Individual Curiosity Research Articles

Lake Ice From Historical Records to Contemporary Science

AbstractLake ice phenology is a critical component of the cryosphere and a sensitive indicator of climate change that has some of the longest records related to climate science. Records commenced for numerous reasons including navigation, hydropower development, and individual curiosity, demonstrating the value of lake ice as a seasonal event of significant importance to a broad swath of peoples and countries. At the same time, lake ice loss has been rapid and widespread with lakes losing ice at an average rate of 17 days per century. In this Perspective, we examine the earliest known records of ice cover and the scientific studies that developed from that practice of record keeping. Studies in lake ice began in the nineteenth Century and have included relationships between climate, biology, and ice cover. Early studies developed some of the foundational principles that limnologists and climate scientists are still exploring, such as the relationship between ice phenology and climate variables, large‐scale climate oscillations, and morphological characteristics, with implications for lake ice physical structure and under‐ice ecosystems in a warming climate. We conclude with an examination of the state of the field and how these centuries‐long lake ice records can continue to inform cutting edge science by validating satellite remote sensing techniques, in addition to modeling approaches and collaborations across disciplines, that can improve our understanding of the loss of lake ice in a warmer world.

Interactive Mars Image Content-Based Search with Interpretable Machine Learning

The NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) hosts millions of images of planets, moons, and other bodies collected throughout many missions. The ever-expanding nature of data and user engagement demands an interpretable content classification system to support scientific discovery and individual curiosity. In this paper, we leverage a prototype-based architecture to enable users to understand and validate the evidence used by a classifier trained on images from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover mission. In addition to providing explanations, we investigate the diversity and correctness of evidence used by the content-based classifier. The work presented in this paper will be deployed on the PDS Image Atlas, replacing its non-interpretable counterpart.

Food for thought: How curiosity externalization is fostered through organizational identity

Curiosity has increasingly been deemed to hold pivotal influence over the ventures founders create. While this growing body of knowledge has helped us understand the origins of a venture, what is less well understood is the process by which individual curiosity gets externalized to the organizational level. Yet, the externalization of curiosity has been recognized as central for rallying organizational members behind innovation initiatives. To understand how curiosity externalizes and thereby translates into a venture’s collective property, we conducted an in-depth case study of Rasmus Munk and his two Michelin-starred restaurant Alchemist. Our empirically grounded process model draws attention to the pivotal role identity mechanisms assume in externalizing curiosity in a venture: Promoting originality through de-familiarizing the familiar at the individual level is counter-balanced by familiarizing the unfamiliar into a coherent venture story at the organizational level.

YARATILIŞ HİKAYESİNİN FARKLI BIR OKUMASI: FEMİNİST PERSPEKTİFTEN GELENEKSEL ANLATILARDA ADEM, HAVVA VE YILAN

This paper observes the different interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve from the main religious accounts, The Qur’an and The Bible, and the traditional understanding based on them to the challenging contemporary criticism. The study reveals that the misogyny and biased view towards women derive from the depiction of Eve as wicked due to her influence over the first sin of eating from the forbidden tree. The study illustrates that The Bible involves direct accusations towards Eve for following the serpent and tempting Adam to the sin as well while The Qur’an does not make such a distinction but refers to Adam and humankind in a more forgiving way. The misogyny in the traditional texts towards women are observed to base their arguments mostly on The Biblical accounts with the purpose of dominating women in male-oriented cultures. This study involves distinctive interpretations of the story of Adam and Eve from feminist to eco-feminist perspectives. The analysis highlights the constructivist interpretations of the serpent and the woman as being wise rather than evil. This vision challenges the story of falling from the paradise and coming to Earth as a punishment by claiming that it was just the part of the plan for the beginning of human life on Earth. The study concludes that the feminist analysis on the story of Adam and Eve acknowledges that woman has no wickedness as in the patriarchal interpretations, but she has wisdom, individual curiosity and courage indeed.

Hungry Minds: Generating a State of Permanent Organizational Curiosity

This paper examines how to create a state of curiosity in an organization and what is the relationship between creativity and curiosity. We identify four processes that enable organizational members to transform individual curiosity into a collective and continual state of curiosity for the organization: framing, translating, externalizing and stretching. Based on the analysis of a highly innovative organization in the gastronomy industry, we find that the curiosity processes identified interact with creative processes by being antecedents of creativity (i.e., framing and translating allow ideas generation and experiments to take place) but also facilitating the evaluation of creative outcomes (externalizing and stretching) for further improvements. The processes identified also allow to link different types of curiosity and to move from diversive to specific curiosity; from epistemic to perceptual curiosity; and to bridge individual traits and collective states curiosity, thus contributing to our understanding of organizational curiosity.

The curious case of great ape curiosity and how it is shaped by sociality

AbstractAlthough curiosity has huge implications for human creativity and learning, its evolutionary roots and function in animals remain poorly understood. Modern humans, who lack natural predators, thrive with curiosity, but our ancestors faced more hazardous environments that would not necessarily favor individual curiosity. Instead, being curious may have undergone selection in interaction with sociality. Our closest living relatives, the great apes (henceforth apes) have evolved facing conditions more like human ancestors and as such, can help us understand the functions of curiosity and its expression in non‐human species. In this study, we defined curiosity as a combination of behavioral traits like neophilia, exploration diversity, and prolonged interest in exploring novelty and compared it, under similar captive environments across four ape species (N = 101):Pan troglodytes,Pan paniscus,Pongo abelii,andPongo pygmaeus. Results revealed that curiosity followed a linear gradient across the four species in accordance with their sociality. We proposethe social curiosity hypothesisto explain the observed pattern, reflecting those individuals in highly social species, like bonobos and chimpanzees, regularly are accompanied by conspecifics, and thereby accustomed to an abundance of social cues, leading to inhibited curiosity when alone, compared to more solitary orangutans. As such, our study implies that ape curiosity evolved interlinked with sociality. Further, a subset of the sample (N = 46) enabled us to examine if curiosity benefits problem‐solving skills, but our data did not support such link.

IDENTIFYING BARRIERS AND FACILITATORS OF EXOSKELETON IMPLEMENTATION IN THE OPERATING ROOM.

Introduction Members of the surgical team experience musculoskeletal (MS) symptoms that impact occupational health. Although the prevalence of MS symptoms in this population is well-recognized, limited interventions with sustained success exist for the operating room (OR) environment. The purpose of this work was to determine the facilitators of and barriers to exoskeleton technology in the OR, as a potential intervention to reduce upper-body MS pain and discomfort for surgical team members. Methods After providing informed consent, participants completed a two-part study: focus groups and a simulated laparoscopic skills task while wearing a passive arm-support exoskeleton (Levitate AirFrameTM). Seven surgical residents, four surgical technicians, and two attending surgeons participated in this study. A script including questions on technology adoption, supporting workers tasks/job, and safety and health (adapted from Kim et al., 2016) was used to guide each focus group. Content analysis of the focus groups was completed by three study team members to identify relevant themes from participants’ responses, and two raters coded all remaining sessions. Subsequently, nine participants completed repetitions of the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery peg transfer task for 10 minutes wearing the noted exoskeleton. Afterwards, their overall impressions of the exoskeleton were assessed using the System Usability Scale (SUS; Brooke, 1996). Results/Discussion Four main themes related to the adoption of exoskeletons in the OR were identified: characteristics of individuals, benefits, barriers, and intervention characteristics. Theme 1: Characteristics of individuals. It was noted that implementation of exoskeletons would require a champion at an institution to spearhead the efforts. Additionally, individual curiosity and awareness of MS ergonomics problems were found as facilitators of adoption. Theme 2: Benefits. Expected long-term benefits of an exoskeleton were mentioned. Specifically, stakeholders anticipated a decrease in MS symptoms and expected that it would help with workforce retention and prevention of early retirement. The user role that was identified to most benefit from exoskeletons were the surgical assistants ( n = 9). Theme 3: Barriers. Seven categories of barriers were found. Safety and sterility were major concerns in the OR. Main concerns included ensuring that the arm cuffs were not in the area of surgical scrub (i.e., below the elbows) and the added bulk to wear inside the surgical gown. Furthermore, the factors of familiarity, perception, buy-in, and immediate results were noted to influence the use of an exoskeleton. Theme 4: Intervention characteristics. The theme of intervention characteristics was identified separately from benefits and barriers, as the categories in this theme could either help facilitate or hinder the adoption of exoskeletons in the OR. Workers reported that investment, specifically monetary, and maintenance of the equipment would likely influence wide-spread adoption. Usability of the exoskeleton was indicated as having a large influence on adoption. Workers in all roles noted that whether they adopt the exoskeleton during surgical procedures would depend on usability. The mean SUS score for the exoskeleton tested was 82.2 out of 100 ( SD = 7.9), which was within the acceptable range of usability. Passive exoskeleton technology has the potential to minimize MS symptoms and fatigue for the surgical team (Liu et al., 2018). The current work identified themes for adopting exoskeletons in the OR, and thus builds a better understanding of facilitators of and hinderances to stakeholders using this technology. Exoskeletons were suggested as having the potential to improve workforce retention and decrease MS symptoms. These results suggest that the use of arm-support exoskeletons can be valuable, though barriers such as cost and team member buy-in need to be addressed. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by Cooperative Agreement T42 OH008455, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC or DHHS. The exoskeleton used in this study was loaned by the Levitate company; the company had no involvement in study design, analysis, or interpretation, nor the decision for publication.

The Origins and Extent of Entrepreneurial Action-Orientedness: An Experimental Study

We test the hypothesis, based on popular and theoretical perspectives, that entrepreneurs are more action-oriented than other occupational groups. We compare their playing strategies in an optimal stopping game using a randomized online experiment among 100s of entrepreneurs, managers and employees. Our experimental results show that entrepreneurs are indeed more action-oriented than others. We theorize that this is driven by their lower levels of loss aversion and higher levels of curiosity. Our empirical test results show that (i) entrepreneurs score indeed higher, on average, than managers and employees on curiosity and lower on loss aversion; (ii) the difference in action-orientedness between entrepreneurs and others vanishes when controlling for individual curiosity levels and (iii) an alternative treatment that provides subjects with counterfactual information (about what would have happened in case of stopping) increases their willingness to stop. Under some assumptions, the combination of these results leads to the conclusion that the higher action-orientedness of entrepreneurs can be linked to their greater curiosity, but not to their lower level of loss aversion. Hence, we find support for the intuitive idea that (curiosity driven) action-orientedness enhances the identification and/or exploitation of opportunities.

The Origins and Extent of Entrepreneurial Action-Orientedness: An Experimental Study

We test the hypothesis, based on popular and theoretical perspectives, that entrepreneurs are more action-oriented than other occupational groups. We compare their playing strategies in an optimal stopping game using a randomized online experiment among 100s of entrepreneurs, managers and employees. Our experimental results show that entrepreneurs are indeed more action-oriented than others. We theorize that this is driven by their lower levels of loss aversion and higher levels of curiosity. Our empirical test results show that (i) entrepreneurs score indeed higher, on average, than managers and employees on curiosity and lower on loss aversion; (ii) the difference in action-orientedness between entrepreneurs and others vanishes when controlling for individual curiosity levels and (iii) an alternative treatment that provides subjects with counterfactual information (about what would have happened in case of stopping) increases their willingness to stop. Under some assumptions, the combination of these results leads to the conclusion that the higher action-orientedness of entrepreneurs can be linked to their greater curiosity, but not to their lower level of loss aversion. Hence, we find support for the intuitive idea that (curiosity driven) action-orientedness enhances the identification and/or exploitation of opportunities.

The Origins and Extent of Entrepreneurial Action-Orientedness: An Experimental Study

We test the hypothesis, based on popular and theoretical perspectives, that entrepreneurs are more action-oriented than other occupational groups. We compare their playing strategies in an optimal stopping game using a randomized online experiment among 100s of entrepreneurs, managers and employees. Our experimental results show that entrepreneurs are indeed more action-oriented than others. We theorize that this is driven by their lower levels of loss aversion and higher levels of curiosity. Our empirical test results show that (i) entrepreneurs score indeed higher, on average, than managers and employees on curiosity and lower on loss aversion; (ii) the difference in action-orientedness between entrepreneurs and others vanishes when controlling for individual curiosity levels and (iii) an alternative treatment that provides subjects with counterfactual information (about what would have happened in case of stopping) increases their willingness to stop. Under some assumptions, the combination of these results leads to the conclusion that the higher action-orientedness of entrepreneurs can be linked to their greater curiosity, but not to their lower level of loss aversion. Hence, we find support for the intuitive idea that (curiosity driven) action-orientedness enhances the identification and/or exploitation of opportunities.

Visiting artist researchers as therapists for climate scientists

Many climate scientists find themselves confronted with the challenge of purportedly “knowing better” — while this is a valid claim with respect to a small segment of reality, namely their narrow field of expertise, the public expectation often is that they know better about the “world’s problems”, and what to do about it, sometimes even with the rhetoric of “saving” the world. Artists may help in this situation by bringing forth different viewpoints, challenging hidden assumptions and suggesting surprising links; however, more often, the arts seem to be considered as a useful supporter in attempts to save the world. In the present project, however, the artists seem to have taken climate science mostly as a point of departure for their individual curiosity and joy of experimenting.

Heavy hitting: concussions and safety law

It’s a simple question: Might occupational health and safety law be the foundation to compel Canadian sports associations and leagues to change their rules to ban actions that cause concussions, such as hitting in hockey, or heading the ball in soccer? Possibly, legal experts say. But they’re quick to add that there appears to be little appetite to use safety legislation as a vehicle through which to achieve advances in sports safety. It’s possible that the rules of any sport could require revision on the grounds that occupational health and safety law applies to the field of play, says Robert Smithson, a labour and employment lawyer with Smithson Employment Law in Kelowna, British Columbia. “Generally speaking, I think the prohibitions contained in worker’s compensation legislation against exposing your workers to danger — to the risk of injury in the workplace — could well be a very substantial leaping off point for the assertion that sports leagues or sports teams that knowingly place their players in danger of injury ... either be held to account or have to change their practices.” But compelling such change would be a challenge because defenders of hockey and other sports typically fear the consequences of changing the game, says Alfred Kempf, a lawyer specializing in labour and employment law at Pushor Mitchell in Kelowna. “Hockey is sacred to all of our hearts as Canadians, more than any other sport, probably, and I think that may play a part in it. We don’t want to mess up the game. Any province that attempted to go there would probably feel a lot of pressure not to go there.” While using occupational health and safety legislation to affect change in sport is theoretically possible, “I don’t see it working in practice,” Kempf says. Each province in Canada is responsible for occupational health and safety law, which would make it difficult to achieve national, coordinated action, he adds. “I guess to extend that you’d have to look at all of the America teams, too.” Hockey is practically sacred in Canada, so using occupational health and safety legislation to change how it’s played could be a tough sell. Image courtesy of © 2012 Thinkstock One outcome of a spate of lawsuits against the National Football League (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4243) could be demand that occupational health and safety law be used to compel action, says Travis Leach, a sports and entertainment attorney at the Jennings, Strouss & Salmon law firm in Phoenix, Arizona. But it hasn’t been a focus to date, he adds. Equally problematic is that occupational health and safety legislation typically does not deal with such issues as the rules of sport and “the essence of the games themselves,” Hilary Findlay, cofounder of the Sport Law & Strategy Group in Toronto, Ontario, and an associate professor in the Department of Sports Management at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, writes in an email. “Other avenues of redress are likely more appropriate,” including union lobbying and negotiating, public pressure, and lawsuits by players aimed at sports leagues. Smithson forecasts that other forces, rather than occupational health and safety law, will soon force sports leagues and associations to move forward with changes aimed at reducing the incidence and consequences of concussions. “I think the rumblings that you’re starting to see in the US [United States], particularly against leagues like the NFL [National Football League] by former players, I don’t think that’s going to go away,” he says. “It has to happen sooner or later that the occurrence of head injuries and the long-term effects of head injuries to professional athletes cease to just be kind of an individual curiosity and they sort of coalesce into some form of a larger action.” Evidence of a link between concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, along with national angst over the fate of hockey superstar Sidney Crosby, has prompted calls for an end to hitting in the sport (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.112081). Meanwhile, widespread publicity about concussions has prompted a slow shuffle of Canadian youngsters out of contact hockey and compelled one critic to contend that Hockey Canada’s failure to implement stricter anticoncussion measures constitutes nothing short of “child abuse” (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4167). The growing evidence of the consequences of concussion has also led to the spate of class action lawsuits against the NFL, in which plaintiffs allege that the league has “mythologized violence” by glorifying the “brutality and ferocity of NFL football, by lauding and mythologizing the most brutal and ferocious players and collisions, and simultaneously propagating the fraudulent representation that ‘getting your bell rung,’ ‘being dinged’ and putting big hits on others is a badge of courage and does not seriously threaten one’s health” (http://nflconcussionlitigation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/NFL-Master-Complaint1.pdf). Editor’s note: Second of a two-part series. Part I: Heavy hitting: concussions and the courts (www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.109-4243).

Curious monkeys have increased gray matter density in the precuneus

Curiosity is a cornerstone of cognition that has the potential to lead to innovations and increase the behavioral repertoire of individuals. A defining characteristic of curiosity is inquisitiveness directed toward novel objects. Species differences in innovative behavior and inquisitiveness have been linked to social complexity and neocortical size [18]. In this study, we observed behavioral actions among nine socially reared and socially housed capuchin monkeys in response to an unfamiliar object, a paradigm widely employed as a means to assess curiosity. K-means hierarchical clustering analysis of the behavioral responses revealed three monkeys engaged in significantly more exploratory behavior of the novel object than other monkeys. Using voxel-based-morphometry analysis of MRIs obtained from these same subjects, we demonstrated that the more curious monkeys had significantly greater gray matter density in the precuneus, a cortical region involved in highly integrated processes including memory and self-awareness. These results linking variation in precuneus gray matter volume to exploratory behavior suggest that monitoring states of self-awareness may play a role in cognitive processes mediating individual curiosity.

스마트폰의 이용형태와 이용환경이 갖는 사회문화적 함의 고찰 : 미디어생태학적 관점을 중심으로

본 연구는 스마트폰과 스마트폰 애플리케이션의 이용형태와 이용환경이 갖는 사회문화적인 함의를 미디어생태학적 관점에서 살펴보고자 했으며, 이를 위해 스마트폰 애플리케이션 마켓인 T-store의 애플리케이션을 유형화하고 스마트폰 이용자를 대상으로 심층인터뷰를 실시하였다. 연구결과에 의하면, 스마트폰 애플리케이션은 이코노미 서비스, 엔터테인먼트, 인포메이션, 커뮤니케이션의 네 가지로 유형화할 수 있었고, 스마트폰 이용자들은 피처폰에 비해 스마트폰을 더욱 개인화된 시공간상에서 이용하면서 집단적으로 지식과 정보를 공유하고 새로운 일상 문화를 구성하는 제2의 신체이자 복합미디어로 인식하는 것으로 나타났다. 이는 스마트폰이 애플리케이션을 통해 집단지성을 구축하고 제3의 틈새공간을 통해 새로운 공론장으로서의 역할을 할 수 있다는 것을 의미한다. This study has attempted to examine the socio-cultural implications of the using form and environment of smart phone and applications from the viewpoint of media-ecology studies. In so doing, this paper analysed the types of applications in SKT's application market T-store and in-depth interview on smart phone users. According to the study results, smart phone users organize mobile culture with individual curiosity and a desire for novelty depending on their personal tendencies and interest. Also, they use smart phone and applications as a sort of new complex mobile media and prescribe the role of smart phone and applications as their second body replacing themselves in a space using mobile. It means that new paradigm for a space using mobile could be formed by having created new space for communication through the mobile media.

Technologies of War, Media, and Dissent in the Post 9/11 Work of Krzysztof Wodiczko

In the U.S. war on Iraq and the elusive, euphemistic ‘global war on terrorism’ manufactured in response to the events of September 11, video and surveillance have been used in radically diverse ways, eroding the line between public and private in the service of state control, political recruitment, terror, individual curiosity and radical critique. These technologies have been used to scrutinise the body by government agencies, publicise beheadings by Iraqi insurgents, send global messages by Osama Bin Laden and produce a recruitment tool by Al-Qaeda now on the Internet.1 Many independent agents have produced private videos that have found their way to a global audience via Internet sites such as YouTube, and, of course, the news media rely on video, subject to the pressures of state control. Artists, too, draw on the technologies of video, surveillance and the media to produce critical works about the troubling and often invisible effects of war. In this essay I examine some of these effects, focusing on the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko and his post 9/11 video, sound and vehicle projects, which mobilise war and media technologies in order to perform a radical critique of the war on terror, particularly the political repression it has unleashed against immigrants in American society and the frightening impulses and enduring damage it has effected on soldiers who function as both perpetrators and cannon fodder in this imperialist adventure.

Introducing student inquiry in large introductory genetics classes.

An appreciation of genetic principles depends upon understanding the individual curiosity that sparked particular investigations, the creativity involved in imagining alternative outcomes and designing experiments to eliminate these outcomes, and the clarity of thought necessary to convince one's scientific peers of the validity of the conclusions. At large research universities, students usually begin their study of genetics in large lecture classes. It is widely assumed that the lecture format, coupled with the pressures to be certain that students become familiar with the principal conclusions of genetics investigations, constrains most if not all departures from the formats textbooks used to explain these conclusions. Here I present several examples of mechanisms to introduce meaningful student inquiry in an introductory genetics course and to evaluate student creative effort. Most of the examples involve altered student preparation prior to class and additional in-class activities, while a few depend upon a smaller recitation section, which accompanies the course from which the examples have been drawn. I conclude that large introductory classes are suitable venues to teach students how to identify scientific claims, determine the evidence that is essential to eliminate alternative conclusions, and convince their peers of the validity of their arguments.

The Importance of Individual Pursuit in Scientific Research

ABSTRACT To the Editor.— The article on the background of the 1979 Nobel laureates in medicine (242:2380, 1979) is fascinating in that such an important achievement as computerized axial tomography has the humble beginning of Cormack's studies of the differential absorption of x-ray radiation by various body tissues.Too often great scientific work is not readily appreciated, and when Cormack's results were published in The Journal of Applied Physics in 1963 and 1964, he received only a few requests for reprints. Fortunately in Cormack's case, his work was noted by Hounsfield, who with creativity and persistence developed these scientific data into powerful diagnostic technology. This story is reminiscent of the triumphant discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick based on the raw scientific data of Wilkins and Franklin. These samples illustrate the value of individual curiosity and pursuit in science.The examples cited also speak for the fact that creative science