Information Acquisition Process Research Articles

The process of clinical decision-making in chronic wound care: A scenario-based think-aloud study

AimsTo undertake a comprehensive investigation into both the process of information acquisition and the clinical decision-making process utilized by primary care nurses in the course of treating chronic wounds. DesignScenario-based think-aloud method, enriched by the integration of information processing theory. The study was conducted within the framework of home care nursing organizations situated in Flanders, the Flemish speaking part of Belgium. A cohort of primary care nurses (n = 10), each possessing a minimum of one year of nursing experience, was recruited through the collaboration of three home care nursing organizations. MethodsTwo real-life clinical practice scenarios were employed for the interviews, with the researcher adopting the roles of either the patient or another clinician to enhance the realism of the think-aloud process. Each think-aloud session was promptly succeeded by a subsequent follow-up interview. The Consolidated criteria for Reporting Qualitative research checklist was followed to guarantee a consistent and complete report of the study. ResultsAmidst noticeable variations, a discernible pattern surfaced, delineating three sequential concepts: 1. gathering overarching information, 2. collecting and documenting wound-specific data, and 3. interpreting information to formulate wound treatment strategies. These concepts encompassed collaborative discussions with stakeholders, while the refinement of wound treatment strategies was interwoven within both concepts 2 and 3. ConclusionsEvident variations were identified in chronic wound care clinical decision-making, regardless of educational background or experience. These insights hold the potential to inform the development of clinical decision support systems for chronic wound management and provide guidance to clinicians in their decision-making endeavours.

An Information Acquisition Approach on How Young Adults Search for Mental Health Professionals

Using a computer-based, information acquisition process tracing task (MouselabWEB), participants (N = 100) were presented with varying types and amounts of information and were tasked with choosing a mental health professional (MHP). Results of this lab-based study indicated that the tendency to engage in heuristically-driven decision-making process increases as MHP choice and cognitive burden increases. When MHP choices are limited, participants tend to acquire information on MHP’s age, treatment orientation, education, and years of experience. As MHP choices increase, MHP gender and ethnicity information were utilized the most, and education and years of experience utilized the least.

Laser Profilometry Application in Welding Geometrical Characterization

Welding processes are commonly used in the industry for the manufacture of large parts or due to their complex geometry that does not allow the part to be manufactured as a whole. Nevertheless, the union can show worst mechanical properties than the rest of the piece, affecting negatively its service behavior, so it is necessary evaluate weald seam to ensure the correct process application. Electrical welding operations are commonly used due to the reduced equipment size or their possibilities application in numerous metallic materials. Notwithstanding, different variables have to be taken into account during the metal deposition, as intensity or speed deposition, among others. Weald seam geometrical evaluation is usually utilized to validate the union surface conditions. Despite this, surface irregularities caused during the process make its difficult to measure correctly with conventional equipment. However, laser profilometry is a non-contact technique that can be used to generate 3D profile of weald seam, facilitating its measurement with high accuracy. Therefore, in this work an initial analysis of the influence of material deposition speed and arc welding intensity on the weald seam geometry will be carried out using a laser profilometry equipment. In addition, to ensure a correct information acquisition, the laser profilometer requires a constant speed movement in relation with the weald seam analyzed, so new equipment has been manufactured, using additive manufacturing techniques, to support the profilometer throughout the information acquisition process.

DIGITAL MANAGEMENT FOR THE RESTORATION PROJECT. THE CASE OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS IN BAIA

Abstract. The work that is presented here shows the results of the survey and material characterization campaign, performed through digital information acquisition and management processes of the Temple of Venus in Baia, in the framework of the activities by the Departments of Civil, Building, and Environmental Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II, in agreement with the Archaeological Park of Campi Flegrei. The artifact stands as a deeply interesting example of an architectural palimpsest, which - despite being involved by significant structural reinforcement interventions - presents interesting technical solutions, to be further investigated in their singularity and specificity. Unfortunately, it cannot be currently visited, until the execution of works to guarantee its complete and safe accessibility, also in terms of structural safety. The use of digital methodologies for data acquisition, in the integration of range and image-based survey techniques, and their semantic de-discretization has allowed systematizing the developed knowledge into models that can be easily queried and implemented over time, where both the geometric and the information component are indispensable for orienting and elaborating a conscious and articulate restoration project, as required by this building.

Bolstering the Moderating Effect of Supervisory Innovative Support on Organisational Learning and Employees’ Engagement

Organisational learning, as the process of continuous information acquisition, dissemination and exploitation, often leads to an organisation’s competitiveness. Hence, this study examined the relationship between organisational learning and employee engagement. The study also investigated the extent to which supervisory innovative support moderates organisational learning and the effectiveness of employee engagement. Five hundred forty-one (541) participants were surveyed using stratified and purposive sampling methods to make up the sample size. To be more precise, Smart Partial Least Square (PLS 3.0) was used to analyse the relationship between the study’s variables. The hypothesis test found that supervisory innovative support moderated the relationship between organisational learning and employee engagement to a significant extent (R2 = 0.810 Adjusted R2 = 0.806 p-value 0.05). As a result, the study recommends that pharmaceutical companies clarify their policies and culture to employees so that supervisory support can lead to higher employee engagement through organisational learning. Pharmaceutical firms should also provide financial incentives based on employee duration or distinctive contributions to company goals.

CS-LeCT: Chained Secure and Low-Energy Consumption Data Transmission Based on Compressive Sensing

Energy consumption and security are two major challenges faced by telemedicine systems. Due to the simplicity and the randomness in information acquisition process, compressive sensing (CS) has a vast prospect in dealing with these two problems. Recently, a chained CS (CCS) scheme has been proposed, which can implement a secure and low-energy consumption data transmission. However, due to its chain computation and the lossy compression nature of CS, there exists an accumulative error in the existing CCS scheme. Moreover, the block-based CS decoding also leads to a significant performance deterioration. In this paper, a new chained secure and low-energy consumption data transmission (CS-LeCT) scheme has been proposed, whose reconstruction performance is far superior to the CCS. Firstly, to overcome the accumulative error of the CCS scheme, square matrices instead of under-determined matrices were used to encode the signal so that in the proposed CS-LeCT the decoding process can be carried out by adopting a lossless inverse operation. Secondly, inspired by the structurally random matrix (SRM), an active packet drop strategy was designed to achieve low-energy consumption data transmission, whose decoding can be implemented by means of the SRM-based CS reconstruction. The performance gain of the CS-LeCT has not only been validated through simulation experiments but also been analyzed theoretically. Safety analysis also shows that the proposed CS-LeCT can resist several potential attacks, such as ciphertext-only attacks (COA), known-plaintext attacks (KPA) and man-in-the-middle attacks (MiTM).

Information acquisition and cognitive processes during strategic decision-making: Combining a policy-capturing study with eye-tracking data.

Policy-capturing (PC) methodologies have been employed to study decision-making, and to assess how decision-makers use available information when asked to evaluate hypothetical situations. An important assumption of the PC techniques is that respondents develop cognitive models to help them efficiently process the many information cues provided while reviewing a large number of decision scenarios. With this study, we seek to analyze the process of answering a PC study. We do this by investigating the information acquisition and the cognitive processes behind policy-capturing, building on cognitive and attention research and exploiting the tools of eye-tracking. Additionally, we investigate the role of experience in mediating the relationship between the information processed and judgments in order to determine how the cognitive models of student samples differ from those of professionals. We find evidence of increasing efficiency as a function of practice when respondents undergo the PC experiment. We also detect a selective process on information acquisition; such selection is consistent with the respondents' evaluation. While some differences are found in the information processing among the split sample of students and professionals, remarkable similarities are detected. Our study adds confidence to the assumption that respondents build cognitive models to handle the large amounts of information presented in PC experiments, and the defection of such models is not substantially affected by the applied sample.

Prevention and treatment of behavioural and learning disorders with sensory integration therapy

Sensory integration disorders, which are often hidden in the background of learning and/or behavioural disorders, can cause serious difficulties in the daily activities of the students, in the implementation of learning and/or behaviour. Upon hearing the term ‘sensory integration’, two interpretations appear in the minds of professionals. On interpretation refers to the integration, sensory interconnection coordination and interdependence of sensory systems as a typical, neurological maturation process that provides the basis for subsequent learning and behavioural organisation processes. Based on a second interpretation, ‘sensory integration’ is a therapeutic methodology, diagnostic, and therapeutic procedure that provides assistance to people who are lagging behind in the maturation of sensing systems and perception processes. Learning and/ or behavioural disorders can be caused by impaired information acquisition processes, sensory modulation, and integration in the nervous system. The following study comprehensively presents the diagnostic process and the relationship between the learning and behavioural differences related to sensory integration disorders.

Peritoneal dialysis after shared decision-making: the disparity between reality and patient expectations

BackgroundThe current health policy in Taiwan favors peritoneal dialysis (PD) at home. Policy objectives may make healthcare providers give more consideration to the introduction of PD treatment. This study aimed to explore the process of information acquisition and consideration during shared decision-making (SDM) for patients undergoing PD and compare their quality of life expectations before and after PD at home.MethodsIn this qualitative study, 15 patients undergoing PD for < 12 months were purposively recruited from one large PD unit in Taichung, Taiwan. Data were collected between August 2020 and December 2020 using a semi-structured interview. All transcripts were evaluated using thematic analysis.ResultsThree themes and seven subthemes were identified following data analysis: 1. sources for information on dialysis treatment, including (a) effect of others’ experiences and (b) incomplete information from healthcare providers (HCPs); 2. considerations for choosing PD, including (a) trusting physicians, and (b) maintaining pre-dialysis life; and 3. disparity between pre-and post-PD reality and expectation, including (a) limitation by time and place, (b) discrepancies in expected freedom and convenience, and (c) regret versus need to continue.ConclusionHCPs played an important role in SDM, providing key information that influenced the process. Patients undergoing initial PD at home exhibited a disparity between expectation and reality, which was exacerbated by incomplete information.

Startup accelerator analysis: strategic decision on effort exertion and information disclosure regime

PurposeThis study aims to investigate a startup accelerator’s decisions toward exerting effort in an information acquisition process and selecting an information disclosure strategy. In particular, the authors are interested in examining which factors may cause the accelerator to report more or less accurate information, which will subsequently affect the investment decision and the outcome of the ventures. This study examines the impact of the equity share taken by the accelerator on the effort level being exerted in the information acquisition process, as well as the accelerator’s decision on the information disclosure regime.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use mathematical models built upon well-established theoretical and practical concepts to analyze the research problems and derive the findings.FindingsThe authors show that when the accelerator takes a sufficiently large equity share from the entrepreneur in exchange for admitting the entrepreneur’s venture into the acceleration program, the accelerator is motivated to exert a significant level of effort to observe an accurate signal for the quality of the venture, and then disclose the information about the venture’s quality consistently with the observed signal (informative disclosure regime). On the other hand, if the accelerator takes a small equity share, it is optimal for her to exert no effort in the information acquisition process and simply adopt the basic disclosure regime, where the accelerator reports the quality of the venture based solely on the ex ante expected payoff of the venture, regardless of the observed signal.Practical implicationsThe results indicate that an equity sharing scheme, which awards a sufficient amount of equity to the accelerator, can be an effective tool to help obtain accurate information about the quality of a startup venture and make a well-informed investment decision.Originality/valueThis research illustrates that the ownership stake of the accelerator can potentially indicate the accuracy of the information about the venture provided by the accelerator to outside investors. That is, when the stake held by the accelerator is large, the investors can conjecture that the information about the venture reported by the accelerator may be highly accurate and reliable. In contrast, if the accelerator holds a small stake, then it is likely that the information provided by the accelerator may not add any value to the publicly available information. These insights can guide investors (e.g. angle investors, venture capitalists, etc.) in making well-informed startup investment decisions.

Corporate site visits, private information communication, and earnings management: evidence from China

PurposeThis paper aims to provide new evidence that corporate site visits give institutional investors better opportunities to obtain information and exert monitoring powers, which reduce listed firms’ earnings management.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores how private communications affect firms’ earnings management by using a sample of institutional investors’ visits to the corporate sites of Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2018. This study uses the performance-matched Jones model (Kothari et al., 2005) to measure accrual-based earnings management and Roychowdhury’s (2006) method to measure real earnings management. The authors also perform several robustness checks including an alternative measure of accounting accruals, a two-stage instrumental regression and the Heckman two-step approach.FindingsUsing a sample of institutional investors’ site visits to Chinese listed firms during the 2010–2018 period, this study finds that institutional investors’ site visits reduce listed firms’ earnings manipulation activities (both accrual-based and real). This association is robust to several checks, including an alternative measure of accounting accruals, a two-stage instrumental regression and the Heckman two-step approach. This study further documents that other private communication approaches such as private in-house meetings and conference calls moderate the effect of site visits.Practical implicationsAs the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is one of the few stock markets to mandate that listed firms record and disclose their private communication information, this study also has implications for researchers and policymakers who work in other stock markets.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive study of the impact of private communications on earnings management. This study extends the earnings management literature by examining institutional investors’ information acquisition process and revealing a negative association between their site visits and listed firms’ earnings management. Moreover, this study examines the effects not only on traditional accounting accruals but also on real earnings management. In addition to studies that emphasize the effect of corporate site visits on individuals and market reactions, this study examines the effect of site visits on firms’ financial misbehavior. This study shows that institutional investors’ corporate site visits provide external monitoring that mitigates listed firms’ earnings management behavior.

Anomaly Detection on Natural Language Processing to Improve Predictions on Tourist Preferences

Argumentation-based dialogue models have shown to be appropriate for decision contexts in which it is intended to overcome the lack of interaction between decision-makers, either because they are dispersed, they are too many, or they are simply not even known. However, to support decision processes with argumentation-based dialogue models, it is necessary to have knowledge of certain aspects that are specific to each decision-maker, such as preferences, interests, and limitations, among others. Failure to obtain this knowledge could ruin the model’s success. In this work, we sought to facilitate the information acquisition process by studying strategies to automatically predict the tourists’ preferences (ratings) in relation to points of interest based on their reviews. We explored different Machine Learning methods to predict users’ ratings. We used Natural Language Processing strategies to predict whether a review is positive or negative and the rating assigned by users on a scale of 1 to 5. We then applied supervised methods such as Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Decision Trees, K-Nearest Neighbors, and Recurrent Neural Networks to determine whether a tourist likes/dislikes a given point of interest. We also used a distinctive approach in this field through unsupervised techniques for anomaly detection problems. The goal was to improve the supervised model in identifying only those tourists who truly like or dislike a particular point of interest, in which the main objective is not to identify everyone, but fundamentally not to fail those who are identified in those conditions. The experiments carried out showed that the developed models could predict with high accuracy whether a review is positive or negative but have some difficulty in accurately predicting the rating assigned by users. Unsupervised method Local Outlier Factor improved the results, reducing Logistic Regression false positives with an associated cost of increasing false negatives.

Learning Manipulation Through Information Dissemination

Much of the past learning and control literature has focused on the design of information acquisition processes for the demand side of information and has assumed that information supply is always genuine. However, in many economic and management settings, the information provider has incentives to strategically disseminate his/her private information, even in a possibly biased way. For example, a company may advertise deceptively to sell its products. In the paper “Learning Manipulation Through Information Dissemination,” Keppo, Kim, and Zhang take the perspective of an information provider and study the optimal manipulation of a learning process through the adaptive design of (mis)information. The authors explicitly characterize both the optimal manipulation policy and the learner’s belief process under such manipulation. They also extend their analysis to social learners who rely on public reviews to resist manipulation and show that social learning indeed mitigates misinformation in the long run.

Too much or too little information: how unknown uncertainty fuels time inconsistency

Under uncertainty, there is considerable heterogeneity in expectations of results, and the outcome of each choice is a reflection of those expectations. This study aims to understand the role of subjective probabilistic inference in updating information for decision-making procedures under uncertainty. We show that adding uncertainty of trade-offs in decision-making criteria induces more inconsistent present preferences. We find that subjective probabilistic inference results in different levels of information acquisition, which plays a central role in many everyday cases of forecasting. The result of forecasting exerts substantive constraints on cognitive processes and shapes a type of restriction or stimulus in decision-making procedures. As uncertainty increases, generated fear of losses turns into an obstacle to the information acquisition process, and especially participants with low probabilistic inference tend to overestimate or underestimate future unknown rewards. In addition, our experiment shows that risk preference does not play a key role in decision-making procedures under unknown uncertainty. This finding is an experimental manifestation of Knight’s argument (Risk, uncertainty, and profit, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1921), which explains unknown uncertainty, and shows the relationship between cognitive ability and time inconsistency.

Dynamics of Information Acquisition: Does Investment in Information Technology Matter?

The purpose of the study is to develop a theoretical model to ascertain if the IT investment in the banking sector is capable of generating a new equilibrium with increased efficiency. The empirical strategy is to seek an indirect test for Jordanian banking sector by looking at the time profile of banking profits as a temporal function of IT investment. The study enquires if the banking sector, as an iterative process of credit allocation and information acquisition through IT investment, lead to a stable equilibrium? Does IT investment ensure stable market shares for Jordanian banks in the long run? The study finds that investment in IT has led the banking system in Jordan away from an efficient equilibrium. We also find that the banks in Jordan directly interact with each other, although they may have collusive arrangements with some of their rivals, this means the banking market is not fragmented.

Information processing in tax decisions: a MouselabWEB study on the deterrence model of income tax evasion

AbstractThe highly influential Allingham and Sandmo model of income tax evasion assumes that taxpayers are driven by utility maximization, choosing evasion over compliance if it yields a higher expected profit. We test the main assumptions of this so‐called deterrence approach considering both compliance decisions and the process of information acquisition using MouselabWEB. In an incentivized experiment, 109 participants made 24 compliance decisions with varying information presented for four within‐subject factors (the four central model parameters: income, tax rate, audit probability, and fine level). Additionally, explicit expected value information was indicated in one of two conditions. The results reveal that participants attended to all relevant information, a prerequisite for expected value‐like calculations. As predicted by the deterrence model, choices were clearly influenced by audit probability and fine level. Against the model assumptions, the presented parameters were not integrated adequately, indicated by a non‐monotonic increase of evasion with rising expected rate of return from evasion. Additionally, more transitions between information necessary for calculating expected values did not result in higher model conformity, just as presenting explicit information on expected values. We conclude that deterrence information clearly influences tax compliance decisions in our setting but observed deviations from the deterrence model can be attributed to failures to properly integrate all relevant parameters.

Private communication and management forecasts: Evidence from corporate site visits

AbstractResearch Question/IssueThis paper investigates whether the communication between managers and corporate site visitors facilitates managerial learning in improving management forecast accuracy.Research Findings/InsightsUsing corporate site visit (CSV) data from 2009 to 2016, we find that the frequency of corporate site visits is positively related to management forecast accuracy. The positive relationship between corporate site visits and forecast accuracy is stronger when visitors have greater expertise and advanced industry knowledge and when firms are visited during a period of high business uncertainty and are subject to high sensitivity to industry shocks. These findings are consistent with the managerial learning hypothesis. Our results are robust to endogeneity concerns and alternative CSV measures.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsPrevious literature on voluntary disclosure assumes that managers are endowed with a private set of information and decide how much of that to reveal. In this paper, we find that corporate site visits serve as a communication channel through which managers learn from investors. Overall, we provide evidence that private communication is a two‐way channel through which visitors learn useful information from managers and vice versa.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsWe provide evidence that the private information acquisition process is also a channel of information sharing that increases management forecast accuracy. Our results could be useful to policymakers who may care about the information acquisition cost of investors when evaluating the benefit of corporate site visits.

MANAGEMENT OF ICT-MEDIATED LEARNING: A CURRICULUM DESIGN PROPOSAL FROM UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CHIMBORAZO.

The current situation in the field of education demands teachers who are capable of functioning in new learning scenarios where the possibilities offered by ICT for information acquisition and communication processes are enormous. In this sense, it is necessary to have postgraduate programs that contribute to the development of digital skills in teachers. The main purpose of this work is to propose the curricular design for a Master's program in Education, Mention in Management of Learning Mediated by ICT, offered by Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo in Ecuador. For this, a qualitative research was undertaken in order to characterize and determine the most important features of each module of the curriculum. A documentary research design was applied through the PICOC method (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Context). The result of this work was a curricular mesh that consists of 12 study modules wherein aspects such as: digital literacy for the new society were addressed; didactics in new digital environments; the design and development of content and digital resources for learning; new ways of learning and innovating in education; as well as research in educational technology.

Do site visits mitigate corporate fraudulence? Evidence from China

Corporate site visits emerge as an increasingly important means of information acquisition process for analysts and institutional investors. In this study, we test whether and how site visits mitigate corporate fraud risk using a unique dataset of site visits to Chinese listed firms. We find that corporate site visits can substantially reduce the incidence of corporate fraud, which is robust to adding a series of control variables, alternative model specifications and alternative measures of corporate fraud, as well as accounting for endogeneity issue and controlling for firm and time fixed effects. This negative effect is more pronounced for firms with poorer information environment and for firms with weaker corporate governance. Furthermore, we examine the mechanisms underlying the negative association between site visits and corporate fraud. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by providing complementary evidence that site visits are important venues for analysts and institutional investors to collect firm-specific information and monitor the management of firms in China. Our findings also provide significant practical and policy implications for investors and regulators who seek to promote corporate information disclosure and mitigate the risk of corporate fraud.

Development, piloting, and evaluation of an evidence-based informed consent form for total knee arthroplasty (EvAb-Pilot): a protocol for a mixed methods study

BackgroundPractitioners frequently use informed consent forms to support the physician-patient communication and the informed consent process. Informed consent for surgery often focuses on risk centered information due to high liability risks for treatment errors. This may affect patients’ anxiety of adverse events and the nocebo effect. This study focuses on the optimization of pre-surgical information on risks and complications, and at the same time reconciles these information with legal requirements.MethodsThe development, piloting, and evaluation of evidence-based informed consent forms for total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and related anesthesia procedures will follow the UK MRC Framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions. Conducting different sub-studies, we will (I) qualitatively explore the information acquisition and decision-making processes, (II) develop and pilot test evidence-based informed consent forms on the example of TKA and related anesthesia procedures, (III) conduct a monocentric interrupted time series (ITS) pilot study to evaluate the effects of evidence-based informed consent forms in comparison with standard consent forms, and (IV) perform a process evaluation to identify barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the intervention and to analyze mechanisms of impact.DiscussionThe evidence-based and understandable presentation of risks in informed consent forms aims at avoiding distorted risk depiction and strengthening the patients’ competencies to correctly assess the risks of undergoing surgery. This might reduce negative expectations and anxiety of adverse events, which in turn might reduce the nocebo effect. At the same time, the practitioners’ acceptance of evidence-based informed consent forms meeting legal requirements could be increased.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04669483. Registered 15 December 2020.German Clinical Trials Registry, DRKS00022571. Registered 15 December 2020