The increasing availability of passively observed data has yielded a growing interest in “data fusion” methods, which involve merging data from observational and experimental sources to draw causal conclusions. Such methods often require a precarious tradeoff between the unknown bias in the observational dataset and the often-large variance in the experimental dataset. We propose an alternative approach, which avoids this tradeoff: rather than using observational data for inference, we use it to design a more efficient experiment. (...) We consider the case of a stratified experiment with a binary outcome and suppose pilot estimates for the stratum potential outcome variances can be obtained from the observational study. We extend existing results to generate confidence sets for these variances, while accounting for the possibility of unmeasured confounding. Then, we pose the experimental design problem as a regret minimization problem subject to the constraints imposed by our confidence sets. We show that this problem can be converted into a concave maximization and solved using conventional methods. Finally, we demonstrate the practical utility of our methods using data from the Women’s Health Initiative. (shrink)

Investigating the causal relationship between exposure and time-to-event outcome is an important topic in biomedical research. Previous literature has discussed the potential issues of using hazard ratio (HR) as the marginal causal effect measure due to noncollapsibility. In this article, we advocate using restricted mean survival time (RMST) difference as a marginal causal effect measure, which is collapsible and has a simple interpretation as the difference of area under survival curves over a certain time horizon. To address both measured and (...) unmeasured confounding, a matched design with sensitivity analysis is proposed. Matching is used to pair similar treated and untreated subjects together, which is generally more robust than outcome modeling due to potential misspecifications. Our propensity score matched RMST difference estimator is shown to be asymptotically unbiased, and the corresponding variance estimator is calculated by accounting for the correlation due to matching. Simulation studies also demonstrate that our method has adequate empirical performance and outperforms several competing methods used in practice. To assess the impact of unmeasured confounding, we develop a sensitivity analysis strategy by adapting the E-value approach to matched data. We apply the proposed method to the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC) to examine the causal effect of smoking on stroke-free survival. (shrink)

Background Clients are invited to play a role in decisions about their care. Collaborative deliberation comprises constructive engagement, recognition of alternative actions, comparative learning, construction and elicitation of preferences and preference integration. Collaborative deliberation between clients and professionals is a process that requires an interest in each other, sharing of views on alternatives and preferences and integrating into decisions. The aim is to gain insight into collaborative deliberation in consultations and the clients’ perception of arranging long-term care. Design A (...) descriptive qualitative study to explore collaborative deliberation in consultations between clients and professionals. Six organisations providing long-term care were included. Data collection of nine clients involved observations of consultation with field notes and audio-records, interviews with clients and professionals shortly and 3–6 months after the consultation and questionnaires to collect background information. The data were analysed by deductive content analysis. Findings Constructive engagement was visible in all consultations. Clients and professionals showed respect, empathy and curiosity towards each other. In most consultations, two or more alternative actions are recognised and discussed. Comparative learning appears to be two sided, the client and the professional learn from each other's knowledge and experiences. Construction and elicitation of preference, and preference integration, seems to be present, but difficult to recognise in all consultations. Discussion/conclusion Although all propositions could be identified, there seems room for improvement in preference elicitation and integration of these preferences in the discussions on courses of action. Assistance seems needed with preference elicitation, both for the clients and for the professional. (shrink)

BackgroundOperation room (OR) planning is a complex process, especially in large hospitals with high rates of unplanned emergency procedures. Postponing elective surgery in order to provide capacity for emergency operations is inevitable at times. Elderly patients, residents of nursing homes, women, patients with low socioeconomic status and ethnic minorities are at risk for undertreatment in other contexts, as suggested by reports in the medical literature. We hypothesized that specific patient groups could be at higher risk for having their elective surgery (...) rescheduled for non-medical reasons.MethodsIn this single center, prospective observational trial, we analysed 2519 patients undergoing elective surgery from October 2018 to May 2019. A 14-item questionnaire was handed out to illicit patient details. Additional characteristics were collected using electronic patient records. Information on the timely performance of the scheduled surgery was obtained using the OR’s patient data management system. 6.45% of all planned procedures analysed were postponed. Association of specific variables with postponement rates were analysed using the Mann–Whitney U test and Fisher's exact test/χ2-test.ResultsSignificantly higher rates of postponing elective surgery were found in elderly patients. No significant differences in postponing rates were found for the variables gender, nationality (Germany, EU, non-EU), native language, professional medical background and level of education. Significantly lower rescheduling rates were found in patients with ties to hospital staff and in patients with a private health insurer.ConclusionsElderly patients, retirees and nursing home residents seem to be at higher risk for having their elective surgery rescheduled. However, owing to the study design, causality could not be proven. Our findings raise concern about possible undertreatment of these patient groups and provide data on short-term postponement of elective surgery.Trial registration DRKS00015836. Retrospectively registered. (shrink)

The analysis of penalty kick has played an important role in performance analysis. The study aims are to get formal feedback on the relevance of variables for penalty kick analysis, to design and validate an observational system; and to assess experts’ opinion on the optimum video footage in penalty kick analysis. A structured development process was adopted for content validity, reliability and agreement on video usage. All observational variables included in OSPAF showed Aiken’s V values above (...) the cut-off. Cohen’s Kappa resulted in mean intra- and inter-rater reliability values of 0.90 and 0.86, respectively. It is recommended to combine at least three different viewing angles with standardization of video quality. Changing the viewing angles may influence the observer perception. The aerial and pitch-level viewing angle behind the penalty taker and pitch-level viewing angle behind the goalkeeper were indicated as most appropriate for observational analysis. The OSPAF met all requirements of instrument validation. It may be recommended as basis of future observational systems on penalty kicks. (shrink)

Efforts to improve patients’ understanding of their own medical treatments or research in which they are involved are progressing, especially with regard to informed consent procedures. We aimed to design a multisource informed consent procedure that is easily adaptable to both clinical and research applications, and to evaluate its effectiveness in terms of understanding and awareness, even in less educated patients.

General Technology Course in senior high school focuses on skill training and the connection and comprehensive application of interdisciplinary knowledge, and it is a compulsory course for cultivating students' creative potential. However, GTC in domestic senior high school has low teaching efficiency and fails to cultivate students' creativity well. Fortunately, after years of theoretical and practical research in China, the Maker Education, which focuses on cultivating students' innovative ability, has produced well-recognized applied research results. For this reason, this paper integrates (...) the theories of ME into GTC. Combined the characteristics of ME and GTC, and followed the process of creation and the law of the expression of personality traits, we build a model of GTC based on ME to improve students' creativity effectively. In order to improve and optimize the designed teaching model, this study carried out three rounds of Action Research, designed the practical activities of GTC in senior high school, and revised the teaching model through action, observation and reflection continuously. Finally, this paper designed an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group adopts the recommended General Technology teaching model, and the control group adopts the traditional teaching model. Students were asked tested to take pre-test and post-test, and SPSS was used for analysis of ANCOVA and T-test. After analysis, the following experimental results were obtained: the teaching model proposed in this paper can improve students' creativity significantly and effectively; the adventurous, curiosity, imagination, challenge of students also have significant positive improvement. (shrink)

Clinical studies as well as hundreds of case reports have indicated that Yan Xin Life Science Technology has enabled human participants to live a normal life with little or no food intake for prolonged periods—a state referred to as bigu. Bigu is described in historical records as “taking in qi to avoid food,” and is regarded as a special technique to achieve a long and healthy life. In this study, experiments were designed to study whether cells in vitro (...) can survive without commonly acknowledged essential nutrients after receiving external qi treatments from Dr. Yan Xin, a chief physician and a renowned life scientist. Results reported here indicate that mouse hybridoma cells can survive in Dulbeco’s modified Eagles medium without serum or in phosphate-buffered saline buffer without other nutrient ingredients after qi treatment. These results are the first evidence that a cellular equivalent of the human bigu phenomenon or cellular bigu phenomenon may occur. (shrink)

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. (...) Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution. (shrink)

When scientists attempt to explain observations of behaviour in humans and other animals, they often use language that evolved for informal discourse among people engaged in every day social interaction, like this: What does the infant/child/adult/chimp/crow perceive/understand/learn/intend? What is he/she/it conscious of? What does he/she/it experience/enjoy/desire? What is he/she/it attending to? Why did he/she/it do X, start Xing, stop Xing, speed up Xing...? Does he/she/it know that...? What did/does he/she/it expect will happen, if...? Similar comments can be made about the (...) terminology used in many philosophical discussions about minds, cognition, language, and the relationships between evolution and learning. (shrink)

When scientists discuss experimental observations, they often, unfortunately, use language that evolved for informal discourse among people engaged in every day social interaction, like this: What does the infant/child/adult/chimp/crow (etc) perceive/understand/learn/intend (etc)? What is he/she/it conscious of? What does he/she/it experience/enjoy/desire? What is he/she/it attending to? Similar comments can be made about the terminology used in many philosophical discussions about minds, cognition, language, and the relationships between evolution and learning.

A number of arguments have shown that randomization is not essential in experimental design. Scientific conclusions can be drawn on data from experimental designs that do not involve randomization. John Worrall has recently taken proponents of randomized studies to task for suggesting otherwise. In doing so, however, Worrall makes an additional claim: randomized interventional studies are epistemologically equivalent to observational studies, providing the experimental groups are comparable according to background knowledge. I argue against this claim. In the context (...) of testing the efficacy of drug therapies, well-designed interventional studies are epistemologically superior to well-designed observational studies because they have the capacity to avoid a type of selection bias. Although arguments for interventional studies are present in the medical literature, these arguments are too often presented as an argument for randomization. Randomization in interventional studies is defended on Bayesian grounds. (shrink)

he design-based approach is a methodology for investigating mechanisms capable of generating mental phenomena, whether introspectively or externally observed, and whether they occur in humans, other animals or robots. The study of designs satisfying requirements for autonomous agency can provide new deep theoretical insights at the information processing level of description of mental mechanisms. Designs for working systems (whether on paper or implemented on computers) can systematically explicate old explanatory concepts and generate new concepts that allow new and (...) richer interpretations of human phenomena. To illustrate this, some aspects of human grief are analysed in terms of a particular information processing architecture being explored in our research group. We do not claim that this architecture is part of the causal structure of the human mind; rather, it represents an early stage in the iterative search for a deeper and more general architecture, capable of explaining more phenomena. However even the current early design provides an interpretative ground for some familiar phenomena, including characteristic features of certain emotional episodes, particularly the phenomenon of perturbance (a partial or total loss of control of attention). The paper attempts to expound and illustrate the design-based approach to cognitive science and philosophy, to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the approach in generating interpretative possibilities, and to provide first steps towards an information processing account of `perturbant', emotional episodes. (shrink)

All nursing courses in the UK include ethics in the curriculum, although there is considerable variation in the content of ethics courses and the teaching methods used to assist the acquisition of ethical reasoning. The effectiveness of ethics courses continues to be disputed, even when the perceptions and needs of students are taken into account in their design. This longitudinal study, carried out in the UK, but with implications for nurse education in other developed countries, explored the ethical (...) understanding of nursing students and changes in their understanding and approaches to practice over their four years of training (1995-1999). The data collection tools were a questionnaire originally piloted prior to the 1995 study, from which the present study developed, and five vignettes describing ethical dilemmas in health care also piloted in 1995. Students’ thinking progressed as they became more mature as individuals and professionals, although this progress was not necessarily in the direction of greater certainty. Suggestions are made to help nurse educators to maximize the effectiveness of ethics courses in transmitting the skills of ethical reasoning. (shrink)

How might a design approach be applied to Research? Following Glanville’sGlanville, Ranulph observation that design and researchResearch are fundamentally related and that design methodsDesignmethods may be applied across domains, we framed a case study of the perceptual effects of alternate contemporary lighting technologies at an architectural scale to show how a designer/researcher could approach this kind of investigation. Design proceeds in complex domains with incomplete data and open questions. It is often concerned with the singular (...) or unique solution rather than with generalizability. Its products are applied under hybrid and dynamic, rather than controlled, conditions. Rather than work with subjects approximating a general population, informants were recruited with more extensive or diverse experiences than our own. Color perception was investigated in large-scaled installations allowing for locomotion and full visual immersion in a color-field. The effort was not to frame hypotheses for confirmation or refutation but probe the phenomena for insights. Design researchDesignresearch methods might be preferred when the nature of the investigation is exploratory or when ecological validity dominates reliability. They might also be useful in situations where significant progress is no longer being made within a particular paradigm by recasting the nature of the inquiryEnquiry outside the frameworks that presently dominate. (shrink)

_Aims:_ Cognitive and behavioral treatments (CBT) for sleep problems and chronic pain have shown good results, although these results could improve. More recent developments based on the psychological flexibility model, the model underlying Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) may offer a useful addition to traditional CBT. The aim of this study was to examine whether an ACT-based treatment for chronic pain is associated with improved sleep. Secondly, we examined the associations between changes on measures of psychological flexibility and sleep-related (...) outcomes. _Methods:_ The study used an observational cohort methodology. Participants were 252 patients (73.8% female) attending a 4-week, interdisciplinary, pain management program in London, United Kingdom. Participants completed standard self-report measures of pain and functioning, sleep outcomes, and processes of psychological flexibility. Pre- to post-treatment, and pre-treatment to follow-up measures were examined for statistically significant differences using paired samples t -tests. Secondarily, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine change in process measures in relation to change in treatment outcome. _Results:_ Participants showed statistically significant improvements (all p d = 0.45), sleep interference ( d = 0.61), and sleep efficiency ( d = 0.32). Significant improvements in insomnia severity and sleep interference were also observed at 9-month follow up. Small to medium effect sizes were observed across the sleep outcomes. Statistically significant changes were also observed on measures of psychological flexibility, and these improvements were significantly associated with improvements on sleep-related outcomes, independently contributing up to 19% of unique variance. _Conclusion:_ This study supports the potential usefulness of ACT-based treatments for chronic pain for addressing co-occurring sleep difficulties. Further research is needed to determine how to improve the impact of this treatment for co-morbid pain and sleep difficulties, possibly using a randomized-controlled trial design. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of an observer’s value orientation and personality type on attitudes toward whistleblowing. Based on a review of the literature we generated three hypotheses to explain the relationship between these two factors and attitudes toward whistleblowing, and these were tested using data collected from 490 university students in South Korea. The survey comprises two parts, a measure of MBTI personality types, and a section assessing value orientations and attitudes toward whistleblowing. Regression analysis was conducted to (...) clarify the influence of the independent variables. The study offers two main contributions. First, it examines what role an observer’s value orientation and personality type play in determining the attitudes. Second, it provides insights into designing customized ethical training programs and developing policy aimed at changing negative attitudes toward whistleblowing. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of donation incentives on labor supply in an online labor market through a field experiment (_n_ = 944). We manipulate the donation purpose of the incentive to be either unifying or polarizing and the size of the donation relative to the workers’ wage. Our experimental design allows us to observe the decision to accept a job (extensive margin) and different dimensions of productivity (intensive margin). We predict and show that a unifying donation purpose (...) attracts more gig workers and improves their productivity compared to a polarizing donation purpose. We discuss the implications of these results in order to understand the role of donation incentives and labor supply in online labor markets. (shrink)

Ethical aspects in engineering design have become increasingly important in recent years. A typical example is the recent rise of artificial intelligence ethics. This paper applies user studies of a design support tool to empirically verify that our ethical framework improves the creativity of an engineer’s design activity. The design support tool provides an environment for the promotion of ethical design perspectives and description. The experiments focus on two functionalities: semi-automatic generation and scenario path recommendation. (...) These functions are designed around the application of ethical design theory, which extends the hierarchical representation of artifacts. Doing this enables users to reconsider their themes at the highest level of the hierarchy and to apply a wider conceptual space of design solutions. For example, by reconsidering the positions of their research themes in the space of the representation field, users can semi-automatically edit them and identify focal areas. Using the scenario path recommendation, designers can update their research themes after considering the ethical impacts of those themes on stakeholders. Both functions are realized by exploiting a knowledge base of ethical and technological discourses. Finally, the ethical design theory is updated based on some unexpected results of our user studies with regards to the cyclic relationship among theory, tools, and observed data. For example, temporal dimensional aspects were confirmed as important. (shrink)

Design Cybernetics: Navigating the New Design cybernetics offers a way of looking at ourselves – curious, creative, and ethical humans – as self-organising systems that negotiate their own goals in open-ended explorations of the previously unknown. It is a theory of and for epistemic practices that is deeply committed to the autonomy of others and hence offers no prescriptive methodology. Design cybernetics describes design practice as inextricable from conversation – a way of enquiring, developing shared understanding (...) and reaching the new that harnesses reliable control as well as error and serendipity. Recognising circular causality, observer-dependency and non-determinability, design cybernetics extends beyond tenets of scientific research into the creative, ethical and aesthetic domain. From this perspective, design is not an ill-conceived subset of scientific research. Instead, scientific research emerges as a particularly restricted subset of the broader human activity of design. This volume offers a cross-section of design cybernetic theory and practice with contributions ranging across architecture, interior lighting studies, product design, embedded systems, design pedagogy, design theory, social transformation design, research epistemology, art and poetics, as well as theatre and acting. Addressing designers, design educators and researchers interested in a rigorous, practice-based epistemology, it establishes design cybernetics as a foundational perspective of design research. “This is a conceptually elegant, well structured, and comprehensive presentation of design cybernetics. It fills a gap in the literature of the field.” Ken Friedman, Chair Professor, Tongji University “This book offers a valuable and timely introduction to second-order cybernetics as society grapples with complex issues like climate change and rising inequality.” Joichi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper examines the field network – linking together lay observers in geographically distributed locations with a central figure who aggregated their locally produced observations into more general, regional knowledge – as a historically emergent mode of knowledge production. After discussing the significance of weather knowledge as a vital domain in which field networks have operated, it describes and analyzes how a more robust and systematized weather observing field network became established and maintained on the ground in the early twentieth (...) century. This case study, which examines two Kansas City-based local observer networks supervised by the same U.S. Weather Bureau office, demonstrates some of the key issues involved in maintaining field networks, such as the role of communications infrastructure, especially the telegraph, the procedures designed to make local observation more systematic and uniform, and the centralized, hierarchical power relations that underpinned even a low-status example of knowledge production on the periphery. (shrink)

Children with complex communication needs (CCN) regularly have barriers to express and discuss emotions, and have fewer opportunities to participate in emotional conversations. The study explores and analyzes the changes after a training program focused on offering an interactive home learning environment that encouraged and modeled emotion-related conversations between a parent and a child with CCN within storybook-reading contexts. An observational design (nomothetic/follow-up/multidimensional) was used to explore and analyze the changes in the communicative interaction around emotions between (...) mother-child. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies were used to provide the child access to emotion-related vocabulary. The training program resulted in the mother providing more opportunities to engage her child in emotional conversations, suggesting that when opportunities and resources to talk about emotions were promoted, the child showed more engagement in emotion-related conversations using his AAC system. The mother–child communicative patterns and behavioral relationships observed during the phases are also presented. This case study illustrates the importance of a primary communication partners’ role in facilitating emotional conversations, and the promising efficacy of a training program implemented in a storybook interactive learning environment to promote conversations about emotion-related events while encouraging children with CCN to learn, explore, express, and discuss emotions. (shrink)

Digital games have matured substantially as a narrative medium in the last decade. However, there is still much work to be done to more fully understand the poetics of story-based-games. Game narrative remains an important issue with significant cultural, economic and scholarly implications. In this article, we undertake a critical analysis of the design of narrative within Mass Effect 2: a game whose narrative is highly regarded in both scholarly and vernacular communities. We follow the classic humanities methodology of (...) “close-reading”: the detailed observation, deconstruction, and analysis of a text. Our close-reading employs a critical framework from our previous work to isolate and highlight the central narrative design parameters within digital games. This framework is grounded in the scholarly discourse around games and narrative, and has been tested and revised in the process of close-reading and analyzing contemporary games. The narrative design parameters we examine are character, storyworld, narrativized interface, emotion, and plot coherence. Our analysis uses these parameters to explicate a series of design decisions for the effective creation of narrative experience in Mass Effect 2, and by extension, for game narratives in general. We also expand our previous methodology through a focused “edge-case” strategy for exploring the limits of character, action, and story in the game. Finally, we position our analysis of Mass Effect 2 within contemporary discourses of “bounded agency”, and explore how the game negotiates the tension between player-expression, and narrative inevitability to create opportunities for sophisticated narrative poetics including tragedy and sacrifice. (shrink)

Digital games have matured substantially as a narrative medium in the last decade. However, there is still much work to be done to more fully understand the poetics of story-based-games. Game narrative remains an important issue with significant cultural, economic and scholarly implications. In this article, we undertake a critical analysis of the design of narrative within Mass Effect 2: a game whose narrative is highly regarded in both scholarly and vernacular communities. We follow the classic humanities methodology of (...) “close-reading”: the detailed observation, deconstruction, and analysis of a text. Our close-reading employs a critical framework from our previous work to isolate and highlight the central narrative design parameters within digital games. This framework is grounded in the scholarly discourse around games and narrative, and has been tested and revised in the process of close-reading and analyzing contemporary games. The narrative design parameters we examine are character, storyworld, narrativized interface, emotion, and plot coherence. Our analysis uses these parameters to explicate a series of design decisions for the effective creation of narrative experience in Mass Effect 2, and by extension, for game narratives in general. We also expand our previous methodology through a focused “edge-case” strategy for exploring the limits of character, action, and story in the game. Finally, we position our analysis of Mass Effect 2 within contemporary discourses of “bounded agency”, and explore how the game negotiates the tension between player-expression, and narrative inevitability to create opportunities for sophisticated narrative poetics including tragedy and sacrifice. (shrink)

William H.Whyte’s instructional film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1979), which chronicles the findings of his decade-long study of people’s behavior in small urban spaces in New York City in the 1970s, offers a precise analysis of the rules of attraction that draw people into places and that keep them attached. By combining direct observation with complex technical arrangements and new forms of movement studies, Whyte’s study advocates a quintessentially process-oriented understanding of ‘placemaking’ that shaped a (...) new bottom-up approach to urban design in the 1970s. (shrink)

Self-distancing has been proposed as an emotion regulation strategy to reduce the duration and intensity of emotions. This meta-analysis synthesised 48 studies and 102 effect sizes examining the effects of self-distancing on emotion regulation. The results showed an overall significant, small effect of self-distancing in attenuating emotional responses (Hedges’ g = −0.26, 95%CI: [−0.36, −0.15]). Moderator analyses highlighted the efficacy of one intervention feature: approach. Stronger effect was associated with the visual and verbal approach to process emotional events, in comparison (...) to the visual only approach and the pronouns approach. The effectiveness of self-distancing was consistent across other intervention features (context, stimuli, time, emotional outcome) and individual characteristics (emotional vulnerability, age, culture). These findings suggest that self-distancing is effective in emotion regulation when people externalise and articulate thoughts through writing and talking. Practical implications were discussed in relation to the design of interventions to enhance emotional well-being. (shrink)

Concerns have been expressed about adult behaviour at children’s sporting events in New Zealand. As a consequence, covert observation was identified as the optimal research method to be used in studies designed to record the nature and prevalence of adult sideline behaviour at children’s team sporting events. This paper explores whether the concerns raised by the ethics committee about the use of this controversial method, particularly in relation to the lack of informed consent, the use of deception, and researcher safety, (...) were effectively managed. This is achieved by reflecting on the conduct and findings of the research and by drawing on the perspectives of research assistants who carried out the covert observation. The authors argue that in the context of these studies, the ends have justified the means and with careful attention to the design of the study the complex ethical tensions arising from the use of this method can be managed. (shrink)

Despite the ubiquity of knowledge attribution in human social cognition, its associated neural and cognitive mechanisms are poorly documented. A wealth of converging evidence in cognitive neuroscience has identified independent perspective-taking and inhibitory processes for belief attribution, but the extent to which these processes are shared by knowledge attribution isn't presently understood. Here, we present the findings of an EEG study designed to directly address this shortcoming. These findings suggest that belief attribution is not a component process in knowledge (...) attribution, contra a standard attitude taken by philosophers. Instead, observed differences in P3b amplitude indicate that knowledge attribution doesn't recruit the strong self-perspective inhibition characteristic of belief attribution. However, both belief and knowledge attribution were observed to display a late slow wave widely associated with mental state attribution, indicating that knowledge attribution also shares in more general processing of others' mental states. These results provide a new perspective both on how we think about knowledge attribution, as well as Theory of Mind processes generally. (shrink)

In the last few decades, increasing attention has been given to gender issues in urban design. However, research on the urban environment continues to show large gender inequalities, which are especially evident when studying the use and enjoyment of the public space. This study aims to identify predominant patterns of use in public places and to explore the possible existence of traditional gender roles in the urban space. The study uses, three public spaces in the city of (...) Barcelona as a case study, an innovative combination of systematic observation techniques and network analysis procedures. Variables collected by EXOdES, a dedicated software analysis tool for systematic observation, are represented as nodes of a network system and analyzed using network analysis tools. Findings confirmed that, in spite of the progressive consolidation of feminist urbanism, uses in the public realm resulting from traditional gender roles remained explicitly recognizable. Whereas women’s occupation of space was related to playground and resting areas, generally involving care activities concerned with children or elderly people, men were primarily located in resting and sports areas, practicing sports, or participating in leisure activities. These patterns of use were more prone to emerge when users were part of a group than when they were alone. From a gender perspective, a contribution of the study is that it informed about main aspects of the analyzed public spaces reconfirming the existence of traditional roles in society, and the significance of exploring the public space as a key scenario where social features are explicitly exposed. From a methodological perspective, the processing of observational data with network analysis tools proved to be relevant and suitable for dealing with the intricacies of urban place analysis. Compared to more classical approaches and systems, these techniques allowed to identify and interpret complex systems composed of many variables and relationships in a relatively straightforward manner, which turns it into a useful aid for urban designers and architects. (shrink)

BackgroundLow literacy of study participants in Sub - Saharan Africa has been associated with poor comprehension during the consenting process in research participation. The concerns in comprehension are far greater when consenting to participate in genomic studies due to the complexity of the science involved. While efforts are made to explore possibilities of applying genomic technologies in diseases prevalent in Sub Saharan Africa, we ought to develop methods to improve participants’ comprehension for genomic studies. The purpose of this (...) class='Hi'>study was to understand different approaches that can be used to seek consent from individuals with low literacy in Sub-Saharan African countries in genomic research to improve comprehension.MethodsUsing qualitative study design, we conducted focus-group discussions, in-depth interviews and participant observations as data collection methods. This study was embedded in a hospital based genomic study on Sickle Cell Disease at Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania. Thematic content analysis was used to analyse the transcripts and field notes.ResultsFindings from this study show that literacy level has little influence on understanding the research details. According to the participants of this study, the methods used to provide information, the language, and time spent with the study participants were the key factors influencing understanding. The availability of group sessions held before individual consent to allow for a detailed questions and answers format was agreed to be the best method to facilitate the comprehension.ConclusionThe quality of the consenting process of participants will be influence by a number of factors. The type of research consented for, where the research will be implemented and who are the potential study participants are amongst the factors that need to be assessed during the consenting. Measures to improve participants’ comprehension need to be developed when consenting participants with low literacy level in genomic studies. (shrink)

William H. Whyte's instructional film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1979), which chronicles the findings of his decade-long study of people's behavior in small urban spaces in New York City in the 1970s, offers a precise analysis of the rules of attraction that draw people into places and that keep them attached. By combining direct observation with complex technical arrangements and new forms of movement studies, Whyte's study advocates a quintessentially process -oriented understanding of 'placemaking' that (...) shaped a new bottom-up approach to urban design in the 1970s. (shrink)

AimsThis study aimed to investigate barriers in the observation of professional ethics during clinical care from a nursing viewpoint. Also, it examined the association between these barriers and nurse demographic variables.MethodsA descriptive-analytic design was carried out on 207 nurses working in selected hospitals within an urban area of Iran in 2019. Data were collected using a standard questionnaire containing 33 questions that measured barriers to observation of professional ethics. The questionnaire measures three domains of management, environment and individual (...) care.ResultsIn the management dimension, the most important barrier preventing observation of professional ethics was the shortage of personnel. For the environmental dimension, biological changes due to working on the nightshift, and for the individual care dimension, a lack of time were the most important barriers preventing observation of clinical ethics. Findings additionally highlighted a significantly inverse association between barriers to observing professional ethics and the male gender, participating in the ethics workshop and high work-level experiences.ConclusionsIt is suggested that nursing managers in hospitals correct and remove obstacles with careful planning and emphasis on principles and standards of care including environmental and managerial factors and training professional ethics to nurses. (shrink)

In their recent book, Is Inequality Bad for Our Health?, Daniels, Kennedy, and Kawachi claim that to “act justly in health policy, we must have knowledge about the causal pathways through which socioeconomic (and other) inequalities work to produce differential health outcomes.” One of the central problems with this approach is its dependency on “knowledge about the causal pathways.” A widely held belief is that the randomized clinical trial (RCT) is, and ought to be the “gold standard” of evaluating the (...) causal efficacy of interventions. However, often the only data available are non-experimental, observational data. For such data, the necessary randomization is missing. Because the randomization is missing, it seems to follow that it is not possible to make epistemically warranted claims about the causal pathways. Although we are not sanguine about the difficulty in using observational data to make warranted causal claims, we are not as pessimistic as those who believe that the only warranted causal claims are claims based on data from (idealized) RCTs. We argue that careful, thoughtful study design, informed by expert knowledge, that incorporates propensity score matching methods in conjunction with instrumental variable analyses, provides the possibility of warranted causal claims using observational data. (shrink)

Sections include: experiments and generalised causal inference; statistical conclusion validity and internal validity; construct validity and external validity; quasi-experimental designs that either lack a control group or lack pretest observations on the outcome; quasi-experimental designs that use both control groups and pretests; quasi-experiments: interrupted time-series designs; regresssion discontinuity designs; randomised experiments: rationale, designs, and conditions conducive to doing them; practical problems 1: ethics, participation recruitment and random assignment; practical problems 2: treatment implementation and attrition; generalised causal inference: a grounded theory; (...) generalised causal inference: methods for single studies; generalised causal inference: methods for multiple studies; a critical assessment of our assumptions. (shrink)

To assess the effectiveness of Visual Thinking Strategies in medical education curricula, a pretest–posttest experimental study design was used to evaluate the impact of participating in VTS workshops on first-year medical students. A total of forty-one intervention and sixty comparative students completed the study which included the analysis of clinical images followed by a measurement of word count, length of time analyzing images, and quality of written observations of clinical images. VTS training increased the total number of (...) words used to describe clinical images, the time spent analyzing the images, and the number of clinically relevant observations. (shrink)

With the service-dominant logic gradually replacing the traditional commodity-dominant reason, co-creating value with consumers has become an essential marketing practice for enterprises. As a critical information carrier in enterprise marketing communication, the co-creation signal impacts co-creation observers. Enterprises are now exploring how to effectively release co-creation signals to attract most observers to participate in value creation activities actively. Based on self-determination theory, this study investigates the influence mechanism of co-creation signals on observers’ willingness to co-create and the moderating role (...) of mental simulation through the experimental method. The conclusions are as follows: The co-creation signal has a significant positive effect on the co-creation intention of observers. Self-designed co-creation signals generate more important co-creation willingness than self-produced co-creation signals; Self-determination and its dimensions mediate the relationship between co-creation signals and the observer’s co-creation willingness; and Mental simulation moderates the relationship between co-creation signal and self-determination. This study has important theoretical significance in enriching co-creation signals and mental simulation research. It also provides management implications for enterprises to release co-creation signals and optimize co-creation marketing practices effectively. (shrink)

Fear to contamination is an easy-to-provoke, intense, hard-to-control, and extraordinarily persistent fear. A worsening of preexisting psychiatric disorders was observed during the COVID-19 outbreak, and several studies suggest that those with obsessive–compulsive disorder may be more affected than any other group of people. In the face of worsening OCD symptoms, there is a need for mental health professionals to provide the support needed not only to treat patients who still report symptoms, but also to improve relapse prevention. In this line, (...) it is recommended to improve alternative strategies such as online consultations and digital psychiatry. The aim of this study is to develop augmented reality stimuli that are clinically relevant for patients with cleaning OCD and assess their efficiency to obtain emotionally significant responses. Four AR stimuli were developed: a plastic bag full of garbage, a piece of bread with mold, a dirty sports shoe, and a piece of rotten meat. All stimuli were shown to a clinical group and a control group. Relevant results were the design of the AR stimuli. These stimuli were validated with the statistical difference in perceived anxiety in the meat stimuli between the clinical and control groups. Nevertheless, when looking at effect sizes, all stimuli present effect sizes from small to large, with both shoe and bread between small and medium effect sizes. These results are a valuable support for the clinical use of these AR stimuli in the treatment of cleaning OCD. (shrink)

This paper reflects on fundamental ethical issues concerning designing for behavioural change, in order to raise questions about the factors that should be considered by design practitioners when developing interventions. It draws on existing literature on philosophical ethics, moral psychology and design. It proposes a list of ethical questions and considerations to be made throughout the design process. A case study addressing behavioural changes in antibiotics prescriptions (for Urinary Tract Infections) was carried out to demonstrate how (...) the ethical questions identified are asked and considered. We provide a framework for addressing these issues with the hope that it will help minimise the risk of problematic and unethical intervention design processes. (shrink)

This study aims to present culturally situated artefacts as depicted in nursing home environments and to analyse the underlying understandings of disciplining structures that are manifested in these kinds of places. Our personal geographies are often taken for granted, but when moving to a nursing home, geographies are glaringly rearranged. The study design is archival and cross‐sectional observational, and the data are comprised of 38 photographs and 13 videos showing environments from nursing homes. The analysis was (...) inspired by the methodological steps in Roper's and Shapira's description of conducting ethnography. The results are presented in four categories: (i) public areas, (ii) orderliness, (iii) staff's places and (iv) devices. The rearrangement of geography implies a degrading of agency and loss of authority over one's place. The places should be understood in their relation to the agents and their temporarily claims upon them. The material and immaterial artefacts, that is the items, people and behaviours, transform the nursing staff into ‘space invaders’. Future inquiries may take into consideration the ways that space invasion in participative space intersect and construct the identities of the agents it invades upon. (shrink)

In this 6-year, multi-study paper we summarize a new and effective framework of single-session problem-solving developed in an elite sport context at a world leading national institute of sport science and medicine. In Study 1, we used ethnography to observe how single-session problem-solving methods were being considered, explored, introduced and developed within the EIS. In Study 2, we used case-study methods split into two parts. A multiple case-study design was employed in Part one to (...) evaluate how the approach was refined into an effective framework of practice. An individual case-study is then illustrated to detail the framework in-action. Collectively, findings realized a framework of single-session problem-solving for use both inside and outside of elite sport that focused on ways to reframe clients’ problems into more ‘solvable’ descriptions. Guidance for psychologists wishing to integrate these problem-solving techniques into their practice are offered. (shrink)

This study analyzed and explored the cognitive load of Australian energy market operators managing one of the longest inter-connected electrical networks in the world. Each operator uses a workstation with seven screens in an active control room environment, with a large coordination screen to show information and enable collaboration between different control centers. Cognitive load was assessed during both training scenarios and regular control room operations via the integration of subjective and physiological measures. Eye-tracking glasses were also used to (...) analyze the operators gaze behavior. Our results indicate that different events, different participants for the same session, and different periods of one session all have varying degrees of cognitive load. The system design was observed to be inefficient in some situations and to have an adverse affect on cognitive load. In critical situations for instance, operator collaboration was high and the coordination screen was used heavily when collaborating between two control centers, yet integration with the system could be improved. Eye tracking data analysis showed that the layout of applications across the seven screens was not optimal for many tasks. Improved layout strategies, potential combination of applications, redesigning of certain applications, and linked views are all recommended for further exploration in addition to improved integration of procedures and linking alarms to visual cues. (shrink)

Purpose: To explain physical activity behavior, social-cognitive theories were most commonly used in the past. Besides conscious processes, the approach of dual processes additionally incorporates non-conscious regulatory processes into physical activity behavior theories. Habits are one of various non-conscious variables that can influence behavior and thus play an important role in terms of behavior change. The aim of this review was to examine the relationship between habit strength and physical activity behavior in longitudinal studies.Methods: According to the PRISMA guidelines, a (...) systematic search was conducted in three databases. Only peer-reviewed articles using a longitudinal study design were included. Both, habit and physical activity were measured at least once, and habit was related to physical activity behavior. Study quality was evaluated by assessment tools of the NHLBI.Results: Of 3.382 identified publications between 2016 and 2019, fifteen studies with different study designs were included. Most studies supported that positive correlations between habit and physical activity exist. Some positive direct and indirect effects of habit on physical activity were detected and only a minority of studies showed the influence of physical activity on habit strength. Studies differentiating between instigation and execution habit found positive correlations and revealed instigation habit as a stronger predictor of physical activity. The quality of studies was rated as reasonable using assessment tools of the NHLBI.Conclusion: This review revealed a bidirectional relationship between habit and physical activity. Whether habit predicts physical activity or vice versa is still unclear. The observation of habit influencing physical activity may be most appropriate in studies fostering physical activity maintenance while the influence of physical activity on habit may be reasonable in experimental studies with physical activity as intervention content to form a habit. Future investigations should differentiate between habit formation and physical activity maintenance studies depending on the research objective. Long-term study designs addressing the complexity of habitual behavior would be beneficial for establishing cue-behavior associations for the formation of habits. Furthermore, studies should differentiate between instigation and execution habit in order to investigate the influence of both variables on physical activity behavior independently. (shrink)

Design ethics has been offered as a course in undergraduate design programs in Taiwan for over a decade, but research on teaching design ethics and the results of teaching these courses is scant. We conducted two tests to examine the effect of an ethics course, and the differences among the effects of design department, gender, and study year on student opinions regarding ethical design standards at the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology in (...) Taiwan. The participants comprised 934 undergraduates from the five design departments at YunTech’s College of Design from Years 1–4. The results confirmed the effect of an ethics course on student EDS opinions. In addition, we observed significant variations among students according to design departments, suggesting that the characteristics of the design departments also affected students’ EDS opinions. The results indicated that gender did not significantly affect design students’ EDS opinions; however, students in their early years of study produced higher scores than those in their advanced years of study did, based on the six EDS opinions. The implications of these results for teaching design ethics and future research are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, several changes have been forcibly made and observed in various fields and areas of society, one of which include the field of education; the foundation of the formation of intellect and knowledge. After two years of studying indoors and private educational institutions holding virtual classes, the time has finally come for students to be re- adjusted once more to the blended mode of learning; a combination of virtual and in-person classes. Thus, this study aimed (...) to investigate the development of students’ study habits and how these habits could potentially affect the students’ academic achievement or performance. The study utilized a descriptivecorrelational design to examine the impact of study habits to the academic performance of 137 senior high school students. The study made use of the Palsane and Sharma’s Study Habits Inventory, or also known as PSSHI, and using this instrument, the study has been able to procure sufficient results that will answer the present study’s problems. Using linear regression analysis, the present study found that there was a significance between the study habits and academic performance of the senior high school students, thus the study’s null hypothesis was eventually rejected. (shrink)

In previous studies investigating entrainment and person perception, synchronized movements were found to enhance memory for incidental person attributes. Although this effect is robust, including in dance, the process by which it is actuated are less well understood. In this study, two hypotheses are investigated: that enhanced memory for person attributes is the result of (1) increased gaze time between in-tempo dancers, and/or (2) greater attentional focus between in-tempo dancers. To explore these possible mechanisms in the context of observing (...) dance, an eye-tracking study was conducted in which subjects watched videos of pairs of laterally positioned dancers; only one of the dancers was synchronized with the music, the other being asynchronous. The results were consistent with the first hypothesis—music-dance synchrony gives rise to increased visual inspection times. In addition, there was a preference for upper-body fixations over lower-body fixations across both synchronous and asynchronous conditions. A subsequent, single-dancer eye-tracking study investigated fixations across different body regions, including head, torso, legs and feet. Significantly greater dwell times were recorded for head than torso and legs; feet attracted significantly less dwell time than any other body region. Lastly, the study sought to identify dance gestures responsible for torso- and head-directed fixations. Specifically we asked whether there are features in dance that are specially designed to direct an observer’s gaze towards the face—the main “communicative portal” with respect to the transmission of intent, affect and empathy. (shrink)

A study is reported which focused on the problem-solving strategies employed by expert electronics engineers pursuing a real-world task: integrated-circuit design. Verbal protocol data were analysed so as to reveal aspects of the organisation and sequencing of ongoing design activity. These analyses indicated that the designers were implementing a highly systematic solution-development strategy which deviated only a small degree from a normatively optimal top-down and breadth-first method. Although some of the observed deviation could be described as opportunistic (...) in nature, much of it reflected the rapid depth-first exploration of tentative solution ideas. We argue that switches from a predominantly breadth-first mode of problem solving to depth-first or opportunistic modes may be an important aspect of the expert's strategic knowledge about how to conduct the design process effectively when faced with difficulties, uncertainties, and design impasses. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to examine the attitudes of people who lost their relatives due to the earthquake towards the mourning process and the role of religious rituals in combating the stressful situation caused by this loss. In the study in which the qualitative research method was adopted, a case study design was also adopted. In the study where the criterion sampling technique was used, a total of 12 participants who experienced loss due (...) to the earthquake were included in the study. The participants stated that this loss was much more severe than a normal loss due to factors such as not being able to meet for the last time, not being able to reach the lost relative and the lack of religious rituals. Accordingly, it was observed that individuals who used positive religious coping styles experienced an increase in spirituality meaning of life and showed signs of post-traumatic growth, such as positive social relationships. On the other hand, most of the individuals who adopted negative religious coping styles experienced more feelings of helplessness and meaninglessness, had more difficulty in accepting the death, withdrew from social relationships, and showed more intense symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). (shrink)

BackgroundNew metrics have been developed to assess the impact of research and provide an indication of online media attention and data dissemination. We aimed to describe online media attention of articles evaluating cancer treatments and identify the factors associated with high online media attention.MethodsWe systematically searched MEDLINE via PubMed on March 1, 2015 for articles published during the first 6 months of 2014 in oncology and medical journals with a diverse range of impact factors, from 3.9 to 54.4, and selected (...) a sample of articles evaluating a cancer treatment regardless of study design. Altmetric Explorer was used to identify online media attention of selected articles. The primary outcome was media attention an article received online as measured by Altmetric score (i.e., number of mentions in online news outlets, science blogs and social media). Regression analysis was performed to investigate the factors associated with high media attention, and regression coefficients represent the logarithm of ratio of mean (RoM) values of Altmetric score per unit change in the covariate.ResultsAmong 792 articles, 218 (27.5%) received no online media attention (Altmetric score = 0). The median [Q1–Q3] Altmetric score was 2.0 [0.0–8.0], range 0.0–428.0. On multivariate analysis, factors associated with high Altmetric score were presence of a press release (RoM = 10.14, 95%CI [4.91–20.96]), open access to the article (RoM = 1.48, 95%CI [1.02–2.16]), and journal impact factor (RoM = 1.10, 95%CI [1.07–1.12]. As compared with observational studies, systematic reviews were not associated with high Altmetric score (RoM = 1.46, 95%CI [0.74–2.86]; P = 0.27), nor were RCTs (RoM = 0.65, 95%CI [0.41–1.02]; P = 0.059) and phase I/ii non-RCTs (RoM = 0.58, 95%CI [0.33–1.05]; P = 0.07). The articles with abstract conclusions favouring study treatments were not associated with high Altmetric score (RoM = 0.97, 95%CI [0.60–1.58]; P = 0.91).ConclusionsMost important factors associated with high online media attention were the presence of a press release and the journal impact factor. There was no evidence that study design with high level of evidence and type of abstract conclusion were associated with high online media attention. (shrink)