AHFE Open AccessAdvances in Science, Technology, Higher Education and Society in the Conceptual Age: STHESCA
Editors: Tadeusz Marek
Topics: Training, Education, and Learning Sciences
Publication Date: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4951-2110-4
DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100372
Articles
The World of Boundaryless Careers – About the Need for a Subject’s Proactivity
The specific character of qualitatively new changes in the relations between globality and locality implies a completely new perception of reality, ways of interpreting the world and a new quality of judgments about the condition of a modern man – including an individual as “a manager” of one’s own career. The contemporary study of careers requires taking into consideration multicontextual changes in the world of work, which make individuals face new challenges. A career development and career management programs concentrate on multiple aspects: from individual careers and a relationship between work and a family; to policy and strategic dilemmas, such as the aging workforce, the use of new technology or organizational performance. The logic of these changes inclines thinking about “boundaryless career”, “protean career” and “post-corporate career”, as a sort of novelty in planning a broadly defined career and how to climb the career ladder. The zeitgeist implies stressing individual initiative and proactivity, as no job is guaranteed forever and no abilities guarantee a market value. This is the world of careers conceived as “an individual’s property”.
Agnieszka Cybal-Michalska
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
New Concepts for Brand Design in an Inclusive Society
It is clear that the brand has become a construct more complex than a promise, an image or a sign of recognition. It has its own architecture which includes several critical elements and requires strategy and constant attention. Also the role of stakeholders, both internal and external to the brand, has changed in the creation, development and management of the brand itself. It is increasingly moving from a passive rapport to a real and vital relationship. In fact, engagement, collaboration, participation and co-creation, are the newest concepts that are increasingly defining the brand design in all its phases. In addition, the relationship between the introduction of these new concepts and some of the changes that are shaping contemporary society is very close. Indeed, since the contemporary society is primarily expressed through the diversity between individuals - both in terms of physical and psychological abilities and on the social and cultural level - it requires increasing attention and particular practices that ensure participation and social inclusion. The paper offers a consideration on the people’s participation in brand design. In particular, it recognizes and identifies two possible positions: 1) participation as a fundamental tool in the process of brand design, to create a transparent and shared brand; 2) participation as the ultimate goal of brand design project, in order to create place brands able to generate inclusion. Doing so, this paper seeks to outline for the two positions the contribution of the Design for All, which is the "design of human diversity, social inclusion and equality” describing the results of a research developed by “Inclusivo”, Spin Off of d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, as a concrete case to highlight the innovative aspects of Design for All in the activities of brand design.
Stefania Camplone, Giuseppe Di Bucchianico, Stefano Picciani
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Impact of Social Networks of SP1500 Companies Vision on Environmental Governance
Recently we are witnessing an increasing consensus among corporate leaders that any decision model for a successful business should link to the climate change. On the other hand, existing research works indicate that social networking affects the way companies make decisions in relation to their performance. This paper explores the effects of social networking characteristics among companies and the characteristics of board of directors on environmental governance. Our paper looks at the extent by adopting data mining techniques that comprehensively discover the effects for a sample of SP1500 companies in year 2010. Our analysis shows that this relationship indeed exists. More specifically, we show that companies that are highly inter-connected tend to have formal structures for environmental governance, such as: pay as well as non-monetary incentives related to climate change, environment-responsible committees, voluntary climate change communications, and publishing of climate change reports. In addition, companies who are highly connected tend to have larger boards of directors comprising of more independent directors. The positive outcome of this evaluation clearly demonstrates the direct and indirect power of information flow provided by social network characteristics on environmental governance.
Azar Shahgholian, Razvan Muscalu, Babis Theodoulidis
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The System of Learning and Teaching Organized by the Polish Commission of the National Education (1773-94)
In a successfully developing system, goal, principles and processes are coupled with each other and with a continuous increase of knowledge. Analyzing these relations, Wilson, Barsky and Daviss (1996-2000) proposed universal criteria to assess progress of systemic changes. These criteria can be applied to develop\pment of a modern technology or science, as well as to education reforms. The goal of this work is to apply these criteria to analyze effectiveness of the system of learning and teaching created by the Polish Commission of the National Education (KEN). It has been shown (Ekiel-Jeżewska, 2012) how the overarching goal of education, economical and political development of Poland, was consistent with the KEN basic principles: common goals, freedom and autonomy, ownership of accumulated knowledge. We have demonstrated how KEN kept alive the six processes inherent to successful system reforms: knowledge accumulation, sustained professional development within a recognized hierarchy of practitioner's expertise and transmission of this expertise to others, design of complex entities, improvement of quality, diffusion of innovations, and redesign. In this way, we have provided an example how a similar assessment can be performed for modern educational initiatives, programs, systems and reforms, in contrast to common evaluation of individual teachers and students. Following the best Polish educational tradition, we have reminded that, nowadays, we need to rethink what does it mean to learn and teach productively, and what should be the overarching goal of education in the society of the XXI century.
Maria L. Ekiel-Jeżewska
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
21st Century Ergonomic Education From Little e to Big E
Despite intense efforts, contemporary educational systems are not enabling individuals to function optimally in modern society. The main reason is that reformers are trying to improve systems that are not designed to take advantage of the centuries of history of the development of today’s societies. Nor do they recognize the implications of the millions of years of history of life on earth in which humans are the latest edition of learning organisms. The contemporary educational paradigm of “education for all” is based on a 17th century model of “printing minds” for passing on static knowledge. This characterizes most of K-12 education. In contrast, 21st Century education demands a new paradigm, which we call Ergonomic Education. This is an education system that is designed to fit the students of any age instead of forcing the students to fit the education system. It takes into account in a fundamental way what students want to learn—the concept “wanting to learn” refers to the innate ability and desire to learn that is characteristic of humans. The Ergonomic Education paradigm shifts to education based on coaching students as human beings who are hungry for productive learning throughout their lives from their very earliest days.
Constance K. Barsky a, Stanislaw D. Glazek b
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Curriculum, Content and Controversy in Higher Education
Recent evidence suggests that academic staff face difficulties in applying new technologies as a means of assessing higher order assessment outcomes such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. Although higher education institutional mission statements and course unit outlines purport the value of these higher order skills there is still some question about how well academics are equipped to design curricula and, in particular, assessment strategies accordingly. Despite a rhetoric avowing the benefits of these higher order skills, it has been suggested that academics set assessment tasks up in such a way as to inadvertently lead students on the path towards lower order outcomes. This is a controversial claim, and one that this papers seeks to explore and critique in terms of challenging the conceptual basis of assessing higher order skills through new technologies. It is argued that the use of digital media in higher education is leading to a focus on students’ ability to use and manipulate of these products as an index of their flexibility and adaptability to the demands of the knowledge economy. This focus mirrors market flexibility and encourages programmes and courses of study to be rhetorically packaged as such. Curricular content has become a means to procure more or less elaborate aggregates of attributes. Higher education is now charged with producing graduates who are entrepreneurial and creative in order to drive forward economic sustainability. It is argued that critical independent learning can take place through the democratisation afforded by cultural and knowledge digitization and that assessment needs to acknowledge the changing relations between audience and author, expert and amateur, creator and consumer.
James Moir
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Degree of Commitment Among Students at a Technological University – Testing a New Research Instrument
Just as commitment in organizations is very important for long-term success, commitment to one’s educational institute is important, too. Higher education provides the foundation for the social, economic and political growth of a country. Therefore, improving student retention by successfully delivering quality education, leading to student graduation and integration in the workforce, is crucial. It has been argued that students stay in their higher education institutes for similar reasons to those that make employees committed and engaged in organizations.In our previous studies we have created a literature-based generic model of organizational commitment and engagement that could be used in conjunction with an Internet-based application to evaluate their various components and primary correlate constructs. In this study we took this evaluation model to the context of a higher educational institute to try to evaluate students’ commitment to their university.As a result, we identified several development needs in order to evaluate students’ commitment with our application. Because the statements in our original instrument were aimed for use in the organizational domain, some of them were not suited to studies on commitment in an educational institute. Looking at the results of our study, we decided that the overall construct of our model and the wording of applicable statements should be modified in order to create an appropriate instrument for use in an academic institution. This was done based on Bean’s Student Attrition Model. However, collective analysis of the test results clearly identified that even with the preliminary model it is possible to find where students see the needs for greatest development and how they view their current state of engagement.
Jarno Einolander, Hannu Vanharanta
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Demographic Shifts and Higher Education: Responses and Strategies
Demographic shifts in a vast majority of EU countries affect universities in a rather negative way. The aim of the paper is to identify universities’ responses to these demographic challenges. Desk-top analysis of available literature combined with the analysis of responses of fourteen top European and American universities to demographic changes is presented here. The paper starts from a review of the literature on the university’s strategies in the context of demographic shifts (based on ScienceDirect and EBSCO databases). Then strategies of the fourteen universities at hand are presented. It is shown here that these strategies have not acknowledged demographic changes as strategic factors. Universities at hand as global players (with the exception of Charles University and Eötvös Loránd University) do not consider ageing as a phenomenon which could jeopardize their future. They consider further international expansion and lifelong education as adequate responses to demographic shifts. It is suggested in this paper that ageing populations can be perceived by universities as an opportunity in respect both to research and teaching.
Jacek Klich
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Unpredictable Future: The Impossibility of Higher Education Policy
Higher education policy, as a part of broader public policy, must be built on the foundations of government strategic planning. Modern understanding of the role of higher education emphasizes growing importance of well-educated graduates for the stability of national economies. In 2004 Poland joined European Union and tried to adjust higher education policy to the demands of knowledge-based economy of the UE. The examination of government strategic documents and regulations reflects the challenge defining and managing higher education policy. Polish ministry responsible for higher education still cannot define the strategic goals and thus the ministry questions the possibility of implementing a coherent policy.
Radosław Rybkowski
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Who Forms You Competent? Defining and Developing a Competency Framework for HE Lecturers
There is quite a distance between the actionable knowledge, the actually developed skills and competences, and the formally defined aims of most kinds of training. This conflict inspired the business sector to formulate new approaches that promote a better development of working skills instead of merely having a certificate. All these led to the need of the reformulation of education, and, as a consequence of that, to redefine HE lecturers’ competences. The skill policy in the EU as well as the OECD skill strategy both provide a firm background to renewing the competence requirements in HE, targeting the improvement of teaching quality. The RDI project conducted by the author’s team focused on identifying the relevant competences of lecturers. This paper gives an insight to what kind of differences were identified among the views of students, lecturers and the representatives of the labour market regarding the content and the importance of HE lecturers’ competences. It also provides a method for how these competences were measured with the application of a professional HR model (RDA, Role Diagrammatic Approach). Finally, the paper provides an overview of the main conclusions drawn from the experiences of the development process as well as from a survey; also, it provides recommendations that were formed on the basis of the RDI project.
Tibor Baráth
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Effect of Music Harmonics and Level of Expertise on Aesthetic Judgment of Music: An ERP Study
The aim of our study was to investigate the influence of harmonic violation on aesthetic judgment of music in music experts and naives. Two groups took part in experiment: music experts (14 subjects, 8 female) and naives (13 subjects, 7 female). Music experts were graduates and undergraduates of music school, played musical instruments or educated in the field of singing from an average of 9.79 years. The group of naive did not have any special musical education besides normal school education. Participants were asked to listen the stimuli and judge whether each of them sounds beautiful (when the beauty judgment task was required) or correct (when the correctness judgment task was required). We used excerpts of five Bach’s chorales as a stimuli. Each of the excerpt was modified in order to obtain three versions of one excerpt differing only in one chord. This chord (‘target’) sounded: congruous, ambiguous or incongruous to harmonic context of the piece. Several differences in event-related potential (ERP) parameters were observed in aesthetic processing of music. The findings of our study showed that an affective aspect of music processing is reflected by LPP – Late Positive Potential. This effect differ in respect of degree of harmonic violation indicating that the incongruous chords enhanced the higher amplitudes. What is more, there was significant difference between two judgments (aesthetic or correctness) showing that the LPP is sensitive on task manipulation. Higher amplitudes for beauty judgment task than for correctness judgment task indicted that aesthetic evaluation is perceived as an affective task. However, our study did not confirm the influence of music expertise on affective aspect of music aesthetic processing. All our results are discussed in the context of previous studies.
Marta Jaśkiewicz, Piotr Francuz, Emilia Zabielska-Mendyk
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Neural Basis of Intuitive Decision Making
Understanding the neural mechanisms of intuitive decision making is an important social and economic issue which may contribute to optimizing the managerial procedures and to support the evaluation of intuitive critical decisions made under pressure of time. The review aims to discuss the cognitive and affective processes underlying intuition, the differences between the neural correlates underlying rational and intuitive process of decision making as well as the possible differences in neural mechanisms of expert versus ‘non-expert’ intuition. Since the research concerning intuition are relatively new on the ground of neuroscience, the current state of knowledge is very limited and answers for many questions are unclear. However, the following review distinguish several neural correlates that are assumed to be specific for the intuitive process, the intuitive decision making and even for the expert intuition.
Barbara Wachowicz
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Error-Related Negativity as a Neural Indicator of Error Processing and its Modulation by Individual Differences
The error-related negativity (ERN) is a negative deflection in the event-related potential that is maximal approximately 50 ms after the commission of an error. The ERN is generated in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region implicated in both cognitive and emotional processing. Despite a growing body of research concerning the ERN, discussion regarding its functional significance remains open. The conflict and reinforcement-learning theories point at specific, ACC-related processes, involved in generation of the ERN and describe the process of error monitoring itself in human brain. Above mentioned theories explain what happens on neuronal level when individual commits an error, but they do not emphasize the crucial role of individual differences in modulating the ERN magnitude. On the other hand, there is a dynamically growing area of research suggesting that ERN is heritable, stable over time and linked with several dimensions of personality, that may interact with motivational, contextual factors and moderate the magnitude of the ERN. This approach defines ERN as a neural marker of a neurobehavioral trait and variation in its amplitude is linked with individual differences having impact on emotional or motivational aspects of error processing. Therefore, we would focus on selective literature review concerning ERN in the light of motivational factors and individual differences and present implications and future research directions in this area.
Justyna Mojsa-Kaja ab, Magda Gawlowska b, Ewa Beldzik ab, Aleksandra Domagalik ab, Tadeusz Marek ab
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Creativity and Its Neural Correlates
Creativity, understood in terms of the ability to generate original, adequate, potentially useful and feasible solutions for ill-defined and complex problems, is being considered as a very important aspect of human functioning. The growing belief that we are entering the „Conceptual Age”, in which creativity will be valued even more, leads to the question of how it can be enhance. Resulting from seeing this ability in an egalitarian way, many training programs were formed, but the knowledge about biological basis and neural mechanisms underlying creative process is fragmentary and rarely taken into consideration. Among scientists there is a consensus that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is mainly responsible for the creativity. The results of studies conducted using functional magnetic resonance technique (fMRI) also indicate differences derived from training and stimulation with e.g. ideas of others in the pattern of brain activity during performance of tasks requiring creative thinking. Thus, the knowledge from neuroscientific area seems to be useful for developing methods that have a potential to enhance the level of creativity.
Koryna Lewandowska
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Interdisciplinary Development of Products. A Case Study from Industry and Health Care
In this paper, on basis of case studies from distant areas; mining, rescue and surgery some aspects of the interdisciplinarity will be discussed. They show, that the interdisciplinary knowledge transfer and migration of interdisciplinary teams across branches are needed. It gives the chance for better use of human and knowledge resources.
Teodor Winkler
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
The Analysis of Multiculturalism in the Context of Development of Academic Spin-Off Companies in the United States of America
It is wildly agreed upon in the literature on creativity that the diversity of the team is conducive to developing more creative ideas. The most breakthrough innovations are developed on the border between different worlds, areas or fields. This observation leads to the greater need of a cultural competence of the innovators, manifested in their ability to understand, communicate and cooperate with people from different ethnic and socio-economic background, as well as different life experience and educational history. The case of multiculturalism is especially important in American university spin-off companies. These types of companies are frequently an example of combining two levels of multiculturalism. Firstly, their employees might have diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Secondly, they operate within two worlds – of the academia and the industry. Those two worlds have different modes of operating, goals and organizational cultures, which leads to different mindsets of their representatives and results in communication difficulties. Spin-off companies as intermediaries in the knowledge and technology transfer process play a significant role in overcoming these problems.
Anna Szopa, Justyna Bandoła
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
E-learning Methods in the Knowledge Transfer Between Surgical Tools Manufacturers and Hospital. A Case Study from Laparoscopy
Laparoscopy is one of the rapidly developing domains in surgery. Together with this development it can be observed the systematic growth of tools and equipment complexity as well as changes in surgical procedures and the modes of using surgical instruments. Particularly the development and complexity of surgical tools is related to their shape, fields of using them, tendency to integration functions of several tools and creating multifunctional tools. Such direction of surgical tools development is positive, especially for patients, because of better efficiency and effectiveness of surgery or lower risk of infections, but it could cause certain problems for medical staff both for surgeons and scrub nurses. These problems concern (1) ergonomic failures what `can be lead to fatigue or even musculoskeletal disorders of surgeons and (2) knowledge advantage for medical staff who have to absorb difficult and multidisciplinary knowledge of how to use the surgical laparoscopic instruments in proper and efficiently way.The reason of mentioned problems are on the one hand the gaps in ergonomic knowledge among designers and manufacturers, on the other hand the poor knowledge transfer between manufacturers and end-users in hospitals.Taking into account these problematic aspect of designing and using laparoscopic tools, the solutions based on e-learning methods for better communication and knowledge transfer between manufacturers and hospitals are proposed and described on the example of case study. Particularly e-learning methods enable understanding the ergonomic needs and the expectations of end-users as well as are the opportunity to include surgeons in tools designing process.
Joanna Bartnicka
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Knowledge Transfer in the Lifecycle of Medical Tools and Equipment
The article presents the results of research on transfer of knowledge in the life cycle of medical tools and equipment as an example surgical tools. The authors attempted to identify ambiguous areas in the process of knowledge transfer between life cycle participants like manufacturer, distributor and end user. This research was focused on causes and effects of lack of information, communication problems, ergonomic effects associated with exploitation medical tools. An important aspect is to recognize the location of problems and try to eliminate them at the roots, in order to overcome the effects and shorten the cycle time from design to finish product. These activities may be realized out by identifying ways of communication between different groups of participants of the process and to identify the forms and form of information resources and knowledge resources in the present cycle.
Katarzyna Mleczko, Teodor Winkler
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Ethical Challenges of the Occupational Safety Technician
Professional ethics is an emerging phenomenon, arising from the constant changes in society and from the consequent challenges imposed to the occupational safety technicians. The purpose of this investigation is to trace an overview of the knowledge of ethical principles applied to the professional practice of the Portuguese technicians, in order to establish the basic principles that should figure in an ethical code of conduct. The method applied addressed both the technicians, by applying a survey and several prominent individuals, by conducting interviews to retrieve relevant data regarding the evolution of the professional practice in Portugal. The results indicate several aspects of the professional conduct that need to be addressed in an ethical guideline. The Portuguese professionals seem to act substantially driven by technical principles, lacking more profound reflection oriented by ethical standards. The development of a Portuguese Ethical Code of Conduct for Occupational Safety Technicians based on the results gathered could reflect the idiosyncrasies of practice in the country, as well as address the most sensitive aspects reported by the professionals. Such code should stand as a high priority issue of both professional and scientific community, promoting the quality of practice and elevating the profession to its highest level.
Vanessa Coutinho, José Carlos Sebastião, Rogério Filipe, Miguel Corticeiro Neves
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Integrated System for Monitoring the Psychical and Physical Conditionsof Road Vehicle Drivers
From our previous research among bus drivers, in difficult, but not extreme situations, we observed an increase in blood pressure (up to 200mm Hg), cardiac arrhythmias, ischemia, etc. Such reactions may be dangerous to healthy people, but they are extremely risky for drivers with a history of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular incidents. Thus, certifying driving ability of such persons is a serious problem for the medical expert. In this case, tests in a driving simulator, where it is possible to arrange a variety of stressful situations and also to monitor the reaction of the cardiovascular system and brain electrical activity may be a great advantage. Therefore we developed a first-in-Poland integrated system for examination and training of road vehicle drivers, including model stand for simulating of driving vehicle under conditions of road traffic, and a set of methods of psychological and physiological tests to be applied for testing drivers. This simulator enables to assess physiological response to different traffic situations, to analyze the effects of work environment on psychical and physical abilities of drivers, to test the feasibility of the physiological methods for assessing the fatigue and drowsiness, to evaluate the effect of monotony and static loads on the development of driver's fatigue, to assess changes in psychomotor abilities of drivers resulting from exposure to harmful and noxious agents at workplace.
Alicja Bortkiewicz, Elżbieta Gadzicka, Marta Walczak, Marcin Kosobudzki, Zbigniew Jóźwiak, Piotr Viebig, Agata Szyjkowska, Teresa Makowiec-Dabrowska, Bronislaw Kapitaniak, Jadwiga Siedlecka
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Visual Strategy on Driving in Simulator of Urban Bus
A group of professional bus drivers have done two rides on a city bus simulator – the fist one into the city centre and the other one in the suburbs. One dangerous incident was simulated during each ride. The visual strategy was evaluated by the FaceLab system comprising two pairs of cameras, one facing the road and the other to the left side. The main selected criteria of the visual strategy included the number and duration of gaze fixations. Furthermore, eyelid movements (PERCLOS index) and pupil diameter were recorded. The results were subjected to a statistical analysis.
Bronislaw Kapitaniak, Elżbieta Gadzicka, Marta Walczak, Marcin Kosobudzki, Zbigniew Jóźwiak, Piotr Viebig, Agata Szyjkowska, Teresa Makowiec-Dabrowska, Jadwiga Siedlecka, Alicja Bortkiewicz
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Analysing Eye-Tracking Data: From Scanpaths and Heatmaps to the Dynamic Visualisation of Areas of Interest
To understand the visual behaviors of people searching for information on Web pages, heatmaps and Areas Of Interest (AOI) are generally used. These two techniques bring interesting information on how Web pages are scanned by several users. However, two remarks can be expressed: the first one relates to the fact that heatmaps are usually used to represent fixation areas for a given task after it is completed. Thus, it does not represent fixation areas over time. The second remark relates to the use of AOI, which must be defined by the analyst. We present a method, which address these two points. This bottom-up approach is based on a mean-shift clustering procedure for the identification of areas of interest, which takes into account the temporal aspect. The identification of AOI is thus data driven. This approach allows us to show the evolution of a posteriori AOI both in space and time. The limitations and implications of this new approach are discussed
Gautier Drusch, J.M. Christian Bastien, Stéphane Paris
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Methodological Considerations about Motor Activity Tracking In Real Life Settings
We discuss the development of innovative methods for evaluating motor activity in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Incorporating both biomarkers (heart rate variability, electromyography, inertial sensors) and phenomenological components, this programme is designed for use in the patient’s home, during normal daily activities and is, as such, readily transferrable to other ergonomic applications. Our presentation will focus particularly on wireless and multi-sensor technology developed as an integrated system allowing us to collect multi-dimensional data sets. Procedures adapted for such ecological situations will be presented, including robust analysis with regard to impulsive noise and artefacts; analysis of nonstationary signals
O Buttelli a, R Parry b, M Jabloun a, Ph Ravier a, H P Ma c, N Ferveur d, E Lalo b
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Studying Falls in Real Life Situations: Coupling Subjective Experience and Biomarkers in the Design of Innovative Methods
Complementary to the presentation discussing the use of an onboard system designed to monitor gait in real-life situations, we will show here how the analysis of data from both biosensors and the psychophenomenological evaluation of subjective experience may provide pertinent information about hazardous situations. We will present a methodology that has proven to be successful in demonstrating how behavior emerges during the context of motorcycle riding. Here, our attention will focus more specifically on gait phenomena, balance and falls in patients with Parkinson's disease. The method consists of documenting the whole process (instead of using isolated data) with consideration to details regarding the patient's perspective of the situation in question (self-report, self-awareness, subjective experience). We argue that confronting the data at different levels of activity (which are typically addressed independently of the other) assists to verify, interpret and objectify the observed phenomena.
Ross Parrya, Samuel Aupetitb, Olivier Buttellic, Jacques Riffd, Marie Laure Weltera, Elodie Laloa
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
A New E-learning System focusing on Emotional Aspects using Eye Tracking
For e learning, we must create effective interaction between e-learning content and learners. In particular, increasing learner motivation by stimulating their interest is crucial. Eye tracking devices measure eye positions and eye movement. To date, few e-learning systems have derived emotions from eye tracking data. In this study, we explore which eye tracking indexes are related to learner emotions. We designed and implemented a prototype and evaluated it experimentally.
Saromporn Charoenpit a, Michiko Ohkura b
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Paradigm of Unity - a New Holistic Paradigm in Management Sciences. Ergonomic and Spiritual Aspect in Theory and Practice
A paradigm of unity and its application in the management sciences is presented in the paper. This innovative approach has anthropological, economic, cultural, ergonomic, and spiritual aspect and concerns each human activity. These aspects are discussed in the paper. The novel character of the paper lies in the consideration of ergonomics and spirituality as constitutive elements of the management process. The paradigm of unity in economics and management sciences is expressed by the idea of the economy of communion which has been implemented for more than twenty years in 800 enterprises worldwide. The analysis of management processes in these businesses (also from the ergonomic and spiritual point of view) is presented in this paper. The results of research carried out in 110 businesses worldwide are presented. For six content dimensions of paradigm of unity the weight coefficients are evaluated on the basis of experts’ opinion and then the degree of implementation of these dimensions in practice is determined, based on questionnaires filled in by entrepreneurs. The conformity of the idea with practice is quantitatively calculated and is used as a numerical metric of the quality of management. This approach in management sciences is a new one. It is a modern, holistic and integrated vision of management.
Stanisław Grochmal
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Assigning Technology Resources to Innovation Projects in the Aspect of Games Theory – (Managerial Implications of G. Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons”)
Many of contemporary businesses depend on the projects and project management. Additionally, most of the companies understand the value of innovations and technological developments. Consequently, the topic of managing the technology projects gets special attention of managers. One of the most interesting areas in the technology projects’ management is resourcing (especially in the context of allocating technology human resources to the tasks).The intent of this article is to understand how to utilize limited resources in most efficient way or to reach maximum gain (payoff). In the article, some assumptions reflecting real life situations were taken into consideration. This should bring the benefit of “practical” implications, that contemporary managers may be interested in.
Tomasz K. Bednarczyk
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Facing Complexity in Online Marketing on Consumer Market
The text focuses on the most important aspects of marketing complexity in the online consumer market, the knowledge of which is essential for the proper functioning of companies, consumer communities and markets. Marketing complexity is influenced by two opposite phenomena: The use of Internet-based communication translates into an increase of consumers' bargaining power in the relationships with companies, but at the same time there exist factors decreasing its influence, such as the possibility to monitor customers' behaviours through social media and far-reaching individualisation of communication, which contribute to increasing of the power of persuasion from the part of companies.
Jacek Wójcik, Tymoteusz Doligalski
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
Work Engagement and Burnout - Consequences of Mismatch Between Individual and Work Environment
The aim of the paper is to explore neural correlates of burnout and its neurophysiological nature. At present, burnout syndrome is described mainly in psychological paradigm referring to self-report measures and neuropsychological, performance-based tests. There are only a few studies that characterize biomarkers of burnout and provide some evidence for its neural specification. These findings allow to formulate assumptions supporting the neural nature of burnout and indicate the importance of implementing objective neuroscience methods in this research area. Most of burnout studies that used objective measurements (e.g. fMRI, EEG) are related to cognitive capabilities and impairments. There is still insufficient research exploring emotional component of burnout. The aim of this paper is to investigate neuronal characteristics of both, cognitive and emotional responses in burnout syndrome. In the proposed research model, several components of brain activity are considered to be accurate indicators of these two essential consequences of mismatch between individual and work circumstances. The burnout syndrome still lacks well defined diagnostic criteria. Describing the objective indicators of the phenomena may influence further research in this area which in turn may be of great importance not only in description and explanation of the burnout syndrome, but also in diagnosis and prevention.
From the Neural Perspective
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
How Cognitive Complexity and Need for Closure Determines Individual Differences in Implicit Leadership Theories
According to Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs), the stimulus term “leader” is used as a superordinate cognitive category to classify others as leaders or non-leaders (Lord, Foti, & DeVader, 1984). At the basic level, perceivers classify others more specifically depending on the social setting in which leaders operate as organizational leaders, military leaders, political leaders, etc. At the basic level cognitive attributions of leaders’ traits and behaviours are made by comparing specific stimulus e.g. sports leader with an ideal example (prototype) of that category. At the lowest level leaders’ categorizations are made by recalling into memory the actual individuals, which perceiver regards as the representative of the category. The described research on Offermann, Kennedy and Wirtz’ ILTs structure was based Results of our research demonstrated that people describe political and organizational leaders differently. Additionally, men have different ILTs than women. The individual differences in implicit leadership theories is a function of cognitive processes of the perceivers. Empirical results showed, the categorization of political and organizational leaders are determined by other pattern of perceivers’ cognitive characteristics as cognitive simplicity vs complexity, need for closure and Kirton cognitive style. Analyses of multiple relationships were conducted by employing multivariate procedures of structural equation modelling.
Beata Bajcar a Jolanta Babiak a, Czeslaw S. Nosal b
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings
A Team Communication Evaluation Method for Assessing the Smoothness of Task Flow
Effective communication is essential for positive teamwork across team tasks, and thus team communication analysis methods have received much attention; however, because of the great variety of team tasks, it is often impossible to apply analysis methods and findings about the relationships between team performance and communication in one team task to those of another task. It might therefore be necessary to develop analysis and assessment methods of team communication independent of team task characteristics. Our previous study developed an evaluation index of team communication named “Smoothness of Task Flow (STF),” which was expected to represent how well a lower task step smoothly shifts to the next higher one across different tasks; however, the index has certain problems and has been never applied to another task. The present study improves the evaluation index and validates the improved index by conducting team experiments in which the task requires more complicated communication than did the previous task. The results suggest that the improved index provides more accurate assessment of the smoothness of team communication than did the previous index. The characteristics of the improved index are also discussed using case studies.
Kohei Nonose, Taro Kanno, Kazuo Furuta
Open Access
Article
Conference Proceedings