Non-technical Approaches Research Articles

Transdisciplinary Learning Opportunities: Exploring Differences in Complex Thinking Skill Development Between STEM and Non-STEM Majors

As higher education institutions look to educate and graduate degree earners that have the skills and knowledge necessary to design, communicate, and collaborate in ways that allow for innovative solutions to complex socio-technical challenges, new approaches to educational efforts are being considered and implemented. Institutional responses have included new courses that have a transdisciplinary focus and embedded course experiences that use problem-based approaches coupled with cross-disciplinary team exposure. Often these initiatives have a singular thematic focus (i.e., sustainability). Little is known about the efficacy of transdisciplinary learning initiatives, especially those that encompass a breadth of thematic areas, as it relates to development of complex thinking skills and whether these learning environments provide for similar benefits across student majors. This study, conducted at a Research I university, was designed to address this gap in the literature by examining whether a university level learning initiative using transdisciplinary approaches was achieving desired goals to advance undergraduate students’ complex thinking skills. Findings among the respondents (n = 592) indicate that the initiative is advancing fundamental complex thinking skills in that specific courses allow students to learn about other disciplines and provide exposure to different disciplinary perspectives. However, results reveal that across all majors courses would benefit from increased real-world problem-based exposure and opportunities to interact with community stakeholders. Additionally, results suggest that undergraduates may need opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of the complexities that exist in cross-disciplinary collaboration, including how to develop integrated solutions that leverage the strengths of technical and non-technical approaches.

Examining Patient Engagement in Chatbot Development Approaches for Healthy Lifestyle and Mental Wellness Interventions: Scoping Review.

Chatbots are growing in popularity as they offer a range of potential benefits to end users and service providers. Our scoping review aimed to explore studies that used 2-way chatbots to support healthy eating, physical activity, and mental wellness interventions. Our objectives were to report the nontechnical (eg, unrelated to software development) approaches for chatbot development and to examine the level of patient engagement in these reported approaches. Our team conducted a scoping review following the framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley. Nine electronic databases were searched in July 2022. Studies were selected based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were then extracted and patient involvement was assessed. 16 studies were included in this review. We report several approaches to chatbot development, assess patient involvement where possible, and reveal the limited detail available on reporting of patient involvement in the chatbot implementation process. The reported approaches for development included: collaboration with knowledge experts, co-design workshops, patient interviews, prototype testing, the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) procedure, and literature review. Reporting of patient involvement in development was limited; only 3 of the 16 included studies contained sufficient information to evaluate patient engagement using the Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and Public (GRIPP2). The approaches reported in this review and the identified limitations can guide the inclusion of patient engagement and the improved documentation of engagement in the chatbot development process for future health care research. Given the importance of end user involvement in chatbot development, we hope that future research will more systematically report on chatbot development and more consistently and actively engage patients in the codevelopment process.

Digital accumulation behaviours and information management in the workplace: exploring the tensions between digital data hoarding, organisational culture and policy

ABSTRACT Individuals within organisations necessarily hold data including personal identifiable data, for individuals with a tendency to accumulate digital data and a reluctance to delete it, there is greater potential for data to be stored. Therefore, understanding why people engage in digital hoarding and how they respond to the mitigations put in place is important. Eleven people working in a large commercial organisation scoring highly on a digital hoarding questionnaire, took part in focus groups to understand the extent to which they kept digital data. The focus groups also explored employee compliance with policies and procedures including knowledge of GDPR. Thematic analysis led to three themes: (1) Organisational culture versus digital hoarding tendency, (2) Thinking about personal data, and (3) Responsibility and control. The findings highlight different motivations for data hoarding including anxiety driven by ‘blame culture’ as participants respond to workplace challenges and the need to be accountable. Participants were aware of policies including GDPR but often used workarounds to keep data longer than specified in their information retention policies. Technical approaches to data reduction were often counterproductive. Findings are discussed in relation to potential threats of digital data hoarding and technical and non-technical approaches to reducing digital data retention.

CHALLENGES OF ACCESSIBILITY OF A DISASTER-PRONE ISLAND: EXPERIENCE OF HATIYA, BANGLADESH

Accessibility of Hatiya, one of the most disaster-prone islands in Bangladesh, has many layers of challenges. Institutional arrangements guide the availability and quality of transports while islanders make travel decisions based on the geophysical character of the estuary and weather. These factors contribute to increasing disaster risks in transportation. The paper assesses accessibility using both primary and secondary data. Semi-structured interview responses helped in determining the Level of Services and Accessibility Indicators and generating Modal Suitability Matrix. Triangulating the findings with existing knowledge on geophysical dynamics and institutional arrangements illustrate, socially and politically constructed anthropogenic process to exacerbate risks arising from exposure to natural hazards in transportation. The supervision and monitoring of operation demand accountability and transparency. Thus, an integrated transport system can reduce disaster risks in the island's accessibility. The system needs to be culturally appropriate and use both technical and non-technical approaches.

Management of the Unexpected Difficult Airway in Neonatal Resuscitation.

A “difficult airway situation” arises whenever face mask ventilation, laryngoscopy, endotracheal intubation, or use of supraglottic device fail to secure ventilation. As bradycardia and cardiac arrest in the neonate are usually of respiratory origin, neonatal airway management remains a critical factor. Despite this, a well-defined in-house approach to the neonatal difficult airway is often lacking. While a recent guideline from the British Pediatric Society exists, and the Scottish NHS and Advanced Resuscitation of the Newborn Infant (ARNI) airway management algorithm was recently revised, there is no Norwegian national guideline for managing the unanticipated difficult airway in the delivery room (DR) and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Experience from anesthesiology is that a “difficult airway algorithm,” advance planning and routine practicing, prepares the resuscitation team to respond adequately to the technical and non-technical stress of a difficult airway situation. We learned from observing current approaches to advanced airway management in DR resuscitations in a university hospital and make recommendations on how the neonatal difficult airway may be managed through technical and non-technical approaches. Our recommendations mainly pertain to DR resuscitations but may be transferred to the NICU environment.

Micro‐Doppler signature for drone detection using FSR: a theoretical and experimental validation

Drone inexpensive and operational flexibility contributed to its exponential increase by civil users, apart from military applications. This resulted in posing threats due to drone misuses, such as smuggling, unlawful imaging and other significant vulnerability that makes its detection necessary. The study demonstrated a theoretical model of extracting the m-Doppler signature due to rotating blades of a quadcopter drone, in forward scattering radar (FSR) geometry. The model was further validated experimentally by using a parabolic dish antenna in the receiver system of the FSR geometry. Before these, some reported efforts made to detect the drone by using different methodologies such as acoustic, video, audio-visual, radio frequency, radar systems and other non-technical approaches like netting were briefly presented. The result of the authors’ investigation revealed that the drone could be detected from the signature generated due to rotating blades based on the blade orientation. This signature can further be used to identify the drone from other flying targets existing within the same surveillance area.

Considering socio-cultural factors of disaster risk management

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between factors of socio-cultural contexts and disaster risk. Recent efforts by international organizations and research scholarship have emphasized that applying contextual understandings of human behavior can improve the effectiveness of disaster risk management (DRM).Design/methodology/approach– The research employs multiple correlation analysis to find significant relationships between two sources of socio-cultural data and the World Risk Index scores.Findings– There are interesting relationships between various measures of socio-cultural context and disaster risk, such as correlations with levels of individualism, self-expression, and secular-rational values.Research limitations/implications– While using the broadest sample available with the data sources, generalizations about the relationships must be tempered as inherently anecdotal and needing greater depth of study. The national level of analysis is controversial.Practical implications– Emergency managers can extend the knowledge about socio-cultural influences on disaster risk to tailor policy for effective practices.Social implications– Societies may recognize their behaviors as being conducive or obstructive to DRM based on their socio-cultural characteristics; governments may operationalize the findings into policy responses for more nuanced mitigation efforts.Originality/value– This research adds to the momentum for considering non-technical approaches to DRM and expands the potential for social science derived variables in DRM.

Review of quality management system research in construction industry

This paper explores the role of quality management system (QMS), such as ISO 9000, and total quality management, and their approaches in construction industry. The aim is to determine if these systems have the potential to generate new knowledge for improving quality management practices and outcomes in construction projects. This paper reviews all the prior literatures relevant to QMS in construction industry. The findings and conclusions obtained are sorted out into different categories to develop the framework of the paper. To date, very few researches have been performed on the areas, such as project management, 'hard' and 'soft' quality practice, technical and non-technical approaches, project performance, and system maintenance which come under the purview of the QMS in construction industry. The findings can help researchers doing QMS studies in construction industry to bestow new knowledge in the academia. It also provides useful implications for industry practitioners to determine their strengths and weaknesses and the area of improvement in their current system or practices.

Quality Management Maintenance and Practices-Technical and Non-Technical Approaches

There are few major types of quality management maintenance and practices theories, but not much studies show the connections between those theories. This paper determines the new research area of technical and non-technical approaches in quality management, and also shows the connection of technical and non-technical approaches with the other major theories of quality management maintenance and practices. A thorough review is employed to sort out the literature and develop the framework of paper. The review is concentrated on all the major theories which have contributed to technical and non technical approaches. There are lack of researches to define and study the application of technical and non-technical approaches. Moreover, non-technical approach is partially related with human behavioral issues and the it can influence overall management system to balance up with technical approach so that continuous improvement in quality management system can be achieved. Hence, this paper provides useful implications into the similarities between human behavioral issues and non-technical approach researches. Therefore, this paper should be exceedingly valuable to researchers who intended to enhance the study of technical and nontechnical approaches.

Creativity-centred design for ubiquitous musical activities: Two case studies

This study is among the first that attempt to define a methodology for creativity-centred software design in educational contexts, more specifically for musical activities in ubiquitous settings. We propose and apply a set of design techniques – the Ubimus Planning and the Ubimus Design protocols – as alternatives to experimental procedures that leave out relevant aspects of social and procedural dimensions in educational research. Two workshops were conducted to assess both technological and domain-specific requirements for support of creative musical activities. The first workshop was conducted with music teachers and school teachers that had no formal musical training. The objective of this workshop was to assess domain-specific requirements for musical creative activities by educational staff. The second workshop focused on technological support for tool development by non-musicians. This workshop yielded two software projects that involved user evaluations of creative processes. Participants in t e corresponding user studies included both musicians and non-musicians. The Ubimus Planning protocol served to raise important questions regarding technological usage by musicians and naive subjects in educational contexts. Non-technical approaches, such as those proposed by traditional soundscape activities, may not be suited for introducing non-musicians to sonic composition. Naive subjects may respond better to technologically based approaches, such as those used in ecocomposition.The Ubimus Design approach proved to be effective to test the usability of musical tools at early stages of development. Prototypes were implemented and usability studies were carried out by undergraduate IT students within a three-week time slot. Sharp differences were observed in the type of requirements expressed by musicians and non-musicians regarding creativity support tools. Nevertheless, both groups of subjects assessed the use of software prototypes within exploratory musical activities as being fun and expressive.

Setting Appropriate Fill Weight Targets—A Statistical Engineering Case Study

ABSTRACT A high-level business need was addressed via the development of a solution for setting appropriate targets for product filling processes. This required the calculation of the probability of meeting corporate and regulatory requirements under more realistic assumptions. Throughout the process both technical and nontechnical approaches were required. The patented solution is now embedded in the production processes worldwide through a Web-based application that helps the company save time, resources, and money.

Simulation in Otolaryngology

Simulation is revolutionizing medical education, certification, and ongoing professional development. Simulation encompasses a variety of technologies as well as nontechnical approaches to improve individual psychomotor skills, group effectiveness, and systems processes, all without direct risk to patients. Simulation-enhanced learning experiences, addressing learning objectives based on the needs of the individual or the group and following the principles of adult education, can be used to ensure consistent and comprehensive learning opportunities, thereby creatively complementing didactic and clinical learning experiences. Pockets of simulation expertise are already present in the field of otolaryngology; more will develop as these exciting and important innovations blossom.

Assessing Implicit Gender Bias in Medical Student Performance Evaluations

For medical schools, the increasing presence of women makes it especially important that potential sources of gender bias be identified and removed from student evaluation methods. Our study looked for patterns of gender bias in adjective data used to inform our Medical Student Performance Evaluations (MSPEs). Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to model the latent structure of the adjectives attributed to students (n = 657) and to test for systematic scoring errors by gender. Gender bias was evident in two areas: (a) women were more likely than comparable men to be described as ''compassionate,'' ''sensitive,'' and ''enthusiastic'' and (b) men were more likely than comparable women to be seen as ''quick learners.'' The gender gap in ''quick learner'' attribution grows with increasing student proficiency; men's rate of increase is over twice that of women's. Technical and nontechnical approaches for ameliorating the impact of gender bias on student recommendations are suggested.

Development of Information Security Baselines for Healthcare Information Systems in New Zealand

In 1996 New Zealand had introduced security standard AS/NZCS 4444 based on the British Standard BS 7799, which has recently been accepted as an international standard ISO 17799. This standard is very often referred to as the ‘baseline lane approach’ to the issue of managing information security. On the other hand the health information systems (HIS) are undergoing rapid development both in the number of installed systems as in the law and regulations governing HIS developments and deployment. The project was aimed at reviewing the AS/NZCS 4444 standard from the HIS requirements point of view. In this paper, we began with an overview of healthcare information systems (HIS) infrastructure in New Zealand and associated security issues around privacy and confidentiality, followed by a general review of the security baseline approach. We analyzed each clause of the AS/NZS 4444 with the information collected about technical and non-technical approaches to protecting HIS, consisting of a series of multi-case studies of healthcare organizations that collect, process, store and transmit electronic medical records. Finally, we proposed a new set of information security baselines based on the research to build an information security model for healthcare organizations.