Our research examines how knowledge professionals use mobile email devices to get their work done and the implications of such use for their autonomy to control the location, timing, and performance of work. We found that knowledge professionals using mobile email devices to manage their communication were enacting a norm of continual connectivity and accessibility that produced a number of contradictory outcomes. Although individual use of mobile email devices offered these professionals flexibility, peace of mind, and control over interactions in the short term, it also intensified collective expectations of their availability, escalating their engagement and thus reducing their ability to disconnect from work. Choosing to use their mobile email devices to work anywhere/anytime—actions they framed as evidence of their personal autonomy—the professionals were ending up using it everywhere/all the time, thus diminishing their autonomy in practice. This autonomy paradox reflected professionals’ ongoing navigation of the tension between their interests in personal autonomy on the one hand and their professional commitment to colleagues and clients on the other. We further found that this dynamic has important unintended consequences—reaffirming and challenging workers’ sense of themselves as autonomous and responsible professionals while also collectively shifting the norms of how work is and should be performed in the contemporary workplace.
Doc 2 : The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization
Guided by theories of “management by exception,” we study the impact of information and communication technology on worker and plant manager autonomy and span of control. The theory suggests that information technology is a decentralizing force, whereas communication technology is a centralizing force. Using a new data set of American and European manufacturing firms, we find indeed that better information technologies (enterprise resource planning (ERP) for plant managers and computer-assisted design/computer-assisted manufacturing for production workers) are associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control, whereas technologies that improve communication (like data intranets) decrease autonomy for workers and plant managers. Using instrumental variables (distance from ERP’s place of origin and heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from regulation) strengthens our results. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2013 . This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.
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.
Doc 4 : Interactional Features of Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication in the Intermediate L2 Class: A Sociocultural Case Study
This study explores social interactive features of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC)–commonly known as “chat”–as such features unfolded in real time and developed over a nine-week period in two fourth-semester college Spanish classes. The study invoked the Vygotskian sociocultural theoretical framework and employed discourse analysis as a research tool to describe and explain outstanding features of chat room communication. Specific interactional features examined are intersubjectivity, off-task discussion, greetings and leave-takings, identity exploration and role play, humor and sarcasm, and use of the L1 (English). Through these communicative behaviors, learners appropriated the chat room environment, transforming it into a learner-centered discourse community governed by communicative autonomy and the use of language and discourse functions that go beyond those encountered in the typical L2 classroom.
Doc 5 : From What to How: An Initial Review of Publicly Available AI Ethics Tools, Methods and Research to Translate Principles into Practices
Abstract The debate about the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence dates from the 1960s (Samuel in Science, 132(3429):741–742, 1960. 10.1126/science.132.3429.741 ; Wiener in Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press, New York, 1961). However, in recent years symbolic AI has been complemented and sometimes replaced by (Deep) Neural Networks and Machine Learning (ML) techniques. This has vastly increased its potential utility and impact on society, with the consequence that the ethical debate has gone mainstream. Such a debate has primarily focused on principles—the ‘what’ of AI ethics (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice and explicability)—rather than on practices, the ‘how.’ Awareness of the potential issues is increasing at a fast rate, but the AI community’s ability to take action to mitigate the associated risks is still at its infancy. Our intention in presenting this research is to contribute to closing the gap between principles and practices by constructing a typology that may help practically-minded developers apply ethics at each stage of the Machine Learning development pipeline, and to signal to researchers where further work is needed. The focus is exclusively on Machine Learning, but it is hoped that the results of this research may be easily applicable to other branches of AI. The article outlines the research method for creating this typology, the initial findings, and provides a summary of future research needs.
Doc 6 : Out of Sight, Out of Mind in a New World of Work? Autonomy, Control, and Spatiotemporal Scaling in Telework:
We draw on the geographical concepts of social space, territoriality, and distantiation to examine an apparent tension inherent in telework: i.e., using information and communication technologies to work away from traditional workplaces can give employees a greater sense of autonomy while simultaneously placing new constraints on the way they conduct themselves in settings that were previously beyond the reach of managerial control. We draw on a longitudinal case study of a Belgian biopharmaceutical company to show how technical and professional teleworkers developed broadly similar strategies of spatiotemporal scaling to cope with this tension. We conclude by considering how these scaling strategies allowed employees to cope with the demands of ‘hybrid’ work that is conducted both at home and in traditional settings.
Doc 7 : Scripting sexual passivity: A gender role perspective
In two studies, we demonstrate that attitudes toward traditional sexual roles are linked with increased sexual passivity for women but decreased passivity for men. For both genders, sexual passivity predicts poor sexual functioning and satisfaction. Study 1 showed that endorsement of traditional sexual roles of male dominance and female passivity relates to greater sexual passivity among college-aged heterosexual women but less passivity for college-aged heterosexual men. For both young men and women, greater sexual passivity predicts less overall sexual satisfaction. The findings for Study 2 replicate Study 1 among sexually experienced adults recruited over the Internet. Autonomy mediated these relationships, which persisted when controlling for multiple potential confounds.
Doc 8 : 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 9 : 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 10 : Cyber China: Upgrading Propaganda, Public Opinion Work and Social Management for the Twenty-First Century
The first two years of the Xi Jinping administration saw a thorough reconfiguration of Internet governance. This reconfiguration created a centralized and integrated institutional framework for information technologies, in support of an ambitious agenda to place digital technologies at the heart of propaganda, public opinion and social control work. Conversely, the autonomy and spontaneity of China’s online sphere was vastly reduced, as the leadership closed channels for public deliberation. This article reviews the institutional and regulatory changes that have taken place between 2012 and 2014, and analyses the methods and purposes of control they imply.
Doc 11 : The Needs–Affordances–Features Perspective for the Use of Social Media
The paper develops a needs–affordances–features (NAF) perspective on social media use which posits that individuals’ psychological needs motivate their use of social media applications to the extent to which these applications provide affordances that satisfy these needs. Our theoretical development builds upon two psychological theories, namely self-determination and psychological ownership, to identify five psychological needs (needs for autonomy, relatedness, competence, having a place, and self-identity), that we posit are particularly pertinent to social media use. According to NAF, these psychological needs will motivate use of those social media applications that provide salient affordances to fulfill these needs. We identify such affordances through a comprehensive review of the literature and of social media applications and put forth propositions that map the affordances to the psychological needs that they fulfill. Our theory development generates important implications. First, it has implications for social media research in that it provides an overarching comprehensive framework for the affordances of social media as a whole and the related psychological needs that motivate their use. Future studies can leverage NAF to identify psychological needs motivating the use of specific social media sites based on the affordances the sites provide, and design science research can leverage NAF in the design and bundling of specific social media features to engage users. Second, it has implications for technology acceptance research in that NAF can enrich existing models by opening up the mechanisms through which psychological needs influence user perceptions of social media and their use patterns and behaviors. Finally, NAF provides a new lens and common vocabulary for future studies, which we hope can stimulate cumulative research endeavors to develop a comprehensive framework of information systems affordances in general and the psychological needs that information systems satisfy.
Doc 12 : 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 13 : Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: Today and Tomorrow
Artificial intelligence-powered medical technologies are rapidly evolving into applicable solutions for clinical practice. Deep learning algorithms can deal with increasing amounts of data provided by wearables, smartphones, and other mobile monitoring sensors in different areas of medicine. Currently, only very specific settings in clinical practice benefit from the application of artificial intelligence, such as the detection of atrial fibrillation, epilepsy seizures, and hypoglycemia, or the diagnosis of disease based on histopathological examination or medical imaging. The implementation of augmented medicine is long-awaited by patients because it allows for a greater autonomy and a more personalized treatment, however, it is met with resistance from physicians which were not prepared for such an evolution of clinical practice. This phenomenon also creates the need to validate these modern tools with traditional clinical trials, debate the educational upgrade of the medical curriculum in light of digital medicine as well as ethical consideration of the ongoing connected monitoring. The aim of this paper is to discuss recent scientific literature and provide a perspective on the benefits, future opportunities and risks of established artificial intelligence applications in clinical practice on physicians, healthcare institutions, medical education, and bioethics.
Doc 14 : Physical and psychosocial aspects of the learning environment in information technology rich classrooms
This paper reports on a study of environments in emerging Internet classrooms. At issue for this study is to what extent these ‘technological classrooms’ are providing a positive learning environment for students. To investigate this issue, this study involved an evaluation of the physical and psychosocial environments in computerized school settings through a combination of questionnaires and inventories that were later cross-referenced to case studies on a subset of these classrooms. Data were obtained from a series of physical evaluations of 43 settings in 24 school locations in British Columbia, Canada and Western Australia. Evaluations consisted of detailed inventories of the physical environment using the Computerised Classroom Environment Inventory (CCEI): an instrument developed specifically for this study. Data on psychosocial aspects of the environment were obtained with the What is Happening in this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire administered to 1404 high school students making routine use of these computerized classrooms. Potential deficiencies in the physical environment of these locations included problems with individual workspaces, lighting and air quality, whereas deficiencies in the psychosocial environment were confined to the dimension of Autonomy. Further analysis of these classroom environment data indicated that student Autonomy and Task orientation were independently associated with students’ Satisfaction with learning and that many physical (e.g. lighting and workspace dimensions) and psychosocial factors (e.g. students’ perceptions of Co-operation and Collaboration) were also associated. The results provide a descriptive account of the learning environment in ‘technology-rich’ classrooms and, further, indicate that ergonomic guidelines used in the implementation of IT in classrooms may have a positive influence on the learning environment.
Doc 15 : An autonomous educational mobile robot mediator
So far, most of the applications of robotic technology to education have mainly focused on supporting the teaching of subjects that are closely related to the Robotics field, such as robot programming, robot construction, or mechatronics. Moreover, most of the applications have used the robot as an end or a passive tool of the learning activity, where the robot has been constructed or programmed. In this paper, we present a novel application of robotic technologies to education, where we use the real world situatedness of a robot to teach non-robotic related subjects, such as math and physics. Furthermore, we also provide the robot with a suitable degree of autonomy to actively guide and mediate in the development of the educational activity. We present our approach as an educational framework based on a collaborative and constructivist learning environment, where the robot is able to act as an interaction mediator capable of managing the interactions occurring among the working students. We illustrate the use of this framework by a 4-step methodology that is used to implement two educational activities. These activities were tested at local schools with encouraging results. Accordingly, the main contributions of this work are: i) A novel use of a mobile robot to illustrate and teach relevant concepts and properties of the real world; ii) A novel use of robots as mediators that autonomously guide an educational activity using a collaborative and constructivist learning approach; iii) The implementation and testing of these ideas in a real scenario, working with students at local schools.
Doc 16 : Barriers and facilitators for the implementation of blended psychotherapy for depression: A qualitative pilot study of therapists’ perspective
Abstract Introduction Blended therapies (BT) combine face-to-face (f2f) sessions with internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMIs). However, the use of blended interventions in routine care is still rare and depends on the acceptance of key health care professionals such as the therapists. Little is yet known about the therapists’ perspective on and experiences with blended approaches. The aim of this pilot study was to identify barriers and facilitators, as perceived by psychotherapists, for implementing a blended therapy for depression. Methods Semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with five therapists, who were part of the German study arm of the FP7-project E-Compared ( www.e-compared.eu ). All patients (N = 173) were treated in the context of a registered RCT (DRK6866) in which the clinical and cost-effectiveness of BT for depression, consisting of ten internet- and mobile-based cognitive behavioral therapy modules and six f2f sessions, was compared to the treatment usually provided by general practitioners. To identify barriers and facilitators an interview guide based on the theoretical domains framework (TDF) was developed. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a qualitative content analysis by two independent coders. Results The results revealed 29 barriers and 33 facilitators, which are hindering or enabling factors on the levels of ‘implementation in the health care system’, ‘therapy’, ‘therapists’ and ‘patients’. Key barriers stated by all therapists were ‘Limited customizability and autonomy of decisions concerning blending the therapy’ (number of statements, k = 44); ‘Disease-related contraindications for BT’ (k = 25); ‘Negative affect was caused by burden through technical problems’ (k = 18); ‘Limited number of f2f sessions hindered the therapy process’; and ‘Establishment of therapeutic alliance was burdened by technical issues’ (each k = 15). Key facilitators stated by all therapists were: ‘Patients’ interest, willingness and motivation to participate’ (k = 22); ‘Patients’ access to online content between f2f sessions and after therapy end’ (k = 20); ‘Preset structure of IMI-part guided the treatment course of BT’ (k = 18); and ‘Effective help with BT in a short time frame’ (k = 15), as well as ‘Reduction of the treatment gap’ (k = 13). Discussion Therapists supported the implementation of BT for depression. Results indicated the consideration of a wide range of determinants: among others, the possibility of individualizing the treatment; the autonomy of decision making in respect to the ratio and number of online and f2f sessions; the necessity of providing training; the need to develop a concept of embedding BT in the health care system and funding the additional effort; and the use of sophisticated technical solutions.
Doc 17 : A Perspective on Knowledge Based and Intelligent Systems Implementation in Industrie 4.0
Abstract A worldwide trend in advanced manufacturing countries is defining Industrie 4.0, Industrial Internet and Factories of the Future as a new wave that can revolutionize the production and its associated services. Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are central to this vision and are entitled to be part of smart machines, storage systems and production facilities able to exchange information with autonomy and intelligence. Such systems should be able to decide and trigger actions, and control each other independently and for such reason it is required the use of Knowledge based and intelligent information approaches. In this paper we present our perspective on how to support Industrie 4.0 with Knowledge based and intelligent systems. We focus in the conceptual model, architecture and necessary elements we believe are required for a real world implementation. We base our conceptualization in the experiences gathered during the participation in different ongoing research projects where the presented architecture is being implemented.
Doc 18 : 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 19 : ‘Long autonomy or long delay?’ The importance of domain in opinion mining
Nowadays, people do not only navigate the web, but they also contribute contents to the Internet. Among other things, they write their thoughts and opinions in review sites, forums, social networks, blogs and other websites. These opinions constitute a valuable resource for businesses, governments and consumers. In the last years, some researchers have proposed opinion extraction systems, mostly domain-independent ones, to automatically extract structured representations of opinions contained in those texts. In this work, we tackle this task in a domain-oriented approach, defining a set of domain-specific resources which capture valuable knowledge about how people express opinions on a given domain. These resources are automatically induced from a set of annotated documents. Some experiments were carried out on three different domains (user-generated reviews of headphones, hotels and cars), comparing our approach to other state-of-the-art, domain-independent techniques. The results confirm the importance of the domain in order to build accurate opinion extraction systems. Some experiments on the influence of the dataset size and an example of aggregation and visualization of the extracted opinions are also shown.
Doc 20 : Tourists’ Attitudes toward Proactive Smartphone Systems
In order to ensure the effectiveness of context-based proactive recommendations in influencing tourist behavior, it is important to understand the factors that drive tourists’ inclination to adopt push recommendations from mobile devices. A projective method was applied to tap into tourists’ opinions and feelings about their smartphones as intelligent agents, and how these influence their attitudes toward push recommendations they receive while experiencing tourist destinations. While smartphones have a mediating role in the tourism experience, a paradox exists in which tourists recognize an enhancement in certain aspects of a travel experience and a reduction in others. Confidence toward proactive recommendations is largely rooted in perceived proactiveness, autonomy, social ability and intelligence of smartphones, while perceived reactivity and control lead tourists to fear that they will lose control over their tourism experiences. Several managerial implications are provided.
Doc 21 : Identifying meta‐clusters of students’ interest in science and their change with age
The organicist view of society is updated by incorporating concepts from cybernetics, evolutionary theory, and complex adaptive systems. Global society can be seen as an autopoietic network of self-producing components, and therefore as a living system or ‘superorganism’. Miller’s living systems theory suggests a list of functional components for society’s metabolism and nervous system. Powers’ perceptual control theory suggests a model for a distributed control system implemented through the market mechanism. An analysis of the evolution of complex, networked systems points to the general trends of increasing efficiency, differentiation and integration. In society these trends are realized as increasing productivity, decreasing friction, increasing division of labor and outsourcing, and increasing cooperativity, transnational mergers and global institutions. This is accompanied by increasing functional autonomy of individuals and organisations and the decline of hierarchies. The increasing complexity of interactions and instability of certain processes caused by reduced friction necessitate a strengthening of society’s capacity for information processing and control, i.e. its nervous system. This is realized by the creation of an intelligent global computer network, capable of sensing, interpreting, learning, thinking, deciding and initiating actions: the ‘global brain’. Individuals are being integrated ever more tightly into this collective intelligence. Although this image may raise worries about a totalitarian system that restricts individual initia
Doc 23 : Remote control and robots: an Internet solution
The development of remote control is discussed with reference to the control of robots. The new opportunities for control that are offered by the Internet are evaluated and the range of potential applications are considered. The specification of remotely controlled instrumentation is investigated and the concept of autonomy and supervisory control is discussed with particular reference to the Bradford Robotic Telescope.
Doc 24 : Using augmented reality and Internet of things to improve accessibility of people with motor disabilities in the context of smart cities
Abstract Smart Cities need to be designed to allow the inclusion of all kinds of citizens. For instance, motor disabled people like wheelchair users may have problems to interact with the city. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies provide the tools to include all citizens in the Smart City context. For example, wheelchair users may not be able to reach items placed beyond their arm’s length, limiting their independence in everyday activities like shopping, or visiting libraries. We have developed a system that enables wheelchair users to interact with items placed beyond their arm’s length, with the help of Augmented Reality (AR) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies. Our proposed system is an interactive AR application that runs on different interfaces, allowing the user to digitally interact with the physical items on the shelf, thanks to an updated inventory provided by an RFID system. The resulting experience is close to being able to browse a shelf, clicking on it and obtaining information about the items it contains, allowing wheelchair users to shop independently, and providing autonomy in their everyday activities. Fourteen wheelchair users with different degrees of impairment have participated in the study and development of the system. The evaluation results show promising results towards more independence of wheelchair users, providing an opportunity for equality improvement.
Management control of professional employees such as engineers and scientists leads to a state of conflict in the business organization. To management, the control of human resources implies the limiting of individualistic behavior of subordinates in order to realize the objectives of the firm. In contrast, the industrial scientist, even as a subordinate in an organizational hierarchy, believes that control as applied to him should allow for autonomy and independence as attributes of professionalism in his work environment.
In this paper we examine various approaches to managerial control—traditional, bureaucratic, cybernetic, and behavioral—and their application to the engineer-scientist as the carrier of professional values in the work culture. A successful manager in this environment must create a work climate without emphasis on formal mechanisms of control and direction. Recent research indicates that to this effect optimum supervisory behavior involves neither excessive direction nor autonomy but frequent interaction with industrial scientists as participants in decision making.
We conclude that management of industrial scientists in relation to their professional values should take place within the networks of informal organizational relationships. It involves the application of normative managerial control based upon the exercise of self-imposed sanctions by the industrial scientists themselves, and of colleague authority by their managers relying on communication and information for compliance with organization’s objectives and goals.
Instructors commonly assume that the successful online course must replicate its live counterpart by including a variety of interactions among student, instructor, and computer. Given the changing lifestyles prompted by an evolving Internet, an increasing student need for autonomy, and student learning styles, highly interactive courses may not necessarily be the best online approach. In this article, I review research dealing with interactive environments, present the results of my own interaction study, and propose an integrative approach for the use of interaction that sees it in light of the increasing integration of the Internet into students’ daily lives.
Doc 27 : 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 28 : Formative assessment: A cybernetic viewpoint
This paper considers alternative assessment, feedback and cybernetics. For more than 30 years, debates about the bi-polarity of formative and summative assessment have served as surrogates for discussions about the workings of the mind, the social implications of assessment and, as important, the role of instruction in the advancement of learning. Currently, alternative assessment lives uneasily with its classical counterpart. Classical test theory–and its conception of the summative value of the true score–came from behaviourist learning theories developed in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Formative assessment, with its conceptions of feedback and development, had a different origin. It arose from cognitive and constructivist theories of learning that emerged in the 1930s and 1940s. This paper identifies the tensions that underpin this uneasy coexistence. It suggests that different conceptions of mind lie behind these tensions and, to mark the autonomy and integrity of formative asse…
Doc 29 : 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 30 : The Role of Technology in Teaching Languages for Specific Purposes Courses
Within the integration of technology into language education, special attention needs to be paid to languages for specific purposes (LSP), drawing on developments in computer-assisted language learning and applied linguistics, on the one hand, and on the pervasive use of technology in academic and professional communication, on the other. From a definition of LSP centered on learner need, specificity of activities and materials, and teacher and learner profiles, this article examines how technology has transformed LSP teaching and learning. Through technology, LSP teachers and researchers can access discipline-specific materials and situations and compile corpora of specialized texts. Computer-mediated communication provides learning tools and a gateway to the discourse community. Technology also provides opportunities for collaborating, creating virtual environments and online courses, and fostering learner autonomy. These applications are examined within the current LSP scenario, paying attention to conditions and challenges for implementation, as well as to the roles of teachers and learners. This article also points to areas that merit further analysis from an LSP perspective, such as the use of different technologies and modes for effective learning, the analysis of specialized texts, and the integration into LSP of emerging technologies that have made their way into social uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Doc 31 : The Division of Labour, Worker Organisation, and Technological Change*
The model developed in this article explains differences in the division of labour across firms as a result of computer technology adoption. Changes in the division of labour result from reduced production time and improved communication possibilities. The first shifts the division of labour towards generic structures, while the latter enhances specialisation. Our estimates for a sample of Dutch establishments in the period 1990‐6 suggest that productivity gains have been the main determinant for shifts in the division of labour. These productivity gains induced skill upgrading, while in firms gaining from improved communication possibilities specialisation increased and skill requirements have fallen. The rapid spread of computer technology has led to substantial changes in the division of labour and a shift in the demand for labour in favour of skilled workers. Mostly these changes have been accompanied by flatter organisational structures, larger autonomy for workers or workgroups, the application of innovative human resource management practices and so on. There are also less typical examples where computerisation is associated with increased specialisation (e.g., the rapid increase of call-centres), scripting of communication with clients and stricter procedures. Although the empirical relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and organisational change has been well-documented, disagreement remains about the reasons why computerisation provides firms with incentives to change the structure of their organisation and the skill requirements of their workforce.
Doc 32 : Do Demanding Conditions Help or Hurt Self-Regulation?
Although everyday life is often demanding, it remains unclear how demanding conditions impact self-regulation. Some theories suggest that demanding conditions impair self-regulation, by undermining autonomy, interfering with skilled performance and working memory, and depleting energy resources. Other theories, however, suggest that demanding conditions improve self-regulation by mobilizing super-ordinate control processes. The present article integrates both kinds of theories by proposing that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on how people adapt to such conditions. When people are action-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to improved self-regulation. When people are state-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to impaired self-regulation. Consistent with this idea, action versus state orientation strongly moderates the influence of demands on self-regulatory performance. The impact of demanding conditions on self-regulation is thus not fixed, but modifiable by psychological processes. Demanding conditions are pervasive in everyday life. At the workplace, employees need to stay abreast of rapid technological innovations and deal with constant pressures towards increased efficiency and productivity. In educational settings, students must meet high standards of academic excellence, often while performing low-paying jobs to cover high tuitions and while taking care of their family members. Even among friends, there are always emails to be responded to, birthdays to be remembered, meetings to be arranged, favors to be returned, along with countless other duties and obligations. Given that demanding conditions are exceedingly common, it is important to understand how people can most effectively deal with such conditions. Unfortunately, psychological theories offer seemingly contradictory insights into this matter. Some influential theories propose that demanding conditions are likely to undermine self-regulation (Baumeister & Showers, 1986; Beilock, Kulp, Holt, & Carr, 2004; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). However, other theories suggest that demanding conditions lead people to marshal their self-regulatory resources, resulting in enhanced motivation and self-regulation (e.g., Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, & Cohen, 2001; Brehm & Self, 1989; Trope & Fishbach, 2000). These different theories have very different practical implications. If demanding conditions undermine self-regulation, people will be best off by avoiding demanding conditions. By contrast, if demanding conditions facilitate selfregulation, people may be advised to seek out demanding conditions whenever they can. In the present article, we develop an integrative theoretical analysis of how demanding conditions influence self-regulation. In what follows, we begin by taking a closer look at the basic ways in which demanding conditions might help or hurt self-regulation. Next, drawing upon action control theory (Kuhl, 1984, 1994a), we propose that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on people’s mode of adapting to these
Doc 33 : Older adults with multi-morbidity: medication management processes and design implications for personal health applications.
https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1813 Leah M. Haverhals Courtney A. Lee Katie A. Siek Carol A Darr Sunny A. Linnebur J. Mark Ruscin Stephen E. Ross
Background: Older adults often have multiple chronic problems requiring them to manage complex medication regimens overseen by various clinicians. Personal health applications (PHAs) show promise assisting in medication self-management, but adoption of new computer technologies by this population is challenging. Optimizing the utility of PHAs requires a thorough understanding of older adults’ needs, preferences, and practices. Objective: The objective of our study was to understand the medication self-management issues faced by older adults and caregivers that can be addressed by an electronic PHA. Methods: We conducted a qualitative analysis of a series of individual and group semistructured interviews with participants who were identified through purposive sampling. Results: We interviewed 32 adult patients and 2 adult family caregivers. We identified 5 core themes regarding medication self-management challenges: seeking reliable medication information, maintaining autonomy in medication treatment decisions, worrying about taking too many medications, reconciling information discrepancies between allopathic and alternative medical therapies, and tracking and coordinating health information between multiple providers. Conclusions: This study provides insights into the latent concerns and challenges faced by older adults and caregivers in managing medications. The results suggest that PHAs should have the following features to accommodate the management strategies and information preferences of this population: (1) provide links to authoritative and reliable information on side effects, drug interactions, and other medication-related concerns in a way that is clear, concise, and easy to navigate, (2) facilitate communication between patients and doctors and pharmacists through electronic messaging and health information exchange, and (3) provide patients the ability to selectively disclose medication information to different clinicians. [J Med Internet Res 2011;13(2):e44]
Doc 34 : A survey of privacy in multi-agent systems
Abstract Privacy has been a concern for humans long before the explosive growth of the Internet. The advances in information technologies have further increased these concerns. This is because the increasing power and sophistication of computer applications offers both tremendous opportunities for individuals, but also significant threats to personal privacy. Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are examples of the level of sophistication of computer applications. Autonomous agents usually encapsulate personal information describing their principals, and therefore they play a crucial role in preserving privacy. Moreover, autonomous agents themselves can be used to increase the privacy of computer applications by taking advantage of the intrinsic features they provide, such as artificial intelligence, pro-activeness, autonomy, and the like. This article introduces the problem of preserving privacy in computer applications and its relation to autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. It also surveys privacy-related studies in the field of multi-agent systems and identifies open challenges to be addressed by future research.
Doc 35 : How anonymous are you online? Examining online social behaviors from a cross-cultural perspective
Communication on the Internet is often described as “anonymous”, yet the usage of the term is often confusing, even in academia. Three levels of anonymity, visual anonymity, dissociation of real and online identities, and lack of identifiability, are thought to have different effects on various components of interpersonal motivation. Specifically, we propose that cross-cultural differences in interpersonal motivation (autonomy vs. affiliation) are illustrated by choices individuals make when deciding whether or not to remain anonymous while communicating online. Autonomy is often valued in Western societies, whereas Eastern societies tend to emphasize affiliation, suggesting that individuals in Western societies will gravitate toward online communities that allow lower levels of anonymity, while individuals in Eastern societies will be more likely to seek out online communities that promote higher levels of anonymity. The research presented in this article supports this notion, suggesting that we need to consider cultural differences when designing online communication systems and other communications technologies.
Doc 36 : Impact of Electronic Resources on Collection Development, the Roles of Librarians, and Library Consortia
As LIBRARIANS ADDED AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS to their collections and then electronic materials, they moved from selection as an individual activity to selection as a group activity. Librarians made every effort to mainstream the resulting selection process and incorporate it into the existing library organization. However, with the advent of the Internet and the ability to simultaneously share virtual resources, cooperative collection development, through consortial arrangements, became popular once again. The ability of consortia to purchase products at a better price than individual libraries can has made them very popular with funding agencies. However, the result is that the role of the selector has been diminished. As the purchase of virtual resources accelerates, particularly through consortial agreements, the autonomy of the local library will fade and the roles of librarians will change drastically. This rapid transformation is illustrated by a discussion of OhioLINK and its effects, both positive and negative, on one member library.
Doc 37 : The ‘third place’ – virtual reality applications for second language learning
Recently we have seen a shift of focus in using the Internet from often inappropriate human-computer interactivity to human-human interaction, based on collaborative learning concepts like learner autonomy and tandem learning. The renewed discussion of interface design has provoked a reconsideration of me traditional graphical user interface and a shift towards more intuitive interfaces like virtual reality, mainly building on the concept of constructionism. The MOO (multi-user domain, object oriented) system provides a flexible, easy-to-use multiple user virtual reality that allows for the integration of language learning tools and resources in a common environment, a third place.
Doc 38 : Moving beyond conspicuous leisure consumption: Adolescent women, mobile phones and public space
Abstract In this paper we explore mobile phones as a form of fashion accessory for young women in contemporary culture and the possible value of such fashionable items as a source of identity and self‐worth. Despite reliance on the usual stultifying stereotypes produced by marketeers to promote mobile phones, we explore the possibility that increased access to public space generates for adolescent girls alternative choices of leisure experiences and possibilities of multiple enriching identities. The findings suggest that mobile phone use can impart a sense of self‐confidence, sexuality and autonomy which defies the male gaze in public spaces and may allow adolescent women to reject traditional images of femininity at a formative stage in the life course and take steps to a further array of leisure choices. It may only be a temporary image that assists a sense of self at a vulnerable time in life, or it may infiltrate other aspects of subjectivity and assist an ongoing sense of self‐confidence. However, t…
Doc 39 : IT for a better future: how to integrate ethics, politics and innovation
Purpose The paper aims to explore future and emerging information and communication technologies. It gives a general overview of the social consequences and ethical issues arising from technologies that can currently be reasonably expected. This overview is used to present recommendations and integrate these in a framework of responsible innovation. Design/methodology/approach The identification of emerging ICTs and their ethical consequences is based on the review and analysis if several different bodies of literature. The individual features of the ICTs and the ethical issues identified this way are then aggregated and analysed. Findings The paper outlines the 11 ICTs identified. Some of the shared features that are likely to have social relevance include an increase in natural interaction, the invisibility of technology, direct links between humans and technology, detailed models and data of humans and an increasing autonomy of technology that may lead to power over the user. Ethical issues include several current topics such as privacy, data protection, intellectual property and digital divides. New problems may include changes to the way humans are perceived and the role of humans and technology in society. This includes changing power structures and different ways of treating humans. Research limitations/implications The paper presents a piece of foresight research which cannot claim exact knowledge of the future. However, by developing a detailed understanding of possible futures it provides an important basis for current decisions relating to future technology development and governance. Practical implications The paper spells out a range of recommendations for both policy makers and researchers/industry. These refer to the framework within which technology is developed and how such a framework could be designed to allow the development of ethical reflexivity. Social implications The work described here is likely to influence EU policy on ICT research and technology research and innovation more broadly. This may have implications for the type of technologies funded and broad implications for the social use of emerging technologies. Originality/value The paper presents a novel and important broad view of the future of ICTs that is required in order to inform current policy decisions.
Doc 40 : Young people’s experiences of mobile phone text counselling: Balancing connection and control☆
Abstract Mobile phone text counselling offers an opportunity to engage young people via a familiar and accessible medium. Interviews conducted with young people highlighted aspects of text counselling they perceived as valuable including privacy and autonomy, having control over the counselling process and maintaining anonymity. Participants appreciated the accessibility of text counselling and felt comfortable communicating through text. Despite the anonymity, they also felt they got to know the counsellor as a ‘real person’ and experienced a relational connection with them. Text counselling may help young people balance their contradictory needs for autonomy and connection and facilitate their engagement with counselling support.
Doc 41 : “Strongly Recommended” Revisiting Decisional Privacy to Judge Hypernudging in Self-Tracking Technologies
This paper explores and rehabilitates the value of decisional privacy as a conceptual tool, complementary to informational privacy, for critiquing personalized choice architectures employed by self-tracking technologies. Self-tracking technologies are promoted and used as a means to self-improvement. Based on large aggregates of personal data and the data of other users, self-tracking technologies offer personalized feedback that nudges the user into behavioral change. The real-time personalization of choice architectures requires continuous surveillance and is a very powerful technology, recently coined as “hypernudging.” While users celebrate the increased personalization of their coaching devices, “hypernudging” technologies raise concerns about manipulation. This paper addresses that intuition by claiming that decisional privacy is at stake. It thus counters the trend to solely focus on informational privacy when evaluating information and communication technologies. It proposes that decisional privacy and informational privacy are often part of a mutually reinforcing dynamic. Hypernudging is used as a key example to illustrate that the two dimensions should not be treated separately. Hypernudging self-tracking technologies compromise autonomy because they violate informational and decisional privacy. In order to effectively judge whether technologies that use hypernudges empower users, we need both privacy dimensions as conceptual tools.
Doc 42 : Can AI artifacts influence human cognition? The effects of artificial autonomy in intelligent personal assistants
Abstract In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies provide various artificial autonomy features that allow intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) to assist users in managing the dynamically expanding applications, devices, and services in their daily lives. However, limited academic research has been done to validate empirically artificial autonomy and its downstream consequences on human behavior. This study investigates the role of artificial autonomy by dividing it into three types of autonomy in terms of task primitives, namely, sensing, thought, and action autonomy. Drawing on mind perception theory, the authors hypothesize that the two fundamental dimensions of humanlike perceptions—competence and warmth—of non-human entities could explain the mechanism between artificial autonomy and IPA usage. Our results reveal that the comparative effects of competence and warmth perception exist when artificial autonomy contributes to users’ continuance usage intention. Theoretically, this study increases our understanding of AI-enabled artificial autonomy in information systems research. These findings also provide insightful suggestions for practitioners regarding AI artifacts design.
Doc 43 : Visible moves and invisible bodies: the case of teleworking in an Italian call centre
Popular images of teleworkers’ autonomy, such as ‘the electronic cottage’, give unrealistic pictures of the control exercised over teleworkers, particularly when these are call centre operators and highly integrated information and communication technology systems facilitate pervasive forms of control. However, this study of Italian home-located call centre operators demonstrates that extensive and multifaceted monitoring practices cannot ‘solve’ the controversial issue of control.
Doc 44 : Evaluating Tandem Language Learning in the MOO: Discourse Repair Strategies in a Bilingual Internet Project
Over the past years, the Internet has developed communication tools as well as information resources. Text-based tools have been established as valuable modular environments for education. One of them, the MOO virtual environment, has maintained its appeal, not least through initiatives such as the CALLMOO project, which developed an educational database with a Java-based interface and undertook systematic research on educational uses of MOOs (Aarseth & Jopp, 1998). In this paper, we will give a short overview of the concepts of learners autonomy and tandem learning. We will then look at repair strategies as represented in two types of data, questionnaires and transcripts, from a bilateral tandem MOO project between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) students from Trinity College Dublin and the Fachhochschule Rhein-Sieg near St. Augustin, Germany. By triangulating the data, we will show how repair strategies, in particular translation and paraphrase are distributed, and how learners’ intention…
Doc 45 : Trusted Autonomy and Cognitive Cyber Symbiosis: Open Challenges
This paper considers two emerging interdisciplinary, but related topics that are likely to create tipping points in advancing the engineering and science areas. Trusted Autonomy (TA) is a field of research that focuses on understanding and designing the interaction space between two entities each of which exhibits a level of autonomy. These entities can be humans, machines, or a mix of the two. Cognitive Cyber Symbiosis (CoCyS) is a cloud that uses humans and machines for decision-making. In CoCyS, human-machine teams are viewed as a network with each node comprising humans (as computational machines) or computers. CoCyS focuses on the architecture and interface of a Trusted Autonomous System. This paper examines these two concepts and seeks to remove ambiguity by introducing formal definitions for these concepts. It then discusses open challenges for TA and CoCyS, that is, whether a team made of humans and machines can work in fluid, seamless harmony.
Doc 46 : Academic Effects of the Use of Flipped Learning in Physical Education
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17010276 Francisco Javier Hinojo Lucena Jesús López Belmonte Arturo Fuentes Cabrera Juan Manuel Trujillo Torres Santiago Pozo Sánchez
The technological characteristics of today’s society have favored the inclusion of information and communication technology (ICT) and the emergence of new training methodologies in educational spaces. This study addresses flipped learning as an innovative approach in the teaching and learning processes of physical education at two educational stages, primary and secondary education. The objective of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of flipped learning with respect to traditional methodology. A descriptive and correlational experimental research design was used through a quantitative perspective. Two study groups were established, one control (traditional methodology) and one experimental (flipped learning) in each educational stage. A total of 119 students from an educational center in Ceuta (Spain) participated. These participants were chosen intentionally. The data were collected through a questionnaire. The results show that the experimental group obtained better evaluations in the academic indicators, highlighting the motivation, autonomy, and interactions between the different agents. Regarding the effectiveness of flipped learning according to the educational stage, its potential was demonstrated in both stages, highlighting a significant improvement in autonomy in secondary education.
Doc 47 : Behavioral Programming of Autonomous Characters based on Probabilistic Automata and Personality
In evaluating government actions, accountability fora depend public records. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) candepending how they are usedpositively or negatively affect the availability of records for accountability. Dominant trends in the effect of ICTs records management are (1) the mixing of on the record and off the record communication, (2) the shift of control over information to the individual, (3) the focus present rather than historic information, (4) the interlinking of information managed by several organizations, and (5) the integration of procedures into computer systems. These trends indicate that the introduction of ICTs challenges the existing balance between organizational values (e.g., formality and informality, central control and individual autonomy). Electronic records management is therefore about finding an organizational design that balances values to fit the organization’s accountability situation.
Doc 49 : Beyond Utopian and Nostalgic Views of Information Technology and Education: Implications for Research and Practice
Education is in a state of rapid change. The influx of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) lead us to question: “How do we find the balance between continuity and discontinuity whilst critically renewing our educational traditions?” The paper develops a philosophical understanding that transcends utopian and dystopian claims that IT is either “becoming education” or “destroying the essence of education,” respectively. This philosophical perspective is developed around: (1) the question of student autonomy and the potential of its being undermined through ICT and (2) the processes through which students can potentially resist these threats. The paper develops and applies the philosophical understanding to the question of student autonomy. First, the paper emphasizes the importance of considering student autonomy in the debates around the relationship of ICT and education. Second, the paper proposes a conceptual model of autonomy, drawing upon some important ideas of Habermas and pragmatist thinking. Third, the paper identifies some systemic threats on educational processes arising from globalization and corporatization. Fourth, I outline the Habermasian response to these threats as a means to understand the nature of student response. Finally, drawing upon the conceptual ideas of autonomy presented, I consider five specific approaches to examine the question of the reform of MIS education.
Doc 50 : Unsupervised by any other name: Hidden layers of knowledge production in artificial intelligence on social media
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of different machine learning models is applied to Big Data as a way to turn data into valuable knowledge. The rhetoric is that ensuing predictions work well—with a high degree of autonomy and automation. We argue that we need to analyze the process of applying machine learning in depth and highlight at what point human knowledge production takes place in seemingly autonomous work. This article reintroduces classification theory as an important framework for understanding such seemingly invisible knowledge production in the machine learning development and design processes. We suggest a framework for studying such classification closely tied to different steps in the work process and exemplify the framework on two experiments with machine learning applied to Facebook data from one of our labs. By doing so we demonstrate ways in which classification and potential discrimination take place in even seemingly unsupervised and autonomous models. Moving away from concepts of non-supervision and autonomy enable us to understand the underlying classificatory dispositifs in the work process and that this form of analysis constitutes a first step towards governance of artificial intelligence.
Doc 51 : Adding a new perspective to distance (language) learning and teaching – the tutor’s perspective
To respond to students’ need for more speaking practice, the Open University’s Centre for Modern Languages is currently investigating the benefits of using an Internet-based, real-time audio application in distance learning/teaching. During a four-month trial period, French and German students met at weekly intervals to use the target language and participated in role-plays or other pre-arranged learning tasks requiring collaborative interaction. This paper describes the FLUENT (Framework for Language Use in Environments Embedded in New Technology) project from the tutors’ point of view, focusing on how learner autonomy and the tutor role were affected by the new learning environment.
Doc 52 : Workers’ intrinsic work motivation when job demands are high
Work overload or work pressure may undermine workers’ intrinsic motivation. In the present research, we tested the conditions under which this may (not) occur, including the perceived opportunity to blend on-site and off-site working through the effective use of computers and modern information and communication technology. Our sample consisted of 657 workers (51% female) representing a variety of industries. As hypothesized, it is not high job demands per se, but high demands in combination with a high need for autonomy and a lack of perceived opportunities for blended working that undermines intrinsic work motivation. When workers high in need for autonomy perceived opportunities for blended working, their intrinsic work motivation was not negatively affected by increasing job demands. This main finding suggests that, particularly for workers high in need for autonomy, the perceived opportunity for blended working is an effective, contemporary resource to cope with the increasing job demands typically observed in today’s workplace. Theoretically, these findings contribute to the refinement and extension of influential demands-resource models and Person-Job Fit theory. Practically, our findings may show managers how to effectively keep workers intrinsically motivated and productive in their jobs when job demands are high. We tested conditions under which high job demands may undermine work motivation.We examined the new concept of perceived opportunity for blended working.Blended working, enabled through ICTs, works when need for autonomy is high.High job demands per se do not undermine intrinsic work motivation.We emphasize the importance of fit between work context and workers’ needs.
Doc 53 : Tecnología asistencial móvil, con realidad aumentada, para las personas mayores
Modern technology offers many facilities, but elderly people are often unable to enjoy them fully because they feel discouraged or intimidated by modern devices, and hus become progressively isolated in a society where Internet communication and ICT knowledge are essential. In this paper we present a study performed during the Nacodeal Project, which aims to offer a technological solution that may improve elderly people’s every day autonomy and life quality through the integration of ICTs. In order to achieve this goal, state-of-art Augmented Reality technology was developed along with carefully designed Internet services and interfaces for mobile devices. Such technology only requires the infrastructure which already exists in most residences and health-care centres. We present the design of a prototypical system consisting of a tablet and a wearable AR system, and the evaluation of its impact on the social interaction of its users as well its acceptance and usability. This evaluation was performed, through focus groups and individual pilot tests, on 48 participants that included elderly people, caregivers and experts. Their feedback leads us to the conclusion that there are significant benefits to be gained and much interest among the elderly in assistive AR-based ICTs, particularly in relation to the communication and autonomy that they may provide.
Doc 54 : Smartphone Assisted Language Learning and Autonomy
In the present study we investigate the advantages of using smartphones in an English as a foreign language EFL classroom. We compared two groups of Japanese university students who were either prohibited from using their smartphones in the classroom, or encouraged to use them for academic purposes, examining whether those using smartphones in their EFL lessons would show a tendency toward being autonomous. The results indicated that students who were encouraged to use their smartphones during class were inclined to study more in their free time as well as show signs of autonomy by taking charge of their learning and consider ways to improve their own study habits and English proficiency. Our conclusion is that language teachers and learners should be encouraged to use smartphones in the classroom as a means of fueling the desire to learn.
Doc 55 : A historical perspective of informed consent in clinical practice and research
To review the historical perspective of informed consent in clinical practice and research as it pertains to human subjects.Published professional journals, books, case law, and the internet pertaining to the historical development of informed consent.The history of informed consent is complex. Informed consent as a fundamental principle of clinical ethics has developed within the past 50 years. Full disclosure and shared decision making have not come naturally to clinicians. Consequently, respecting the autonomy of patients and research subjects requires a conscious, sustained effort by clinicians.Knowledge of the history of informed consent is important for practicing cancer nurses to ensure they understand the significance of preserving patient autonomy and advocate for the patient and research subject.
Doc 56 : Home‐based internet businesses as drivers of variety
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the way home‐based internet businesses (HBIBs) are operated and the reasons for which they are started enable HBIBs to bring about variety, and to argue that this variety has a broader impact on the industry and the economy.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a multiple case study approach, studying the best practices of eight HBIBs.Findings – The study finds that HBIBs generate variety because of the unique way in which they operate, and because of the reasons why they are started. How HBIBs operate can be captured in the acronym SMILES: Speed, Multiple income, Inexpensive, LEan, and Smart. They are founded (amongst other motives) for reasons of autonomy, freedom and independence. Both aspects – the how and why – of HBIBs are conducive to the creation of variety as they facilitate trial‐and‐error commercialisation of authentic ideas.Research limitations/implications – Five theoretical perspectives posit that variety is important for the indus…
Doc 57 : The Use of Information and Communication Technology in the Training for Ethical Competence in Business
Information and communication technology has certain advantages that can contribute positively in business ethics education programmes. It is necessary, however, to identify first the factors critical for acquiring ethical competence and later to proceed to the construction and use of such tools, in order to ensure that these tools are indeed adapted to the process and the goals of business ethics education. Based on psychological theory and research, it is argued that one such crucial factor is the psychological construct of ethical autonomy. The strengths and weaknesses of information and communication technology tools are discussed in accordance with this, and some suggestions are given on fruitful ways to incorporate these tools in business ethics education.
Doc 58 : 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 59 : Decentralized Collective Learning for Self-managed Sharing Economies
The Internet of Things equips citizens with a phenomenal new means for online participation in sharing economies. When agents self-determine options from which they choose, for instance, their resource consumption and production, while these choices have a collective systemwide impact, optimal decision-making turns into a combinatorial optimization problem known as NP-hard. In such challenging computational problems, centrally managed (deep) learning systems often require personal data with implications on privacy and citizens’ autonomy. This article envisions an alternative unsupervised and decentralized collective learning approach that preserves privacy, autonomy, and participation of multi-agent systems self-organized into a hierarchical tree structure. Remote interactions orchestrate a highly efficient process for decentralized collective learning . This disruptive concept is realized by I-EPOS, the Iterative Economic Planning and Optimized Selections , accompanied by a paradigmatic software artifact. Strikingly, I-EPOS outperforms related algorithms that involve non-local brute-force operations or exchange full information. This article contributes new experimental findings about the influence of network topology and planning on learning efficiency as well as findings on techno-socio-economic tradeoffs and global optimality. Experimental evaluation with real-world data from energy and bike sharing pilots demonstrates the grand potential of collective learning to design ethically and socially responsible participatory sharing economies.
Doc 60 : 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.
This article explores whether the perception of learner autonomy that is promoted in language pedagogy is suitable for preparing students to perform successfully in the changed circumstances of the use of English. Recent developments, which include the growing role of English as a lingua franca and computer-mediated communication (CMC), give rise to fluid and emergent contexts in which speakers from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds interact. It is argued that the current training-oriented view of learner autonomy in ELT, with its focus on learning processes, should be amended to enable learners to cope with the challenges of communication in the twenty-first century. In this article, an approach that shifts the attention to language use is suggested, where autonomy is developed through tasks and activities that engage learners on their own terms and allow them to effectively exploit their linguistic resources in online negotiation of meaning.
Doc 62 : Control Devolution as Information Infrastructure Design Strategy: A Case Study of a Content Service Platform for Mobile Phones in Norway
This paper depicts the results of an empirical case study on how two Norwegian telecommunications operators developed a business sector information infrastructure for the provision of mobile content services. Focusing on the context of this technology’s development, and the strategic issues behind its design, implementation and operation, control devolution as a design strategy is explored. This analysis draws on insights presented by Claudio Ciborra’s in his study of the change from alignment to loose coupling in the Swiss multinational Hoffmann-La Roche. This paper illustrates how control is played out on different levels, and balanced against autonomy. The theoretical implications of this paper highlight how the differences and transformations between information systems and information infrastructures are conceptualised, with the development of the latter better understood in light of a balance between control and autonomy. Consequently, it is suggested that control devolution as a design approach should be based on a deep understanding of the existing control/autonomy balance as well as the distribution of resources, risks and the ability and willingness to innovate.
Doc 63 : The role of e-portfolios in supporting productive learning
e-Portfolios are a form of authentic assessment with formative functions that include showcasing and sharing learning artifacts, documenting reflective learning processes, connecting learning across various stages and enabling frequent feedback for improvements. This paper examines how e-portfolios take up these formative roles to support productive learning. Qualitative findings from interviews with selected first-year undergraduate students at a higher education institution in Hong Kong are reported concerning students’ experiences of constructing e-portfolios as assessment tasks. As part of an institutional teaching and learning initiative, e-portfolios were incorporated into three core courses for first-year students. The findings reveal that several conditions necessary to foster productive learning were missing in students’ experiences: strengthened formative role of e-portfolios through coherent assessment design; encouragement for students’ pursuit of authentic tasks to develop learning interests; engagement of students in reflective and self-regulative learning as an essential learning process; provision of constructive feedback for sustained learning support; and support for students’ autonomy through facilitation of collaborative knowledge building. By explicating how the lack of these conditions impeded students’ active involvement in e-portfolio tasks and suggesting relevant strategies for teachers at the institution in question, this paper offers implications for harnessing information and communication technology ( ICT) to support students’ productive learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Doc 64 : Conceptualizing time, space and computing for work and organizing
Through this article we draw on concepts of time and space to help us theorize on the uses of information and communication technologies in work and for organizing. We do so because many of the contemporary discussions regarding work and organization are usually, and too often implicitly, drawing on rudimentary understandings of these concepts. Our focus here is to advance beyond simplistic articulations and to provide a more conceptually sound approach to address time, space and the uses of information and communication technologies in work. We do this focusing on temporal and spatial relations as a means to depict time and space at work. We characterize work as varying by two characteristics: the degree of interaction and the level of individual autonomy. We then develop a functional view of information and communication technologies relative to their uses for production, control, coordination, access and enjoyment. We conclude by integrating these concepts into an initial framework which allows us to theorize that new forms of work are moving towards four distinct forms of organizing. We further argue that each of these four forms has particular spatial and temporal characteristics that have distinct and different needs for information and communication technologies.
Doc 65 : Cyber-physical-social system between a humanoid robot and a virtual human through a shared platform for adaptive agent ecology
Two artificial agents U+0028 a humanoid robot and a virtual human U+0029 are enriched with various similar intelligence, autonomy, functionalities and interaction modalities. The agents are integrated in the form of a cyber-physical-social system U+0028 CPSS U+0029 through a shared communication platform to create a social ecology. In the ecology, the agents collaborate U+0028 assist each other U+0029 to perform a real-world task U+0028 search for a hidden object U+0028 for the benefits of humans. A robot-virtual human bilateral trust model is derived and a real-time trust measurement method is developed. The role of taking initiative in the collaboration is switched between the agents following a finite state machine model triggered by bilateral trust, which results in a mixedinitiative collaboration. A scheme is developed to evaluate the performance of the agents in the ecology through the CPSS. The results show that the robot and the virtual human perform satisfactorily in the collaboration through the CPSS. The results thus prove the effectiveness of the real-world ecology between artificial agents of heterogeneous realities through a shared platform based on trust-triggered mixed-initiatives. The results can help develop adaptive social ecology comprising intelligent agents of heterogeneous realities to assist humans in various tasks through collaboration between the agents in the form of a CPSS.
Doc 66 : The theoretical basis of the effective school improvement model (ESI)
This article describes the process of theoretical reflection that preceded the development and empirical verification of a model of “effective school improvement”. The focus is on basic mechanisms that could be seen as underlying “getting things in motion” and change in education systems. Four mechanisms are distinguished: synoptic rational planning, the market mechanism, cybernetics, and autopoiesis. Principles relevant for effective school improvement that are deducted from these basic mechanisms are: goal setting for improvement, pressures to improve, cyclical improvement processes, and autonomy. The article also briefly touches upon the way empirical models of school effectiveness and school improvement can be linked and used in the encompassing model of effective school improvement that the ESI project has yielded.
Doc 67 : Social networking for language learners: Creating meaningful output with Web 2.0 tools
The Internet has the potential to provide language learners with vast resources of authentic written, audio, and video materials to supplement lessons. Educators can find a wide assortment of materials for learners to study in class or after class for independent learning and to encourage learner autonomy. More recently, however, the immense popularity of social networking websites has created new opportunities for language learners to interact in authentic ways that were previously difficult to achieve. Advances in technology mean that today, learners of a language can easily interact with their peers in meaningful practice that helps foster language acquisition and motivation. That is, tasks that make use of Web 2.0 interactivity can significantly raise students’ potential to generate meaningful output and stimulate their interest in language learning.
Doc 68 : Computers in control: Rational transfer ofauthority or irresponsible abdication of autonomy?
To what extent should humans transfer, or abdicate, ’’responsibility‘‘ to computers? In this paper, I distinguish six different senses of ’responsible‘ and then consider in which of these senses computers can, and in which they cannot, be said to be ’’responsible‘‘ for ’’deciding‘‘ various outcomes. I sort out and explore two different kinds of complaint against putting computers in greater ’’control‘‘ of our lives: (i) as finite and fallible human beings, there is a limit to how far we can acheive increased reliability through complex devices of our own design; (ii) even when computers are more reliable than humans, certain tasks (e.g., selecting an appropriate gift for a friend, solving the daily crossword puzzle) are inappropriately performed by anyone (or anything) other than oneself. In critically evaluating these claims, I arrive at three main conclusions: (1) While we ought to correct for many of our shortcomings by availing ourselves of the computer‘s larger memory, faster processing speed and greater stamina, we are limited by our own finiteness and fallibility (rather than by whatever limitations may be inherent in silicon and metal) in the ability to transcend our own unreliability. Moreover, if we rely on programmed computers to such an extent that we lose touch with the human experience and insight that formed the basis for their programming design, our fallibility is magnified rather than mitigated. (2) Autonomous moral agents can reasonably defer to greater expertise, whether human or cybernetic. But they cannot reasonably relinquish ’’background-oversight‘‘ responsibility. They must be prepared, at least periodically, to review whether the ’’expertise‘‘ to which they defer is indeed functioning as he/she/it was authorized to do, and to take steps to revoke that authority, if necessary. (3) Though outcomes matter, it can also matter how they are brought about, and by whom. Thus, reflecting on how much of our lives should be directed and implemented by computer may be another way of testing any thoroughly end-state or consequentialist conception of the good and decent life. To live with meaning and purpose, we need to actively engage our own faculties and empathetically connect up with, and resonate to, others. Thus there is some limit to how much of life can be appropriately lived by anyone (or anything) other than ourselves.
Doc 69 : Reflections on the centrality of power in medical sociology: An empirical test and theoretical elaboration
This paper explores the contemporary relevance of sociological theorisations centred on medical power, including the medical dominance and deprofessionalisation theses. To achieve this it examines two issues that have been tentatively linked to the relative decline of the power and autonomy of biomedicine - complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the Internet-informed patient. Drawing on these two different but interconnected social phenomena, this paper reflects on the potential limitations of power-based theorisations of the medical profession and its relationship to patients and other non-biomedically situated professional groups. It is argued that power-based conceptual schemas may not adequately reflect the non-linear and complex strategic adaptations that are occurring among professional groups.
Doc 70 : Computer Ethics and Neoplatonic Virtue: A Reconsideration of Cyberethics in the Light of Plotinus’ Ethical Theory
In normative ethical theory, computer ethics belongs to the area of applied ethics dealing with practical and everyday moral problems arising from the use of computers and computer networks in the information society. Modern scholarship usually approves deontological and utilitarian ethics as appropriate to computer ethics, while classical theories of ethics, such as virtue ethics, are usually neglected as anachronistic and unsuitable to the information era and ICT industry. During past decades, an Aristotelian form of virtue ethics has been revived in modern philosophical enquiries with serious attempts for application to computer ethics and cyberethics. In this paper, the author argues that current trends and behaviours in online communication require an ethics of self-care found in Plotinus’ self-centred virtue ethics theory. The paper supports the position that Plotinus’ virtue ethics of intellectual autonomy and self-determination is relevant to cyberethics discussions involved in computer education and online communication.
Doc 71 : Investigating the decision-making needs of HIV-positive women in Africa using the Ottawa Decision-Support Framework: Knowledge gaps and opportunities for intervention
Abstract Objective To examine HIV-positive women’s decision making in the context of pregnancy and HIV/AIDS and to explore interventions that may enhance and develop women’s decision-making capacity in the sub-Saharan African context. Methods The Ottawa Decision-Support Framework was used to assemble evidence of women’s decision-making needs. Several electronic databases were searched and an Internet search of the World Wide Web was conducted to search grey literature sources. An evidence-based approach to assessing benefits, harms and current practices was employed. Results Several gaps in our knowledge about women’s decision making in the context of pregnancy and HIV were identified. The availability of evidence varied for each decision; however, significant gaps included: evidence around testing for ones status, advanced directives for self and child, disclosure (specifically, the impact of), others perceptions of antiretroviral use and data on termination of pregnancies. Conclusion Decision making as a concept was generally not addressed in the MTCT literature. Evidence regarding the perceptions of women and others regarding the various decisions was often not available and subsequently an important aspect of MTCT interventions neglected. Practice implications Incorporating a multi-disciplinary decision-support framework may prove useful to promote women’s autonomy and involvement in MTCT-related decision making.
Doc 72 : Technical and Didactic Knowledge of the Moodle LMS in Higher Education. Beyond Functional Use
Higher education institutions at the international level have seen the need to adopt and integrate information and communication technologies to meet the opportunities and challenges of innovation in teaching and learning processes. This logic has led to the implementation of virtual learning environments called ‘Learning Management Systems’, the functionalities of which support flexible and active learning under a constructivist approach. This study measured didactic and technological use of Moodle and its implications in teaching from a quantitative approach by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 640 higher education teachers. Some guiding questions were as follows: Are teachers using the Moodle platform for didactic purposes? What strategies, resources and tools are teachers using, and what do they contribute to student-centred teaching? Are teaching strategies that are focused on collaboration, interaction and student autonomy promoted? The results coincide with those of other studies, confirming an instrumental and functional use of the platform, which is mainly being used as a repository for materials and information, while its pedagogical use remains limited. This is becoming a problem in higher education institutions, something that requires debate and reflection from a systemic perspective on the adoption and integration of technology in the classroom.
Doc 73 : The Engaged Patient: The Relevance of Patient–Physician Communication for Twenty-First-Century Health
The patient–doctor interaction has changed profoundly in the past decades. In reaction to paternalistic communication patterns, health policy makers have advocated for patient-centered care and shared decision-making. Although these models of medical communication remain still aspirational, patients have become more engaged in advocating for their own health in encounters with physicians. I argue that the engaged patient is a more accurate conceptualization of the changing role of the patient than patient consumerism, the empowered, or expert patient. I examine how the emergence of engaged patients influences the autonomy of health professionals, relates to the rise of the internet as an alternative source of medical information, centers the role of the patient–doctor interaction in public health epidemics, and contributes to health inequities.
Doc 74 : Tin Men: Ethics, Cybernetics and the Importance of Soul
The idea that overly emotional humans make poor ethical actors pervades the current literature on the ethical implications of the development of autonomous weapons systems. From this perspective, developing fully autonomous military robots should be doubly desirable: the technical process of ‘teaching’ robots ethics would finally systematize just war thinking, while robots could uphold the rules of engagement even under the most emotionally trying of situations. This article addresses my doubts about both claims. I argue that truly ethical behavior requires what classical just war theorists would have called soul, or what we might today term conscience – and that the flexibility of the traditional principles reflects this understanding. In pursuit of this argument, this article proceeds in two parts. First, it argues that the apparent ‘messiness’ of just war thought is actually morally useful. Second, it argues that emotions play an important and irreplaceable role in our ethical behavior, particularly as…
Doc 75 : Survey-Based Discussions on Morally Contentious Applications of Interactive Robotics
Introduction: As applications of robotics extend to areas that directly impact human life, such as the military and eldercare, the deployment of autonomous and semi-autonomous robots increasingly requires the input of stakeholder opinions. Up to now, technological deployment has been relying on the guidance of government/military policy and the healthcare system without specific incorporation of professional and lay opinion. Methods: This paper presents results from a roboethics study that uses the unique N-Reasons scenario-based survey instrument. The instrument collected Yes, No, Neutral responses from more than 250 expert and lay responders via the Internet along with their ethics-content reasons for the answers, allowing the respondents to agree to previously-provided reasons or to write their own. Data from three questions relating to military and eldercare robots are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results: The survey reveals that respondents weigh the appropriateness of robotics technology deployment in concert with the level of autonomy conferred upon it. The accepted level of robotautonomy does not appear to be solely dependent on the perceived efficiency and effectiveness of the technology, but is subject to the robot’s relationship with the public’s principle-based reasons and the application field in focus. Conclusion: The N-Reasons instrument was effective in eliciting ethical commentary in a simple, on-line survey format and provides insights into the interactions between the issues that respondents consider across application and technology boundaries.
Doc 76 : Toward an Ethics of AI Assistants: an Initial Framework
Personal AI assistants are now nearly ubiquitous. Every leading smartphone operating system comes with a personal AI assistant that promises to help you with basic cognitive tasks: searching, planning, messaging, scheduling and so on. Usage of such devices is effectively a form of algorithmic outsourcing: getting a smart algorithm to do something on your behalf. Many have expressed concerns about this algorithmic outsourcing. They claim that it is dehumanising, leads to cognitive degeneration, and robs us of our freedom and autonomy. Some people have a more subtle view, arguing that it is problematic in those cases where its use may degrade important interpersonal virtues. In this article, I assess these objections to the use of AI assistants. I will argue that the ethics of their use is complex. There are no quick fixes or knockdown objections to the practice, but there are some legitimate concerns. By carefully analysing and evaluating the objections that have been lodged to date, we can begin to articulate an ethics of personal AI use that navigates those concerns. In the process, we can locate some paradoxes in our thinking about outsourcing and technological dependence, and we can think more clearly about what it means to live a good life in the age of smart machines.
Doc 77 : Multimedia in the Business English Classroom: The Learners’ Point of View
Besides the internet and the various opportunities it provides for language learning, the multimedia CD-ROM, with its potential for integrating and offering different media in one storage medium, has created quite a stir amongst language teaching professionals in the 90s. The benefits of multiple modalities, online support tools, and instant feedback are believed to have the potential of increasing learner control, motivation, and autonomy. However, a closer look at what is actually available on the market, in this instance the sub-market of Business English multimedia programmes, reveals that many such learning tools fall short of the claims that have been made for them, at least in the eyes of pedagogues. As teachers and students do not always see eye-to-eye as far as the usefulness of particular learning tools and activities is concerned, it seems paramount to let the final user and ultimate target group have their say, as well. The present study focuses on the reactions and comments of 30 students of …
Doc 78 : Should Artificial Intelligence Augment Medical Decision Making? The Case for an Autonomy Algorithm
A significant proportion of elderly and psychiatric patients do not have the capacity to make health care decisions. We suggest that machine learning technologies could be harnessed to integrate data mined from electronic health records (EHRs) and social media in order to estimate the confidence of the prediction that a patient would consent to a given treatment. We call this process, which takes data about patients as input and derives a confidence estimate for a particular patient’s predicted health care-related decision as an output, the autonomy algorithm. We suggest that the proposed algorithm would result in more accurate predictions than existing methods, which are resource intensive and consider only small patient cohorts. This algorithm could become a valuable tool in medical decision-making processes, augmenting the capacity of all people to make health care decisions in difficult situations.
Doc 79 : How Do People Participate in Social Network Sites After Crises? A Self-Determination Perspective
People increasingly rely on social network sites (SNSs) to find out timely information about crises. Thus, emergency managers are interested in how people participate and how to promote their participation in SNSs after crises. Based on self-determination theory, this study develops a theoretical model to examine the mechanisms through which different types of motivation contribute to various participating behaviors in SNSs after crises. Survey data were collected after the Ya’an earthquake, which occurred in China on April 20, 2013. Our results show that while autonomous motivation is positively related to posting new content about the earthquake, controlled motivation is positively related to commenting on others’ content about the earthquake. Furthermore, perceived autonomy and perceived relatedness are positively related to autonomous motivation. We suggest that emergency managers may want to promote different types of motivations, depending on the specific participating behavior preferred after crises.
Doc 80 : Flexible learning activities fostering autonomy in teaching training
The flexible use of digital recordings from EFL classrooms as well as online communication with teaching experts are two promising ways of implementing e-learning in the context of initial teacher training. Our research focuses on how to blend these elements efficiently with the different theoretical and practical content layers of an introductory course “Teaching English as a Foreign Language” to foster the development of critical, reflective thinking of prospective teachers of English and to empower the learners. In this paper we discuss the concept of autonomy as a course strategy and argue that enabling a student to take responsibility and to make informed choices is the main route to an autonomous learner. We introduce and analyze learning activities such as working with multimedia-based case stories that include video episodes as situational anchors and conducting an einterview. These learning activities are two formats that integrate elearning and contact learning in a directed, interactive way to foster the learner’s autonomy. The study is a follow-up of a pilot study on blended learning in a teacher training course and was conducted as action research in the 2004/05 winter semester. It combines qualitative and quantitative research methods and integrates multiple perspectives on the teaching and learning scenarios.
Doc 81 : 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 82 : 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 83 : Enhancing Project-Based Learning Through Student and Industry Engagement in a Video-Augmented 3-D Virtual Trade Fair
Project-based learning is a widely used pedagogical strategy in engineering education shown to be effective in fostering problem-solving, design, and teamwork skills. There are distinct benefits to be gained from giving students autonomy in determining the nature and scope of the projects that they wish to undertake, but a lack of expert guidance and of a clear direction at the outset can result in confusion, frustration, and unfulfilled goals. Moreover, engineering schools face the imperative of providing students with opportunities to engage with industry during their courses, which can be difficult to accomplish due to logistical and time constraints. This paper reports on a case study in which undergraduate students of electrical, computer, mechatronics, and telecommunications engineering interacted with representatives from industry to obtain feedback at the inception phase of their design projects. Students pitched their ideas to the industry guests at a virtual “trade fair” held within a hybrid video conferencing and three-dimensional (3-D) virtual world environment, in preparation for the assessable pitches that they had to deliver on campus to a faculty audience. Survey and assessment results attest to the participants’ satisfaction as well as to the effectiveness of the approach in improving student self-efficacy and performance. The paper concludes with recommendations for engineering educators looking to implement similar initiatives and a brief outline of the authors’ plans for the future.
Doc 84 : Adolescent and family development: Autonomy and identity in the digital age
Abstract Adolescence is a time when youth are faced with multiple tasks that intersect and influence one another, e.g., increased desire for autonomy, salience of identity issues, peer orientation, self-focus and self-consciousness, and a continuing need for a safe environment in which to explore autonomy and identity. These all occur in a dynamic ecosystemic environment, which in the past would have mostly included family, peers, and school, but today also includes cyberspace as both a system, and a means to interact with many other systems through the use of multiple forms of information technology (IT). This paper uses the voices and experiences of 128 adolescents, captured in qualitative interviews, to look at autonomy and identity in the digital age as they talk about their parents vis a vis their use of IT. Thematic analysis revealed two major themes: 1) Adolescents spoke of their expertise. In particular they commented on their knowledge to repair equipment, ability to use IT well, their sense of pride in their own ability and their parents’ acknowledgement of this ability. 2) Subjects perceived little need for their own supervision, but assessed that other adolescents and younger children needed to be watched closely by their parents. Implications of this work are discussed.
Doc 85 : The privacy paradox in the context of online social networking: A self‐identity perspective
Drawing on identity theory and privacy research, this article argues that the need for self‐identity is a key factor affecting people’s privacy behavior in social networking sites. I first unpack the mainstream, autonomy‐centric discourse of privacy, and then present a research model that illustrates a possible new theorization of the relationship between self‐identity and information privacy. An empirical study with Facebook users confirms the main hypotheses. In particular, the data show that the need for self‐identity is positively related to privacy management behaviors, which in turn result in increased self‐disclosure in online social networks. I subsequently argue that the so‐called “privacy paradox” is not a paradox per se in the context of online social networking; rather, privacy concerns reflect the ideology of an autonomous self, whereas social construction of self‐identity explains voluntary self‐disclosure.
Doc 86 : Social networking meets recommender systems: survey
Today, the emergence of web-based communities and hosted services such as social networking sites, wikis and folksonomies, brings in tremendous freedom of web autonomy and facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing between users. Along with the interaction between users and computers, social media is rapidly becoming an important part of our digital experience, ranging from digital textual information to diverse multimedia forms. These aspects and characteristics constitute of the core of second generation of web. Social networking (SN) and recommender system (RS) are two hot and popular topics in the current Web 2.0 era, where the former emphasises the generation, dissemination and evolution of user relations, and the latter focuses on the use of collective preferences of users so as to provide the better experience and loyalty of users in various web applications. Leveraging user social connections is able to alleviate the common problems of sparsity and cold-start encountered in RS. This paper aims to summarise the research progresses and findings in these two areas and showcase the empowerment of integrating these two kinds of research strengths.
Doc 87 : Virtue, Privacy and Self-Determination: A Plotinian Approach to the Problem of Information Privacy
The ethical problem of privacy lies at the core of computer ethics and cyber ethics discussions. The extensive use of personal data in digital networks poses a serious threat to the user’s right of privacy not only at the level of a user’s data integrity and security but also at the level of a user’s identity and freedom. In normative ethical theory the need for an informational self-deterministic approach of privacy is stressed with greater emphasis on the control over personal data. However, scant attention has been paid on a virtue ethics approach of information privacy. Plotinus’ discussion of self-determination is related to ethical virtue, human freedom and intellectual autonomy. The Plotinian virtue ethics approach of self-determination is not primarily related to the sphere of moral action, but to the quality of the self prior to moral practice. In this paper, it is argued that the problem of information privacy should be reconsidered in the light of Plotinus’ virtue ethics and his notion of self-determination.
Doc 88 : The embeddedness of transnational corporations in Chinese cities: Strategic coupling in global production networks?
The embeddedness of transnational corporations (TNCs) in metropolitan economies has become a central issue in the research on globalization and local development. This paper attempts to enhance understanding of FDI embeddedness by assessing TNCs’ backward and technological linkages with domestic firms. Through a case study of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry in Suzhou, a frontier globalizing city in the Yangtze River Delta in China, it was found that strategic coupling between TNCs and domestic Chinese firms rarely exists and global production networks (GPN) have not brought substantial benefits to the development of domestic firms in the region. Regression analysis further reveals that TNCs’ backward and technological linkages with domestic firms are highly selective and contingent upon market potential in the host region, TNCs’ research and development (R&D) orientation and to a lesser extent subsidiary autonomy. It is also found that the booming and sizable domestic market and the development of domestic firms have potential to pave the way for upgrading. These findings suggest that there is a need to develop a broader conceptualization of the upgrading pathways of local firms beyond the notion of strategic coupling in the GPN perspective.
Abstract The internet has had a tremendous impact on our routine life. Recent developments in the Internet of Things (IoT) technology have brought several issues to fore. IoT is a new emerging technology in which the electronic devices communicate through the medium of the Internet for remote sensing and control. IoT is not a single technology; rather it is the convergence of heterogeneous technologies pertaining to different engineering domains. Prominent technologies include Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), Networking and Communication, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Real-Time Systems (RTS), Cloud computing, etc. In establishing communication between devices, IoT exposes to many challenges on account of the diversity of devices, energy, and power constraints, noise, and interference, stringent requirement of timeliness, etc. Though several researchers have attempted addressing these challenges in IoT, more research is still required for the complete transition from internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), developed in 1981 to IPv6, developed in 2008. Researchers need to focus on increasing the address space to cater to unlimited things on our planet, evolving set of standards for uniformity and developing new energy sources for powering every single sensor. Till date, research has focused on evolving design strategies for energy autonomy in electronic devices deployed in IoT, so as to enable self-powering of a device, in absence of DC supply. Present work reviews research on implementable methods of energy autonomy, reported in the recent literature (during 2010 to 2018), so as to identify immediate issues to be addressed and new directions to be explored for enhancing energy autonomy of devices deployed in IoT. The conclusions of the work will be useful for researchers engaged with addressing issues in energy optimization in various domains of IoT. Also, the conclusions will be of interest to business personnel, sponsoring government agencies, agencies for standardization of performance and academicians engaged in the development of IoT.
Doc 90 : Future vision: is family medicine ready for patient-directed care?
A growing number of Americans will soon have a Web-based personal medical home with connectedness to their chosen providers of care. The personal health record will become integrated with the electronic health record. Like other services on the Internet, patients will be able to direct much of their health care using clinical guidelines, such as prevention, chronic illness care, behavior change, and arrangement for minor acute care. Physician control and autonomy will give way to greater patient control over their care, a major culture change in medicine away from paternalism. While the personal family physician will continue as a primary caregiver, there will be a shift toward greater patient involvement in the coordination of care. Family medicine educators should begin now to educate medical students and residents for this new model of care.
Doc 91 : Interveillance: A New Culture of Recognition and Mediatization
The everyday uses of networked media technologies, especially social media, have revolutionized the classical model of top-down surveillance. This article sketches the contours of an emerging culture of interveillance where non-hierarchical and non-systematic monitoring practices are part of everyday life. It also introduces a critical perspective on how the industrial logics of dominant social media, through which interveillance practices are normalized, resonate with social forces already at play in individualized societies. The argument is developed in three steps. Firstly, it is argued that the concept of interveillance is needed, and must be distinguished from surveillance, in order to critically assess the everyday mutual sharing and disclosure of private information (of many different kinds). Secondly, it is argued that the culture of interveillance responds to the social deficit of recognition that characterizes highly individualized societies. Finally, it is argued that the culture of interveillance constitutes a defining instance and even represents a new stage of the meta-process of mediatization. The dialectical nature of interveillance integrates and reinforces the overarching ambiguities of mediatization, whereby the opportunities for individuals and groups to achieve growing freedom and autonomy are paralleled by limitations and dependences vis-a-vis media.
Doc 92 : The National Grid for Learning: panacea or Panopticon?
Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a ‘panacea’ to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once the initiative is fully integrated at the classroom level. Drawing initially on the work of Foucault, and then Poster’s more recent conception of the electronic ‘SuperPanopticon’, this paper re-examines the basis of the NGfL and its role in extending and reinforcing existing power configurations in education. The paper concludes by considering directions for future research into the NGfL, and educational use of the Internet in the light of this analysis.
Doc 93 : What can be expected of information and communication technologies in terms of patient empowerment in health
Purpose – Implementing information and communication technologies (ICT) is often mentioned as a strategy that can foster public involvement and responsibility in health. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the possibilities and issues afforded by the social uses of ICT for personal empowerment in health.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses evidence from four case studies that characterize current computerization and networking processes in health. The studies shared a global framework comprising four interpretative paradigms of personal empowerment: the professional, technocratic, consumerist and democratic paradigms.Findings – The results show the coexistence of four empowerment logics in ICT use. Two trends proved dominant: a strengthening of the control and standardization processes tied to the typical power relationships in health, and a reinforcement of personal autonomy and self‐assertion processes, either through commercial relationships or through the soc…
Doc 94 : Some Factors to Consider when Designing Semi-Autonomous Learning Environments.
This research aims to answer the question, what ways do mediated learning environments support or hinder learner autonomy? Learner autonomy has been identified as one important factor in the success of mediated learning environments. The central aspect of learner autonomy is the control that the learner exercises over the various aspects of learning, beginning with the decision to learn or not to learn. But as Candy (1995) points out, there are several areas where learner-control can be exercised. The first are the motivational-intentional forces that drive the learner to apply some determination (or vigour) to the act of learning. They are the conative functions of learning and include learner intiative, motivation and personal involvement. They are often associated with life goals that are independent of the actual learning goals pursued within the strict confines of the learning environment (Long, 1994). The second area of learner-control is the one comprising the nuts-and-bolts of the act of learning, such as defining learning goals, deciding on a learning sequence, choosing a workable pacing of learning activities, and selecting learning resources (Hrimech & Bouchard, 1998). These are the algorithmic aspects of learning, and in traditional schooling, they are the sole responsibility of the teacher. In mediated learning environments, it can be shared between the platform and the actual learner. Just a few years ago, learner control was necessarily limited to these two sets of features, conative and algorithmic. Today however, with the proliferation of educational offerings in both the private and public sector, as well as the developments in educational technology, two other aspects of the learning environment emerge as important areas where learner-control can be exercised. The semiotic dimension of learner-control includes the symbolic platforms used to convey information and meaning, for example web pages, hypertext, video/audio multimedia, animation, each of these bringing with them their own specific set of possibilities and limitations for autonomy in learning. And then again, all learning environments exist in their own distinct economic sphere where decisions about whether, what and how to learn are made on the basis of cost-benefit, opportunity cost, and extrinsic market value. We will examine the implications of each of these areas of learner-control, and share our analysis of a series of interviews with cyber-learners, based on this framework of conative, algorithmic, semiotic and economic factors.
Doc 95 : Using an online community for vehicle design: : project variety and motivations to participate
Firms increasingly seek to use online communities as sources of ideas, innovations, and designs. However, many such open innovation efforts lack sustained participation and ultimately fail. This research sought to understand motivations to participate in a firm-hosted design community and how the nature of the design task influences sustained participation. From an inductive study of a leading vehicle design community, we found project variety—across two dimensions of project autonomy and project complexity—supported a range of motivations to participate and the social practice of vehicle design. We discuss implications of our study for research on online communities and for firms within the global vehicle industry.
Doc 96 : An Incident Control Centre in Action: Response to the Rena Oil Spill in New Zealand
Following the Rena grounding and oil spill in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, an Incident Command Centre was established which, among other tasks, coordinated a volunteer clean-up effort. We interviewed volunteers and organisers to gain insight into the efficacy of the volunteer coordination effort. Volunteers praised the system of communication and the involvement of indigenous groups. They expressed a desire for better training, more flexibility and community autonomy, a quicker uptake of volunteer support, and the use of social media. Locating the Incident Command Centre in a single site aided interaction between experts, and the sharing of resources. Overall, the volunteer coordination was considered a success.
Doc 97 : Strategies of control: workers’ use of ICTs to shape knowledge and service work
This paper examines the way that different types of workers deploy strategies of control in concert with and in resistance to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Existing research on the effects of ICTs for knowledge workers has illustrated the ways they can lead to practices of overwork and work–life spillover. However, the dearth of studies on service workers and ICT means that we have a limited understanding of their role across different segments of the workforce. Drawing on interviews with service workers and knowledge workers, I examine how they use ICTs to shape their experiences of work. The study finds the two groups deployed ICTs in different ways, and employed different ICT-centric strategies to control the temporal and emotional demands of their labor. The service workers deployed strategies of everyday resistance in concert with their ICTs to gain a feeling of autonomy within the power structures of their workplaces. The knowledge workers deployed strategies of inaccessibility …
Doc 98 : Computer-Mediated Communication: promoting learner autonomy and intercultural understanding at secondary level
The use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) has been hailed as a solution to the problem of access to native speakers for language learners. This project was devised to investigate whether regular and structured use of email, here via a bulletin board, might enhance learners’ study of French, with regard to developing learner autonomy and intercultural understanding. School-age learners of French and English in four countries (Belgium, England, France and Senegal) were placed in groups of about six, and encouraged to communicate both freely with each other and in response to certain stimuli. An analysis of the discourse via the online messages written by participants finds a high level of response, with learners exercising autonomy in a variety of ways. Learners use both their native tongue (L1) and the foreign language (L2) to communicate, without teacher intervention, with peers in other cultural contexts, and there is evidence to suggest that participation in E-group learning of this kind could de…
Doc 99 : Do Networked Workers Have More Control? The Implications of Teamwork, Telework, ICTs, and Social Capital for Job Decision Latitude
The shift toward “networked work” in the United States—spurred on by globalization, technological changes, and the reorganization of work activities—has important consequences for job quality that require further investigation. Using nationally representative data from the 2008 Networked Worker Survey, we examine how teamwork, telework, and information and communication technology use are associated with, and positively and significantly predict, job decision latitude (autonomy and skill development). The results imply that networked work helps enhance job decision latitude partly through greater network connectivity (social capital). Furthermore, the contribution of information and communication technology use to job decision latitude is contingent on its perceived benefits and on the organization of work into teams. These findings therefore help deepen our understanding of how the changing character of work affects worker control in contemporary workplaces.
Doc 100 : 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 101 : 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 102 : A Survey of Human Activity Recognition in Smart Homes Based on IoT Sensors Algorithms: Taxonomies, Challenges, and Opportunities with Deep Learning
Recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and the reduction in the cost of sensors have encouraged the development of smart environments, such as smart homes. Smart homes can offer home assistance services to improve the quality of life, autonomy and health of their residents, especially for the elderly and dependent. To provide such services, a smart home must be able to understand the daily activities of its residents. Techniques for recognizing human activity in smart homes are advancing daily. But new challenges are emerging every day. In this paper, we present recent algorithms, works, challenges and taxonomy of the field of human activity recognition in a smart home through ambient sensors. Moreover, since activity recognition in smart homes is a young field, we raise specific problems, missing and needed contributions. But also propose directions, research opportunities and solutions to accelerate advances in this field.
Doc 103 : Affect and digital learning at the university level
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the efficiency of SMS based cell‐phone vocabulary learning as compared to email vocabulary delivery and snail mail vocabulary delivery at the university level.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 241 first year university students studied English vocabulary in their mandatory English foundation course. Students were divided into three groups: study via cell‐phone based SMS messages, via email messages and via snail mail delivery. Vocabulary lists were delivered weekly to students via the three delivery strategies during course. Students in the three groups were tested on English vocabulary and responded to a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward flexibility of the learning strategy; user friendliness of the learning strategy; learner control of the learning process, learner motivation; and learner autonomy.Findings – Results of the study indicate that there were no significant differences for achievement attained by the three groups on the …
Doc 104 : Creating an educational context for Open Source Intelligence: The development of Internet self-efficacy through a blogcentric course
This paper examined the effects of a blogging centered curriculum on the development of Internet self-efficacy of students taking a general education class. The class used a hybrid model (in class and online) that both integrated and strongly encouraged blogging on a community style, open source blog. The curriculum was designed to both create a more distributed educational structure and to develop greater autonomy and participation in student activity. It was hypothesized that as students engaged in increasingly complex Internet activities they would develop greater strength in Internet self-efficacy in organization and differentiation of information and reaction to and generation of information. 367 undergraduate students participated in the current study. A pre-, post-test format was used to measure whether there were significant changes in strength of Internet self-efficacy, with the inclusion of a control group of a more traditionally-structured class. The results showed that a blogcentric course has impacts on the increases in students’ Internet self-efficacy, particularly for reactive/generative self-efficacy. The findings are discussed in light of potential implications on the future direction of education.
Doc 105 : Autonomy in Nursing Students Process of Knowledge Construction: the Educational Chat as a Teaching Tool
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 106 : A Review of Theoretical and Practical Challenges of Trusted Autonomy in Big Data
Despite the advances made in artificial intelligence, software agents, and robotics, there is little we see today that we can truly call a fully autonomous system. We conjecture that the main inhibitor for advancing autonomy is lack of trust. Trusted autonomy is the scientific and engineering field to establish the foundations and ground work for developing trusted autonomous systems (robotics and software agents) that can be used in our daily life, and can be integrated with humans seamlessly, naturally, and efficiently. In this paper, we review this literature to reveal opportunities for researchers and practitioners to work on topics that can create a leap forward in advancing the field of trusted autonomy. We focus this paper on the trust component as the uniting technology between humans and machines. Our inquiry into this topic revolves around three subtopics: 1) reviewing and positioning the trust modeling literature for the purpose of trusted autonomy; 2) reviewing a critical subset of sensor technologies that allow a machine to sense human states; and 3) distilling some critical questions for advancing the field of trusted autonomy. The inquiry is augmented with conceptual models that we propose along the way by recompiling and reshaping the literature into forms that enable trusted autonomous systems to become a reality. This paper offers a vision for a Trusted Cyborg Swarm, an extension of our previous Cognitive Cyber Symbiosis concept, whereby humans and machines meld together in a harmonious, seamless, and coordinated manner.
Doc 107 : Edging out of the nest: emerging adults’ use of smartphones in maintaining and transforming family relationships
AbstractThe transition to adulthood, often accompanied by an emptying of the family nest, has implications for family relationships, identities and consumption practices. Despite this, the voices and experiences of emerging adults are largely missing from literature on family consumption. Emerging adult families typically combine digital natives and digital immigrants, but little is known about how their interactions around digital communications technology relate to emerging adult preoccupations with affiliation and autonomy. This interpretive study explores how emerging adults’ smartphones are bound up with a complex network of family communication and consumption practices, often across household, geographic and generational boundaries. Affiliation and autonomy emerged as intertwined rather than competing dimensions of participants’ smartphone use, contributing to the distribution and development of family as the nest empties.
Doc 108 : Determinants of an Appropriate Degree of Autonomy in a Cyber-physical Production System
Abstract Classical productions systems are migrating step-by-step into cyber-physical production systems. The addition of much more computing power and object-bound data storage will lead to new possibilities for the advancement of autonomy in production systems. Autonomous message exchange and coordination can help to prevent quality problems (for instance wrong pairing of tool and work piece) and improve the disturbance management (for instance by faster information about current and probable disturbances). Due to the fact that nearly all improvements of existing production systems with cyber-physical systems take place in real and active manufacturing sites, on-site experiments for determining an appropriate degree of autonomy for production objects are not feasible. Therefore, a lab approach is necessary. In this contribution a hybrid lab approach to simulate various degrees of autonomy is presented 1 . The paper starts with a definition of autonomy and suggests diverse measurement methods [2] . After a short introduction into the lab concept, the results of some test runs are presented where autonomous objects perform the same production program as “dumb” production objects. Finally, an outlook for further research is given.
Doc 109 : ACTIVE ethics: an information systems ethics for the internet age
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a novel mnemonic, ACTIVE, inspired by Mason’s 1985 PAPA mnemonic, which will help researchers and IT professionals develop an understanding of the major issues in information ethics. Design/methodology/approach – Theoretical foundations are developed for each element of the mnemonic by reference to philosophical definitions of the terms used and to virtue ethics, particularly MacIntyrean virtue ethics. The paper starts with a critique of the elements of the PAPA mnemonic and then proceeds to develop an understanding of each of the elements of ACTIVE ethics, via a discussion of the underpinning virtue ethics. Findings – This paper identifies six issues, described by the mnemonic, ACTIVE. ACTIVE stands for: autonomy, the ability of the individual to manage their own information and make choice; community, the ethical effect of an information systems on the community which it supports; transparency, the extent to which the derivation of content and process in…
The proliferation of the Internet has given opportunities on different entities to share resources or conduct business transactions. However, how to establish trust among strangers without prior relationship and common security domain poses much difficulty for these activities. To resolve these problems, a promising approach known as Automated Trust Negotiation (ATN), which establishes the trust between strangers with iterative disclosure of credentials and access control policies, is proposed. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of research on ATN is presented, and some basic techniques, e.g. negotiation model and architecture, access control policy specification, credential description and credential chain discovery, are introduced and compared. Then based on the analysis of the shortcomings and problems of the techniques, the trend of research and application is discussed. All these work may contribute to the further work on trust establishment for entities with privacy protection and autonomy in open internet.
Doc 111 : TRUST, PSYCHOLOGICAL NEED, AND MOTIVATION TO PRODUCE USER- GENERATED CONTENT: A SELF-DETERMINATION PERSPECTIVE
As social media grow in popularity, more and more people produce user-generated content (UGC) in various types of social media. Thus, practitioners are interested in how to support people’s motivation to produce UGC. While previous literature has examined various factors influencing people’s motivation to produce UGC, few studies have examined the role of other participants as well as the social media sites. Based on self-determination theory, our study examines the relationship between content attractiveness, trust, perceived competence and autonomy, individual differences, and motivation to produce UGC. Using social network sites as the context of our study, we tested our hypotheses with U.S. college students, and the results supported our hypotheses. We contribute to the current literature by demonstrating that, when individuals perceive that other participants enjoy their UGC and trust social media sites, the individuals’ perceived competence and autonomy are enhanced, which in turn supports their motivation to produce UGC.
Doc 112 : Enhancing Students’ Language Skills through Blended Learning.
Abstract: This paper presents a case study of using blended learning to enhance students language skills and learner autonomy in an Asian university environment. Blended learning represents an educational environment for much of the world where computers and the Internet are readily available. It combines self‑study with valuable face‑to‑face interaction with a teacher. This study puts the spotlight on learning outcomes in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) class in Thailand in which e‑learning strategies are used in parallel with traditional classroom language teaching methods of the four language learning skills. These skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. The achievements and attitudes of students were compared between the control group and the experimental group to measure the potential of available technology to develop language skills and learner autonomy. The findings from this study show that online practice is directly beneficial to enhance the four language learning skills as well as autonomous learning and learner motivation.
Doc 113 : Distributed control with rationally bounded agents in cyber-physical production systems
Abstract Cyber-physical production systems are transforming traditional, hierarchical control structures into distributed ones in which the elements offer and consume services with a high degree of autonomy. This paper proposes an agent-based approach to distributed control for production environments in which the agents are only able to interact with a part of the whole system. It hypothesises that the performance of the agent network can be improved through learning and communication. A description of the approach is presented and illustrated with a simulation case of distributed control for an industrial compressed-air system.
Doc 114 : Effects of Parental Psychological Control on Child’s School Life: Mobile Phone Dependency as Mediator
Ecological view of human development calls for an investigation of multiple contexts surrounding children. In South Korea, traditional Confucianism and recent technological advancements serve as influential social and cultural contexts that affect parent–child relations and child development. High levels of parental control and strong emphasis on academic achievement have long been distinctive features of Korean parenting practices, which are attributable to Confucian values. Additionally, Korean children’s mobile phone dependency (MPD) has become a growing concern, as South Korea developed as an IT powerhouse. Combined, these contexts resulted in high parental control of children’s mobile phone use, so that such electronic devices would not hinder learning and achievement. Effects of high parental control on children’s MPD and their school life, however, have yet to be discovered. We hypothesized, that, unlike parents’ intentions, psychological control is more likely to increase MPD and disrupt school life. To examine this research model, we made use of the first and third wave data from Korea Children and Youth Panel Survey. Participants were 2378 children (52.2 % boys) of the same age of 10 in the first wave. After multiple imputation for missing values, hierarchical logistic regression followed to examine the mediational model. The results verified the hypothesized model, showing significant adverse influence of psychological control on MPD, self-regulated learning and school adjustment. MPD fully mediated the effect of psychological control on self-regulations, while partially mediating the effects on school adjustment. Implications for Korean parents with regard to supporting children’s psychological autonomy was discussed.
Doc 115 : Teacher autonomy in multiple-user domains: supporting language teaching in collaborative virtual environments
Abstract The concepts of teacher and learner autonomy have played an important role in the context of language teaching and the Internet over the past few years. The full potential of Internet resources, even authentic information resources, has largely remained unused for language learning and teaching. Organisational and affective factors have discouraged many teachers from using the Internet for language teaching. The Internet-enhanced object-oriented multiple-user domain(MOO) can serve as a tool to select and enhance Internet resources, while at the same time expanding the possibilities of the traditional classroom. Its text-based, synchronous and asynchronous communications resources are integrated within a common interface. Its support mechanisms are good for language teachers, who are only too often left alone with the new technology. The author argues for an intricate interdependence of pedagogy and technology, and sees teacher autonomy and the MOO as a promising combination for language teaching …
Doc 116 : Recursive modeling of loss of control in human and organizational processes: A systemic model for accident analysis
A recursivemodel of accident investigation is proposed by exploiting earlier work in systems thinking. Safety analysts can understand better the underlying causes of decision or action flaws by probing into the patterns of breakdown in the organization of safety. For this deeper analysis, a cybernetic model of organizational factors and a control model of human processes have been integrated in this article (i.e., the viable system model and the extended control model). The joint VSM-ECOM framework has been applied to a case study to help safety practitioners with the analysis of patterns of breakdown with regard to how operators and organizations manage goal conflicts, monitor work progress, recognize weak signals, align goals across teams, and adapt plans on the fly. The recursive accident representation brings together several organizational issues (e.g., the dilemma of autonomy versus compliance, or the interaction between structure and strategy) and addresses how operators adapt to challenges in their environment by adjusting their modes of functioning and recovery. Finally, it facilitates the transfer of knowledge from diverse incidents and near misses within similar domains of practice.
Doc 117 : Independent English Learning through the Internet
The studies on independent learning based on the theories of constructivism and the advantages of technology propose valuable ideas for modern teaching theories and practices. With the variety of environment and method of English learning, independent English Learning through 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 independent English Learning through 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 independent English learning through the Internet.
Doc 118 : 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 119 : 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 120 : If the Supreme Court Were on Facebook: Evaluating the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Test from a Social Perspective
This article examines the Supreme Court of Canada’s position that reasonable expectations of privacy in informational spaces can be protected by focusing on the protection of the information itself. It then measures this position against the findings of social science research studies that have examined the behaviour of young people in online spaces. The author argues that the legal test being advanced by the Court is out of step with what we know about people’s online experiences and expectations. As such, the test may limit the Court’s ability to protect us from surveillance technologies that negatively affect our dignity, autonomy, and social freedom. Especially as more of our public and private lives migrate to virtual spaces, it is essential that the courts begin to pay attention to the lessons to be gleaned from the social sciences research on privacy and reinvigorate the legal protection of privacy as a social value.
Doc 121 : Application Research of an Innovative Online Education Model in Big Data Environment
Online education is a network-based approach to teaching. It is a method of content dissemination and rapid learning through the application of UGC and Internet technology.Compared with traditional school education, online learning can obtain more resources, more autonomy, and no longer limited time and space for learning.Through the questionnaire, this paper finds that learners in the online education model still have some shortcomings in the learning process.For example, the learning process is not durable.Therefore, this paper uses neural network classification algorithm to analyze the related factors that affect the learning behavior of online education students.And propose corresponding control strategies for different influencing factors.By constructing a learning process control strategy model for large educational data, to help learners improve their learning efficiency, help the online education model break through the bottleneck, the online education industry has maintained rapid development.Finally, through the comparative analysis of the improved online education model and the traditional online education model, finding an improved online education model can better improve students’ interest in learning.Provided a reference for the development of online education,It also provides a reference for the transformation and upgrading of traditional education to online education.
Doc 122 : 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…
Today, we observe widespread application of the internet, both synchronous and asynchronous communication, by educators in many worldwide classes. Weblog (blog or web log) can be one of the instructional and integral components for ESL instructors. By applying interview and observation, this study reports on ESL students’ experience and perceptions in applying weblog throughout a semester in a writing class in Malaysia. Besides, this study examined the effect of using Weblog on students’ writing autonomy. The findings revealed that students enjoyed the process of publishing their writings, and exchanging their experience in the weblog. Students also acknowledged weblog as a tool which provides more opportunities to publish their writing freely, extend their interaction with their peers outside the class setting, be able to publish and share interesting videos, have the chance to look for the appropriate materials in the World Wide Web (WWW) and check their sentences in the Google simultaneously. Students enjoyed some features in weblog which cannot be found in conventional modes of teaching and learning, such as experiencing unlimited time and place, more independency and freedom in publishing and exchanging comments. With the empirical data presented in this study, weblog can be applied as a suitable instructional tool to promote autonomy among language learners.
Doc 124 : Seeking Personal Autonomy Through the Use of Facebook in Iran
In Iran, where males and females are kept separated in different spheres, Facebook may be used as an opportunity to bridge this gap between the genders. However, this study showed that Facebook, as a nonymous platform in which people are in contact with their already-made social ties, didn’t seem to be liberating from the existing norms and rules within society. Facebook was a stage that became restricted with the involvement of social ties. The study’s analysis of interviews with six young Iranians showed that social meanings and norms of self-presentation on Facebook are defined to a large degree in terms of gender. The informants used a variety of strategies when presenting themselves on Facebook. They used Facebook simply for gaining personal autonomy. Strategies were adopted especially when one’s personal and community needs were in conflict. Efforts made to apply strategies were gendered and were used mainly by females. Males conformed to and women resisted societal norms and expectations.
Doc 125 : Complex reactive event processing for assisted living: The Habitat project case study
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.02.025 Daniela Loreti Federico Chesani Paola Mello Luca Roffia Francesco Antoniazzi Tullio Salmon Cinotti Giacomo Paolini Diego Masotti Alessandra Costanzo
Abstract While the increasing average age of population is posing new challenges to societies and healthcare systems, the emergence of the Internet of Things research area is generating the hope for automated assisted environments, which could combine the advances in sensors networks with that of runtime monitoring systems, in order to create smart houses able to take care of their older inhabitants and delay the recourse to hospitals and nursing homes. However, although various assisted living systems have been proposed in the last decade, the goal of realizing an effective domestic support system for elderly is still far from reached. In this work, we present a project aiming to re-engineer a set of everyday life objects, equipping them with environmental and wearable sensors, thus to monitor the condition of older people in their domestic residences and provide security while preserving the autonomy and independence of the subjects. The main focus of the paper at hand is on the requirements and solutions implemented to realize the backbone infrastructure of such system as regards both the adopted semantic message routing mechanism and the newly conceived approach to event analysis, which combines Complex Event Processing and a reactive implementation of Event Calculus.
Doc 126 : Enabling Self-management of a Chronic Condition through Patient-centered Coaching: A Case of an mHealth Diabetes Prevention Program for Older Adults
Patient-centered communication (PCC) by healthcare professionals can contribute to enacting and facilitating patients’ self-management of chronic health conditions. This study investigates the emerging patterns of PCC that occur in an mHealth-based diabetes prevention program for older adults. The analysis of user-coach communication data during the 16-week period of the program revealed four PCC strategies employed by coaches: (a) triggering reflections on users’ routinized habits, (b) jointly determining a measurable health goal, (c) facilitating self-evaluations on recent behavior change, and (d) tailoring programs to adapt to users’ lifestyle and health status. To advance these strategies, coaches utilized various mHealth features that helped them (a) engage in data-driven coaching, (b) increase situational awareness of users’ health conditions and routines, (c) provide continuous support to users through regular and spontaneous in-app chats, and (d) foster user autonomy and engagement. The findings extend implications for developing technology-enabled healthcare practice to enhance self-management of chronic illness.
Doc 127 : Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making
Social media platforms have increasingly become an important way for news organizations to distribute content to their audiences. As news organizations relinquish control over distribution, they may feel the need to optimize their content to align with platform logics to ensure economic sustainability. However, the opaque and often proprietary nature of platform algorithms makes it hard for news organizations to truly know what kinds of content are preferred and will perform well. Invoking the concept of algorithmic ‘folk theories,’ this article presents a study of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 U.S.-based news journalists and editors to understand how they make sense of social media algorithms, and to what extent this influences editorial decision making. Our findings suggest that while journalists’ understandings of platform algorithms create new considerations for gatekeeping practices, the extent to which it influences those practices is often negotiated against traditional journalistic conceptions of newsworthiness and journalistic autonomy.
Doc 128 : A Human-Cyber-Physical System toward Intelligent Wind Turbine Operation and Maintenance
This work proposes a novel concept for an intelligent and semi-autonomous human-cyber-physical system (HCPS) to operate future wind turbines in the context of Industry 5.0 technologies. The exponential increase in the complexity of next-generation wind turbines requires artificial intelligence (AI) to operate the machines efficiently and consistently. Evolving the current Industry 4.0 digital twin technology beyond a sole aid for the human decision-making process, the digital twin in the proposed system is used for highly effective training of the AI through machine learning. Human intelligence (HI) is elevated to a supervisory level, in which high-level decisions made through a human–machine interface break the autonomy, when needed. This paper also identifies and elaborates key enabling technologies (KETs) that are essential for realizing the proposed HCPS.
Doc 129 : Organizations and Second Order Cybernetics
This paper expounds a way of seeing organizations that fits with second order cybernetics. It shows the relationship between cybernetics and radical constructivism and discusses the meaning of autonomy as it is used by cyberneticians. Implications for organizational members, managers, researchers and interventionists are elaborated.
Doc 130 : Reflections about the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Accounting Education
Abstract The teaching of accounting sciences requires innovative alternative methodologies that allow a greater dynamism in students’ learning processes, encouraging their autonomy in order to foster greater understanding and ownership of accounting topics covered in class. In that sense, the use of ICT for educational purposes has been positioned as a dynamic and interactive alternative that allows the application of knowledge and encourages the feedback in the learning process. This paper aims to reflect on the use of ICT in accounting education as a strategy to improve teaching and learning processes in students of the Department of Finance of Metropolitan Institute of Technology of Medellin. It is proposed a teaching method with a learning virtual object through a virtual mediator of accounting formulations. It has a pedagogical purpose of providing students with a conceptual and practical tool to interpret and analyze accounting and financial topics at the enterprise level. It is observed that the interaction between accounting graph logic and logic of dynamic perception facilitates the processes of teaching and learning in the disciplines of accounting and finance. It is reflected in greater motivation and understanding of mathematical equations in financial area that will carry out to experimentation of knowledge learned in the classroom.
Doc 131 : 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 132 : Learner autonomy via Asynchronous Online Interactions: A Malaysian perspective
The integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in course offerings in institutions of higher learning (IHLs) is the catalyst towards empowering learners to become autonomous lifelong learners. In an effort to produce quality and independent learners, Learning Management Systems (LMS) are seen as a means to assist educators in developing quality online internet based courses and websites as well as to fulfil students’ needs in acquiring information anywhere and anytime. This paper explores the Malaysian perspective in addressing issues and challenges faced by adult learners in IHLs to keep abreast with this latest trend. This research paper is based on a pilot study that investigated learner autonomy via a distance learning programme in a local university in Malaysia. Initial findings indicated that first-year students lacked the confidence needed to learn autonomously. Even though they showed some confidence in planning, results indicated they needed help in organising, monitoring and evaluating their learning. If students are required to participate in asynchronous online learning, necessary steps have to be taken to ensure they are empowered with the necessary skills and tools to help them manage their own learning for their journey to become lifelong autonomous learners.
Doc 133 : Preparing for the European Language Portfolio: Internet connections
The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is a tool for developing learner responsibility and autonomy through reflection and self-awareness. The ELP is based on the Common European Framework (CEF) Reference Levels that enable learners to describe what they can do in different languages. The CEF is a Council of Europe initiative aimed at improving the learning of foreign languages. This paper uses the internet to look at how the ELP has been implemented in different settings and to suggest how the ELP may be approached. The paper introduces a small-scale case study of ELP pilot implementation in a university preparatory school. The results from this institution show many similarities with responses in other places, and demonstrate the importance of integrating the ELP with the existing programme, providing teacher training and clarifying the status and purpose of the ELP. Analysis of documents on the internet shows a number of important factors. The most successful examples of ELP use involved integration of the ELP in the institution’s programme, training for teachers and students and a high level of commitment of time and financial resources by teachers and administrators. Responses from teachers were often extremely positive, others showed interest but many also expressed reservations about the ELP. Student responses were generally but not universally positive and a number of criticisms were raised concerning the status and purpose of the ELP. The paper provides full internet links so readers can access the same documents. The paper concludes firstly that future ELP use could exploit the internet for teacher training and secondly that thorough preparation of staff, students and programmes are needed when an innovative tool such as ELP is introduced. The basis for thorough preparation could involve detailed familiarisation with the CEF Reference Levels.
Autonomous systems will soon be integrating into our lives as home assistants, delivery drones, and driverless cars. The implementation of the level of automation in these systems from being manually controlled to fully autonomous would depend upon the autonomy approach chosen to design these systems. This article reviews the historical evolution of autonomy, its approaches, and the current trends in related fields to build robust autonomous systems. Toward such a goal and with the increased number of cyberattacks, the security of these systems needs special attention from the research community. To gauge the extent to which research has been done in this area, we discuss the cybersecurity of these systems. It is essential to model the system from a security perspective, identify the threats and vulnerabilities, and then model the attacks. A survey in this direction explores the theoretical/analytical system and attack models that have been proposed over the years and identifies the research gap that needs to be addressed by the research community.
Doc 135 : Conservation of autonomy: Toward a second-order perspective on psychosomatic symptoms
Abstract Most studies of the families of people suffering from psychosomatic disorders can be seen to reflect the perspective of first-order cybernetics. In this the focus is on interaction within families. If a shift is made to the more modern perspective of second-order cybernetics, the emphasis changes to fall on the autonomy of various levels of system. In this paper, psychosomatic symptoms are described and illustrated as the expression of ideas aimed at the conservation of autonomy, both at an individual and a family level. The implications of such a changed perspective for the treatment of psychosomatic disorders are highlighted.
Doc 136 : 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 137 : Practicing what we teach in teaching systems practice: The action-learning cycle
Respect for autonomy is a powerful tool for managing complexity. It lets natural, mutually supportive order emerge. In Western culture, though, much order is imposed. This causes conflict, which only increases complexity. This conflictual pattern has an antidote in systems practice: the systemic action–learning cycle. When used reflectively at the level of second-order cybernetics, this cycle embodies respect for autonomy. The UK Open University course T306: Managing Complexity—A Systems Approach teaches this action–learning cycle, and uses the cycle in its own teaching. In particular, it uses the cycle in its online conferences, to invite participation and dissolve conflict. This paper shows how.
Doc 138 : Powerful Devices: How Teens’ Smartphones Disrupt Power in the Theatre, Classroom and Beyond.
During a series of high school English and Drama class trips to the theatre, so many students were online, the entire back row often glowed blue. Although much of the literature suggests that information and communication technologies are benign and neutral, this back-row collision of digital and live culture signals to teachers that technology is freighted with issues of power: questions of identity formation, consumerism, autonomy and freedom. This qualitative study of high school students at the conclusion of their four-play series suggests that cell phones shape the youth audience experience, that etiquette regarding the use of these powerful devices remains sharply contested, and that students apply a range of strategies to dealing with issues of power and agency around their use.
Doc 139 : A Cinderella or a Princess? The Italian School Between Practices and Reforms
What has really happened in the Italian schools in the last few years? One of the main issues for the Italian school is to answer a series of seemingly simple questions: what is the improvement in the performance of students and teachers brought about by these reforms? Do these reforms contribute to improve the students’ learning abilities? Do these reforms make the school better? The objective of the contribution is to closely examine the effects of the school reforms ten years after the beginning of the Autonomy season, by focusing on the daily practices performed by many Italian schools. Key-words: School Autonomy, Reform, Education Policy ________________________________________________________ The Italian School: a Cinderella aiming at being a Princess One of the main issues for the Italian school – which has undergone many reforms, in particular with regard to autonomy, decentralization, regionalization, equality of schools, rationalization, “the smock, the sole teacher and the behaviour mark of 5” – is to answer a series of seemingly simple questions: what is the improvement in the performance of students and teachers brought about by these reforms? To what extent does this 1 Dies, Via Salaria, 113 00198 Roma (Roma). Email: assunta.viteritti@uniroma1.it 2 This was one of the slogans used in the public communication to define some aspects of the recent school reform promoted by Berlusconi’s Government and by the Minister of Education Maria Stella Gelmini. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 3, 2009.
Doc 140 : Dimensions of journalistic workplace autonomy : A five-nation comparison
This article examines how journalists perceive workplace autonomy in five European countries, based on an email survey (N = 2238) conducted in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Estonia. The article argues that the workplace level functions as a link between the macro level of external pressures and the micro level of perceived influences on news work. Using principal component analysis we explore the dimensionality of workplace autonomy based on a set of 20 survey questions. Regression analysis is then used on the dimensions found in order to determine what affects perception of autonomy in the different dimensions. The most salient explanatory variables are found on the country and organisational levels, whereas the variables age, experience, gender, managerial role and medium have no or limited effects. The results show the organisational and country levels being integrated and that national journalistic culture is the most salient factor explaining perception of autonomy.
Doc 141 : Towards the Internet of Agents: An Analysis of the Internet of Things from the Intelligence and Autonomy Perspective
Recently, the scientific community has demonstrated a special interest in the process related to the integration of the agent-oriented technology with Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. Then, it arises a novel approach named Internet of Agents (IoA) as an alternative to add an intelligence and autonomy component for IoT devices and networks. This paper presents an analysis of the main benefits derived from the use of the IoA approach, based on a practical point of view regarding the necessities that humans demand in their daily life and work, which can be solved by IoT networks modeled as IoA infrastructures. It has been presented 24 study cases of the IoA approach at different domains ––smart industry, smart city and smart health wellbeing–– in order to define the scope of these proposals in terms of intelligence and autonomy in contrast to their corresponding generic IoT applications.
Doc 142 : Artificial Intelligence in Basic and Clinical Neuroscience: Opportunities and Ethical Challenges
Abstract The analysis of large amounts of personal data with artificial neural networks for deep learning is the driving technology behind new artificial intelligence (AI) systems for all areas in science and technology. These AI methods have evolved from applications in computer vision, the automated analysis of images, and now include frameworks and methods for analyzing multimodal datasets that combine data from many different source, including biomedical devices, smartphones and common user behavior in cyberspace. For neuroscience, these widening streams of personal data and machine learning methods provide many opportunities for basic data-driven research as well as for developing new tools for diagnostic, predictive and therapeutic applications for disorders of the nervous system. The increasing automation and autonomy of AI systems, however, also creates substantial ethical challenges for basic research and medical applications. Here, scientific and medical opportunities as well ethical challenges are summarized and discussed.
Doc 143 : Second Order Cybernetics and Enactive Perception
Purpose – To present an account of cognition integrating second‐order cybernetics (SOC) together with enactive perception and dynamic systems theory.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a brief critique of classical models of cognition then outlines how integration of SOC, enactive perception and dynamic systems theory can overcome some weaknesses of the classical paradigm.Findings – Presents the critique of evolutionary robotics showing how the issues of teleology and autonomy are left unresolved by this paradigm although their solution fits within the proposed framework.Research limitations/implications – The paper highlights the importance of genuine autonomy in the development of artificial cognitive systems. It sets out a framework within which the robotic research of cognitive systems could succeed.Practical implications – There are no immediate practical implications but see research implications.Originality/value – It joins the discussion on the fundamental nature of cognitive systems …
Doc 144 : E-commerce oriented software agents: Towards legal programming: a legal analysis of ecommerce and personal assistant agents using a process/IT view of the firm
Abstract Agent-based technologies and processing may answer some of the legal difficulties raised by traditional online commerce, introducing elements of compliance, control, flexibility and personalisation. However as they mediate commercial relationships with third parties, software agents in turn raise new legal difficulties, while potentially heightening user fears and mistrust. The autonomy, adaptivity and interactivity of agents, combined with the advent of ubiquitous computing, introduce a new set of legal dimensions including the liability of agent users, the automation of notification and consent or the attribution of responsibility, as well as new fears for users. This article presents a process oriented analysis of agent activities, within the context of augmented reality: the application of Internet technologies to the real world, specifically in this case to supermarket shopping. Specific areas of difficulty are contract and consumer protection law, as well as privacy. These topics are highlighted, together with trust issues raised in Multi-Agent Systems which will be discussed in a later article in this series.
Doc 145 : Promoting Independent Learning Through Language Learning and the Use of IT.
Students from the People’s Republic of China enrolled in an ‘English for academic purposes’ (EAP) programme at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore is strongly encouraged to take an active role and be independent to some extent in its learning. For this purpose a self‐access centre (SAC) was set up where students themselves decide on the kinds of learning activities they wish to participate in at the centre. This weekly 1 hour session is built into the curriculum so that all students, regardless of their English proficiency, have the opportunity to develop autonomy in their learning. Unlike traditional self‐access centres, where worksheets usually form the core resource, the SAC at NIE taps resources from the Internet. Students can access these resources even when they are off campus. In addition, other resources, such as CDs, VCDs and reading materials, are available at the centre for students to use in order to improve their English. The first section of this paper provides some backgrou…
Doc 146 : Understanding the Wired Workplace: The Effects of Job Characteristics on Employees’ Personal Online Communication at Work
As organizations increasingly embrace Internet technologies in daily work activities, an unintended consequence is the growing personal Internet use by employees. This study examines the association between job characteristics and a particular form of personal Internet use at work, personal online communication (POC). The study analyzes data of the 2008 Networked Workers Survey sponsored by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The results demonstrate that job characteristics explain a large, significant portion of the variance of POC at work. The findings suggest that for jobs with high knowledge intensity, managing POC could be approached from a work–life balance perspective. The study also suggests that changes in work structure, job variety, and autonomy could have significant implications for managing POC activities in the wired workplace.
Doc 147 : Cyber-Maritime Cycle: Autonomy of Marine Robots for Ocean Sensing
Marine robots are playing important roles in environmental sensing andocean observation applications. This tutorial introduces the overall systemsarchitecture and patterns for data streams that enable autonomyfor marine robots in environmental sensing applications. The articleproposes the concept of cyber-maritime cycle and surveys its use as arecent development in marine robotics. Supported by communicationnetworks, autonomy can be achieved using at least three feedback loopsin a cyber-maritime cycle, each running at different time scales or temporalfrequencies. When information is circulating around the cycle, itis transformed between two representations: the Lagrangian view andthe Eulerian view. Important functional blocks, such as mission planning,path planning, data assimilation, and data-drivenmodeling arediscussed as providing conversions between the two views of data. Thetutorial starts with an overview of enabling technologies in sensing,navigation, and communication for marine robotics. The design of experimentmethod is then reviewed to plan optimal sensing locations forthe robots. The tutorial discusses a class of path planning methods thatproduces desired trajectories of marine robots while combating oceancurrent. The lack of an accurate Eulerian map for ocean current willlead to tracking error when robots attempt to follow the planned pathsto collect Lagrangian data. The performance of robot navigation can beevaluated through the controlled Lagrangian particle tracking method,which computes trends and bounds for the growth of the tracking error.To improve the accuracy of the Eulerian map of ocean current, adata-drivenmodeling approach is adopted. Data assimilation methodsare leveraged to convert Lagrangian data into Eulerian map. In addition,the spatial and temporal resolution of Eulerian data maps canbe further improved by the motion tomography method. This tutorialgives a comprehensive view of data streams and major functional blocksunderlying autonomy of marine robots.
Doc 148 : Toward a Petri Net Based Model to Control Conflicts of Autonomy between Cyber-Physical & Human-Systems
Abstract: A dissonance is a conflict between individual, collective or organizational knowledge. This concept is extended to a conflict of autonomy between components of a human-machine system, such as Cyber-Physical & Human Systems (CPHS). The autonomy of the CPHS is modeled by a triplet representing three sets of knowledge: the Competence, the Availability and the Prescription. The so-called Competence-Availability-Prescription (CAP) model is then proposed to represent the capability of the CPHS to act alone and to control possible emergent behaviours such as conflicts of autonomy in terms of competence, availability and/or prescription. The formalism of the Petri nets is used to model the three CAP model parameters and to control possible conflicts between them. A feasibility study of the application of such CAP model and Petri nets is presented for the car driving domain involving the car driver interacting with Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) such as an Automated Speed Control System (ASCS).
Doc 149 : Technology meets tradition: The perceived impact of the introduction of information and communication technology on ward rounds in the intensive care unit
Public policy in many health systems is currently dominated by the quest to find ways to ‘do more with less’-to achieve better outcomes at a reduced cost. The success or failure of initiatives in support of this quest are often understood in terms of an adversarial dynamic or struggle between the professional logics of medicine and of management. Here, we use the case of the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT) to a well-established ritual of medical autonomy (the medical ward round) to articulate a more nuanced explanation of how and why new ways of working with technology are accepted and adopted (or not).The study was conducted across four intensive care units (ICUs) in major teaching hospitals in Sydney, Australia. Using interviews, we examined 48 doctors’ perceptions of the impact of ICT on ward round practice. We applied the concept of institutional logics to frame our analysis. Interview transcripts were analysed using a hybrid of deductive and inductive thematic analysis.The doctors displayed a complex engagement with the technology that belies simplistic characterisations of medical rejection of managerial encroachment. In fact, they selectively welcomed into the ward round aspects of the technology which reinforced the doctor’s place in the healthcare hierarchy and which augmented their role as scientists. At the same time, they guarded against allowing managerial logic embedded in ICT to de-emphasise their embodied subjectivity in relation to the patient as a person rather than as a collection of parameters.ICT can force the disruption of some aspects of existing routines, even where these are long-established rituals. Resistance arose when the new technology did not fit with the ‘logic of care’. Incorporation of the logic of care into the design and customisation of clinical information systems is a challenge and potentially counterproductive, because it could attempt to apply a technological fix to what is essentially a social problem. However, there are significant opportunities to ensure that new technologies do not obstruct doctors’ roles as carers nor disrupt the embodied relationship they need to have with patients.
Doc 150 : Autonomy presence in the extended community of inquiry
The use of blended learning in higher education has increased rapidly. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) has been developed as a framework for blended learning from a socio-constructivist perspective in which learning is based on educational experiences in the environment with collaboration and interaction. The purpose of this paper is to understand student experience and explore new issues in a blended learning course from the perspective of CoI. Stake’s inductive case study approach was used and data were collected by qualitative methods. The results showed that social, cognitive and teaching presences were found in the blended learning course. However, on some occasions, students experienced learning without a teaching presence but with intrinsic drive from individuals. The students directed their own learning and shared the ideas in the discourse without teaching instruction or facilitation. Learning autonomy was linked to the learning community through convenient online communication tools. This paper proposes to extend the CoI with the dimension of autonomy presence. An Extended Community of Inquiry (ECoI) framework is described and the categories and indicators of autonomy presence are expounded. The value of the paper as a contribution to literature is to enhance CoI by including the autonomy element.
Doc 151 : Controlling Working Crowds: The Impact of Digitalization on Worker Autonomy and Monitoring Across Hierarchical Levels
This study investigates the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on worker autonomy and monitoring using the second wave of the German Linked Personnel Panel, a linked employer-employee data set. From a theoretical point of view, the impact of ICT on workplace organization is ambigu- ous. On the one hand, the fast diffusion of ICT among employees makes it possible to monitor professional activities, leading to greater centralization. On the other hand, ICT enable employees to work more autonomously, so that workplace organization becomes more decentralized. Based on ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimates, we find that ICT promotes both centralization and decentralization tendencies. Furthermore, managerial employees are more affected by ICT-induced monitoring and autonomy than their non-managerial counterparts. Finally, the effect of digital ICT on employee autonomy is more pronounced than the corresponding effect on employee monitoring. Again, this does especially hold for managerial employees. All in all, our results support the view that unlike prior technological revolutions digitalization primarily affects the employment prospects and working conditions of employees at medium and higher hierarchical levels.
Doc 152 : Exploration and Exploitation of New Knowledge Emergence to Improve the Collective Intelligent Decision-Making Level of Web-of-Cells With Cyber-Physical-Social Systems Based on Complex Network Modeling
Through exploration and exploitation of new knowledge emergence, the collective intelligent decision-making (CID) level of Web-of-Cells (WoC) proposed by ELECTRA will be dramatically improved. For this purpose, we thoroughly investigate complex network theory and modeling methods for WoC with cyber–physical–social systems (CPSS). WoC is a new intelligent dispatching framework characterized by weak centralization, self-organization coupling, high independence, efficient coordination, and autonomous learning. Based on these characteristics and actual engineering demands, in this paper, we adopt complex network theory, parallel machine learning, and multi-agent stochastic game theory to address three basic scientific issues in WoC dispatching and control: how to build a complex network model for WoC with CPSS to stimulate new knowledge emergence; how to analyze the evolution structure stability and operation stability during this knowledge emergence process; and how to use the emerged new knowledge to achieve cell autonomy and system-wide coordination based on independent and CID, respectively. Finally, we conduct some explorations and make a prospect for WoC. The biggest innovation of this paper lies in thoroughly investigating how to fully stimulate and utilize new knowledge emergence from WoC to greatly improve its CID level of dispatching and control. This will be of great significance to the development of new-generation power system smart dispatching in the future.
Doc 153 : Making Alphabet Soup: Blending VSM, STS and TQM
Many opportunities exist to combine different models in the cybernetics and systems field to assist groups and organizations to be more effective. Brings together three models, the Viable System Model, Socio‐Technical Systems and Total Quality Management, to consider their potential usefulness in an integrated approach. It examines their common roots in the concepts of systems and environments, communications, the modelling process, variety, feedback and autonomy. Their differences of emphasis and some limitations are also noted. A suggestion is made regarding how they might be brought together in a single application using the Viable Systems Model as one of three possible frameworks. Other systems models and where they might fit within this framework are also noted. Finally, co‐operation and experiment among practitioners of different models is urged as having great potential benefit to client organizations.
Doc 154 : Citizen involvement in future drug R&D: a Danish Delphi study
This article adopts a prospective approach in an attempt to explore the potential benefit of citizen involvement in decision making concerning future drug R&D. This is one of the first Delphi studies to fully utilize internet technology to collect and process data. The results show an increasing individual autonomy among respondents, which also affects the drug R&D process in general. Human, liberal and ethical values are reported as crucial values to citizens. On this basis, respondents reported that patient organizations, representative citizen groups and ethical councils can contribute with important input to ensure these values in decision making concerning future drug R&D. Paying attention to citizen needs, demands and ideas may protect the research, development and eventual marketing of unacceptable drugs on a societal and ethical level.
Doc 155 : 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 156 : Determination of the Optimal Degree of Autonomy in a Cyber-Physical Production System
Abstract Classical productions systems are migrating step-by-step into cyber-physical production systems. The addition of much more computing power and object-bound data storage will lead to new possibilities for the advancement of autonomy in production systems. Autonomous message exchange and coordination can help to prevent quality problems (for instance wrong pairing of tool and work piece) and improve the disturbance management (for instance by faster information about current and probable disturbances). Due to the fact that nearly all improvements of existing production systems with cyber-physical systems take place in real and active manufacturing sites, on-site experiments to find out the right degree of autonomy for production objects are not suitable. Therefore a lab approach is necessary. In this contribution a hybrid lab approach to simulate various degrees of autonomy is presented 1 . The paper starts with a definition of autonomy and suggests measurement methods [2] . After a short introduction into the lab concept the results of some test runs are presented where autonomous objects perform the same production program as dumb production objects. Finally, an outlook for further research is given.
Doc 157 : The Entropy Based Approach to Modeling and Evaluating Autonomy and Intelligence of Robotic Systems
This review paper presents the Entropy approach to modeling and performance evaluation of Intelligent Machines (IMs), which are modeled as hierarchical, multi-level structures. It provides a chronological summary of developments related to intelligent control, from its origins to current advances. It discusses fundamentals of the concept of Entropy as a measure of uncertainty and as a control function, which may be used to control, evaluate and improve through adaptation and learning performance of engineering systems. It describes a multi-level, hierarchical, architecture that is used to model such systems, and it defines autonomy and machine intelligence for engineering systems, with the aim to set foundations necessary to tackle related challenges. The modeling philosophy for the systems under consideration follows the mathematically proven principle of Increasing Precision with Decreasing Intelligence (IPDI). Entropy is also used in the context of N-Dimensional Information Theory to model the flow of information throughout such systems and contributes to quantitatively evaluate uncertainty, thus, autonomy and intelligence. It is explained how Entropy qualifies as a unique, single, measure to evaluate autonomy, intelligence and precision of task execution. The main contribution of this review paper is that it brings under one forum research findings from the 1970’s and 1980’s, and that it supports the argument that even today, given the unprecedented existing computational power, advances in Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning and Control Theory, the same foundational framework may be followed to study large-scale, distributed Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs), including distributed intelligence and multi-agent systems, with direct applications to the SmartGrid, transportation systems and multi-robot teams, to mention but a few applications.
Doc 158 : Toward a Sociable and Dependable Elderly Care Robot: Design, Implementation and User Study
A critical demand for innovation in elderly care, especially in delivering the quality of service to elderlies, arises as many parts of the world are rapidly in transition to an elderly society. The advancement of robotic technologies, especially, in cognitive robotics and sociable human-robot interaction offers a great opportunity for meeting such demand. This paper presents the design and implementation of a next generation of elderly care robot, named as “HomeMate,” based on an innovative undertaking in its sociability and dependability with extensive user studies. The elderlies taken care of by Senior Welfare Centers are chosen as the target sector, for which the following five service scenarios are designed: infotainment, video chatting, game playing, medicine alarm and, in particular, errand services. Unlike conventional approaches, the scenarios are designed here to ensure the overall quality of service by maximizing the synergy under an elderly-caregiver-service robot ecosystem. The unique features implemented in HomeMate include 1) the principle of affordance in appearance design by matching functionality and anthropomorphism indices, 2) the sociability implemented by balancing between autonomy and user controllability as well as by integrating multimodal interactions into HomeMate avatar, and 3) the emphasis on dependability to inspire confidence on HomeMate as a trusted assistant, for which the principle of dependability is proposed and implemented with a cognitive framework. Experiments and user studies strongly support the proposed design principles and verify the dependability in performance.
Doc 159 : [Internet and mobile-assisted interventions in mental disorders : Implementation in Germany from an ethical perspective].
BACKGROUND Internet and mobile-based interventions (IMIs) for mental disorders are seen by some authors as a step forward to narrow the treatment gap in mental health; however, especially in Germany professionals voice ethical concerns against the implementation of IMIs. The fact that there is broad evidence in favor of IMIs and that IMIs have already been implemented in several countries requires an ethical analysis to answer these concerns. OBJECTIVE The objective is to tackle ethical issues connected to a possible implementation of IMIs for mental disorders in Germany and to point out possible solutions. MATERIAL AND METHODS We conducted an ethical analysis using the criteria of well-being of patients, non-maleficence, justice, and patient autonomy, based on the empirical evidence. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION The ethical analysis showed that IMIs for mental disorders principally have a positive effect on the well-being of patients and have a low risk of impairment. Additionally, IMIs can minimize risk, improve justice, and strengthen autonomy of mentally ill patients. Despite the broad evidence, there are still research desiderates with respect to ethical aspects, e. g. patient information for mentally ill patients.
Doc 160 : Specifying autonomy in the Internet of Things: the autonomy model and notation
Driven by digitization in society and industry, automating behavior in an autonomous way substantially alters industrial value chains in the smart service world. As processes are enhanced with sensor and actuator technology, they become digitally interconnected and merge into an Internet of Things (IoT) to form cyber-physical systems (CPS). Using these automated systems, enterprises can improve the performance and quality of their operations. However, currently it is neither feasible nor reasonable to equip any machine with full autonomy when networking with other machines or people. It is necessary to specify rules for machine behavior that also determine an adequate degree of autonomy to realize the potential benefits of the IoT. Yet, there is a lack of methodologies and guidelines to support the design and implementation of machines as explicit autonomous agents such that many designs only consider autonomy implicitly. To address this research gap, we perform a comprehensive literature review to extract 12 requirements for the design of autonomous agents in the IoT. We introduce a set of constitutive characteristics for agents and introduce a classification framework for interactions in multi-agent systems. We integrate our findings by developing a conceptual modeling language consisting of a meta model and a notation that facilitates the specification and design of autonomous agents within the IoT as well as CPS: the AutonomyModel and Notation. We illustrate and discuss the approach and its limitations.
Doc 161 : Development to learning: semantic shifts in professional autonomy and school leadership
In the digital age, technology is playing an important role in changing the nature of professionalism. Newer forms of professional learning stand in contrast to more traditional forms of professional development. The shifting paradigm has implications for school leaders in all contexts. This study sought to qualitatively examine how a sample of eight school leaders worked to support professional learning in their school communities and leverage tools in areas such as content aggregation, media creation, blogging and social media. In one-on-one and focus group interviews, participants discussed how technology is changing professional learning in their context and reflected on how their leadership has evolved in response to perceived challenges. Findings suggest that school leaders are aware of the importance of supporting professional learning through multiple device platforms, online networks and opportunities to play, and experiment with technology. Current issues identified include the need to shift fro…
Doc 162 : Architecture as a verb: cybernetics and design processes for the social divide
Purpose – This paper aims to draw on current research in public policy, and more specifically about a collaborative design process for a poor suburban community in Sao Paulo, Brazil and its relation to social cybernetics as the “science of effective organization.” The research project in public policy, online‐communities, has been financed by the state‐sponsored agency FAPESP since 2003, and involves four research groups from the Architecture and Computer Science Departments at the University of Sao Paulo, and various public and non‐governmental organizations under the coordination of Nomads.usp Research Center (Center for Studies on Interactive Living, www.eesc.usp.br/nomads).Design/methodology/approach – The design methodology includes three premises: an organization of the team which considers multidisciplinary and multicultural aspects; the involvement of potential users as creators of the virtual community and of its concrete space; and the concern that the process will be organized so that autonomy …
Doc 163 : Facilitating the Development of the Autonomous Language Learner Using Online Virtual Learning Environments
This paper argues that if used correctly, computer-mediated courseware (CMC), in the form of an online Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) such as Blackboard or Moodle, has the potential to offer adult learners in university settings an optimal autonomy-supportive environment for learning English as a second language at a distance. The paper firstly considers how to promote learner autonomy through offering participants choices during the initial stages of a course through a negotiated syllabus. It then divides the language learning process into metacognitive and cognitive linguistic capacities and provides examples of strategies to increase autonomy in these spheres. Autonomy with regard to metacognitive linguistic capacities can be developed first by the multimodal aspect of CMC, in particular, the unprecedented access to resources, second, through the array of mediums to select in the creation and submission of assignments and third, through the notion of ‘dissemination’ (Mayes, 2002), which allows for ‘vicarious learning’ (Bandura, 1986). Autonomy with regard to cognitive linguistic capacities can be promoted through goal-oriented participant interaction on spoken and written forums on the platform, followed by consciousness-raising language activities guiding students to notice patterns in the language. In conclusion, it is suggested that a VLE might lead to optimum learning through the facilitation of a state of ‘flow’ or ‘autotelic’ activity, a concept closely related to autonomy and intrinsic motivation.
Doc 164 : The Development of Learner Autonomy Through Internet Resources and Its Impact on English Language Attainment
Abstract Since the arrival of the Internet and its tools, computer technology has become of considerable significance to both teachers and students, and it is an obvious resource for foreign language teaching and learning. The paper presents the results of a study which aimed to determine the effect of the application of Internet resources on the development of learner autonomy as well as the impact of greater learner independence on attainment in English as a foreign language. The participants were 46 Polish senior high school students divided into the experimental group (N = 28) and the control (N = 18) group. The students in the experimental group were subjected to innovative instruction with the use of the Internet and the learners in the control group were taught in a traditional way with the help of the coursebook. The data were obtained by means questionnaires, interviews, learners’ logs, an Internet forum, observations as well as language tests, and they were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the experimental students manifested greater independence after the intervention and they also outperformed the controls on language tests.
The aim of this paper is to propose a modeling of corporate knowledge in cyberworlds. An enterprise is considered in the framework of multiagent methodology as a distributed computational system. The Agent-Oriented Abstraction paradigm was proposed earlier to describe in a fully generic way agents and societies of agents. In this paper, we are investigating the application of this paradigm to the abstract modeling of corporate knowledge, extending the scope of traditional knowledge management approaches. We show that such an abstraction mechanism leads to very practical applications for cyberworlds whether on the web or on any other medium. Our approach covers the broader possible scope of corporate knowledge, emphasizing the distributivity and autonomy of agents within cyber systems. This approach can be further used to better simulate and support knowledge management processes.
Doc 166 : 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 167 : Values, ethics and participatory policymaking in online communities
Drawing upon principles and lessons of technology law and policy, value-centered design, anticipatory design ethics, and information policy literatures this research seeks to contribute to understandings of the ways in which platform design, practice, and policymaking intersect on the social media site Reddit. This research explores how Reddit’s users, moderators, and administrators surface values (like free speech, privacy, dignity, and autonomy), hint at ethical principles (what content, speech, behavior ought to be restricted and under what conditions), through a continuous process of (re)negotiating expectations and norms around values, ethics, and power on the site. Central to this research are questions such as: Who or what influences and/or determines social practice on Reddit? Who participates in decision-making and using what processes and mechanisms? Where do controversies arise and how are they resolved? Generating findings from a particular controversy surrounding the subreddit /r/jailbait, the author illustrates the complexities inherent in these questions and suggests that a participatory policymaking approach might contribute to future research and practice in this area.
Doc 168 : It’s Not Real Until It’s on Facebook: A Qualitative Analysis of Social Media and Digital Communication among Emerging Adults in College
Emerging adults are encountering a developmental stage in a polymediated world that brings autonomy, intimacy, and identity to the forefront of their transition from adolescence to adulthood. This study focuses on traditionally-aged college students who are deeply immersed with digital technology and communication as a primary method to communicate and interact with peers, partners, teachers, and family members. To understand the relationship between digital communication and emerging adulthood, researchers facilitated a qualitative study grounded in ethnomethodological and dramaturgical perspective to uncover the unique ways in which college students make sense of their social media during this developmental time period. Data collection occurred through nine focus groups; in all, 44 undergraduate students participated. Findings illustrate four relevant patterns to the development of emerging adults: a key rationale for use among participants that is tied to both ritualized behavior and institutional constraints; the importance of autonomy with their digital communication use that is often stifled by parental access to their mediated lives; the presentation of an identity that is rooted in norms of acceptable use; and the importance of digital communication to the development and maintenance of connections to family, friends, and intimate partners. Implications for further research are discussed.
Doc 169 : Moralizing to the Choir: The Moral Foundations of American Clergy*
Objective In order to understand the role of clergy in shaping Americans’ moral worldviews, we examine whether the structure of clergy values varies in systematic ways according to contextual factors, such as disagreement in the congregation.
Method In early 2014 (February), clergy from a variety of Protestant denominations were contacted by email and invited to complete a survey online, which included a 20-item moral foundations (MFs) battery as well as a variety of attitudinal, behavioral, and relational measures.
Results Clergy MFs resemble average citizens’, they look to preserve their autonomy by emphasizing individualizing foundations when they are in disagreement with their congregation, and emphasize MFs that align with their religious beliefs, especially their views on religious authority.
Conclusion We reject a special religious emphasis on binding foundations. While clergy take moral positions that reflect their theological commitments, we find evidence of contextualizing in how they weight moral positions.
Doc 170 : EFL learners’ perceptions of factors influencing learner autonomy development
Abstract Together with recent technological advances in a variety of tools (such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube), learners have been provided with freedom and openness to communicate with each other and to become proactive and independent in their learning. It is believed, however, that Asian learners seem to possess reactive autonomy so that while they can organize their resources autonomously to achieve their learning goals, they are unable to take responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to explore the factors that influence Vietnamese EFL learners’ support for or resistance to promoting learner autonomy within a 15-week, portfolio-based writing course. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and writing logs in this qualitative research and analyzed through content analysis. The findings showed three major factors (personal, academic, and external) supporting and resisting developing learner autonomy in the portfolio-based writing course.
Doc 171 : “What do you want for dinner?”: need anticipation and the design of proactive technologies for the home
This paper examines ‘the routine shop’ as part of a project that is exploring automation and autonomy in the Internet of Things. In particular we explicate the ‘work’ involved in anticipating need using an ethnomethodological analysis that makes visible the mundane, ‘seen but unnoticed’ methodologies that household members accountably employ to organise list construction and accomplish calculation on the shop floor. We discuss and reflect on the challenges members’ methodologies pose for proactive systems that seek to support domestic grocery shopping, including the challenges of sensing, learning and predicting, and gearing autonomous agents into social practice within the home.
Doc 172 : Interactive learning media innovation: utilization of augmented reality and pop-up book to improve user’s learning autonomy
This study discusses the design of innovative learning media based on Augmented Reality (AR) and its development for students of Higher Education. Innovative Learning Media is now an important part of improving the quality of learning. Utilization of mobile device technologies such as android tablets and smartphones with camera features to run AR technology is the main point. Several students and expert of learning media were involved in this research and development. Questionnaires are used as measuring instruments. The results of this study are AR-based interactive learning media to improve user’s learning autonomy and recommendations for further development.
Doc 173 : Computer-mediated communication as an autonomy-enhancement tool for advanced learners of English
This article examines the relevance of modern technology for the development of learner autonomy in the process of learning English as a foreign language. Computer-assisted language learning and computer mediated communication (CMC) appear to be particularly conducive to fostering autonomous learning, as they naturally incorporate many elements of autonomy that give learners control over and responsibility for their own learning, such as choosing the materials used, managing their contact with various genres and types of interaction, often in authentic contexts, and evaluating their own progress, measured through their success in understanding and conveying meanings. However, providing access to language resources does not automatically lead to the development of autonomy, as much depends on other factors, such as the learners’ level or previous experience in learner training. The present study investigated whether advanced learners of English made use of out-of-class CMC engagement for the purpose of learning English autonomously. The results indicate that most of the participants were eager to use CMC opportunities to deliberately practice their English, although, quite naturally, leisure and social reasons for using CMC predominated. The expressed willingness to deliberately focus on practicing English during beyond-theclassroom meaning-oriented online interactions confirms the great potential of CMC as an autonomy enhancement tool.
Doc 174 : Privacy-Enhancing Technologies for Internet Commerce
We examine privacy-enhancing technologies based on the consistency of the business plans, technology, stated objectives, and the concept of privacy as embedded in the technologies. Three distinct trust models result from the three distinct concepts of privacy: a right of autonomy, a right to seclusion and a right to property. We use these trust models to segment the privacy market and classify the privacy-enhancing technologies. The Anonymizer and Zero Knowledge’s Freedom were built as technologies to enhance autonomy, while Privada Control, iPrivacy, and Incogno SafeZone are built to provide seclusion. Microsoft’s Passport is built with an assumption of privacy as a tradable property right. Security, privacy, and authentication are intertwined and sometimes confused in the privacy market. We argue that the creation of new trusted third party is not an effective strategy. In the case of creating a trusted third party, autonomy-based products have been more successful than seclusion-based products, despite the wider array of services offered by seclusion services.
Doc 175 : Essential competencies for the education of nursing assistants and care helpers in elderly care
Summary Background The Dutch health care system faces huge challenges with regard to the demand on elderly care and the competencies of professionals required to meet this demand. However, a recent study showed that the curricula in vocational education for nursing assistants and care helpers remains inadequate to prepare them for the social and healthcare needs of the elderly. Objective To determine the essential competencies for the initial education of nursing assistants and care helpers in elderly care. Methods First, a draft version of essential competencies for the education of nursing assistants and care helpers in elderly care (N = 120) was developed and approved by experts, also members of the project steering committee. Second, a Delphi survey was conducted to determine the essential competencies. The Delphi panel consisted of eleven field experts (teachers/educational developers) working for different vocational education training colleges in the Netherlands. Results Ten panel members participated in a two-round consensus building process via email. A definitive set of 116 essential competencies for the initial education of nursing assistants and 42 essential competencies for the initial education of care helpers were determined. Conclusions The competencies in the definitive set are more in line with social and healthcare needs of the elderly like: autonomy, daily functioning prevention of health problems, healthy ageing and wellbeing, involvement of informal care, collaboration between professionals and informal care. The main challenge now is to translate these competencies into educational programmes for vocational education training colleges for care helpers and nursing assistants. Recommendations are made for the implementation of these competencies in the Dutch vocational education training colleges for care helpers and nursing assistants.
Doc 176 : Queer School-Based Self-Assessment, Inspiraction Research, and Second-Order Cybernetics as Thinking Tool
This is about queer school-based self-assessment and deauthorized, self-reflexive, and robust knowledge-creation processes and/as products in schools. It is about professional development and knowledge autonomy in a reform perspective, hence moving to the bricolage and inspiraction research. It is about cybernetics and circularity, so read again.
Doc 177 : 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 178 : 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 179 : Cabs, community, and control: Mobile communication among Chicago’s taxi drivers:
Today’s mobile technology and mobile professions mean that people are nearly always either in, or connected to someone who is in motion. And yet, communities persist in the face of this constant motion. This is a qualitative study of a mobile labor group—taxi drivers in Chicago. Similar to Wallis’s (2011) conclusions, I found that access to and use of a mobile phone does not automatically imbue taxi drivers with power and autonomy from forces that seem to be working against them. However, access to mobile phones does help to shake up the hierarchy of control in the taxi industry. This study has also identified another type of community where the theory of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2012) applies, that is, labor communities, and has shown that while choice of technology may offer some sense of power, access to mobile communication technology does not necessarily result in significant changes in power structures within and surrounding a community.
Doc 180 : Gift exchange, control, and cyberloafing: A real-effort experiment
Abstract Cyberloafing – non-work related internet use – is a prominent problem in modern firms. While incomplete contracts typically rule out direct control of workers’ effort, many employers hope to increase productivity through ‘soft’ control, by restricting the private use of internet at work. In a lab experiment with real effort, we investigate how the temptation of the internet and a manager’s decision whether to restrict workers’ access to it affect the morale of workers. When tempted by internet access, workers reciprocate fair wages less than without access. Nevertheless, a manager’s decision to actively grant internet access might increase workers’ effort: we find that highly reciprocal workers perceive the autonomy such a policy gives as a gift which they reciprocate with high effort despite the temptation of the internet. For less reciprocal workers the temptation aspect dominates and restricting internet access is better for the manager.
Doc 181 : Language Learners Perceptions and Experiences on the Use of Mobile Applications for Independent Language Learning in Higher Education
With the widespread use of mobile phones and portable devices it is inevitable to think of Mobile Assisted Language Learning as a means of independent learning in Higher Education. Nowadays many learners are keen to explore the wide variety of applications available in their portable and always readily available mobile phones and tablets. The fact that they are keen to take control of their learning and autonomy is thought to lead to greater motivation and engagement, and the link with games-based learning suggests that the fun factor involved should not be overseen. This paper focuses on the use of mobile applications for independent language learning in higher education. It investigates how learners use mobile apps in line with their classes to enhance their learning experience. We base our analysis on a survey carried out in autumn 2013 in which 286 credited and non-credited language students from various levels of proficiency at The University of Manchester express their perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of the use of mobile applications for independent language learning, together with examples of useful apps and suggestions of how these could be integrated in the language class.
Doc 182 : A Hybrid Trust Evaluation Framework for E-Commerce in Online Social Network: A Factor Enrichment Perspective
The nature of autonomy and openness of E-commerce in online social (ECOS) networks poses a challenge to the security of transactions as it is difficult to ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of parties on both ends. Transactions in ECOS may, therefore, be conducted in an unreliable environment and be vulnerable to frauds. Trust management schemes, naturally, have come as feasible solutions. With a view to making improvement on the existing trust management mechanisms, we, in this paper, propose a factor-enrichment-based hybrid trust framework for trust measurement in ECOS, in which three levels of trust are used to establish trustworthy opinions among individuals for their transactions: 1) private reputation, which is defined as subjective trustworthy impression among individuals with respect to its feature of dynamic evolution; 2) common reputation, which is defined as collective and sharable trust degree and is proposed with two factors, a consistency factor and a continuity factor, introduced for enhancing the reliability of common reputation; and 3) the hybrid trust, which is proposed to obtain integrated trustable impressions based on private reputation and common reputation, with anti-fraud factor and confidence factor presented to further determine the trustworthiness of hybrid trust. Finally, we list the results of a series of examinations to further verify the performance of our mechanism.
Doc 183 : Undergraduates’ Out-Of-Class Learning: Exploring EFL Students’ Autonomous Learning Behaviors and Their Usage of Resources
Educational research is increasingly paying attention to students’ out-of-class learning. Students’ out-of-class learning is linked to improved class performance and constitutes an important part of learner development. Prior research has argued that learning-resources provision should encourage students’ autonomous learning both in and out of the classroom [Benson, 2013; Benson & Reinders, 2011; Gardner & Miller, 1999; Little, 1997; Richards, 2015]. However, work on autonomy often proceeds via generalities rather than focusing on its enactment in individual behavior. Accordingly, this study investigated 35 EFL undergraduates’ autonomous learning behaviors and their use of resources of the learning center of a university. Data were collected via email interviews with the participants and examination of their resources-usage records. Content analysis of the interview data, using six categories based on a learner-autonomymodel, was used to generate each participant’s autonomy score. Spearman rho testing of the relationship between those scores and the students’ resources-usage scores suggested a very strong positive relationship between autonomous learning behaviors and overall usage of resources, as well as the variety of those resources used by individuals. Data analysis also revealed that, to varying degrees, each participant’s autonomous-learning behaviors (based on qualitative examples) fell into more than one of the six learner-autonomy types. Based on these findings, it is recommended that students be encouraged to learn beyond the classroom through pedagogical activities that link classroom learning to learning-center resources. Based on the findings of this study we make suggestions on pedagogical design with SAC and applications for SACs in other educational contexts.
Doc 184 : Application of Mechatronics in Agriculture: A review
Abstract Mechatronics has found quite a number of useful applications in agriculture. Agriculture as one of the oldest industries, dating as far back as the nomadic age originally depended solely on human effort, then apprehended animal labour, and then came mechanical advances such as diesel/steam-engine tractors and mechanical tools with hydrostatic power which needed control. The answer to unresolved problems relies on more advances that necessitate the replacement of human intellect to meet the requirements for superior autonomy in more indefinite and unstructured environments. Promising disciplines in this framework include Mechatronics, Large-scale optimization and Complex system automation, and our focus is on the advancement of irrigation system. Some of the applications of mechatronics in agriculture and their processes are discussed to gain insight on the state of the art, advantages and weaknesses of several methods employed.
Doc 185 : Self-aware Cyber-Physical Systems
https://doi.org/10.1145/3375716 K.L. Bellman Christopher Landauer Nikil Dutt Lukas Esterle Andreas Herkersdorf Axel Jantsch Nima TaheriNejad Peter R. Lewis Marco Platzner Kalle Tammemäe
In this article, we make the case for the new class of Self-aware Cyber-physical Systems. By bringing together the two established fields of cyber-physical systems and self-aware computing, we aim at creating systems with strongly increased yet managed autonomy, which is a main requirement for many emerging and future applications and technologies. Self-aware cyber-physical systems are situated in a physical environment and constrained in their resources, and they understand their own state and environment and, based on that understanding, are able to make decisions autonomously at runtime in a self-explanatory way. In an attempt to lay out a research agenda, we bring up and elaborate on five key challenges for future self-aware cyber-physical systems: (i) How can we build resource-sensitive yet self-aware systems? (ii) How to acknowledge situatedness and subjectivity? (iii) What are effective infrastructures for implementing self-awareness processes? (iv) How can we verify self-aware cyber-physical systems and, in particular, which guarantees can we give? (v) What novel development processes will be required to engineer self-aware cyber-physical systems? We review each of these challenges in some detail and emphasize that addressing all of them requires the system to make a comprehensive assessment of the situation and a continual introspection of its own state to sensibly balance diverse requirements, constraints, short-term and long-term objectives. Throughout, we draw on three examples of cyber-physical systems that may benefit from self-awareness: a multi-processor system-on-chip, a Mars rover, and an implanted insulin pump. These three very different systems nevertheless have similar characteristics: limited resources, complex unforeseeable environmental dynamics, high expectations on their reliability, and substantial levels of risk associated with malfunctioning. Using these examples, we discuss the potential role of self-awareness in both highly complex and rather more simple systems, and as a main conclusion we highlight the need for research on above listed topics.
Doc 186 : Facebook group PETCoN (Physical Education Teacher Collaborative Network). An innovative approach to PE teacher in-service training: A self-determination theory perspective
The purpose of the study was the evaluation of a teacher in-service training program, namely “PE.T.Co.N.“, an online community of practice via Facebook groups. Drawing from Self-Determination theory (SDT), the program aimed at satisfying teachers’ autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs and facilitating their autonomous motivation. Pre-post measurements showed significant improvements in key variables that can determine training success. Preliminary quantitative group insights supported by qualitative data revealed enhanced participatory dynamics in terms of members’ interaction. Findings suggest that PE.T.Co.N. is a promising, innovative approach to teacher training. Implications are discussed in light of SDT. • PE teacher in-service training can be delivered effectively as a CoP through Facebook groups. • Facebook appears a promising tool to tackle the attrition issue in on-line training. • PETCoN participation leads/contributes to increased autonomy need satisfaction. • PETCoN increases relatedness need satisfaction and decreases relatedness frustration. • Self-determination theory is well suited when designing teacher in-service training.
Doc 187 : Research Trends and Future Perspectives in Marine Biomimicking Robotics
https://doi.org/10.3390/s21113778 Jacopo Aguzzi Corrado Costa Marcello Calisti Valerio Funari Sergio Stefanni Roberto Danovaro Helena I. Gomes F. Vecchi Lewis Dartnell Peter Weiss Kathrin Nowak Damianos Chatzievangelou Simone Marini
Mechatronic and soft robotics are taking inspiration from the animal kingdom to create new high-performance robots. Here, we focused on marine biomimetic research and used innovative bibliographic statistics tools, to highlight established and emerging knowledge domains. A total of 6980 scientific publications retrieved from the Scopus database (1950–2020), evidencing a sharp research increase in 2003–2004. Clustering analysis of countries collaborations showed two major Asian-North America and European clusters. Three significant areas appeared: (i) energy provision, whose advancement mainly relies on microbial fuel cells, (ii) biomaterials for not yet fully operational soft-robotic solutions; and finally (iii), design and control, chiefly oriented to locomotor designs. In this scenario, marine biomimicking robotics still lacks solutions for the long-lasting energy provision, which presently hinders operation autonomy. In the research environment, identifying natural processes by which living organisms obtain energy is thus urgent to sustain energy-demanding tasks while, at the same time, the natural designs must increasingly inform to optimize energy consumption.
Doc 188 : A cybernetic theory of morality and moral autonomy.
Human morality may be thought of as a negative feedback cotrol system in which moral rules are reference values, and moral disapproval, blame, and punishment are forms of negative feedback given for violations of the moral rules. In such a system, if moral agents held each other accountable, moral norms would be enforced effectively. However, even a properly functioning social negative feedback system could not explain acts in which individual agents uphold moral rules in the face of contrary social pressure. Dr. Frances Kelsey, who withheld FDA approval for thalidomide against intense social pressure, is an example of the degree of individual moral autonomy possible in a hostile environment. Such extreme moral autonomy is possible only if there is internal, psychological negative feedback, in addition to external, social feedback. Such a cybernetic model of morality and moral autonomy is consistent with certain aspects of classical ethical theories.
Assistive robotics aims at developing solutions (mechatronic devices, systems and technologies) to assist and interact with individuals with reduced motor or cognitive abilities in order to increase their autonomy in a personal environment. Rehabilitation robotics proposes similar solutions for assisted therapy and objective functional assessment of these patients usually in a clinical context 1.
Doc 190 : Rethinking research management in Colombia
https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920710747011 Roberto Zarama Alfonso Reyes Eduardo Aldana Jorge Villalobos Juan Camilo Bohorquez Juan Pablo Calderón Alonso Botero Nelson L. Lammoglia José-Luis Villaveces Luis A. Pinzón Ricardo Bonilla Andrés Mejía José David Bermeo Isaac Dyner Neil F. Johnson Juan Alejandro Valdivia
– This paper seeks to present a proposal to change the form in which knowledge is produced in Colombia., – Discusses the key issue – to transform the way in which the production of knowledge is currently taking place at the university level., – To be able to increase the production of knowledge in this country there is a need to create bonds among industrial, governmental, and academic institutions. It is believed that this can be done by the development of a system capable of continuously forming researchers at a doctoral level., – The paper puts forward a proposal for the construction of such a system based on the developments of organizational cybernetics. The proposal is based on the concept of autonomy which is crucial to solve this problem.
For most of us bioethics is a grey and forbidding word: not a common subject for casual chat in a bar parlour. But most of us are also aware of advances in biom?dical science which are both exciting and potentially alarming, and they are making bioethics increasingly important touching closely, some times intimately, on the lives of us all. This winter, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics will be publishing substantial reports on two import ant subjects: genetic screening and the uses of human tissue. They should catch the attention of doctors and clinical researchers. The major organs of the media may comment. The reports will, I hope, be welcomed by readers of this journal. But those for whom these questions may often matter most are unlikely to read the reports unless they are written and disseminated with their interests in mind. Medical ethics is still largely preserved as profes sional property. For doctors of the past it may have been no more than their Hippocratic Oath, and the self-discipline to avoid either seducing the female patient or being seduced by the pharmaceutical industry. For a doctor today there needs to be an understanding at least of the four high-sounding, and sometimes conflicting, principles of medical ethics non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and autonomy meaning more simply: do not hurt the patient; provide the best treatment you can; be fair to all patients in the treatment you offer; respect your patients and listen to what they have to say. But many of us, as patients or the families of patients, are unsure what to say. We may be assertive about our rights; but we are not clear what autonomy is or means when applied to our clinical condition and the ethical questions which that may raise. The position vividly put by Enoch Powell in his book, Medicine and Politics (1) can still ring true:
Doc 192 : A Field Theory Perspective on Journalist–Source Relations: A Study of ‘New Entrants’ and ‘Authorised Knowers’ among Scottish Muslims
In this article, I apply Bourdieu’s field theory to research on the trajectories, strategies and relations of sources and journalists. I argue that the relational emphasis of field theory, modified by the concept of media meta-capital, can be a fruitful way of examining the social context in which representations of Muslims are produced. This advances scholarship that relies too heavily on content analysis to support judgements about news representations of Muslims. I use examples from original fieldwork in Glasgow to discuss the capital, autonomy and heteronomy of Muslim sources who are ‘authorised knowers’ and ‘new entrants’ in their source communities. These various positions are evident in their relative success in managing journalist–source relations, which encompass ‘legacy’ media platforms and emerging communication tools such as Twitter. The field theory perspective exposes relations that contribute to the work of representation but are invisible to other forms of analysis.
Doc 193 : Digital economy: backgrounds, main drivers and new challenges
The industry development over the last hundred years has had a huge impact on the development of technological infrastructure and life change. Three main components of this development are related to personalization: a car as a personal vehicle and greater personal freedom; a personal computer as a means of intellectual autonomy; a personal phone as a means of freedom of communication and access to information. These three development factors significantly changed the employee psychology and created the conditions for diffusion of qualitatively new, synthesized (cyber-physical) technologies that became the basis of the Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things – two main working concepts of industrial and infrastructural development for the next 20 years. The conventional or classical industrial systems that are dominant to the present day have mainly been based on the principles of human muscle energy replacement, but the technological changes of our days raise the question of the substantial scale of displacement of the living manpower both in production and in management and services. The process of technological and industrial transformation that has already begun will inevitably lead to the transformation of social and economic systems, and here the key problem will not only be the provision of a new quality of economic growth, but also the solution of the employment problem interfacing a new technological platform, the information and social infrastructure of society.
Doc 194 : Transhumanism: the big fraud-towards digital slavery
The transhumanism is an international movement that states that adding technological implants and inserting DNA will improve the human being. However, the transhumanists hide two subjects: the use of technological implants as a weapon against the citizen and the method they are developing their dangerous projects with, which is suspected to be illicit human experiments in the world. Technological implants like brain nanobots might cause losing mind control and thus, the carriers can be controlled by others and lose their autonomy, they can be spied permanently with the cerebral internet and can lose their privacy their memory can be deleted and can loose their identity. Thus, the humans who carry technological implants can be permanently spied on, mentally controlled and they lose their identity, becoming a human slave at the service of the transnational companies and the economic powers. An objective analysis reveals that transhumanism is only an intellectual swindle that leads to digital fascism, a society where a millionaire elite will govern citizens with technological implants, who will be digital slaves at the service of an oligarchy.
Doc 195 : Integrations between Autonomous Systems and Modern Computing Techniques: A Mini Review
The emulation of human behavior for autonomous problem solving has been an interdisciplinary field of research. Generally, classical control systems are used for static environments, where external disturbances and changes in internal parameters can be fully modulated before or neglected during operation. However, classical control systems are inadequate at addressing environmental uncertainty. By contrast, autonomous systems, which were first studied in the field of control systems, can be applied in an unknown environment. This paper summarizes the state of the art autonomous systems by first discussing the definition, modeling, and system structure of autonomous systems and then providing a perspective on how autonomous systems can be integrated with advanced resources (e.g., the Internet of Things, big data, Over-the-Air, and federated learning). Finally, what comes after reaching full autonomy is briefly discussed.
Among the structural elements that enable social media platforms to durably influence our moods and behaviour, their answering a widespread desire to be liked and accepted - a desire which is seldom transparent to us - greatly increases their manipulative power. So does their ability to harvest fine-grained information about their users (and acquaintances). This data puts such platforms in a position where they can not only covertly influence our thoughts, moods and behaviour: they can do so in a way that is maximally effective given our respective traits, vulnerabilities etc. This paper argues that if we are to stand any chance of taming these platforms’ considerable manipulative potential, some conceptual spring-cleaning is needed.
First, we need to stop confusing regulatory power and regulation. Whereas in mechanics or cybernetics there is no need to distinguish between the two -since there are no agents whose autonomy is infringed by regulation- when the concept of regulation is applied to human behaviour this distinction becomes crucial, and hinges upon the concept of authority. Since social media platforms do not - yet - claim authority, they do not regulate us: they have regulatory power over us. Our task is to regulate that power.
To succeed in the latter task, we also need to acknowledge that the type of influence exercised by social media platforms is not merely non-deliberative: it is also covert. While the former is often unproblematic from an ethical/legal perspective, the latter not only threatens our right to freedom of thought, it also compromises our commitment to moral equality.
Doc 197 : Effects of firm presence in customer-owned touch points: A self-determination perspective
Customer-owned touch points have emerged as a central context for customers to consume, contribute, and create content while interacting with one another on social media. Research on how firms’ attempts to intervene in such forums affect customers’ experience supremacy is still in its infancy. This study attempts to address this limitation, suggesting a framework for understanding firms’ impact on customer experience in customer-owned forums. Towards this aim, we adopt self-determination theory as a theoretical lens, and, empirically draw on interview material gleaned from customer-owned touch point users. The results show that companies’ attempt to control the discussions in such forums may have a negative impact on customers’ experiences when it undermines their sense of autonomy, relatedness, and competence. However, firms’ intervention is welcome when the intention is to add value, enabling customers to retain or enhance their feeling of self-efficacy and social esteem.
Doc 198 : Fog Computing, Edge Computing and a return to privacy and personal autonomy
Abstract Computing in the Fog and at the Edge of the Internet of Things represent the greatest bilateral data exchange in the lives of others since the advent of the telephone. It may offer more than improved response times and reduced latency in home and personal data services. It may reintroduce user and community control over the data lives generated by remote systems introduced by the Internet of Things. At the same time the invasive risks it presents to home and personal security and privacy may increase regulatory complexity to protect those rights. External sensing of human activity through the Smart City, home and personal IOT devices with locational data introduces many complex issues, beneficial and dangerous. These issues are resolved in a legal-technical-social milieu. Together technical and legal controls for Fog and Edge computing may mediate the data avatars we produce and protect privacy, safety personal autonomy. Those controls must be in harmony, directed towards the protection of the people, and subject to sanctions for failure to comply.
Doc 199 : Withholding effort in sharing knowledge in online space: differential effects of task characteristics
Purpose Knowledge withholding is an important but under-studied topic, which refers to the phenomenon that individuals give less than full effort to contributing knowledge. This study aims to investigate the differential effects of task characteristics on individuals’ knowledge withholding behavior in online space, this study develops and empirically verifies a theoretical model that covers the five core task characteristics in job characteristics model (autonomy, identity, feedback, skill variety and significance), knowledge sharing self-inefficacy and withholding effort in sharing knowledge. Design/methodology/approach Using an online survey method, this study collected empirical data from 351 general internet users from 30 provincial administrative units in China. The data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares. Findings The analysis results indicate that autonomy negatively affects, while identity, skill variety and significance positively affect users’ knowledge withholding behavior in online space through the mediation of knowledge sharing self-inefficacy, and that three task characteristics (autonomy, identity and feedback) strengthen the relationship between knowledge sharing self-inefficacy and knowledge withholding. Practical implications This study provides valuable insights for reducing knowledge withholding behavior in online space. Operationally, different levels of task characteristics such as autonomy, identity and feedback can be set to prevent users from perceiving themselves as inefficacious, and to weaken the behavioral expression of knowledge sharing self-inefficacy. Originality/value This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the differential effects of task characteristics on knowledge withholding in online space, and improves the cognition of the boundaries of withholding effort in sharing knowledge in online space.
Doc 200 : Always available via WhatsApp: Mapping everyday boundary work practices and privacy negotiations
Messaging apps such as WhatsApp collapse temporal and spatial distances and enable continuous interactions. At the same time, messaging apps blur boundaries by default and contribute to the blending of different relational contexts as well as the collapsing of absence and presence. Whereas existing studies have mainly focused on the blurring of boundaries between work and private life, this study expands beyond the personal/professional binary and considers boundary work in more nuanced relational contexts. In order to provide a better understanding of boundary work within messaging practices, we conducted interviews and focus groups with employees from a variety of Dutch workplaces, and with participants of WhatsApp neighborhood crime prevention groups. Our findings highlight two forms of boundary work strategies. First, respondents purposefully tinker with WhatsApp features to manage the boundaries between absence and presence. Second, they use smartphone and WhatsApp functionalities to carefully construct segmentations between different contexts. The meaning of particular contexts, the materiality of messaging apps, and technical know-how play a crucial role in these boundary-sculpting practices. The importance of our study is in noting how the ongoing contradictions of messaging practices—being always available but always negotiating that availability—affect everyday experiences of freedom, privacy, and autonomy in significant ways.
Doc 201 : Behavioral programming of autonomous characters based on probabilistic automata and personality: Research Articles
New educational technologies offer the potential to affect service to all learners, but especially adult learners. Because of this fact, adult educators have become enamored by the possibilities offered through the Internet, distance education, and computers in general. Recently, Adult Learning covered this topic several times. Key research trends deal with the following issues: How much do the new technologies improve access to adult education? Are they as good, in terms of learning outcomes, as more traditional approaches? Are they better than traditional approaches? Are they appropriate for certain groups and not others? If so, what are the parameters of these differences? Are some groups excluded by the heightened emphasis on learning via distance and/or by computer? What are the policy implications of these findings? This column begins an examination of the meaning of new technologies both to educators and the general public. At every turn, there are those who hailed technological breakthroughs as the ultimate panacea; the point at which access will finally be opened and the hurdles to learning will evaporate. It is useful to remember that the Internet and computers are part of a long chain of innovations that have simultaneously promised diffusion and the possibility of interaction. Of course, the first in this chain of diffusion was the printing press, followed by the lending library, which was not a technological innovation. The lending library is still viewed as a democratic invention that encourages the spread of knowledge. Andrew Carnegie, whose Corporation would later be so instrumental in funding organized adult education, had as his primary philanthropic mission the establishment of public libraries. In terms of modern efforts at technology and diffusion, the telephone at one time was hailed as a new educational invention, followed by movies, radio, and television. All offered the potential of allowing people to continue their learning in a convenient fashion, with the possibility of immediate access. The library, nonetheless, preceded all of these. While each provide important sources of diffusion, none live up to the promise of diffusing information to every corner of society. Yet the dream continues. Those writing about the Internet emphasize the possibility it offers for immediate access to information. The new wrinkle, of course is the opportunity for immediate feedback and discussion, which earlier innovations did not possess. This is not quite true, however, since back in the nineteenth century, the telephone possessed the same potential. While all of education is subject to fads, it seems that adult education has more than its share. This is probably due to adult education’s lack of an organized structure with its’ built-in system of control. As many writers indicate, this allows for greater flexibility, but it also precludes the development of a coherent vision. A field without a sense of vision cannot really develop, it merely spurts ahead in many different directions. What, then is the vision presented by the new technologies? This vision is quite simple and embodies principles that define efforts at adult education and diffusion for over one hundred years. They present the possibility of education on demand. The dream is that when computers become the norm, people will be able to access information from all over the world. This is the notion that somehow the wires of technology will replace the older traditions that connected people to each other. …
Doc 203 : Catholicism, Choice and Consciousness:: A Feminist Theological Perspective on Abortion
Despite the apparently irreconcilable conflict between ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ activists in the abortion debate, many feminists and Catholic theologians agree that questions of consciousness, relationality and foetal development are of greater ethical significance than theological claims about the personhood of the embryo or feminist claims about women’s autonomy. This article argues that absolutist positions based on the embryo’s right to life or the woman’s right to choose fail to represent the reality of abortion and the dilemmas it poses. It suggests an approach in which maternal consciousness and foetal development are together recognized as intrinsic to the process of humanization, and argues for a gradual shift in emphasis from the primacy of the woman’s right to choose in the first trimester, to the right to life of the foetus in the third semester. It concludes with a reflection on Mary and Eve, as symbols of women’s eschatological hope and existential reality with regard to childbearing.
Doc 204 : Explaining Biological Functionality: Is Control Theory Enough?
It is generally agreed that organisms are Complex Adaptive Systems. Since the rise of Cybernetics in the middle of the last century ideas from information theory and control theory have been applied to the adaptations of biological organisms in order to explain how they work. This does not, however, explain functionality, which is widely but not universally attributed to biological systems. There are two approaches to functionality, one based on etiology (what a trait was selected for), and the other based in autonomy. I argue that the etiological approach, as understood in terms of control theory, suffers from a problem of symmetry, by which function can equally well be placed in the environment as in the organism. Focusing on the autonomy view, I note that it can be understood to some degree in terms of control theory in its version called second order cybernetics. I present an approach to second order cybernetics that seems plausible for organisms with limited computational power, due to Hooker, Penfold and Evans. They hold that this approach gives something like concepts, certainly abstractions from specific situations, a trait required for functionality in its system adaptive form (i.e., control of the system by itself). Using this cue, I argue that biosemiotics provides the methodology to incorporate these quasi concepts into an account of functionality.
Doc 205 : Questioning autonomy: an alternative perspective on the principles which govern archival description
This article employs lenses of the history of systems thinking and elements of cybernetic thought to develop an alternative perspective on the principles (respect des fonds, provenance and original order) which govern the practice of archival description. It seeks to focus attention on the idea of autonomy and the questioning of this idea that rests within the practice and to demonstrate how this questioning ultimately resolves into a concern with epistemology and with the question of how we can describe the world around us without any point of reference external to ourselves. This article will also suggest an alternative perspective on the principles which govern archival description, namely that they should be seen as an injunction to account for the point of view in points of view. Moreover, that such principles should be seen as governing archival description, not in the sense of directing archivists how to describe archives, but rather in the sense of being an archival expression of the check that governs, the epistemological question inherent in, all our descriptions.
Doc 206 : 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 realityannotations 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 207 : 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 208 : The relationship between ICTs and HPWPs across occupations
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the specific relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) and high performance work practices (HPWP) at employee level, both generally and per job category. Design/methodology/approach – Generalized ordered logit and logit models are estimated in relation to data from 31 European countries using the fourth European Working Conditions Survey. Findings – This paper reveals a generally positive association between ICT use and HPWP participation by workers but different results when ICT and HPWP variables are analysed separately. Worker autonomy and participation in autonomous teams are linked to greater ICT use, but the cases of job rotation and task variety are not so clear. Additionally, the authors find how worker occupation conditions such links and note divergences between high and low-skilled positions. Research limitations/implications – The cross-sectional nature of the data does not allow the authors to report causal relation…
Doc 209 : Healthy Aging Reports: A Conceptual and Ethical Analysis of Vulnerability and Independency
1African Diaspora Healthcare Ethics Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Francis C. Agu Email: agufch{at}gmail.com
Two separate reports from the Dutch Health Council of Netherlands and Social and Cultural Planning Bureau draw our attention to the tension between certain factors specifically related to healthy aging, namely, vulnerability and independency/functioning independently. Though appearing contradictory, both concepts are very relevant in the elderly health care. Hence, the objective was to develop a conceptual and ethical analysis of vulnerability and independency. To achieve that, we conducted a conceptual analysis of more than 80 scientific and philosophical data collected from Pubmed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. Both concepts are mostly defined as separate compartments, thereby missing their intrinsic relationship. For an ethically well-argued analysis of care for the elderly, we present two new definitions in which the concept of dignity provides a fundamental basis of understanding both concepts, which are indeed two human conditions. Furthermore, we underline the implications of the new conceptualization for autonomy, and give some examples of humanly respectful empowerment strategies in the elderly care.
Doc 210 : Effect of contextual factors of online retailing on customer patronage intentions
As an emerging retailing channel,Internet plays a more and more important role in retailing industry.With the intensifying competition in online retailing,retailers lay more emphasis on the effect of the contextual factors of online stores on customer patronage.Based on self-determination theory,this article investigates how product-relevant and market-relevant contextual factors of online retailing affect customers’ need for autonomy and relatedness and,in turn,customer patronage intention;the article also proposes two internalization mechanisms of the effect of contextual factors on customer patronage intentions,i.e.,perceived control and perceived interest.The findings enhance our knowledge of online retailing contextual effects,and provide companies with a new perspective to design online retailing contextual factors.
Doc 211 : Emergence and Downward Causation in Contemporary Artificial Agents: Implications for their Autonomy and Some Design Guidelines.
Contemporary research in artificial environments has marked the need for autonomy in artificial agents. Autonomy has many interpretations in terms of the field within which it is being used and analyzed, but the majority of the researchers in artificial environments are arguing in favor of a strong and life-like notion of autonomy. Departing from this point the main aim of this paper is to examine the possibility of the emergence of autonomy in contemporary artificial agents. The theoretical findings of research in the areas of living and cognitive systems, suggests that the study of autonomous agents should adopt a systemic and emergent perspective for the analysis of the evolutionary development of the notions/properties of autonomy, functionality, intentionality and meaning, as the fundamental and characteristic properties of a natural agent. An analytic indication of the functional emergence of these concepts and properties is provided, based on the characteristics of the more general systemic framework of second-order cybernetic and of the interactivist framework. The notion of emergence is a key concept in such an analysis which in turn provides the ground for the theoretical evaluation of the autonomy of contemporary artificial agents with respect to the functional emergence of their capacities. The fundamental problems for the emergence of genuine autonomy in artificial agents are critically discussed and some design guidelines are provided.
Doc 212 : Concept maps: A tool for knowledge management and synthesis in web-based conversational learning.
Web-based conversational learning provides an opportunity for shared knowledge base creation through collaboration and collective wisdom extraction. Usually, the amount of generated information in such forums is very huge, multidimensional (in alignment with the desirable preconditions for constructivist knowledge creation), and sometimes, the nature of expected new information may not be anticipated in advance. Thus, concept maps (crafted from constructed data) as summary tools may be a solution to improve critical thinking and learning by making connections between the facts or knowledge shared by the participants during online discussion This exploratory paper begins with the description of this innovation tried on a web-based interacting platform (email list management software), FAIMER-Listserv, and generated qualitative evidence through peer-feedback. This process description is further supported by a theoretical construct which shows how social constructivism (inclusive of autonomy and complexity) affects the conversational learning. The paper rationalizes the use of concept map as mid-summary tool for extracting information and further sense making out of this apparent intricacy.
Doc 213 : Non-prescribed collaborative learning using social media tools in a blended learning course
New trend of learning ways is often initiated by fast changing technology and using social media tools to collaborate is a new way of experiential learning. This paper aims at exploring the student experiences in collaborative learning using social media tools in a blended learning course. Through the in-depth exploration of the individual student interviews, the paper attempts to provide an example on the use of social media tools in learning for the institutes to plan for the learning needs due to changes on online technology. The study results confirmed the students engaged in learning through use of social media. It was found that the collaborative learning using social media tools in the course was not instructed by the teachers but was initiated by the students. The collaboration was a non-prescribed activity. This study proposes that social dimension of learning autonomy, could be considered in the community of inquiry framework.
Doc 214 : THE EFFECTS OF ICT-BASED LEARNING ON STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN BANDUNG
ICT plays a vital role in English language learning since it boosts motivation (Schoepp & Erogul, 2001), learners’ autonomy (Tri. et al., 2014) and learning skills (Galavis, 1998). This study aimed to examine the effects of ICT-based learning using wiki on learning of students’ vocabulary mastery at the junior high school. The design of the present study was quasi-experimental study. The population of the study was seventh graders of a junior high school in Bandung. Experimental group and control group comprised of 25 students each. The instruments of the study were a pre-test and a post-test of vocabulary mastery and an online learning platform called wiki. The data were analyzed by SPSS 16.0 for the windows. The findings revealed that there were significant differences at .05 level between experimental group and control group (df= 49, t= 2.02). Furthermore, recommendations are proposed for the teachers whose teaching philosophy is twisted with ICT-based learning. For instance, they should provide an interesting topic on the wiki, let them chat while working online, assign them working at home and well prepare the facilities used in the class before starting of the lesson.
Doc 215 : Sharpening the Scythe of Technological Change: Socio-Technical Challenges of Autonomous and Adaptive Cyber-Physical Systems
Autonomous and Adaptative Cyber-Physical Systems (ACPS) represent a new knowledge frontier of converging “nano-bio-info-cogno” technologies and applications. ACPS have the ability to integrate new `mutagenic’ technologies, i.e., technologies able to cause mutations in the society. Emerging approaches, such as artificial intelligence techniques and deep learning, enable exponential speedups for supporting increasingly higher levels of autonomy and self-adaptation. In spite of this disruptive landscape, however, deployment and broader adoption of ACPS in safety-critical scenarios remains challenging. In this paper, we address some challenges that are stretching the limits of ACPS safety engineering, including tightly related aspects such as ethics and resilience. We argue that a paradigm change is needed that includes the entire socio-technical aspects, including trustworthiness, responsibility, liability, as well as the ACPS ability to learn from past events, anticipate long-term threads and recover from unexpected behaviors.
Doc 216 : Does Team Interaction Exploration Support Resilience in Human Autonomy Teaming?
Project overview As a team explores interactions, they may find opportunities to expand and refine teamwork over time. This can have consequences for team effectiveness in normal and unexpected situations (Woods, 2018). Understanding the role of exploratory team interactions may be relevant for human-autonomy team (HAT) resilience in the face of synthetic agent rigidity and lack of anticipation (Demir et al, 2019). Team interaction exploration was defined as team interactions with qualities (e.g. content, communication medium) unique to a team’s interaction history (Cooke et al., 2013; Hills et al., 2015). This study examines the relationship between team interaction exploration and HAT performance in multiple remotely-piloted aerial system (RPAS) reconnaissance missions with degraded conditions. The goal of the task was to take good photos of target waypoints. In this task, three teammates are assigned to specific roles: the navigator plans the route using a digital map, the pilot (synthetic) controls the RPAS and selects target waypoints, and the photographer calibrates camera settings to take a good photo of a target waypoint. The synthetic agent was capable of routine team coordination without explicit team player qualities. Teams communicated via a text-chat interface. Seven unique degraded conditions were injected throughout ten missions. Three automation failures disrupted RPAS status information on the photographer’s or pilot’s display, and three autonomy failures disrupted the synthetic agent’s comprehension of waypoint information or caused the agent to move on to the next target before a photo was taken. Finally, a malicious cyber-attack caused the synthetic agent to fly the RPAS to an enemy occupied waypoint. Method Forty-four participants were recruited from a large southwestern university in pairs and formed teams (22 teams) to participate in this study. These participants were either undergraduate or graduate students. This experiment consisted of ten 40-minute missions in total that were carried out over two sessions separated by one-to two-week intervals. After a baseline mission, an automation and autonomy failure was injected into each mission while the team processed target waypoints. The malicious cyber-attack occurred during the final 20-minutes of the tenth mission. This study collected a several measures including measures of team process, physiological measures, and surveys of teamwork knowledge, trust, workload, and anthropomorphism which are not considered in this study. Exploratory team interaction was operationalized as any text-message unique in content, sender, or recipient that was unrelated to routine coordination of target waypoints. Teams were grouped using k-means clustering by their target processing efficiency, number of overcome roadblocks, and mission performance. The three clusters ( K = 3) were comparatively described as low- ( N = 7), middle- ( N = 7), and high-performing ( N = 5) teams. A mixed-factor ANOVA compared the frequency of each team’s exploratory interactions by mission and cluster. Results and discussion High-performing teams were distinguished from middle-and low-performing teams in their ability to maintain high levels of overall performance while efficiently processing targets and overcoming many roadblocks. Middle-performing teams were efficient in overcoming roadblocks but had worse mission performance. The findings indicate that 1) high-performing teams explored team interactions more than middle-performing teams, 2) there was no significant difference in exploration frequency between high-and low-performing teams, and 3) teams explored more in the first session than the second session, with the exception of the final mission. Overall, exploratory team interaction differentiated HAT performance in normal and degraded conditions and should be further examined at other levels of interaction, such as content meaning and interaction patterns.
Doc 217 : Shared Control Between Pilots and Autopilots: An Illustration of a Cyberphysical Human System
The 21st century is witnessing large transformations in several sectors related to autonomy, including energy, transportation, robotics, and health care. Decision making using real-time information over a large range of operations (as well as the ability to adapt online in the presence of various uncertainties and anomalies) is the hallmark of an autonomous system. To design such a system, a variety of challenges must be addressed. Uncertainties may occur in several forms, both structured and unstructured. Anomalies may often be severe and require rapid detection and swift action to minimize damage and restore normalcy. This article addresses the difficult task of making autonomous decisions in the presence of severe anomalies. While the specific application of focus is flight control, the overall solutions proposed are applicable for general complex dynamic systems.
The world is constantly undergoing changes, and the Internet is being used as an important teaching resource. From the chalk piece to the computer, technology has been present in school as a link between action and learning for professors and students. Technological tools are more and more frequent in the class room: the computer along with its chief resource – the Internet – have raised a debate about their effectiveness in school education. The use of the Internet in educational programs has revealed that this resource gives rise to educational environments which are different from that of the traditional attendance classes regarding the roles of teachers and students, the flow of information, the degree of autonomy and participation of students, and the development of complex competencies such as those involving the resolution of problems. Nevertheless, experience shows that these results are useful and effective only when teachers are technically prepared for them. To educate using new technology is a challenge which has not yet been thoroughly tackled. Technology may help, but to educate is fundamentally to learn how to manage a set of information and turn it into something significant to the individual, namely knowledge. The introduction of the Internet into school programs acts as a catalyst for change. Therefore it is appropriate to consider this new tool as a precious aid to learning.
In this review, the latest research on wearable chemosensors is presented. In focus are the results from open literature, mainly from the last three years. The progress in wearable chemosensors is presented with attention drawn to the measuring technologies, their ability to provide robust data, the manufacturing techniques, as well their autonomy and ability to produce power. However, from statistical studies, the issue of patients’ trust in these technologies has arisen. People do not trust their personal data be transferred, stored, and processed through the vastness of the internet, which allows for timely diagnosis and treatment. The issue of power consumption and autonomy of chemosensor-integrated devices is also studied and the most recent solutions to this problem thoroughly presented.
Doc 220 : Values‐Alignment Messaging Boosts Adolescents’ Motivation to Control Social Media Use
Two preregistered experiments with 2,733 U.S. high school students (age range = 13-19 years) compared the impact of different messages on adolescents’ motivation to control social media use (SMU). A traditional message emphasized the benefits of avoiding SMU, whereas a values-alignment message framed controlling SMU as being consistent with autonomy and social justice. Compared to no message or a traditional message, in both studies, a values-alignment message led to greater motivation to control SMU immediately afterward, and in Study 2, awareness of “addictive” social media designs 3 months later. As hypothesized, values-alignment messaging was more motivating for girls than boys. Results offer preliminary support for leveraging adolescents’ drives for autonomy and social justice to motivate self-regulation of SMU.
Doc 221 : A principlist framework for cybersecurity ethics
The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders.
Doc 222 : Electronic Contracts and Cloud Computing
The maxim that ‘information is power’ is relevant now more than ever. Until recently, most information was scattered, disorganized and awkward to find then acquire. Google was one of the first to realize how digital technology changed that by encoding information as 1s and 0s. Google’s corporate mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. The relations between Google, Facebook and other social spheres on the internet emphasize their ‘relative autonomy.’ The intuition behind the ‘relative autonomy’ formula is that they are neither wholly independent of, nor entirely reducible to, political, legal, economic and other social processes. This article examines the relation between Google, Facebook and other social spheres. The theory examined will be Niklas Luhmann’s theory of ‘autopoiesis.’ This article presents autopoietic theory with particular attention to the way in which Luhmann reformulates the ‘relative autonomy’ problem. Throughout, the article focuses on the connections between autopoietic theory and issues of Google, Facebook and contemporary legal theory.
Doc 223 : Teletandem, video-recordings and usage based tasks: developing a socially situated scenario for learning
The paper describes how telecollaboration is implemented at the University of Salento (Italy) and how the experience of peer language exchange with foreign partners via VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology has become the nucleus for developing a socially situated learning scenario, designed to promote basically oral interactional skills and learning in autonomy. The instructional program is based on different forms of web 2.0 technology mediated interactions with foreigner partners and on workshops during which students are asked to analyse their video-recorded interactions, completing usage based tasks. The learning scenario is a part of the language teaching curriculum of foreign language university degree courses for which credits are awarded.
Doc 224 : Utilizing BDI Agents and a Topological Theory for Mining Online Social Networks
Online social networks OSN are facing challenges since they have been extensively applied to different domains including online social media, e-commerce, biological complex networks, financial analysis, and so on. One of the crucial challenges for OSN lies in information overload and network congestion. The demands for efficient knowledge discovery and data mining methods in OSN have been rising in recent year, particularly for online social applications, such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In this paper, a Belief-Desire-Intention BDI agent-based method has been developed to enhance the capability of mining online social networks. Current data mining techniques encounter difficulties of dealing with knowledge interpretation based on complex data sources. The proposed agent-based mining method overcomes network analysis difficulties, while enhancing the knowledge discovery capability through its autonomy and collective intelligence.
Doc 225 : USING ONLINE RESOURCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNER AUTONOMY AND ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION: THE CASE OF INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS
The paper presents the findings of a quasi-experimental study which sought to explore the effectiveness of online resources on the development of learner autonomy and to determine whether increased autonomy results in greater pronunciation gains as well as to compare it with the effects of traditional instruction when it comes to individual students. What is more, the study sets out to determine whether the gains in the two areas are maintained over time with respect to individual learners. The subjects were 45 Polish senior high school learners. The targeted structure was the final -ed sound of the simple past tense of regular English verbs. Three groups, two experimental and one control group, participated in the study. The intervention spanned the period of two weeks. The learners in Experimental Group 1 were provided with access to the Internet and were thus allowed to exercise more freedom in learning English pronunciation. The students in Experimental Group 2 were taught in a traditional way (i.e. controlled by the teacher) and the learners in the control group did not receive any instruction. The data were collected by means of a pronunciation autonomy questionnaire, as well as pronunciation tests administered before and after the study was concluded. The results reveal that the majority of individual students in Experimental Group 1 showed more autonomy and they outperformed their counterparts on the tests, which provides a justification for using digital technology as a tool for promoting autonomy and teaching pronunciation.
Doc 226 : El constructivismo cibernético como metateoría educativa : aportaciones al estudio y regulación de los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje
This paper discusses the basic propositions from the constructivist theory and the second-order cybernetics to study the teaching and learning processes. As a metatheory, the cybernetic constructivism provides a new theoretical framework to analyse and better regulate the educational process with the aid of a new approaches. First, this article analyses the most representative metatheory ideas: cognition, self-awareness and structural fine-tuning in order to infer a new approach to rethink the educational praxis and to promote the pupil individual autonomy. In addition, we infer to the educational process a new pedagogical approach focused to the individual autonomy, the co-operation and the communication on the educational intra-system.
Doc 227 : Adjustable Autonomy for Teleoperated Internet Robots: Adjustable Autonomy for Teleoperated Internet Robots
Doc 228 : An Empirical Investigation into the Perceived Usefulness of Socio-technical Exchange in India: Social Identity, Social Exchange, and Social Vicinity
Socio-technical networks are based on knowledge building and information sharing. The power and alternative to control over self-representation on social networking Web sites brings certain autonomy to an individual and, as a result, has an impact on the style of the exchange. Some of the specific objectives of the study are to study the emerging style of socio-technical exchange and to identify the characteristics of an emerging socio-technical society. This study found that social identity, social exchange, and social vicinity are the key characteristics of the emerging socio-technical exchange. A gradual paradigm shift from traditional societies to knowledge-based societies was observed. While, on one hand, a high dependency and usage of social networking Web sites was observed, on the other hand, the level of trust and dependency between the community members was found to be diminishing.
Cybernetics Academy Odobleja commemorates the name of the Romanian physician, psychologist and cybernetician Stefan Odobleja. Its Vice-President in France organized the First Seminar on Human Autonomy and Interdependence which was held in June 1988. This paper reviews some of the contributions to the Seminar. It also describes individual and social modes of human behaviour in terms of cybernetics and systems analysis, with a focus on group conflict. Some extracts from a provisional glossary of social cybernetics are appended.
Doc 230 : 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 231 : 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 232 : Self care and consumer health. Do we need a public health ethics
Bioethical principlism is not enough for dealing with global public health issues
Bioethical principlism places an emphasis on autonomy. In a certain analogous way, modern promotional public health emphasises the role of self care as a key element to achieve healthy states. One of the many presumed available sources of guidance in health is information provided on the internet. Both this information’s quality and the tools to measure it are considered highly inconsistent. This topic has become a matter of bioethical concern, because of the possibilities for harm (maleficence) to potential users. On the other hand, there are large contingents worldwide consisting solely of non-consumers unable to dedicate themselves to self care practices. This brief commentary considers some issues related to a global perspective towards what may be considered pertinent to a public health ethics.
The domains of health ethics have been occupied by new issues. Emerging circumstances clearly call for the field’s revalidation. One example is the discussion of a so called “global” bioethics, not focused exclusively on problems in the economically strong nations.1 Other emerging ethical issues involve “e-health”, or the availability of health related content through electronic information networks. New specialties such as telemedicine and cybermedicine are thus appearing in the area of medical informatics. There are already specialised journals on e-health and literature on corresponding ethical issues.
Under such circumstances it becomes untenable to insist on the traditional place of the “patient”, who requires the proximity of his/her …
Doc 233 : Bounded Rationality Through the Filter of the Lisbon Objectives
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have created best conditions for grows of knowledge societies. An emerging global information society serves to building global knowledge societies as source for further development. Conventional paradigms of sciences starts to be more blemish and prone to redefinition of there foundations, understood as scientific knowledge. The perspective of knowledge and ideals of rationality are both heavily influenced by a new contemporary scientific thinking, through tools, inherent of autonomy and uncertainty. A new understanding of the world in terms of open dynamic heterogeneous uncertain systems is needed. Among the conclusions: classical rational reasoning is mainly aiming at effectiveness, not at uncertain knowledge processing, because of its temporality (mainly its ineffectiveness in dealing with future events); a bounded-rationality approach enables both, better economic models and better modelling, being based on trends in economic modelling as well as on agent-oriented software engineering.
Doc 234 : Research on Web-based Autonomous English Learning of Engineering Students
With the development of computer and internet technology, web-based autonomous learning is increasingly becoming an essential element in the learning process for college students. Web-based autonomous learning, based on humanism and constructivism, has combined autonomous learning and internet technology, and opened up a new path to college English learning. Mastering English is even more important for engineering students whose native language is not English, as many engineering graduates encounter difficulties in their English-related work. Most scientific papers or journals globally are written in English. Most engineering graphs are also marked in English. To prepare engineering students for their future careers and life-long study, research is conducted in this paper to investigate the current situation of web-based autonomous English learning of engineering students in particular and current problems in their process of learning. Based on research findings, possible solutions and suggestions are proposed to solve the problems and improve students’ autonomy in English learning.
Doc 235 : La comunicación y la colaboración vistas a través de la experiencia en un MOOC
The following text presents an analysis of communication and collaboration as two central aspects in the design of virtual learning environments, noticing that in many offered courses the design does not necessarily focus on creating learning communities, but to develop a series of learning activities that basically maintain a control scheme by teaching through moderation and instructions, which leaves little margin for autonomy and self-management among students. To this end, has been analyzed the MOOC Information and Communication Technologies in Education in the Coursera platform. The working methodology was based on the review of the main concepts (communication and collaboration) discussed in relation to the AVA, the main topics of discussion forums, management students in learning communities, participation in various communication channels, results of course approval. These results demonstrated that communication and collaboration is possible in MOOCs, and how autonomy and motivation is substantial for collaborative efforts among hundreds of participants. The study confirmed that collaborative products can be made voluntarily, if participants have a common language and similar incentives.
Doc 236 : Getting comfortable: gender, class and belonging in the ‘new’ Port Moresby
Port Moresby is consistently represented as a place that is dangerous for women. While recent transformations in the city have benefited some more than others, developments in the city are allowing for the creation of new ‘spatial texts’ in a place notorious for constraining women. In this article, I explore feminist geographer Linda McDowell’s idea that the city is a place in which the active, independent woman comes into her own. Drawing on focus groups, emails and photos sent to me by educated, ‘middle class’ Papua New Guinean women living in Port Moresby, I demonstrate that the city’s new places are paradoxical, even liberating places. The article reveals both the extent of women’s subordination in the city and the emerging possibilities for middle class women to experience a degree of autonomy. Nevertheless as Radice notes, women must endlessly renegotiate their experience of comfort in relation to others, including those whose lives are less comfortable.
Doc 237 : Smartphone-Delivered Peer Physical Activity Counseling Program for Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury: Protocol for Development and Pilot Evaluation
https://doi.org/10.2196/10798 Krista L Best François Routhier Shane N Sweet Emilie Lacroix Kelly P. Arbour-Nicitopoulos Jaimie F. Borisoff
Background: Leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) is a critical component of a healthy lifestyle for individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). However, most individuals are not sufficiently active to accrue health benefits. The Active Living Lifestyles program for individuals with SCI who use manual wheelchairs (ALLWheel) targets important psychological factors that are associated with LTPA uptake and adherence while overcoming some barriers associated with participation restrictions. Objective: The goal of the paper is to describe the protocol for the development and evaluation of the ALLWheel program for individuals with SCI who use manual wheelchairs. Methods: The first three stages of the Medical Research Council framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions (ie, preclinical, modeling, exploratory) are described. The preclinical phase will consist of scoping and systematic reviews and review of theory. The intervention will be modeled by expert opinions and consensus through focus groups and Delphi surveys with individuals with SCI, clinicians, and community partners. Finally, the feasibility and potential influence of the ALLWheel program on LTPA and psychological outcomes will be evaluated. Results: This project is funded by the Craig H Neilsen Foundation, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec–Santé, and the Canadian Disability Participation Project and is currently underway. Conclusions: Using peer trainers and mobile phone technology may help to cultivate autonomy-supportive environments that also enhance self-efficacy. Following a framework for developing and evaluating a novel intervention that includes input from stakeholders at all stages will ensure the final product (ie, a replicable intervention) is desirable to knowledge users and ready for evaluation in a randomized controlled trial. If effective, the ALLWheel program has the potential to reach a large number of individuals with SCI to promote LTPA uptake and adherence. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): RR1-10.2196/10798
Doc 238 : The Impact of Social Strategies through Smartphones on the Saudi Learners Socio-cultural Autonomy in EFL Reading Context
This study investigated the impact of social strategies mediated by smartphone features and applications socio-cultural autonomy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading context among undergraduates in Saudi Arabia. Two EFL reading classes of 70 students acted as an experimental and a control group participated in this study. A questionnaire was administered to collect the quantitative data from the participants prior to and post the interventional programme. The experimental group utilised their own smartphone features and applications (dictionaries, WhatsApp, camera, internet search engines, notes, and recorders) to employ the social strategies of asking for clarification and correction, cooperating and empathising with others inside and outside the classroom for 12 weeks whereas the control group learned using the traditional methods. The findings of the study revealed that the employment of social strategies mediated by smartphone features and applications promoted the learners’ socio-culturally autonomous learning characteristics of interaction, interdependence, self-regulation, self-worth, mutual support, and understating in EFL reading context. It is recommended strategy use training programmes and smartphones integration in language learning should be highly considered in curricula design, teaching and learning methods, training programmes in order to empower learners to take more responsible roles in the learning of EFL reading skills.
Doc 239 : Ambiance Intelligence Approach Using IoT and Multi-Agent System
Internet of things is a network of objects mainly supported by electronic devices and electronic components such as sensors and electronic cards. These objects can be physical and virtual devices, sensors or actuators, are autonomous and have their own intelligence characteristics. On the other hand, smart environments are those in which sensors and actuators have been integrated, to react to events and to adapt to those present. The environment acquires intelligence through its intelligent components, or through the intelligence resulting from its interaction with other components. Our contribution is a proposal of Cognitive IoT (CIoT) devices structure by adding an agent layer to the device. Such layer provides the device with agent characteristics (intelligence, autonomy, cooperation and organization).
Doc 240 : Students’ behavioural engagement in reviewing their tele-consultation feedback within an online clinical communication skills platform
Abstract The benefit of reviewing personal feedback to students’ learning of clinical communication skills is well researched. Less is known about the factors that related to students’ engagement in reviewing non-compulsory online feedback, and ways to motivate their behavioural engagement. In this paper, we reported two studies in which medical students completed assessed clinical video conferencing consultations with human simulated patients via an online training platform that also provided automated and human feedback for students. In Study 1, three days after the consultation, an email with different instructional styles (autonomy-supportive, controlling or control) was sent to different groups reminding students to review their feedback. In Study 2, up to three repetitions of the same, either autonomy-supportive or controlling, emails were sent to students. Results of Study 1 revealed that students who reviewed feedback before receiving emails achieved higher assessment results and reported higher degree of autonomy to participate in the training program than the remaining students. However, the different instructional styles of the single email in this study did not significantly influence the students’ engagement differently. Study 2 results revealed that students who received controlling emails displayed higher engagement than students who received autonomy-supportive emails. Findings suggested that multiple factors might influence students’ engagement in reviewing their online feedback, and this study provided evidences of the effects of using emails to motivate students to review the feedback.
Doc 241 : Factors Influencing Colon and Rectal Surgery Residency Program Selection
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.01.042 Scott R. Kelley Dorin T. Colibaseanu Kellie L. Mathis Amy L. Lightner Amit Merchea David W. Larson Nitin Mishra Eric J. Dozois
Little information exists to help colon and rectal surgery residency programs determine which factors applicants find important when selecting a training program. Our aim was to identify factors applicants find pertinent in the selection of their desired colon and rectal surgery residency program.After the 2016 and 2017 National Resident Matching Program (The Match), a 58-question anonymous web-based survey was sent to all trainees who applied to our colon and rectal surgery residency program to determine factors applicants find important in selecting colon and rectal surgery residency training programs.Of 196 invitation emails sent, a total of five were returned with unidentifiable addresses leaving 191 surveys for possible completion. The survey response rate was 62.8% (n = 120). The top 10 areas identified as strongly to moderately influential in residency program selection included faculty experience, balanced training, operative volume, operative complexity, autonomy, faculty reputation, employment opportunities, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education index case volumes, office/clinic complexity, and current resident/fellow input.Multiple elements were identified as strongly to moderately influential when selecting a training program. Training programs can use these named factors for resident recruitment, development, and self-assessment.
Doc 242 : La educación que limita es la que libera
Today it is more common to find the concept of education linked to terms such as emancipation, autonomy, or freedom, than to norms, discipline, authority, submission or boundaries. This article sets out to show that limits, norms, rules, and even physical limitations are fundamental in education because they are an essential part of human reality and the human condition. Its main thesis is that rules not only regulate human activities from outside, but they also operate from the root of the activity itself as an expression of the peculiar rationality of human beings and their way of being in the world. The article firstly demonstrates this thesis by examining certain physical limitations that are approached educationally, and then in various other human areas, such as language, play, ecology, the Internet, and sexuality. It also shows how rules, by limiting the possibilities for how certain actions will develop, allow us to intuit or glimpse other types of limits and other possibilities —not always better ones— for human development and its standards. From an anthropological perspective, this has led us to suggest how an individual’s future possibilities expand, increase, and develop if her family, school and social settings for growth are spaces bounded by limits and norms. These allow her to feel safe enough to begin a process of critical assimilation of her received inheritance. The subject better understands reality, and the different possibilities for evaluating that reality, when the process of evaluation starts from a relatively enclosed perspective (with limits and norms) on the received tradition.
Doc 243 : Instant-messaging for improving literacy and communication skills in FLT: students’ evaluation
<p>The present work presents an example of using Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) with the aim to increase students’ hours of exposure to English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Since class time is sometimes limited, it is necessary to look for reinforcement tasks for students to properly develop literacy and communication skills. In addition, CMC is considered by scholars a new variety of language, with its own features and rules, one that students must master as well as other traditional language varieties. As secondary goals, this project intended to develop students’ motivation, autonomy, linguistic awareness and cooperative learning. By using a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) application, Remind, students were encouraged to communicate in groups and, thereby, supplement hours of practicing the foreign language outside the classroom, without limitation of time and space. Students evaluated the task by means of an online questionnaire and results proved to be positive, showing that they enjoyed the activity and considered it useful and effective. Moreover, they realised the importance of cooperative learning, of responsibility and of being aware of their own learning process. Likewise, the real and authentic purpose of communication enhanced motivation among students.</p>
Doc 244 : Nationalism in the Digital Age: Fun as a Metapractice of Extreme Speech
Critical assessments of the recent resurgence of right-wing nationalism have rightly highlighted the role of social media in these troubling times, yet they are constrained by an overemphasis on celebrity leaders defined as populists. This article departs from a leader-centric analysis and the liberal frame that still largely informs assessment of political action, to foreground “fun” as a salient aspect of right-wing mobilization. Building on ethnographic fieldwork among the Hindu nationalists in India, I argue that fun is a metapractice that shapes the interlinked practices of fact-checking, abuse, assembly, and aggression among online volunteers for the right-wing movement. Furthermore, fun remains crucial for an experience of absolute autonomy among online users in ideological battles. Providing the daily drip feed for exclusion, fun as a metapractice bears a formal similarity to objectivity in its performative effects of distance and deniability.
Doc 245 : Team Coordination of Team Situation Awareness in Human-Autonomy Teaming
Project Overview Team Situation Awareness (TSA), which is a part of team cognition, is a critical factor that influences team effectiveness. It can be defined as getting the right information from the right person within the right amount of time, in order to overcome an unexpected event (Gorman, Cooke, Pederson, Connor, & DeJoode, 2005). TSA is developed and maintained through team interactions, allowing for the measurement of TSA based on team interaction (Cooke & Gorman, 2009). In the current study, a specific measure, Coordinated Awareness of Situation by Teams (CAST) is used (Cooke & Gorman, 2009). CAST evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of team interaction under “roadblock” scenarios (Gorman, Cooke, & Winner, 2006). These roadblocks represent novel situations in the task and require effective team communication and coordination. Team members must assess the situation according to their own specialized role and/or resources and coordinate with other team members to overcome each separate roadblock. In this task, effective communication refers to team anticipation. That is, each team member needs to anticipate each other’s needs by pushing information rather than pulling information during the task (Demir, McNeese, & Cooke, 2017). In this study, we examined how pushing and pulling information, and CAST were associated with Team Situation Awareness (TSA) in both Human-Autonomy (HAT) and all-human teams in simulated Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) task environment. In this research, we integrated the synthetic agent to the Cognitive Engineering Research on Team Tasks Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems - Synthetic Task Environment (CERTT-RPAS-STE) which was designed to be both a flexible research platform and a realistic task environment with a view to researching team performance and interaction-based measures of team cognition. In the simulated CERTT testbed, there are three heterogeneous teammates who need to take good photos of each target waypoint by communicating via text-chat: (1) the navigator who creates a dynamic flight plan and provides information about the waypoints, the RPA’s airspeed, and altitude restrictions to the pilot; (2) the pilot, who controls the RPA’s heading, altitude, and airspeed, and negotiates with the photographer in order to take a good photo; and (3) the photographer, who monitors sensor equipment in order to take photographs of target waypoints and sends feedback to the other team members about the quality of the photo. This project aimed to understand how team behaviors and team performance differed between HATs and all-human teams in RPAS operations: (1) the synthetic condition—the pilot role was given to the synthetic teammate, which was an ACT-R based cognitive model (which had a limited interaction ability, see Ball et al., 2010; Demir et al., 2015); (2) the control condition—the pilot was a randomly selected human participant, just like the other two participants; and (3) the experimenter condition—one of the experimenters served as an expert pilot. Experimenter condition utilized a Wizard of Oz paradigm in which a trained experimenter (located in a separate room) used a script to imitate a synthetic teammate and communicated with participants in limited communication behaviors but pushing and pulling information in a timely manner (robust coordination). Method There were 30 teams (10 for each condition): control teams consisted of three participants randomly assigned to each role; synthetic and experimenter teams included two participants randomly assigned to the navigator and photographer roles. The experiment took place over five 40-minute missions, and the goal was to take as many “good” photos of ground targets as possible while avoiding alarms and rule violations. During each mission, teams were presented with “roadblocks” by the introduction of a new, ad hoc target waypoint. We collected several measures, but we focused on: the proportion of roadblocks overcome per mission as an outcome measure of TSA; the CAST which is a coordination sequence of team interaction across the team members (i.e. which team members share with team members their experience during the roadblock); and verbal behaviors such as pushing and pulling information. Results and discussion In this team task, effective teamwork involves anticipating the needs of teammates, which in turn means pushing information before it is requested. However, in addition to anticipation, effective coordination is also needed during roadblocks. HATs demonstrated significantly lower levels of CAST than all-human teams. These results indicate that HATs’ lack of anticipation and coordination resulted in poorer TSA performance. These findings help HATs to grow its coordination and communication methodologies. Finally, future studies might examine the relationships highlighted in this study via nonlinear measures in terms of team stability and flexibility based on their communication and coordination patterns during the novel events. HAT is here to stay but improvements to human-machine interactions must continue if we are to improve team effectiveness.
Doc 246 : Artificial Intelligence as a New Category of Civil Law
This research gives consideration to the legal status of artificial intelligence technology. Artificial intelligence as a future technology is actively expanding its capabilities at the present stage of development of society. In this regard, the concept of ‘artificial intelligence’ and the application of the rule of right in resolving issues of legal responsibility for the operation of artificial intelligence technologies require definition. The main purpose of this study is to define the concept of ‘artificial intelligence’ and determine whether artificial intelligence technologies are the object or subject of right. The article provides the analysis of possible approaches to the disclosure of the concept of ‘artificial intelligence’ as a legal category and its relationship with the concepts of ‘robot’ and ‘cyberphysical system’. The issues of legal responsibility for the operation of artificial intelligence are revealed. For the purposes hereof, the methods of collecting and studying the singularities; generalizations; the methods of scientific abstraction; the methods of cognition of consistent patterns, as well as the method of objectivity, concreteness, pluralism and a whole range of other methods were used. The study has concluded that the artificial intelligence technology is an autonomous self-organizing computer-software or cyberphysical system with the ability and capability to think, learn, make decisions independently, perceive and model surrounding images and symbols, relationships, processes and implement its own decisions. The following general properties of artificial intelligence technologies have been defined: autonomy; the ability to perceive the conditions (situation), make and implement own decisions; the ability to adapt own behavior, to learn, to communicate with other artificial intelligence, to consider, accumulate and reproduce experience (including human experience). Within the present historical period, artificial intelligence technology should be considered as the object of right. The legal responsibility for the operation of artificial intelligence lies with the operator or another person who sets the parameters of its operation and controls its behavior. The creator (manufacturer) of artificial intelligence is also recognized as a responsible person. This conclusion makes it possible to enter the category of artificial intelligence in the legal field and determine the persons responsible for its poor-quality operation.
Cyber-physical systems operate in our real world, constantly interacting with the environment and collaborating with other systems. The increasing number of devices will make it infeasible to control each one individually. It will also be infeasible to prepare each of them for every imaginable rapidly unfolding situation. Therefore, we must increase the autonomy of future Cyber-physical Systems. Making these systems self-aware allows them to reason about their own capabilities and their immediate environment. In this article, we extend the idea of the self-awareness of individual systems toward networked self-awareness . This gives systems the ability to reason about how they are being affected by the actions and interactions of others within their perceived environment, as well as in the extended environment that is beyond their direct perception. We propose that different levels of networked self-awareness can develop over time in systems as they do in humans. Furthermore, we propose that this could have the same benefits for networks of systems that it has had for communities of humans, increasing performance and adaptability.
Doc 248 : Combining the strength of centralized control and distributed autonomy for crowdsourcing design: An integrated model of Blackboard and Bayesian network
Socialized product design (SPD) mode, enabled by advanced internet technologies and sharing economic trends, has the capability of utilizing the design resources from large numbers of socialized designers (SDs) to carry out the design tasks that used to be participated by only the internal R&D staffs of companies. During SPD projects, different kinds of mechanisms can be applied to organize the SDs. Some of them tend to be centralized control (e.g. crowdsourcing design) and some are more of distributed autonomy (e.g. opensourcing design). Both centralized control and distributed autonomy have their strengths and limitations for SPD. Centralized control enables more organized, focused, and efficient project execution, but it limits the emergence of collective intelligence among the SDs. Distributed autonomy helps to explore the innovation potential of SDs by granting them the freedom of communication and mutual inspiration, but it may cause the problem of unreliable and unpredictable design process. To complement the advantages of centralized control and distributed autonomy in SPD, an integrated model of Blackboard and Bayesian network is established in this paper. The Blackboard, whose Control modules are specially customized for human Knowledge sources, is for guaranteeing overall control of the distributed design process and at the same time permitting certain level of autonomy to the SDs. The Bayesian network, built with an improved Bayesian causal map method, is an embedded Control module of the Blackboard which evaluates design solutions according to the incomplete collective judgments from SDs. The operability of the integrated model has been verified through a case study of 3D printer conceptual design project.
Doc 249 : History Lessons for a General Theory of Law and Technology
Our society thrives on new technology and technological advance. We enjoy the internet, clothes that do not wrinkle or stain, and the wonders of medical biotechnology. A century of innovation has improved our lives in myriad ways. We are healthier, wealthier, and, if not necessarily happier, have a vastly greater variety of options for how to spend our leisure time. The marvels of technological advance are not always riskfree. The risks presented by new technologies can take varying forms: deleterious effects on human health or the environment, concerns about individual autonomy and privacy, or concerns relating to community or moral values. Such risks and perceived risks often create new issues and disputes to which
Doc 250 : Is There a Duty to Be a Digital Minimalist?
The harms associated with wireless mobile devices (e.g. smartphones) are well documented. They have been linked to anxiety, depression, diminished attention span, sleep disturbance, and decreased relationship satisfaction. Perhaps what is most worrying from a moral perspective, however, is the effect these devices can have on our autonomy. In this article, we argue that there is an obligation to foster and safeguard autonomy in ourselves, and we suggest that wireless mobile devices pose a serious threat to our capacity to fulfill this obligation. We defend the existence of an imperfect duty to be a ‘digital minimalist’. That is, we have a moral obligation to be intentional about how and to what extent we use these devices. The empirical findings already justify prudential reasons in favor of digital minimalism, but the moral duty is distinct from and independent of prudential considerations.
Doc 251 : ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICAL PRACTICE: REGULATIVE ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES
The aim of the research is to identify specific of AI in healthcare, its nature, and specifics and to establish complexities of AI implementation in healthcare and to propose ways to eliminate them. Materials and methods: This study was conducted during June-October of 2020. Through a broad literature review, analysis of EU, USA regulation acts, scientific researches and opinions of progressive-minded people in this sphere this paper provide a guide to understanding the essence of AI in healthcare and specifics of its regulation. It is based on dialectical, comparative, analytic, synthetic and comprehensive methods. Results: One of the first broad definitions of AI sounded like “Artificial Intelligence is the study of ideas which enable computers to do the things that make people seem intelligent … The central goals of Artificial Intelligence are to make computers more useful and to understand the principles which make intelligence possible.” There are two approaches to name this technology - “Artificial intelligence” and “Augmented Intelligence.” We prefer to use a more common category of “Artificial intelligence” rather than “Augmented Intelligence” because the last one, from our point of view, leaves much space for “human supervision” meaning, and that will limit the sense of AI while it will undoubtedly develop in future. AI in current practice is interpreted in three forms, they are: AI as a simple electronic tool without any level of autonomy (like electronic assistant, “calculator”), AI as an entity ith some level of autonomy, but under human control, and AI as an entity with broad autonomy, substituting human’s activity wholly or partly, and we have to admit that the first one cannot be considered as AI at all in current conditions of science development. Description of AI often tends to operate with big technological products like DeepMind (by Google), Watson Health (by IBM), Healthcare’s Edison (by General Electric), but in fact, a lot of smaller technologies also use AI in the healthcare field – smartphone applications, wearable health devices and other examples of the Internet of Things. At the current stage of development AI in medical practice is existing in three technical forms: software, hardware, and mixed forms using three main scientific-statistical approaches – flowchart method, database method, and decision-making method. All of them are useable, but they are differently suiting for AI implementation. The main issues of AI implementation in healthcare are connected with the nature of technology in itself, complexities of legal support in terms of safety and efficiency, privacy, ethical and liability concerns. Conclusion: The conducted analysis makes it possible to admit a number of pros and cons in the field of AI using in healthcare. Undoubtedly this is a promising area with a lot of gaps and grey zones to fill in. Furthermore, the main challenge is not on technology itself, which is rapidly growing, evolving, and uncovering new areas of its use, but rather on the legal framework that is clearly lacking appropriate regulations and some political, ethical, and financial transformations. Thus, the core questions regarding is this technology by its nature is suitable for healthcare at all? Is the current legislative framework looking appropriate to regulate AI in terms of safety, efficiency, premarket, and postmarked monitoring? How the model of liability with connection to AI technology using in healthcare should be constructed? How to ensure privacy without the restriction of AI technology use? Should intellectual privacy rights prevail over public health concerns? Many questions to address in order to move in line with technology development and to get the benefits of its practical implementation.
Doc 252 : Towards trustworthy Cyber-physical Production Systems: A dynamic agent accountability approach
Smart manufacturing is a challenging trend being fostered by the Industry 4.0 paradigm. In this scenario Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are particularly elected for modeling such types of intelligent, decentralised processes, thanks to their autonomy in pursuing collective and cooperative goals. From a human perspective, however, increasing the confidence in trustworthiness of MAS based Cyber-physical Production Systems (CPPS) remains a significant challenge. Manufacturing services must comply with strong requirements in terms of reliability, robustness and latency, and solution providers are expected to ensure that agents will operate within certain boundaries of the production, and mitigate unattended behaviours during the execution of manufacturing activities. To address this concern, a Manufacturing Agent Accountability Framework is proposed, a dynamic authorization framework that defines and enforces boundaries in which agents are freely permitted to exploit their intelligence to reach individual and collective objectives. The expected behaviour of agents is to adhere to CPPS workflows which implicitly define acceptable regions of behaviours and production feasibility. Core contributions of the proposed framework are: a manufacturing accountability model, the representation of the Leaf Diagrams for the governance of agent behavioural autonomy, and an ontology of declarative policies for the identification and avoidance of ill-intentioned behaviours in the execution of CPPS services. We outline the application of this enhanced trustworthiness framework to an agent-based manufacturing use-case for the production of a variety of hand tools.
Doc 253 : “Sometimes I don’t have a pulse … and I’m still alive!” Interviews with healthcare professionals to explore their experiences of and views on population-based digital health technologies
Digital technologies are increasingly becoming an integral part of our daily routine and professional lives, and the healthcare field is no exception. Commercially available digital health technologies (DHTs - e.g. smartphones, smartwatches and apps) may hold significant potential in healthcare upon successful and constructive implementation. Literature on the topic is split between enthusiasm associated with potential benefits and concerns around privacy, reliability and overall effectiveness. However, little is known about what healthcare professionals (HCPs) have experienced so far with patients and what they perceive as the main advantages and disadvantages of adoption. This study therefore aims to investigate current perceptions of HCPs towards self-tracked health-related outputs from devices and apps available to the public.Nine HCPs volunteered to take part in semi-structured interviews. Related data were thematically analysed, following a deductive approach with the construction of a framework based on expected themes from the relevant literature, and themes identified from the first two interviews.The following main themes in relation to DHTs were identified and explored in detail: HCPs’ experience, knowledge and views; advantages and disadvantages; barriers towards healthcare implementation and potential solutions; future directions. While most participants were adopters of DHTs and held positive views about them, their overall experience with patients and the technology was limited. Potential reasons for this were explored, including factors such as time/resources; colleagues’ mindset; lack of evidence of effectiveness for practice; data security concerns.The potential advantages of DHTs’ adoption in healthcare are substantial, e.g. patient autonomy, time/resources saving, health and behaviour change promotion, but are presently premature. Therefore, future research is warranted, focussing on addressing barriers, minimising disadvantages, and assessing the clinical value of commercially available DHTs.
Doc 254 : Research on Migrant Works’ Concern Recognition and Emotion Analysis Based on Web Text Data
Based on the characteristics of convenience, autonomy, and equality, online self-media has become an important way for contemporary migrant workers to observe the world, understand society, examine themselves and express their demands. On the basis of the analysis of the domestic migrant works’ concerns and their emotion analysis, we crawl data on Weibo about migrant works’ topics as the basic corpus of migrant works’ concerns, and then uses a combination of TF-IDF and Word2Vec methods to construct a recognition model of migrant workers’ concerns. We found that wages, children’s education, medical care and returning home are the main concerns of migrant workers. Meanwhile, further emotion analysis of the migrant works’ concerns of using a deep learningmodel fused with Bi-LSTM and CNN was conducted. The results show that the proportion of negative emotion such as worries, complaints and impetuosity was significantly higher than that of other positive and neutral emotion like encourage and comfort. And the time when the negative emotion are concentrated is significantly related to the social events that occur in the corresponding time period. On the one hand, it shows that the concerns and emotion of migrant workers can be effectively observed and predicted through web text data. On the other hand, it also shows that the core well-being issues of migrant workers in the process of urban integration have not been effectively solved, and the government and relevant departments need to take targeted measures and give priority attention.
Doc 255 : The ‘Ethification’ of ICT Governance. Artificial Intelligence and Data Protection in the European Union
Several European Commission’s initiatives have been resorting to ethics in policy discourses as a way to govern and regulate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of invocations of ‘ethics’, especially concerning the recent debate on (the regulation of) Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be referred to as the ‘ethification’ phenomenon. This article aims to elucidate the benefits and drawbacks of the ethification of ICT governance, and its effects on the articulations of law, technology and politics in democratic constitutional states. First, the article will provide a mapping to locate where the ethics work is being produced in the EU. Second, the authors will distinguish different types of ethics based on the mapping. Third, the ethification phenomenon will be analyzed through the concepts of boundary and convergence work, where we will both see that it plays the role of ‘normative glue’ between interests of different practices to reach a common goal, but also tracing or obfuscating boundaries to claim autonomy from the law and exclude forms of non-genuine ethics. Fourth, we inquire into the nature of ethics as a practice and the consequences of ethification for the law.
Doc 256 : User interactions with chatbot interfaces vs. Menu-based interfaces: An empirical study
Rapid advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) are transforming customer service by making it possible to create chatbot applications that can understand users’ intents and response in a human-like manner. Chatbots promise to enhance customer experiences by creating more personal customer interactions than those afforded by traditional menu-based web applications. But are chatbots always superior to more traditional user interfaces (UI)? This study seeks to understand the differences in user satisfaction with a chatbot system vis-a-vis a menu-based interface system, and identify factors that influence user satisfaction. Grounded in the self-determination theory, the research model proposed here focuses on the effect of chatbot use on perceived autonomy, perceived competence, cognitive load, performance satisfaction, and system satisfaction. An experimental study was conducted, and data were analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling. The findings indicate that chatbot systems lead to a lower level of perceived autonomy and higher cognitive load, compared with menu-based interface systems, resulting in a lower degree of user satisfaction. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed. • Chatbot are associated with a lower level of perceived autonomy and higher cognitive load, compared with menu interface. • Perceived autonomy and perceived competence have a significant effect on performance satisfaction and system satisfaction. • Perceived competence was a stronger predictor of performance satisfaction. • Perceived autonomy was a stronger predictor of system satisfaction. • Perceived autonomy positively influences perceived competence.
Doc 257 : Enhancing the Decision-Making Process through Industry 4.0 Technologies
In order to meet the increasingly complex expectations of customers, many companies must increase efficiency and agility. In this sense, Industry 4.0 technologies offer significant opportunities for improving both operational and decision-making processes. These developments make it possible to consider an increase in the level of operational systems and teams’ autonomy. However, the potential for strengthening the decision-making process by means of these new technologies remains unclear in the current literature. To fill this gap, a Delphi study using the Régnier Abacus technique was conducted with a representative panel of 24 experts. The novelty of this study was to identify and characterize the potential for enhancing the overall decision-making process with the main Industry 4.0 groups of technologies. Our results show that cloud computing appears as a backbone to enhance the entire decision-making process. However, certain technologies, such as IoT and simulation, have a strong potential for only specific steps within the decision-making process. This research also provides a first vision of the manager’s perspectives, expectations, and risks associated with implementing new modes of decision-making and cyber-autonomy supported by Industry 4.0 technologies.
Doc 258 : Persisting Effects of Internet Skills on Online Participation
Millions of people contribute to online content daily, allowing them to share their ideas and influence public conversations. Some have attached much enthusiasm and hope to such activities as they may result in a variety of benefits, including cultural empowerment, engagement with the political process, and collective knowledge production. While these considerations cast the Internet as a potentially equalizing platform, research has shown that certain groups of people are more likely to participate in such online activities than others. All existing research on this topic has relied on cross-sectional data, making it impossible to make causal arguments about what results in more or less online engagement. That is, while research has found, for example, that Internet skills are related to online participation, the cross-sectional nature of the data makes it difficult for scholars to disentangle the causal effect between the two variables, that is, whether higher skills result in more participation or whether more participation leads to higher skills, or both. In this paper, we draw on a unique panel survey data set that includes data about the same 547 young adults from 2009 and 2012 to address these questions. We consider how demographic factors, socioeconomic status as well as various Internet experiences such as veteran status, frequency of use, autonomy of use, self-efficacy and Internet skills may influence people’s participation online, from editing Wikipedia to taking part in online forum discussions, posting reviews and voting on others’ content. We find that far from being universal, only a small portion of respondents have ever participated in several of these types of online activities, and some have never engaged in any of them. Despite the study’s focus on young adults who have grown up with digital media, not only is participation not universal, there are systematic differences in the types of people who are more or less likely to participate. We show that young adults with higher levels of Web-use skills are more likely to engage in various online production activities than their less-skilled counterparts. In particular, those from more privileged backgrounds, i.e., whose parents have higher levels of education, are more likely to contribute their voices to online conversations. This paper makes a special contribution to the growing literature on Internet skills by examining how three different measures of this concept relate to online engagement. We look at a universal Internet skills measure, we include a measure of Internet self-efficacy, and we test the effect of a more nuanced measure of Web-use skills. We find that self-efficacy and skill have independent effects on the outcome of online engagement suggesting that research on people’s online know-how should not collapse these conceptually different variables. The paper ends with the policy implications of the findings for achieving a universally empowered Internet citizenry. Findings suggest that simply having grown up with digital media does not result in either universal know-how about the Internet nor universal online engagement suggesting that interventions are important to make sure that people from all backgrounds have the necessary skills to take advantage of all that the Internet has to offer.
Doc 259 : Contributing Success Factors within the Financial Planning Profession: Inside Financial Planner Perceptions
ABSTRACT Financial planner perceptions are made up of a complex neural blend of client management qualities, client demographic qualities, personal qualities, business practice qualities, and job qualities. This study empirically assesses perceptions of the financial planning professional to find those factors seen to be most important and least important contributing to financial planner self reported success. The data utilized within this study were gathered via a survey instrument developed and administered in an online format during the months of June and July 2008. A total of 403 geographically diverse respondents (4% response rate) who are members of the FPA and agree to receive email from the organization answered the survey. The final sample used after significant non-response cases were eliminated was 349 respondents (3.5%). Findings of this study indicate that client relationships, wealth of client served, use of ethical practices, ability to empathize, number of clients served, client referrals, and job autonomy are among the most important contributors to financial planner perceived success. (ProQuest: … denotes formula omitted.) INTRODUCTION The financial planning profession provides a unique research opportunity for scholars and practitioners alike. Little if any empirical research has been conducted to this point conceptualizing and evaluating career success dimensions within financial planning. Career success dimensions such as client management, client demographic, personal, job scope, and business practice factors will provide further insight into the perceptions of the financial planner, their job functions, and their self reported level of success. The purpose of this research is to analyze perceptions of these factors and to evaluate which factors are perceived to contribute most to the financial planner. Research within financial planning enhances the opportunity for working world solutions to be developed for the benefit of the profession and those who work daily as financial planners. LITERATURE REVIEW In the 1950’ s, noted social psychologist Fritz Heider developed a theory explaining how individuals attribute behavior of themselves and others. Heider’ s work, known as attribution theory, is a cognitive theory associated with success and interpersonal relationships (Heider, 1958). Attribution theory is the exploration of an individual’s awareness of cause and effect scenarios and how the outcomes of such scenarios affect the individual’s perception of usefulness. Heider proposed that people strive for prediction and understanding of daily events in order to give their lives stability and predictability (Heider). Fullin and Mills (1995) write of attribution theory as applied to the field of sports, whereby athletes use awareness of cause and effect scenarios to adjust performance output. Attribution theory divides the way an individual attributes causes to events into two distinct categories: external and internal. External attribution assigns causality to an outside factor, such as client demographics or job qualities, in the current study, or competition in the sports analogy. Internal attribution assigns causality to inside factors of the person, such as personal factors and business practices in the current study, or ability and luck in the sports analogy. Thus, when one measures his or herself or compares his or herself to others, attribution theory is engaged by way of comparison. One may make these comparisons and attribute differences to either internal or external deficiencies. Once the deficiencies are known, the individual can adjust the internal or external factors to attain a desired state. In the case of an athlete, once deficiencies are known, adjustments to ability, effort, and task difficulty can be made. Mittra, Potts, and LaBrecque (2005) argue the financial planner is at times like a football quarterback moderating the plays of financial life around the key planning areas in a strategic manner. …
Doc 260 : Collaborative education and autonomy concept in ICT for instructors in Higher Education
Higher education teachers are steadily challenged to adopt and use information and communication technologies (ICT) during their everyday tasks. Moreover, interplay between teaching and research demands creation and configuration of new learning environments to overcome a technology-focused approach and provide a more significant, enhanced teaching experience. Therefore it is reasonable for them to include collaborative and autonomous components as a learning strategy to simplify the acquisition of knowledge from a hands-on experience based on students’ interests. The methodology used in this work involved a literature review with a focus on analyzing the interpretation of several basic texts, the categorization and analysis of the teaching skills from a constructivist perspective within the ICT framework, allowing for a development of autonomous and collaborative education. Thus, the conclusions of this analysis point to a regular teachers’ training as one of the most important components of an action plan toward the successful implementation of teaching strategies that encourage an active involvement of students under teacher`s guide, whose main role is to stimulate the activation of the students’ metacognitive abilities and attitudes.
In large-scale Internet-based distributed systems, participants (consumers and providers) are typically autonomous, i.e. they may have special interests towards queries and other participants. In this context, a way to avoid a participant to voluntarily leave the system is satisfying its interests when allocating queries. However, participants satisfaction may also be negatively affected by the failures of other participants. Query replication is a solution to deal with providers failures, but, it is challenging because of autonomy: it cannot only quickly overload the system, but also it can dissatisfy participants with uninteresting queries. Thus, a natural question arises: should queries be replicated? If so, which ones? and how many times? In this paper, we answer these questions by revisiting query replication from a satisfaction and probabilistic point of view. We propose a new algorithm, called S b QR, that decides on-the-fly whether a query should be replicated and at which rate. As replicating a large number of queries might overload the system, we propose a variant of our algorithm, called S b QR+. The idea is to voluntarily fail to allocate as many replicas as required by consumers for low critical queries so as to keep resources for high critical queries during query-intensive periods. Our experimental results demonstrate that our algorithms significantly outperform the baseline algorithms from both the performance and satisfaction points of view. We also show that our algorithms automatically adapt to the criticality of queries and different rates of participant failures.
Abstract Obstetric anaesthetists usually look after fit, pregnant women who may already have made their decisions regarding the pain relief options they would like to use during labour. With the emphasis on patient autonomy, choice and patient-centred care, coupled with the changing nature of labour pain and mode of delivery, obstetric anaesthetists often face a challenge in terms of the provision of good evidence-based information. Women obtain information from a myriad of sources including relatives, friends, magazines, books, and the Internet, as well as from health-care workers. Providing good information at an early stage is important as it forms the central core of consent and also improves the women’s self esteem-and care, and can lead to increased satisfaction. It is important for health-care workers to realize that giving information is a process over a period of time, ideally when the parturient is most interested and receptive. This may be during the antenatal period, once labour pain has started or even after delivery, to answer any queries that may arise. Research has shown that, despite the influence of pain or drugs, women like to be informed and are capable of recalling information. A variety of techniques to impart information can be utilized, including group or individual talks, leaflets and videos, the use of information cards and pain relief algorithms in patient-friendly language. The medico-legal literature reminds us that the largest contributory factor in complaints leading to possible litigation is the lack of communication and information given to the parturient before and after the event.
Doc 263 : The Effects of Self-Determination Theory on Reality, Flow in Online Community
The purpose of this research is to explore the causality of autonomy, competence, and relatedness which are major variables in self-determination theory. This study examines factors affecting intrinsic motivation, which also influences reality, flow, trust, and loyalty. The results firstly indicates that competence and relatedness positively influence reality and autonomy positively influences flow. Secondly, competence significantly influences reality and doesnt significantly influences flow. Thirdly, relatedness significantly influences reality and doesnt significantly influenced flow. Fourthly, reality doesnt significantly influences trust. Fifthly, flow significantly influences trust. Also, above results show that reality influences flow, and reality doesnt directly influence trust and loyalty. However, loyalty significantly influences flow.
Doc 264 : Conceptual Design of a Mechatronic System for Supporting Basic Quality of Life of Bedridden Elderly People
Ambient Assisted Living is an important subject to be explored and developed, especially in developed countries, due to the increasing number of aged people. In this context the development of mechatronic support systems for bedridden elderly people (BEP) living in their homes is essential in order to support independence, autonomy and improve their quality of life. Some basic tasks as eating, taking a bath and/or hygiene cares become difficult to execute, regarding that often the main caregiver is the other element of the aged couple (husband or wife). This paper presents the conceptual design of a mechanical system especially devoted to assist the caregiver in the handling and repositioning of the BEP. Issues as reducing the number of caregivers, to only one, and reducing the system’s handling complexity (because most of the time it will be used by an aged person) are considered. The expertise obtained from the visits to rehabilitation centers and hospitals, and from working meetings, are considered in the development of the proposed mechatronic system.
Doc 265 : Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación como entorno de convergencia tecnológica. El Design Thinking aplicado a la discapacidad intelectual
This article presents research related to the use of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by people with intellectual disabilities as a means to increase their autonomy in basic daily activities offering people with barriers in learning and participation an environment of technological convergence that meets the characteristics of universal accessibility: invisibility, ubiquity and adaptability. For this, a software with accessible interface was designed in order to make the use of the training program the most easy and attractive possible. Training with this program provided an increase of up to 10% in autonomy in some of the categories of ABVD, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the software designed through the parameter of design thinking.
Doc 266 : Research the Systems Architecture and Technology of Wisdom Community Based on the Internet of Things
The wisdom community is the basic unit of the smart city, is a set of urban management, public services, social services, residents’ autonomy and mutual aid services in one of the new technology applications. This article analyzes the current situation and existing problems of the wisdom community, then described the Internet of Things architecture, equipment features, community cloud computing platform and structure, the last detailed analysis of the wisdom community features and community network video intercom, home security, appliance control, non-contact card access control, card consumption management, community security, community e-service technology and other technical content and features.
Doc 267 : 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.
Among the options offered by Gerontechnology, robotics and mechatronic technologies, in combination with advanced biomechanical models, can provide the identification and slowing down of the effects of age-related modifications of the neuro-musculo-skeletal systems. These technologies may increase autonomy of older people by giving them more possibilities of aging at home, and reducing the institutionalization time. A 3-phases approach is proposed: (i) the use of robotic and mechatronic systems to analyse age-related modifications of the motor control strategies in clinics or research laboratories; (ii) the use of wearable systems to assess motor performance in a non-dedicated environment; (iii) the use of technological aids to help elderly to live independently in their domestic environment.
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).
In this essay, Foucault’s concept “of other spaces” – or, heterotopia – is used to examine the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in the context of systemic crisis. Neoliberalism is marked by innovations that amplify and accelerate contradictions, unfolding the false utopia of finance capitalism. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) helped hyper-financialize the economy, enrich banksters and extend inequalities. Conversely, high-tech developments allow for decentralized decision-making and more direct democracy, paralleling the ethics of OWS. New ICTs compress TimeSpace, opening doors for empathic connections, generating conditions for elevation of collective superstructural consciousness. This paper explores how these conditions create – and are recreated by – heterotopic spaces. Drawing on Foucault’s method of heterotopology we throw light on the potential of OWS to prefigure another world, analyzing endeavors to promote cooperative autonomy, and raise consciousness in and through mediated environments, always contested, ever in flux, and inevitably over-(but never pre-)determined.
Doc 271 : Reflecting on English educational accountability
The English education system offers meaningful examples of how some aspects of education reforms concerning school autonomy develop and what their implications are. In a way it provides a test bench for many ideas which policy makers are trying to introduce in many other systems. It is therefore interesting to consider it, in order to gain a broader perspective from which to frame Italian school autonomy. This paper focuses on the complex scenario of English educational accountability, one which attracts the interest of researchers from all over the world and originates a continuous debate among practitioners, researchers and policy makers. The broad literature concerning English educational accountability makes available a variety of interpretations, reflections and points of view. The paper intends to consider this scenario mainly from the perspective of English headteachers. The objects of the analysis are the voices of headteachers and policy advisers, collected through interviews where they have been asked to report on their experiences and perceptions or, in the case of policy advisers, to put themselves in the headteachers’ shoes. It is argued that while policy makers from many countries look at the English accountability framework with interest, ready to borrow hints and tools from the orderly atmosphere of regulation it performs, English educational professionals experience strong contradictions and struggle with the hardness and the sharpness of the system. Key-words: Accountability, Educational Leadership, Education Policy _____________________________________________________ 1 Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. Email: dott.giovanna.barzano@gmail.com. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 3, 2009.
The developpment of the Internet of Things (IoT) concept revives Responsive Environments (RE) technologies. Nowadays, the idea of a permanent connection between physical and digital world is technologically possible. The capillar Internet relates to the Internet extension into daily appliances such as they become actors of Internet like any hu-man. The parallel development of Machine-to-Machine communications and Arti cial Intelligence (AI) technics start a new area of cybernetic. This paper presents an approach for Cybernetic Organism (Cyborg) for RE based on Organic Computing (OC). In such approach, each appli-ance is a part of an autonomic system in order to control a physical environment. The underlying idea is that such systems must have self-x properties in order to adapt their behavior to external disturbances with a high-degree of autonomy.
Doc 273 : Medical ethics challenges in the information societies
Information is the symbol of the present age due to the significant development in accessing, processing, storage and transferring information. Information societies have been formed by the widespread utilization of information and communication technologies in human social life and generally focus on the computer systems and information networks. Nowadays, various technologies of medical informatics comprise an important component of the management infrastructures of health care systems. Medical informatics is the development and assessment of specific methods and systems for acquisition, processing and analyzing patients’ data with the help of knowledge and information from scientific researches. Moreover, it intends to increase access, improve quality and decrease the costs of care through decreasing chronological and geographical limitations. On the other hand, ethics have been always considered as a basic component of these systems. The increasing development of digital technologies and their application in health information management provides numerous benefits; however, it encounters health care managers with new challenges in the information societies. These challenges may has been mainly caused by the conflicts among ethical principles by themselves or disregarding them in the field of medical informatics. Therefore, careful consideration of info ethics as well as beneficence, autonomy, fidelity and justice is essential to overcome those conflicts in the information societies.
Doc 274 : A Dynamic Approach to Teaching Literature.
concept which posits fixed character types or on the basis of abstract concept which views character as projection of the author’s imagination or subconscious. Neither general nor abstract concepts of character take into account the concrete experience of a book. Fourth, character study seems to ignore the real object of criticism and teaching which is to try to understand the moral vision of the ‘7Leon Surmelian, Techniques of Fiction Writing: Measure and Madness (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1968), p. 139. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.60 on Thu, 21 Apr 2016 07:13:53 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms TEACHING LITERATURE 931 artist as manifested in a particular and concrete pattern of words. Fifth, character study deflects attention from the unity of the total work to see the part as larger than the whole. For example, a character study might take into account Hamlet the prince rather than Hamlet the play. Sixth, character study tends to deny the autonomy of the created artifact and confuse real emotions with aesthetic emotions.’ Finally, many authors discourage character study by propagating the attitude that literary characters are mysterious gifts given them from some unknown source. All of these criticisms might be divided into two categories. The idea that reading a work of literature is only an aesthetic experience and should never be confused with an emotional experience is expressed in the first and sixth reasons given for avoiding character study. The other five criticisms of character study have to do generally with the idea that at its best character study is good description which nonetheless does not fulfill the critical task, or that, at its worst, it attempts to be analytical but fails because it does not bridge the gap between character itself and the relation of character to the work as a whole and to the reading experience. From a psychological perspective, character is not separate from the work as a whole. Rather, character is intricately and necessarily woven into the texture of a work. Thus, character expresses and is expressive of style, content, themes, imagery and ultimately is the purveyor of the intellectual and emotional rhythms of the author’s vision. From this viewpoint, character becomes a viable and even necessary focus for serious literary criticism and teaching. Character, seen as the driving force in fiction, as the purveyor of intellectual and emotional rhythms in the work, thus typifies the mimetic view of literature which sees no final discontinuity between a reader’s responses to art and to life. Within a mimetic perspective, a reader does not merely have a reading experience; he is the reading experience and the work becomes the reader’s experience of it. 9 ’ W. J. Harvey, Character and the Novel (London: Chatto and Windus, 1965), p. 206. ’9To further clarify the mimetic view of the reading experience, it is worthwhile to cite a comment made about the ideas of existential psychologist, Harry S. Sullivan: What we are asked to accept [by Harry S. Sullivan] is that in quite a real sense the self [reader] is one’s personal relationships. We have tended in the past to suppose that we are self-contained individuals looking out from a tower in our own private castle from which we proceed on periodic excursions in order to satisfy physical, emotional and mental needs and desires. We assumed that our contacts with the world left us relatively untouched, the same person as before. In the opinion of Sullivan this is a complete fallacy. We This content downloaded from 207.46.13.60 on Thu, 21 Apr 2016 07:13:53 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Doc 275 : Impact of Mobile Phones on Social Life among Youth in India
AbstractThe media landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades, from one predominated by traditional mass communication formats to today’s more personalised network environment. Social network sites, online games, video-sharing sites, and gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones are now fixtures of youth culture. They have so permeated young lives that it is hard to believe that less than a decade ago these technologies barely existed. Today’s youth are struggling for autonomy and identity as did their predecessors, but they are doing so amid new worlds for communication, friendship, play, and self-expression. This paper seeks to provide empirical data on the impact of the mobile technology on the social life of Indian youth. Taking a survey of some 1200 young Indians, the paper discovers their dependency on this new medium.
Doc 276 : LISA — A Mechatronic Wall for Assistance with ADLs
The research project LISA (Living Independently in Sudtirol Alto-Adige) investigated the possibilities of embedding assistive functions, systems, and services into wall “terminal” components that enable and support autonomy and independence with respect to Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), and which generate structured environments called Robotic micro-Rooms (RmRs).
Doc 277 : Cultivating Online English Learner Autonomy in Internet Plus Era: A DST Perspective
Based on Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), the article proposes that cultivating online English learner autonomy is a complex dynamic system. Under the interactions of learners, learning resources, learning task and learning environment, the development of online English learner autonomy is featured with being non-linearity, self-organization and “butterfly effects”. It proposes that in internet plus era, online English learner autonomy can be improved in resource-based, technology-based, student-based and teacher-based approach.
Doc 278 : Evolution of Activities of Daily Living using Inertia Measurements: The Lunch and Dinner Activities
In the context of designing eHealth services for fragile people, we propose to monitor Activities of Daily Living (ADL) in order to anticipate the potential loss of autonomy by behaviour changes. Nowadays, the availability of non-stigmatising sensors such as inertial sensors embedded on Smartphones allows the estimation of people’s postures in real time in order to evaluate their autonomy in daily life. Our aim is to propose an unconstrained and non-intrusive method based on inertial sensors, which gives an indicator about a person’s autonomy. This method determines the correlation between people’s postures and activities over time in order to compute an index of ADL ( IndexADL ), specific to each person. The IndexADL variation over time is then a useful feature for positively or negatively evaluating people’s autonomy. Our experiment, based on data collection of eight elderly people over a 3-month period, analyses the Lunch and Dinner activities with promising performances.
Doc 279 : 2A1-S-069 collective energy autonomy of mobile robots(Evolution and Learning for Robotics 4,Mega-Integration in Robotics and Mechatronics to Assist Our Daily Lives)
Doc 280 : How Finnish and Swedish Learners’ Academic Self-Control Relates to Time Spent Online in Class, Perceptions of Educator Qualities, and School Appreciation: A Cross-Sectional Comparison
In school settings, self-control is central to the ability of learners to complete their academic work successfully. Learners’ self-control is directly influenced by the ways in which educators execute their work, including their instructional explanations, their classroom management, and the expectations that they express to their learners. Our research on this phenomenon investigated Finnish and Swedish learners in upper secondary schools. Not only is the use of digital technology very different in these two countries; the autonomy and status of educators are as well. This article compares the empirical significance of antecedents of learners’ academic self-control in the two national settings by surveying 2191 learners in Swedish and Finnish schools. Our analysis applies structural equation modeling to two cross-sectional datasets, and the results reveal that the associations between educators’ instructional explanations, classroom management, and their high expectations on the one hand and learners’ academic self-control on the other are stronger overall among Finnish students than among Swedish students. Furthermore, the association between digital technology use and learners’ perceptions of conflict between school norms and Internet opportunities are much stronger in the Swedish sample than the Finnish sample. Lastly, we discuss the meaning of these results and their possible implications for research and practice.
Abstract Multi-faceted systems of the future will entail complex logic and reasoning with many levels of reasoning in intricate arrangement. The organization of these systems involves a web of connections and demonstrates self-driven adaptability. They are designed for autonomy and may exhibit emergent behavior that can be visualized. They will impact manufacturing industry, defense, healthcare, energy, transportation, emergency response, agriculture and society overall. The success will come how the current challenges related to cybersecurity, interoperability, privacy, safety and socio-technical aspects mainly interaction of human behavior and complex adaptive systems are handled Complex Adaptive Systems have dynamically changing meta-architectures. Finding an optimal architecture for these systems is a multi-criteria decision making problem often involving many objectives in the order of 20 or more. This creates “Pareto Breakdown“ which prevents ordinary multi-objective optimization approaches from effectively searching for an optimal solution; saturating the decision maker with large sets of solutions that may not be representative for a compromise architecture selection from the solution space. Our quest continues to handle complexities to design and operate these systems. The challenge in Complex Adaptive Systems design is to create an organized complexity that will allow a system to achieve its goals. Researchers from academia, industry and government met in Chicago, Illinois, on October 30 to November 1, 2017, to share their findings and expand the boundaries of research in Complex Adaptive Systems. This year we are concentered on the current state of practice in Engineering Cyber Physical Systems. This publication of the Complex Adaptive Systems Proceedings series contains the edited versions of the technical presentations of Complex Adaptive Systems held October 30 to November 1, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. The extended version of each selected paper was reviewed by two referees, then revised, edited and condensed to the format herein. I would like to express my gratitude to the plenary speakers at the conference for their invaluable contributions through their talks. Further, I wish to express my gratitude to all authors for their contributions to this volume of proceedings and for their presentations at the conference, as well as, to all referees for their comments and suggestions for revising the papers. I would like to mention our appreciation to the conference sponsors for bringing real life dimension, issues and engineering problems to the meeting. I would also like to thank Sue Turner and Latesha Zach for all their help and efforts that enabled me to sail smoothly in the organization of this conference and production of this volume.
Doc 282 : Test Bed of Semantic Interaction of Smart Objects in the Web of Things
https://doi.org/10.3390/fi10050042 Santiago Guerrero-Narváez Miguel-Ángel Niño-Zambrano Dalila-Jhoana Riobamba-Calvache Gustavo-Adolfo Ramírez-González
Semantic interaction in the Internet of Things (IoT) is an important concept within current IoT development, given that smart things require further autonomy with greater processing, storage, and communication capacities. The problem is now becoming one of how to get these things to interact and collaborate with each other; to form intelligent environments amongst themselves and thus generate better services for users. This article explores a solution approach that consists in providing collaborative behavior to smart things, through the incorporation of an ontology and an architecture. It makes possible things that can communicate and collaborate with each other, allowing the generation of new services of interaction according to user needs. For this task, a real test bed of smart things was created, in which the proposed solution was deployed (Smart Room). Finally, it was concluded that the creation of these types of test bed is feasible, taking into account that response times and the information delivered by the different managed processes are acceptable. New challenges were encountered, however, such as problems of critical region in test beds with conflicting services and management of multiple users.
Doc 283 : Inference of User Qualities in Shared Control of CPHS: A Contrast in Users
Abstract Most cyber-physical human systems (CPHS) rely on users learning how to interact with the system. Rather, a collaborative CPHS should learn from the user and adapt to them in a way that improves holistic system performance. Accomplishing this requires collaboration between the human-robot/human-computer interaction and the cyber-physical system communities in order to feed back knowledge about users into the design of the CPHS. The requisite user studies, however, are difficult, time consuming, and must be carefully designed. Furthermore, as humans are complex in their interactions with autonomy it is difficult to know, a priori, how many users must participate to attain conclusive results. In this paper we elaborate on our work to infer intrinsic user qualities through human-robot interactions correlated with robot performance in order to adapt the autonomy and improve holistic CPHS performance. We first demonstrate through a study that this idea is feasible. Next, we demonstrate that significant differences between groups of users can impact conclusions particularly where different autonomies are involved. Finally, we also provide our rich, extensive corpus of user study data to the wider community to aid researchers in designing better CPHS.
Doc 284 : Familia y el uso y abuso de potenciales adictivos en jóvenes
This reflection article discusses in a broader way the results of a research carried out by the authors that sought to find the relationship between family variables and variables of addiction in university students, such as Internet addiction and the consumption of alcoholic beverages and psychoactive drugs. In the research, only a relationship was found with the presence of siblings and family typology, for Internet addiction. There was a broad search for references that, in general, confirm the relationship between family variables and addictive variables for Young students of secondary schools, but not for university students. As a result of this review, we hypothesize that, for young university students, family variables lose their importance in favor of other variables such as networks of friends, features of the young person at this stage of his or her development characterized by the search for autonomy and differentiation, and even residential independence from the family. Finally, this background course allows us to state that addictive behavior is determined by individual and contextual factors that require a complex systemic approach and a perspective focused on coping strategies and resilient capacity, as personal variables.
Doc 285 : Layered Dynamics and System Effectiveness of Human-Autonomy Teams Under Degraded Conditions
Project overview Teamwork can be defined as dynamic team interaction between two or more interdependent members to achieve a shared goal. Many studies have examined how coordination dynamics are associated with team effectiveness in the context of all-human teams (Gorman, Amazeen, & Cooke, 2010), and later, in human-autonomy teams (HAT)s (Demir, Likens, Cooke, Amazeen, & McNeese, 2018). HATs must have autonomous agents that act as effective teammates and help enable HATs to function as collaborative systems. Synergistic relationships among a system’s human and technological components provide the basis for emergent systems-level outcomes. Layered dynamics, a recent empirical modelling technique aimed at achieving this objective (Gorman et al., 2019), considers reorganization of the sociotechnical system across individual components and the overall system. The current study examined layered dynamics of HATs during automation and autonomy failures and addresses how members of HATs interact with each other and technological aspects of the system. Design and Method We utilized a simulated Remotely Piloted Aircrtaft System (RPAS) Synthetic Task Environment with three heteregeneous and interdepedent roles: (1) a navigator, who created a dynamic flight plan and provided waypoint related information; (2) a pilot, who used this information to monitor and adjust settings. The pilot also communicated with the photographer to negotiate settings and enable proper conditions to obtain a good photograph; and (3) a photographer, who monitored and adjusted the camera to take good target photos, and provided feedback to the team. This study utilized a Wizard of Oz paradigm, in which the navigator and photographer were instructed that the pilot was a synthetic agent. However, the pilot was a highly-trained experimenter, in a separate room, who simulated an autonomous agent using limited vocabulary. There were 22 teams, and two participants were randomly assigned to the navigator and photographer roles. This task was comprised of ten 40-minute missions, and teams needed to take as many good photos as possible while avoiding alarms and rule violations. The primary manipulation was the application of three degraded conditions: (1) automation failure - role-level display failures, (2) autonomy failure - autonomous agent’s abnormal behavior, and (3) malicious cyber-attacks - the hijaking of the RPAS, with the synthetic agent providing false, detrimental information. We symbolically represented RPAS using layered dynamics, and calculated entropy measures for each (Gorman et al., 2019): (1) communications: team members interacting within the chat system; (2) vehicle: states of the RPA, including airspeed/altitude, turns, fuel, battery, remaining film, and termperature level; and (3) controls: the interface controls between the RPA and the team members. To measure team performance, we used a time and coordination based metric for each target in each mission. Results and Discussion Our main findings were: 1) vehicle and communication entropy were higher than control entropy and were associated with better adaptation to both failures, and 2) control entropy had a negative association with initial status on team performance, while vehicle entropy had a positive association. These findings describe the tendency of low performing teams to anticipate targets poorly. This was due to a failure to interact with the technology in a timely manner. This lagged effect can be attributed to teams taking too long to interact with the technology. These findings shed light on how the layered dynamics approach can help understand team behavior under degraded conditions. Acknowledgements This research is supported by ONR Award N000141712382 (Program Managers: Marc Steinberg, Micah Clark). We also acknowledge the assistance of Steven M. Shope, Sandia Research Corporation who integrated the synthetic agent and the testbed.
Doc 286 : An Empirical Exploration of Resilience in Human-Autonomy Teams Operating Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems
Project overview Team resilience is an interactive and dynamic process that develops over time while a team maintains performance. This study aims to empirically investigate systems-level resilience in a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) System simulated task environment by examining team interaction during novel events. The approach used in the current study to measure systems-level resilience was developed by Hoffman & Hancock (2017). In their conceptual study, resilience was considered a key feature of success in emerging complex sociotechnical systems; in our case, that is applied to Human-Autonomy Teams (HATs). Hoffman and Hancock conceptualized a resilience measure dynamically by means of several components, such as the time it took the system to recognize and characterize anomalies, and the time taken to specify and achieve new goals. In their framework, there were two main sub-events which expressed resilience via time-based measures, and upon which we designed ours in this study: (1) time taken to design a new process and (2) time required to implement it (Hoffman & Hancock, 2017). Design In this current research, there were three heterogeneous team members who used a text-based system to communicate and successfully photograph target waypoints: (1) navigator – provided information regarding a flight plan with speed and altitude restrictions of each waypoint; (2) pilot – controlled the RPA by adjusting its altitude and airspeed through negotiating with the photographer in order to take a good photo of the target waypoints; and (3) photographer – screened camera settings and sent feedback to the other team members regarding the status of target’s photograph. This study followed the Wizard of Oz paradigm wherein the navigator and photographer were seated together in one room and were told that the pilot was a synthetic agent. In actuality, the pilot was a well-trained experimenter who was working from a separate room. This ‘synthetic’ pilot used restricted vocabulary to simulate that of a computer. The main manipulations in this study consisted of three degraded conditions: (1) automation failure - role-level display failures while processing specific targets, (2) autonomy failure - autonomous agent behaved abnormally while processing specific targets (i.e., it provided misinformation to other team members or demonstrated incorrect actions), and (3) malicious cyber-attacks - the hijacking of the synthetic agent, which led to the synthetic agent providing false, detrimental information to the team about the RPA destination. Because the malicious cyber-attack only occurred once (during the final mission), we will focus on the automation and autonomy failures for this study. Each failure was imposed at a selected target waypoint and the teams had to find a solution in a limited amount of time. The time limit for each failure was related to the difficulty of the failure. Each failure was introduced at a pre-selected target waypoint for each team. Method In this experiment, there were 22 teams, with only two participants randomly assigned to the navigator and photographer roles for each team, because the pilot was a highly-trained experimenter. The current task was comprised of ten 40-minute missions in which teams needed to take as many “good” photos as possible of ground targets while avoiding alarms and rule violations. For this study, using the RPAS paradigm, we calculated two team resilience scores (1) time taken to design a new process and (2) time required to implement it (Hoffman & Hancock, 2017). For the calculations, we used the message sent time (in seconds) for each role to express resilience in terms of the proportion of total task time (2400 seconds). As an outcome measure, we used target processing efficiency as a coordination and time-based performance score, which was based on how quickly teams were able to take a good photo of each target. Results and discussion We found that teams were more resilient during automation failures and progressed toward targets more successfully than during autonomy failures. We see three possible explanations for this: (1) automation failures were more explicit than autonomy failures, since at least one team member interacted with other teammates; (2) autonomy failures took more time for human teammates to identify the failure, because the autonomous agent’s abnormal behavior was not as straight forward; and 3) human teammates overtrusted to the autonomous agent and lack confidence in themselves and let the failure go on. Acknowledgements This research is supported by ONR Award N000141712382 (Program Managers: Marc Steinberg, Micah Clark). We also acknowledge the assistance of Steven M. Shope of Sandia Research Corporation, who integrated the synthetic agent and the testbed.
Doc 287 : Explicit Autonomy, Implicit Control: User Autonomy in the Dichotomous Choice Architecture of Facebook
The article aims to unravel the implicit soft-control of users by Facebook through the framework of choice architecture as proposed by Thaler and Sunstein (2008) in their well-known work Nudge. It explores the dichotomous foundation of Facebook’s choice architecture in which users are given an apparent sense of autonomy while the platform implicitly soft-controls them. This paradoxical power plays functions through two broad types of nudges—activity-inducing nudges and passivity-inducing nudges. The mechanism of functioning of these nudges on Facebook is explored while noting the behavioural patterns they induce among users. Facebook’s transition from information architecture to choice architecture is also explored. Thus, the article aims to contribute to the growing body of work, which has underscored the importance of assessing web 2.0 as the ‘technological unconscious’ which has penetrated everyday life.
Doc 288 : Application of Mobile Phone as a Motivational Tool in the ESP Classrooms of Dhofar University
The present paper investigated the factors of motivation and the role of teachers in motivating English language learners in the ESP classes of Dhofar University as well as the significance of motivation in teaching and learning through mobile application technology. Mobile phones are handy devices that are readily available with all the students in universities and colleges nowadays. Furthermore, the innovative use of mobile applications and internet technology is very common among the undergraduate students. This paper is a detailed description of some of the teaching strategies employed through mobile phones to motivate the students who have very low level of motivation. Since lack of motivation among students is a common challenge faced by most of the ELT teachers in their classrooms, practical solutions centred on mobile applications is the focus of this study. Furthermore, supplementing classroom practices with mobile application technology can promote learner autonomy and peer learning opportunities within the classroom resulting in a visible rise in the motivational graph of the whole class. This paper is also a practical account of how mobile applications can be integrated into classroom teaching without affecting the traditional syllabus of a conventional university curriculum.
Doc 289 : Use of graded responsibility and common entrustment considerations among United States emergency medicine residency programs
Purpose: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires all residency programs to provide increasing autonomy as residents progress through training, known as graded responsibility. However, there is little guidance on how to implement graded responsibility in practice and a paucity of literature on how it is currently implemented in emergency medicine (EM). We sought to determine how EM residency programs apply graded responsibility across a variety of activities and to identify which considerations are important in affording additional responsibilities to trainees.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of EM residency programs using a 23-question survey that was distributed by email to 162 ACGME-accredited EM program directors. Seven different domains of practice were queried.Results: We received 91 responses (56.2% response rate) to the survey. Among all domains of practice except for managing critically ill medical patients, the use of graded responsibility exceeded 50% of surveyed programs. When graded responsibility was applied, post-graduate year (PGY) level was ranked an “extremely important” or “very important” consideration between 80.9% and 100.0% of the time.Conclusion: The majority of EM residency programs are implementing graded responsibility within most domains of practice. When decisions are made surrounding graded responsibility, programs still rely heavily on the time-based model of PGY level to determine advancement.
Doc 290 : Automatic Leviathan: Cybernetics and politics in Carl Schmitt’s postwar writings
This article questions the current vogue of Carl Schmitt among political theorists who read him as an antidote to the depoliticizing force of economics and technology in the age of neoliberalism and its algorithmic rationalities. It takes Schmitt’s sparse reflections about cybernetics and game theory as paradigmatic of the theoretical and political problems raised by any theory positing the autonomy of the political. It suggests that this ultimately misunderstands the role of cybernetic representations of political decision-making in shoring up in the 1960s and 1970s the autonomy of the political that Schmitt so vehemently defended.
Doc 291 : Freedom of Expression, Privacy, and Ethical and Social Responsibility in Democracy in the Digital Age
This article reflects on freedom of expression, privacy, ethical and social responsibility, in the context of social networks, in the context of the experience of democracy in cyberspace. It asks questions about ensuring the protection of privacy, freedom, and autonomy of internet users in the internet environment. It identifies national and international legislation that guarantee the right to privacy and the protection of citizens’ personal data. It reviews the literature on the concept of ethics and social responsibility, in democracy, in the digital age, associating this domain of knowledge with the concept of privacy, freedom, and ethical and social responsibility, in the context of social networks. The article discusses the concepts that guide this theme and that are directly involved with related domains. It is alert to the need for ethical and legal protection of the digital data of internet users, aiming at the autonomous safeguarding of their digital identities.
Doc 292 : The Interplay of Enterprise Social Media and Power Dynamics: A Processual Perspective
Enterprise social media (ESM) have become imperative technologies in contemporary organizations, in part, due to promised improvements of efficiency and coordination. Given that past studies have primarily focused on the potential merits of these emerging technologies, less is known about the hidden power dynamics involved in the enactment of ESM. In this paper, we present the findings of an ethnographic study at a startup accelerator in which we examined how and why the enactment of ESM shapes and (re)produces power dynamics. Based on our analysis, we develop a process model that theorizes the emergence of autonomy–control tensions in the enactment of ESM through continual drifts of decision-making between the online and offline worlds. As we show, these drifts are produced through non liquets and the emergence of urgency. Furthermore, we demonstrate the consequentiality of these dynamics, which turn ESM into an irreducible part of organizational processes. Our findings contribute to the burgeoning literature at the intersection of emerging technologies and organizing by surfacing power-related, potentially detrimental side effects inherent to organizing through such technologies.
Doc 293 : An Empirical Study on Motivation Factors and Reward Structure for User’s Createve Contents Generation: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Commitment
User created content (UCC) is created and shared by common users on line. From the user’s perspective, the increase of UCCs has led to an expansion of alternative means of communications, while from the business perspective UCCs have formed an environment in which an abundant amount of new contents can be produced. Despite outward quantitative growth, however, many aspects of UCCs do not meet the expectations of general users in terms of quality, and this can be observed through pirated contents and user-copied contents. The purpose of this research is to investigate effective methods for fostering production of creative user-generated content. This study proposes two core elements, namely, reward and motivation, which are believed to enhance content creativity as well as the mediating factor and users’ committement, which will be effective for bridging the increasing motivation and content creativity. Based on this perspective, this research takes an in-depth look at issues related to constructing the dimensions of reward and motivation in UCC services for creative content product, which are identified in three phases. First, three dimensions of rewards have been proposed: task dimension, social dimension, and organizational dimention. The task dimension rewards are related to the inherent characteristics of a task such as writing blog articles and pasting photos. Four concrete ways of providing task-related rewards in UCC environments are suggested in this study, which include skill variety, task significance, task identity, and autonomy. The social dimensioni rewards are related to the connected relationships among users. The organizational dimension consists of monetary payoff and recognition from others. Second, the two types of motivations are suggested to be affected by the diverse rewards schemes: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Inrinsic motivation occurs when people create new UCC contents for its’ own sake, whereas extrinsic motivation occurs when people create new contents for other purposes such as fame and money. Third, commitments are suggested to work as important mediating variables between motivation and content creativity. We believe commitments are especially important in online environments because they have been found to exert stronger impacts on the Internet users than other relevant factors do. Two types of commitments are suggested in this study: emotional commitment and continuity commitment. Finally, content creativity is proposed as the final dependent variable in this study. We provide a systematic method to measure the creativity of UCC content based on the prior studies in creativity measurement. The method includes expert evaluation of blog pages posted by the Internet users. In order to test the theoretical model of our study, 133 active blog users were recruited to participate in a group discussion as well as a survey. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their commitment, motivation and rewards of creating UCC contents. At the same time, their creativity was measured by independent experts using Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Finally, two independent users visited the study participants’ blog pages and evaluated their content creativity using the Creative Products Semantic Scale. All the data were compiled and analyzed through structural equation modeling. We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to validate the measurement model of our research. It was found that measures used in our study satisfied the requirement of reliability, convergent validity as well as discriminant validity. Given the fact that our measurement model is valid and reliable, we proceeded to conduct a structural model analysis. The results indicated that all the variables in our model had higher than necessary explanatory powers in terms of R-square values. The study results identified several important reward shemes. First of all, skill variety, task importance, task identity, and automony were all found to have significant influences on the intrinsic motivation of creating UCC contents. Also, the relationship with other users was found to have strong influences upon both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Finally, the opportunity to get recognition for their UCC work was found to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation of UCC users. However, different from our expectation, monetary compensation was found not to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation. It was also found that commitment was an important mediating factor in UCC environment between motivation and content creativity. A more fully mediating model was found to have the highest explanation power compared to no-mediation or partially mediated models. This paper ends with implications of the study results. First, from the theoretical perspective this study proposes and empirically validates the commitment as an important mediating factor between motivation and content creativity. This result reflects the characteristics of online environment in which the UCC creation activities occur voluntarily. Second, from the practical perspective this study proposes several concrete reward factors that are germane to the UCC environment, and their effectiveness to the content creativity is estimated. In addition to the quantitive results of relative importance of the reward factrs, this study also proposes concrete ways to provide the rewards in the UCC environment based on the FGI data that are collected after our participants finish asnwering survey questions. Finally, from the methodological perspective, this study suggests and implements a way to measure the UCC content creativity independently from the content generators’ creativity, which can be used later by future research on UCC creativity. In sum, this study proposes and validates important reward features and their relations to the motivation, commitment, and the content creativity in UCC environment, which is believed to be one of the most important factors for the success of UCC and Web 2.0. As such, this study can provide significant theoretical as well as practical bases for fostering creativity in UCC contents.
Doc 294 : Analysis of Influencing Factors of Flip Class Mode in the Application of Psychological Teaching in Colleges and Universities
Introduction: This article mainly through the literature research method and content analysis method, has carried on the analysis to the university turnover classroom. This paper analyses the characteristics and development trend of flipped classroom research from the aspects of research fields, research topics, research methods, literature sources, author information and references. Method: This teaching method undoubtedly fully demonstrates the concept of quality education, that is, while respecting students ‘individual differences in learning, it also cultivates students’ autonomy, allowing them to learn independently and develop their ability to analyze and solve problems. The flipped classroom uses the Internet as a platform to adjust the teaching steps, which has changed the organization of teaching and learning, class and off-class, teaching and self-study. Result: Teachers can supplement other resources on the Flipping classroom. At the same time, according to the content of the textbook, the teacher should design the test questions. In addition, teachers should also participate in the discussion of students before class, answering questions for students online. Throughout the online learning process, teachers can obtain students’ mastery of the unit’s knowledge points through the support of big data, such as which knowledge points are difficult, which ones are mastered, and which students are well mastered, so that the teaching can be effectively adjusted. plan. The main content of the teacher in the pre-course period is to check the content of the student’s reply in the classroom exchange area to understand the students’ knowledge of the knowledge points. Conclusion: It can be seen from the above column chart that the following conclusions can be drawn through the investigation and study of the factors affecting the College psychology teaching in colleges and universities. University leaders have a certain degree of emphasis on College psychology courses, but teaching management needs to be Further improvement; the number of people in some psychology majors is too high. Some colleges and universities in the teaching objectives of psychology special courses lack the target requirements of students’ social adaptation and scientific research; most of the teachers’ theoretical teaching content is not comprehensive enough and the content is single. Discussion: This article is based on an in-depth analysis of the advantages of domestic SPOC platforms and flipped classrooms, and analyzes the course goals of psychological teaching in colleges and universities. A teaching model of psychological courses based on the SPOC platform was constructed. This article is based on the teaching of psychology, and discusses the problems related to the flip reading teaching of psychology. The purpose is to sort out the theoretical and practical problems of flipped reading teaching in psychology lessons, and better adapt to the teaching of psychology lessons in the new era and new technology.
Doc 295 : Public Perceptions of General Surgery Residency Training
Patients are integral to surgical training. Understanding our patients’ perceptions of surgical training, resident involvement and autonomy is crucial to optimizing surgical education and thus patient care. In the modern, connected world many factors extrinsic to a patient’s experience of healthcare may influence their opinion of our training systems (i.e., social media, television shows, and internet searches). The purpose of this article is to contextualize the literature investigating public perceptions of general surgery training to allow us to effect patient education initiatives to optimize both surgical training and patient safety.This is a perspective including a literature review summarizing the current knowledge of public perceptions of general surgery training.Little is published regarding patient and public perceptions of general surgery residency training and the role of residents within this. Current literature demonstrates that the majority of patients are willing to have residents participate in their care. Patients’ attitude toward resident involvement in their operation is improved by utilizing educational materials and by ensuring a supervising attending is present within the operating room. These observations, coupled with future work to delve deeper into factors affecting public perceptions of surgical training and resident involvement within this, can guide strategies to improve surgical education.
Doc 296 : Attitudes to Cryptocurrencies: A Comparative Study Between Sweden and Japan
In this paper, we explore how cryptocurrencies have been received in Sweden and Japan, and what specific attitudes and discourses may reveal about the ethical implications surrounding this new technology. By way of topic modelling prevalent discourses on social media among users of cryptocurrencies, and teasing out the more culturally situated significance in such interactions through discourse analysis, our aim is to unpack the way certain tropes and traces around the notion of autonomy may provide a fruitful lens through which we may discern how this technology has been received in each respective country. The ultimate aim of the paper is to shed light on the attitudes that inform the way this technology is perceived and the cultural and ideological nuances that this brings to the fore, as well as how this culturally nuanced view may help us better discern the potential advantages and ethical challenges associated with this new technology.
Doc 297 : Embodied Cooperation to Promote Forgiving Interactions With Autonomous Machines
During every waking moment, we must engage with our environments, the people around us, the tools we use, and even our own bodies to perform actions and achieve our intentions. There is a spectrum of control that we have over our surroundings that spans the extremes from full to negligible. When the outcomes of our actions do not align with our goals, we have a tremendous capacity to displace blame and frustration on external factors while forgiving ourselves. This is especially true when we cooperate with machines; they are rarely afforded the level of forgiveness we provide our bodies and often bear much of our blame. Yet, our brain readily engages with autonomous processes in controlling our bodies to coordinate complex patterns of muscle contractions, make postural adjustments, adapt to external perturbations, among many others. This acceptance of biological autonomy may provide avenues to promote more forgiving human-machine partnerships. In this perspectives paper, we argue that striving for machine embodiment is a pathway to achieving effective and forgiving human-machine relationships. We discuss the mechanisms that help us identify ourselves and our bodies as separate from our environments and we describe their roles in achieving embodied cooperation. Using a representative selection of examples in neurally interfaced prosthetic limbs and intelligent mechatronics, we describe techniques to engage these same mechanisms when designing autonomous systems and their potential bidirectional interfaces.
Doc 298 : Older Adults’ Experiences of Behavior Change Support in a Digital Fall Prevention Exercise Program: Qualitative Study Framed by the Self-determination Theory
Exercise is an effective intervention to prevent falls in older adults; however, long-term adherence is often poor. To increase adherence, additional support for behavior change has been advocated. However, consistency in the reporting of interventions using behavior change techniques is lacking. Recently, a classification system has been developed to increase consistency in studies using behavior change techniques within the self-determination theory.This study aimed to explore expressions of self-determination among community-dwelling older adults using a self-managed digital fall prevention exercise program comprising behavior change support (the Safe Step program), which was developed in co-creation with intended users.The qualitative study design was based on open-ended responses to questionnaires, and individual and focus group interviews. A deductive qualitative content analysis was applied using the classification system of motivation and behavior change techniques as an analytical matrix, followed by an inductive analysis. Twenty-five participants took part in a feasibility study and exercised in their homes with the Safe Step program for 4 months. The exercise program was available on computers, smartphones, and tablets, and was fully self-managed.In the deductive analysis, expressions of support were demonstrated for all three basic human psychological needs, namely, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These expressions were related to 11 of the 21 motivation and behavior change techniques in the classification system. The inductive analysis indicated that autonomy (to be in control) was valued and enabled individual adaptations according to different rationales for realizing exercise goals. However, the experience of autonomy was also two-sided and depended on the participants’ competence in exercise and the use of technology. The clarity of the program and exercise videos was seen as key for support in performance and competent choices. Although augmented techniques for social support were requested, support through relatedness was found within the program.In this study, the Safe Step program supported the establishment of new exercise routines, as well as the three basic human psychological needs, with autonomy and competence being expressed as central in this context. Based on the participants’ experiences, a proposed addition to the classification system used as an analytical matrix has been presented.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02916849; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02916849.
Doc 299 : Digital Discipline: Theorizing Concertive Control in Online Communities
Abstract Concertive control (CC) theory has primarily been applied to traditional offline, work-based, closed membership teams. New organizational forms such as online communities have opened up additional sites in which CC processes may operate. This article makes several contributions to CC theory and research. First, it increases the applicability of CC theory by extending it from offline to online, work to non-work, and closed to open membership contexts. Second, it increases our understanding of CC processes by elaborating on three mechanisms of CC (group autonomy, group identification, and generative discipline) and how they operate differently in online work/non-work and closed/open contexts. Third, it develops propositions about how these mechanisms interact with three prominent media affordances (visibility, persistence and editability) within those contexts. Extending CC theory to online communities helps to explain individuals’ responses to normative group pressures online, which is highly relevant in our increasingly culturally and politically polarized society.
Doc 300 : Evidence-based Smartphone Use among Engineering Students in an Academic Writing Course
The role of smartphones is vital in academia as interconnectivity in the classroom promotes learning autonomy, increases motivation, and enhances teaching and learning mobility. Using classroom research design, this study aimed to investigate the perspectives of Engineering students of smartphone use in an academic writing course. The data were collected from students enrolled in a writing course in a top-ranked Science and Technology university in Thailand. Fifty students voluntarily submitted reflections towards the end of the semester. The study was qualitative, in which inductive coding was used. The findings elicited specific situations of smartphone use in an academic writing course, for example, knowing and looking at the meaning of words, knowing the word form, finding information, taking notes, brainstorming with friends, using translation, and others. Two roles of smartphone use were coded. The first role is facilitative, which has the following functions: resource-based, cognitive-based, memory-based, output-based, collaborative-based, entertainment-based, and communicative-based. Another is the debilitative role indicating two functions, such as sources of cognitive distraction and undesirable behaviors. Interestingly, self-regulation of smartphone use in class was coded. Implications on how smartphones can be used in teaching writing were also discussed.
Doc 301 : The Internet Use for Autonomous Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic and its Hindrances
<p class=“0abstract”>The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has brought the dependence on the online activities as new behaviors in various aspects of society including education. It defines the reliance upon internet access for learning practices and the tendency toward learning autonomy. Yet, the sudden emergence of the pandemic causes problematic circumstances for learners. Not all learners are ready to be autonomous and to have internet infrastructure. Within this context, the current study addresses learners’ attitudes toward learning autonomy and examines what hinder them to be autonomous. As a descriptive research, this study involves 101 respondents living in Bitung city, a fast growing and harbor city in North Sulawesi, Eastern Indonesia. They are asked to fill the kind of Likert questionnaire which constitutes the source of data which are statistically analyzed. The results indicates that learners dominantly show positive attitude toward the idea of being autonomous in this pandemic era. In addition, several factors such as bad signal, distraction, self-discipline and lack of motivation occupy the dominant factors hinder learners to establish learning autonomy. <strong></strong></p>
Doc 302 : Algorithmic Ethics: Formalization and Verification of Autonomous Vehicle Obligations
We develop a formal framework for automatic reasoning about the obligations of autonomous cyber-physical systems, including their social and ethical obligations. Obligations, permissions and prohibitions are distinct from a system’s mission, and are a necessary part of specifying advanced, adaptive AI-equipped systems. They need a dedicated deontic logic of obligations to formalize them. Most existing deontic logics lack corresponding algorithms and system models that permit automatic verification. We demonstrate how a particular deontic logic, Dominance Act Utilitarianism (DAU), is a suitable starting point for formalizing the obligations of autonomous systems like self-driving cars. We demonstrate its usefulness by formalizing a subset of Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS) in DAU; RSS is an industrial proposal for how self-driving cars should and should not behave in traffic. We show that certain logical consequences of RSS are undesirable, indicating a need to further refine the proposal. We also demonstrate how obligations can change over time, which is necessary for long-term autonomy. We then demonstrate a model-checking algorithm for DAU formulas on weighted transition systems, and illustrate it by model-checking obligations of a self-driving car controller from the literature.
Doc 303 : A two-tier Blockchain framework to increase protection and autonomy of smart objects in the IoT
In recent years, the Internet of Things paradigm has become pervasive in everyday life attracting the interest of the research community. Two of the most important challenges to be addressed concern the protection of smart objects and the need to guarantee them a great autonomy. For this purpose, the definition of trust and reputation mechanisms appears crucial. At the same time, several researchers have started to adopt a common distributed ledger, such as a Blockchain, for building advanced solutions in the IoT. However, due to the high dimensionality of this problem, enabling a trust and reputation mechanism by leveraging a Blockchain-based technology could give rise to several performance issues in the IoT. In this paper, we propose a two-tier Blockchain framework to increase the security and autonomy of smart objects in the IoT by implementing a trust-based protection mechanism. In this framework, smart objects are suitably grouped into communities. To reduce the complexity of the solution, the first-tier Blockchain is local and is used only to record probing transactions performed to evaluate the trust of an object in another one of the same community or of a different community. Periodically, after a time window, these transactions are aggregated and the obtained values are stored in the second-tier Blockchain. Specifically, stored values are the reputation of each object inside its community and the trust of each community in the other ones of the framework. In this paper, we describe in detail our framework, its behavior, the security model associated with it and the tests carried out to evaluate its correctness and performance.
This paper explores paradoxical tensions and their management in modular solution networks on digital platforms. A case study approach was adopted to examine how two firms in the lighting facility and ICT industries use digital platforms to coordinate their diverse, large and dynamic modular solution networks. Our findings reveal that due to contradictory goals in offering diverse customized solutions, solution providers with digital platforms are facing several paradoxical tensions between flexibility and efficiency, control and autonomy, and standardization and customization. We find that solution providers cope with these paradoxes through implementing two simultaneous mechanisms: unification and diversification. While the diversification mechanism aims at increasing variety among modules and module providers, unification focuses on forming similarities among them. These mechanisms are made possible through digital platform features, such as algorithms, online communities and platform access. This study contributes to the B2B literature by highlighting the nested nature of paradoxical tensions in the context of modular solution networks and by identifying mechanisms for managing these paradoxes. It also offers practical tools to solution providers to identify and manage paradoxical tensions in platform-based modular solution networks. • This study reveals three types of paradoxes in platform-based solution networks. • These paradoxes can be managed by unification and diversification mechanisms. • These mechanisms are made possible through digital platform features. • The study also offers practical tools to identify and manage these paradoxes.
Doc 305 : Impact of Industry 4.0 on decision-making in an operational context
The implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies suggests significant impacts on production systems productivity and decision-making process improvements. However, many manufacturers have difficulty determining to what extent these various technologies can reinforce the autonomy of teams and operational systems. This article addresses this issue by proposing a model describing different types of autonomy and the contribution of 4.0 technologies in the various steps of the decision-making processes. The model was confronted with a set of application cases from the literature. It emerges that new technologies’ improvements are significant from a decision-making point of view and may eventually favor implementing new modes of autonomy. Decision-makers can rely on the proposed model to better understand the opportunities linked to the fusion of cybernetic, physical, and social spaces made possible by Industry 4.0.
Doc 306 : Mediating Effects of Online-Based Leisure Between Parenting Attitudes and Children’s Smartphone Dependency
Objectives: This study investigated the impact of positive and negative parenting attitudes on smartphone dependency in children to examine the mediating effects of online-based leisure such as computer usage, game, and smartphone usage.Methods: Data of 714 children scoring above the top 30% of smartphone dependency among the children in 5th grade in elementary school were collected through the 2nd wave of the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS 2018). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to analyze the mediating effects with the Bootstrapping method by SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 20.0.Results: In the model, online-based leisure significantly mediated the relationship between positive parenting attitudes such as warmth, autonomy support and structure provision, and smartphone dependency showing complete mediation. Also, negative parenting attitudes such as rejection, coercion, and chaos directly negatively affected smartphone dependency, not showing a mediating effect. Results indicate that increased positive parenting attitudes lead to reduced smartphone dependency through decreasing online-based leisure, while negative parenting attitudes lead to increase dependence on the smartphone.Conclusion: While positive parenting attitudes do not directly affect smartphone dependency, they lead to a decrease in online-based leisure. Consequently, as online-based leisure lessens, smartphone dependency subsequently may also be diminished. In addition, although negative parenting attitudes have no mediating effect, they directly influence the growing smartphone dependency. Results confirm that positive parenting mediate the effects of online-based activities in relation to smartphone dependency when parents provide the most structure, autonomy support, and warmth to their children. Practical implications are discussed, and relevant interventions offered for children and parents.
Doc 307 : Immersive and interactive cyber-physical system (I2CPS) and virtual reality interface for human involved robotic manufacturing
• Immersive and interactive cyber-physical system (I 2 CPS) framework for collaboration between human, autonomy, and physical systems. • Middleware and data-to-operation protocol were combined to communicate information with the wide range of contexts. • A new interface with virtual reality to provide the collaborative environment for augmenting human skills and autonomy. Smart manufacturing promotes the demand of new interfaces for communication with autonomies such as big data analysis, digital twin, and self-decisive control. Collaboration between human and the autonomy becomes imperative factor for improving productivity. However, current human-machine interfaces (HMI) such as 2D screens or panels require human knowledge of process and long-term experience to operate, which is not intuitive for beginning workers or is designed to work with the autonomy. This study proposes a human interface framework of cyber-physical system (CPS) based on virtual reality, named as immersive and interactive CPS (I 2 CPS), to create an interface for human-machine-autonomy collaboration. By combination of data-to-information protocol and middleware, MTConnect and Robot Operating System (ROS), heterogeneous physical systems were integrated with virtual assets such as digital models, digital shadows, and virtual traces of human works in the virtual reality (VR) based interface. All the physical and virtual assets were integrated in the interface that human, autonomy, and physical system can collaborate. Applying constraints in the VR interface and deploying virtual human works to industrial robots were demonstrated to verify the effectiveness of the I 2 CPS framework, showing collaboration between human and autonomy: augmentation of human skills by autonomy and virtual robot teaching to generate automatic robot programs.
Doc 308 : Impact of artificial intelligence on civilization: Future perspectives
Artificial intelligence is a scientific term that refers to artifacts, detect situations and respond to those circumstances with actions. The ability to create such improved artifacts has more impact on our society. This paper describes the economic and social changes with the use of artificial intelligence since the beginning of smartphones. Smartphones have contributed significantly to big data and that adds more efficiency to machine learning. Artificial intelligence goes on to explain the political, economic, and personal issues that humanity will face soon, as well as regulatory strategies to address them. In general, Artificial intelligence isn’t always as precise a generation as one would possibly anticipate, and the problems it increases can be extra vital as a result. Because of extended get entry to understanding of each people and nations, there’s a danger of threatening identification and autonomy.
Doc 309 : Hierarchical Human-Inspired Control Strategies for Prosthetic Hands
The abilities of the human hand have always fascinated people, and many studies have been devoted to describing and understanding a mechanism so perfect and important for human activities. Hand loss can significantly affect the level of autonomy and the capability of performing the activities of daily life. the technological improvements have led to the development of mechanically advanced commercial prostheses, the control strategies are rather simple (proportional or on/off control). The use of these commercial systems is unnatural and not intuitive, and therefore frequently abandoned by amputees. The components of an active prosthetic hand are the mechatronic device, the decoding system of human biological signals into gestures and the control law that translates all the inputs into desired movements. The real challenge is the development of a control law replacing human hand functions. This paper presents a literature review of the control strategies of prosthetics hands with a multiple-layer or hierarchical structure, and points out the main critical aspects of the current solutions, in terms of human’ functions replicated with the prosthetic device. The paper finally provides several suggestions for designing a control strategy able to mimic the functions of the human hand.
Doc 310 : Risk Determination versus Risk Perception: A New Model of Reality for Human–Machine Autonomy
We review the progress in developing a science of interdependence applied to the determinations and perceptions of risk for autonomous human–machine systems based on a case study of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) faulty determination of risk in a drone strike in Afghanistan; the DoD’s assessment was rushed, suppressing alternative risk perceptions. We begin by contrasting the lack of success found in a case study from the commercial sphere (Facebook’s use of machine intelligence to find and categorize “hate speech”). Then, after the DoD case study, we draw a comparison with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) mismanagement of its military nuclear wastes that created health risks to the public, DOE employees, and the environment. The DOE recovered by defending its risk determinations and challenging risk perceptions in public. We apply this process to autonomous human–machine systems. The result from this review is a major discovery about the costly suppression of risk perceptions to best determine actual risks, whether for the military, business, or politics. For autonomous systems, we conclude that the determinations of actual risks need to be limited in scope as much as feasible; and that a process of free and open debate needs to be adopted that challenges the risk perceptions arising in situations facing uncertainty as the best, and possibly the only, path forward to a solution.
Doc 311 : The use of TED and YOUTUBE in Extensive Listening Course: Exploring possibilities of autonomy learning
This study explores how extensive listening can utilize internet based-media, namely TED and YouTube. The study also examines the researcher’s reflection on his teaching practice by adopting the participatory action research framework. Participating in this study are EFL freshmen of a state university in Indonesia during the Extensive Listening course. The findings showcase several changes in the teaching-learning circumstances that affect the implementation of in-class activities. The students share that YouTube and TED help them enrich their English vocabulary. Further, they also state that the tasks create a more dynamic and less monotonous learning atmosphere. Overall, the use of YouTube and TED can be designed to be effective instructional media for Extensive Listening tasks.
Doc 312 : Field insurgency in lifestyle journalism: How lifestyle journalists marginalize Instagram influencers and protect their autonomy
While Facebook and Twitter have received significant scholarly attention for their role in shaping the journalistic field, Instagram has received sparse attention in comparison. The present study examines how lifestyle journalists ( n = 63) from Austria and the United States perceive Instagram influencers operating in relation to the journalistic field. Instagram influencers, empowered by the digital medium, would seem to be in direct competition with lifestyle journalists in terms of content. Through the theoretical lenses of boundary work and field, this study argues that lifestyle journalists—long relegated to the periphery of the journalistic field—discursively leverage the presence of influencers to protect their autonomy within the field while pushing influencers to its boundaries.
Doc 313 : Detecting and Sorting the Paradoxes Associated with Smartphone Use by Brazilian Professionals
The use of mobile wireless technologies brings associated paradoxes already identified in the literature. Thus, this research uses quantitative analysis to determine the perception of presence and intensity level of fourteen technological paradoxes related to the use of smartphone by professionals in Brazil. Besides, this study identifies the variables that impact the perception of each paradox associated with the use of smartphone by professionals. Data analysis shows that the paradox autonomy vs. addiction is perceived by more than 85% of those who responded to the survey. The study also results in a paradoxes ranking regarding the strength of the paradoxes. This ranking has the following paradoxes in the top positions: autonomy vs. addiction, engagement vs. disengagement, and freedom vs. enslavement, respectively. Finally, an ordinal logistic regression is run, leading to the conclusion that only two of the fourteen paradoxes are influenced by some of the independent variables of the model.
Doc 314 : Reports on the AAAI Spring Symposia (March 1999)
https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v21i2.1510 David J. Musliner Barney Pell Wolff Dobson Kai Goebel Gautam Biswas Sheila A. McIlraith Giuseppina Gini Sven Koenig Shlomo Zilberstein Weixiong Zhang
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, in cooperation, with Stanford University’s Department of Com-puter Science, presented the 1999 Spring Symposium Series on 22 to 24 March 1999 at Stanford University. The titles of the seven symposia were (1) Agents with Adjustable Autonomy, (2) Artificial Intelligence and Computer Games, (3) Artificial Intelligence in Equipment Maintenance Service and Support, (4) Hybrid Systems and AI: Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Discrete + Continuous Systems, (5) Intelligent Agents in Cyberspace, (6) Predictive Toxicology of Chemicals: Experiences and Impact of AI Tools, and (7) Search Techniques for Problem Solving under Uncertainty and Incomplete Information.
Doc 315 : Интернализация религиозности и ее диагностика в теории самодетерминации
This article describes the constructs of autonomous and controlled, i.e. deeply and superficially internalized, motivation, suggested in self-determination theory, and their application to religious studies.Autonomously motivated activity is performed because it is interesting, personally important and consistent with the values of an individual; controlled motivation comes from the “outside”, either literally (rewards and punishments) or metaphorically (shame and guilt, conditional self-esteem). The theory of self-determination describes the various effects of autonomous and controlled motivation in different areas - depending on its motivation, the same activity may have opposite effects on human well-being. Autonomous motivation is associated with psychological well-being positively, and controlled motivation negatively.The phenomenon of the opposite effect of two types of motivation of the same activity is confirmed in application to religion; also, these types of motivation are associated with the specific religious phenomena - literal or symbolic interpretation of the objects of faith and extremism. Several authors make recommendations on the ways to support the autonomy and psychological well-being of parishioners. The empirical part of the paper presents the results of the validation of the Russian version of the questionnaire of autonomous and controlled motivation in religion (Intrel). Items related to different motivational constructs (subtypes of autonomous and controlled motivation) having sufficient variance and consistency of responses were identified on an Internet sample of Orthodox Christians; selected items were factored. Constructed scales of autonomous and controlled motivation in religion showed good psychometric properties.
Doc 316 : Research of the Intellectual Property Protection Based on the Internet Information Utilization
The Internet has greatly expanded the scope of the use of network information resources and scale, people search and ease of access to information resources and autonomy is also greatly enhanced, but also led to information sharing network of intellectual property protection and infringement issues. This article lists the use of network information resources and violations of copyright law and civil law from the perspective of legal thinking.
Doc 317 : Internet privacy rights. Rights to protect autonomy
As the author says on his blog, Internet Privacy Rights is an ‘academic book, and written from the perspective of a legal academic …’ The book analyses the current threats to our online autonomy an…
Doc 318 : The Effects of Mothers’ Childrearing Attitudes on Consumer Socialization and the Evaluation of Children’s Character Fashion Products
Diverse characters have been recently used in fashion products for children. The degree to which parents accept childrens opinions or attitudes when they engage in dialogue may be connected with consumer socialization and affect the criteria for the evaluation of character fashion products. This study examined the effects of mothers childrearing attitudes on consumer socialization and the evaluation criteria for character fashion products for children. A questionnaire was conducted via the Internet on 310 mothers with children aged between four and twelve. The results of the study showed: First, childrearing attitudes were divided into four dimensions: hostility, autonomy, acceptance, and control. Consumer socialization was divided into communication in regards to consumption, consumption control, and the awareness of social relations. The evaluation criteria for character fashion products for children were divided into educational/utilitarian values, emotional values, and social values. Second, mothers were divided into an acceptance group, a moderation group, and a hostility group based on childrearing attitudes. The group with hostile childrearing attitudes had control over their children`s consumption and were conscious of others in the process of consumption. The group with accepting childrearing attitudes considered educational/utilitarian values and emotional values when they purchased character fashion products for children. The group with hostile childrearing attitudes considered social values. Third, autonomous childrearing attitudes had the largest influence on communication in regards to consumption. Controlling childrearing attitudes had the largest influence on consumption control and the awareness of social relations. Controlling childrearing attitudes had the largest influence on social/utilitarian and emotional values; however hostile childrearing attitudes had the largest influence on social values.
Doc 319 : Author’s reply to Cameron, Chater and colleagues, Majeed, Munro, and Thornton
Cameron states that the Medical Schools Council “values medical schools’ autonomy over student selection, curriculums, and staffing.”1 2 Of course. Just as the Country Landowners Association values foxhunting. Since Brotherston’s 1967 recommendations it has been accepted that, for undergraduate medical education, “identity lies not in the path, but in the goal.”3 Doubtless the proposed National Licensing Examination will clarify the goal for medical schools and widen the path.
The problem’s nub is that arrangements for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education …
Scholars of technology have long puzzled over the question of the relationship between human societies and their technologies. Technological determinism suggests that the technologies present in a society have a determining effect on the structure of that society. Critics of this idea point out that the technologies are themselves developed by people within societies and so are themselves determined by the characteristics of those societies. It may be that the influence flows in both directions. The concept of the autonomy of technology suggests that human societies do not have very effective mechanisms to control and direct their technologies. Instead, those societies are more apt to adapt their structures and values to accommodate any efficient technologies that develop. The themes of autonomy and control thus arise in various ways in the consideration of the place of technology in human societies. While the ideas of technological determinism and the autonomy of technology tend to focus on the effects of technology at the social level, it is possible to consider the questions of control and autonomy at the individual level as well. At the level of the individual, it seems clear that many technologies support human autonomy and promote freedom by expanding human capacities for action. At the same time, individual human beings paradoxically come to feel obliged to adopt particular technologies in a manner that undermines their autonomy and freedom. This series of short articles addresses the theme of human autonomy, law, and technology. In the winter of 2009, Arthur Cockfield invited a group of scholars of law and technology to continue their joint conversation on the Law and Technology Theory Blog (http://techtheory.blogspot.com/). Each of us wrote a short piece containing reflections on this theme. The short articles have been revised for inclusion here in the Bulletin and are presented in the order in which they appeared on the Blog. In the rest of this short introduction, I provide a sketch of the main themes emerging from each article. Arthur Cockfield describes the competing views, first, that technologies are merely neutral instruments that humans choose or not and, second, that technologies have pervasive and unintended effects that undermine human autonomy. He explores how these two competing views might tend to lead legal policy makers in different directions in the context of the government deployment of surveillance technologies. Frank Pasquale explores the extent to which “neurocosmetic” pharmaceuticals challenge our understanding of human liberty and autonomy. He considers the external pressures that may limit a person’s freedom to reject cognitive enhancement. More fundamentally though, he points out that to the extent that these drugs interfere with the recognition of difficult truths and feelings, they may undermine the foundation of personal autonomy. Jennifer Chandler looks at the effect of technology on human autonomy through two lenses. First, she looks at collective self-determination, as expressed in the laws that we choose for self-governance. Here, the question is whether technological ideology tends to determine legal doctrines and outcomes rather than that the law controls technology. Second, she suggests various mechanisms to explain the sense that individuals may feel constrained to adopt specific technologies whether they wish to or not. Kieran Tranter approaches the relationship between human autonomy, law, and technology using three stories. The technological story of “human as tool user” suggests that technology is the essence of humanity and emancipates humans from natural limits. The legal story tells a tale of anarchy overcome through a social contract that enabled, among other things, the flowering of technology. He proposes a critique of both these stories—the autonomy story—and argues that we have choice and responsibility for the cultural narratives that we adopt to understand our technologies. Lyria Bennett Moses turns her gaze upon legal scholars and how they have responded to technological innovation as a field of legal study. She speculates about the reasons that lawyers may rush to publish on the legal implications of the latest technology. Lawyers may be dazzled by an exciting technology, but they may also be rushing to assert the continuing relevance and importance of the law (and themselves) in a rapidly changing technological society. Lisa Austin traces the evolution of the philosophy of technology and identifies the mutual enrichment that the philosophy of technology and legal scholarship might draw from one another. She discusses a recent skirmish in the “control wars” over personal information on the Internet and proposes a reimagining of the value of privacy that is inspired by the approach of the early philosophers of technology. Sam Trosow argues that it is essential to consider economics in seeking to understand the relationship between law, technology, and other social phenomena. He addresses the important role of economic analysis in the field of intellectual property law—a field that is central to the interaction of law and technology.
Doc 321 : What Gamification Tells us about Web Communication
The games that have become a staple on Facebook provide lessons on how to make websites and Internet marketing more successful. We highlight these points that gamers have accomplished: Provide ideological agreement, Create a community, Provide a sense of control or autonomy, Create a way for people to communicate with each other, Recognize gender differences, Provide rewards, and Convince people to commit.
Doc 322 : Local Autonomy and Training of public Librarians
A public librarian is an occupation, which requires long-term. continuous training and difficult study to acquire and cultivate professional knowledge and skills. It is a necessity to achieve new knowledge, information and skills via appropriate retraining. A training system is the method which gives chances of retraining to public librarians. After examining some of the problems with the existing training system, it is apparent that the direction of training system needs to be decentralized. That is each local branch should be autonomous in terms of new training for librarians. For the method of training system, each autonomous unit would integrate the different theories to apply to the community-at-large and invite practical specialists from the local community to lecture. The training classes would be elective in that the each librarian could choose the classes he/she wants to take and give them credits for that, but the certificate for the class would also go towards completion for the required technical training. Finally, the utilization of cyber-education should be introduced, and the library association`s role strengthened, to help public librarians cultivate their specialties.
Doc 323 : 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
Aim To ascertain parents’ attitude, knowledge and awareness of the type of Surfactant used in the Neonatal unit to treat Respiratory Distress Syndrome and their religious perspective. Method This is a pilot project where we emailed all the staff with different cultural background in one Hospital a Surfactant survey questionnaire seeking their opinion as a parent. Results We received 151 responses of which 63% were from females and 37% were from males. The majority of people who responded believe in Christianity (62%), 24% did not disclose there beliefs, 8% believe in Islam and 6% believe in Hinduism. More than half of the responses were from non-medical staff (55%), doctors (23%) and nursing staff (22%). 74% who responded felt that the neonatal unit should stock all available types of surfactant and 79% responded that there should have been discussions regarding the different types of surfactant available and this should be included in antenatal counselling. Approximately 11% preferred either bovine or porcine surfactant based on religious beliefs, 36% preferred non-animal derived surfactant which was for personal reasons and 53% had no preferences. Conclusion In the current multicultural society, it is necessary to consider cultural beliefs of all patients. Paediatricians and Neonatologists must respect patient’s and parent’s autonomy and beliefs and they must be given sufficient information in a way that they can understand and are able to exercise their right to make informed decisions about their care. There are medico legal implications for ethical issues.
Current debates over the autonomy of virtual worlds have an eerie similarity to discussions about the independence of cyberspace two decades ago. The history of the Internet offers some important lessons for how the law will affect virtual worlds, and how it should do so.
Doc 326 : The Use of New Technologies in Teaching Italian Language in the Southern Region of Albania
The aim of this paper, is to give a overview of the real situation of the use of new technologies in teaching process of Italian language in the southern region of Albania. The development of information technologies is already influencing all spheres of human life. Nowadays, computers are used in learning and teaching foreign languages, as well as the education of other disciplines. The new technologies help students go into an active learning process. When it is thought in terms of the learner, it provides learning autonomy for the person. The learner can reach a linguistic competence in a shorter time by reaching several visual and auditory texts in foreign language, increasing his/her vocabulary knowledge, doing very productive grammar exercises in an interactively way, seeing the pronunciation of a word and the usage of it in a sentence, benefiting from translating programs, finding a chat friend to improve his/her communication ability, reaching the academic journals in the libraries ,reading and listening to the news in foreign language. In the Southern region of Albania this process has not been completely successful. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p93
Doc 327 : Lacan, Poe, and Cybernetics, or How the Symbol Learns How to Fend for Itself
This paper discusses Lacan’s reference to cybernetics, mainly in Seminar II. It shows both the importance of this reference (since it supports the autonomy of the symbolic) and, by comparison with Wiener, the difficulties it introduces.
Doc 328 : Revisión de usos sociales y formas de ejercer la política a través de los nuevos medios
This article reviews the elements that have facilitated greater communicative autonomy for significant contemporary social movements and organizations through new media. Taking as reference the historical diagnosis of Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1970) for an emancipatory use of social media, we analyse the process of emergence and development of a new information paradigm in the global activity of contemporary social movements. Finally, we offer a selection of common elements implemented by these movements for the promotion of open and emancipatory management of new media as a tool for social empowerment.
Doc 329 : Sociology of the Transcendental Delirium World
The author analyses the individual-empire relationship in the Soviet Union. The literary work Moscow–Pietushki, by Venedikt Yerofeyev, is treated as a superb instantiation of Soviet interaction rituals. The author rejects the Homo sovieticus model, the orthodox implementation of which leads to a recognition of individuals as puppets of the system. The analysis, inspired by Goffman’s and Collins’ findings, shows the social mechanisms which make possible the construction of a temporary world of transcendental delirium, located on the borderline of system reality. The constitution and duration of this anti-utopia system inside society reveal the relative autonomy of Soviet social actors: their conduct within this world is conditioned mainly by the availability of alcohol and the capability to play the ‘parlour game’. Such analysis, which surveys the universal logic of interaction rituals, facilitates a reasonable comparison of the practices of Soviet actors with the practices of actors located on the ‘friendly’ peripheries of the system, and with the relevancy systems and the actions of the CEE and the Western bourgeoisie. Sociologický casopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2002, Vol. 38, No. 3: 297-309 Introductory Remarks The aim of this paper is to attempt to employ interaction theory in order to characterise and explain the individual–empire relationship. By ‘explanation’ I mean the disclosure of mechanisms that underlie the behaviour of social actors, and the construction and maintenance of interaction orders and social structures. Taking up a tentative attempt at such an explanation, I shall here be using the concrete example of the literary work Moscow–Pietushki, by Venedikt Yerofeyev [1994] (MP hereafter), which is situated in the historical realities of the period of the duration and transformations of the Soviet empire. I treat literary works as the products of the activities of social actors in relation to and within society. From my point of view they are social facts, just like other products and domains of social actors’ activities. In this sense, persistence in the thesis that literary descriptions are fictitious is heuristically fruitless. This thesis is as equally idle or fruitless as statements about the fictitiousness of expectations that a ‘full-blooded’ actor will have a date with a virtual cyber-beauty or will discuss theological issues with a living St. Thomas Aquinas. I agree with Thomas J. Scheff [1997: 157ff] that, for example, the world of Shakespearean drama reveals, in an unmatched way, tensions and conflicts, and shame and 297 * I would like to express my gratitude to Alina Szulzycka for her help in improving the English style of this paper and to Henryk Domanski, Janusz Gockowski, Hanna Świda-Ziemba for their com-
Doc 330 : ASSOCIATING COLLABORATION WITH ACTIVE LEARNING: AN EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING COURSE
The Internet changed the way of learning; it promotes interactivity and autonomy. Through Web 2.0 many tools could be used to plan strategies to motivate students for autonomous learning. This paper presents an analysis of such strategies applied to an industrial engineering course. It discusses an application in an Organizational Productive Arrangement (OPA) course using web tools to promote autonomous learning using an active strategy methodology. Two tools were used: a blog to promote interaction and a wiki to motivate research and collaboration. An information system was used to support an active strategy methodology. A survey of 40 students was conducted; the data is presented and discussed.
Doc 331 : Promoting Learner Autonomy and Classroom Interaction Through Multimedia-Assisted English Language Teaching
The recent state-of-the-art networking technology has made the Internet a vital medium to promote effective communication and education in language learning and teaching. Universities and schools have been reinforcing traditional classroom-based instructions with online learning management systems. Students can be benefited through the more frequent online interaction with the teacher for their independent learning outside the classroom. This paper explains what the multimedia-assisted language instruction means in English education in college classrooms and then examines how teachers can help students develop learner autonomy and classroom interaction using Moodle, an open source learning management system. Students of this study responded that English language materials provided through this multimedia-assisted instruction were very effective and that they felt doing class activities through online was very convenient because they could control their own learning according to their pace and situations. While sharing common interests and ideas about studying English or life events, they could study in interactive and collaborative ways. Students also answered that they could study voluntarily and more through these online learning activities.
Doc 332 : Diário de pesquisa virtual: uma experiência formativa on-line
The present paper aims at discussing the importance of using the Virtual Research Journal as a strategy in the education of subjects and researchers in education and its importance in the development of concepts and in the education needed in order to use the information and communication technologies in a multi-referential and committed perspective. From the empirical experience of using the Virtual Research Journal in the Masters course of Umesp, we see it as an important support in the task of systematizing information; in the act of writing; in the effort to rewrite and rethink ideas and stands; in the arduous learning to relate the subject’s issues in a subjective dimension of authorization, creation and autonomy to macro-social spheres as power structures, geo-political relations, class struggles, and globalization.
Doc 333 : Esquemas cognitivos e a análise de obras literárias: o personagem Lourenço Mutarelli
This article examines the presence of Early Maladaptive Schemas presented by Lourenco Mutarelli´s character according to Jeffrey Young. Young developed the Schema Theory categorizing five domains corresponding to each cognitive schema: Disconnection and Rejection, Impaired Autonomy and Performance, Impaired Limits, Other-Directedness and Over Vigilance and Inhibition. The cognitive schemas were identified and analyzed over the Lourenco Mutarelli´s material who created an autobiographical character in his blog, his interviews on the internet, in his comic books and novels. The domains that have prevailed within the material analyzed were: Disconnection and Rejection, Impaired Autonomy and Performance, and OverVigilance and Inhibition.
Doc 334 : Study of Actualization Management in Network Virtual Society
Characteristics of the Internetvirtual space makes the activity of network application show a high degree of openness and interaction;the uniqueness of the user group structure and autonomy of management,the freedom and immediacy of network behavior and such on distinctive character,bring a lot of influence and impact for reality society.Aiming at management issues from internet virtual properties aroused the issue of virtual society actualization management strategy.This paper deeply analyzes the main factors of virtual society actualization management,proposes views and insights to solve the issue of virtual society actualization management,and so it will have some reference value for improving the virtual society actualization management.
Doc 335 : Study on “3+2+1” teaching mode of mechatronics major
3+2+1 teaching mode for mechatronics major,which combines the traditional advantages in teaching,characterized by project-based,task-centred stratages,effects the purposes of motivating teachers and students,bluring the boundaries of theoretical and hands-on teaching,focusing on developing students’ capabilities of organizing,socializing,cooperation,autonomy study,and independent thinking.
Doc 336 : The Training Mode of Learner Autonomy in Vocational & Technical College English Teaching
Vocational technical colleges should establish a new English teaching mode which caters for student’s individual learning and autonomous learning.According to the theory of modern educational technology and the humanistic concept of teaching and learning,such a new teaching mode should be composed of multi-media aided classroom teaching mode,students’ autonomous learning mode on the basis of internet,institutionalized after-class activities and a supervising evaluating system which emphasize the learning process.
The proliferation of the Internet has given opportunities on different entities to share resources or conduct business transactions. However, how to establish trust among strangers without prior relationship and common security domain poses much difficulty for these activities. To resolve these problems, a promising approach known as Automated Trust Negotiation (ATN), which establishes the trust between strangers with iterative disclosure of credentials and access control policies, is proposed. In this paper, a comprehensive survey of research on ATN is presented, and some basic techniques, e.g. negotiation model and architecture, access control policy specification, credential description and credential chain discovery, are introduced and compared. Then based on the analysis of the shortcomings and problems of the techniques, the trend of research and application is discussed. All these work may contribute to the further work on trust establishment for entities with privacy protection and autonomy in open internet.
Doc 338 : Applying Net Corpus-based Approaches to EFL Writing
This paper discusses the potential use of corpus-based technology in teaching EFL writing and reveals the advantages of this approach.It also provides suggestions for teachers to make the best use of corpus in writing classrooms.The paper is concluded that making use of resources on the internet and corpus-based data-driven learning can be used as an effective means to promote students’ autonomy in English learning,hence improve the teaching and learning effect in general.
College students access the Internet to get a variety of contemporary knowledge and information to facilitate understanding of the outside world;meanwhile the internet also affects the formation of college students in world,life and value.The network moral education has become a main approach in moral education in universities.It should be should be concerned at this stage.In this paper,four specific ways have been introduced in network moral education in universities:Grasping the guiding ideology to open new positions of network moral education online;strengthening the network moral education to improve the students’autonomy consciousness in moral judgment;strengthening the network legislation to perfect network supervision mechanism;strengthening the work team of network moral education.
Doc 340 : Perspective of Customer Participation Motives in the Internet Environment from the Self-Determination Theory
In this paper,the rapid development of the Internet will be explained using Self-Determination Theory,combined with an examination of customer-participation motivation factors. A preliminary study using data from questionnaires has measured self-determination levels and customer participation motives. Analysis of the research data shows that online customers’ self-demand was also significantly affected by consumer familiarity with the web site. Demand was also shown to be significantly and positively affected by online motivations. Autonomy;competence in using the Internet;and relatedness consumer self-determination levels were correlated and had a significant positive effect. Online consumers were shown to have higher levels of self-determination,however they were shown to be more sceptical about the reliability and accuracy of information gathered online.
Doc 341 : Defending Teacher’s Manipulation of Classroom Teaching
With the further promotion of new curriculum reform,children’s freedom,autonomy,rights,and happiness are increasingly emphasized by people who are also growingly suspicious of teacher’s manipulating of classroom teaching.From the perspective of cybernetics,classroom manipulation is characterized by student-based domain,two-way communication,unexpected outcome,and intangible functions of self-organization,which is conducive to maintaining the optimal state of teaching system,helping allocate various elements,and catalyzing self-organization.Therefore,classroom manipulation is not the hindrance to students’ autonomous learning,nor the internal factors resulting in teacher’s powerfulness and teaching fossilization.
Doc 342 : The Meager Opinion on the Legal Applicability to the Internet Consumer Contract
the internet trade mode has get into the field of people’s production and life.At the same time of enjoying its convenient service,we should also face the disadvantage brought by internet businessmen who took avail of their predominant station.This is especially obvious in the law terms which applied to the internet consumer contract.On the basis of analyzing the issue of the legal applicability to the internet consumer contract,this paper emphasizes on the thee aspects of the limit of principle of autonomy of the will, the introduction of principle of most in favor of protection and the thinning of choice of the most close tie,and expresses the author’s meager opinion to the issue of the legal applicability to the internet consumer contract,and expects valuable suggestions and opinions.
Doc 343 : Problems of Developing Learners’ Autonomy in Network Environment
With further reform of college English teaching,developing learners’ autonomous ability has been putting great attention,English teaching mode based on computer technology and internet has become the most effective way of developing learners autonomous ability.Under this English teaching mode,lack of college computer facilities and computer network facilities,teachers ’ poor command of computer technology and learners’ self- control weakness have tremendously resulted in some problems that need to be solved forwardly.
Doc 344 : How to Effectively Promote Students’ Autonomous Learning in Open Education
Open education is a new type of teaching mode in which students learn in their spare time and learn autonomously through multimedia resources provided by the internet,under the guidance of teachers,and on the basis of a variety of media.Importance should be attached to the cultivation of the students’ autonomy.This paper discusses the connotation of autonomous learning,analyzes the necessity of autonomous learning and the present situation of the students’ autonomous learning in open education,and expounds the preliminary conception of promoting effectively the students’ learning autonomy from such aspects as changing outlook,stimulating motivation,cultivating competence,building system and providing human care.
Doc 345 : Research and Practice on Email-Based Assignment Management Mode
This paper designs and implements an email-based assignment management mode in allusion to current problems in teaching activities such as low efficiency and burdensome load in traditional methods of assignment management,and inferior autonomy of teachers in most professional assignment management systems.The mode receives and sends assignments making use of the receiving and sending functions of email,and captures assignment information by parsing the MIME format of email.By the mode,teachers can deal with arranging,examining,out-sending and statistically analyzing assignments at any moment.The mode greatly improves the efficiency of assignment management,and does make it automatic and paperless in teaching activities.
Doc 346 : Research on the Management System of Cyber Society from the Perspective of Ecosystem
The cyber society is comprised of several subsystems and multiple elements that are a complex co-evolution ecosystem by itself.The most fundamental condition of its ecological balance system is the co-evolution system with the development of spontaneous expansion order.The origin of the problems of cyber society emerges from the above-mentioned opposite condition leading eco-system out of balance.Therefore,the cyber society management system must follow the law of co-evolution of social-ecological system,play the main autonomy function,improve cyber society management system,which can impel the network autonomy logic and cyber law regulatory logic mutually paralleling to form an effective guide measures.
Doc 347 : Network Interaction and Movement From the Perspective of “Weak Ties” and “Strong Ties”
With its popularization and development in China, due to its fastness, convenience, independence and autonomy, internet has become Chinese citizens’ main public areas for obtaining information, social interaction and social participation. Based on the analysis of the theory of collective action, this paper studies its applicability and implications for collective action in the internet. Internet users’ attitudes and opinions concerning Diaoyu Island Incident were surveyed randomly; the access to information of opinion leadersof different network communities through weak tieswas studied; Internet users in the network of the opinion leadersbuild a network of consensusthrough strong ties and form the an online public sphere, sharing sentiments, and in this way online interactions are strengthened, while opinions are assimilated, leading to the formation of explosive online movements. On this basis, this paper analyzes the structural characteristics of network movement, and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to guide network movement from the perspectives of government control, network organization and the users.
Doc 348 : On Cultivating Autonomy of Adult Students in EnglishLearning with the Use of Web Resources
Internet is a rich language resource for the adult students, which helps inspire their study autonomy and provides learning process with greater interaction significance. On web there are genuine English materials and information gap existing between them and the learner. The teacher can assign to the students authentic interaction activity, and consequently, cultivate their interaction ability in English and increase their acknowledge of target language culture. Most importantly, learning on web will help form autonomic approaches and strategies of employing resources.
The principles for the internet ethics are important base for building the system of internet ethics. In this article , we will propose four principles autonomy, nonmaleficence, informed consent and justice as the basic principles . We will talk about their meanings and working styles .We will also explain why they should be considered as the basic principles of internet ethics system.
Doc 350 : A kind of allotting model of network resource
Abstract A kind of network model is presented in this paper, it analyzes the optimized problem of network resources based on this model, and converts the computer network resources problem into shape-transformed process of computing multi-dimension flexible cyberspace. This model and method can depict complicated social mutual behavior among the base nodes in the multi-dimension flexible cyberspace, it also can depict respectively adopted dynamic strategy and autonomy behavior which changes with the situation.
Doc 351 : The Conceptual Design of a Mechatronic System to Handle Bedridden Elderly Individuals
The ever-growing percentage of elderly people in developed countries have made Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions an important subject to be explored and developed. The increase in geriatric care requests are overburdening specialized institutions that cannot cope with the demand for support. Patients are forced to have to remain at their homes encumbering the spouse or close family members with the caregiver role. This caregiver is not always physically and technically apt to assist the bedridden person with his/her meals and hygiene/bath routine. Consequently, a solution to assist caregivers in these tasks is of the utmost importance. This paper presents an approach for supporting caregivers when moving and repositioning Bedridden Elderly Peoples (BEPs) in home settings by means of a mechatronic system inspired by industrial conveyers. The proposed solution is able to insert itself underneath the patient, due to its low-profile structural properties, and retrieve and reallocate him/her. Ideally, the proposed mechatronic system aims to promote autonomy by reducing handling complexity, alter the role of the caregiver from physically handler of the BEP to an operator/supervisor role, and lessen the amount of effort expended by caregivers and BEPs alike.
Doc 352 : The American healthcare “system” in 2005–part 6: how to grade the current system and proposed reforms.
If we had an ideal healthcare system, how would we know that it was ideal? Nothing pleases everyone. No one lives forever. No person is perfect; nor would a reformed healthcare system be perfect. What is as good as we can reasonably expect? During an earlier phase of this long debate, I determined that there were 11 key elements to use to judge a health system and that they could be equally weighted on a 1- to 9-point scale, with 9 points at the top.1 So, a nearly perfect system would total 11 times 9, or 99. The 11 characteristics were the following: Does the health system provide access for all to basic care? Does it produce real cost control? Does it promote continuing quality, reduce administrative hassle and cost, enhance disease prevention, encourage primary care, consider long-term care, retain necessary patient and physician autonomy, limit professional liability, and possess staying power? Some 10 years ago when I graded the various reforms then being proposed, the US system graded at 55; the Clinton Plan graded at 70; the Stark Congressional markup of it got the top score at 72; the Republican leadership plan graded at 47.[2] Of course, no organized reform occurred and things just got worse. I grade the 2005 American system at 52. I give the “Medicare for All” plan that I recently suggested a grade of 73 and the “Kaiser Permanente America” concoction a 76.[3] Next time, my proposed reforms. That’s my opinion. I’m Dr. George Lundberg, Editor of MedGenMed.
Readers are encouraged to respond for the editor’s eye only or for consideration for publication via email: ten.epacsdem@grebdnulg. Please include the title of the Webcast Video Editorial that you are responding to in the subject line of your email.
Doc 353 : OTHERING PROCESSES AMONG BRAZILIAN INTERACTANTS ON THE INTERNET
The article focuses on the process of othering as it is embodied in linguistic interactions among Brazilians on the Internet during the last decade, when socioeconomic mobility expanded the access and the adherence to practices involving digital technological resources by different social Brazilian groups. By othering, it means any linguistic-discursive action by which an individual or group is classified as “not one of us” (difference and strangeness). Considering that the construction of the Other is made up of social action; has an ideological component; and that an exercise of power is always present, the aim herewith is to show that othering processes in focused interactions instantiate overlaps, interceptions and tangencies between different space-temporal scales which constitute the contemporary Brazilian “reality”. Observational data from a research project carried out since 2005 about internet-mediated interactions among Brazilians will be used to illustrate the contentions put forth in this paper. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License .
Doc 354 : The Cybernetic “Outburst”: A Transference Operator in Psychosis?
This article recalls the main steps of a « psychotherapy by virtual » of a young psychotic teenager. In this article, we will see how the use of a computer game proves to be a vector of a first transference address from the psychotic to the clinician. Therefore, the virtual will be studied through the magnifying glass of the pathology, revealing a function of « emergence » specific to cybernetics. This function is triple. Firstly, this contingency loads the emergence promises, allowing the user to expect from the machine anything but, and much more than, it is able to deliver. Secondly, this emergence gives the machine the appearance of autonomy, which helps the patient to delude himself into not considering himself as the origin of his representations. Lastly, this generator of representations enables the symptom by giving it a form, thus processing what Freud called a « force of healing drive » preparing the way for a transference relation.
Doc 355 : Некоторые эффекты информатизации образовательной среды современного вуза
The paper analyzes the effects that occur in the process of the educational environment informatization. The following effects were analyzed: information richness, openness, individualization of learning and collaboration. Examples of educational practice, illustrating the significant changes of the university educational environment associated with the manifestation of these effects, are presented. The aim of the pilot study carried out in Herzen University was to identify the attitude to the listed effects of teachers and students who are using information and communication technology in the educational interactions. The leading method of study were a series of surveys addressed to teachers and students. Groups of questions were related to basic information effects, manifested in the educational environment of the university. The total number of the survey participants is 200 students (bachelors and masters) and 100 teachers, most actively using electronic environment for research, education and professional activities. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results showed that information richness, spatial and temporal freedom of educational interactions are demanded by students, but at the same time, the data indicated a lack of systematic pedagogical support for the information and educational activities of students. A large part of students show a high autonomy in the information educational environment, but also demands implementing individualized information and communication educational request. Students and teachers are actively using a variety of information and communication opportunities of the electronic environment, but students’ activeness in the electronic environment is largely determined by the recommendations of teachers, rather than by a free choice of educational opportunities. The participants of the educational environment acquire a significant degree of freedom in relation to the time and place of interaction with educational resources, but evidence suggests that educational activities in the electronic environment is not sufficiently focused on expanding the range of educational opportunities and preparing students for continual self-improvement of knowledge and skills. As the conclusions, we note the need to improve both the corporate strategy of the university electronic environment development and the competences of educational interactions in the extended information and communication space. This will reveal the full potential of e-learning environment and provide greater guarantees for obtaining high-quality educational outcomes. For teachers are in demand special competences, providing the possibility of forming a diverse and adaptive media environment for saturated solution of educational problems in accordance with university policies, introduction of e-learning and global education trends. For students, come to the fore the competences which help to improve their information culture and individual requests for the use of a variety of educational opportunities available in the electronic space. These ideas are fully consistent with the demanded by modern society the lifelong learning strategy.
Doc 356 : Losing [IT] Control to Gain It: Exploring Organizational Linkages of Social Media Technology
Affiliates of parent companies seeking localized control of their social message may adopt easily available social media platforms beyond the control of the parent IT function. A revelatory case identifies several IT control points by which the parent can still exert control over the affiliate. These controls separate the affiliate’s digital identity from the parent resulting in the perception of increased autonomy yet shifting the conception of control to a social form of self-regulation.
Doc 357 : Motivating Gifted Students: Technology as a Tool for Authenticity and Autonomy
Gifted student may underperform if unmotivated. Teachers can help students who are gifted to be motivated by using technology to help provide autonomy and authenticity in the curriculum. Technology can be used as a tool for student autonomy when it is used in ways that give the student choices. Teacher can use the Internet to provide students access to different topics. When students can control the depth and breadth of content through what they learn using technology, they are motivated. Technology also allows individual students control over the pacing of learning when they can accelerate through easily mastered or already mastered material, and then slow down when something particularly interesting is encountered. Authenticity, where students are doing work or experiencing learning activities that are equivalent to adult or expert experiences, are accessible to students through technology, but only if teachers plan for it. Particularly web 2.0 technologies allow students to create authentic products for authentic audiences because the can publish and share a variety of media. Technology can facilitate student collaboration and allow for mentoring from experts. Gifted students, who can be motivated by competition, can also increase the competitions available to them by looking for competitions online. Teachers control student access to and uses for technology within the school setting. If teachers are concerned about students who are gifted developing to their full potential, then planning for motivation makes sense and technology is a ready tool.
Doc 358 : Calidad de vida relacionada con la salud en estudiantes universitarios de primer año
Objetive: To evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of first-year university students at the University of Chile in 2015 Material and Method: Observational, transversal, and analytical study of first year students, 17 to 18 years of age, attending 14 Faculties, 2 Institutes, and 1 Bachelor Program of the University of Chile. Delivery of Kidscreen-52 test by email to 3,738 students, of which 1,277 replied (34.16%). The Winsteps program model and Rasch punctuation were used. Results: The dimensions Physical Well-being, State of Mood and Emotions, and Autonomy scored less than 42 Rasch points, and the other two dimensions – Psychological Well-being and Friends and Social Support - had significantly lower scores than those found in Chilean adolescents of a comparable age, in women, in students of lower socio-economical levels in municipal public schools with a Scholar Vulnerability Index, or those with a disability, health problem, or chronic illness. The differences are greater in Faculties with heavier academic demands. Discussion: This first study gives new information in an area seldom studied, which is important for students, academics, and authorities. It is suspected that similar results would be found in other university settings. Conclusions: HRQoL studies are feasible to apply in institutions of higher education, to benefit both students and educators. This study contributes to the diagnosis and evaluation of public policies on student support, and for teaching strategies. In the near future, HRQoL instruments could be applied with other students and other members of the university community, in combination with studies on risk factors.
Doc 359 : CYBERNETICS OF TERRESTRIAL PLANTS: AUTONOMY OF PLANT DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATED WITH SHOOT-ROOT INTERACTION
Self directed learning gives control and responsibility to a learner for learning, though there are three important conditions. These conditions are that the learner must at least be prepared to accept the degree of autonomy given to them. They must have the skills and attitudes required for developing and managing this autonomy. This paper throws light on Traditional and Internet learning and affirms that understudy execution as measured by assessment is self-governing. 21st century guideline structure is advancing the internet usage to accomplish consideration of extra time-and place-bound students. Engineering students incline towards this to get the degree from top rank Universities or to learn particular course or surpass desires in a specific branch of knowledge. How many online understudies are compelling when stood out from their classroom accomplices is essential for demonstrating workforce and others blamed for evaluation. Eagerness in an online circumstance may be more trying in examination system classes than in other open association classes. In addition, backing may be less frightening, and the quality and measure of affiliation may be extended in online classes. The remote correspondence permits learner to get the taking in materials and addresses from any place the length of they are associated with the web. In this paper we likewise talk about the benefits and negative marks of both the strategies with the assistance of factual information examination by considering a group of Students from an engineering college. We also discuss the merits and demerits of both the methods with the help of statistical data analysis.
Doc 361 : A Research on the Medical Professionals’ Resistance of Telemedicine: Utilizing the Delphi Study
Background: The constructions of the infrastructure for information and communication technology (ICT) and a universal health insurance system are necessary for a smooth execution of telemedicine. However, despite the fulfilment of such necessary conditions, there are situations where the telemedicine still fails to settle as a system due to low receptivity of stakeholders.
Introduction: This study plans to first analyse the stakeholders’ resistance to an organisation’s implementation of telemedicine. By focusing on the medical professionals’ interests, we aim to propose a strategy to minimise their conflicts and improve their acceptance.
Materials and methods: The Delphi study was carried out on 190 telemedicine professionals, whom have been recommended by 480 telemedicine-related personnel in South Korea.
Results: Out of 190 professionals, 60% of enrolled participants completed the final questionnaires. The stakeholders were categorised into groups including policy making officials, medical professionals, patients and industrialists. Amongst these, the majority of the medical professionals opposed to the execution of telemedicine. The main causes of such opposition were found to be the lack of medical delivery system and the threat of disruption of the primary care units. The consensus amongst stakeholders revealed low and in order to facilitate the smooth agreements, each expert presented the similar conditions such as the financial support by the government and the guarantee of medical autonomy.
Conclusion: The analysis of the causes of the resistance of telemedicine, extracted from the concerned parties, has important implications for the policy-makers to derive strategies for an appropriate consensus.
Doc 362 : Shared Decision‐Making in Pediatrics: Honoring Multiple Voices
Historically, parents looking for guidance turned to a small cadre of trusted individuals such as grandparents and pediatricians. In the Internet era, this paradigm has shifted. With a few keystrokes, anxious parents have access to a seemingly endless array of opinions from faceless sources with unknown agendas. For some parents, this can cause more uncertainty, and for the parents of a child with a medical condition, navigating this information can be overwhelming.
In this modern paradigm, the pediatrician’s duty has also become more complex, especially with the shift from paternalism to patient autonomy in medical decision-making. It is within this context that Alan Fleischman’s book, Pediatric Ethics: Protecting the Interests of Children, should be examined. A pediatrician and neonatologist, Fleischman has witnessed this evolution over more than five decades of practice. As a clinical and academic bioethicist, he has also witnessed a transformation in the field of bioethics, with shifting perspectives on areas such as research ethics and medical decision-making. Because of his rich experience and deep understanding of the past and present of ethical issues in pediatrics, Fleischman approaches this subject with a perspective that warrants attention and thoughtful consideration.
Doc 363 : Pengajaran Penerjemahan dalam Kelas Penulisan Akademis (Academic Writing) di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara
As information and communication technology grows wider and more influential in shaping the training of translators recently, the needs to reformulate translator’s competences are also increasing. By combining some necessary traits and characteristics of good translators coming from the field of linguistics with critical pedagogy fostered in Academic Writing course, the author will argue that translation teaching within the framework of Academic Writing class, yields creativity and more promises on the spirit of keeping humanization alive which is at the same time challenged by the ascent notion of machine translation. The growing dependence on using google translate, for most of the students observed in this case study, highlights the importance to embrace both familiarity with the logic and limitation of MT as well as rootedness within the discourse which empowers human autonomy, thus didactic translation. In this respect, the lecturer plays dual role in becoming role-model for students in translation as well as critical evaluator for their imperfect results of translating text on plagiarism seen from the linguistic phenomenon.
Doc 364 : Bulle e pupe. Il genere del bullismo digitale
This article is the result of an exploratory research carried out in 2014-2015 in the region Marche on an issue that is causing public alarm, despite his knowledge is still approximate and may not be confined to criminal or psychological matters. The cyberbullying is closely connected to the processes of children’s identity construction, of the relation to the peer group and of the definition of autonomy trough which they can free themselves from the control of adults. It is an issue that can be read even from a gender perspective because if the victims are mostly girls, the peculiar procedures enable girls to behave as bullies. Furthermore many of the cyberbullying acts have to do with the body representation and the models of masculinity and femininity that define the imaginary of teenagers. The aim is going beyond the focus on the digital tools and their possible emotional damage for looking at the contents that reproduce sexism and oppression which is not often recognized as problematic.
Doc 365 : Managing work-life boundaries in the age of technology
Technology has blurred the line between work and non-work life. Communication and informational technologies like laptops, tablets, and smartphones enable workers to stay connected regardless of physical location and time of day (Kossek, 2016). Managing the boundaries between the work and home domain is not a new issue (Nippert-Eng, 2008), yet the increasing technological embeddedness in our everyday lives increases the complexity and relevance of these boundaries for both organizations and employees. Communication technology can in many cases give opportunities for more flexibility, autonomy, and control. Nevertheless, it might also exert a pressure on employees, breeding an “always available” culture in organizations (Kossek, 2016). Leaders and managers set examples through their own behavior, which signal what is expected from the employees. Leaders who reply to and send emails during odd hours might contribute to the establishment of organizational norms that revolve around being available after hour and during off days. However, whether or not this becomes a problem is dependent on individual differences, perceived control over boundaries and companies’ availability policy. This review will take a closer look at the different factors that influence the management of work-life boundaries and how technology influences this relationship.
Doc 366 : Protesta social y estadios del desarrollo moral: una propuesta analítica para el estudio de la movilización social del siglo XXI
Different studies on democracy and political disaffection are of the belief that the internet and social networks provide new opportunities for social mobilization and citizen participation. e social mobilizations of the second decade of the 21st century, such as the Arab Spring or the 15M in Spain, defined the protagonist role of online communication and social networks for the summon and the development of protests. is paper, which uses the stages of moral development and applies them to social reality, provides a theoretical proposal for a three-dimensional analysis (introducing the concepts of strategy, action, and objective) to study contemporary social mobilizations. It also presents and compares the three analytical dimensions and uses them to characterize, in an exploratory manner, three cases of social mobilization (the Arab Spring in Egypt, the 15M, and the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages in Spain). In the text, the use of social net- works and the media is a transverse study based on the three dimensions proposed. e analysis shows that some forms of protest have declined to the feelings of political frustration of citizens, and they have been displaced to a second institutional level or suffered a systematic disarticulation. We propose the conceptualization of the contemporary social movement as a collective space built on a strategy aimed at a specific political system that performs change actions focused on autonomy processes and sets out long-term objectives that have been agreed upon.
Doc 367 : Design and construction of a quantitative model for the management of technology transfer at the Mexican ele-mentary school system
Nowadays, schools in Mexico have financial autonomy to invest in infrastructure, although they must adjust their spending to national education projects. This represents a challenge, since it is complex to predict the effectiveness that an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) project will have in certain areas of the country that do not even have the necessary infrastructure to start up. To address this problem, it is important to provide schools with a System for Technological Management (STM), that allows them to identify, select, acquire, adopt and assimilate technologies. In this paper, the implementation of a quantitative model applied to a STM is presented. The quantitative model employs parameters of schools, regarding basic infrastructure such as essential services, computer devices, and connectivity, among others. The results of the proposed system are presented, where from the 5 possible points for the correct transfer, only 3.07 are obtained, where the highest is close to 0.88 with the availability of electric energy and the lowest is with the internet connectivity and availability with a 0.36 and 0.39 respectively which can strongly condition the success of the program.
Doc 368 : Onuma LAKARNCHUA Punchalee WASANASOMSITHI Chulalongkorn University Language Institute Chulalongkorn University
Onuma Lakarnchua Punchalee Wasanasomsithi
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 369 : MULTIDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF CONGESTIONING IN VEHICULAR SYSTEMS
1913/5000 The pretension to develop an engineering project to solve circulation problems in large cities with the guidance of advanced technologies has led to the observation of several additional factors that affect the overall performance of the system. The most relevant are the polluting emissions, the physical and emotional health of the population and the excesses in the journey times. The vehicle entity, even with attributes of autonomy and connectivity, interacts with the entities road infrastructure, human driver and cybernetic link, determinants in the results.
Microsoft, together with Cambridge Massachusetts tech startup, Composable Analytics, and Apttus, headquartered in San Mateo delivered an innovative executive level thought leadership event this fall called R.I.S.E. (Robotics, Intelligence, Society, Economy). The challenge was clear - rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), robotics, social media, autonomy, image and speech recognition, and other areas of technology will continue to have massive economic and social impact, raising entirely new sets of questions, presenting challenges and new opportunities in every part of society. Key business stakeholders essential to identifying practical, realistic future solutions for these technologies are often not at the table to discuss digital transformation plans or are not aware of the near-term nature of changing technological landscape – what the World Economic Forum calls, a Fourth Industrial Revolution.
When facing setbacks and obstacles, the dualistic model of passion outlines that obsessive passion, and not harmonious passion, will predict greater levels of defensiveness. Our aim was to determine whether these passion dimensions predicted defensiveness in the same way when confronted with threatening messages targeting the decision to pursue a passion.Across four studies with passionate Facebook users, hockey fans, and runners (total N = 763), participants viewed messages giving reasons why their favorite activity should not be pursued. Participants either reported their desire to read the messages (Studies 1 and 2) or evaluated the messages after reading them (Studies 3 and 4).Harmonious passion consistently predicted higher levels of avoidance or negative evaluations of the messages. These responses were attenuated for participants who had previously affirmed an important value (Study 1), or who were told that they do not control the passions they pursue (Study 4).Harmonious passion entails a sense of autonomy and control over activity engagement, which usually leads to nondefensive behavior. However, this sense of control may elicit more defensive responses from more harmoniously passionate individuals when the decision itself to pursue an activity is under attack.
Doc 372 : Самоорганизующиеся экспертные среды в образовательных проектах
Purpose of the study. The purpose of the study is the problem of forming a knowledge model of a specialist with higher education that is a part of an educational project. Its relevance is related to the need for an adequate response to strengthening the scientific and technological progress dynamics and the transition to the information interactions economy in the current conditions of the higher education system. Materials and methods. The information base of the research includes the laws on education of the Russian Federation, educational standards of higher professional education, scientists’ publications on the issues under investigation. The study used the following methods: system analysis, active systems theory, reflexive control theory, and modeling. Results. The research analyzes the consequences of Russia’s entry into the Bologna Convention on education. It shows that this event caused the problem of efficiency and quality of training specialists, as well as the problem of integrating higher education institutions into a new social and economic system related to their adaptation to market relations. According to the principle of institutional autonomy, solution of these problems is the responsibility of universities. The paper shows that the way to solve these problems is to transfer universities to a design and technological type of administration. The most promising form of education project management is the model of information interaction within the framework of active self-developing network expert environments. The elementary part of such an environment is an expert professional, who owns modern telecommunication technologies and Internet means. Integration in the natural intelligence network structure forms a collective strategic subject, which is a tool of a knowledge and action synergy in the interaction process. The paper describes the developed structure of the active self-developing network expert environment and two principles of its functioning as an active multi-agent system when forming a specialist knowledge model. It is proposed to consider the construction of specialist’s knowledge model in the context of corporate knowledge management strategies in organizations to increase competitiveness, as the established support systems for organization knowledge lifecycle and specialist’s integral knowledge model are used to integrate strategic corporate tasks with strategic tasks of developing employees’ corporate knowledge. They consider a specialist as an element of a company production system. His purpose is to give a product specified quantitative and qualitative parameters that ensure its competitive advantages. To carry out production activities, a specialist uses a complex of abilities, knowledge and skills that should be considered as models of his production and technological activities. At each moment, this complex should be considered as a subjective model of its production and technological activity. This creates a basis for a university self-development process by involving advanced consumers using network technologies in the innovative process of improving educational services, receiving ideas or content by referring to their creative abilities in exchange for a reward that corresponds to a contribution. The paper proposes a system that provides a direction for finding solutions and ideas, as well as filtering, summarizing information, determining its value and prospects. It is shown that the method of improving the quality of solutions on an educational project is the synthesis of crowdsourcing technologies, network expertise and the methodology of the active systems theory. Conclusions. The proposed approach allows considering the process of extracting new ideas and knowledge when forming a specialist’s knowledge model as an active system with heterogeneous agents with a counter way of sharing information and active influence of the center in the form of queries to obtain reflexive estimates. It also allows ensuring the interaction of universities and an organization in managing their intellectual capital.
Doc 373 : Construção de Sistema embarcado para controle sem fio de tensão alternada em experimentos de física
This paper describes the construction, programming and implementation of an embedded system based on free educational software and an embedded control of sinusoidal alternating voltage (AC) for electricity practices in Physics laboratory. Software can be considered educational when properly contextualized in a relationship of teaching and learning. Thus, this work presents educational software developed and applied to digital control, wirelessly via Bluetooth, to change the AC voltage of the grid using Android smartphones or tablets, making the experiment more interactive and playful. The application of educational software in experiments also allows to verify, in real time, the influence of programs change on the physical phenomena and stimulates the logical reasoning development and consequently the autonomy of the students, to the measure that can raise hypotheses, make interferences in the programming and take off conclusions from the practical results obtained.
Doc 374 : Tracking human routines towards adaptive monitoring: the MOVIDA.domus platform
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2018.10.007 Gonçalo Gordalina João Figueiredo Ricardo Martinho Rui Rijo Pedro Correia Pedro Assuncao Alexandra Seco Gabriel Pires Luis M. L. Oliveira Rui Fonseca-Pinto
Abstract According to estimates by the World Health Organization, the average life expectancy will continue to rise. This indicator, being a measure of success in terms of healthcare, is not synonymous with quality of life and will increase healthcare costs. Associated with this problem are also the changes in terms of the organization of society, which has not been able to solve these constraints of functional limitations, dementia, social isolation, and loneliness. This paper presents the concept of adaptive surveillance based on mobile technology and artificial intelligence, presented in the context of a global physical activity monitoring program (MOVIDA), in his domus dimension designed to the elderly people with some functional limitation or dementia. The proposed solution for an adaptive surveillance is thus to conduct direct supervision programs, to enroll persons who live alone or in nursing homes who need supervision without limiting their individual autonomy. The preliminary results show that it is possible to use the data obtained from a mobile smartphone to identify routines and use this information to identify daily patterns. Changes to these routine patterns can be used to generate alarms for caregivers.
Doc 375 : PROMOTING THE STUDENTS’ AUTONOMY LEARNING: NEWS PROGRAM, AN OUT-OF-SPEAKING CLASS ACTIVITY
This paper presents the result of the pilot project of an out-of-class; it is the making of a news program with 20-25 minutes duration. The pilot project took place at UIN Malulana Malik Ibrahim Malang; it was conducted benefitted from the familiarity of the young people toward social media. The aims of this task were to promote the students’ autonomy learning by giving them the opportunities to practice their speaking skill, building up their self-confidence, and challenging their creativity. Therefore, the questionnaire, as the self-reflection feedback, consisted of three questions; whether the making of news program gives them the opportunities to practice their speaking skill, builds up their confidence, and challenges their creativity. There were 30 students involved in this pilot project. The result of data analysis showed that most of the participants strongly agreed the making a new program give them a chance to practice their speaking skill, build up their self-confidence, and challenge their creativity. Therefore, making a news program can be an out-of-speaking class activity in order to promote the students’ autonomy learning.
Doc 376 : The Autonomy of the Symbolic : On Lacan’s Cybernetic Seminar
We describe a flipped class proposal in the Teacher in Physical Education of the Universidad Nacional of Rio Cuarto, Argentina. The experience was designed and implemented using the social network Facebook and the selection of short videos, it was carried out in two groups with different teachers. The perceptions andsuggestions on the flipped class model were recovered with an ad hoc questionnaire of closed and open questions, frequencies of exchanges, publications and comments on Facebook were also analyzed. The results show highly positive aspects such as the autonomy of the students, the guiding role and facilitator of the teacher. It is concluded that the planning of flipped classes and the sustained accompaniment topromote self-regulation in students is important.
Doc 378 : Extreme Speech| Nationalism in the Digital Age: Fun as a Metapractice of Extreme Speech
Critical assessments of the recent resurgence of right-wing nationalism have rightly highlighted the role of social media in these troubling times, yet they are constrained by an overemphasis on celebrity leaders defined as populists. This article departs from a leader-centric analysis and the liberal frame that still largely informs assessment of political action, to foreground “fun” as a salient aspect of right-wing mobilization. Building on ethnographic fieldwork among the Hindu nationalists in India, I argue that fun is a metapractice that shapes the interlinked practices of fact-checking, abuse, assembly, and aggression among online volunteers for the right-wing movement. Furthermore, fun remains crucial for an experience of absolute autonomy among online users in ideological battles. Providing the daily drip feed for exclusion, fun as a metapractice bears a formal similarity to objectivity in its performative effects of distance and deniability.
Doc 379 : Artificial Intelligence Vs Emotional Intelligence
In the present age, the development of PC innovation is arriving at an unconceivable stature. Imperatively it involves the lives of individuals so as to draw in and make them feel insane. Bit by bit, Individuals chooses to remain inactive and begin to rely upon the advantages of innovation. Computerized reasoning, one of the developing advancements, in day today life utilized for the creation of hard product, for example, Cell phone, PCs that comprises of simple to utilize applications, for example, Facebook, errand person and email includes different misleadingly canny highlights which lessens the anxiety of the customer hood and causes them interface, convey and associate at an a lot quicker pace. Oh dear, this assistant has gradually driven the clients into the universe of dependence loaded up with a string of mental and mental obliges. People are the unrivaled predominant formation of the nature which can’t be Substituted or imitated. In the contemporary world innovation is in the dismal of its progressions to supplant the humanity. The principal Man-made reasoning humanoid Sophia, made on February 14, 2016 by the Hong Kong based organization Hanson Mechanical autonomy in a turned way could be seen as an up and coming risk to the very presence of humankind. All the invented components are carried to reality with the assistance of the present innovation. Cyberpunk Sci-fi conjectures the advancement of Man-made brainpower to the most extreme level. At one Point it started to overwhelm the people by taking the power and control in its grasp. This Exploration Paper basically examinations the Limit and Intensity of Man-made brainpower over human power and its outcomes.
Doc 380 : A Study of Artworks based on Artificial Autonomy Focussing on Cybernetics and Generative Arts
Abstract Facilitating a collaborative community in an online class takes a delicate balance of technology and personal communication. This article explores the use of asynchronous tools, including threaded discussions, announcements, and personal emails to create and maintain a high-touch online classroom. The resulting course structure both increases student autonomy and enhances instructor efficacy. Introduction In fall 2003, I accepted a position that required me to adapt a core professional and technical writing course at the University of Wyoming (UW) to a virtual classroom. As an instructor for the only baccalaureate-degree-granting institution in Wyoming–a large, rural state with significant economic and educational diversity–I was used to serving a broad population with diverse learning styles and needs. Furthermore, I knew that although the technologies and processes in Web-based instruction provide flexibility for the distance learner, they also can produce specific challenges (DeTure 21). Nevertheless, I was unprepared for the glut of individual communications and the volume of personal attention my would require. Since then, I have developed the use of asynchronous tools to limit the repetitive, individual communications that overwhelmed me during my early semesters teaching online. Instead of relying on email for mass communication, for example, I now use the course platform’s built-in Announcements tool. I also rely heavily on the materials posted on the course website and on students’ expertise with online learning in my responses to individual student inquiries. Finally, I continue building infrastructure into my course Home area. I have dubbed the resulting online course, which relies heavily on student-teacher and student-student communication, high-tech, high-touch. On the following pages, I discuss the development and application of these techniques. After a brief review of current literature and research into online teaching and learning, I contextualize my discussion by introducing course strategies and objectives. Next, I briefly overview the course platform, and finally, I discuss how I have used asynchronous tools, including threaded discussions, announcements, and email both to facilitate community in the online classroom and to manage my teaching time more efficiently. Background In February 2004, the Conference on Composition and Communication (CCCC) issued a position statement identifying numerous best practices for faculty teaching writing and composition in the online environment. According to these guidelines, successful online instruction encourages contacts between student and faculty, develops reciprocity and cooperation among students, and uses active learning techniques (Yancey et al., par. 15). Indeed, as Cheng-Chang Pen and Michael Sullivan assert, communication is always a top priority in an online [teaching] environment (par. 1). In College Students’ Perceptions of Quality in Distance Education: The Importance of Communication, Madeline Ortiz-Rodriguez et al. affirm this assertion: Students related quality in with the following features: interaction between and instructors, and between and students; timely feedback from instructors; and availability and accessibility of teaching assistants, facilitators, professors, help staff, and technical staff (101). Communication in the online environment, however, is unlike the spontaneous that takes place in a physical classroom. Although course management systems (CMS) include synchronous tools, such as chat rooms and white boards, as Alvin Wang and Michael Newlin explain, most Web-based courses rely primarily on asynchronous to deliver course information to students (par. 1). Furthermore, the very nature of online creates expectations of constant and immediate availability of faculty. …
Doc 382 : Fuzzy logic system for human activity recognition
Fall detection for elderly and patient is a very important service that has the potential of increasing autonomy of elders while minimizing the risks of living alone. It has been an active research topic due to the fact that the health care industry has a big demand for products and technology of fall detection systems. Owing to the recent rapid advancement in sensing and wireless communication technologies, fall detection systems have become possible. They allow detecting fall events for the elderly, monitoring them, and consequently providing necessary help whenever needed. This paper describes the ongoing work of detecting falls in independent living senior apartments using force sensors and 3-axis accelerometers concealed under intelligent tiles. The force sensors permit detecting elders’ falls, locating, tracking and recognizing human activities (walking, standing, sitting, lying down, falling, and the transitions between them). However, the detection accuracy of real data contains false alarms coming from falling and lying postures. To solve this issue, we propose the fusion between the force sensor measurements and the accelerometer sensor decisions. As a consequence, the system accuracy is satisfactory and the results show that the proposed methods are efficient, and they can be easily used in a real elder tracking and fall detection system. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) has taken the business spectrum, and its applications vary widely from agriculture and health care to transportation. A hospital atmosphere is terribly nerve-wracking, particularly for senior voters and youngsters. With the ever-increasing world population, the standard patient-doctor appointment has lost its effectiveness. Hence, good health care becomes vital. good health care is enforced the least bit levels, ranging from temperature observation for babies to pursuit very important signs within the senior. The complexness and value of implementation vary supported the specified preciseness of the individual devices, functionalities, and class of the appliance that they’re used.
Doc 383 : Context-Aware Technology Public Discourses and (Un)-informed Use: The Case of Users in a Developing Country
There is a move towards a future in which consumers of technology are untethered from the devices and technology use becomes subliminal. With this increasing device opacity, loss of user control and increasing device autonomy, there are calls for more research on users’ privacy and freedom of choice. There are, however, key figures in the creation of modern technologies who suggest that consumers are informed of the implications of the use of these technologies or, that consumers use the technologies willingly. This paper examines, using Critical Discourse Analysis, two genres of IT-related communication viz. a speech made by the CEO of Facebook, the largest social-networking site and, the privacy policy document of Truecaller, said to be the most-downloaded app in Africa. Furthermore, 25 Sub-Saharan African users were interviewed on their use and understanding of smartphones. The analysis reveals concerns of consumers regarding the absence of choice, a lack of knowledge and information privacy erosion are not unfounded. The results show also that with the speech and policy document alike, there was information that was distorted or omitted. The conclusion was that the discourses surrounding context-awareness, through confusion, misrepresentations, false assurances and illegitimacy, contribute to information imbalances and asymmetry but most importantly, an uninformed consumer.
Doc 384 : English-language podcasting as the most up-to-date interactive and communicative technology
The article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation of the podcasting as the most up-to-date interactive and communicative technology for learning English, determining the essential characteristics and selection criteria from the perspective of teaching a foreign language. It is determined that the podcast is a meaningfully completed and informationally self-sufficient audio file that reflects the characteristics of speech, consciousness and thinking of speakers of a particular language and sociocultural traditions. Due to the analysis of various classifications of podcasts, some scientists have established that there is no generally accepted classification. The complexity of their classification lies in the fact that there are many criterias by which we can classify podcasts in accordance with: 1) the purpose of use; 2) the level of language training of the target audience; 3) the study of individual sections of linguistics; 4) topics; 5) genres. It is proved that the Internet technology of podcasting is based on the basics of technical and didactic characteristics: authenticity, autonomy (distance), relevance, formation of competence in the field of media and Internet technologies, interactivity, performance and use of a mobile technical device outside the school. The key point in the selection of podcasts is the definition and justification of the relevant linguistic criteria (phonetic, lexical and grammatical).
Doc 385 : Non-medical sex selection in the context of human rights protection
Despite the troubling data that points to population imbalance, more precisely, increased number of born males in many countries, the issue of sex selection for non-medical reasons was not addressed adequately from the human rights protection perspective. Sex selection is also complex ethical issue. One of the most common arguments used in favor of non-medical sex selection, is that the ban of sex selection will simply limit reproductive freedom. Many supporters of non-medical sex selection defend the practice by relying on the reason of ‘family balancing’. However, this reason does not seem to be eligible to justify selection. Problem of reproductive tourism is also present, due to the different approaches of the countries in regulating non-medical sex selection. More precisely, people are traveling to countries where respect for individual autonomy plays dominant role. In addition, there is a simple option to send samples for analysis to companies that advertise genetic testing over internet. In the context of human rights protection, only the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine has ban on sex selection for non-medical purposes, however, this ban applies only to specific, less practiced technique of selection. When it comes to other techniques of selection, Article 5 (a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women might be helpful to some extent. The issue of non-medical sex selection was in the focus of interest of the United Nations, Council of Europe and European Union to some extent, however insufficiently.
Doc 386 : TECNOLOGIAS QUE INTEGRAM PAIS, ALUNOS E PROFESSOR: O CASO DA PLATAFORMA DIGITAL DE UM COLÉGIO PRIVADO
This paper explores the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in an educational institution. Its objective is to understand the relationship between students, parents, and teachers when using the digital platform, as well as to verify how each one of them appropriates the technological tool. Reflection is based on the premise that the accelerated pace of technological innovation requires that people increasingly assimilate their potential not only in the business field but also in the scholar communities. More than presenting concepts and theories on ICT (KERCKHOVE, 1995, MACHADO, 2004; VEEN, VRAKKING, 2009; MORAN, 2015, and others), the article carries out an empirical research exercise in which the authors conduct observations to the digital platform of a private school in the city of Taquara (Brazil), besides applying a questionnaire with three parents, three students and one teacher of a 4th-grade class in the same school. This research aims to understand if the classes are more attractive, interactive, collaborative and, especially if there is a greater engagement of parents, students and the teacher due to the possibility of digital connections between them. In short, the results pointed out that the digital platform encourages practices with active methodologies in and outside the classroom (at home). In the universe researched, it was also identified that interactions with digital media encourage student autonomy, but parents could use it to become more involved in the process of learning with their children.
Doc 387 : Media Evolution, “Double-edged Sword” Technology and Active Spectatorship: investigating “Desktop Film” from media ecology perspective
Desktop film or computer screen film is a film subgenre with all events and actions taking place on a screen of a computer and using the protagonist’s first-person perspective, exemplified by The Den (2013), Open Windows(2014), Unfriended (2014), Unfriended: Dark Web (2018), Profile (2018) and Searching(2018). This paper mainly focuses on the desktop films with the theoretical framework of “Media Ecology”, aiming to investigate how the desktop film evolves and interacts with new media, digital technology, while influencing communication and spectatorship. Firstly, this paper discusses the evolution of cinema, which evolves through the interaction, co-existence and convergence with other media, as well as corresponds to the anthropotropic trend. Secondly, this paper investigates the digital media and technology in desktop films. “Desktop films” create cyberspaces and reproduce people’s virtual lives, revealing the influences of media technology, which is considered as a double-edged sword. Thirdly, this paper analyzes how desktop film exerts impacts on cinematic communication, while reshaping the spectatorship and audience’s viewing mechanism. “Desktop films” are suitable to be watched on computer, thus making audiences become active and have more autonomy.
Doc 388 : Shaping news waves and constructing events: Iranian journalists’ use of online platforms as sources of journalistic capital
This article investigates the influence of online communications platforms on Iranian journalists’ struggle for countering the restrictions, and achieving their journalistic ends. Based on 26 interviews with journalists working in the established media in Iran, it shows that social networking websites and mobile messaging applications are arenas of mobilization and leverage for journalists in this semi-authoritarian context. Online platforms function as sources of social and symbolic assets for journalists enabling them to make others see and think about an issue, and act on it, thus employ journalistic symbolic power. This article applies Bourdieu’s concepts of doxa, social capital, symbolic capital and symbolic power to explain, why and under what circumstances certain journalistic online strategies become operative. The findings offer insights into how new media affect power relations between journalists and the forces that restrict their practices and offer potentials for relatively more journalistic autonomy in a controlled media environment.
Doc 389 : El teléfono móvil: ua herramienta que puede servir de apoyo para la enseñanza de inglés en el sistema educativo público costarricense
This article presents the usefulness of the mobile device as a tool that can support the teaching of the English language in the Costa Rican public system. This paper aims on the use of the mobile phone not only as a source of information, but also as a didactic resource to integrate cooperative learning, self-autonomy, authenticity, creativity and critical thinking. Departing from the current governmental initiatives to implement technological tools in the English class, this work offers an integrative and innovative methodology for the English teacher in the public sector. This methodology focuses on the model of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) that intends to adjust and integrate to the available technological tools, classroom settings and students’ needs and interest.
Doc 390 : Who and how can control? Autonomy of Internet use among the member of generation Z in Hungary
Before being an exaltation to Luddites (the English workers from the 19th century who actually destroyed textile machinery as a form of protest) or to some sort of technophobic movement, the provocative pun contained in the title of this article carries a methodological proposal, in the field of critical theory of information, to build a diagnosis about the algorithmic filtering of information, which reveals itself to be a structural characteristic of the new regime of information that brings challenges to human emancipation. Our analysis starts from the concept of mediation to problematize the belief, widespread in much of contemporary society, that the use of machine learning and deep learning techniques for algorithmic filtering of big data will provide answers and solutions to all our questions and problems. We will argue that the algorithmic mediation of information on the internet, which is responsible for deciding which information we will have access to and which will remain invisible, is operated according to the economic interests of the companies that control the platforms we visit on the internet, acting as obstacle to the prospects of informational diversity and autonomy that are fundamental in free and democratic societies.
Doc 392 : Understanding Learner Autonomy Through Research: A Summary of a Forum at JALT 2019
https://doi.org/10.37237/110106 Jo Mynard Louise Ohashi Ward Peeters Scott J. Shelton-Strong Andrew D. Tweed Satoko Watkins Isra Wongsarnpigoon
This paper reports on a forum featuring four presentations on learner autonomy research, all with practical applications. The paper gives an overview of the purpose of the forum, a short summary of each of the presentations, a discussion of some of the main themes and methods, and a summary of the ways in which the forum themes were continued to be investigated through the Q&A session and in follow-up recordings and interviews. The four projects described in the paper are: the role of classroom teachers in fostering out-of-class, autonomous language learning, exploring online peer interaction in social networking sites, examining the relationship between students’ agency and affordances for learning when studying abroad, and investigating learner autonomy in a self-access context from a self-determination theory perspective.
Doc 393 : PROBLEMS OF THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL APPARATUS IN THE FIELD OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The study of the problems of the formation of the conceptual ap para tus in the field of legal support of artificial intelligence to develop effective le gal solutions in order to regulate new digital technologies. The work is based on a set of general scientific and special legal methods, including analysis, description, ge ne ra li zation, com parative law. The formation of legal definitions of artificial intelligence and related concepts (ro bot, cyber-physical system, etc.) requires the identification of the main legal fe atures of artificial intelligence. The following key characteristics of artificial in tel li gence are identified: optional hardware implementation; the ability of the system to analyze the environment; autonomy in operation; the ability to accumulate experience, its assessment and implementation of the task of self-learning; the pre sence of “intelligence”, described through the categories of “rationality”, “rationality” or simply the ability to “think like a person” or “act like a person” in all or in narrowly defined circumstances. Future legal regimes of artificial intelligence should take into account the possibility of weak artificial intelligence as a kind of complex thing and strong artificial intelligence that will “require” new legal solutions. The formation of legal definitions in the field of artificial intelligence must meet the requirements of universality, system city and ethics, and also allow, based on the selected properties, to establish systemic hierarchical relationships between concepts used in the field of artificial intelligence. The study develops the theoretical and practice-oriented provisions of in for mation law in matters of legal support for artificial intelligence, and also creates the basis for the formation of legislation in this area. The work can be used in further research activities on the legal regulation of the development, functioning and use of artificial intelligence systems.
The new wave of digitization and the ensuing cybernetic loop lead to the fact that biological, social, and cognitive processes can be understood in terms of information processes and systems, and thus digitally programmed and controlled. Digital control offers society and the individuals in that society a multitude of opportunities, but also brings new social and ethical challenges. Important public values are at stake, closely linked to fundamental and human rights. This paper focuses on the public value of autonomy, and shows that digitization—by analysis and application of data—can have a profound effect on this value in all sorts of aspects in our lives: in our material, biological, and socio-cultural lives. Since the supervision of autonomy is hardly organized, we need to clarify through reflection and joint debate about what kind of control and human qualities we do not want to lose in the digital future.
Doc 395 : Legal Regulation of Robots and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America, the Problem of Human Rights and AI
We are currently experiencing a new revolution, which is related to the Internet, nanotechnology, biotechnology and robotics. Artificial intelligence is based on intelligent algorithms or learning algorithms similar to human intelligence, technologies make it possible for computer systems to acquire independence, self-adaptive reconfiguration. The greater the autonomy of AI, robots, and androids, the less they depend on manufacturers, owners, and users. The fact that the new generation of robots will coexist with humans should be taken into account in legislation, it should adapt and regulate issues of great legal significance, namely: who takes responsibility for the actions or inaction of intelligent robots? What is their legal status? Should they have a special regime of rights and obligations? How to resolve ethical conflicts related to their behavior? The analysis of legislation and doctrine in Latin America has revealed some trends in the use of AI. 1. The use of AI in various spheres of public life causes legal problems in terms of guaranteeing human rights, as evidenced by the analysis of the constitutions of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. For example, article 8 of the American Convention on Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to have his case heard, with appropriate guarantees and within a reasonable period of time, before a competent, independent and impartial court convened in advance by law in support of any criminal charge brought against him or to determine his rights or obligations of a civil, labour, financial or any other nature.” 2. The similarity of AI and human intelligence raises the question of legal personality of AI, granting AI rights. The civil and commercial code of Argentina departs from the category of “human person” and establishes the term “legal persons”: “all persons to whom the legal system grants the ability to acquire rights are legal persons for the purpose of fulfilling their purpose and obligations”. The line between things and people is becoming more blurred, technology and a more sensitive view of other living beings lead to doubt whether man is the sole subject of law.
Doc 396 : Financial Innovation of the Chinese Financial Markets: New Types of Chattel Pledges
The author examines some of the difficulties relating to chattel pledges in China from a financial innovation perspective. This article finds that: (i) under current Chinese financial practice, legal innovation exists in pledges over bank accounts and dynamic pledges; (ii) the new types of chattel pledge faces difficulties establishment and implement of a pledge; (iii) the numerus clausus principle is called into question and should be relaxed to recognize the new types of chattel pledges by way of a broad interpretation, and party autonomy should be taken into account in the realization of them.
Doc 397 : Narrative designed proposals of mechanical or electro-mechanical optimization to the current wheelchairs used by people with severe locomotion restraints
https://doi.org/10.35530/it.071.04.1830 Aura Spinu Vladimir Cardei Valeriu Avramescu Ioana Andone Aurelia Romila Aurelian Anghelescu Mihail Tiberiu Avramescu Ana-Maria Bumbea Elena Valentina Ionescu Vlad Ciobanu Cristina Daia Gelu Onose
The field of mechatronic/robotic wearable exoskeletons, specifically those designated for assistance/rehabilitation in severe neuro-/locomotor disabling conditions in the lower limbs, is considered to have a great potential for radically changing the harsh condition of wheelchairs users, by restoring their defining human traits: bipedal, vertical, stance and gait. But even the most advanced such complex devices, are not yet effectively able to largely replace the wheelchairs. Therefore, until the overall complete wheelchairs’ substitutes, will meet, in this purpose, all the necessary related requirements, we have determined, and accordingly, designed – from a double perspective: of professionals and of (a) consumer – a series of necessary and rather accessible/feasible, consistent: mechanical and electro-mechanical improvements, to the current common type of wheelchairs, in order to improve the global functioning, autonomy and consequently, the quality of life in the needing people, with severe mobility restraints. These, for now, narratively innovative concepts and specifically designed, practical/technological-constructive solutions, target 10 main kinds of beneficial outcomes, i.e. a decalogue and their derivatives to be expected (most of them previously imagined by us but not completely designed until now, two of them already achieved but which need updating and other four entirely new), that could result in an “all-in-one” product paradigm which, to our knowledge, is not available at present. This model of wheelchair we propose is, at the same time, modular, so a certain consumer can purchase/ be offered only his/her own case-specific needed optimization components of it
Doc 398 : “Sometimes I don’t have a pulse, and I’m still alive!” Healthcare providers on digital health techs
Abstract Background Digital health technologies (DHTs) are increasingly becoming an integral part of our lives, healthcare field included. The WHO recently has even released the first digital health guidelines for worldwide intervention. Commercially available DHTs (e.g. smartphones, smartwatches, apps) may hold significant potential in healthcare, upon successful and constructive integration. Literature on the topic is split between enthusiasm for the potential benefits, and concerns about reliability and effectiveness. Little is known about what healthcare professionals (HCPs) have experienced so far with patients and what they believe the main issues for implementation may be. This study aims to investigate current perceptions of HCPs towards self-tracked health-related outputs from devices and apps available to the public. Methods Nine HCPs volunteered to take part in semi-structured interviews. Data were thematically analysed adopting a pre-constructed framework (deductive approach) based on current (April 2019) literature and the findings from the first two interviews. Results The following main themes were identified and explored in detail: HCPs’ experience, perceived knowledge and views on DHTs; advantages and disadvantages; barriers towards healthcare implementation and solutions; future perspectives. While most participants were adopters of DHTs and held positive views about them, their overall experience with patients and the technology was limited. Potential reasons for this included factors such as time/resources availability; colleagues’ mindset; lack of evidence of effectiveness for practice; privacy/data security concerns. Conclusions The potential advantages of DHTs’ adoption in healthcare are substantial - e.g. patient autonomy, time/resources saving, health and behaviour change promotion. However, future research is warranted focussing on addressing barriers, minimising disadvantages, and assessing the clinical value of commercially available DHTs. Key messages We explored healthcare providers’ views on the role of commercial digital health techs in clinical practice. Despite some privacy and reliability concerns, commercial digital health techs show promise.
Doc 399 : Global Trend of the 21st Century: the Deterritorization of Philosophy
Leading trend of the philosophical process is today the deterritorization of philosophy, that is the displacement of the focus of the philosophizing from the area of properly philosophical concepts and problems to areas of other discourses and disciplines. A more general phenomenon takes place too: the deterritorization becomes a universal mechanism, which acts in all parts of the global system and on all its levels. Among many vectors of the deterritorization the following three are of prime importance for the future of the global system: the deterritorization to virtual reality, to cosmos and to eschaton. The program of the complex study of the deterritorization of philosophy is outlined and, as the first stage of this program, the analysis of the deterritorization to science is performed. We find that the development of the relationship of philosophy and science follows the paradigm of alternating phases of scientific onset trying to subordinate philosophy to science and philosophical rebuff, which restores anew the irreducible authenticity and autonomy of philosophical mind. The latest stages of this alternation are analyzed, starting with the onset of synergetics. We show, how scientific formations that came after the synergetic paradigm such as the autopoiesis and the enactivism improved gradually their epistemology and acquired form and nature of sound constructivist philosophy. Nevertheless the philosophical rebuff finds that they do not overcome essentially old scientism, which is unacceptable for philosophy.
Doc 400 : Autonomy and Precautions in the Law of Armed Conflict
Already a controversial topic, legal debate and broader discussions concerning the amount of human control required in the employment of autonomous weapons—including autonomous cyber capabilities—continues. These discussions, particularly those taking place among States that are Parties to the 1980 Certain Conventional Weapons Convention, reveal a complete lack of consensus on the requirement of human control and serve to distract from the more important question with respect to autonomy in armed conflict: under what conditions could autonomous weapons “select” and “attack” targets in a manner that complies with the law of armed conflict (LOAC).
This article analyzes the specific LOAC rules on precautions in attack, as codified in Article 57 of Additional Protocol I, and asserts that these rules do not require human judgment in targeting decisions. Rather, these rules prescribe a particular analysis that must be completed by those who plan or decide upon an attack prior to exercising force, including decisions made by autonomous systems without meaningful human control. To the extent that autonomous weapons and weapons systems using autonomous functions can be designed and employed in such a way to comply with all required precautions, they would not violate the LOAC. A key feature of determining the ability of autonomous weapons and weapons systems using autonomous functions to meet these requirements must be a rigorous weapons review process.
Doc 401 : Discussion on the Application Strategy of “Live Class MOOC” in English Teaching
With the rapid development of information technology and the popularization of Internet, traditional English teaching class has gradually exposed some shortcomings that cannot stimulate the enthusiasm and autonomy of contemporary students. Actively explore the application strategies of live class MOOC in English teaching can help to resolve this dilemma. This article analyzes the basic concepts, important significance and application strategy of live class MOOC in English teaching, which can help to improve the effectiveness of English teaching.
Doc 402 : Autonomous Space Exploration Online in a Writing SAC or OWL
Virtual spaces to help learn a language or write autonomously have become common and are only likely to increase. Multiple resources can be placed on a site easily accessible 24/7 and computer mediated communication in various forms can supply needed human interaction spaces. But how are these sites used by the local students? Following the path of several individuals in detail can allow more understanding and depth of the precise usage of space. This paper tracks two Arab students exploring and using a newly formed online self-access centre (SAC) for writing or online writing lab (OWL) for the best part of a semester. As an exploratory action research study, it was data driven and multiple data sources were mainly unobtrusive so that the study could proceed very naturally. The choices, learning style, autonomy types and personality differences between the two students suggest a range of support is ideal in an online SAC to cater for individuals in this context, including resources, how to learn, 1-1 asynchronous with advisor (emails), forums, electronic writing raters, and a high profile test. Ongoing action research should help to keep the online facility relevant to needs and open to new ways.
Doc 403 : Home-Based Internet Businesses as Drivers of Variety
The paper shows how and why Home-Based Internet Businesses are drivers of variety. This paper argues, by means of five theoretical perspectives, that because of the variety HBIBs generate, they contribute to the economy over and above their direct and indirect contributions in terms of revenue and employment. A multiple case study approach is employed studying the best practices of eight HBIBs. It is found that HBIBs generate variety because of the unique way in which they operate, and because of the reasons why they are started. How HBIBs operate can be captured in the acronym SMILES: Speed, Multiple income, Inexpensive, LEan, and Smart. They are founded (amongst other motives) for reasons of autonomy, freedom and independence. Both aspects - the how and why - of HBIBs are conducive to the creation of variety as they facilitate trial-and-error commercialization of authentic ideas. Five theoretical perspectives posit that variety is important for the industry and the economy: evolutionary theory, strategic management, organic urban planning, opportunity recognition, and the knowledge economy. The findings are discussed in the context of each perspective.
Doc 404 : Power Wheelchair Virtual Reality Simulator with Vestibular Feedback
Autonomy and the ability to maintain social activities can be challenging for people with disabilities experiencing reduced mobility. In the case of disabilities that impact mobility, power wheelchairs can help such people retain or regain autonomy. Nonetheless, driving a power wheelchair is a complex task that requires a combination of cognitive, visual and visuo-spatial abilities. In practice, people need to pass prior ability tests and driving training before being prescribed a power wheelchair by their therapist. Still, conventional training in occupational therapy can be insufficient for some people with severe cognitive and/or visio-spatial functions. As such, these people are often prevented from obtaining a power wheelchair prescription from their therapist due to safety concerns. In this context, driving simulators might be efficient and promising tools to provide alternative, adaptive, flexible, and safe training. In previous work, we proposed a Virtual Reality (VR) driving simula-integrating vestibular feedback to simulate wheelchair motion sensations. The performance and acceptability of a VR simulator rely on satisfying user Quality of Experience (QoE). Therefore, our simulator is designed to give the user a high Sense of Presence (SoP) and low Cyber-sickness. This paper presents a pilot study assessing the impact of the vestibular feedback provided on user QoE. Participants were asked to perform a driving task whilst in the simulator under two conditions: with and without vestibular feedback. User QoE is assessed through subjective questionnaires measuring user SoP and cyber-sickness. The results show that vestibular feedback activation increases SoP and decreases cyber-sickness. This study constitutes a mandatory step before clinical trials and, as such, only enrolled people without disabilities.
Doc 405 : A comparison of the affective affordances of a static and interactive VR system on learner FLA and motivation
This paper introduces a virtual reality (VR) system which was designed to promote English speaking proficiency as learners carry out collaborative information gap tasks. In a former study, a simpler system was developed to explore the effect of modality on learners’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) where results suggested that anxiety was statistically significantly lower in the VR environment compared to a voice and video chat system. However, of three key affordances—presence, interactivity, and autonomy—the previous system only focused on presence. The current system features an interactive component also. In this paper, we present results of a study which compared the two systems (presence-only versus interactive system) with the aim of answering the question: Does more-fully utilizing the affordances of VR lower or increase learners’ FLA? In a counterbalanced design, 30 participants (15 pairs) completed a spot-the-difference task in two different VR environments: static-VR (former system) and interactive-VR (current system). Results of a post-experimental questionnaire suggested that there was no difference in participants’ FLA for the two domains. However, a significant difference was found in terms of ease of communication and enjoyment which favored the interactive-VR mode. Additionally, compared to predictions that the interactive-VR task would be more cognitively demanding, it was considered simpler than the static-VR task. This suggests that using more of the affordances of VR by increasing interactivity further may make the embodied experience more life-like and therefore increase opportunities for learning. This paper introduces the system, implications for researchers and teachers, and future research directions.
Doc 406 : The Construction of Blended Teaching Mode of Cooking Technology Course Under the Background of "Gold Course"
Under the trend of “Internet+Education”, the online and offline blended teaching mode has become an important direction of teaching reform. This article takes the course “Cooking Technology” as an example to build an online and offline blended teaching mode, and investigates the application of blended teaching in the teaching of applied undergraduate courses. Using empirical analysis and interview methods, the article found that the curriculum teaching of “Cooking Technology” has insufficient combination of theory and practice, single teaching mode, poor teaching effect, and heavy teaching tasks. Base on the principle of student-centered, pedagogical coherence, integration of theory and practice, this article designs the blended teaching activities for the “Cooking Technology” course from the three major links, which is the pre-course phase, in-class stage and after-school phase. This article puts forward the issues that should be focus on interaction in blended learning and teaching, establishing a reasonable and sound appraisal method, pay attention to the percentage of online instruction used, so as to provide reference and reference for the construction of “golden courses” of culinary majors and other majors. Finally, the study found that the blended teaching can better cultivate students’ autonomy in learning and solve the basic problems that most students are not interested in learning.
Doc 407 : Criminal Aspects of Robotics Applications
https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3968.38 Fedor R. Sundurov Ildar Begishev Zarina Ilduzovna Khisamova Igor Izmailovich Bikeev Elvira Yuryevna Latypova Timur Radikovich Ishbuldin
Direct and indirect criminological risks of the use of robotics are analyzed and issues of responsibility of the manufacturer (developer)and/or owner (user) of robotics are discussed for acts committed with their participation. This essay discusses promising areas of legal research related to robotics and its corresponding legal regulations. The definition of robotics is based and proposed as all categories of robots in their broadest sense, regardless of their purpose, degree of danger, mobility, or autonomy, as well as cyber-physical systems with artificial intelligence in any form. It is proposed to recognize socially dangerous acts committed with the use of robotics as crimes committed in a generally dangerous way if there are grounds for doing so. It is concluded that the commission of acts through robotics is capable, in certain cases, of creating a plurality of crimes in the form of a real aggregate. The expanding powers of State security bodies, which can carry out the functions of state policy development, legal regulation, control, and supervision in the field of robotics application, have been verified.
Doc 408 : Onyms in Internet communication and electronic environment: new phenomena and functions
The development of electronic communication brings to rapid language and speech-communicative changes. These changes make the scientific task of their timely conceptualization urgent. The purpose of this study is to generalize and analyze the research results on the onyms functioning in the electronic environment and Internet communication. The analysis highlights two the main areas of the research that have developed in science to date. The functioning of the proper name in the Internet discourse is the study object of the first group. The Internet environment is mainly a source of language material according to this group research, which is analyzed considering the electronic communications features (its polycode, informality, interactivity). The feature of this group research is that its’ the main object is represented either by specific linguistic phenomena or special types of discourse, while electronic communication is a secondary feature for its highlight. The second research direction involves the study of new onomastic phenomena that owe their existence to the context of the electronic environment and its communicative, pragmatic, and technical features. This research direction implies both the detection of new types of onyms that were generated by Internet communications, and the description of their characteristic semantic, pragmatic, stylistic, and formal grammatical features. A special status among the objects studied in the second direction is given to such a phenomenon as a nickname, which implements a whole set of features that allow us to talk about its principal novelty and uniqueness. A nickname is the result of autonomy in terms of pragmatic and communication. This contributes to its use as a means of self-presentation and expression; also, a nickname has noticeable formal features that represent the ways of its construction (free choice of motivational bases, language play, active use of non-alphabetic characters). There is also noted an impact of new phenomena in Internet onomastics on the onomastic system and emphasized the need for closer attention to this influence.
Doc 409 : The D-Learning Alternative during COVID-19 Crisis: A Preliminary Evaluation based on Kirkpatrick’s Model
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed schools around the world under unprecedented challenges where saving students’ lives is placed ahead of education as a priority. Within these conditions of distress and uncertainty, education authorities had no choice but to move traditional classes into online ones to ensure the sustainability of studies. The abrupt inevitable decision has been a first for most if not all teachers and students who are invited to cope with a totally new teaching/learning model without necessarily having prior experience in Distance Learning in terms of apparatus or techniques. This study comes as an in-progress appraisal of the D-learning scenarios proposed by Moulay Ismail University (MIU) in Meknes, Morocco, based on a two-level evaluation model (Reaction and Learning) proposed by Daniel Kirkpatrick. It is a real-time evaluation of a learning strategy that has long been considered optional for some students, to become, rather, a plan A constituent for many education departments around the world. The study investigates areas of success and failure from the students’ perspective via 4 sub-indicators: accessibility, autonomy, retention and psychological impact. The study concludes that the figures can be more reassuring about the D-learning experience in MIU once issues related to connectivity and communication are redressed. Keywords: d-learning, e-learning, pandemic, COVID-19, Kirkpatrick’s model, information and communication technology
Doc 410 : Can AI artifacts influence human cognition? : The effects of artificial autonomy in intelligent personal assistants
In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies provide various artificial autonomy features that allow intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) to assist users in managing the dynamically expanding applications, devices, and services in their daily lives. However, limited academic research has been done to validate empirically artificial autonomy and its downstream consequences on human behavior. This study investigates the role of artificial autonomy by dividing it into three types of autonomy in terms of task primitives, namely, sensing, thought, and action autonomy. Drawing on mind perception theory, the authors hypothesize that the two fundamental dimensions of humanlike perceptions—competence and warmth—of non-human entities could explain the mechanism between artificial autonomy and IPA usage. Our results reveal that the comparative effects of competence and warmth perception exist when artificial autonomy contributes to users’ continuance usage intention. Theoretically, this study increases our understanding of AI-enabled artificial autonomy in information systems research. These findings also provide insightful suggestions for practitioners regarding AI artifacts design.
Doc 411 : Estrategias que complementan la capacitación e-learning en el sector productivo
On-the-job development apprenticeship online training quantitative research. The perspective is pedagogical centered on the worker supported by theories of labor development. Made with a random sample of 326 workers from 5 companies in Coahuila. The objective is the optimization of human, technical and financial resources of the workforce for quality productivity. The administration for the development of the human factor is systematized with surveys via the Internet. The development and satisfaction of employees is manifested in organizational behavior and overall quality of work. The business investment for high productivity and personal satisfaction returns is in training. The objective is to complement the training with administrative tools for worker development. The subtopics are supported by theories of virtual learning that consider the central dimensions of the work that motivate the tasks: variety, identity, value, autonomy and feedback; online learning methodologies. The idea that the task itself is key to motivating administration workers; strategic programming; career prospecting; didactics for adults; operation of programs with internet; evaluation of training in virtual classrooms; redesign “e learning” and evaluation of distance training.
Doc 412 : Ethical Artificial Intelligence: An Approach to Evaluating Disembodied Autonomous Systems
Building off our prior work on the practical evaluation of autonomous robotic systems, this chapter discusses how an existing framework can be extended to apply to autonomous cyber systems. It is hoped that such a framework can inform pragmatic discussions of ethical and regulatory norms in a proactive way. Issues raised by autonomous systems in the physical and cyber realms are distinct; however, discussions about the norms and laws governing these two related manifestations of autonomy can and should inform one another. Therefore, this paper emphasizes the factors that distinguish autonomous systems in cyberspace, labeled disembodied autonomous systems, from systems that physically exist in the form of embodied autonomous systems. By highlighting the distinguishing factors of these two forms of autonomy, this paper informs the extension of our assessment tool to software systems, bringing us into the legal and ethical discussions of autonomy in cyberspace.
Doc 413 : Analysing Cybernetic Governance at Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia: How is Co- Production Linked to the Transformation of Higher Education Institutions via Governance?
This paper attempts to analyse how important the cybernetic governance is to higher education institutions in Malaysia. Cybernetic governance is a structure, process of a system to empower greater decision making, autonomy, leadership, and greater accountability. Thus, cybernetic approach is heavily depending on information, utilise information for decision making, policy making and feedback to respond effectively. The concept also relevant with co-production strategy, whereby public services offered at the institution would focus on making use of resources through community building, collaboration, and resource sharing. In this context, “governance” refers to the role of multi-stakeholders involved in decision making, autonomy, leadership, and accountability. The effectiveness and success of this cybernetic governance depends on the institution community; the board, Vice-Chancellor, university management committee, Deans and Directors involved. The main idea is to analyse cybernetic governance as a model for processing information and a platform for co-production on governance empowerment at higher education institutions in Malaysia. Hence literatures are reviewed to apply the concepts to this research. An expected outcome of this research would be the evidence to improve policy performance in governance arrangements. Therefore, cybernetic governance contribution is the practice of good governance for intelligent institutions.
Doc 414 : Knowledge in the model of dynamics and stability of an industrial enterprise
The formation and development of the knowledge economy logically lead to the need for an indepth study of the nature and properties of information in economic systems. The priority value of the information resource and knowledge in the activities of industrial enterprises is determined both by the prospects for the development of science-intensive products and their competitiveness in the world and domestic markets, and by the desire to ensure the stable operation of the enterprise in a highly disturbed business environment. With the search and analysis of the dependences of the production, financial and economic processes taking place in them on the control information, the systemic interaction of the enterprise resources and the dynamics of key indicators of the activity of industrial enterprises are revealed.From the standpoint of thermodynamics, statistical physics and cybernetics, it is proposed to spread the information concept of V. Trapeznikov to substantiate and modelling the dependence of a number of economic and financial indicators on the amount of accumulated information in the controlled complex of an industrial enterprise.Modeling and interpretation of the relationship between the volume of control information with the uncertainty of the functioning of an industrial enterprise and the achieved level of knowledge about it is carried out. The condition for the stability of the indicator of the effect of activity and the financial stability of the enterprise (autonomy ratio) is formulated. The mathematical condition for the range of changes in the level of knowledge of industrial enterprises has been substantiated.
Doc 415 : Experiencing the Peer Feedback Activities with Teacher’s Intervention through Face-to-Face and Asynchronous Online Interaction: The Impact on Students’ Writing Development and Perceptions
The objectives of this study were to compare the impact of peer feedback implementation with teacher involvement through training in the classroom and asynchronous online communication on the quality of students’ writing revisions, as well as to investigate students’ perceptions of peer feedback activities. Twenty-five students participated in the experimental study. Eleven students were willingly to be interviewed. Inferential statistical analysis was used to interpret the quantitative data collected from students’ essay writing scores. Meanwhile, the data obtained through observations and interviews was interpreted using qualitative coding analysis. The results of the inferential statistical analysis revealed that peer feedback activities conducted through asynchronous online interactions had more significant effects compared to those conducted face to face on students’ writing revision. Further, after conducting a thematic analysis, six themes emerged: 1) peer feedback activities could increase students’ autonomy in learning, 2) the teacher’s involvement in peer feedback activities was beneficial in terms of improving the consistency of feedback and revision, 3) peer feedback through asynchronous online interactions gave extra time to produce more beneficial comments, 4) peer feedback activities through asynchronous online interactions gave more chances to become a writing audience, 5) communicating via Facebook made the students feel awkward, and 6) recorded feedback via Facebook comments was more beneficial for students’ revision. The implication of the research is that teachers of English needs to consider asynchronous online interactions for students’ writing revision when teaching writing.
Doc 416 : Preparation of children for elective surgery and hospitalisation: A parental perspective
Parents play a central role in the preparation of their child for hospitalisation and surgery. This research examined the parental perspective on educating their child for an elective admission to hospital for surgery. The study employed a qualitative descriptive design and sampled eight parents from a private hospital in Dublin, Ireland, prior to their child’s discharge, after ear, nose and throat surgery. A thematic analysis revealed four themes: how parents educate themselves about surgery and hospital, factors influencing parent’s decisions on the quantity of information to share, sources of education about hospitalisation and aspects of hospitalisation not discussed by parents. Findings indicated that although the internet was used as a general source of information, parents relied more on information provided by the hospital. Parents used their child’s age, individual needs and level of autonomy to determine what information to communicate. Specific areas that parents found difficult to communicate included pain and fasting. This research highlights the need for hospitals to invest and support the delivery of parental education for children prior to surgery. Clarification of the children’s nurses’ role in the development, implementation and evaluation of education programmes that support education delivery in the home by parents is also warranted.
Scholarly attention to hashtagging on social media sites has focused on their catagorization affordances. Grounded in the literature on online identity, this article examines how Tumblr users tactically use hashtagging architecture for publicity and privacy in self-expression. The analysis is based on Tumblr posts and their corresponding hashtags, combined with text-based, synchronous interviews with users. We find that participants use hashtags as a form of intimate expression, offering “secret whisper” spaces. Participants acknowledged a distinction between these spaces of intimacy and the more conventional space of the post. Extending on Goffman’s dramaturgical approach, we argue that this intimacy practice is a form of stage whispering, which is neither front- nor backstage, but implies and assumes intimacy while on the stage, as an actor might imply and assume intimacy stage whispering to her audience.
Doc 418 : Effects of Using Instagram on Iranian Intermediate Autonomous/Dependent EFL Learners’ Learning of Pictorial Metaphors
This study was an attempt to investigate whether using Instagram had any significant effects on Iranian intermediate autonomous/dependent EFL learners’ pictorial metaphors or not. In doing so, Oxford Placement Test was administered among100 EFL learners studying at Rooyesh language institute in Kelishad, Isfahan, Iran; and based on the results, 80 EFL learners were selected. Then, the autonomy test was conducted to divide them into autonomous and dependent groups. In the next step, they were divided into two equal experimental and control groups (N=40) that each group was subdivided to an autonomous and a dependent group (i.e., 20 autonomous and 20 dependent participants in each CG and EG). Their age ranged between 14 and 18 years old. Gender of participants was not considered as a variable in the study. Next, a metaphorical expression pretest was administered to all groups of the study and then the experimental group was given the metaphorical expressions via Instagram application, whereas the control group only followed conventional treatment. At the end, the posttest of L2 metaphorical expression was administered to both groups of the study and finally the data were analyzed. Analyzing the data through the one-way repeated measures ANOVA and ANCOVA revealed that utilizing Instagram application had a positively significant effect on autonomous/dependent Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ pictorial metaphors learning. Furthermore, both autonomous and dependent students had a positive attitude toward using Instagram Application.
Doc 419 : Flipped Classrooms and the Pitfalls of Digital Learning
In the recent rise of digital learning, “flipped classrooms” have become a controversial subject. This new form of learning inverts the traditional conception of the classroom: instruction is transferred from the classroom to out-of-class (online) tasks such as pre-recorded lectures on the Internet, while class time is devoted to activities that put the knowledge into practice. These classrooms have been touted as learner-based and student-centered models of education. Yet there is still little evidence supporting the effectiveness of the flipped classroom at higher levels of education, especially in the humanities. Taking American studies as an example, I will examine some of the arguments in favor of this model, but also and most importantly some of the challenges facing the application of this new educational model in the humanities. In general, the main concern is that flipped classrooms may undermine student-teacher dialogue, viewing teachers as “moderators” who design learning environments geared to the students. At the same time, home-learning environments may compromise learner autonomy and limit learners’ opportunities for self-organized work and interaction with peers outside class. Ultimately, a critique of the concept of flipped classrooms is also a critique of the egalitarian aspirations of digital pedagogy in general.
Doc 420 : Effects of Passive Leadership in the Digital Age
Organizations must adapt to the trend of digitalization. Nowadays, social media engagement editors play an increasingly crucial role for organizational growth and prosperity in the digital age. Engagement editors are usually tasked to perform the functions of marketing, content production, and data analysis. They have to manage online communities on behalf of the organization, and encounter online audiences’ frequent toxic and aggressive behaviors. Engagement editors thus are prone to emotional stress. Substantial literature has examined the influence of leadership style on employee performance. However, passive leadership is rarely studied. This research investigates (1) whether passive leadership would negatively affect engagement editors’ performance (i.e., online interaction with audiences); and (2) how the negativity would be ameliorated by certain organizational policies (i.e., job autonomy) and their individual attributes (i.e., employee resilience) from the conservation of resource perspective. We surveyed 122 engagement editors and used the smartPLS 3.2.9 to analyze the data. This research provides important theoretical and practical implications.
Doc 421 : Artificial Intelligence and its Application in Various Fields
The term ‘AI’ is not a new term but the actual meaning of ai is still hidden. Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that aims to create machines which are as intelligent as human beings. AI mainly focus on some questions like knowledge required while thinking, the way knowledge can be presented and the way knowledge can be used in other field’s viz. Robotics. Scope of AI is much wider than our thinking. It is not limited to only one or two areas rather in coming future everything will be directly or indirectly linked to AI. Much research has been done on artificial intelligence which has shown that by the end of 2020 many works which was not possible by human beings will be efficiently and accurately can be carried out by the help of robots. Robotics is a branch of engineering that deals with formation, designing, manufacturing, operation of robots. Artificial intelligence is being applied to many areas which are capable to solve many problems like in robotics, e-commerce, domestic chores, medical treatment, gaming, mathematics, military planning etc. The main idea behind the merging of artificial intelligence and robotics is to optimize the level of autonomy through learning. In the coming future we can surely overcome the disadvantages of robots like misuse of it with the help of facial recognition. Or we can use AI in other fields like in cyber security to prevent the systems from being hacked. The applications of AI and how we can implement other applications in coming time are discussed adding to it how we can overcome the disadvantages of using robots in regular life are also discussed.
Doc 422 : Artificial Intelligence, Social Media and Depression. ‘Patient’ Autonomy Revisited
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly being developed and various applications are already used in medical practice. This development promises improvements in prediction, diagnostics and treatment decisions. As one example, in the field of psychiatry, AI systems can already successfully detect markers of mental disorders such as depression. By using data from social media (e.g. Instagram or Twitter), users who are at risk of mental disorders can be identified. This potential of AI-based depression detectors (AIDD) opens chances, such as quick and inexpensive diagnoses, but also leads to ethical challenges especially regarding users’ autonomy. The focus of the presentation is on autonomy-related ethical implications of AI systems using social media data to identify users with a high risk of suffering from depression. First, technical examples and potential usage scenarios of AIDD are introduced. Second, it is demonstrated that the traditional concept of patient autonomy according to Beauchamp and Childress does not fully account for the ethical implications associated with AIDD. Third, an extended concept of “Health-Related Digital Autonomy” (HRDA) is presented. Conceptual aspects and normative criteria of HRDA are discussed. As a result, HRDA covers the elusive area between social media users and patients. ”
Doc 423 : The effect of mLearning on motivation in the Continuing Professional Development of nursing professionals: A Self-Determination Theory perspective
Mobile learning (mLearning) has gained popularity in recent years, particularly in the clinical setting. mLearning reduces the theory-practice gap by providing relevant information to nurses and boosting clinical skills. Despite the vast majority of work in this area, few studies in nursing have investigated the correlation between motivation and mLearning for continuing practice development (CPD). Motivation is an essential theoretical concept used to explain human motive that is not new in nursing. Understanding the notion of motivation directed towards learning may clarify the role of technology within pedagogy. Additionally, associating motivation and self-determination may be crucial in understanding motivation in professional nursing practice and education. This study determines the effect of mLearning on motivation to enhance CPD in nursing professionals (NP) analysed critically through a Self-Determination Theory lens. Twenty-three qualified nurses working within the clinical area participated by using a specific mobile application on their smartphone to learn nursing related skills. Over three weeks, participants logged in their learning experience, providing an overview of the relationship between motivation and mLearning. The nurses participating in the study found mLearning motivational in the clinical setting and indicated ownership of their learning, suggesting perceived autonomy. Furthermore, the mobile application enhanced nursing practices through gaining competency and fostered team building through interactions with other health professionals in the clinical area, demonstrating relatedness. This work suggests that having ownership of the learning experience fosters motivation through intrinsic and external needs, supporting learning and gaining competency in the clinical area. Also, the need to become competent and share with others further nurtures motivation to learn in the clinical area. Additionally, these findings suggest mLearning features that motivate NP towards clinical development. This study concludes with implications for the scholarship on mLearning for the continual practice development of nurses.
Doc 424 : Expert consensus for a digital peer-led approach to improving physical activity among individuals with spinal cord injury who use manual wheelchairs
Active Living Lifestyles for manual wheelchair users (ALLWheel) uses a digital peer-led approach to incorporate two behavior change theories to address a critical need for leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) programs for individuals with spinal cord injury (iSCI).The objective of this study was to obtain expert opinion and consensus for the ALLWheel program.Mixed-methods (qualitative and quantitative) were used to gather expert opinion and consensus for the ALLWheel program using an action research approach.Rehabilitation center.Experts in SCI and LTPA included iSCI who used manual wheelchairs, healthcare professionals, and community collaborators.Two, 90-minute focus groups were conducted and transcribed verbatim, analyzed thematically, and the results were used to create a Delphi survey. Delphi surveys were completed online using consecutive rounds until ≥70% consensus per item was attained. Cumulative percent concordances were calculated to determine consensus.Twelve experts in SCI and LTPA participated in focus groups. Four themes were generated: Need for LTPA programs; Important considerations; Perceptions about peer-coaches; and Feelings about smartphones, which were used to generate the Delphi survey. Consensus on the ALLWheel program was attained in two rounds.Experts established a need for fun and personalized community-based LTPA programs. Ensuring that healthcare professionals would be involved in the ALLWheel program alleviated safety concerns, and experts agreed there were benefits of peers delivering the program. Experts agreed that the ALLWheel program targeted important psychological factors (i.e. autonomy, relatedness, self-efficacy, and motivation) and affirmed the potential for a potentially large geographic reach.
Doc 425 : Ethics and Values in the Digital Environment: by the Example of Parody Videos on TikTok
The ethics of the comic is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of knowledge that is gaining new relevance with the development of a variety of social media. The purpose of this article is to review the existing research and show by examples how ethics and values are closely related to the specific functions of social media, such as distributing parody content and commenting on it. The main focus of our study is a parody which can be defined as communicative behavior in the form of a text, movement, or even a song, imitating the characteristics or behavior of the object being ridiculed. Unlike a literal quotation, a parody reproduces the original in a distorted form for the purpose of mockery. Within this article modern ethical approaches to the evaluation of parody as well as the main functions of parody in the digital environment are considered. Based on the examples of parody videos on TikTok the particular ways of expressing social problems and cultural traumas by using the comic strategies are identified. Furthermore, the issues of algorithmic censorship concerning such videos as well as the problem of the moral autonomy of users are discussed.
Doc 426 : Analysis on the Education Mechanism of the “Learning Power” Platform from the Perspective of Media Convergence
As a media learning platform, the “Learning Power” platform integrates the advantages of the internet, big data, and new media. Through the supply of massive explicit and implicit learning resources as well as the construction of the interactive space of “Learning Power,” it fully embodies the education mechanism of moral education. Specifically, it is reflected in the distinctive political position and the education goal mechanism of “moral education,” the education operation mechanism of “explicit and implicit unity,” the learning mechanism of “autonomy and cooperation integration,” and the feedback incentive mechanism of “gamification.” The organic combination and interactive operation of these four mechanisms form a collaborative education mechanism system of goal orientation, education operation, learning process, and feedback incentive.
Doc 427 : Evaluation of Blended Oral English Teaching Based on the Mixed Model of SPOC and Deep Learning
With the deep integration of “internet + education” and the continuous advancement of education reform, blended teaching has become the main method of university education reform. Blended education combines the advantages of traditional education and online education to complement each other. It not only takes advantage of the flexibility and autonomy of online education but also retains the benefits of emotional communication between teachers and students in offline education. With the increase in practical exploration of blended teaching in universities, teaching evaluation is an important part of teaching, and blended teaching evaluation should also attract attention. The purpose of this paper is to study the mixed oral English teaching evaluation based on the mixed mode of SPOC and deep learning. On the basis of analyzing the teaching design principles of the mixed mode of SPOC and deep learning and the principles of constructing the teaching evaluation after half a semester of teaching investigations conducted by the two classes of English majors, the impact of the SPOC and deep learning mixed teaching mode on students’ spoken English was studied through the method of covariance analysis. The experimental results show that the mixed teaching mode of SPOC and deep learning has been able to fully stimulate students’ interest in oral English learning and improve students’ oral English ability, critical thinking of students, ability to solve problems, group cooperation, and effective communication. Self-directed learning and self-reflection have all had a positive impact.
Doc 428 : Purposes and Challenges of Integrating ICT in English Language Teaching in Nepalese Context
This phenomenological study explores how English language teachers become information and communication technology (ICT) literate and why they make use of ICT in English language class and find out challenges in integrating ICT in English language teaching (ELT). For this purpose, two secondary-level English teachers were selected purposively, and in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic analysis technique. The findings drawn from the lived experience of the teachers reveal that teachers become ICT literate and updated by taking formal classes, training, and teaching their students; they make use of ICT in ELT for students’ language development, motivation, and autonomy. The challenge of keeping the students on the right track is the major challenge English language teachers encounter while integrating ICT in ELT. Though there are challenges, every English language teacher should try to teach the English language integrating ICT.
Doc 429 : Understanding the impact of control levels over emotion-aware chatbots
Emotion-aware chatbots that can sense human emotions are becoming increasingly prevalent. However, the exposition of emotions by emotion-aware chatbots undermines human autonomy and users’ trust. One way to ensure autonomy is through the provision of control. Offering too much control, in turn, may increase users’ cognitive effort. To investigate the impact of control over emotion-aware chatbots on autonomy, trust, and cognitive effort, as well as user behavior, we carried out an experimental study with 176 participants. The participants interacted with a chatbot that provided emotional feedback and were additionally able to control different chatbot dimensions (e.g., timing, appearance, and behavior). Our findings show, first, that higher control levels increase autonomy and trust in emotion-aware chatbots. Second, higher control levels do not significantly increase cognitive effort. Third, in our post hoc behavioral analysis, we identify four behavioral control strategies based on control feature usage timing, quantity, and cognitive effort. These findings shed light on the individual preferences of user control over emotion-aware chatbots. Overall, our study contributes to the literature by showing the positive effect of control over emotion-aware chatbots and by identifying four behavioral control strategies. With our findings, we also provide practical implications for future design of emotion-aware chatbots. • In this study, we investigated the effect of control over emotion-aware chatbots. • Rising ability to control emotion-aware chatbots increases user autonomy and trust. • At the same time, a higher level of control does not increase cognitive effort. • Analyzing users’ control behavior, we identified four distinct control strategies. • Users can be categorized as Soloists, Kickstarter, Controller, and Undecideds.
Doc 430 : WeChat-Based Interactive Translation Mobile Teaching Model
Although the research results of mobile teaching mode at home and abroad have been involved in all aspects of education and teaching and provided a lot of useful reference for subsequent researchers, the lack of research on WeChat interactive translation teaching mode makes the practical research in this field urgent. As China’s education industry continues to pursue international development, it is necessary to train a large number of international talents who have an international perspective, are familiar with international rules, and can participate in international affairs and international competition. However, to become an international talent, you must first have superior English communication skills and be able to deal with various international situations proficiently. The English education goals at the basic education stage are simply beyond reach and can only be cultivated through professional and systematic college English courses. This shows that college English education is at a crucial position in the future development of education. This study attempts to explore how to apply the interactive teaching mode supported by WeChat network platform in translation teaching and English learning of high school students, so as to improve students’ autonomy in translation practice, promote students’ personalized learning, and improve students’ interest and ability in English learning. Based on the investigation of a senior high school in our city, the school began to implement the interactive translation mobile teaching mode based on WeChat in September 2018. The experiment selected the change of students’ English learning achievements in a certain semester and judged whether the mobile teaching mode was conducive to the improvement of learning performance based on t-test. We also need to collect the needs of teachers and parents for the WeChat based mobile teaching mode and judge whether the mode can be promoted. The experimental results show that this teaching mode has an obvious effect on the improvement of students’ English scores, especially in the eighth grade, whose scores have increased from 72.6 to 75. Through the construction of WeChat based interactive translation mobile teaching mode, parents can fully understand the key points of English learning and make English tutoring more targeted and timely. This teaching mode is worthy of promotion in senior high school English course learning.
Doc 431 : Diagnose the viability of separation of power in Egypt: a cybernetics perspective
Purpose The aim of this study is to diagnose the Egyptian political system from the perspective of the viable system model (VSM). That in turn gives us significant insights on how to improve the distribution and control of power in Egypt to warrant greater autonomy and representativeness in the branches of government. Design/methodology/approach The proposed diagnostic framework in this study was accomplished by applying the principles and aspects of Stafford Beer’s VSM to the three state powers of Egypt: the executive, legislative and judiciary. In addition, it adopts the guidelines for applying the VSM described by both Stafford Beer and José Pérez Ríos. Findings The presented framework in this study shows a comprehensive explanation of the essential functions and their distribution among the entities of the Egyptian political system. In addition to that, the findings give us insights about the need for greater autonomy and self-organization among the political system’s entities. Greater communication, consensus, cooperation and coordination is needed to achieve balance, regulate the interactions between them and to monitor each other without intervention. This, in turn, would ensure greater representation of citizen demands and expectations, and protect and guarantee their rights and freedoms. Originality/value The modeling of the Egyptian political system from a VSM perspective suggests the necessity of reform of the political system by a clear division of functions and tasks within the operational entities and subentities, decentralization of power structures and utilization of the decision marketing mechanism to reach public acceptance. The application of the VSM, for the sake of diagnosing and designing the viability of separation of power, can be considered as highly original.
Doc 432 : Documenting the Everyday Hidden Resistance of Ride-Hailing Platform Drivers to Algorithmic Management in Lagos, Nigeria
Ride-hailing platforms such as Uber, an integral component in the global platform economy, are not only facilitating fluidity and so-called autonomy of labor; they are also creating an unfair working environment for workers. This phenomenon indicates the strength of a highly temporal and mobile capital, pitted against workers not just in Lagos but around the world. This article adopts James Scott’s notion of everyday resistance in exposing some of the hidden practices of platform drivers in Lagos. It finds that sabotaging and falsely complying through manipulating algorithms and gaming spaces for rewards are facilitated by social media and communication networks, are deliberate, hidden practices to subvert algorithmic control. While Lagos is a unique case in the global South, examples from global North cities highlight some peculiarity. A robust qualitative methodology was conducted comprising semistructured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observations from forty Uber and Bolt trips. Other primary data sources include driver forums, attending driver training sessions and listening to transport radio programs. This article identifies temporal and spatial dynamics in recognizing everyday hidden practices as not always hidden, but dispersed and inconsistent because of the mutual learning capabilities between platform drivers and algorithmic managers. The hidden transcripts of platform drivers delve into public realms and back following, enabling platform drivers to develop new hidden practices, typifying a continuous power struggle in Lagos.
Doc 433 : From cybersin to cybernet. Considerations for a cybernetics design thinking in the socialism of the XXI century
From its origins, cybernetics has based its desire on the concept of transverse nature, today transdisciplinary. Within its history, the breaking point is unquestionably Stafford Beer and the VMS applied in Salvador Allende’s government. Chile’s historical conditions and context undoubtedly allowed a series of conceptual emergencies that were not necessarily developed after the 1973 coup d’état. Beer’s design, as he claims, could serve both a socialist vision and a fascist command. This tells us that the tool depends on the hand of the administrator. On the other hand, good but insufficient attempts have been made in the field of biologies, such as the theory of autopoiesis and epistemological positions concerning the observer, which have not been able to add value to the VMS. The errors in the design of the VMS can be summarized as follows: confusion of interactions with relationships, confusing co-autonomy with self-organization, confusion of centrism and centralities necessarily as central and establish isomorphisms in a mathematical system aiming at conceptual homologation. As is the case with Information and Entropy. This work shows that the VMS must obligatorily migrate to a Relational Viable system, whose bases are the relations of cooperation and reciprocity based on heterarchical structures for limited or scarce material energy resources. This is the basis of the socialist design which forces the economy to reduce the production of Non-Required Variety.
Doc 434 : The Effect of Interactive Digital Learning Module on Student’s Learning Activity and Autonomy
<p class=“AuthorInfo”>In the modern society, the internet breaks through the restrictions on time and space and becomes a ubiquitous learning tool. Designing teaching activity for digital learning and flexibly applying technology tools are the key issues for current information technology integrated education. Interactive learning modules could be used in the classroom environment for effective learning. This study explored the effect of instructional modules for providing supplementary instruction in biology concepts. Interactive digital learning module was developed in order to assist students in biology learning. Interactive activities were considered in this study, include teacher – student interaction, student - student interaction, student - content interaction, and student - technology interaction. 180 students of Grade 11 in 6 classes at SMAN 2 Balige were selected as the research subjects. Three groups of students participated in biology learning course, (2 classes) using different modules were interactive digital module, digital module and text module. Goal of this research was to determine the impact of interactive digital learning module on students’ learning activity and autonomy. Quantitative results obtained by using questionnaire to understand the student’s learning activity and autonomy. Results showed student’s activities and autonomy who learned with interactive digital learning modules significantly different with students who learned using text learning modules. The use of interactive features increased the activity and autonomy of learners and created the student-centered learning environment. Students under interactive multimedia instruction performed better than text module class. These findings suggested that learning activity and autonomy of students in biology could be enhanced by multimedia instruction.</p>
Doc 435 : Towards Autonomous Driving Using Vision Based Intelligent Systems
Vision Based systems have become an integral part when it comes to autonomous driving. The autonomous industry has seen a made large progress in the perception of environment as a result of the improvements done towards vision based systems. As the industry moves up the ladder of automation, safety features are coming more and more into the focus. Different safety measurements have to be taken into consideration based on different driving situations. One of the major concerns of the highest level of autonomy is to obtain the ability of understanding both internal and external situations. Most of the research made on vision based systems are focused on image processing and artificial intelligence systems like machine learning and deep learning. Due to the current generation of technology being the generation of “Connected World”, there is no lack of data any more. As a result of the introduction of internet of things, most of these connected devices are able to share and transfer data. Vision based techniques are techniques that are hugely depended on these vision based data.
Doc 436 : To the question of modernity and corresponding representations of subjectivity: “dividual” and social organizations
This article is part of the extensive research of value characteristics of IT community and their potential for innovative development. In view of this, the author examines the problem of determination of the modern cultural situation and, as a result, deduction of the criterion that establishes what “modern” is. Based on the previously acquired conclusions (according to which, such criterion is the consideration of irreducible multiplicity, and the major risk is the loss of autonomy by individuals), the author aims to find the model of subjectivity that would be simultaneously multiple and autonomous. The search for the model that meets such criterion is carried out through referring to the control technologies developed within the framework of third-order cybernetics. The novelty of this article consists in peculiarity of the approach towards solution of the set task: the question in the form and method of determination of modernity has been first raised and solved within the framework of the Russian academic philosophical community at the previous stage of research, which determines the relevance at the current stage as well. Comparison of the developments of Russian and foreign authors reveals the parallelism between the development of cybernetics and psychoanalysis; demonstrates the conceptual intersections of the third-order cybernetics and schizoanalysis; establishes the conformity between the subjectivity of the individual and the type of organizations they are engaged in. The article offers the concept of “dividual” as a model suitable for solution of the set task. The conclusions is made that the existing potential of the IT community for modernization is neutralized in the context of transition towards the hierarchical structure of the organization.
Information ethics is a branch of applied ethics that focusses on web applications, information management, and the general use of computers. It is concerned with questions of a just and free distribution of information, with questions of autonomy and power on the internet or a value-oriented design of Information Technology (IT) systems. Information technologies shape many of the essential factors of interaction in a data-driven society. The implementation of values such as privacy, freedom from discrimination or participation in the development of a digital society is therefore a necessary prerequisite for a democratic and sustainable course of action. Digital information technologies make it possible to disseminate information in two ways: via the users, and about the users. Increasingly, information about the behavior and the communication of users can be collected through digital platforms. The vast amount of economically used data and also the exchange of information on social media platforms calls for evaluation, orientation and governance. Only in this way can we ensure that freedom of information is not a privilege, but a shared resource in a lively pluralistic and democratic society.
Doc 438 : Democracy and second-order cybernetics: the ascent of participation and creativity
An exceptional chain of events in science, technology, art and planning took place in Latin America in the 1970s. Does this wonder shed light upon our view of the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming? This paper intends to adduce evidence on second-order cybernetics processes underlying five outstanding cases in real societies and to disclose the links between democracy and unfettering momentum for freedom and creativity. Namely, Oscar Varsavsky, national projects, styles of development, scientific and technological autonomy; Stefano Varese, cultural and political autonomy of indigenous people; Mario Pedrosa, creation of the Museum of Solidarity in Chile; Stafford Beer, Cybersyn project for cybernetics and self-management in Chile; and Humberto Maturana, concepts of autopoiesis, cognition, language and multiverse. The reasoning counts with the author’s direct participation in all cases. The paper sets a similarity worthy of being noticed between Allende’s Unidad Popular in Chile and Pericles’ Golden Age in Greece and outlines why these historic realms albeit far apart have lasting importance and similar historical impetus. Highlights the essential and seminal features of each stream and comes to the conclusion that effective democracy is the necessary condition for participation and creativity. Upsurges in social participation and creativity are neither frequent nor cyclical. Still, such sudden and usually large increase in ingenuity, flair and aim to improve living conditions, although limited in time, remain in our mind as a joy forever. Nowadays, the world witnesses a contrary motion towards sterile art patterns and restrained behaviour. Hence, it becomes even more important to better understand the basic roots of cultural, social and political blooming.
Doc 439 : New Weapons and Old Law: Can International Humanitarian Law Treaties Deal Adequately with Modern Technologies?
Military technology is developing incredibly fast. Drones, Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS), and Cyberwarfare instruments have been resorted to by states and non-state actors in warfare. Yet, the developments and emerging challenges have not resulted in formal amendments to the existing regulatory framework of International law. Some believe that the current regime is required to be amended in accordance with developing technologies. Others support the idea that the rules and principles of the existing International Humanitarian Law regime need to be re-evaluated and re-interpreted according to changing conditions on the ground that a formal amendment process does not seem to be a feasible option because of the resistance of the powerful international actors. At this point, formidable questions arise such as; What are the challenges to interpreting existing rules and standards of the IHL regime amidst the increasing developing technologies? What levels of autonomy will be permissible for AWS to ensure compliance with international law principles, i.e., the principle of distinction in warfare? Which technologies or certain weapons can/should be restricted and outlawed? This article aims to come up with satisfying answers to these and further questions.
Doc 440 : Environmental factors affecting learners’ autonomy in the covid-19 pandemic
Recently, Covid-19 has threatened the education sector and forced learners to adjust an online learning. According to that, learners need to study in their own space and make them more independent and autonomous. However, learners tend to experience difficulties caused by their surrounding environments that sometimes does not support online learning. Surrounding environments include human activities e.g., noise in the surrounding; financial capabilities of parents for internet data plans; or other issues beyond the student’s intellectual abilities. Therefore, this research aimed to explore the existed environmental factors that affected the learning environment and define the factors which affected learners’ volition. This study was applied a qualitative method and presenting the collected results descriptively. The researcher worked with one English teacher who has been voluntarily participating in this study. This study used semi-structured interview and questionnaire as the research instruments. Firstly, the researcher sent the questionnaires using Google Form for all students at 11th graders from one of the government-owned senior high schools in Surabaya. Secondly, the researcher interviewed an English teacher to find out the class’ conditions. This study has revealed that teacher still holds huge responsibilities to guide students along the online learning process. Besides, there were still a lacks IT skills of students which make the teacher not only a facilitator but also a helper or counsellor. This dominant role of the teacher eventually made students less autonomous.
Doc 441 : STRUGGLING INDONESIAN EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS GOING TO MALL: ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS?
Mobile-assisted Language Learning (MALL) has been globally popular. Yet, experimental studies investigating the results of different treatments between additional MALL and standard MALL implementations in Indonesian university context are still understudied. This research sought to investigate the extent to which additional MALL activities as a treatment to an EFL experimental group of university students could improve their English given the limited class time and large sized classes. The subjects of this study were two second semester classes of English Literature students. The experimental class, a low-performing group, was asked to watch a youtube video twice or thrice a week in addition to the standard online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic while the controlled class, a better performing group, was not given this treatment. The findings revealed that (1) experimental students significantly improved their pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary and fluency but not their formal assessment results; (2) though assigned additional MALL activities, the experimental group, due to limited financial ability for internet, spent roughly as much time as the controlled group; ((3) bad internet connection and low economic affordability contributed significantly to the less satisfactory result of MALL; (4) due to the standard online learning during the pandemic, both experimental and controlled students experienced increased exposures, enthusiasm, motivation, range of independent activites, autonomy and English ability; (5) real time students’ collaboration is challenging. This study suggests that MALL somehow allows greater English improvement and autonomy development and therefore is recommended that universities and respective local governments especially in remote areas provide the necessary supports.
Doc 442 : Assessment of Cybersecurity Risks: Maritime Automated Piloting Process
A modern society is a combination of several critical infrastructures, of which international and national maritime transportation systems are essential parts. Digitalization makes it possible to increase levels of autonomy in maritime systems. It also means fully existing cyberenvironments in maritime processes. In cyberenvironments, it is crucial there is trustable information communication between system elements of the process, alongside the usability, reliability, and integrity of systems data in the operating environment. In order to develop maritime autonomy in Finland the Sea4Value / Fairway (S4VF) research program has been developed. At the first stage of the program, the main goal is to create automated fairway piloting feature in the near future. An automated remote piloting process, “ePilotage,” will be a complex system of systems entity. This paper provides a research approach to investigating the cybersecurity risks at the system levels of process. It emphasizes the importation of comprehensive risk assessment to increase the cybersecurity of fairway operations. The findings of the study are located in cybersecurity risks in critical information flows between the main system blocks of the fairway process. The research question is “How can the cybersecurity risks of automated remote fairway operations be evaluated?” The main findings are related to the probabilities of the risks in all levels of process stakeholders’ responsibilities. Risk assessment methodology, that has been described, is based on attack probabilities against probabilities to defend actions of adversarial in use of communication technologies. Risks assessment factors have been identified and the risk assessment tool have been proposed.
Doc 443 : An AI ethics ‘David and Goliath’: value conflicts between large tech companies and their employees
Abstract Artificial intelligence ethics requires a united approach from policymakers, AI companies, and individuals, in the development, deployment, and use of these technologies. However, sometimes discussions can become fragmented because of the different levels of governance (Schmitt in AI Ethics 1–12, 2021) or because of different values, stakeholders, and actors involved (Ryan and Stahl in J Inf Commun Ethics Soc 19:61–86, 2021). Recently, these conflicts became very visible, with such examples as the dismissal of AI ethics researcher Dr. Timnit Gebru from Google and the resignation of whistle-blower Frances Haugen from Facebook. Underpinning each debacle was a conflict between the organisation’s economic and business interests and the morals of their employees. This paper will examine tensions between the ethics of AI organisations and the values of their employees, by providing an exploration of the AI ethics literature in this area, and a qualitative analysis of three workshops with AI developers and practitioners. Common ethical and social tensions (such as power asymmetries, mistrust, societal risks, harms, and lack of transparency) will be discussed, along with proposals on how to avoid or reduce these conflicts in practice (e.g., building trust, fair allocation of responsibility, protecting employees’ autonomy, and encouraging ethical training and practice). Altogether, we suggest the following steps to help reduce ethical issues within AI organisations: improved and diverse ethics education and training within businesses; internal and external ethics auditing; the establishment of AI ethics ombudsmen, AI ethics review committees and an AI ethics watchdog; as well as access to trustworthy AI ethics whistle-blower organisations.
Doc 444 : [The Mindset and Realization of Precision Care Provided by the Science of Ambient-Assisted Living].
Smart care has become a trend in care institutions and households in recent years. Ambient-assisted living (AAL) has been a topic of increased academic interest over the past decade in line with societal aging and the proliferation of internet and mobile technologies. At the extreme end of AAL is “over-science”, a situation in which human functions are over replaced by scientific technologies. This may not only jeopardize the health of older individuals but exacerbate the progress of their dysfunctions by ignoring their desire for self-respect and autonomy. Therefore, the aim of AAL should be to create a web ecosystem rather instead of creating a linearly clustered combination of computerized gadgets.隱形輔助科技創造精準照護思維與實現.近年來智慧照護在機構與居家都是一股風潮，幾年前在學術界一直在討論隱形輔助科技（ambient-assisted living）的論點，預測未來全球將逐漸成為高齡化社會，會有網路連線、行動裝置的普及等，因此提出打造隱形輔助生活的科技。而隱形科技的相反就是「過度科技」，所謂的過度就是試圖「取代」人的功能；長期照護提倡應用各式各樣的科技來協助高齡者的安全照顧，這類過度科技的產品對高齡者的健康可能沒有幫助，往往還造成更快的退化，更忽略了高齡者對自主尊嚴生活的渴求。真正的隱形輔助科技照護環境，重點在結合5G資通訊科技與元宇宙虛實整合的照護思維，形成一個網狀的生態系統，而不是一個線性串連的科技組合。.
Doc 445 : A Retrospective Evaluation of Pre-Pandemic Online Teacher Learning Experiences
Teachers are expected to encourage students to be active in the learning process in line with social-constructivist principles. However, when it comes to their own learning, they are obliged to attend activities organized by their institution. Triggered by this dilemma, this study introduced Computer-Mediated Communication as an alternative to the top-down delivery of trainer-fronted professional development and explored teachers’ uptake of Web 2.0 in the pre-pandemic era. To obtain comprehensive insights into teachers’ perceptions related to the use of Web 2.0 for their own learning, the study employed qualitative and quantitative methodology. Study results revealed that teacher development cannot be promoted with the use of Web 2.0 per se as it is very much dependent on teacher awareness, autonomy, beliefs, contextual realities but most significantly student learning. Despite limitations, this study highlights the principle of learner-centeredness as the key for promoting teacher development and the need to make prospective teacher learning practices an integral part of student-focused activity. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that the multi-dimensional nature of teacher learning and contextual realities at multiple levels are considered in the design of post-pandemic teacher development schemes, significantly in institutions with low-autonomy cultures in order to turn top-down teacher development practices which teachers are used to into teacher initiated bottom-up learning processes.
Doc 446 : Launching the Internet of Things: how to ensure a successful debut
Purpose Companies that leverage the Internet-of-things (IoT) will gain significant competitive advantages over the competition; however, few businesses have active IoT initiatives. This paper aims to provide principles to guide executives as they launch or scale-up IoT initiatives. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon data from original expert interviews and an extensive study of existing scholarly literature, management publications and white papers from leading strategy and technology firms. Findings Close cooperation among a company’s operations, business strategy and information technology units creates a trifecta of skills, vision and budgeting that can successfully bring major IoT initiatives to fruition. Unfortunately, many companies face a misalignment among these departments. The way to overcome this misalignment is to create a cross-functional team dedicated to IoT initiatives. Leaders should build these teams on the principles of autonomy, rational compensation, equality and diversity. Practical implications This paper provides strategic advice for business leaders as well as four guiding principles with which to execute their IoT strategies. Originality/value Much of the writing about IoT advocates initiatives by teaching about the many business benefits of IoT or provides a use case for a specific type of IoT technology. This paper focuses on removing a major obstacle faced by many business leaders who want to embrace the IoT but find themselves unable to do so.
Doc 447 : The Peculiarities of Distance Foreign Language Learning
The paper demonstrates the feasibility of information and communication technologies (ICT) in English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning process. The organizational and pedagogical approaches to efficient EFL learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic have been outlined. Furthermore, the main perspectives and challenges appearing in an online learning environment have been characterized. The proposed paper aims to consider the possibility of integrating innovative computer technologies into online foreign language learning to foster students’ autonomy and boost their language proficiency. The findings suggest that using ICT is beneficial for mastering a foreign language in out-of-class settings. Admittedly, there is no perfect or universal blend that may suit all the EFL learning environments. Therefore, it is claimed that blended programs should be created for each academic course regarding students’ wants, needs, and abilities. Furthermore, each higher educational institution needs to have a strategy for designing and implementing a distance EFL learning program that considers instructional, pedagogical, and technological factors.
Doc 448 : The Role of Online Resources in Developing Autonomous Learning Metacognitive Skills Among First-Year University Students of English: A Mixed Methods Study
This mixed methods study examines the way online resources can be effective in developing the learning autonomy metacognitive skills of planning, monitoring, and self-evaluation among undergraduate students at the Facultyof Letters and Humanities Fes-Agdal, which is representative of the socio-cultural and higher education system of Morocco. The sample consisted of an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group consisted of 120 students who were exposed to three main online tools (Newsela.com, mrnussbaum.com, and rewordify.com), with virtual meetings and instruction provided through Facebook. The Facebook groups were kept secret, with only participants joining. The control group consisted of 120 students that benefited only from the university’s regular reading courses. The experimental intervention period was followed by interviews with a sample of 25 students from both groups, providing a qualitative perspective. The overall results suggest that online resources have a positive effect on the development of metacognitive skills. Students tend to appreciate the inclusion of online resources in the classroom without devaluing the role of their EFL teacher – the students did not expect online resources to fully replace the role of their teachers.Keywords: EFL online learning autonomy; learning autonomy; online resources; teaching and learning in higher education
Doc 449 : Understanding students’ opportunities and challenges in a curriculum vitae writing process: Activity system as an analytical tool
Writing is a complex language skill, and writing using English as a medium for employment purposes requires an intricate set of knowledge and skills. Because such a writing process frequently occurs outside of a formal learning setting, few attempts to study the phenomenon have been made. Through the lens of the activity theory, the paper analyses the influence of six components in a CV writing process from a social-constructivist approach. A mixed-method approach was adopted with a Likert scale survey with open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data from 184 participants revealed that students were mostly influenced by various digital artifacts (e.g., online dictionaries, online courses) and situated in online communities of learning. Qualitative results also indicate the prominent challenges relating to syntax and lexical use as one the conflicting factors and a certain level of autonomy as a facilitating factor while they managed to overcome these complications. The paper suggests how the curriculum of Business English could be adapted to support language learners in real-life employment situations.
Doc 450 : Knowledge and Skills Development in the Context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies: Interviews of Experts from Pennsylvania State of the USA
Fourth industrial revolution is the introduction of ICT (mostly IoT) in industry and elsewhere, which enables the creation of cyber-physical systems, i.e., digital twins of reality. The application of widespread digitization of processes brings changes in terms of increased efficiency of processes, increased flexibility of production, and the possibility of realizing prosocial and pro-ecological goals, such as sustainable development, sustainable production and consumption, and reducing the consumption of increasingly expensive energy. Nowadays, the high autonomy of cyber-physical systems and benefits to society are expected by including human factors within the Industry 5.0 concept. Implementing the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and meeting the expectations of sustainable development also means new challenges for the knowledge and skills of industry employees, mainly engineers implementing modern solutions. Hence, the article’s aim is to identify the critical knowledge and skills of engineers responsible for implementing the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. The achievements and results presented in the article were obtained based on research conducted among experts from the University of Pennsylvania (USA). The study considers aspects connected to the problems of implementing the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and identifies the benefits and risks of their implementation for Society 5.0.
Doc 451 : Analysis and Optimization of the Online Vocal Teaching System Based on Intelligent Computing
With the continuous development of science and technology, network technology has become more and more advanced and network applications are widely used in all walks of life, and vocal music teaching is no exception. The Intelligent Agent plays a unique role in networked teaching by making up for the lack of intelligence, adaptiveness, autonomy, and interoperability and interactivity in all aspects of traditional teaching. This paper introduces the knowledge of Intelligent Agent and then discusses its application in the networked teaching environment. Compared with the traditional teaching environment, the intelligent network teaching environment is more conducive to the initiative and innovation of students, reflecting the characteristics of student-centred learning and achieving a variety of functions such as teaching resource sharing, information interaction, online communication, and distance learning with the support of computer network technology. It is a new field to be explored, especially opening up a new chapter of online vocal music teaching.
Doc 452 : [The Mindset and Realization of Precision Care Provided by the Science of Ambient-Assisted Living].
Smart care has become a trend in care institutions and households in recent years. Ambient-assisted living (AAL) has been a topic of increased academic interest over the past decade in line with societal aging and the proliferation of internet and mobile technologies. At the extreme end of AAL is “over-science”, a situation in which human functions are over replaced by scientific technologies. This may not only jeopardize the health of older individuals but exacerbate the progress of their dysfunctions by ignoring their desire for self-respect and autonomy. Therefore, the aim of AAL should be to create a web ecosystem rather instead of creating a linearly clustered combination of computerized gadgets.隱形輔助科技創造精準照護思維與實現.近年來智慧照護在機構與居家都是一股風潮，幾年前在學術界一直在討論隱形輔助科技（ambient-assisted living）的論點，預測未來全球將逐漸成為高齡化社會，會有網路連線、行動裝置的普及等，因此提出打造隱形輔助生活的科技。而隱形科技的相反就是「過度科技」，所謂的過度就是試圖「取代」人的功能；長期照護提倡應用各式各樣的科技來協助高齡者的安全照顧，這類過度科技的產品對高齡者的健康可能沒有幫助，往往還造成更快的退化，更忽略了高齡者對自主尊嚴生活的渴求。真正的隱形輔助科技照護環境，重點在結合5G資通訊科技與元宇宙虛實整合的照護思維，形成一個網狀的生態系統，而不是一個線性串連的科技組合。.
Doc 453 : Revisiting Transactional Distance Theory in e-Learning Environment during COVID-19: Perspective from Computer Science Students
This study is based on the separation of teachers and learners caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the implication of Moore’s Transactional Distance Theory, which proliferated for nearly 30 years but has been inconsistently validated empirically. The quantitative approach was employed, with questionnaires distributed based on the learners’ perspectives. The subjects of the study include 153 respondents from computer science department of an Indonesian public university. Three key tenets of transactional distance include dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy were specifically addressed and validated as significant predictors in this study. The findings elucidated an inverse relationship between dialogue and learner autonomy respectively with transactional distance, and a less rigid course structure capable of contributing to lessen the perceived degree of transactional distance in the e-learning environment. Furthermore, this study discovered that e-learning satisfaction and internet connection speed had an impact on the extent of transactional distance.
Doc 454 : How Personality Impacts Remote Workers in Mainland China: A Qualitative Study
The present study identifies and discusses the impact of personality factors on remote workers in China, using a phenomenological methodology to understand participants’ lived experiences. The sample population is comprised of Chinese citizens born in China. Data were collected through one-on-one, online semi-structured interviews using WeChat. The interview questions are structured to allow participants to explain personality traits found in productive and unproductive remote workers. In addition, the questions explore traits positively associated with developing trust and how the psychological needs of autonomy, competency, and relatedness impact remote workers. After data collection, the data were analyzed and coded to develop themes used to answer the core research questions. This study’s findings offer benefits to companies using remote workers and employees new to remote work or those aiming to become remote workers since the data collected provides a holistic picture of remote work from actual workers’ perspective. The information gathered from the research participants allowed the researcher to determine that one of the most beneficial aspects of remote work is autonomy and the ability to set one’s schedule. Confidence directly impacts feelings of competency among remote workers, and relatedness is negatively impacted by being a remote worker because of decreased opportunities for face-to-face interactions.
Doc 455 : Cybernetic embodiment and the role of autonomy in the design process
Doc 456 : Reports on the 2015 AAAI Spring Symposium Series
https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v36i3.2608 Nitin Agarwal Sean Andrist Dan Bohus Fei Fang Laurie Fenstermacher Lalana Kagal Takashi Kido Christopher Kiekintveld W. F. Lawless Huan Liu Andrew McCallum Hemant Purohit Oshani Seneviratne Keiki Takadama Gavin Taylor
The AAAI 2015 Spring Symposium Series was held Monday through Wednesday, March 23-25, at Stanford University near Palo Alto, California. The titles of the seven symposia were Ambient Intelligence for Health and Cognitive Enhancement, Applied Computational Game Theory, Foundations of Autonomy and Its (Cyber) Threats: From Individuals to Interdependence, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Integrating Symbolic and Neural Approaches, Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning, Socio-Technical Behavior Mining: From Data to Decisions, Structured Data for Humanitarian Technologies: Perfect Fit or Overkill? and Turn-Taking and Coordination in Human-Machine Interaction.The highlights of each symposium are presented in this report.
Doc 457 : AN INTEGRATIVE PROJECT IN MICROPROCESSOR INTERFACES
In the third-year microprocessors course given to Mechatronics Engineering students at the University of Waterloo, the lab studies have been redesigned as a scaffolded project. The project aims to provide a more authentic learning opportunity that integrates concepts from the concurrent courses, as well as prior courses. The project was carefully designed to provide some student autonomy while ensuring competence can be achieved by students with a broad range of initial skill levels through the completion of authentic tasks. The impacts of the revised project on student learning were measured using pre- and postproject surveys, course grades and course critiques. Despite significant challenges that were encountered during the first two offerings, the results show that students perceived an increased competence in several key skills, and an increase was seen in overall course satisfaction.
Doc 458 : Integrating the business networks and internet of things perspectives: A system of systems (SoS) approach for industrial markets
In industrial business-to-business (B2B) markets, physical entities (such as products, machines, materials, or other objects) are increasingly connected among each other. This Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is quickly developing thanks to advances in fields such as information systems, factory digitalization, data sciences, robotics. Thus, industrial markets appear both as business networks - encompassing connections between individual or organizational actors – and networks of connected things. The purpose of this research is to provide an integrative perspective that encompasses both types of networks. It seeks to contribute to the literature on industrial B2B markets in two ways. First, it proposes the system of systems (SoS) theory - which emphasizes diversity and autonomy of systems - as an integrative perspective. Second, it argues that this integrated perspective contributes to a new view on how resources are produced, combined, and used, and, therefore, on business network models. We discuss the implications for one of the most established models, the IMP Group’s A-R-A model. • Traditional representations of business networks may not be adapted in IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) contexts. • In IIoT actors are not only humans or organizations. • In IIoT technologies are not necessarily resources. • A system of systems approach of business networks is introduced. • Impacts on new connections between actors, and value creation are discussed.
Doc 459 : Bionic construction of the human body in the light of the slippery slope argument
Composite tissue transplantation has gained a new dimension in line with advanced technological developments. In extremity losses, the traditionally implemented procedure is to enable the extremity to regain its functionality through replantation instead of transplantation. On the other hand, innovative studies are also carried out to support and strengthen the human body and improve the problematic body functions for increasing patients’ quality of life. Studies on developing biomechatronic systems, which are related to biology, neurology, biophysics, mechanics, biomedical and tissue engineering, electronics, and computer sciences, are in progress, which indicates that a transformation has occurred in the approaches to composite tissue transplantation. This study aims to generate ideas about determining a conventional limit in the interventions towards the human body against the technological and scientific developments and to perform a value analysis on such interventions. This study was designed within the framework of the methodology of medical ethics and in the light of the slippery slope argument. The process of transformation from the medical procedures that aim to protect patients’ bodily integrity to the innovative practices that provide an opportunity to bionically turn healthy human bodies into the half machine and half-human is investigated in the light of the slippery slope argument. This study indicated that the value-related problems regarding this issue are related to the principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The limit to be determined for the practices that aim to protect the patients’ bodily integrity and increase their quality of life and that are not life-saving depends on the distinction between an ill body and a healthy body. A meticulous clinical perspective and legislative regulations that prevent the instrumentalization of humans are required so as not to roll down to undesirable places on a slope. Advanced technological developments are implemented in medicine, protecting human dignity should be adopted as a fundamental value.
Doc 460 : The Emergency Remote Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic from the Perspective of Higher Education Students in Portugal
The COVID-19 pandemic led, in Portugal as well in other countries, to an abrupt transition to online classes in higher education, with no consideration for the specific students’ conditions. Therefore, this study aims to assess the students’ perspective on online learning classes carried out during the lockdown in 2020. The analysis is based on 2,107 valid answers from students of seven Portuguese higher education institutions that took synchronous online classes. Principal component analysis and binary logistic regression were the main quantitative methods used. This study identified five factors that, in all cases, significantly explain the students’ perspective on the transition to online classes. These factors include not only pedagogical matters (teachers’ overall quality) but also elements related to personal or motivational students’ characteristics (performance and autonomy; constraints and obstacles to socialization; self-confidence while attending online classes) and technological issues (Internet access conditions). Notwithstanding, self-confidence is not a relevant factor for students that had technical limitations in what concerns infrastructural matters. Therefore, besides confirming the factors behind the success of online classes, this research is relevant for highlighting the need to assure that students have the proper conditions regarding technical infrastructures to improve the overall quality of online classes. Keywords: COVID-19, emergency remote teaching, higher education, technical infrastructures, students’ perspective.
Doc 461 : Human Autonomy in the Era of Augmented Reality—A Roadmap for Future Work
Augmented reality (AR) has found application in online games, social media, interior design, and other services since the success of the smartphone game Pokémon Go in 2016. With recent news on the metaverse and the AR cloud, the contexts in which the technology is used become more and more ubiquitous. This is problematic, since AR requires various different sensors gathering real-time, context-specific personal information about the users, causing more severe and new privacy threats compared to other technologies. These threats can have adverse consequences on information self-determination and the freedom of choice and, thus, need to be investigated as long as AR is still shapeable. This communication paper takes on a bird’s eye perspective and considers the ethical concept of autonomy as the core principle to derive recommendations and measures to ensure autonomy. These principles are supposed to guide future work on AR suggested in this article, which is strongly needed in order to end up with privacy-friendly AR technologies in the future.
Doc 462 : Modern Forms of Surveillance and Control
In todays advanced society, there is rising concern for data privacy and the diminution thereof on the internet. I argue from the position that for one to enjoy privacy, one must be able to effectively exercise autonomous action. I offer in this paper a survey of the many ways in which persons autonomy is severely limited due to a variety of privacy invasions that come not only through the use of modern technological apparatuses, but as well simply by existing in an advanced technological society. I conclude that regarding the majority of persons whose privacy is violated, such a violations are actually initiated and upheld by the users of modern technology themselves, and that ultimately, most disruptions of privacy that occur are self-levied.
Doc 463 : Self-Regulated Learning Method Through Smartphone Assistance in Promoting Speaking Ability
Self-regulated learning is a method of the student-centered learning paradigm. This method encourages students to be actively involved in the learning process, organize themselves, recognize their capabilities, and take the initiative to decide the appropriate way to achieve the learning achievement. The use of self-regulated learning with smartphones’ assistance has had a double effect on students’ language proficiency. However, the self-regulated learning method with smartphone assistance in the speaking class has not been supported by current empirical studies. The evidence indicates that self-regulated learning with smartphones’ assistance affects students’ English skills, such as acuity in micro-and macro-linguistics analysis, improved digital literacy, enthusiasm for learning, and self-potential development autonomy. This study aimed to analyze the impact of using the self-regulated learning method with smartphones in the speaking class. This review is a quantitative study with a pre-test and post-test design that was executed between October 2020 until January 2021. 110 students were chosen as samples in this study. An English-speaking rubric has been used to obtain data; that data was then analyzed by a software application that is SPSS 24.0, which was proceeded by qualitative description. The findings demonstrate that using a self-regulated learning method with smartphone assistance has positively impacted student speaking ability. This increased effect is demonstrated by the adjusted mean score on the post-test = 82.32. English instructors are encouraged to apply this method by considering students’ characteristics, cognitive capacities, learning styles, learner autonomy, and the steps of how to apply this method in the instruction process.
Doc 464 : Conversational agent-based guidance: examining the effect of chatbot usage frequency and satisfaction on visual design self-efficacy, engagement, satisfaction, and learner autonomy
Chatbots are tools that have the potential to effectively support interpersonal communication and interaction. Chatbots can provide great opportunities in education. The use of chatbots in education can be used to employ interactive methods, to provide learners information and different types of info, and to guide learners. Indeed, chatbots promise to enhance learning experiences by creating more interaction than traditional teaching practices provide. In this context, the purpose of this study is to apply chatbot technology as a guidance tool in educational environments and to model its effects on visual design self-efficacy, engagement, satisfaction, and learner autonomy at the end of the process. The participants of the study are 86 university students. In this study, data were collected with 4 different scales. Data were analyzed using the variance-based structural equation model with the partial least square method. As a result of the study, it was found that students with higher chatbot usage satisfaction had higher visual design self-efficacy. Chatbot usage satisfaction positively affects some aspects of course satisfaction. Chatbot usage satisfaction affects engagement. The effects of the study results in terms of research and practice were discussed.
Doc 465 : Tension between autonomy and dependency: insights into platform work of professional (video)bloggers
The purpose of this article is to extend knowledge and understanding of work in the platform economy by focusing on the phenomenon of (video)blogging on and around social media platforms. The growth of the platform economy has attracted considerable attention in recent years. As yet, however, research has focused almost exclusively on labour platforms that operate to match the supply of and demand for paid work in fields such as food delivery, ride hailing, cleaning or data entry activities. Surprisingly little is known about work and its manifestations on other platforms, despite the fact that the platform economy embraces a huge variety of arrangements for income generation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 18 German (video)bloggers we show that (video)blogging constitutes a specific form of ‘digital self-employment’ that combines features of traditional self-employment with digitally mediated dependencies. While (video)bloggers enjoy both a great deal of independence from managerial control and a high degree of autonomy, they are also subject to the rules and algorithms set by large tech companies. The example of (video)blogging, together with the experiences of (video)bloggers, highlights the extent to which the platform economy has created new types of work that need to be taken into consideration to enable a deeper understanding of the evolving dynamics of the platform economy and how these are transforming the nature of work.
Doc 466 : Future of Work and Technology: Technology, Identity, Self-Quantification, and Autonomy
https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2022.15135symposium Farnaz Ghaedipour Erin Marie Reid Christine Beckman Lindsey Cameron Melissa Mazmanian Hatim A. Rahman Nicholas Occhiuto Kathleen Pine Bobbi Thomason
In many parts of the economy, technology plays an increasingly important role in the control and management of workers. In this presenter symposium, we bring together four studies that offer novel insight into different dimensions of the relationship between technology and work, including behavioral experiments, identity control, the importance of social and cultural context, and effects for professional identity and autonomy. Our studies taken together show the importance of technology in a wide range of settings—platform-mediated work, such as ride-hailing and software development, platform-work, such as Instagram influencers, and professional work performed in labor and delivery wards. By offering examinations of the intersections between technology and control in a variety of work contexts, both newer and more traditional, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, our symposium promises novel insights into the evolving and future role of technology in relationship between work and workers. The Experimental Hand: Experimentation as a Mode of Platform Governance Presenter: Hatim A. Rahman; Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Metrics as Identity Baits Presenter: Farnaz Ghaedipour; McMaster U. The Platform is Not Neutral: An Investigation of App-Based Work through a Global Comparative Ethnogr Presenter: Lindsey Cameron; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Nicholas Occhiuto; EMLYON Business School Presenter: Bobbi Thomason; Pepperdine Graziadio Business School Technologies of Quantification and the Autonomy of Action: The Case of Electronic Fetal Monitoring Presenter: Melissa Mazmanian; U. of California, Irvine Presenter: Kathleen Pine; Arizona State U.
Doc 467 : EFFECTIVENESS AND HINDRANCES IN THE TEACHING OF PRACTICAL SKILLS IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION: FRAMEWORK FOR ENRICHING CONTEMPORARY CURRICULUM DISCOURSE
Physical Education is rooted in physical movement and exploration and is usually held outdoors to make teaching and learning more accessible and meaningful. Since the pandemic happened, schools adopt a new teaching-learning modality which create new host of obstacles for Physical Education teachers, especially in teaching practical skills in Physical Education to the students due to its characteristics. This becomes now challenging to monitor students’ progress in performing the skills or whether students have acquired/performed the skills correctly. This study aims to explore the strategies and techniques in the teaching of practical skills in Physical Education in the new normal. This study also identifies the effectiveness and hindrances of the strategies and techniques used. The findings of this study serve as a basis in formulating a framework for enriching contemporary curriculum discourse in physical education of senior high public schools in Tagbilaran City during the school year 2020-2021. Physical Education teachers used a variety of ways in the new normal to effectively teach practical skills in Physical Education, rather than depending solely on printed modular instruction. In teaching the practical skills, task teaching and students submitting video performances were employed. Because of the nature of modular distance learning, students’ autonomy for learning is one of the contributing elements to the difficulty of teaching practical skills in physical education. Many students have not yet established sufficient learning autonomy, resulting in learning gaps and preventing them from developing practical skills in physical education. Adding to that is the lack of needed resources such as gadgets and poor internet connections.
Doc 468 : Building trust and responsibility into autonomous human-machine teams
Harm can be caused to people and property by any highly-automated system, even with a human user, due to misuse or design; but which human has the legal liability for the consequences of the harm is not clear, or even which laws apply. The position is less clear for an interdependent Autonomous Human Machine Team System (A-HMT-S) which achieves its aim by reallocating tasks and resources between the human Team Leader and the Cyber Physical System (CPS). A-HMT-S are now feasible and may be the only solution for complex problems. However, legal authorities presume that humans are ultimately responsible for the actions of any automated system, including ones using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace human judgement. The concept of trust for an A-HMT-S using AI is examined in this paper with three critical questions being posed which must be addressed before an A-HMT-S can be trusted. A hierarchical system architecture is used to answer these questions, combined with a method to limit a node’s behaviour, ensuring actions requiring human judgement are referred to the user. The underpinning issues requiring Research and Development (R&D) for A-HMT-S applications are identified and where legal input is required to minimize financial and legal risk for all stakeholders. This work takes a step towards addressing the problems of developing autonomy for interdependent human-machine teams and systems.
Doc 469 : ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MEDICAL PRACTICE: REGULATIVE ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES.
The aim of the research is to identify specific of AI in healthcare, its nature, and specifics and to establish complexities of AI implementation in healthcare and to propose ways to eliminate them.Materials and methods: This study was conducted during June-October of 2020. Through a broad literature review, analysis of EU, USA regulation acts, scientific researches and opinions of progressive-minded people in this sphere this paper provide a guide to understanding the essence of AI in healthcare and specifics of its regulation. It is based on dialectical, comparative, analytic, synthetic and comprehensive methods.Results: One of the first broad definitions of AI sounded like “Artificial Intelligence is the study of ideas which enable computers to do the things that make people seem intelligent … The central goals of Artificial Intelligence are to make computers more useful and to understand the principles which make intelligence possible.” There are two approaches to name this technology - “Artificial intelligence” and “Augmented Intelligence.” We prefer to use a more common category of “Artificial intelligence” rather than “Augmented Intelligence” because the last one, from our point of view, leaves much space for “human supervision” meaning, and that will limit the sense of AI while it will undoubtedly develop in future. AI in current practice is interpreted in three forms, they are: AI as a simple electronic tool without any level of autonomy (like electronic assistant, “calculator”), AI as an entity with some level of autonomy, but under human control, and AI as an entity with broad autonomy, substituting human’s activity wholly or partly, and we have to admit that the first one cannot be considered as AI at all in current conditions of science development. Description of AI often tends to operate with big technological products like DeepMind (by Google), Watson Health (by IBM), Healthcare’s Edison (by General Electric), but in fact, a lot of smaller technologies also use AI in the healthcare field - smartphone applications, wearable health devices and other examples of the Internet of Things. At the current stage of development AI in medical practice is existing in three technical forms: software, hardware, and mixed forms using three main scientific-statistical approaches - flowchart method, database method, and decision-making method. All of them are useable, but they are differently suiting for AI implementation. The main issues of AI implementation in healthcare are connected with the nature of technology in itself, complexities of legal support in terms of safety and efficiency, privacy, ethical and liability concerns.Conclusion: The conducted analysis makes it possible to admit a number of pros and cons in the field of AI using in healthcare. Undoubtedly this is a promising area with a lot of gaps and grey zones to fill in. Furthermore, the main challenge is not on technology itself, which is rapidly growing, evolving, and uncovering new areas of its use, but rather on the legal framework that is clearly lacking appropriate regulations and some political, ethical, and financial transformations. Thus, the core questions regarding is this technology by its nature is suitable for healthcare at all? Is the current legislative framework looking appropriate to regulate AI in terms of safety, efficiency, premarket, and postmarked monitoring? How the model of liability with connection to AI technology using in healthcare should be constructed? How to ensure privacy without the restriction of AI technology use? Should intellectual privacy rights prevail over public health concerns? Many questions to address in order to move in line with technology development and to get the benefits of its practical implementation.
Doc 470 : [The Mindset and Realization of Precision Care Provided by the Science of Ambient-Assisted Living].
Smart care has become a trend in care institutions and households in recent years. Ambient-assisted living (AAL) has been a topic of increased academic interest over the past decade in line with societal aging and the proliferation of internet and mobile technologies. At the extreme end of AAL is “over-science”, a situation in which human functions are over replaced by scientific technologies. This may not only jeopardize the health of older individuals but exacerbate the progress of their dysfunctions by ignoring their desire for self-respect and autonomy. Therefore, the aim of AAL should be to create a web ecosystem rather instead of creating a linearly clustered combination of computerized gadgets.隱形輔助科技創造精準照護思維與實現.近年來智慧照護在機構與居家都是一股風潮，幾年前在學術界一直在討論隱形輔助科技（ambient-assisted living）的論點，預測未來全球將逐漸成為高齡化社會，會有網路連線、行動裝置的普及等，因此提出打造隱形輔助生活的科技。而隱形科技的相反就是「過度科技」，所謂的過度就是試圖「取代」人的功能；長期照護提倡應用各式各樣的科技來協助高齡者的安全照顧，這類過度科技的產品對高齡者的健康可能沒有幫助，往往還造成更快的退化，更忽略了高齡者對自主尊嚴生活的渴求。真正的隱形輔助科技照護環境，重點在結合5G資通訊科技與元宇宙虛實整合的照護思維，形成一個網狀的生態系統，而不是一個線性串連的科技組合。.
Doc 471 : Algorithmic Distortion of Informational Landscapes
The possible impact of algorithmic recommendation on the autonomy and free choice of Internet users is being increasingly discussed, especially in terms of the rendering of information and the structuring of interactions. This paper aims at reviewing and framing this issue along a double dichotomy. The first one addresses the discrepancy between users’ intentions and actions (1) under some algorithmic influence and (2) without it. The second one distinguishes algorithmic biases on (1) prior information rearrangement and (2) posterior information arrangement. In all cases, we focus on and differentiate situations where algorithms empirically appear to expand the cognitive and social horizon of users, from those where they seem to limit that horizon. We additionally suggest that these biases may not be properly appraised without taking into account the underlying social processes which algorithms are building upon.
Doc 472 : Smartphone apps as a motivating tool in English language learning
Since smartphones are getting cheaper, sophisticated, and multifunctional, there are opportunities for learners to engage in more meaningful English language learning. This study employs a mixed-method research design, with the purpose of identifying the use of English language apps outside the classroom and depicting students’ English language apps use behaviour i.e. motivation from the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). The findings show that students use the apps related to grammar the most and followed by English apps related to speaking, reading and, vocabulary. Findings also reveal students in this study display three types of motivation from the perspective of SDT i.e. autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Based on the findings, a model of Pedagogical Considerations of Using Smartphone for English Language Learning (PCUSELL) is suggested. As a conclusion, the authors suggests that educators in higher educational institution educators should consider the potential of smartphone English apps in their teaching and learning activities, particularly in this new normal of teaching and learning i.e. epoch of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doc 473 : A Glimpse of Physical Layer Decision Mechanisms: Facts, Challenges, and Remedies
Communications are realized as a result of successive decisions at the physical layer, from modulation selection to multi-antenna strategy, and each decision affects the performance of the communication systems. Future communication systems must include extensive capabilities as they will encompass a wide variety of devices and applications. Conventional physical layer decision mechanisms may not meet these requirements, as they are often based on impractical and oversimplifying assumptions that result in a trade-off between complexity and efficiency. By leveraging past experiences, learning-driven designs are promising solutions to present a resilient decision mechanism and enable rapid response even under exceptional circumstances. The corresponding design solutions should evolve following the lines of learning-driven paradigms that offer more autonomy and robustness. This evolution must take place by considering the facts of real-world systems and without restraining assumptions. In this paper, the common assumptions in the physical layer are presented to highlight their discrepancies with practical systems. As a solution, learning algorithms are examined by considering the implementation steps and challenges. Furthermore, these issues are discussed through a real-time case study using software-defined radio nodes to demonstrate the potential performance improvement. A cyber-physical framework is presented to incorporate future remedies.
Doc 474 : The Problem of Interactive English Language Learning in Distance Mode
The article elaborates on an interactive approach to language learning applied in an online EFL classroom. It presents a new insight into implementing interactive methods to develop students’ communicative competence. In conditions of world integration, the formation of communicative and life skills is indispensable. Eventually, such an approach to English language learning in distance mode is the most accessible way for teacher-learner(s) interaction to acquire general linguistic expertise and upgrade specific language skills.
The study results show that an interactive approach facilitates live communication in online EFL settings, enhances learners’ motivation and autonomy, and fosters quick decision-making reactions. Modern computer technologies offer boundless opportunities for interactive methods application in the online foreign language learning context. A skillful instructor is called to masterly plan computer-mediated classroom activities, creating space to realize each student’s cognitive and communicative potential fully. Students learn to debate, substantiate their viewpoints, brainstorm ideas, do projects, work individually or collaborate in comfortable learning settings.
Doc 475 : Methodology for Analyzing the Manageability of Country Communication Modes
Analyzing of communication modes is a new direction not only in Russian, but also in foreign studies. As a result, methodology is just being formed. The article is devoted to the description of the author’s methodology, which allows to identify the types of management and the degree of controllability of communication modes in different countries. The author relies on a systematic, cybernetic approach, on the theory of complex systems, uses the matrix method and the method of comparative analysis. Manageability is defined as a measure of control by the the management center (management entities that make decisions about rules and communication institutions), taking into account the voluntary consent of the objects of management with the level of their autonomy and subordination. The basis of the author’s methodology are three significant parameters: 1) location (inside or outside the country); 2) level of conventionality of the communication regime management centre; 3) assessment of the indicators of manageability. The main criteria of manageability are: the ability of communication mode control centres to transfer it from one state to another without conflict; the ability to achieve the controlled parameters of communication mode; the ability to use the mechanisms of self-organization and self-reflection of control objects to regulate communication modes.
Doc 476 : Friendly but Faulty: A Pilot Study on the Perceived Trust of Older Adults in a Social Robot
The efforts to promote ageing-in-place of healthy older adults via cybernetic support are fundamental to avoid possible consequences associated with relocation to facilities, including the loss of social ties and autonomy, and feelings of loneliness. This requires an understanding of key factors that affect the involvement of robots in eldercare and the elderly willingness to embrace the robots’ domestic use. Trust is argued to be the main foundation of an effective adult-care provider, which might be more significant if such providers are robots. Establishing, and maintaining trust usually involves two main dimensions: 1) the robot’s reliability (i.e., performance) and 2) the robot’s intrinsic attributes, including its degree of anthropomorphism and benevolence. We conducted a pilot study using a mixed methods approach to explore the extent to which these dimensions and their interaction influenced elderly trust in a humanoid social robot. Using two independent variables, type of attitude (warm, cold) and type of conduct (error, no-error), we aimed to investigate if the older adult participants would trust a purposefully faulty robot when the robot exerted a warm behaviour enhanced with non-functional touch more than a robot that did not, and in what way the robot error affected trust. Lastly, we also investigated the relationship between trust and a proxy variable of actual use of robots (i.e., intention to use robots at home). Given the volatile and context-dependent nature of trust, our close-to real-world scenario of elder-robot interaction involved the administration of health supplements, in which the severity of robot error might have a greater implication on the perceived trust.
Doc 477 : Uncovering the Heterogeneity in Fitness App Use: A Latent Class Analysis of Chinese Users
This study examines fitness app use patterns and their correlates among Chinese users from the perspectives of uses and gratification theory and self-determination theory. Our sample comprised 632 users of WeRun, the fitness plugin of WeChat, the largest Chinese mobile social networking app; participants completed an online survey and provided self-tracked physical activity data, which were subjected to latent class analysis. Based on the four-class latent class model (which yielded the best model fit and the most interpretable results), 30.5%, 27.5%, 24.7%, and 17.3% of the users were categorized as light users, reward-oriented users, lifestyle-oriented users, and interaction-oriented users, respectively. Moreover, class membership was associated with gender, age, education, income, life satisfaction, autonomy, and platform-based motivations. There is a significant heterogeneity in fitness app use and exercise behaviors. Platform-based motivations and autonomy are important classification factors, as users are looking for specific kinds of gratification from their use of fitness apps. Demographics and individual characteristics are also explanatory factors for class membership. The study findings suggest that fitness app designers should segment users based on motivation and gratification.
Doc 478 : PEDAGOGICAL CONDITIONS TO FORM STUDENTS’ CREATIVITY
Changes in the education system require a person to have a creative attitude to activity, mobility, responsibility, and new technologies. To form the creativity of students, it is necessary to use innovative technologies and the peculiarities of the digital environment. The author identifies the pedagogical conditions for the formation of students’ creativity. The theoretical and empirical methods used are the analysis of key concepts, observation, a survey and the analysis of students’ outcomes. The key concepts of creativity are clarified: “creativity” and the “ability to be creative”. The essential characteristics of creativity are revealed. The pedagogical conditions to form students’ creativity are revealed. They are: to include problem-solving tasks and pedagogical situations; to use reflection; to apply innovative pedagogical technologies. The creative technologies that contribute to the formation of students’ creativity are identified. The most effective technologies that contribute to the development of students’ creative abilities are information and communication technologies, project work, gamification, module learning, and group technologies. The common features of these technologies are cooperation, student’s autonomy and reflexive activity. The identified effective technologies and creative tasks offered can be used by the academic staff that implement Bachelor’s and Master’s education programs.
Doc 479 : When Compelled to FB around Academic Texts: Postgraduate Students Reflected on Their Online Experience.
Purpose – This paper is part of a larger study which explored postgraduate students talk around academic texts via Facebook (FB). Our exploration is largely guided by the idea of reading as a social practice. In this paper, we specifically focus on the students’ reflections of their online experience of talking around academic texts. Method – The qualitative data used in this paper were derived from students’ reflective diaries, students’ FB interactions, and informal conversations and were collected from a group of students (27) attending a master’s class in distance learning mode.Thematic analysis was conducted to examine the themes that emerged to represent their reflections.Findings – The students’ reflections were grouped into two major categories: convenience and facilitation of learning.Students’ reflection on the convenience afforded by the FB talk centered mainly on the idea of distance and time. Their reflections on the facilitation of learning were broken down into the following themes: safe environment to explore, social support, self-regulation and autonomy.A separate category, “FB entries need responding”, was assigned to students’ comments about the importance of lecturer’s and group members’ feedback.Value – This study revealed the potential of FB as a convenient, safe and an informal avenue for students to share their understandings and reading-related problems.The informal nature of their FB experience supported free exploration of ideas without the worry of having to appear “clever”.