An Exploratory Study of Trust Dynamics in Work-Oriented Virtual Teams

This study explores trust development and maintenance in temporary, work-oriented virtual teams, and examines the effect of trust on communication and cohesiveness. Results suggest that for work-oriented virtual teams formed on a temporary basis, members swiftly develop calculus-based trust in order to assess the outcomes and costs of maintaining team relationships. Members also rely on prior knowledge to determine other members' competence so that they can make predictions about one another's behaviors. Thus, both calculus-based and knowledge-based trust play accentuating roles in the initial development of work-oriented virtual teams. Identification-based trust also develops swiftly initially, but is relatively insignificant compared to the other two types of trust. Finally, initial trust may correlate to both later communication and later cohesiveness .     

Trust and knowledge sharing in diverse global virtual teams

Global virtual teams (GVTs) allow organizations to improve productivity, procure global knowledge, and transfer best practice information instantaneously among team members. GVTs rely heavily on IT and have little face-to-face interaction, thereby increasing problems resulting from geographic barriers, time language, and cultural differences, and inter-personal relationships. The purpose of our study was to design a normative framework that would assist organizations in understanding the relationship between diversity, mutual trust, and knowledge sharing among GVTs, with additional focus on understanding the moderating impact of collaborative technology and task characteristics. Empirical data was collected from 58 GVTs and analyzed using a Hierarchical Multiple Regression technique. Results showed that in GVTs, deep level diversity has a more significant relationship with team processes of mutual trust and knowledge sharing than visible functional level diversity. This relationship is moderated by the collaborative capabilities of available technology and levels of interdependence of the task. Furthermore, knowledge sharing and mutual trust mediate the relationship between diversity levels and team effectiveness.     

分布式控制中的智能Agent联合协作

联合协作是分布式智能Agent技术应用的核心。该文通过组队协作过程模型和分布式智能Agent系统结构对智能Agent联合协作的组建和分类进行研究,给出在柔性控制中的应用方案。     

Dynamic nature of trust in virtual teams

We empirically examine the dynamic nature of trust and the differences between high- and low-performing virtual teams in the changing patterns in cognition- and affect-based trust over time (early, middle, and late stages of project). Using data from 36, four-person MBA student teams from six universities competing in a web-based business simulation game over an 8-week period, we found that both high- and low-performing teams started with similar levels of trust in both cognitive and affective dimensions. However, high-performing teams were better at developing and maintaining the trust level throughout the project life. Moreover, virtual teams relied more on a cognitive than an affective element of trust. These findings provide a preliminary step toward understanding the dynamic nature and relative importance of cognition- and affect-based trust over time.     

分布式信任评估研究

在信息和服务爆炸的时代,分布式的信任评估技术作为一种新的解决方案,引起了广泛关注并取得了许多重要成果。针对分布式信任评估中的难点与关键点,在介绍现有模型的解决手段时,指出了目前仍遗留的一些问题。     

Distributed Algorithms for Multi-Robot Observation of Multiple Moving Targets

An important issue that arises in the automation of many security, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks is that of observing the movements of targets navigating in a bounded area of interest. A key research issue in these problems is that of sensor placement—determining where sensors should be located to maintain the targets in view. In complex applications involving limited-range sensors, the use of multiple sensors dynamically moving over time is required. In this paper, we investigate the use of a cooperative team of autonomous sensor-based robots for the observation of multiple moving targets. In other research, analytical techniques have been developed for solving this problem in complex geometrical environments. However, these previous approaches are very computationally expensive—at least exponential in the number of robots—and cannot be implemented on robots operating in real-time. Thus, this paper reports on our studies of a simpler problem involving uncluttered environments—those with either no obstacles or with randomly distributed simple convex obstacles. We focus primarily on developing the on-line distributed control strategies that allow the robot team to attempt to minimize the total time in which targets escape observation by some robot team member in the area of interest. This paper first formalizes the problem (which we term CMOMMT for Cooperative Multi-Robot Observation of Multiple Moving Targets) and discusses related work. We then present a distributed heuristic approach (which we call A-CMOMMT) for solving the CMOMMT problem that uses weighted local force vector control. We analyze the effectiveness of the resulting weighted force vector approach by comparing it to three other approaches. We present the results of our experiments in both simulation and on physical robots that demonstrate the superiority of the A-CMOMMT approach for situations in which the ratio of targets to robots is greater than 1/2. Finally, we conclude by proposing that the CMOMMT problem makes an excellent domain for studying multi-robot learning in inherently cooperative tasks. This approach is the first of its kind for solving the on-line cooperative observation problem and implementing it on a physical robot team.     

基于信任访问控制中信任评估与追溯方法研究

信任的量化表达与信任关系发现是基于信任访问控制中的难点问题。首先介绍了一种基于模糊数学的信任评估模型。通过定义时间衰退函数,该模型表达了时间对信任的影响。时间因素的引入使得该信任评估模型更具实用价值。同时,还提出了一种信任关系的分布式信任追溯算法,有效避免了访问控制中效率瓶颈的产生。     

Conceptualizing the Awareness of Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of a Global Virtual Team

Innovative organizations are increasing their use of distributed teamwork, but there are several difficulties in reaching shared understanding between the team members in these settings. A lack of awareness of other team members’ working processes is one of the drawbacks that a virtual team may face while attempting to collaborate on a shared task. In this study virtual teamwork was supported with a specific working model. The aim was to investigate virtual team members’ awareness of collaboration. One global team (N=19) within a single organization worked as a distributed team in a shared web-based workspace for three months. The data were gathered by means of questionnaires, log-files of the shared virtual workspace and collected company documents in order to find out how team members perceive their collaboration. Based on qualitative data analysis, three different aspects of collaboration awareness were identified: an awareness of the possibility for collaboration, an awareness of the aims of collaboration, and an awareness of the process of collaboration. The results presented in this paper give guidelines for discussing what the awareness of collaboration means in the context of distributed collaboration.     

虚拟项目中的团队和项目管理

围绕CDIO工程教育理念,为实现"做中学",提出为学生量身定做的虚拟项目的设立。并对虚拟项目中的团队和项目管理进行研究,从团队建立、项目管理、任务实现以及考核方式等方面进行探索。经初步推广评价,该研究提高了教学质量,使教师和学生双方都受益。     

PCCAVE:基于连网PC的廉价CAVE系统

讨论了一个基于 PC的廉价 CAVE系统的实现方法 .FCCAVE使用 4台微机配合中低档的图形显示卡构成图形绘制系统 ,代替 SGI工作站和 Reality Engine高档工作站图形卡 .PCCAVE整体上是一个主从式并行计算结构 ,主节点提供人机交互控制接口 ,从节点接受主节点命令和绘制立体图像 .PCCAVE的通信子系统使用 MPI实现 ,实现了并行计算的同步控制和智能信息代理服务 ,图形子系统以 Direct X和 Open GL 作为底层图形 API.还研究了系统的主要瓶颈和性能指标 .利用该系统实现了浙江大学的校园漫游 .结果表明该系统的许多指标都超越或者接近于 SGI Onyx2 ,具有良好的推广前景和较高的实用价值 .     

浅析虚拟现实技术

虚拟现实技术是一门综合性很强的高新技术,该技术被广泛应用于先进制造、军事模拟、数字城市、生物医学等众多领域.本文追溯了虚拟现实技术的起源,探讨了该技术的三大特点:沉浸感、交互性和构想性,并根据沉浸的不同程度将虚拟现实技术分为四大类型:桌面式虚拟现实、沉浸式虚拟现实、增强现实的虚拟现实以及分布式虚拟现实.