are usually on their own. A text is born in the writer’s head and he or she needs some kind of form to present it. When the form of literature was mostly what was recorded on paper, we could say that the author formalised his text in solitude – writing alone on pieces of paper. Only after the manuscript was handed in were other participants added, such as the editor, designer and printer, who took part in the completion process of the literary work. However, when the end result of production is not a printed book, but a cyber- or hypertext, we can assume that these relationships change significantly in the case of digital literature. In addition to the author of the text, cybertexts and hypertexts need active co-authors: programmers, designers etc. Creating a cybertext is, therefore, basically a collective act (although there are of course exceptions). The author of a cybertext is no longer the only and unique creator. At the same time, the solitude of a creative work in cyberspace disappears. After publishing a book in print, the text is left alone; it begins living its own life. In cyberspace, on the contrary, connections in various forms between the author, the work and the reader are retained. Alan Kirby has launched the concept of digimodernism, which marks the cultural stage connected with the spread of Web 2.0. The “digimodernist turn”, in the form of blogs, Facebook and Twitter, has also brought about a change for authors of digital literature. The technological simplicity of the new software means that authors no longer need any urgent technical assistance. This again raises the problem of the author’s solitude: he formalises his work in his blog on his own, alone. It might thus seem paradoxical that in the printed world both the author and his work are solitary, whereas in the cyberworld the solitude of creative work vanishes, because it requires interaction between authors and readers. At the same time, the author’s solitude in cyberspace is twofold – creating cybertexts mostly requires assistance, whereas digimodernist blog literature can be produced in solitude, independently. Very few cybertexts in Estonia have been produced as teamwork, with technical assistance. In this article, two showcases have been studied: the hypertextual poem “Trepp” (“Staircase”, 1996) by Hasso Krull and the grand team project Sonetimasin (Sonnet Machine, 2000) by Mart Valjataga, which consists of a book, an Internet text generator and an enormous electromechanical sonnet machine, which was displayed in an art gallery. Considering the technological experimentation of Estonian writers, these two examples are exceptional rather than normal. Estonian authors have traditionally been reluctant to try out computer-technological experiments. However, the digimodernist turn has altered this situation. Many Estonian writers are active bloggers and Facebook users. Estonian writers who were earlier afraid of technology have become very keen on it in the digimodernist world. We think that the reason for this significant change is that Estonian writers wish to be independent. We can claim that Estonian writers want to be solitary in cyberspace, to avoid participating in technological teamwork, and the new and easy technological platforms make it possible. Literature in Estonia therefore, in a way, continues the tradition of the modernist author who does not wish to give up the position of being an individual author. Digimodernist technological simplicity has indeed made possible the organic transfer from printed text to digital literature, which does not endanger the authorial position.
Doc 321 : The Electronic Patient Record as a Meaningful Audit Tool:Accountability and Autonomy in General Practitioner Work
Health authorities increasingly request that general practitioners (GPs) use information and communication technologies such as electronic patient records (EPR) for accountability purposes. This article deals with the use of EPRs among general practitioners in Britain. It examines two ways in which GPs use the EPR for accountability purposes. One way is to generate audit reports on the basis of the information that has been entered into the record. The other is to let the computer intervene in the clinical process through prompts. The article argues that GPs’ ambivalence toward using the EPR makes them active in finding ways that turn the EPR into a meaningful tool for them, that is, a tool that helps them provide what they see as good care. The article’s main contribution is to show how accountability and autonomy are coproduced; less professional autonomy does not follow from more requests to document one’s work. Instead, new forms of autonomy are produced in the sociotechnical network that is made up b…
Doc 322 : Can the integration of field and classroom-based learning enhance writing? The life on our shore case study
There is a need to evaluate the benefits to children of integrated classroom and field-based learning. In this article, we describe a case study that involves children in the production of a field guide: an authentic task which integrates learner autonomy and open enquiry with field work, information and communication technologies (ICT) and classroom-based activities. We consider the impact that this task has had upon aspects of the children’s factual writing. Although we found no improvement in the ability of the children to write sentences and only a marginal improvement in their ability to write for composition and effect, we did find a significant improvement in their ability to write about the ecology of an animal that they had encountered firsthand when compared to an animal that they had not encountered in life.
Doc 323 : Motivating factors in online language teacher education in southern Argentina
Abstract Online teacher education is of growing interest and so is the study of motivation as a key factor in technology-mediated learning environments. This study is based on a pre-service language teacher education programme in Patagonia, a southern Argentinian region with no face-to-face training offers, limited Internet access and a large number of unqualified teachers. Our goal is to broaden the understanding of online teacher education programmes at undergraduate level in contexts where most trainees are practicing teachers and where online education is the only possibility for holding a teaching qualification. We focused on the motivating factors that led 71 trainees to enrol and to remain in this online teacher training course. Through a mixed methods approach, the trainees completed an online survey ( n = 71) and participated in a follow-up interview ( n = 24). Results showed that obtaining a teaching degree, autonomy, and individual activities were key factors in initial and sustaining motivation. Participants’ experiences challenged collaborative learning in an online environment.
Doc 324 : Anticipatory ethics for a future Internet: analyzing values during the design of an Internet infrastructure.
The technical details of Internet architecture affect social debates about privacy and autonomy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and the basic performance and reliability of Internet services. This paper explores one method for practicing anticipatory ethics in order to understand how a new infrastructure for the Internet might impact these social debates. This paper systematically examines values expressed by an Internet architecture engineering team-the Named Data Networking project-based on data gathered from publications and internal documents. Networking engineers making technical choices also weigh non-technical values when working on Internet infrastructure. Analysis of the team’s documents reveals both values invoked in response to technical constraints and possibilities, such as efficiency and dynamism, as well as values, including privacy, security and anonymity, which stem from a concern for personal liberties. More peripheral communitarian values espoused by the engineers include democratization and trust. The paper considers the contextual and social origins of these values, and then uses them as a method of practicing anticipatory ethics: considering the impact such priorities may have on a future Internet.
Doc 325 : Predictors of Subjective Quality of Life in Schizophrenic Patients Living in the Community. a Nordic Multicentre Study
https://doi.org/10.1177/002076409904500403 Lars Hansson Thomas Middelboe Lars Merinder Olafur Bjarnason Anita Bengtsson-Tops L L Nilsson Mikael Sandlund Andre Sourander Knut W. Sørgaard Hanne R Vinding
As part of a Nordic multi-centre study investigating the life and care situation of community samples of schizophrenic patients the aim of the present part of the study was to examine the relationship between global subjective quality of life and objective life conditions, clinical characteristics including psychopathology and number of needs for care, subjective factors such as satisfaction with different life domains, social network, and self-esteem. A sample of 418 persons with schizophrenia from 10 sites was used. The results of a final multiple regression analysis, explaining 52.3% of the variance, showed that five subjective factors were significantly associated with global subjective quality of life, together with one objective indicator, to have a close friend. No clinical characteristics were associated with global subjective quality of life. The largest part of the variance was explained by satisfaction with health, 36.3% of the variance, and self-esteem, 7.3% of the variance. It is concluded that the actual relationship between objective life conditions and subjectively experienced quality of life still remains unclear. Furthermore, it seems obvious that personality related factors such as self-esteem, mastery and sense of autonomy also play a role in the appraisal of subjective quality of life, which implies that factors like these are important to consider in clinical and social interventions for patients with schizophrenia in order to improve quality of life for these persons.
Doc 326 : “We Reject: Kings, Presidents, and Voting”: Internet Community Autonomy in Managing the Growth of the Internet
ABSTRACT The Internet is currently facing the gravest challenge in its 30-year history as IPv4 addresses, the fundamental numbers required for a machine to connect to the Internet, run out. Despite the economic importance of the issue, states have played little role in its governance. This article uses organization theory to examine how the Internet community of technical experts in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) has been protective of their expert authority and maintained autonomy to manage the address exhaustion problem on their own, guarding against “political” interventions in Internet governance by states.
Doc 327 : Teachers’ Professional Autonomy in England: are neo-liberal approaches incontestable?
This article is informed by a longitudinal research project undertaken with 22 teachers, four head teachers and two other related education professionals in England between May 2010 and April 2011. Drawing on 50 semi-structured interviews and some related email correspondence, the project investigates this cohort’s view of teachers’ professional autonomy. It takes as its starting point the hegemony of neoliberal policy and the adoption and reinforcement of this by UK political parties of all persuasions. The outcomes of the project demonstrate that notwithstanding the thrust of such policy -manifested most obviously by the current conversion of increasing numbers of schools to semi-privatised academy status -teachers acknowledge, explicitly or otherwise, the prevalence of performativity and survivalism yet often retain loyalty to the concept of education as a liberal humanist project as opposed to that of a provider of human capital. In short, they manage to cling to a notion of teaching that transcends the demands of the pursuit of measurable standards. They also recognize the central paradox of the current policy ensemble embodied in the inconsistency of rhetoric from government about professional autonomy alongside strong central control and scrutiny. The article goes on to ask whether, given the expressed antipathy on the part of this government and its predecessors towards research informed policy in general, and to qualitative research in particular, it is possible that such voices will be heeded by power. There are clear implications here for teacher education at initial and post-qualification
Doc 328 : Towards teaching on managing complexity using complexity management tools
This paper explains the design of the course: Introduction to Systems Thinking. This design uses Complexity Management tools from Organisational Cybernetics in order to teach Systems Thinking in general, and Organisational Cybernetics to Manage Complexity in particular. This design attempts to articulate theories, tools, and practices of systems thinking in a context in which students can develop their autonomy. The implementation of this design is a game, which models a social system. In this way, students learn how to make decisions by themselves in a complex environment.
Doc 329 : Cyberspace and mock apple pie: a vision of the future of graphics and virtual environments
We assume that in the future any user’s display platform can render fantastically complex scenes. Having finally shed the concerns related to the computer graphics medium, developers will concentrate on the message. Content will be key-no longer will users accept nonsensical, artistically vacant environments simply because they’re presented in a head-mounted display. This will also mean that static worlds, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, will come second to environments offering interactive content. The development and provision of dynamic content lie at the heart of the problem we face. For an environment to attract significant and regular participation, it must react in an intelligent and unpredictable fashion. Today, that intelligence can come from only two sources: live human collaboration and computer-generated autonomy. Collaborative VE research combines graphics, networking, human perception, and distributed computing issues. However, these facets betray a disappointing lack of coordination. Computer-generated autonomy (CGA) will certainly become inextricably melded with computer graphics. While this article focuses on other aspects of CVEs, the National Research Council’s report on Modeling and Simulation provides excellent recommendations for future avenues of research in CGA, such as behavior adaptability and human representation. Many of the infrastructure requirements for CGA-enhanced systems with a large number of synthetic actors are the same as those needed for large-scale CVEs.
Doc 330 : Romantic Experiences of Homeland and Diaspora South Asian Youth: Westernizing Processes of Media and Friends.
The current study examined 1316 South Asian youth socialized in progressively Westernized contexts: “traditional” Indian homeland single-sex schools, “transitional” Indian homeland co-educational schools, and the immigrant “diaspora” in Canadian schools. Results showed youth in the three contexts were similar on romantic desire. Yet those in increasingly Westernized contexts reported more romantic activities and greater perceived autonomy from parents in partner choice. They were also more likely to consume Western and social media, and possess friends fostering permissive expectations, greater cross-sex network composition, and intimate communication. Involvement with the global media and friends explained the link between the cultural spectrum and romantic experiences. Implications of global restructuring on romantic experiences, media usage, and friendships are discussed, in consideration of gender.
Doc 331 : Self-exploration, anonymity and risks in the online setting: analysis of narratives by 14–18-year olds
This article explores youth narratives of Internet risks and opportunities brought about by user anonymity. Using an essay-based study of 258 youth (mean age 15.4 years, 56% female), we examined youth narratives concerning the effects of Internet anonymity on youth behavior online. Narratives were written anonymously to maximize disclosure. The needs categories of self-determination theory (SDT) for autonomy, relatedness, and competence were used to identify risks and opportunities in youth narratives. The analysis of the data was thematic, using both quantitative and qualitative methods with SDT providing an effective descriptive framework. Quantitative thematic analysis showed that 17% of the narratives included a notion of competence, 32% autonomy and 30% relatedness. Risks were also prevalent in the narratives, with primary themes of 74% cyberbullying and insults, 27% identity theft and risky false identity, and 18% sexual harassment or exploitation. The qualitative analysis underlines the interaction…
Doc 332 : Parle avec Moi: Training in digital and linguistic competence in a French course hosted in a wiki platform
Abstract A French blended course called Parle avec Moi was developed at the University of Padua. Parle avec Moi was based on a wiki platform (PBworks). The aims of the course were manifold: linguistic, metalinguistic (since conversational analysis was the main theoretical topic of the course), and methodological. The virtual context created using Web 2.0 tools helped the students consolidate and widen their active role and autonomy, fostering many of the key competences for lifelong learning outlined by the European Parliament and the Council framework (European Union, 2008), and above all, to develop their digital competence (2006/962/EC). In particular, students experimented with the three dimensions of the concept of digital competence outlined by Calvani et al . (2009) in their research project for assessing digital competence. Besides these introductory materials, which led to a certain savoir faire, to a sound understanding of the opportunities and potential risks of internet-based communication, students were successfully instructed in becoming ( savoir etre ) good builders of common knowledge in a wiki community.
Doc 333 : Strategizing networks of power and influence: the Internet and the struggle over contested space
Whilst some authors have portrayed the Internet as a powerful tool for business and political institutions, others have highlighted the potential of this technology for those vying to constrain or counter-balance the power of organizations, through e-collectivism and on-line action. What appears to be emerging is a contested space that has the potential to simultaneously enhance the power of organizations, whilst also acting as an enabling technology for the empowerment of grass-root networks. In this struggle, organizations are fighting for the retention of “old economy” positions, as well as the development of “new economy” power-bases. In realizing these positions, organizations and institutions are strategizing and manoeuvering in order to shape on-line networks and communications. For example, the on-line activities of individuals can be contained through various technological means, such as surveillance, and the structuring of the virtual world through the use of portals and “walled gardens”. However, loose groupings of individuals are also strategizing to ensure there is a liberation of their communication paths and practices, and to maintain the potential for mobilization within and across traditional boundaries. In this article, the unique nature and potential of the Internet are evaluated, and the struggle over this contested virtual space is explored.
Doc 334 : EPA-0978 – Adolescents who use and misuse internet: a research on italian teenagers
Introduction The Internet provides adolescents the chance to experience autonomy through the collection of information and contact with peers with whom to share experiences, emotions and thoughts. A misuse of the Internet can occur if a teenager avoids real relationships and surfing the web turns into a psychological defense, in contrast with a healthy mental development. Objectives and Aims The research investigates forms and motivations of misuse of the internet among a group of Italian teenagers. Objective of the work is the hypothesis of a correlation between massive use of internet and behaviours of social retreat. Methods The research used a questionnaire. The areas of investigation were: school performance, hours of internet surfing, activity on the Internet (social networks, games, information research, gambling online), psychological reasons of the Internet use, behaviours of social retreat. 583 adolescents (45% males and 54% females, mean age 17 years) responded to the questionnaire. Results The 6% of adolescents sample responded to always think the Internet even when not on the computer or gets irritated and reacts impulsively if someone bothers him while it is connected. The 5% prefer surfing rather then going out with friends. Hours of internet sulfing and responses of social retreat were correlated. Conclusions The social retreat can be one of consequences of the Internet misuse, with difficulties in socializing and use of the Internet as a psychological defense.
Doc 335 : Estratégias multidimensionais para a avaliação da aprendizagem em cursos on-line
This work presents the results of a qualitative investigation supported by descriptions from an on-line collaborative specialization course with emphasis on the evaluation process of students’ learning. The investigation showed that, as a result of the possibilities both information technology and communication technology create to people, the evaluation process can not be limited to the logic of a post-procedural and definitive examination, it should rather be applied all time long, in all ways and for all activities and practices in a course environment. This approach has a multidimensional nature and is able to handle with the complexity of the related knowledge, taking into account many possibilities of interaction, different timing and spaces to learn and teach, the related interfaces as well as interdisciplinary approaches in the analyzed collaborative environment. The theoretical references have explored the evaluation concepts and its predominant practice, and examine several aspects of information and communication technology which apply to the education. Based on these two main fronts, other concepts have been considered in the theoretical field such as complexity, collaboration, time, space, interdisciplinary aspects, among others, which have allowed the research to have its basis on a framework of ideas from which the analysis have been brought to light in order to show the broad scope of the multidimensional learning evaluation in on-line collaborative environment, considering that such evaluation allows to set individual goals of students and teachers according to a pedagogical strategy that dialectically focuses the autonomy and the collective construction of knowledge. Another important point demonstrated in this investigation is that people are much more important than technologies, and that the collaboration between people is also important for an assessment of all moments, even considering the history of each participant as an individual who has a personal history and knowledge gathered from multiple sources and being continuously processed.
Doc 336 : Legal bans on pro-suicide web sites: an early retrospective from Australia.
There are worldwide concerns that pro-suicide web sites may trigger suicidal behaviors among vulnerable individuals. In 2006, Australia became the first country to criminalize such sites, sparking heated debate. Concerns were expressed that the law casts the criminal net too widely; inappropriately interferes with the autonomy of those who wish to die; and has jurisdictional limitations, with off-shore web sites remaining largely immune. Conversely, proponents point out that the law may limit access to domestic pro-suicide web sites, raise awareness of Internet-related suicide, mobilize community efforts to combat it, and serve as a powerful expression of societal norms about the promotion of suicidal behavior.
Doc 337 : How Much Does the Distance in Distance Education Matter? Our Students Speak
Distance learning programs in social work education have been growing exponentially throughout the United States. This study interviewed Master of Social Work (MSW) students enrolled in two synchronous distance-learning courses that employed a blended pedagogy, and evaluates their insights about the learning experience. For these two courses, material was presented via video conferencing and supplemented with online media at two campuses at a large school of social work. In order to give students a voice about their experiences, data were collected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Common themes included: autonomy, emotional connectedness, technological challenges, and knowledge acquisition. Both the strengths and challenges related to distance learning are discussed.
The convergence between biology and computer science has not just produced new scientific disciplines such as artificial life, a development, according to some theoriests, of artificial intelligence. It has also produced (and been produced by) a widespread biologization of culture and technology that is exemplified by the attribution of evolutionary mechanisms and metaphors to the human mind and its supposed analogue, the computer and, more specifically, the Internet. Evolution is one of a number of properties of biological systems (alongside self-organization, selfreplication, autonomy and emergence) that has been used to describe the development of the Internet, which is now said to be evolving (spontaneously) into the global brain. What are the ethical implications of naturalizing and therefore dehistoricizing the development of the Internet and other techno-cultural artefacts, and how can we understand this phenomenon? Kember shows how it can only be understood in the context of the convergence betwee…
Doc 339 : Multisensory shared autonomy and tele-sensor programming - Key issues in space robotics
Abstract The long-term goal of our robotics activities has always been based on the idea of relieving man from inhuman and dangerous tasks. While in the early years of robotics our main focus of interest was restricted to designing robot sensors (and sensor-based man-machine interfaces) and closing smart sensory feedback loops, in recent years the activities have widened up considerably. Presently the general goal is the design of a new generation of multisensory light-weight robots for space applications which are operable by astronauts as well as from groundstations, based on powerful telerobotic concepts and man-machine interfaces. This goal is characterized by a high degree of interdisciplinarity and consists of a few major task areas, such as mechatronics (sensory and actuator developments), telerobotics (remote control concepts for space robots), and learning (and self-improvement). In the early years of our robotic activities cooperation with terrestrial industry was predominant, however the last five years were characterized by close cooperation and contracts with space industry. The space robot technology experiment ROTEX — Europe’s first active step into space robotics — was massively based on the concepts and systems developed here (multisensory gripper, local autonomy, telerobotic station); nevertheless in the future there will be considerable effort to transfer technology developed for space (e.g. light-weight concepts) back into terrestrial applications.
Doc 340 : University Instructor Perceptions of the Use of Asynchronous Text-Based Discussion in Distance Courses.
This study was conducted to extend our understanding of the impacts on instruction when asynchronous text-based Internet communication technology is integrated into distance courses. The researchers interviewed twelve university instructors to examine Berge’s (1995) four roles of the use of technologies as an interview guide. Moore’s (1972) theory of transactional distance was used to interpret the data. The results revealed that as university instructors in distance education programs gain experience, they find it is possible to translate many face-to-face instructional strategies to the online classroom and learn the technical aspects necessary for effective use of asynchronous text-based Internet communication tools. However, most instructors continue to experience a tension between structure, dialogue, and autonomy.
Doc 341 : Theology, Science, and Postmodernism: Responding to Stanley Grenz
This article responds to Stanley J. Grenz’s Templeton Lecture, “Why Do Theologians Need to Be Scientists?” published in the June 2000 issue of Zygon (Grenz 2000). In the first part I outline my reasons for finding the kind of theological reflections in which Grenz engages worthy of attention by noting my disagreement with the view that a sufficient response to theological issues can be formulated on the basis of an examination of our biological nature. I assert, in that connection, the autonomy of reason as a way of investigating and understanding the world. In the second part I respond directly to Grenz by explaining my disagreement with the postmodern critique of science upon which he relies and his adherence to Christian eschatology as an answer to the conundrums into which, he posits, we are drawn as a result of that critique. I note that I agree with Grenz, however, that the activity of valuing is necessarily a forward-looking Godlike endeavor that is not derivable from science. In the third part I suggest that we must be open to the investigation of the possible existence of an objective realm of value and that, in any case, rejection of the postmodern critique of science in many cases pro-vides a sound basis for the disciplined resolution of factual questions that frequently lie at the base of disagreements about values.
Abstract People are looking for flexible learning to accommodate their needs for improvements. One option is through internet based learning or online learning. Internet has provided people with unlimited access to information. Online learning enables lifelong learning become more accessible. The development of online learning offer opportunities for teachers to create mentor online as to support student engagement in learning. Online learning provides multimedia and instructional information. Therefore e-mentoring becomes a viable tool to help student engage in online learning. By using electronic communications, e-mentoring intends to develop and grow the skills, knowledge, confidence, and cultural understanding of the lesser skilled individual. E-mentoring enables teachers interacting with students through email, online chat and online bulletin board regardless of geographic location. Consequently, learners are capable to build their own knowledge when they feel connected by the activity in which their engage. The purpose of this research is to investigate learner’s factor toward e mentoring. The study aims to identify learner’s attitudes toward e- mentoring. In fact understanding learner’s attitude toward e-mentoring is essential to ensure learners can reap the benefits of mentoring. A survey analysis was carried out. A total of 205 participants were asked to answer a questionnaire. A factor analysis and multiple regression technique were carried out. Factor analysis result indicated there are two groups of learner’s attitude that is learner autonomy and teacher as assisted tutors. Finding shows that learner’s attitudes play a role in predicting e-mentoring. To ascertain the successful of e-mentoring program, this research provide evidence learner’s attitude are critical factors to ensure students would stay involve with their mentor.
Doc 343 : RSS and content syndication in higher education: subscribing to a new model of teaching and learning
While blogs, wikis and social networking sites are enjoying high levels of attention as tools to support learning, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) remains the “poor cousin” of these technologies in the higher education classroom, with relatively low uptake amongst educators and students. In this article, the authors argue that the affordances of RSS and content syndication can be used to deliver rich, active, social learning experiences that promote a high degree of learner personalisation, choice and autonomy. They describe a number of ways in which the potential of RSS can be exploited to transform pedagogy in ways that are congruent with emerging theories and models of learning, and that are consistent with the philosophy and ethos of Web 2.0 and networked society at large. The article concludes with a consideration of some of the issues and limitations facing the uptake and use of RSS for teaching and learning. La «Syndication Vraiment Simple» (SVS) des contenus dans l’enseignement superieur: l’adhesi…
Doc 344 : Development and Evaluation of an Internet-Based Program to Improve the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Young Men
Purpose – This paper aims to describe the development of WorkOut, an Internet-based program designed to help young men overcome the barriers towards help-seeking and to build the skills they need to understand and manage their own mental health. Information and communication technologies (ICT) hold great potential to significantly improve mental health outcomes for hard-to-reach and traditionally underserved groups. Internet-based programs and mobile phone applications may be particularly appealing to young men due to their convenience, accessibility and privacy and they also address the strong desire for independence and autonomy held by most men. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, we describe the design process itself, and the strategies used for multi-disciplinary collaboration. The initial evaluation process and results are also described which consisted of three distinct phases: website statistics; one-on-one user testing; and pilot interviews. Findings – The results suggest that WorkOut ha…
Doc 345 : Can a social networking site support afterschool group learning of Mandarin
Schools are often encouraged to facilitate extra-curricular learning within their own premises. This study addresses the potential of social networking sites (SNS) for supporting such out-of-class study. Given concerns that learning on these sites may happen at a surface level, we adopted self-determination theory for designing a social networking experience that aspired to offer a ‘community of inquiry’. A case study of a Mandarin class is reported, in which seven children voluntarily attended afterschool lessons and used a SNS for 12 weeks. Pedagogical strategies to create a sense of relatedness and competence and to offer autonomy support were used in order to steer their informal communication and exploration towards deep and meaningful learning. Our findings show that the online social networking activities are not used simply to extend formal lessons to informal online environment, instead they open up opportunities for students to benefit from informal exploration and thus enrich their experience o…
Doc 346 : The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord in Bangladesh: An Overview
The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord, signed on December 2, 1997 between the government of Bangladesh and the Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhiti Samiti(PCJSS—Chittagong Hill People’s Solidarity Association) ended a long-standing armed conflict between the Bangladesh Army and the tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south-eastern region of Bangladesh. The treaty promised to bring stability in the region. But 15 years into the signing of the Accord, it has yet to bear fruit. The region is still the most unstable region of the country and resentment among the tribal people is increasing day by day due to delays in the full implementation of the Accord. The Accord has also produced a new conflict: after its signing, a group emerged from within the PCJSS movement and formed the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF) a political party aiming at “full autonomy” rather than implementation of the Accord. The frequent clashes between PCJSS and UPDF and between the tribal and the ‘Bengali Settlers’ pose serious threat to the security of the country. In this situation this paper argues that the government of Bangladesh should take immediate and meaningful steps toward full implementation for the Accord. The costs of failure are high: disrupting activities, armed warfare, violations of human rights, losses of lives and resources, exposing the border regions to external threats—all of these are costs that the nation can hardly bear if lasting peace is not achieved. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n4p123
Doc 347 : Foundation of theological college in Belgrade and establishment of legal framework for its functioning
The foundation of the Theological College in Belgrade is viewed in the context of complex political circumstances which followed the restoration of the Serbian state and the efforts of the Serbian church to gain autonomy and the right to elect bishops independently from the Universal Patriarchate. Once having achieved these goals, and with a conviction that the achieved must be defended and maintained by knowledge and education, the state authorities founded a seminary for education of priests and teachers capable to carry out national and spiritual reformation. The accord between the state and the Church regarding the strategic aims enabled the very first vocational school in Serbia to develop continuously its curricula and hire better and better teaching staff each year. However, due to the change of circumstances, the state passed the laws by which it enforced its dominance and showed a clear intent to subordinate theological education to its control. Yet, by its continuous activity during two crucial centuries, the Seminary became a part of collective consciousness, and its cadres contributed actively to the creation of original cultural and value patterns and preservation of national identity of the Serbian nation. The brilliant history of this school and its precious experience can be of great encouragement not only to the researchers of our pedagogical inheritance but also to all those who are engaged in reforming and adjusting education in Serbia to the European standards. .
Doc 348 : Special theme: ambient assisted living for mobility: safety, well-being and inclusion
The ageing of the population worldwide is one of the major social and economic issues facing modern society. With age, the risk of frailty increases, including dementia and reduced mobility, and with it, functional dependence to perform activities of daily living. Ambient assisted living (AAL) aims at seamlessly integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) within homes and residences to increase the quality of life and autonomy of older adults. This special issue focuses on developments in AAL to address mobility challenges among frail older adults, due to physical and cognitive impairments. Among these challenges are an increase risk of falls, inability to independently perform daily activities and difficulties navigating the environment. Ambient technologies can assist automatically detecting falls or relevant activities performed by the older adult, providing augmented cues to assist in mobility and motivating older adults to remain active and autonomous. Ten papers have been selected to be included in this special issue. The first two papers deal directly with the problem of frailty and the risk of falls. The paper by Planinc and Kampel entitled ‘Introducing the use of path data for fall detection’ presents an approach based on a depth sensor to detect falls, which are becoming pervasive as their cost decreases. The approach is compared to the use of audio and 2D video exhibiting better performance. In ‘Elderly frailty detection by using accelerometerenabled smartphones and clinical information record’, Fontecha et al. describe the use of accelerometer data captured by a mobile phone for gait analysis and frailty estimation. The approach was evaluated with 15 elders, and they identified the strong and weak points of the approach to be used for the design of future systems. The next two papers are closely related with the former: an important aspect of AAL technologies aimed at assisting in activities of daily living is the recognition of the activity being performed by the user. In ‘Activity Recognition with Hand-worn Magnetic Sensors’, Maekawa et al. propose the use of magnetic sensors worn in the hand to detect the presence of electrical devices and infer the activity performed by the user. The evaluation performed with real data sets achieved high accuracies even with a small number of sensors. Bravo et al. present in ‘RFID breadcrumbs for enhanced care data management and dissemination’ an approach that uses RFID and NFC technologies to gather information in data-intensive working environments such as assisted living facilities. They introduce the RFID breadcurmbing interaction metaphor for efficient data management and dissemination. Once AAL systems are able to recognize the current activities of users, the task is now to help them in performing them. For this reason, one of the more active areas in ambient assisted living is the support for activities of daily living of the cognitive impaired. Two papers deal with this topic. People with Alzheimer’s have difficulties recognizing objects in their environment and navigating trough it. In ‘Augmented reality annotations to assist persons with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers’, Quintana and Favela describe the use of computer vision to create digital tags in J. Favela (&) CICESE, Ensenada, Mexico e-mail: favela@cicese.mx
Doc 349 : Using Social Networking Sites for Communicable Disease Control: Innovative Contact Tracing or Breach of Confidentiality?
Social media applications such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have attained huge popularity, with more than three billion people and organizations predicted to have a social networking account by 2015. Social media offers a rapid avenue of communication with the public and has potential benefits for communicable disease control and surveillance. However, its application in everyday public health practice raises a number of important issues around confidentiality and autonomy. We report here a case from local level health protection where the friend of an individual with meningococcal septicaemia used a social networking site to notify potential contacts.
Doc 350 : Technology competencies in competitive environment
Abstract Although prior studies suggest that technology competencies play a significant role in firm innovation and competitiveness, what and how technology competencies interacted with competitive environment affect firm innovation has not been fully understood. This paper fills this research gap through a questionnaire survey of 165 firms together with a number of interviews drawn from the Taiwan’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry. The results suggest that capabilities of exploring or exploiting technological opportunities, core technology capability, and autonomy of R&D decisions are particularly important to firm innovation in a highly competitive environment, whereas over commitments to existing technologies may constrain a firm’s innovation especially in such environment. Moreover, different types of competitive environment require different types of technological competencies to enhance firm innovativeness. This paper contributes to the existing theory by examining the joint effect of technology competency and competitive environment on a firm’s innovation.
Doc 351 : World in Torment: A Time Whose Idea Must Come
Presents the full text of the Presidential Address by Stafford Beer to the Triennial Congress of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics, New Delhi, India, January 1993. Introduces the components of contemporary change and discusses the diagnostic approach of management cybernetics. Outlines a summary theory of autonomy and considers autonomy at the global level. Offers an account of the cybernetics of chronic societary triage, developing an analysis of triage through category A, B and C partition. Produces a summary theory of team syntegrity and discusses the power and the use of the team syntegrity model. Finally, outlines an action plan for World Syntegration.
Doc 352 : Survival of the project: A case study of ICT innovation in health care
From twenty years of information and communication technology (ICT) projects in the health sector, we have learned one thing: most projects remain projects. The problem of pilotism in e-health and telemedicine is a growing concern, both in medical literature and among policy makers, who now ask for large-scale implementation of ICT in routine health service delivery. In this article, we turn the question of failing projects upside down. Instead of investigating the obstacles to implementing ICT and realising permanent changes in health care routines, we ask what makes the temporary ICT project survive, despite an apparent lack of success. Our empirical material is based on Norwegian telemedicine. Through a case study, we take an in-depth look into the history of one particular telemedical initiative and highlight how ICT projects matter on a managerial level. Our analysis reveals how management tasks were delegated to the ICT project, which thus contributed to four processes of organisational control: allocating resources, generating and managing enthusiasm, system correction and aligning local practice and national policies. We argue that the innovation project in itself can be considered an innovation that has become normalised in health care, not in clinical, but in management work. In everyday management, the ICT project appears to be a convenient tool suited to ease the tensions between state regulatory practices and claims of professional autonomy that arise in the wake of new public management reforms. Separating project management and funding from routine practice handles the conceptualised heterogeneity between innovation and routine within contemporary health care delivery. Whilst this separation eases the execution of both normal routines and innovative projects, it also delays expected diffusion of technology.
Doc 353 : Open online spaces of professional learning: Context, personalisation and facilitation
This article explores professional learning through online discussion events as sites of communities of learning. The rise of distributed work places and networked labour coincides with a privileging of individualised professional learning. Alongside this focus on the individual has been a growth in informal online learning communities and networks for professional learning and professional identity development. An example of these learning communities can be seen in the synchronous discussion events held on Twitter. This article examines a sample of these events where the interplay of personal learning and the collaborative components of professional learning and practice are seen, and discusses how facilitation is performed through a distributed assemblage of technologies and the collective of event participants. These Twitter based events demonstrate competing forces of newer technologies and related practices of social and collaborative learning against a rhetoric of learner autonomy and control found in the advocacy of the personalisation of learning.
Doc 354 : “I want to pray and I don’t want to pray”: expressive individualism and prayer
This article reports on a study of the relationship between expressive individualism, an important characteristic of individualistic cultures, and different varieties of prayer. Four dimensions of expressive individualism (autonomy, setting oneself apart from others, personal development, and the expression of emotions) and four types of prayer (petitionary, religious, meditative, and psychological) were distinguished. Data were collected from participants in internet forums on Christian religiosity (N = 158); they were asked to complete questionnaires about expressive individualism and prayer. The relationship between expressive individualism and prayer was found to be an ambivalent one, and one that is negatively dominated by autonomy. After eliminating the effect of autonomy, two patterns remain visible, both of them characterised by a positive connection to religiosity. Setting oneself apart from others is associated with petitionary and religious prayer; personal development with meditative and psych…
Doc 355 : Governing and governance in education: Introduction
The theme of this special edition is ‘Governing and Governance in Education’. The way the education system is governed is important for society. However, despite its importance, educational governance is substantially underresearched in comparison with other aspects of the management in educational settings. Furthermore, governing does not have the same profile as other aspects of management in education, such as the work of the headteacher or leadership in educational settings. Policy changes in train in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, such as the increased autonomy of educational institutions, reduced funding for schools and colleges, the continual emphasis on enhancing student attainment and achievement, and the emphasis on inter-organisational collaboration are likely to enhance the importance of governing and governance. In addition, new approaches to governing and governance are needed in order to engage with diversity and to encompass a range of styles from different societies and contexts. This issue is of particular importance to me and my own research interests (Showunmi, 2012). Equality and diversity inhabit difficult and sometimes sensitive territory, reflecting the difficulties and sensitivities inherent in society. In that sense they are an inevitable – and welcome – part of the wider education landscape. Surely a 21st century school, college or university, with values of collaboration, free speech and the expression of all views, is exactly the place to embrace these issues through good governing and appropriate governance. This special edition includes a range of very varied perspectives on aspects of governing and governance. Each of the author’s articles has significant things to say. The James, et al. article identifies features of the context for school governance generally in England and within each aspect reviews the constellation of current challenges confronting school governing bodies. This article is followed by a fascinating contribution from Poultney that is seeking to investigate how a small independent girls school has, over the last four years, shaped and defined its governing body to support a new headteacher and uphold its Moravian roots through a Board of Trustees who oversee and delegate governor responsibilities to the governing committee. The next article, written by Fitzgerald and Drake, draws on a study that investigated the responsibility of primary school governors in the financial management of schools in the UK and the way these responsibilities are discharged. Baxter and Wise, the authors of the next article, examine the ways in which being a member of a federation governing body impacts upon the governor identities. Using a case study based upon a single academy federation, the investigation employs a framework for identity analysis to analyse qualitative in-depth interviews with members within governing organizations in the federation. In the following paper, Hill and James report on the findings from a research study that sought to gain a greater understanding of the ways in which senior staff contribute to further education college governance. They analyse how senior staff experience their role and how they contribute to college governance. The final paper by Cutajar, et al. focuses on the history and background of the reforms to the Maltese education system and the way that governing has developed as part of those reforms. It argues that the reforms, which were intended to promote collaboration between schools, have missed an opportunity to bring about distributed governance. This special edition has come about through the BELMAS Governing and Governance Research Interest Group. If you have an interest in governing and governance in education and would like to find out more about the Group, please contact the convenor, Dr Ron Hill (ronandjennyhill@ btinternet.com). Finally, I would like to thank all the authors for their excellent contributions to what I consider to be an important and timely edition of the journal.
Doc 356 : A new tool for teachers and researchers involved in e-mail tandem language learning
This paper presents a new teacher interface for the Electronic Tandem Resources (ETR) site, the student interface described in Appel & Mullen (2000), and a new version of the site designed specifically for research purposes. The main features of the original site geared towards the language learner were the creation of a virtual environment for tandem language learning and the provision of tools and data intended to help foster the development of learner autonomy. The new teacher interface supports the integration of tandem language learning activities in the foreign language classroom and addresses the difficult issue of performance assessment and task evaluation. Computer-mediated communication activities between students in different countries are notoriously difficult for teachers to monitor. Nevertheless, there is evidence that in certain situations it is beneficial for the teacher to be able to monitor these activities. The teacher interface of the ETR site offers a user-friendly interface which requires only basic computer skills, and gives teachers access to data such as the date of the most recently sent messages, the number of words sent by students and the percentages of text written by each student in their respective L1 and L2, without giving teachers access to the content of the messages, thus preserving students’ privacy. Furthermore, a slightly different version has also been designed for evaluation of the learning by the researcher investigating second language learning in an electronic tandem environment. This interface has been designed for setting up experiments and some of its features allow for control over variables related to the experiment. The interface records time stamps for sent and received messages.
Doc 357 : MY KINGDOM FOR AN AGENT? EVALUATION OF AUTONOMY, AN INTELLIGENT SEARCH AGENT FOR THE INTERNET
This paper presents an evaluation of a commercially available intelligent search agent for the Internet. Search robots and search engines can be of great help in finding information on the Internet, but their different features and sometimes their unfriendly interfaces can be confusing. Some expect that intelligent search agents could solve these problems. But most of these applications are not yet on the market, and the few that are: do they really perform? One of the few commercially available search agents is Autonomy, from Autonomy Corporation. Its concept is promising to professional users: the natural language processing of the query, the take‐over of repetitive jobs, an integrated interface for searching and managing information, and the sharing of knowledge with other users. The test in this article, however, reveals that the product is not yet ready to challenge the Internet search indexes which, in the test cases, perform better than Autonomy does with regard to recall and precision of information retrieval. Moreover, Autonomy does not give enough feedback to control the search action.
Doc 358 : In Support of the Abolishment of Supervisory and Collaboration Clauses
Abstract The effective use of nurse practitioners (NPs) could help alleviate the current health care crisis by providing patients with access to excellent health care at reasonable rates. In order for NPs to be effectively used, barriers to independent practice must be eliminated. State supervisory and collaborative clauses hinder access to effective primary health care by restricting the autonomy of NPs; therefore, states should not implement such clauses in their nurse practice acts. NPs provide competent primary care that should expanded to digital settings via telemedicine and cybermedicine without being limited by the bounds of the physical geographic market.
Abstract This article discusses the informal learning of English by non-native speakers with particular reference to the role of virtual communities. The concept of informal learning is presented and related to current areas of interest in the literature such as incidental learning, and dynamic systems theory. Our research investigates how non-specialist language learners use the Internet in their spare time to read and listen to English, and also communicate in English, notably in online communities through social networking websites. The study looks particularly at the dynamics of these phenomena by studying a small number of non-native users of English over a period of two months. The results of this research will be used to question the relevance of the learner autonomy paradigm, which has been a cornerstone of language learning policy in Europe for the past thirty years.
Doc 360 : CALL and the development of learner autonomy: Towards an activity-theoretical perspective
While the concepts and principles associated with learner autonomy underpin a broad range of CALL applications and research projects, current debates and research paradigms in CALL do not provide adequate tools and models to investigate in depth the relationship between CALL and the development of learner autonomy. This paper explores the potential of cultural-historical activity theory to study this relationship. Starting from the complex and multidimensional nature of learner autonomy, it highlights some of the weaknesses in the CALL literature addressing some aspects of this relationship. Following a presentation of the main tenets of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), including the notion of contradiction which is at the core of CHAT, it then seeks to demonstrate how activity theory can assist us in rethinking our understanding of learner autonomy in the context of technology-rich language learning environments and in formulating suitable criteria and questions, which can guide judgemental and empirical analyses. The paper concludes by illustrating some of the principles explored through examples drawn from an activity-theoretical judgemental analysis of a French module delivered to first year students in Dublin City University.
Doc 361 : Author Autonomy and Atomism in Copyright Law
Digital technology enables individuals to create and communicate in ways that were previously possible only for well-funded corporate publishers. These individual creators are increasingly harnessing copyright law to insist on ownership of the rights to control their musical works, scholarly research, and even Facebook musings.When individual creators claim, retain, and manage their own copyrights, they exercise a degree of authorial autonomy that befits the Internet Age. But they simultaneously contribute to a troubling phenomenon I call “copyright atomism” - the proliferation, distribution, and fragmentation of the exclusive rights bestowed by copyright law. An atomistic copyright system is crowded with protected works and rights, owned by rights-holders who are numerous and far-flung. This situation can raise information and transaction costs for participants in the creative marketplace, hampering future generations of creativity and thus undermining the very purpose of copyright: to encourage the creation and dissemination of works of authorship for the ultimate benefit of the public.This article introduces and articulates the copyright atomism concept. It then places atomism in historical and doctrinal context by documenting copyright law’s encounters with proliferated, distributed, and fragmented copyright ownership from medieval monasteries to the Internet age. This history demonstrates the enduring relevance of anxiety about atomism within copyright policy, highlights countervailing concerns, and provides a framework for thinking about how to alleviate the unfortunate contemporary consequences of atomism - and how not to.
Doc 362 : Iranian EFL Teachers’ Familiarity, Attitudes and Willingness towards Different Internet Tools and their Applications
The purpose of this study was to explore the Iranian EFL teachers’ familiarity, attitudes and willingness toward applying different internet tools in their classrooms. It also investigated the platform problems and teachers’ main concerns towards integrating these tools. Accordingly, 263 EFL teachers who were randomly selected from different institutes in three Iranian provinces were asked to answer the researchers-made questionnaire. The results revealed that EFL teachers 1) are highly familiar with most of the internet tools; 2) have highly positive attitudes towards using and integrating internet tools in their classrooms; 3) are willing to use these technologies for developing certain language skills competency; and 4) are highly concerned about culturally inappropriate materials and students’ internet dependability and autonomy. Furthermore, it was found that the results were affected by variables such as teachers’ age and educational degree. Finally, it was concluded that in spite of the EFL teachers’ positive attitudes and willingness towards these tools, still they are facing some challenging concerns about the application of the given tools due to some cultural and platform problems. Normal 0 false false false RU X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Обычная таблица; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
Doc 363 : Cybernetic embodiment and the role of autonomy in the design process
Purpose – This paper aims to develop the role of autonomy in the emergence of the design process. It shows how the design process is facilitated by autonomy, how autonomy is enhanced through the design process and how the emergence of anticipatory and future‐oriented representational content in an autonomous cognitive system provides the functionality needed for the strengthening of both its autonomy and the design process, in which the autonomous cognitive system purposefully engages.Design/methodology/approach – Initially, the essential characteristics of the design process and of the cognitive systems participating in it will be identified. Then, an attempt to demonstrate the ability of an enhanced second‐order cybernetic framework to satisfy these characteristics will be made. Next, an analytic description of the design process under this framework is presented and the respective implications are critically discussed.Findings – The role of autonomy is crucial for the design process, as it seems that a…
Doc 364 : Midwives with mobiles: A dialectical perspective on gender arising from technology introduction in rural Indonesia:
Mobile phones were introduced to rural midwives in tsunami-affected Indonesia, allowing them to contact medical experts and communicate with patients. Ninety-two interviews were conducted with midwives, coordinators, doctors, and village representatives. This study applies a dialectical perspective to supplement the analytical frame of the ICT for healthcare development model (Chib et al., 2008), by addressing the multi-dimensionality of benefits and barriers. The theory of dialectical tension (Baxter and Montgomery, 1996) situates the conceptual discussion around the struggles between autonomy and subordination within gender roles, personal growth versus technological competency, and issues of economic and resource control in traditional hierarchies. We find that midwives engage in legitimization strategies, develop peer support, and focus on strategic issues to develop the capacity for agency and autonomy, despite socio-organizational barriers. Specific recommendations are offered, focusing on the resou…
Doc 365 : Representative Model Of The Learning Process In Virtual Spaces Supported By Ict
The demand of responsibilities among teachers has evolved not only in classroom management but also to the extent of promoting communication and interpersonal skills. Social media is integrated in schools and higher learning institutions for communication and reflection of learning which enhance teachers’ performance in leadership quality and effective teaching. This study was designed in a qualitative approach mainly to explore the extent of interest and enjoyment students experienced during an intensive ICT course. Blog was used as a medium for reflection during the class where students posted their creations of videos, posters and other ICT materials. The three needs investigated were namely autonomy, competence, and relatedness support. The researcher further examined on students’ awareness of the usefulness of the ICT skill they learned and how much they can use the blog for teaching and learning. Based on the Basic Psychological Needs Theory framework (BPNT), this study has adopted the direct observation, journal entry, and interviews as a triangulation approach.
Doc 366 : Challenges and Research Directions in Medical Cyber–Physical Systems
https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2011.2165270 Insup Lee Oleg Sokolsky Sanjian Chen John Hatcliff Eunkyoung Jee BaekGyu Kim Andrew King Margaret Mullen-Fortino Soojin Park Alexander Roederer Krishna K. Venkatasubramanian
Medical cyber-physical systems (MCPS) are life-critical, context-aware, networked systems of medical devices. These systems are increasingly used in hospitals to provide high-quality continuous care for patients. The need to design complex MCPS that are both safe and effective has presented numerous challenges, including achieving high assurance in system software, intoperability, context-aware intelligence, autonomy, security and privacy, and device certifiability. In this paper, we discuss these challenges in developing MCPS, some of our work in addressing them, and several open research issues.
Doc 367 : Agents for process coherence in virtual enterprises
Open environments such as the Internet— and even corporate intranets— enable a large number of interested parties to use and enhance vast quantities of information. These environments support modern applications, such as manufacturing, virtual enterprises, and ubiquitous information access, which involve a number of information sources and component activities. However, without principled techniques to coordinate the various activities, any solutions would yield disjointed and error-prone behavior, while consuming excessive effort to build and maintain. The agent metaphor, long in study in artificial intelligence, has recently become popular in mainstream computing, largely due to its suitability for open environments. Agents can be thought of as active objects with some special properties tailored to open environments. For our purposes, the key aspects of agents are their autonomy and abilities to perceive, reason, and act in their environment, as well as to socially interact and communicate with other agents [7]. When agents interact with one another they form a multiagent system. As part of a multiagent system, agents can capture and apply the semantic constraints among heterogeneous components in order to enact distributed workflows. Autonomy is critical in open environments. Consider a manufacturing scenario requiring supply-chain coordination. It is natural to model independent companies in a supply chain as represented by autonomous agents. But, at first sight, autonomy is a mixed blessing if the companies behaved arbitrarily, the supply chain would break. Consequently, our main technical challenge is to manage autonomy that is, how to maximize freedom without letting it devolve into chaos. We propose that the main basis for managing autonomy lies in the notion of commitments. A flexible formulation of commitments can provide a natural means through which autonomous agents may voluntarily constrain their behavior. By flexible, we mean that it should be possible to cancel or otherwise modify the commitments. Consider a situation where a purchaser is trying to obtain some parts from a vendor. We would like the vendor to commit to delivering the parts of the right quality to the purchaser. However, it is important that the supply chain be able to survive exceptions such as when the manufacturing plant goes down in an earthquake, or when the purchaser decides that it needs the parts to be of a lower error tolerance than initially ordered. Information cannot be understood independently of the processes that create or consume it. The desired flexibility of behavior and the ability to recover from failures require an approach that is sensitive to how those processes interact. We show that when agents are associated with each independent process, our flexible notion of commitments can capture the desired interactions among those processes
Doc 368 : A Nodal Approach to Modeling Human-Agents Collaboration
In this paper, we present the concept of a node which consists of a human actor, one or more agents, and their combined functions to represent a collective intelligent entity. Basically, the instantiation of nodes with diverse pre-defined functions in a workflow process could represent a domain in which humans interact with other humans via software agents in a collaborative environment to achieve some common goal. Here, the agents‟ functions supplement the demands of the corresponding human‟s pre-defined functions. As a part of this research, a survey is conducted to determine generalized functions of humans and agents in a node. The aim is to solicit information pertaining to humans‟ daily tasks and the kind of assistance they would prefer to have to ease those tasks. The tasks entail communicating with people, using several devices and/or media such as Document, Email, Phone, and SMS. This paper proposes a Nodal Approach (NA) to simplified modeling of humans and software agents with their predefined functions for collaboration. An example user application is developed and tested involving several academician functions assisted by their corresponding software agents. General Terms Collaboration, Environment, Behaviors, Autonomy, Models.
Doc 369 : Integrating Health Behavior Theory and Design Elements in Serious Games.
https://doi.org/10.2196/mental.4133 Colleen Cheek Theresa Fleming Mathijs Lucassen Heather Bridgman Karolina Stasiak Matthew Shepherd Peter Orpin
Background: Internet interventions for improving health and well-being have the potential to reach many people and fill gaps in service provision. Serious gaming interfaces provide opportunities to optimize user adherence and impact. Health interventions based in theory and evidence and tailored to psychological constructs have been found to be more effective to promote behavior change. Defining the design elements which engage users and help them to meet their goals can contribute to better informed serious games. Objective: To elucidate design elements important in SPARX, a serious game for adolescents with depression, from a user-centered perspective. Methods: We proposed a model based on an established theory of health behavior change and practical features of serious game design to organize ideas and rationale. We analyzed data from 5 studies comprising a total of 22 focus groups and 66 semistructured interviews conducted with youth and families in New Zealand and Australia who had viewed or used SPARX. User perceptions of the game were applied to this framework. Results: A coherent framework was established using the three constructs of self-determination theory (SDT), autonomy, competence, and relatedness, to organize user perceptions and design elements within four areas important in design: computer game, accessibility, working alliance, and learning in immersion. User perceptions mapped well to the framework, which may assist developers in understanding the context of user needs. By mapping these elements against the constructs of SDT, we were able to propose a sound theoretical base for the model. Conclusions: This study’s method allowed for the articulation of design elements in a serious game from a user-centered perspective within a coherent overarching framework. The framework can be used to deliberately incorporate serious game design elements that support a user’s sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, key constructs which have been found to mediate motivation at all stages of the change process. The resulting model introduces promising avenues for future exploration. Involving users in program design remains an imperative if serious games are to be fit for purpose.
Doc 370 : Vifu: virtual community building for networking among women.
While ICTs are being used to support development women do not profit from them as much as men do. Therefore we need to look into how Internet technology can be designed and applied to improve womens lives and womens access to information education and autonomy. This article suggests an avenue to empower women in the North and South (who already have Internet access) by building virtual international communities as one of the tools for women to participate in and benefit from international exchange. It describes the social and technical aspects of building an enabling environment for women called the Virtual International Womens University (vifu). A development procedure characterized by inclusion participation user-developer-interaction and transparency with the aim of enabling sociability and the transfer of technological know-how is discussed. The article will argue that when ICTs are going to be promoted and used also for developmental issues their specific technical and social design will play an important role for the success or failure of a certain initiative. (authors)
Doc 371 : Surf’s Up: Reducing Internet Abuse without Demotivating Employees
Each year, organizations sustain a multi-billion-dollar productivity loss because of internet abuse: the use of workplace internet for non-work purposes. Accordingly, they have implemented various forms of top-down monitoring, in which an authority controls employees’ online behavior. The efficacy of this “vertical” control system, however, is less clear than its unintended consequence: demotivated employees. Drawing from research on self-determination and control systems, the current research examined whether two “horizontal” control systems—peer monitoring and peer communication—would mitigate internet abuse with fewer motivational consequences. Using a new virtual environment and a survey, three studies compared the systems’ objective and subjective effects, documenting an underlying psychological mechanism: autonomy. Consistent with predictions, the results suggested that both horizontal systems can reduce abuse as readily as the vertical system, but they exact fewer motivational costs by supporting a…
Doc 372 : Does the Satisfaction of Basic Psychological Needs Protect Against Unhealthy Internet Use
Background: This study used the Self-determination theory to explore whether basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPN) has a protective role against unhealthy internet use. Methods: The sample of 237 (75% women) first year university students completed questionnaires on generalized problematic internet use (GPIU), perceived stress (PS) and BPN (autonomy, competence, relatedness) on two occasions over a one year period. Linear regression models were built to explore the relationship between PS, BPN and GPIU as well as to test the potential moderating role of BPN. Findings: The BPN relatedness at T2 was negatively associated with GPIU (?=-0.156; p?0.05). Further, PS at the baseline and its increase during the year served as significant predictors of GPIU at T2 (?=0.310 p?0.001; ?=0.153 p?0.05). However, evidence for the moderating effect of BSN was not detected. Discussion: In line with the assumptions, PS and low satisfaction with relationships was found to be directly related to GPIU although further research is needed to identify moderating protective factors.
Doc 373 : A holistic experience in the integrated learning of specialized English and content in engineering degrees
This paper aims to outline a theory-based Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course and to establish the rationale for adopting a holistic approach to the teaching of languages in tertiary education. Our work focuses on the interdependence between Content and Language Integrated Learning, and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in particular regarding the learning of English within the framework of Telecommunications Engineering. The study first analyses the diverse components of the instructional approach and the extent to which this approach interrelates with technologies within the context of what we have defined as a holistic experience, since it also aims to develop a set of generic competences or transferable skills. Second, an example of a course project framed in this holistic approach is described in order to exemplify the specific actions suggested for learner autonomy and CLIL. The approach provides both an adequate framework as well as the conditions needed to carry out a lifelong learning experience within our context, a Spanish School of Engineering. In addition to specialized language and content, the approach integrates the learning of skills and capacities required by the new plans that have been established following the Bologna Declaration in 1999.
Doc 374 : Invited commentary: Professionalism in 21st-century medicine.
Medical professionalism is a complex and multifaceted subject. In 2002, “Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter” was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and elsewhere (1). This document stressed the primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy, and social justice. The charter is discussed in Dr. Kirk’s excellent Kitchens Lecture given at Baylor University Medical Center (2). Dr. Lloyd Kitchens was an exemplary clinician who personified the finest qualities of a physician. His article on medical etiquette published in these Proceedings several years ago still rings true (3).
What role does professionalism have in the current medical arena? Certainly patient welfare, autonomy, and social justice are core principles. Paradoxically, the challenges of delivering health care are becoming ever greater at the same time that scientific medicine is advancing as never before. How can we provide appropriate care for our patients in a universal, comprehensive, and equitable manner (4–6)? How can medicine fulfill its social contract with society?
William Osler, the great clinician and educator who lived between 1849 and 1919, represents one exemplar of medicine as a noble profession and a calling (7, 8). His many aphorisms and essays speak eloquently to the heart of the doctor-patient relationship. His observation that “the old art can not possibly be replaced by, but must be incorporated in, the new science” is as true today as it was 100 years ago (9). Osler welcomed scientific advances in medicine because he knew they would enable him to take better care of his patients. He was at the forefront of medical science and no doubt would still be if he were alive today. In addition to his focus on science, he emphasized that doctors should pay special attention to the patient, not just the disease. His friendliness, generosity, and respect for others have had an enduring influence on generations of students and physicians. In an essay entitled “The Reserves of Life” he likened a medical career to a race through London and told students at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School that “in ordinary training you run the course over, but life’s race is run but once; and, though the course may seem long to you, it really is very short, but very hard to learn. Fortunately, you are not alone on the track, as your brothers are ahead, and if you are willing there is always help at hand” (9). We should heed this counsel. Guidance from trusted colleagues is a valuable but sometimes underutilized asset. Many of William Osler’s precepts remain applicable today.
Perhaps the central pillar of professionalism is competence (6, 10, 11). Unless a physician is competent, he or she cannot be either professional or ethical. Kindness and compassion are other qualities which, though not mentioned in the physician charter, are fundamental to the care of ill people. Patients are cared for individually; whether in an office, clinic, hospital, or on a battlefield, the doctor-patient relationship is a one-on-one encounter. A physician must obtain a history, elicit pertinent positive and negative physical findings, and order selected laboratory tests. He or she must analyze these data in the context of an ever-expanding galaxy of scientific knowledge. What is the diagnosis? What constitutes the best treatment for this patient? What can be done to return this individual to as close to normal daily activities for him or her as possible? The answers to these challenging questions are sought every time a doctor sees a patient (7). In our current competitive and costly environment, finding these answers becomes daunting. We need help in responding appropriately and effectively (12, 13). This is our responsibility, and we must be accountable.
So who is a true professional? Dr. Michael LaCombe describes a physician who represents the consummate example:
I knew a doctor once who was honest, but gentle with his honesty, and was loving, but careful with his love, who was disciplined without being rigid, and right without the stain of arrogance, who was self-questioning without self-doubt, introspective and reflective and in the same moment, decisive, who was strong, hard, adamant, but all these things laced with tenderness and understanding, a doctor who worshipped his calling without worshipping himself, who was busy beyond belief, but who had time—time to smile, to chat, to touch the shoulder and take the hand, and who had time enough for Death as well as Life (14).
Professionalism and being professional are core competencies now adopted by accredited residency and fellowship training programs. Their impact extends far beyond training, however. Dr. Kirk’s fine address and the wisdom of role models such as William Osler, Lloyd Kitchens, and Michael LaCombe will help us follow the right path (15).
Doc 375 : Using Contradictions to Ravel Teaching and Learning Challenges in a Blended Is Course in an African University
Introduction As university student interaction and sharing of electronic resources in Web-enabled environments are becoming an embedded practice (Ng’ambi & Rambe, 2008), educators are under pressure to evolve pedagogical approaches (Salmon, 2007) that could support and leverage these forms of interactions. However, educators’ implementation of Web-enabled courses for first year university students is often constrained by varying student academic underpreparedness, large classes, and inadequate curriculum design (Jaffer, Ng’ambi, & Czerniewicz, 2007) and student incapacity to learn when confronted with a learning environment that requires an unfamiliar degree of initiative and autonomy (Tan & Chan, 1997). The latter is the case for Social Media-enhanced learning environments that often put additional cognitive demands on learners to generate, share, and meaningfully engage with Web content, notwithstanding their underdeveloped self-regulation and learning abilities. Social Media denotes an aggregate of Web 2.0 based tools, applications, business models, and social networking that allows people to collaborate in novel ways at a large scale (Leadbeater, 2007). Instances of Social Media encapsulate social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, multimedia sharing sites, and aggregation tools. Pargetter et al. (1998) suggest that students consistently identify independent learning and self-iscipline as basic goals of their university education, although many are unsure about how to achieve those goals. In Social Media where there is limited lecturer-student direct interaction, not only are students challenged by using social networking applications for meaningful learning, but rather how self-directed learning can be fostered in these quasi-formal learning spaces. As Dabbagh and Kitsantas (2005) suggest, in Web-based learning environments, the physical absence of the instructor and the increased responsibility demanded of learners to effectively engage with learning tasks may present difficulties for learners, particularly those with low self-regulatory skills. The challenge, therefore, is grasping how Social Media like Facebook could impact student conceptual and practical understanding of Information Systems (IS) if it was appropriated for teaching and learning. Mindful of the uptake of these technologies in South African universities for sharing academic information, responding to student queries and building trust among academic communities (Moore, 2010), exploring the implications of implementing them in university is essential to effective pedagogical delivery. The South African government expects Information Systems (IS) education to produce technically competent graduates who not only know how to effectively apply Web-based technology for their lifelong learning, but also understand how to appropriate it to solve complex work-elated problems. Emphasising the social relevance of higher education training to nation development, the South African White Paper on Higher Education (Republic of South Africa, 1997) reiterates the need to develop professionals and knowledge workers with globally equivalent skills and who are conscious of their role in contributing to national development. As Shen, Lee, and Tsai (2007) comment, a vocational education system constantly involves meeting the needs and the new demand for highly skilled manpower, the continued progress of modern technology, the worldwide economic development, and the changing industrial structure. The above points out the central role that technological skills play in the structural dynamics of national development in addition to psychological development. The challenge however for IS practitioners is designing learning environments that afford the acquisition and development of sophisticated IS skills and respond to the learning needs of university learners. Graetz (2006) argues that the migration of content which lecturers traditionally delivered in lecture format to the Web is helping shift the function served by brick and mortar classrooms from information delivery to collaboration and discussion. …
Doc 376 : The Internet, children, and privacy: the case against parental monitoring
It has been recommended that parents should monitor their children’s Internet use, including what sites their children visit, what messages they receive, and what they post. In this paper, I claim that parents ought not to follow this advice, because to do so would violate children’s right to privacy over their on-line information exchanges. In defense of this claim, I argue that children have a right to privacy from their parents, because such a right respects their current capacities and fosters their future capacities for autonomy and relationships.
Doc 377 : Entertainment 2.0? The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Need Satisfaction for the Enjoyment of Facebook Use
While intrinsic motivation has received broad attention in recent entertainment research, the effects of extrinsic motivation, such as social pressure to use media, on media enjoyment remain unknown. Based on an online-survey (N = 230), this study tested the effects of intrinsic need satisfaction and perceived social pressure on the enjoyment of Facebook use with structural equation modeling. The results reveal complex effects of extrinsic motivation: While social pressure negatively affected autonomy need satisfaction, it was positively related to competence and relatedness need satisfaction. This study is the first to develop and test a theoretical model of entertainment experience in the context of social media use and to theoretically integrate the role of extrinsic need satisfaction in media enjoyment.
Doc 378 : Blogging: Promoting Learner Autonomy and Intercultural Competence through Study Abroad
Lina Lee University of New Hampshire The current study explores closely how using a combined modalities of asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) via blogs and face-to-face (FTF) interaction through ethnographic interviews with native speakers (L1s) supports autonomous learning as the result of reflective and social processes. The study involves 16 American undergraduate students who participated in blogs to develop their intercultural competence over the course of one-semester study abroad. The results show that blogs afforded students the opportunity to work independently (e.g., content creation) and reflect upon cross-cultural issues. Critical reflection, however, relied on the teacher’s guidance and feedback, as most of the students were cognitively challenged by not being able to clearly articulate different points of view. It is likely that students were not accustomed to reflecting. The findings also indicate that task type fostered autonomy in different ways. While free topics gave students more control of their own learning, teacher-assigned topics required them to critically think about the readings. Lack of access to Internet at the host institution and family also contributed to a limited level of social interaction. The study concludes that well-designed tasks, effective metacognitive and cognitive skills, and the accessibility to Internet are essential to maximize the potentials of blogs for learner autonomy and intercultural communication.
Interorganizational computer-mediated communication ICMC is expanding rapidly through the Internet and other elements of infrastructure. ICMC can be expected to evolve into the mainstream of existing communications infrastructure, but this evolution is not occurring uniformly across organizations. ICMC infrastructure appears to be most strongly supported, at least in this early stage, among organizations dependent on the maintenance of external weak social ties among employees who are members of professional, dispersed occupational communities. This can be seen in the experience of research-oriented organizations. Two strong forces—the professionalism of key occupational communities seeking autonomy, and a persistent desire by organizations to reduce fixed costs and organizational size—are posited as encouraging growth of ICMC infrastructure. Such growth might provide an important “bootstrapping mechanism” of long-predicted shifts from hierarchical to market forms of organization, at least in professionalized sectors of the economy.
Doc 380 : “Don’t Affect the Share Price”: Social Media Policy in Higher Education as Reputation Management
The last 5 years have seen a growing number of universities use social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to engage with past, present and prospective students. More recently still, a number of universities have published policy or guidance documents on the use of social media for a range of universityrelated purposes including learning, teaching and assessment. This study considers the social media policies of 14 universities in the United Kingdom (UK) that are currently in the public domain. It addresses some of the ways in which Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are responding to both the positive potential of social media as well as its perceived threats. Drawing inspiration, if not actual method, from critical discourse analysis, this study argues that marketisation has been the main policy driver with many social media policies being developed to promote university ‘‘brands’’ as well as protect institutional reputation. The creation and implementation of social media policies are therefore playing a role in helping universities manage both the risks and the benefits of social media in the context of an increasingly marketised Higher Education (HE) environment in which protecting institutional reputation has become a priority. However, in the defence of the metaphorical institutional ‘‘share price’’, some policies constrain both academic autonomy and the possibilities for innovation and risk-taking. Keywords: policy; social media; openness; sharing; academic autonomy; research; thought piece (Published: 30 August 2012) http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.19194
Doc 381 : What sort of bioethical values are the evidence-based medicine and the GRADE approaches willing to deal with?
The concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been invented by physicians mostly from English Canada, mostly from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. The term EBM first appeared in the biomedical literature in 1991 in an article written by a prominent member of this group-Gordon Guyatt from McMaster University. The inventors of EBM have also created the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) working group, which is a prominent international organisation whose main purpose is to develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). CPGs that are based on the GRADE approach are becoming increasingly adopted worldwide, in particular by many professional or governmental organisations. This group of thinkers being thus identified, we have retrieved and read many of their publications in order to try and understand how they intend to incorporate bioethical values into their concept. The author of this little essay did also spend a few years on the internet as an active member of the GRADE group discussion list. The observations thus gathered suggest that although some of the inventors of EBM, at least Gordon Guyatt, wish to incorporate core principles of biomedical ethics into their concept (ie, non-malevolence, beneficence and maybe to a lesser extent respect for autonomy, and justice), some clarifications are still necessary in order to better understand how they intend to more explicitly incorporate bioethical values into their concept and, perhaps more importantly, into evidence-based CPGs.
Doc 382 : Second language acquisition through email interaction
This paper deals with the analysis of a communicative activity involving English learners of French, its advantages and drawbacks as well as the outcome that teachers can expect of such an activity. The first part examines some reasons, both theoretical and practical for using communication technology, particularly electronic mail, for promoting language acquisition and developing learner autonomy. The second pan of the paper deals with the theoretical framework within which the activity was carried out, that Is, Stephen Krashen’s language acquisition theory which establishes a distinction between language acquisition and language learning. Email interaction offers the possibility of addressing both processes.
Doc 383 : Changing constructions of informed consent: qualitative research and complex social worlds.
Informed consent is a concept which attempts to capture and convey what is regarded as the appropriate relationship between researcher and research participant. Definitions have traditionally emphasised respect for autonomy and the right to self-determination of the individual. However, the meaning of informed consent and the values on which it is based are grounded in society and the practicalities of social relationships. As society changes, so too do the meaning and practice of informed consent. In this paper, we trace the ways in which the meaning and practice of informed consent has changed over the last 35 years with reference to four qualitative studies of parenting and children in the UK which we have undertaken at different points in our research careers. We focus in particular on the shifting boundaries between the professional and personal, and changing expressions of agency and power in a context of heightened perceptions of risk in everyday life. We also discuss developments in information and communication technologies as a factor in changing both the formal requirements for and the situated practicalities of obtaining informed consent. We conclude by considering the implications for informed consent of both increasing bureaucratic regulation and increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies and suggest strategies for rethinking and managing ‘consent’ in qualitative research practice.
Doc 384 : Balancing urgency, age and quality of life in organ allocation decisions—what would you do?: a survey
Purpose: Explore public attitudes towards the trade-offs between justice and medical outcome inherent in organ allocation decisions. Background: The US Task Force on Organ Transplantation recommended that considerations of justice, autonomy and medical outcome be part of all organ allocation decisions. Justice in this context may be modeled as a function of three types of need, related to age, clinical urgency, and quality of life. Methods: A web-based survey was conducted in which respondents were asked to choose between two hypothetical patients who differed in clinical urgency (time to death Results: A pool of 1600 people were notified via email about the survey; 623 (39%) responded. Respondents preferred giving organs to younger people up to an age difference of Conclusions: It appears that clinical urgency is only one of many factors influencing attitudes about allocation decisions and that respondents may invoke different principles of fairness depending the relative clinical status of patients.
Doc 385 : Ethical Dilemmas in Research on Internet Communities
There has been a rapid growth in the number of articles using Internet data sources to illuminate health behavior. However, little has been written about the ethical considerations of online research, especially studies involving data from Internet discussion boards. Guidelines are needed to ensure ethical conduct. In this article, the authors examine how a youth-focused research program negotiated ethical practices in the creation of its comprehensive health site and online message board. They address three situations in which ethical predicaments arose: (a) enrolling research participants, (b) protecting participants from risk or harm, and (c) linking public and private data. Drawing on the ethical principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, justice, and beneficence, the authors present practical guidelines for resolving ethical dilemmas in research on Internet communities.
Doc 386 : Conversational heuristics for eliciting shared understanding
A conversational method is necessary for experimenter and subject to collaborate in the exploration of the world of human beings. Individuals cannot be treated as objects, or be instructed how to take part in an experiment, without the recognition of the autonomy of each person and the invitation to participate jointly in co-operative exploration of the nature of man. An individual can be seen as a personal scientist who forms theories about the world and tests these theories against his personal experience of reality, adapting his theories for a more effective anticipation of events and hence a more competent interaction with his environment. A suite of computer programs (PEGASUS, FOCUS, MINUS, CORE, ARGUS and SOCIOGRIDS) has been developed, each one acting as a cybernetic tool to enhance man’s capabilities to understand both himself and his relationships with other perspectives of the world. PEGASUS is described, including PEGASUS-BANK which can be used to explore the relationship of an individual with another individual (or group). The CORE program can be used to chart change in a person over time, and to find the level of understanding and agreement between two people. Shared understanding within small groups can be investigated using the SOCIOGRIDS program which produces a mapping of the intra-group relationships, and the subject content which shows the extent of agreement in the group. A study involving the exchange of subjective standards in human judgement is briefly described, and an analogy drawn to the understanding of different perspectives in the treatment of a medical or clinical patient.
Doc 387 : My whole world’s in my palm! The second-level divide of teenagers’ mobile use and skill
Mobile communication emerged as a dominant channel for networked teenagers. While some theorists celebrate possibilities for autonomy, others are concerned that the increased reliance on mobile-based communication leads to disparities in digital skill and status replication. We examined how mobile-mediated behavior among teens interacted with the characteristics of socio-demographics and mobile access to predict (1) levels of diverse use and skill and (2) consequences of skill/use differences ( n = 552). Findings revealed that skill/use disparities were manifested based on race, and such variations were associated with status of parents in interaction with mobile phone ownership. Instrumental use and content/creation-based skill had significant impacts on public involvement among teens. Our data have implications for understanding how social backgrounds incubate mobile-based disparities in light of enabling teens’ life chances.
Doc 388 : A tecnologia como forma de controle burocrático: uma análise crítica do uso dos sistemas de segurança de informática em uma •Empresa de alta tecnologia
In this article we prevent bureaucracy as the result of psychological defenses in operation. In fact, tendencies for bureaucratization of human relations in the workplace are the result of externalized interpersonal defense mechanisms to avoid personalization of the workplace and face-a-face interactions. Self-systems are learned defensive activities against anxiety and fear caused by the loss of security of self-esteem. A threatening (potentially anxiety ridden) environment, perceived by the person or group of people, will activate security operations of self-systems, resulting in some distortion of reality and cognition. The psychoanalysis of organizations highlights the frequently paradoxical behavior of managers and workers. We conceptualize paradox as the simultaneous existence in the organization of two inconsistent states, such as empowerment and conformance: old and new. We show that in the organizational context, there are the intended consequences of the action, which are directed toward improving performance and profit. On the other hand, there are the unintended consequences of the same action, which may actually undermine performance, profit and cancel out the intended positive consequences. In our case study, we analyze the paradox produced by the implementation of an Internet Security System at a Brazilian High Tech Company. We exemplify a paradox between the dimensions bureaucratic control X autonomy. This paradox increased the organization´ stress level and social actors self defense mechanisms. We will describe and analyze some of de unintended consequences produced by social actors self defense mechanisms and resistance-to-change phenomenon in this case. KEYWORDS : Psycodynamics, Organizational change, Paradox, Technology.
Doc 389 : A Study of Autonomy English Learning on the Internet.
With the variety of environment and method of English learning, Autonomy English learning on the Internet is playing a more and more important role in modern English learning. It challenges the traditional learning approach, and also is forwardness. This paper points out that autonomy English learning on the Internet facilitates the improvement of the English level even more on the basis of the author’s acquisition and experience, as well as explains the favorable factors and unfavorable factors of autonomy English learning on the Internet, suggesting the effective strategies of autonomy English learning on the Internet.
Doc 390 : Adding intelligent agents to existing EI frameworks
The global marketplace and the Internet have served as catalysts for enterprise integration (EI), both within a company and between a company and its suppliers and partners. EI software architectures, or frameworks, are often built on top of standard middleware and typically lack the ability to function in dynamic environments where flexibility, adaptability, and knowledge management are crucial. Furthermore, they do not scale well to wide-area enterprises that extend across organizational boundaries. These frameworks nevertheless offer a cost-effective basis for resource management, user coordination, knowledge exchange, and information extraction in a virtual enterprise. The paper considers how, by incorporating agents with their inherently distributed characteristics of autonomy, reasoning or intelligence, and goal-driven behavior, existing EI frameworks can be enhanced to support adaptive virtual enterprises.
The usage of Internet in commercial activities is starting to emerge in the world: Commercial activities via Internet are gradually changing the daily practice and future possibilities. This opens many new possibilities, opportunities, and challenges in electronic trading. Electronic trading lowers cost of trading and improves trading efficiency. Marketplaces typically consist of autonomous parties that interact with each other in several ways. Examples are product advising, sales negotiation, information providing, etc. In daily life, the number of parties and products is limited, due to space and time constraints. In E-trading, such constraints do not need to exist, and a wide variety of suppliers, products, and clients become readily available. Agent technology can enhance electronic market places by using the autonomy and flexibility features of the software agents: a software agent is a piece of software that is autonomous, and that is owned by some party. In this paper we review the uses of agent technology in Electronic trading. The agent technology offers following advantages:servicecustomization, adaptability and supports Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE).
Doc 392 : Bringing oversight review in line with online research
The purpose of an oversight structure or institution is to protect human subjects from research that would pose unacceptable dangers or deny human rights. Review boards provide an independent assessment of research proposals. This additional level of scrutiny is meant to provide an additional level of protection for human subjects. However, oversight of human subject research, as currently carried out in the bureaucratic, rule‐based, clinically‐biased American system, is too cumbersome with regard to online research. In addition, it is not conducive to the training of ethical Internet researchers. Internet research differs from traditional human subject research in many ways, and the oversight rules governing traditional research do not easily relate to the complexities of conducting research online. Online researchers do not oppose the foundational principles of non‐maleficence (avoiding harm) and autonomy, nor do they reject the ideals of informed consent and confidentiality, nevertheless, they face practical dilemmas in attempting to follow these principles and apply these ideals in the various Internet domains. The current oversight system is ill‐equipped to assist. A conservative response to this problem of fit might entail adjustments to the oversight system that, in the case of the American system, would entail modifications to the Common Rule and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). I will argue in this paper, instead, that re‐structuring is needed to allow more oversight authority for Internet researchers. I will utilize Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics in making this case.
Doc 393 : Information and Communication Technology and Entrepreneurship Development
Information and communication technology is advancing rapidly and has led to the fundamental changes in the world community. Activities, jobs, skills, cultures, needs etc. have been impressed and transformed by this technology. Undoubtedly, entrepreneurship has a major role in the development of these technologies; however, these technologies also influence the entrepreneurship and in other words, have created a modern entrepreneurship. In this regard, information and communications are two basic required tools for every entrepreneurial activity. Today, information technology has spread widely in the community and has integrated into all aspects of life. Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new by spending a lot of time and effort and accepting financial, emotional and social risks to gain financial resources, job satisfaction and autonomy. In fact, information technology is considered as the driving force by which, in addition to mobilizing the job and employment wheels, leads to the economic growth and dynamics of community and the creation of a new kind of economy, that is called knowledge-based economy. This article has tried to analyze the concepts of information and communication technology and entrepreneurship and also has considered the interaction of information technology and entrepreneurship. Normal 0 false false false RU X-NONE X-NONE
Doc 394 : Ethical Dimensions of Supervision in Community Assistance of Chronic Patients
The supervision process of community care services offered to individuals suffering from chronic illnesses, beyond an exchange of information between professionals in different power relations should be conducted on a formal basis, to be conducted under a partnership between the multidisciplinary team intervention, the intake supervisor and community where the intervention takes place, in accordance with the requirements of the domain in which the supervision is realized, and on a specific ethic base which has as central the value of social and personal autonomy of social service recipients of community-based rehabilitation. Supervision, as a method of support for professionals, aims to improve workplace performance by removing stress that can occur and affect work performance. The supervisor support and increase the supervisee’s motivation, developing a performance work environment, following the highest professional standards and ethics of intervention. In this paper we propose to ! # $ % $ ! # $ % $ & % ’ ( ! # $ % $ )-mail Address: si_damian@yahoo.com * + , , / 012 ) 3 , 4 4 * 5 6 )37 Post # $ of Medicine and Pharmacy Gr T. Popa Iasi, Doctor in Sociology (University Al. I. Cuza Iasi9 e-mail: , 6$; 3,? > # $ % Email: 0;< 4 Antonio SANDU ! # $ % $ $ 3,? ! # $ 7 , C <F ,! # $ * )-mail Address: GH1;$ * 00/ < / ) + 4 4 2 * 5
Doc 395 : Safeguarding donors’ personal rights and biobank autonomy in biobank networks: the CRIP privacy regime
Governance, underlying general ICT (Information and Communication Technology) architecture, and workflow of the Central Research Infrastructure for molecular Pathology (CRIP) are discussed as a model enabling biobank networks to form operational “meta biobanks” whilst respecting the donors’ privacy, biobank autonomy and confidentiality, and the researchers’ needs for appropriate biospecimens and information, as well as confidentiality. Tailored to these needs, CRIP efficiently accelerates and facilitates research with human biospecimens and data.
Doc 396 : Entrepreneurial Labor among Cultural Producers: “Cool” Jobs in “Hot” Industries
This article compares the work of fashion models and “new media workers” (those who work in the relatively new medium of the Internet as dot-com workers) in order to highlight the processes of entrepreneurial labor in culture industries. Based on interviews and participant-observation in New York City, we trace how entrepreneurial labor becomes intertwined with work identities in cultural industries both on and off the job. While workers are drawn to the autonomy, creativity and excitement that jobs in these media industries can provide, they have also come to accept as normal the high risks associated with this work. Diffused through media images, this normalization of risk serves as a model for how workers in other industries should behave under flexible employment conditions. Using interview data from within the fashion media and the dot-com world, we discuss eight forces that give rise to the phenomenon of entrepreneurial labor: the cultural quality of cool, creativity, autonomy, self-investment, comp…
Doc 397 : Motivos de uso de las redes sociales virtuales: análisis de perfiles de mujeres rurales
This paper reports some of the findings from a study that aimed to analyse the motives for using social networking sites and to establish profiles from their responses. To do this, we carried out a survey study based on a purposely designed questionnaire answered by 478 women from rural areas of Andalusia aged 18 to 65. From an analysis of the responses, we identified two profiles based on the use motives of social networking sites. The results indicate that women, who use social networks with a higher diversity of uses, also express higher level of intensity, ability and autonomy of use. In contrast, women who use only social networks with a relational purpose, also express lower level of intensity, ability and autonomy in the use of social networks. These findings suggest that use motives is a predictor variable of rural women’s digital inclusion in the social networks. The findings allow us to rethink the educational proposals of digital literacy.
Doc 398 : Social media platforms as educational interfaces - considering the way forward for blended learning
Despite their pervasiveness, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are subject to a number of criticisms of their efficacy as platforms for blended learning (Weller, 2006). This paper considers the use of social media platform Padlet as an alternative educational interface through evaluation of an intervention-based case-study. Focus groups were conducted with the student cohort, identifying a number of recurring themes that form the main body of this paper: visuality and clarity of the interface, autonomy over learning, students as co-producers and critical reflection. These themes address the intervention itself, and acknowledge the limitations of the research by proposing potential developments. The paper concludes by drawing together questions for further research, and notably reflects on whether it is more pertinent to address the way we use educational interfaces, rather than the interfaces themselves, in considering ‘the way forward’ for blended learning in Higher Education 2018.
Doc 399 : Hacia un perfil del intelectual digital: la expresión recuperada de Gombrowicz
There is a general feeling of the end of the classical intellectual. At the same time there are new less restrictive opinion forums on the Internet. There is a suspicious reaction lambasting these new voices. On the opposite side, we can analyze how the digital intellectual can defend themselves against the dangers which threatened their autonomy. In this task, to draw the profile of the new intellectual, I propose a reading of Gombrowicz’s reflection on the ways of culture and its display.
Doc 400 : A Communication Robot in a Shopping Mall
This paper reports our development of a communication robot for use in a shopping mall to provide shopping information, offer route guidance, and build rapport. In the development, the major difficulties included sensing human behaviors, conversation in a noisy daily environment, and the needs of unexpected miscellaneous knowledge in the conversation. We chose a network-robot system approach, where a single robot’s poor sensing capability and knowledge are supplemented by ubiquitous sensors and a human operator. The developed robot system detects a person with floor sensors to initiate interaction, identifies individuals with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, gives shopping information while chatting, and provides route guidance with deictic gestures. The robot was partially teleoperated to avoid the difficulty of speech recognition as well as to furnish a new kind of knowledge that only humans can flexibly provide. The information supplied by a human operator was later used to increase the robot’s autonomy. For 25 days in a shopping mall, we conducted a field trial and gathered 2642 interactions. A total of 235 participants signed up to use RFID tags and, later, provided questionnaire responses. The questionnaire results are promising in terms of the visitors’ perceived acceptability as well as the encouragement of their shopping activities. The results of the teleoperation analysis revealed that the amount of teleoperation gradually decreased, which is also promising.