Boundary Spanning and Engineering: A Qualitative Systematic Review

Background

Engineers are often expected to span organizational, cultural, stakeholder, geographic, temporal, and other boundaries. Yet, few studies on boundary spanning have appeared in the engineering education literature, suggesting the need for improved theoretical and conceptual foundations to guide empirical studies of boundary spanning in engineering.

Purpose

To develop a more comprehensive understanding of boundary spanning, this study addresses five research questions: (a) What types of boundaries have been identified as topics of interest? (b) How are boundary spanners and boundary spanning defined? (c) What types of activities and behaviors comprise or have been linked to boundary spanning? (d) What individual competencies and characteristics have been proposed or studied as important for boundary spanning? and (e) What boundary spanning themes are most prominent in studies of engineers and other technical professionals?

Scope/Method

Using a qualitative systematic review process, we identified and analyzed 72 scholarly papers from multiple disciplines. Multiple reviewers coded each paper using a hybrid deductive‐inductive content analysis process to identify key themes related to boundary spanning.

Conclusions

The analysis resulted in a framework consisting of six boundary types, three types of roles and definitions, and five types of activities. Discussion of boundary spanning competencies was limited in the collected works, and only seven papers exclusively focused on engineers. We conclude by proposing boundary spanning as an important meta‐attribute for engineers and a promising lens for investigating engineering practice. We also relate our findings to the engineering education literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Remote sensing of photosynthetic light-use efficiency across two forested biomes: Spatial scaling

Eddy covariance (EC) measurements have greatly advanced our knowledge of carbon exchange in terrestrial ecosystems. However, appropriate techniques are required to upscale these spatially discrete findings globally. Satellite remote sensing provides unique opportunities in this respect, but remote sensing of the photosynthetic light-use efficiency (ε), one of the key components of Gross Primary Production, is challenging. Some progress has been made in recent years using the photochemical reflectance index, a narrow waveband index centered at 531 and 570 nm. The high sensitivity of this index to various extraneous effects such as canopy structure, and the view observer geometry has so far prevented its use at landscape and global scales. One critical aspect of upscaling PRI is the development of generic algorithms to account for structural differences in vegetation. Building on previous work, this study compares the differences in the PRI: ? relationship between a coastal Douglas-fir forest located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and a mature Aspen stand located in central Saskatchewan, Canada. Using continuous, tower-based observations acquired from an automated multi-angular spectro-radiometer (AMSPEC II) installed at each site, we demonstrate that PRI can be used to measure ? throughout the vegetation season at the DF-49 stand (r² = 0.91, p < 0.00) as well as the deciduous site (r² = 0.88, p < 0.00). It is further shown that this PRI signal can be also observed from space at both sites using daily observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) and a multi-angular implementation of atmospheric correction (MAIAC) (r² = 0.54 DF-49; r² = 0.63 SOA; p < 0.00). By implementing a simple hillshade model derived from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to approximate canopy shadow fractions (α_s), it is further demonstrated that the differences observed in the relationship between PRI and ε at DF-49 and SOA can be attributed largely to differences in α_s. The findings of this study suggest that algorithms used to separate physiological from extraneous effects in PRI reflectance may be more broadly applicable and portable across these two climatically and structurally different biome types, when the differences in canopy structure are known.     

Multifield-graphs: an approach to visualizing correlations in multifield scalar data

We present an approach to visualizing correlations in 3D multifield scalar data. The core of our approach is the computation of correlation fields, which are scalar fields containing the local correlations of subsets of the multiple fields. While the visualization of the correlation fields can be done using standard 3D volume visualization techniques, their huge number makes selection and handling a challenge. We introduce the Multifield-Graph to give an overview of which multiple fields correlate and to show the strength of their correlation. This information guides the selection of informative correlation fields for visualization. We use our approach to visually analyze a number of real and synthetic multifield datasets.     

Feasibility of MRI in the diagnosis of acute diverticulitis: initial results

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate MRI as a diagnostic tool in patients with suspected acute sigmoid diverticulitis. Furthermore, we sought to develop an optimal imaging protocol in these patients.Patients and methods: Eleven patients with suspected acute diverticulitis were included in the study. All patients were imaged in a 1.0 T clinical scanner using a body-array coil. Imaging sequences were single-shot TSE, HASTE-, STIR- and TrueFisp-sequence. All were obtained in the frontal plane. The diagnosis was verified by a single experienced investigator, using ultrasound, and overall clinicopathological outcome.Results: MRI enabled visualization of signs of an acute diverticulitis in all patients. However, the diagnosis of acute diverticulitis was obtained in 10 patients only. The mean imaging time was 17.5 ± 5.5 min. STIR- and TrueFisp-sequences alone displayed all findings, e.g pericolonic exsudation, edema and segmental narrowing, whereas SSTSE and HASTE-sequences showed no additional information. Therefore, it appeared that the imaging protocol could be restricted to STIR- and TrueFisp-sequences.Conclusion: MRI is feasible as a fast, accurate and investigator-independent diagnostic tool in patients with suspected acute diverticulitis. To prove its value in comparison to computed tomography or ultrasound, further studies are needed.     

Do as your parents say?—Analyzing IT adoption influencing factors for full and under age applicants

The article suggests a model for examining the adoption of e-recruiting by individuals. The model is empirically evaluated using survey data from 323 full and under age applicants. The results explain substantial parts of the individual adoption decision. Interestingly, the relative importance of the adoption drivers varies with age, social environment and the level of education. While, as expected, overall Performance Expectancy is the major force behind adopting e-recruiting, the relative importance of the other factors differs a lot. Whereas Facilitating Conditions came out as an important driver for under age pupils, full age students by contrast are highly driven by the influence of their peer groups and the communication of the respective company they apply for. A major outcome is that the Subjective Norm of family and friends, teachers and professors has a weaker influence for under age pupils who mostly live with their parents than for the group of students who already left home to study at college. Consequentially we assume that the social influence of peer groups on an individual’s adoption differs with respect to age, social environment and level of education. This should be investigated more carefully in future adoption research as it might provide an answer for the varying significance of Subjective Norm in adoption research.     

Teaching a CS introductory course: An active approach

Computer Science (CS) introductory courses that are offered by the Department of Information Systems at the University of Minho (UM), Portugal, seem to abound in non-motivated students. They are characterized by high failure and withdrawal rates and use mainly deductive teaching approaches. Deductive instruction begins with theories and progresses to applications of those theories. Active approaches to teaching are more inductive. Inductive instruction begins with the presentation of, for instance, a specific problem that introduces a topic, and theories are studied on a need-to-know basis. This pilot study describes how active learning techniques have been successfully applied to a CS introductory course, reducing its failure and withdrawal rates. The study portrays the changes in the course from teacher-centered education to a learner-centered approach, using two different editions of the same course, the first one being teacher-centered and the second learner-centered. The results in terms of success, failure, and dropout are given and the impact of a more student-centered approach on student involvement in learning is analyzed. The authors discuss implications of student-centered learning for the classroom and pay attention to some of the drawbacks of an implementation more focused on active learning.     

Inline skating, an old sport, newly discovered: harmless or a potential danger with socioeconomic effects?]

Over a period of one year, all accidents associated with in-line skating (ILS) were surveyed. Sport-specific data was recorded with a standardized questionnaire. The study comprised 66 patients with 75 injuries (48 upper limb, 16 skull, eight lower limb, three trunk). We were looking after 42 male and 24 female patients with an average age of 20 years (5-53 years). Twenty-seven patients (40%) had to be treated as inpatients. Overall, the most frequent injury (one third of all injuries) was forearm fracture close to the wrist (21 radius fractures, four radioulnar fractures). It had to be reset in 20 cases. Additional internal fixation was required in 10 cases (Kirschner wire osteosynthesis, intramedullary nailing or plate osteosynthesis). Only five patients could be treated with plaster cast fixation alone. Most patients with injuries in the vicinity of the wrist were not wearing a wrist protector at the time of the accident. The most frequent reasons given for not wearing protectors was forgetfulness or the high price of protectors. However, there were also two distal radius fractures and a disc injury in the wrist in patients who had been wearing wrist protectors. In most cases, ILS accidents lead to appreciable damage requiring a healing period of several weeks to months (average period of loss of work 41 days). The bfu (advisory center for accident prevention) reckons with 60,000 ILS cases annually in Switzerland. These injuries are thus of great socioeconomic importance. In the future, better risk behavior must be achieved by informing the population (wearing protectors, especially for the wrist and head, attendance of training courses).     

No evidence for presynaptic opioid receptors on cholinergic, but presence of kappa-receptors on dopaminergic neurons in the rabbit caudate nucleus: involvement of endogenous opioids

The effects of various opioid receptor agonists and antagonists were studied in rabbit caudate nucleus slices preincubated with either [3H]dopamine or [3H]choline, superfused with medium (containing in most experiments the D2 receptor antagonist domperidone) and subjected to electrical field stimulation. The stimulation-evoked [3H]overflow from slices prelabeled with [3H]dopamine (evoked [3H]dopamine release) was significantly reduced by preferential kappa-opioid receptor agonists, like U-50,488 H, but not by mu- or delta-opioid receptor selective drugs. Opioid receptor antagonists shifted the concentration/response curve of U-50,488 H to the right (apparent pA2-value of the kappa-selective antagonist nor-binaltorphimine: 10.1) and enhanced the evoked dopamine release in the presence of a mixture of peptidase inhibitors. On the other hand, the [3H]overflow from rabbit caudate nucleus slices prelabeled with [3H]choline (evoked acetylcholine release) remained almost unaffected by any opioid receptor agonist, as long as the presynaptic D2 heteroreceptor was blocked with domperidone: in the absence of domperidone, U-50,488 H exhibited facilitatory effects. For comparison, the effects of the preferential delta-opioid receptor agonist DPDPE was also studied in slices of the rat striatum, where it clearly inhibited the evoked acetylcholine release. From our data we conclude that in the rabbit caudate nucleus the evoked dopamine release is inhibited by both exogenous and endogenous opioids via presynaptic kappa-opioid receptors, whereas the evoked release of acetylcholine is not, or only indirectly (via released dopamine) affected by opioids.