Task Interdependence Research Articles

Efficient Workflow Scheduling in Edge Cloud-Enabled Space-Air-Ground-Integrated Information Systems

To address the challenges posed by the dynamism, high latency, and resource scarcity in integrated air-space-ground hybrid edge cloud environments on task completion times and node load, we designed a task scheduling system for scenarios involving the transmission and processing of interdependent tasks. This system integrates a graph neural network with attention mechanism and deep reinforcement learning. Specifically, we employ a graph encoder to extract features from DAG tasks and resources. Task scheduling solutions for dynamic environments are then generated using attention mechanism-equipped graph decoder, which are subsequently optimized based on performance metrics through the use of an Advantage Actor-Critic algorithm. Experimental results indicate that this algorithm performs well in terms of completion time and node load balance across tasks with different workflow structures, demonstrating its adaptability to highly dynamic edge cloud environments.

The curvilinear relationship between perceived overqualification and counterproductive work behaviors in the workgroup context of justice climate and task interdependence.

The curvilinear relationship between perceived overqualification and counterproductive work behaviors in the workgroup context of justice climate and task interdependence.

Development of Technology for Cleaning Vehicle Radiators

The most common and serious malfunction is engine overheating due to radiator clogging. This can be caused by improper vehicle operation or insufficient radiator cleaning during technical maintenance. The process of cleaning the tubes and internal cavities of the radiator is the most labor-intensive and involves the risk of damage, rendering it unusable. The article presents a technology developed by the authors for restoring the functionality of internal combustion engine cooling system radiators, based on a new method of cleaning the tubes and internal cavities of the radiator using ultrasound. The aim of the research is to develop a maintenance algorithm for engine cooling system radiators, determining the complexity and interdependence of tasks. Based on the analysis of the technological process of radiator maintenance, the authors have developed a list and sequence of tasks, as well as a network schedule for ultrasound cleaning of the vehicle's cooling system radiator.

Dependency task offloading in semantic communications

In the realm of advanced wireless communications, the significance of semantic communication has become increasingly pronounced, particularly in its focus on the meaning and efficiency of information transmission. Given the voluminous nature of task data and the intricacy of task interconnections, executing semantic segmentation tasks directly on user-end devices often falls short due to limitations in processing power. Leveraging mobile edge computing, however, presents a strategic enhancement in performing semantic segmentation tasks by delegating computational workloads to proximal devices, thus diminishing latency and reducing energy expenditure. This document delineates a task offloading framework aimed at refining the management of interdependent tasks, thereby boosting the efficiency of processing complex tasks within environments of semantic communication. The framework abstracts tasks in the form of directed acyclic graphs (DAG) and approaches the optimization challenge through a Markov Decision Process (MDP), targeting an optimal balance between task completion, delay reduction, and energy savings. To adapt to fluctuating network conditions, a novel approach employing the Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DTO-DDPG) algorithm is introduced for optimization decision-making. Our empirical tests underscore the framework’s capacity to significantly elevate task completion rates while simultaneously decreasing both energy consumption and latency in scenarios of semantic communication.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OPTIMIZATION OF THE TRAINING PROCESS AND STRATEGIES FOR TRAINING STUDENT-ATHLETES OF HIGH QUALIFICATION IN TEAM SPORTS

The article discloses the main theoretical and methodological foundations of optimization of the training process and strategies for training student-athletes of high qualification in team sports. Team sports are particularly popular in Olympic and professional sports. The modern system of sports training is characterized by progressive principles, a wide range of interdependent tasks, scientifically based selection of means and methods, promising long-term planning, high organization of control, provision of hygienic conditions, etc. The purpose is to substantiate and experimentally test the theoretical and methodological foundations of optimizing the training process and the strategy of training student-athletes of high qualification in team sports on the basis of theoretical and practical analysis of the problem under study; to develop the content of the training process of student-athletes of high qualification in team sports. To achieve the goals, the following methods are used: verbal, visual and practical. These methods are most often used to optimize the training process and training strategy for highly qualified student-athletes in team sports. Also, we describe the methods of optimizing the training process and strategies for training student-athletes of high qualification in team sports, which are divided into general pedagogical, specific, additional methods that are specially developed for the needs of sports practice and optimization of the training process. The content of the training process of student-athletes of high qualification in game sports has been developed, which allows purposeful planning and adjustment of tactics and strategy of training student-athletes in team sports on an objective basis, can be used in higher educational institutions that train student-athletes, and can also be concluded in textbooks and methodological recommendations.

Managerial coaching and innovative work behavior: mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of task interdependence

PurposeBased on the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation, this study examined the relationship between managerial coaching (MC) and innovative work behavior (IWB). It focused on the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of task interdependence.Design/methodology/approachThe self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 420 employees of the United Arab Emirates’s public sector organizations. A hierarchical linear model (HLM) with different regression techniques was used.FindingsThe results showed that MC directly influences IWB. The path analysis also revealed that MC has an indirect effect on IWB via psychological empowerment. The moderating role of task independence in MC and IWB was also revealed.Practical implicationsThe findings shall provide insights that will help practitioners and academics understand frontline employees' innovative behavior in public sector settings and formulate strategies that will increase the involvement of employees in displaying innovation-based activities at the workplace.Originality/valueThis study adds value to the literature by integrating the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation in public sector settings.

How to create team design in tourism and hospitality organizations: Through team‐level autonomy and task interdependence

AbstractTeam‐based organizational structures have been widely adopted in tourism and hospitality firms. Based on socio‐technical systems theory, this study focused on two critical components of team design: team‐level autonomy and task interdependence. The impacts of these elements on team outcomes vary by context (e.g., organizations and task types). Exploration of these features' relationships with teamwork processes in tourism and hospitality settings is thus warranted. This study took a social process (i.e., team communication) as a mediating mechanism to explain team‐level organizational phenomena. A total of 312 responses from tourism and hospitality employees were collected through Qualtrics. Structural equation modeling using the R Lavaan package showed that team‐level autonomy and task interdependence were positively and indirectly related to team performance through team communication. Also, their interaction was positively associated with team outcomes. These findings contribute to the team effectiveness literature and provide tourism and hospitality organizations with practical guidance.

The effect of task load, information reliability and interdependency on anticipation performance

In sport, coaches often explicitly provide athletes with stable contextual information related to opponent action preferences to enhance anticipation performance. This information can be dependent on, or independent of, dynamic contextual information that only emerges during the sequence of play (e.g. opponent positioning). The interdependency between contextual information sources, and the associated cognitive demands of integrating information sources during anticipation, has not yet been systematically examined. We used a temporal occlusion paradigm to alter the reliability of contextual and kinematic information during the early, mid- and final phases of a two-versus-two soccer anticipation task. A dual-task paradigm was incorporated to investigate the impact of task load on skilled soccer players’ ability to integrate information and update their judgements in each phase. Across conditions, participants received no contextual information (control) or stable contextual information (opponent preferences) that was dependent on, or independent of, dynamic contextual information (opponent positioning). As predicted, participants used reliable contextual and kinematic information to enhance anticipation. Further exploratory analysis suggested that increased task load detrimentally affected anticipation accuracy but only when both reliable contextual and kinematic information were available for integration in the final phase. This effect was observed irrespective of whether the stable contextual information was dependent on, or independent of, dynamic contextual information. Findings suggest that updating anticipatory judgements in the final phase of a sequence of play based on the integration of reliable contextual and kinematic information requires cognitive resources.

Growth experience and satisfaction in healthcare project teams: the nonlinearity of autonomy and its interaction with task interdependence

ABSTRACT From the learning and development approach of work design, this study examined how individual autonomy influences team members’ positive experiences, such as growth experience and satisfaction, in healthcare project teams in which team members have routine duties. Drawing from an extended model of the autonomy-performance relationship, this study tested the inverted U-shaped effects of individual autonomy on growth experience and team satisfaction, and the moderating role of task interdependence in these effects. Project teams from a non-profit healthcare organisation in the U.S. in which health professionals perform their daily routines along with project responsibilities were invited to participate. The research models were tested using the data from a final sample of 274 team members across 50 project teams. Findings revealed the inverted U-shaped relationships of individual autonomy with growth experience and team satisfaction, which echoes the too-much-of-a-good-thing arguments in management. This study also demonstrated that task interdependence, as a structural mechanism, moderates the above relationships, advancing an understanding of the trade-off relationship between individual autonomy and task interdependence. This study provides theoretical and practical insights for HRD scholars and practitioners into successful project task design for members’ growth experience and satisfaction.

SA-Based QoS Aware Workflow Scheduling of Collaborative Tasks in Grid Computing

Scheduling workflow tasks in grid computing is a complex process, especially if it is associated with satisfying the user's requirements to complete tasks within a specified time, with lowest possible cost. This paper presents a proposed Simulated Annealing (SA) based Grid Workflow Tasks Scheduling Approach (SA-GWTSA) that takes into account users’ QoS (quality of service) constraints in terms of cost and time. For a given set of inter-dependent workflow tasks, it generates an optimal schedule, which minimizes the execution time and cost, such that the optimized time is within the time constraints (deadline) imposed by the user. In SA-GWTSA, the workflow tasks, which are modeled as a DAG, are divided into task divisions, each of which consists of a set of sequential tasks. Then, the optimal sub-schedules of all task divisions are computed applying SA algorithm, and used to obtain the execution schedule of the entire workflow. In the proposed algorithm, the sub-schedule of each branch division is represented by a vector, in which each element holds the ID of the service provider chosen from a list of service providers capable of executing the corresponding task in the branch. The algorithm uses a fitness function that is formulated as a multi-objective function of time and cost, which gives users the ability to determine their requirements of time against cost, by changing the weighting coefficients in the objective function. The paper also exhibits the experimental results of assessing the performance of SA-GWTSA with workflows samples of different sizes, compared to different scheduling algorithms: Greedy-Time, Greedy-Cost, and Modified Greedy-Cost.

"Always online": How and when task interdependence and dispositional workplace anxiety affect workplace telepressure after hours.

Information and communication technology (ICT) provides employees with convenience in communication. However, it also creates a preoccupation with and urges to respond quickly to work-related ICT messages during nonworking time, which is defined as workplace telepressure after hours (WTA). Drawing on the job demand-resource model, conservation of resource theory, and workplace anxiety theory, this study explores how and when task interdependence and dispositional workplace anxiety affect WTA and how individuals cope with WTA. A total of 269 full-time workers from an online survey panel completed questionnaires at three time-points. We found that both task interdependence and dispositional workplace anxiety are positively related to WTA. The perception of pay-for-responsiveness moderates the relationship between task interdependence and WTA, such that the relationship is significant only for employees with a strong perception of pay-for-responsiveness. Others' approval contingency of self-worth moderates the relationship between dispositional workplace anxiety and WTA, and the relationship is significant only for employees with high degrees of others' approval contingency of self-worth. Finally, WTA arising from external work requirements or the internal pursuit of achieving work goals prompts employees to generate responsiveness coping strategies. Overall, these findings suggest that task interdependence and dispositional workplace anxiety are important factors affecting employees' WTA and highlight the importance of being responsive to WTA.

Analytical Method Development and Validation Of Stability Indicating RP-HPLC Method For Assay and Related Substances of Paracetamol and Caffeine Effervescent Tablets: Review

he ongoing, interdependent tasks related to the departments of research and development, quality control, and quality assurance are the creation and validation of analytical methods. Analytical methods are essential for risk management and equivalency assessments. It aids in the development of acceptability standards unique to a product and the consistency of outcomes. Validations establish whether the analytical process is appropriate for the goal for which it was designed. A review of the literature indicates that paracetamol and caffeine can be determined individually or in combination with other medications using analytical techniques based on UV spectroscopy, RP-HPLC, and HPTLC. The parameters were checked for correctness, precision, robustness, and other aspects of analytical validation in accordance with ICH guidelines. The discovered techniques can be applied to the bulk and tablet dosage form analysis of paracetamol and caffeine in effervescent form since they are straight forward, sensitive, and repeatable. The review also outlines the applicability and constraints of numerous published analytical techniques for paracetamol and caffeine analysis. Stability studies have to be conducted on time and in compliance with the standards issued by the World Health Organization, International Conference of Harmonization, and other bodies. The capacity of a pharmaceutical product to meet the physical, chemical, microbiological, toxicological, protective, and informational requirements of a specific formulation in a particular container-closure system is known as its stability. It also ensures that a pharmaceutical product's effectiveness, safety, and performance will be maintained for the duration of its shelf life, which is seen as a need for approval and acceptability. The requirement for ongoing quality and purity monitoring of medications and products gave rise to various stability test techniques. This review covers the various drug substance stability categories as well as the applicability of various techniques for drug substances that are stable, the applicability of various methods used to test the pharmaceutical product's stability, guidelines released to test the pharmaceutical product's stability, protocols for stability testing that outline the essential elements of a well-managed and regulated stability test, and other aspects of stability are all covered in this review. The researcher working on paracetamol and caffeine in effervescent form will greatly benefit from this thorough review study.

Does Formal Interorganizational Relationship Shape Interpersonal Knowledge Exchange in Multiteam Construction Projects? A Multi-Level Network Analysis

This study investigates the differences in structural patterns of intra-and inter-team knowledge exchange networks in multiteam construction projects and explores the cross-levelinteraction between knowledge exchange networks and interorganizational formal networks, as represented by networks of contractual and task interdependence relationships. An empirical study is developed by using multiple exponential random graph models. The findings show that a discrepancy between intra- and inter-team knowledge exchange structural patterns arises with respect to reciprocity. Interorganizational task interdependencies are found to align with cross-team knowledge exchange. Significant homophily in work experience is found in cross-team knowledge exchange. Interorganizational task interdependence promotes cross-team knowledge exchange among project members with heterogeneous expertise. This study expands the research on project-based multiteam system knowledge exchange networks from a multi-level network analysis perspective.

Assessing the Curvilinear Relationship in Employee Digital Performance: A Task-Technology Fit Perspective

In the context of the digital economy, one of the most important issues facing business managers is that of how to improve employee digital performance (EDP), however, extant studies exploring this problem are quite limited. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the characteristics of task and technology represented by enterprise social media (ESM) affect task-technology fit (TTF), which in turn affects EDP. Using TTF theory, this paper proposes a research model to validate the research question. An ordinary least squares method is used to analyze 284 questionnaire responses drawn from 33 provinces in China. The results indicate that task complexity has an inverted U-shaped effect on TTF, whereas task interdependence has no effect on TTF. Work-related function of ESM has a U-shaped effect on TTF, while social-related function of ESM has a positive effect on TTF. TTF positively influences both employee digital-enabled task performance and employee digital-enabled innovative performance. Employee digital literacy strengthens the impact of TTF on employee digital-enabled task performance, but does not moderate the relationship between TTF and employee digital-enabled innovative performance. Organizational digital culture strengthens the impacts of TTF on both employee digital-enabled task performance and employee digital-enabled innovative performance. From a theoretical perspective, this paper makes a contribution to TTF theory by revealing the curvilinear relationship between the characteristics of task, the characteristics of ESM technology and TTF. This paper also contributes to the EDP literature by clarifying how TTF affects EDP, and by identifying the boundary conditions (namely employee digital literacy and organizational digital culture) between TTF and EDP. From a practical point of view, this paper provides managers with the insights to improve EDP in terms of task assignment, employee training, enterprise culture building, etc.

Formal Modeling and Verification of Embedded Real-Time Systems: An Approach and Practical Tool Based on Constraint Time Petri Nets

Modeling and verification of the correct behavior of embedded real-time systems with strict timing constraints is a well-known and important problem. Failing to fulfill a deadline in system operation can have severe consequences in the practical case. This paper proposes an approach to formal modeling and schedulability analysis. A novel extension of Petri Nets named Constraint Time Petri Nets (C-TPN) is developed, which enables the modeling of a collection of interdependent real-time tasks whose execution is constrained by the use of priority and shared resources like processors and memory data. A C-TPN model is reduced to a network of Timed Automata in the context of the popular Uppaal toolbox. Both functional and, most importantly, temporal properties can be assessed by exhaustive model checking and/or statistical model checking based on simulations. This paper first describes and motivates the proposed C-TPN modeling language and its formal semantics. Then, a Uppaal translation is shown. Finally, three models of embedded real-time systems are considered, and their properties are thoroughly verified.

Unveiling the dynamics of crisis events: Sentiment and emotion analysis via multi-task learning with attention mechanism and subject-based intent prediction

In the age of rapid internet expansion, social media platforms like Twitter have become crucial for sharing information, expressing emotions, and revealing intentions during crisis situations. They offer crisis responders a means to assess public sentiment, attitudes, intentions, and emotional shifts by monitoring crisis-related tweets. To enhance sentiment and emotion classification, we adopt a transformer-based multi-task learning (MTL) approach with attention mechanism, enabling simultaneous handling of both tasks, and capitalizing on task interdependencies. Incorporating attention mechanism allows the model to concentrate on important words that strongly convey sentiment and emotion. We compare three baseline models, and our findings show that BERTweet outperforms the standard BERT model and exhibits similar performance to RoBERTa in crisis tweets. Furthermore, we employ natural language processing techniques to extract key subject entities (e.g., police, victims) and leverage the publicly available commonsense knowledge model, COMET-ATOMIC 2020, to identify their intentions in given crisis scenarios. Evaluation of COMET-ATOMIC 2020 on subject-based intent prediction in crisis tweets reveals that BART was superior to GPT2-XL model, providing crisis responders with vital information for better decision making. Notably, the integration of sentiment and emotion classification, identification of attention words and subject-based intent prediction represents a novel methodology, not previously applied in the context of crisis scenarios.

Placement legalization for heterogeneous cells of non-integer multiple-heights

It is intuitively clear that a circuit to be implemented by selectively utilizing standard cells of various non-integer multiple-heights (NIMH) (e.g., mixed use of 6-track, 7.5-track, and 9-track cells) is able to provide a better opportunity in optimizing power, performance, and area over that by using cells of single-height only or of integer multiple-heights only. However, from the cell placement legalization point of view, the issues to be addressed for placement legalization on NIMH designs are very complex. And this paper primarily focuses on introducing novel ideas for row placement when utilizing NIMH cells, which involves determining the row pattern. The most inter-dependent and critical tasks, which are rather unique to the NIMH cell placement legalization problem, are (task 1) for the cells of the same height, distributing and assigning them to a set of distinct rows on a die and (task 2) determining the location of the rows containing cells of the same height. We solve the legalization problem by, starting from an initial row placement, iteratively solving the two tasks by formulating task 1 into an instance of row-capacity constrained network flow problem, followed by solving task 2 which leads to an optimal vertical displacement of the cells in the rows. Meanwhile, through experiments, it is shown that our network flow driven global cell assignment to rows for NIMH cell placement problem tightly linking the optimal determination of row location is able to reduce the total amount of cell displacements from the global (initial) placement by 9.5% and 51.2% in comparison with that produced by a greedy approach and the conventional state-of-the-art NIMH cell placement legalization method, respectively.

Explaining Coordination Quality in Public Service Delivery

Governments manage coordination problems with different levels of success. The existing literature suggests that organizational features are important for explaining coordination quality, that is, how successful governments are in managing coordination problems. However, few studies have systematically compared coordination quality in multiple political systems. This article examines how governments’ organizational features explain variations in the coordination quality of public services in 259 local political systems in Norway. Three organizational features are considered, namely governments’ use of coordination instruments, their structural specialization, and task interdependence between their services. For the analysis, the article combines existing and original survey data on the coordination of public service delivery. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that public managers perceive coordination quality to be better when local governments introduce more coordination instruments and when task interdependence is higher. However, local governments’ structural specialization does not correlate with perceived coordination quality. These findings are important because they suggest that local governments have the capability to facilitate coordination. Moreover, local governments’ coordination efforts inform how public managers perceive their own abilities to address coordination problems and, by extension, foster more coherent service delivery.

A Socio-Emotional Framework to Understand Engagement in Engineering Student Project-Teams

Project-based design courses typically involve self-managed teams whose goal is to develop solutions to open-ended engineering problems. Due to their collaborative nature, team-based design courses are largely effective only if students participate and are engaged with both individual and team level learning and tasks. Despite efforts to improve team effectiveness, low engagement persists as a critical issue in engineering student project-teams. In this work, we present a socio-emotional conceptual framework to better understand how team member interactions affect the engagement of team members within engineering-student project-teams over time. It is proposed that this framework will be used to investigate previously overlooked characteristics of a team's social climate (including task interdependence, intra-team trust, and psychological safety) which may affect student engagement in the engineering project-team context. It is anticipated that this framework will provide novel insight into the social climate of the team environment and its effects on student engagement. Through better understanding these phenomena, we will be able to design curriculum to leverage this understanding and improve student engagement at a course-wide level.

The Perceived Influence Model of Trust: Toward a Multi-Trustee Theory

Prior research investigating situations involving one trustor and multiple trustees often examines how a trustor’s trust in one party affects their amount of trust in another party. This paper fills a gap by predicting the effects of trust. The Perceived Influence (PI) Model of Trust is an individual-level model focused on the perceptions of a trustor. It builds upon the Mayer et al. (1995) model by integrating insights from literature on task interdependence and expanding to two trustees. The PI model describes and explains three possibilities for how a trustor’s trust in two trustees may combine to form a sense of aggregate multi-trustee trust via: (1) additive effects, such that the trustor’s trust in each of the trustees has independent effects on the aggregate; (2) compulsory effects, such that increasing the amount of trust in one trustee increases the effect of trust in the other trustee; and (3) compensatory effects, such that increasing trust in one trustee decreases the effect of trust in the other trustee. We propose that the theoretical mechanism explaining which of these three possibilities takes place is the trustor’s perceived influence of the trustees, which is tightly linked to perceptions of task requirements necessary to attenuate the trustor’s risk. The PI model begins to fill an important gap in the literature pertaining to pervasive, but rarely considered, multi-trustee situations, and proposes the importance of trustor perceptions of trustee influence and task requirements for future models of trust.