Stereotype threat and hazard perception among provisional license drivers

Stereotype threat refers to the negative impact a stereotype about one's group can have on one's performance in domains relevant to the stereotype. In the current paper, we explore whether the negative stereotype of provisional license drivers (PLDs) might produce stereotype threat in a driving-related hazard perception task. We manipulate threat by asking participants to self-identify as PLDs in a categorization condition, or by reminding PLD participants explicitly of the stereotype of PLDs in an explicit stereotype condition. Results reveal increments in hazard perception in the categorization condition, and decrements in hazard perception in the explicit stereotype condition. Mediation analysis reveals that hazard perception performance is fully mediated by increased effort in the categorization condition and by decreased effort in the explicit stereotype condition. We discuss these findings in terms of their implications for stereotype threat and its mediators, and for public policy that explicitly discriminates between PLDs and other driver groups.     

Stereotype threat increases the likelihood that female drivers in a simulator run over jaywalkers

Stereotype threat, or the belief that one may be the target of demeaning stereotypes, leads to performance disruptions in a variety of domains. Two experiments conducted in a driving simulator demonstrate that stereotype threat also disrupts control of an automobile. Women who were reminded of the stereotype that females are poor drivers were more than twice as likely to collide with jaywalking pedestrians than women who were not reminded of this stereotype. Experiment 2 also revealed that the magnitude of this effect was equivalent to that produced by a secondary task, suggesting that stereotype threat might diminish driving performance via a disruptive mental load.     

Influence of physico-chemical,mechanical and morphological fingerpad properties on the frictional distinction of sticky/slippery surfaces

This study investigates how the fingerpad hydrolipid film, shape, roughness and rigidity influence the friction when it rubs surfaces situated in the slippery psychophysical dimension. The studied counterparts comprised two ‘real’ (physical) surfaces and two ‘virtual’ surfaces. The latter were simulated with a tactile stimulator named STIMTAC. Thirteen women and 13 men rubbed their right forefingers against the different surfaces as their arms were displaced by a DC motor providing constant velocity and sliding distance. Tangential and normal forces were measured with a specific tribometer. The fingerpad hydrolipid film was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The shape and roughness of fingers were extrapolated from replicas. Indentation measurements were carried out to determine fingerpad effective elastic modulus. A clear difference was observed between women and men in terms of friction behaviour. The concept of tactile frictional contrast (TFC) which was introduced quantifies an individual''s propensity to distinguish two surfaces frictionally. The lipids/water ratio and water amount on the finger skin significantly influenced the TFC. A correlation was observed between the TFC and fingerpad roughness, i.e. the height of the fingerpad ridges. This is essentially owing to gender differences. A significant difference between men''s and women''s finger topography was also noted, because our results suggested that men have rougher fingers than women. The friction measurements did not correlate with the fingerpad curvature nor with the epidermal ridges'' spatial period.     

基于性别数据分析的女性医学检验产品设计研究

目的 当代中国女性自我意识觉醒与设计服务未能充分考虑女性需求之间存在矛盾。在这种背景下,尝试站在女性视角,用更包容的态度进行医学检验产品设计,以提高女性健康福祉。方法 通过性别数据分析,重新审视社会生活规律,超越同理心进行思考,采用以女性为中心的设计方法。本研究以医学检验服务系统中的尿检容器为例进行设计实践,对原型方案进行可用性测试,观察用户使用产品的整个过程,并通过“有效的”“易用的”“满意的”三个维度对比现有产品与原型方案之间的差异。结果可用性测试结果表明,基于性别数据分析的解决方案可明显提高女性使用尿检容器时的效率、有效性和满意程度。结论 针对性别数据分析的方法能有效提高女性使用产品的体验,平衡女性自我意识与设计服务之间的矛盾。     

Factors influencing bid-winning performance in mixed crowdsourcing: The persuasive effect of credible information sources

Mixed crowdsourcing is increasingly becoming the main organizational model of domestic crowdsourcing platforms. However, research on the interpretation of winning performance fails to focus on the persuasive effect of the credibility of the contractor's information source on the contractee's decision making. Based on source credibility theory (SCT), this study constructs a model of the factors influencing the contractor's bid-winning performance based on three aspects—credibility, professionalism, and attractiveness—and examines the moderating effect of positive contractor evaluations from previous tasks on the bid decision. The results reveal that integrity guarantee and contact authentication (which belong to the credibility dimension), as well as ability level and professional identity (professionalism dimension) positively affect the contractor's bid-winning performance, and that an inverted-U-shaped relationship exists between the number of services displayed by the contractors (attractiveness dimension) and bid-winning performance.     

RECITING THE PAST IN NORTHWEST ALASKA PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK

This paper examines a document, comprising text and photographs, produced in 1972 by an English photographer, Daniel Meadows, to publicise his plan to embark on a journey around England in a double-decker bus. The goal, he explained, was to complete a countrywide photographic survey of the “English people”, especially those whose quality of life he believed to be under threat. I argue that the document can be read in terms of advocacy and representation of a form of English photographic practice and its history; that its delineation of threatened English lives beset by social change can disclose relationships that prevailed between documentary practices, modernity and the idea of national identity; and that an understanding of the document's function and distribution as a material artefact can yield contextual conditions germane to its production. Referencing Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge these three lines of enquiry are followed under the headings of — respectively — Discursive Event, Archive and Surfaces of Emergence.     

ASSET: Collaboration in Europe on Smart Structures

ASSET — Applications for Smart Structures in Engineering and Technology — is a thematic network funded under Framework 4 of the European Union's Industrial Materials and Technologies (IMT) research programme. It is a grouping of around 50 organizations all sharing interests in smart structures technology — some as research teams, some as system manufacturers, some as users.     

The German image

Abstract

This important book is not a technical history, nor is it ‘sociological’ in any scientific sense; its main thrust is rather in the realm of ‘the history of ideas’ and ‘the history of taste’, and it is thus intimately concerned with human values and attitudes. In this way, and because human nature transceinds national boundaries with conspicuous ease, Fritz Kempe's work is not ‘merely’ about Germany, but about photography and people in general. Without constraining system and without claims to exhaustive coverage, the book manages to get at the spirit and core of relationships by discussing 24 topics, which range from local history (‘Bremen, Wannover, Kassel’) to episodic accounts (‘On the secret magic of the hruman image’). That is its special charm, and also its lasting testament, because photography is really too complex a field to permit a stereotype presentation, if the finer nuances of the human response are to be given their due. If anything is lacking—but it would be chnrlisll to expect a single volume to cover every base—it is a more extensive discussion of the daguerreotype's influence on German painters.     

Profile of women detected drink driving via Roadside Breath Testing (RBT) in Queensland,Australia, between 2000 and 2011

Background

Drink driving among women is a growing problem in many motorised countries. While research has shown that male and female drink drivers differ on a number of characteristics, few studies have addressed the circumstances surrounding women's drink driving offences specifically.

Aim

To add to previous research by comparing apprehension characteristics among men and women and to extend the understanding of the female drink driving problem by investigating the drink driving characteristics that are unique to women.

Results

The sample consisted of the 248,173 (21.5% women) drink drivers apprehended between 2000 and 2011 in Queensland, Australia. Gender comparisons showed that women were older, had lower levels of reoffending, and were more likely to be apprehended in Major Cities compared to men. Comparisons of age group and reoffending and non-reoffending among female drink drivers only revealed that higher BAC readings were more common among younger women. Moreover, a substantial minority (13.7%) of women aged 24 years or younger were apprehended with a BAC below0.05%, reflecting a breach of the zero tolerance BAC for provisional licence holders in Australia. Older women were more likely to be charged with a ‘failure to provide a test’ offence as a result of refusing to provide a breath or blood sample, indicating that drink driving is associated high levels of stigma for this group. Reoffending occurred among 16.2% of the female drink drivers and these drivers were more likely than non-reoffending drivers to record a mid to high range BAC, to be aged 30–39 or below 21years, and to be apprehended in Inner Regional or Remote locations.

Conclusion

Findings highlight the unique circumstances and divergent needs of female drink drivers compared to male drivers and for different groups of female drivers.     

Sex differences in research funding,productivity and impact: an analysis of Québec university professors

Using the entire population of professors at universities in the province of Quebec (Canada), this article analyzes the relationship between sex and research funding, publication rates, and scientific impact. Since age is an important factor in research and the population pyramids of men and women are different, the role of age is also analyzed. The article shows that, after they have passed the age of about 38, women receive, on average, less funding for research than men, are generally less productive in terms of publications, and are at a slight disadvantage in terms of the scientific impact (measured by citations) of their publications. Various explanations for these differences are suggested, such as the more restricted collaboration networks of women, motherhood and the accompanying division of labour, women’s rank within the hierarchy of the scientific community and access to resources as well as their choice of research topics and level of specialization.     

Toward TechnoAccess: A narrative review of disabled and aging experiences of using technology to access the arts

This paper presents a narrative literature review that addresses the issue of how disabled and aging people access the arts through technology. Our review synthesized 56 studies about disabled and aging people's experiences of access through technology, with a focus on methods used and accounts of user experiences/stories to inform a Canadian research and development initiative called Accessing the Arts. We urge designers and developers to consider the complex, multimodal sociotechnical relationships surrounding technology and access—or TechnoAccess—as they develop technology with disability, aging and access in mind. Although existing evidence offers ways to improve everyone's access to the arts, recommendations are provided for research around access and technology as an inherently politicized topic that must be informed by disabled and aging people's intersectional cultural experiences, including how they wish to use technology to access the arts.     

Student Learning and Gender

Using a qualitative research design and an anthropological theory of learning, I studied a sophomore design class to investigate how teams of women and men student engineers acquired and shared scientific and technical knowledge while developing solutions to real-world problems for government and industry clients. The course provided a forum where women and men students not only learned technical information critical to their project, but also learned how to function as engineers on a team. The design class improved some women students' experiences, but these opportunities did not exist for all women in the class or in all settings on the campus. In spite of its notable successes, some facets of the organization of the course, its implementation by the faculty, and students' beliefs that their work was “basically useless” detracted from collaborative aims. These findings suggest classroom practices to create and maintain an environment where all students can participate and learn.     

An Analysis of Motivation Constructs with First‐Year Engineering Students: Relationships Among Expectancies,Values, Achievement,and Career Plans

Background Researchers have identified many factors affecting undergraduate engineering students' achievement and persistence. Yet, much of this research focuses on persistence within academia, with less attention to career plans after graduation. Furthermore, the relative influence of expectancy‐versus value‐related beliefs on students' achievement and career plans is not fully understood. Purpose (Hypothesis ) To address these gaps, we examined the relationships among the following motivation constructs for female and male first‐year engineering students: (a) expectancy‐related constructs that included engineering self‐efficacy (i.e., a judgment of one's ability to perform a task in engineering) and expectancy for success in engineering (i.e., the belief in the possibility of success in engineering); (b) value‐related constructs that included identification with engineering (i.e., the extent to which one defines the self through a role or performance in engineering) and engineering values (i.e., beliefs related to engineering interest, importance, and usefulness); (c) engineering achievement; and (d) engineering career plans. Design /Method Participants included 363 first‐year engineering students at a large state university. The students completed an online survey instrument in the first and second semester of their first year. Results Students' expectancy‐ and value‐related beliefs decreased over the first year for both men and women. Men reported higher levels for expectancy‐related beliefs than women. Expectancy‐related constructs predicted achievement better than the value‐related constructs, whereas value‐related constructs predicted career plans better for both men and women. Conclusions Expectancy‐ and value‐related constructs predicted different outcomes. Thus, both types of constructs are needed to understand students' achievement and career plans in engineering.     

Biases in Interpersonal Communication: How Engineering Students Perceive Gender Typical Speech Acts in Teamwork

This research investigates differences in how engineering and non‐engineering men and women perceive common speech acts in team settings. Participants completed surveys asking them to rate the speakers of three male typical and three female typical speech acts. Male engineering students were significantly harsher than other groups on female typical speech acts in which the speaker conceded weaknesses, even if this concession was for strategic purposes such as trying to help another teammate “save face.” This bias against female typical speech was consistent regardless of the speaker's gender, suggesting that students were reacting to speech patterns rather than to biological gender. These findings provide hope that women may be able to help manage perceptions of their everyday team interactions by avoiding statements that imply weaknesses, even if such speech is normal in other situations.     

Forecasting reliability growth

This paper describes a method for estimating and forecasting reliability from attribute data, using the binomial model, when reliability requirements are very high and test data are limited. Integer data—specifically, numbers of failures — are converted into non-integer data. The rationale is that when engineering corrective action for a failure is implemented, the probability of recurrence of that failure is reduced; therefore, such failures should not be carried as full failures in subsequent reliability estimates. The reduced failure value for each failure mode is the upper limit on the probability of failure based on the number of successes after engineering corrective action has been implemented. Each failure value is less than one and diminishes as test programme successes continue. These numbers replace the integral numbers (of failures) in the binomial estimate. This method of reliability estimation was applied to attribute data from the life history of a previously tested system, and a reliability growth equation was fitted. It was then ‘calibrated’ for a current similar system's ultimate reliability requirements to provide a model for reliability growth over its entire life-cycle. By comparing current estimates of reliability with the expected value computed from the model, the forecast was obtained by extrapolation.     

The impact of Stereotype Threat on the simulated driving performance of older drivers

Older drivers are perceived as being dangerous and overly cautious by other drivers. We tested the hypothesis that this negative stereotype has a direct influence on the performance of older drivers. Based on the Stereotype Threat literature, we predicted that older driving performance would be altered after exposure to a Stereotype Threat. Sixty-one older drivers aged 65 and above completed a simulated driving assessment course. Prior to testing, half of the participants were told that the objective of the study was to investigate why older adults aged 65 and above were more implicated in on-road accidents (Stereotype Threat condition) and half were showed a neutral statement. Results confirmed that exposure to the threat significantly altered driving performance. Older adults in the Stereotype Threat condition made more driving mistakes than those in the control group. Interestingly, under a Stereotype Threat condition, older adults tended to commit more speeding infractions. We also observed that domain identification (whether driving is deemed important or not) moderated the impact of the threat. Taken together, these results support recent older drivers’ performance models suggesting that the interaction between individual and social factors need to be considered when examining older drivers’ performance.     

Dual-effects of core enterprise management and media attention on occupational health and safety of small and medium suppliers in China

This study examines the construction of an occupational health and safety (OHS) governance model for small- and medium-sized suppliers (SMSs) impacted by the dual effects of core enterprises' management and media attention. The objective of this research is to improve the social governance effect of SMSs' OHS. Drawing on evolutionary economics, an evolutionary game model with three main players—core enterprises, SMSs, and media—is established, and the conditions of each entity's evolutionary stability strategy are analyzed. The results show that the evolution trend for any party is closely related to the strategic choices of the other two parties. Further, a model for SMSs' OHS governance with focus on core enterprise management and media attention can be effectively built by reducing the costs of core enterprise management, enhancing the probability of accurate media reporting, decreasing the OHS input cost of SMSs, increasing the expected exposure returns of the media, and reducing the media's investigation cost. This study is the first to consider the important influence of core enterprises and the media on SMSs' OHS behavior, which bridges the research gap not only from a theoretical perspective, but also a practical one.     

A contingency perspective of just-in-time purchasing: globalization,implementation, and performance

This paper uses a survey-based methodology to examine the performance impact of Just-In-Time (JIT) purchasing strategies. Over the past decade much has been written concerning JIT philosophies; however, relatively little empirical research has been conducted that evaluates the impact of JTT on performance. Similarly, little work has been performed to evaluate the role of JIT in global competitive strategies. This paper uses contingency theory's environment-strategy-performance relationship to consider vital issues—planning, organizational support, and implementation status—affecting the success of JIT purchasing strategies. The findings suggest that JIT purchasing strategies represent an appropriate response to global competition and that JIT purchasing can have a significant positive impact on performance improvement when adequate planning and support are in place.     

A scene in a library

Abstract

This essay concerns one photograph: the eighth plate in The Pencil of Nature, called A Scene in a Library, which originally appeared in the second installment of Talbot's inaugural book on photography (figure 1). I have already written extensively about A Scene in a Library — and given its title to a book on illustrated books.¹ But it is a photograph that, together with the text that accompanies it, has never ceased to intrigue me. I continue to wonder what Talbot's intentions were when he chose this photograph for his book. Why did he choose it over similar photographs that he had made and could possibly just as well have used? Why did he title it the way he did — A Scene in a Library — when we know that it was not actually taken in his library? Why and when did it occur to him to write the piece of text that accompanies the plate — which speaks of experimentation with the invisible end of the light spectrum? And what did he have in mind when he put the plate, the caption and the accompanying text together? For A Scene in a Library is remarkable — and exceptional — for the unaccountable way in which it puts text together with image. Almost all the other plates have text that bears on them fairly straightforwardly, either explaining how and where they were made or indicating possible uses for the photograph in question. Not so A Scene in a Library, which functions, rather, as a kind of clef de roman, and which has, as I hope to show, an emblematic status in The Pencil of Nature precisely because it is an exception.     

基于多用户偏好的汽车外饰色彩设计研究

目的在用户为中心的汽车设计过程中,为使色彩更符合用户偏好,提出使用粒子群算法(PSO,Particle Swarm Optimization)对多用户偏好进行优化的汽车色彩设计方法。方法应用因子分析建立汽车色彩意象语言坐标空间,并构建用户色彩偏好和色彩样本在多维空间中的坐标映射关系;基于粒子群算法优化面状分布的多用户色彩偏好;并在多维空间中需找与之契合度最高的位置点,从而获得最符合用户偏好的色彩样本,辅助汽车设计师作出色彩决策。结论以两厢家用微型车外饰色彩为例,研究男性和女性的不同色彩偏好,验证此方法的合理性和可行性。