Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory Research Articles

Efficiency moderates the relationship between sleep-onset insomnia and resting-state electroencephalogram microstate.

Overactivation of the salience network (SN) causes hyperarousal in insomnia patients and is associated with sleep-onset insomnia (SOI). Resting-state microstate 3 (RS-MS3) duration is closely related to SN overactivation. However, whether RS-MS3 duration is a biomarker for SOI has not yet been reported in the literature. In addition, SN activity is also associated with efficiency. However, it is not clear whether there are individual differences in the neural mechanisms of SOI in different efficiency groups. Considering that RS-MS3 duration characterizes the stability and persistent activation of the SN in the resting state, the current study investigated the link between SOI measured by sleep latency of Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), efficiency measured by Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI), and RS-MS3 in a Chinese healthy (subclinical) student population, using electroencephalography (EEG) microstate analysis. We found that RS-MS3 duration was positively correlated with sleep latency and efficiency. The interaction between sleep latency and efficiency was significant. Simple slope analysis showed that high sleep latency was positively correlated with longer RS-MS3 duration in participants with higher efficiency scores. This correlation did not exist in participants with low efficiency scores. RS-MS3 duration may serve as a biomarker for SOI. There is heterogeneity in the relationship between SOI and RS-MS3 duration between individuals with high and low efficiency.

Problem-solving style and resiliency of navy seals: how are the more adaptive and the more innovative different

Little is known on how resiliency connects to one's problem-solving style and decision-making in Special Operations Forces (SOF) senior enlisted leaders. This study provides some insight to better understand how senior enlisted SEALs describe their resiliency and how resiliency is different for those with different problem-solving styles. The Kirton Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI) was administered to 30 Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) team members (E7, E8, and E9 paygrades) to identify problem-solving styles, which was followed by the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), to measure resiliency. A correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between levels of resiliency and problem-solving styles of Navy SEALS. As theoretically expected, there was not a significant correlation (r = -.17; p = .37) between the KAI and CD-RISC among these SEALS, indicating that more adaptive and more innovative Navy SEALs may be equally resilient, and expressed in one's preference for solving problems. In the second phase of this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the three most adaptive and the three most innovative Navy SEALs to identify themes of how they perceived being more resilient. The researcher identified three implications for practice from the findings in this study. First, problem-solving style affects how individuals make decisions. Second, physical well-being is related to emotional well-being for individuals in this community; and third, the more adaptive and the more innovative experience control differently, which contributed to differing approaches for being resilient.

Regulatory Focus, Motivation, and Their Relationship With Creativity Among Adolescents.

Due to the close relationship among intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, regulatory focus, and creativity revealed by previous literature, intrinsic/extrinsic motivation may play a mediating role between regulatory focus and creativity. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between regulatory focus and creativity by combining intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. In this study, senior high school students (n = 418) completed the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire, the Working Preference Inventory, the Williams Creativity Assessment Packet, and the Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory. The correlation analysis showed that both promotion and prevention focus positively correlated with intrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation and promotion focus positively correlated with creativity personality and innovative-adaptive cognitive style; and extrinsic motivation and prevention focus negatively correlated with innovative–adaptive cognitive style. Furthermore, a path model showed that promotion focus positively predicted creativity through the mediation of intrinsic motivation. In general, our study suggests that intrinsic motivation plays a mediating role between promotion focus and creativity. Our results complement those of previous studies and serve as inspiration for the cultivation of creativity in classroom or enterprise settings.

Evaluating Relations between Originality, Efficiency, Conformism and Entrepreneurial Potential of Students in a Fast Changing Business Environment

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relations of originality, efficiency, conformism, and entrepreneurial potential. The sample consisted of a student population from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as EU candidate countries and from the EU member country, Belgium. Research results can help policy makers receive valuable information on how to improve student attitude towards entrepreneurship. Data was collected from a sample of 1008 university students from these three countries. The Kirton Adaptation Innovation Inventory (KAI), Questionnaire on Entrepreneurial Traits (QET), and The Scale of Entrepreneurial Potential (SEP) were applied in the research in order to obtain data. Canonical correlation analysis revealed a significantly strong relation between originality, efficiency, conformism, and dimensions of the Entrepreneurial Traits model, as well as significant relation to the entrepreneurial potential model. Findings from this study may provide data that could be used to develop and foster the entrepreneurship potential of students and help improve the economy in the region.

Investigating the Influence of Designers’ Cognitive Characteristics and Interaction Behaviors in Design Concept Generation

This paper investigates relationships among the cognitive characteristics, interaction behaviors, and ideation outcomes of 14 engineering design teams engaged in concept generation. Cognitive characteristics were measured using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI), which assesses an individual’s cognitive preference for structure in generating and working with ideas in problem solving. Team interactions were assessed using the Interaction Dynamics Notation (IDN), which allows interaction behaviors to be quantitatively analyzed, while team outcomes were measured in terms of ideation utterances (ideas and unique ideas). Our analyses revealed that cognitive style (KAI) did not correlate significantly with interaction response behaviors (IDN) or with the quantity of ideas/unique ideas produced. However, the cognitive style diversity of the teams did influence the number of topics they discussed, as well as the interconnectedness of those topics. In addition, several specific interaction responses were associated with the occurrence of ideas/unique ideas, although the sequences associated with those responses varied widely; the more adaptive teams also had greater position specificity in these sequences than the more innovative teams. Our findings highlight the importance of forming cognitively diverse design teams and suggest that specific interaction behaviors should be encouraged or taught as a means to increase the occurrence of ideas and/or unique ideas during team concept generation.

Facilitating creative problem solving process as a teaching tool in fashion marketing classrooms

A teaching manual was developed to incorporate the creative problem solving process into a fashion marking course. Students’ creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and analytical thinking are promoted by applying the creative problem solving process systematically to solve authentic business problems experienced by local apparel business owners. This teaching manual is based on the FourSight Model that consists of Clarify, Ideate, Develop, and Implement. Various tools promoting divergent thinking are also utilized in the process. A local fashion business is invited as a problem owner and four resource groups are formed with students based on the results of the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory. Each resource group consists of 6-8 students. The creative problem solving process is implemented into a classroom setting as four 75-minutes sessions that are held twice a week for two consecutive weeks. The local fashion business owner will be in presence during the first (Clarify) and last (Implement) sessions. The instructor facilitator meets with the problem owner outside the classroom three times including pre-session client interview, after the second (Ideate) session, and before the third (Develop) session. This modified CPS manual for fashion marketing and merchandising courses provides practical guidelines to work with local fashion businesses while providing students with learning opportunities of the creative problem solving process.

Job Performance Quality of Thermal Power Plants Operational Employees with Various Levels of Professionalism

Introduction. This paper examines professionally important qualities of thermal power plants operational employees with various levels of professionalism when solving professional tasks in standard and emergency situations.
 Methods. The sample size was 134 operational employees, 123 of whom were men and 11 – women; the mean age was 37 years. The level of professionalism was determined by expert assessments of their professional knowledge, skills, abilities, and problem-solving performance – qualities that the authors deemed to be important for ensuring high work performance. The study used: (a) the Prognoz technique for examination of neuro-mental stability; (b) the questionnaire for measuring the Level of Subjective Control (LSC) by Golynkina, Bazhin, and Etkind; (c) the test questionnaire for Studying Volitional Self-Regulation by Eidman and Zver'kov; (d) the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) in Buzin’s modification; (e) the Spielberg–Hanin test; and (f) and the Kirton Adaptation-Innovation Inventory (KAI). Statistical data analyses included the t-test for independent samples, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, analysis of contingency tables, and factor analysis.
 Results and Discussion. The results of expert assessment enabled authors to distinguish among three groups of specialists with different levels of professionalism; these were ‘pre-professionals’, ‘professionals’, and ‘super-professionals’. Super-professionals demonstrate high effectiveness, high level of professional knowledge, abilities, and skills, good and satisfactory levels of neuro-mental stability, increased indices of responsibility in various activities, volitional self-regulation, persistence, intellectual capacities, innovative cognitive style, and low level of personal and situational anxiety. Factor analysis revealed subsystems of professionally important qualities in the three groups. Responsibility, volitional qualities, and cognitive styles undergo qualitative changes in the process of the professionalism development. At a high level of professionalism, the qualities of responsibility, volitional qualities, and innovative cognitive style provide operational employees with professional and personal reliability and help them cope with anxiety in stressful situations.

Comparing the Effects of Design Interventions on the Quality of Design Concepts as a Reflection of Ideation Flexibility

Many tools, techniques, and other interventions have been developed to support idea generation within the design process. In previous research, we explored the separate effects of three such design interventions: teaming, problem framing, and design heuristics. In the teaming intervention, participants discussed a design prompt together but recorded their own ideas separately. In problem framing, multiple versions (framings) of each design prompt were used to elicit different solutions. In design heuristics, participants used specially designed cards to prompt new ways of thinking about the given design problem. In the current work, we compared the effects of these three interventions on students' design ideas with respect to one idea attribute in particular—quality. In total, 1088 design concepts were collected from 171 undergraduate students in engineering and industrial design from two universities. Individual cognitive style was also assessed using Kirton's Adaption–Innovation inventory (KAI). Six metrics taken from the design literature were used to assess the quality of each concept, namely: acceptability, applicability, clarity, effectiveness, implementability, and implicational explicitness. Paired t-tests and Pearson correlations were used to assess differences in quality between concepts generated with and without the three interventions; in addition, secondary effects were sought based on the cognitive styles and academic standings of the participants. Statistically significant differences were observed in design concept quality for the teaming and design heuristics interventions over the full sample and for some subgroups separated by cognitive style and academic standing. These results have implications for how educators teach design interventions and how students choose and apply interventions to affect the quality of their own design solutions.

KABOOM: an agent-based model for simulating cognitive style in team problem solving

The performance of a design team is influenced by each team member’s unique cognitive style – i.e., their preferred manner of managing structure as they solve problems, make decisions, and seek to bring about change. Cognitive style plays an important role in how teams of engineers design and collaborate, but the interactions of cognitive style with team organization and processes have not been well studied. The limitations of small-scale behavioral experiments have led researchers to develop computational models for simulating teamwork; however, none have modeled the effects of individuals’ cognitive styles. This paper presents the Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory agent-based organizational optimization model (KABOOM), the first agent-based model of teamwork to incorporate cognitive style. In KABOOM, heterogeneous agents imitate the diverse problem-solving styles described by the Kirton Adaption-Innovation construct, which places each individual somewhere along the spectrum of cognitive style preference. Using the model, we investigate the interacting effects of a team’s communication patterns, specialization, and cognitive style composition on design performance. By simulating cognitive style in the context of team problem solving, KABOOM lays the groundwork for the development of team simulations that reflect humans’ diverse problem-solving styles.

Differences between adaptors and innovators in the context of entrepreneurial potential dimensions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the differences between adaptive behaviour and innovative behaviour of individuals according to Kirton adaptation-innovation (KAI) model and determine how these differences impact entrepreneurial potential dimensions. Research sample consisted of student population from three countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (EU candidate countries) and Belgium (EU country). Research results will be valuable for the development of entrepreneurship in EU candidate countries. Data were collected from a sample of 1,008 university students from these three countries. KAI inventory, questionnaire on entrepreneurial traits (QET) and the scale of entrepreneurial potential (SEP) were used to obtain data. The canonical discriminant analysis determined differences and structure of differences between the adaptive and innovative persons, described by KAI model and their scores on the dimensions of the entrepreneurial traits model, as well as on entrepreneurial potential model.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the first research question concentrates on the existence of differences among students from Bosnia, Serbia and Belgium with regard to the dominant style of problem-solving according to KAI model to determine whether students from EU countries and non-EU countries differ in regard to problem-solving style. Second research question is the existence of differences in the development of entrepreneurial potential by EQT and SEP among student adaptors and student innovators according to KAI model to investigate to what extent the dominant style of solving problem contributes to differences in the development of entrepreneurial potential among students.FindingsThe research has confirmed the existence of significant differences between the adaptors and innovators described by the KAI model in terms of developed characteristics of entrepreneurial potential in the student population. Results of the research prove that young innovators possess to a greater extent developed key characteristics important for entrepreneurship, as well as intellectual and organizational skills, motivational factors and social capacity, self-confidence and constitutional factors. This research also revealed key differences among students with regard to the country of origin.Practical implicationsThe practical implications of the research are reflected in the creation of the initial guidelines and structural support for the promotion of entrepreneurial potential in young people, where it can be concluded that it is particularly important to encourage innovation and creative approach to problem-solving, but also awareness of young individuals and development of their knowledge of entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe main objective of this research was the examination of differences between students who belong to the category of adaptors and students innovators according to the KAI model (Kirton, 1976, 1998, 2003), with regard to the researched dimensions of entrepreneurial potential, to explicitly as possible identify differences in personal characteristics of young people who are predisposed for entrepreneurship and those who are not. Young innovators and adaptors significantly differ according to the researched dimensions of the EQT and SEP models of entrepreneurial potential and young innovators possess more developed entrepreneurial potential than adaptors.

The role of creativity in entrepreneurship: an empirical study on business undergraduates

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the creativity level of business administration undergraduates who have attended an entrepreneurship seminar in contrast to those that have not.Design/methodology/approachUsing two samples of Spanish students, the factors that condition the creation of new start-ups are analysed. A survey following the creativity items from the Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) inventory was employed for a start-up seminar students and a control sample. Non-parametric tests were carried out on the responses.FindingsThe results show that Spanish business students’ entrepreneurial intentions are not conditioned by entrepreneurial courses, parental self-employment or by their creativity level. However, there are differences in creativity level by genders for their future ability to start-up a company.Practical implicationsThere are no external constraints on not being an entrepreneur, who plays a fundamental role in the future of a country and it is a way to reduce current youth unemployment rates. Social and educational implications are also presented.Originality/valueThe use of the KAI inventory as a proxy of creativity index is original in the research. Moreover, this study contributes to a better understanding of the factors in becoming an entrepreneur, through exposure to creativity, growing up around businesses and awareness of individual creativity index. Integration of university courses with entrepreneurship actions will be of interest to the society development.

A Self‐Report Measure of Productive Thinking in Solving Insight Problems

AbstractThere is broad agreement among executives on the importance of innovation and creativity in organizations. The paper aimed to provide information on the effectiveness of a new cognitive style inventory, the Productive‐Reproductive Thinking Inventory (P‐R), in identifying people with creative problem‐solving potential. Participants completed the P‐R Inventory, Kirton's Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI), the Assimilator‐Explorer Inventory, self‐rating of insight problem‐solving, and a battery of insight problem‐solving tasks under controlled conditions. The P‐R scale was a significant predictor of problem‐solving performance and insight self‐ratings and correlated significantly with KAI and AE scores. In addition, the results supported distinguishing two types of reproductive thinking which are differentially associated with insight performance. The distinction was supported by confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models. Using controlled conditions may limit the generality of the findings and further research should be carried out in applied settings. The P‐R inventory is short and easily administered and may provide HR professionals with a useful screening tool for assessing creative problem‐solving potential. The measure differs from the KAI in several ways that may offer advantages for creativity researchers in that it is non‐proprietary, based on well‐established psychological constructs, and is more particularly applicable to insight problem‐solving.

Using Personality Type Preferences to Enhance Team Work in Extension Programs

This 4-page fact sheet is the fifth of the Teaching to Personality Types series, a series on teaching different personality types. It covers the practical ways in which Extension professionals can use the influence of personality type preferences to enhance team dynamics in Extension program development and implementation. It also covers the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, True Colors personality type indicator, and the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory. Written by J. Brianne Bird, Alexa J. Lamm, and Hannah Carter, and published by the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, September 2016. AEC607/WC269: Using Personality Type Preferences to Enhance Team Work in Extension Programs (ufl.edu)

Concept mapping—An effective method for identifying diversity and congruity in cognitive style

This paper investigates the effects of cognitive style for decision making on the behaviour of participants in different phases of the group concept mapping process (GCM). It is argued that cognitive style should be included directly in the coordination of the GCM process and not simply considered as yet another demographic variable. The cognitive styles were identified using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory, which locates each person’s style on a continuum ranging from very adaptive to very innovative. Cognitive style could explain diversity in the participants’ behaviour in different phases of the GCM process. At the same time, the concept map as a group’s common cognitive construct can consolidate individual differences and serves as a tool for managing diversity in groups of participants. Some of the results were that: (a) the more adaptive participants generated ideas that fit to a particular, well-established and consensually agreed paradigm, frame of reference, theory or practice; (b) the more innovative participants produced ideas that were more general in scope and required changing a settled structure (paradigm, frame of reference, theory or practice); and (c) the empirical comparison of the map configurations through Procrustes analysis indicated a strong dissimilarity between cognitive styles.

Using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory to Strengthen Extension Programs

A person’s personality affects the way he or she learns best. Extension programs can use an understanding of different learning styles and preferences to reach the greatest number of people. This EDIS document is the fourth in the Teaching to Different Personality Types series, and provides a detailed explanation of the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory (KAI) and how it can be used to assist in extension program development. Written by Alexa J. Lamm and Ricky W. Telg, and published by the UF Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, September 2015. (Photo credit: Rawpixel Ltd/iStock/Thinkstock.com)
 AEC573/WC235: Using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory to Strengthen Extension Programs (ufl.edu)

Cognitive Style and Concept Mapping Performance

AbstractBackgroundCognitive style has been shown to influence the number, type, and organization of an individual's ideas. Concept maps are used regularly to assess students’ organization and mastery of knowledge (their cognitive level) in engineering courses, yet very few studies have analyzed concept maps with respect to cognitive style.Purpose/HypothesisThis study sought to investigate the relationship between cognitive style and concept mapping performance. Using principles of cognitive psychology and concept mapping assessment, we hypothesized that correlations between cognitive style and the selected concept map metrics are not statistically significant.Design/MethodConcept maps from 104 engineering undergraduates in a first‐year design course were analyzed using 12 traditional scoring metrics and four holistic scoring metrics. One holistic metric was expanded to allow more detailed evaluation, bringing the number of map metrics to 20. Cognitive style was measured using the Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory, a psychometric instrument previously applied in engineering education contexts. Relationships between the concept map metrics and cognitive style were investigated using standard linear techniques.ResultsResults show substantial support for the null hypothesis that cognitive style and concept mapping performance are uncorrelated.ConclusionsEngineering educators can be confident that the concept map metrics used here reflect cognitive level and not cognitive style. Cognitive style inventories and concept maps are likely measuring two separate aspects of an individual's cognition and are therefore complementary rather than duplicative.

Productive and Re‐productive Thinking in Solving Insight Problems

AbstractMany innovations in organizations result when people discover insightful solutions to problems. Insightful problem‐solving was considered by Gestalt psychologists to be associated with productive, as opposed to re‐productive, thinking. Productive thinking is characterized by shifts in perspective which allow the problem solver to consider new, sometimes transformational, approaches. Re‐productive thinking, on the other hand, involves the application of familiar, routine, procedures. This article reports a study which investigated how self‐reported productive and re‐productive thinking are related to an individual's ability to solve insight problems. Our measures were tested against the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI), and a battery of spatial insight problems. The results indicated that productive and re‐productive thinking and the KAI were successful in predicting performance on spatial insight problems. Furthermore, the measures of productive and re‐productive thinking accounted for spatial insight performance independently of scores on the KAI. In addition, the results suggested that re‐productive thinking consists of two different components—one based on group conventions and the other on personal experience. Each contributed differently to solving insight problems.

Errata

Zagar, R. J., Busch, K. G., Hughes, J. R., & Arbit, J. (2009) Comparing early and late twentieth-century Boston and Chicago male juvenile offenders: what changed? Psychological Reports, 104, 185–198. In Table 1, page 190, for all χ2 comparisons, df = 2; these are comparisons of the Chicago 1909–1915 and Chicago 1980–1988 groups for all variables but gang membership, for which there were no early data from Chicago; so the Boston 1917–1922 data were compared to Chicago 1980–1988. Only statistically significant values of comparison statistics are shown. Zagar, R. J., Isbell, S. A., Busch, K. G., & Hughes, J. R. (2009) An empirical theory of the development of homicide within individuals. Psychological Reports, 104, 199–245. In Table 7, page 218, df = 466 for two-tailed t-tests. In Table 8, page 219, df = 232 for two-tailed t-tests. Only statistically significant values of t are shown in Tables 7 and 8. Zagar, A. K., Zagar, R. J., Bartikowski, B., & Busch, K. G. (2009) Cost comparisons of raising a child from birth to 17 years among samples of abused, delinquent, violent, and homicidal youth using victimization and justice system estimates. Psychological Reports, 104, 309–338. In Fig. 1, page 312, there were 425 Nonviolent Delinquents for comparison with 425 Assaulting Delinquents. In Table 1, page 313–314, df = 3 for all χ2 comparisons on page 313. For Homicidal comparisons on page 314, the chi-square df = 3 for race and df = 2 for family, since there were no orphans in the Random Sample of Homicidal. Only statistically significant values of χ2 are shown. In Table 4, page 319, the entire row for Assault was omitted and should read Productivity: 1,015,813; Medical Care/Ambulance: 18,421; Mental Health Care: 5,088; Police and Fire Service: 1,392; Social Victim Service: 0; Property Loss/Damage: 8,102; Subtotal: 1,048,816; Intangible Loss/Quality of Life: 2,075,833; Total Losses: 3,124,649. IM, S., & MIN, S. (2013) Exploration of the factor structure of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory using bootstrapping estimation. Psychological Reports: Human Resources & Marketing, 112, 2, 437–444. Footnote 1 on page 437 should read: Address correspondence to Soonhong Min, Yonsei Business School, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-Ro, Sudaemun-ku, Seoul, South Korea or e-mail ( sminscm@yonsei.ac.kr ).

Exploration of the Factor Structure of the Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory Using Bootstrapping Estimation

Exploratory factor analyses of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI), which serves to measure individual cognitive styles, generally indicate three factors: sufficiency of originality, efficiency, and rule/group conformity. In contrast, a 2005 study by Im and Hu using confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure, dividing the sufficiency of originality dimension into two subdimensions, idea generation and preference for change. This study extends Im and Hu's (2005) study of a derived version of the KAI by providing additional evidence of the four-factor structure. Specifically, the authors test the robustness of the parameter estimates to the violation of normality assumptions in the sample using bootstrap methods. A bias-corrected confidence interval bootstrapping procedure conducted among a sample of 356 participants--members of the Arkansas Household Research Panel, with middle SES and average age of 55.6 yr. (SD = 13.9)--showed that the four-factor model with two subdimensions of sufficiency of originality fits the data significantly better than the three-factor model in non-normality conditions.

Personality Implications of Adaption-Innovation: VI. Adaption-innovation As a Predictor of Disease Proneness

There is a substantial phenotypic similarity between (a) the cancer-prone personality and the adaptor, and (b) the coronary heart disease-prone individual and the innovator. We investigated the potential relationship between cognitive style and the occurrence of these diseases. A total of 75 undergraduate students completed the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI; Kirton, 1976), a measure of cognitive style, and the Health Personality Test (HPT), a measure of proneness to cancer and coronary heart disease. The hypothesis that cancer proneness would be related to adaption and coronary heart disease proneness would be related to innovation was supported. This suggests that the KAI could potentially be used for the prospective identification of disease-susceptible individuals.