Exploring similarities and differences in teamwork across diverse healthcare contexts using communication analysis

Teamwork is prevalent in many work contexts. This study explored the similarities and differences in teamwork processes across different healthcare work contexts with the aim of assessing knowledge transfer feasibility. The research approach was to aggregate team communication analyses from four healthcare contexts to uncover teamwork similarities and differences. The four healthcare contexts included two handoffs and two surgery contexts. The communication analysis segmented communication into meaningful sequences. It categorized utterances into content categories and verbal behaviors. There were a few similar content categories across the four contexts. A clear information structure emerged in the two handoff contexts. In addition, there were more dialogues and requests in the surgeries compared to more reports in the handoffs. The content similarities suggest that some knowledge is transferable among the contexts. However, the differences in communication patterns reflect fundamental differences between handoff and surgery contexts in some teamwork processes. This research demonstrated that using communication analysis can uncover similarities and differences in team cognition and teamwork processes across work contexts. This in turn can help determine what knowledge and methods pertaining to team training, procedures, and technology are transferable across the contexts.     

Simulation‐based Learning in Engineering Education: Performance and Transfer in Learning Project Management

This paper reports empirical findings on the impact of keeping and reviewing learning history in a dynamic and interactive simulation environment of engineering education. The simulator for engineering project management had two learning history keeping modes: automatic (simulator‐controlled) and manual (student‐controlled), and a version with no history keeping. A group of industrial engineering students performed four simulation‐runs divided into three identical simple scenarios (single project) and one complicated scenario (multi‐project). The performances of participants running the simulation with the manual history mode were significantly better than users running the simulation with the automatic history mode. Moreover, the effects of using the history mechanism with the ability to undo further enhanced the learning process. The findings imply that students' decision when to record the history during their engineering training process can have a particularly strong enhancing effect on learning. In addition, the simulator as educational innovation improves students learning and performance. The practical implications of using simulators in the field of engineering learning are discussed.     

The impact of visual layout factors on performance in Web pages: a cross-language study

Visual layout has a strong impact on performance and is a critical factor in the design of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and Web pages. Many design guidelines employed in Web page design were inherited from human performance literature and GUI design studies and practices. However, few studies have investigated the more specific patterns of performance with Web pages that may reflect some differences between Web page and GUI design. We investigated interactions among four visual layout factors in Web page design (quantity of links, alignment, grouping indications, and density) in two experiments: one with pages in Hebrew, entailing right-to-left reading, and the other with English pages, entailing left-to-right reading. Some performance patterns (measured by search times and eye movements) were similar between languages. Performance was particularly poor in pages with many links and variable densities, but it improved with the presence of uniform density. Alignment was not shown to be a performance-enhancing factor. The findings are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in the impact of layout factors between GUIs and Web pages. Actual or potential applications of this research include specific guidelines for Web page design.     

Relation of visual perception and visual-motor integration for clumsy children

Rac1 small GTPase plays pivotal roles in various cell functions such as cell morphology, cell polarity, and cell proliferation. We have previously identified IQGAP1 from bovine brain cytosol as a target for Rac1 by an affinity purification method. By using the same method, we purified a specifically Rac1-associated protein with a molecular mass of about 140 kDa (p140) from bovine brain cytosol. This protein interacted with guanosine 5'-(3-O-thio)triphosphate (GTPgammaS).glutathione S-transferase (GST)-Rac1 but not with the GDP.GST-Rac1, GTPgammaS.GST-Cdc42, or GTPgammaS.GST-RhoA. The amino acid sequences of this protein revealed that p140 is identified as a product of KIAA0068 gene. We denoted this protein as Sra-1 (Specifically Rac1-associated protein). Recombinant Sra-1 interacted with GTPgammaS.GST-Rac1 and weakly with GDP.Rac1 but not with GST-Cdc42 or GST-RhoA. The N-terminal domain of Sra-1 (1-407 amino acids) was responsible for the interaction with Rac1. Myc-tagged Sra-1 and the deletion mutant capable of interacting with Rac1, but not the mutants unable to bind Rac1, were colocalized with dominant active Rac1(Val-12) and cortical actin filament at the Rac1(Val-12)-induced membrane ruffling area in KB cells. Sra-1 was cosedimented with filamentous actin (F-actin), indicating that Sra-1 directly interacts with F-actin. These results suggest that Sra-1 is a novel and specific target for Rac1.     

An empirical evaluation of textual display configurations for supervisory tasks

There is often a need to display logged information textually for real-time event-based supervisory tasks. Textual display design can follow several directions that reflect a tradeoff between a visual load and an operational load. The study reported here was designed in order to examine this tradeoff and its implications for such display design. An event-based monitoring and handling task was used with different event types having either a high or a low handling priority. The events were presented in four different display configurations varying in their degree of visual and operational load. The specific performance indices were event dwelling times, event handling proportion, and handling errors. In general it was found that the high priority events were handled faster and more accurately than the low priority events. In addition, performance with the various display configurations was dependent upon event type. These findings are discussed in terms of visual vs. operational load tradeoff and its context-sensitivity. Some implications for display design and further research on event presentation approaches are discussed.     

Speech-based interaction in multitask conditions: impact of prompt modality

Speech-based interaction is often recognized as appropriate for hands-busy, eyes-busy multitask situations. The objective of this study was to explore prompt-guided speech-based interaction and the impact of prompt modality on overall performance in such situations. A dual-task paradigm was employed, with tracking as a primary task and speech-based data input as a secondary task. There were three tracking conditions: no tracking, basic, and difficult tracking. Two prompt modalities were used for the speech interaction: a dialogue with spoken prompts and a dialogue with visual prompts. Data entry duration was longer with the speech prompts than with the visual prompts, regardless of whether or not there was tracking or its level of difficulty. However, when tracking was difficult, data entry duration was similar for both spoken and visual prompts. Tracking performance was also affected by the prompt modality, with poorer performance obtained when the prompts were visual. The findings are discussed in terms of multiple resource theory and the possible implications for speech-based interactions in multitask situations. Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of speech-based dialogues for multitask situations such as driving and other hands-busy, eyes-busy situations.     

Perceptual validity in animation of human motion

The crucial concept of modeling and synthesis/control of human motion (including face and body) for animation has been widely studied and explored in the literature. In this regard, the audience's perception of generated or recorded animation scenes is of critical importance. In this paper, we explore and conceptualize the general notions that need to be taken into account for human motion to maintain perceptual accuracy. We propose a paradigm called Perceptual Validity composed of four major components, which are discussed in detail. The model is concerned with different aspects of the scene such as correct illustration of the stimuli, context, and local/global relations of various visual cues present in human motion. Satisfying all the proposed principles, based on the literature, seems compulsory and vital for synthesis of perceptually valid animation scenes of human motion. We investigate the relative significance of the different components of the paradigm using feedback from expert animators and conduct a case study on one of the components of the paradigm. For further evaluation and exploration, Disney's principles of animation are discussed and compared against our proposed paradigm. We argue that while there are significant parallels and overlaps, our model is only focused on and more inclusive towards human motion and can therefore provide a valuable set of guidelines for animators in the field of character animation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mechano mathematical models for mechatronic systems for vibration jaw crushing processes

The aim of this paper is creation, investigation of mono frequency and poly frequency plane and spatial vibrations of two mass vibration systems with a suitable adjustment of the mechanical system. The physical object is a vibrating jaw crusher. The mechanical and mathematical modeling is created on the basis of a two mass dynamic model with six degrees of freedom in plane case—three for each mass and 12 degrees of freedom in spatial model—six for each mass. The influence of the elastic linkages between the two masses and also the energy mutual linkages between the coordinates of the two bodies are investigated.

Natural frequencies and amplitudes of movement are obtained by means of computer experiment in plane and spatial aspect. The obtained results can be used for optimization of the constructive parameters of the vibrating jaw crusher and also for improving harmful resonance effects     

Characteristics of velocity profiles of speech movements.

Two experiments, in which the authors served as Ss, investigated the control of individual speech gestures by examining laryngeal and tongue movements during vowel and consonant production. A number of linguistic manipulations known to alter the durational characteristics of speech (speech rate, lexical stress, and phonemic identity) were tested. In all cases, a consistent pattern was observed in the kinematics of the laryngeal and tongue gestures. The ratio of maximum instantaneous velocity to movement amplitude, a kinematic index of mass-normalized stiffness, increased systematically as movement duration decreased. Specifically, the ratio of maximum velocity to movement amplitude varied as a function of a parameter serving as an index of velocity profile shape times the reciprocal of movement duration. The conformity of the data to this relation indicates that durational change was accomplished by scalar adjustment of a base velocity form. Findings are consistent with the idea that kinematic change is produced by the specification of articulator stiffness. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)