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A Structured Approach to Online Discussion
Get PDFOnline message boards have transformed public discussion, allowing anyone with internet access to share their thoughts on a broad range of topics. While they present users with a wealth of information, online message boards currently do not provide an effective way to make sense of it. These systems are typically designed as unstructured lists of comments with no overview. This lack of structure provides little incentive for users to interact in ways that benefit the collective, resulting in poor contributions and behaviours that lower the overall quality of discussion. These problems are expected to worsen as the activity on online message boards increase.This dissertation aims to investigate how online message boards can be designed to structure and facilitate online discussion. To start, a novel structured discussion flow is conceptualised. Each step of the discussion flow increases the affordances and information available to the user. This discussion flow is then implemented into Potluck, a working online message board. Potluck is designed to (1) have users actively participate in the discussion and express their views without social influence; (2) help users make sense of the discussion by automatically collecting and summarising similar viewpoints; and (3) add structure and encourage reflection of different viewpoints by having users recursively answer and ask questions.This work is evaluated through three field deployments of Potluck in professional, educational, and event-based settings. Results suggest that the proposed discussion flow and system provides support for different forms of engagement; gives users a relevant overview of the discussion; encourages normatively desirable user participation; and is usable by different user groups. The studies also reveal potential applications of the system beyond online discussion to be explored in future work. Ultimately, design considerations are presented for system designers and engineers to build more effective online message boards than are currently available
Modelling the Longitudinal Dynamics of Paranoia in Psychosis:A Temporal Network Analysis Over 20 Years
Get PDFParanoia is a highly debilitating, core element of psychosis, although is poorly managed. Theories of paranoia mostly interface with short-scale or cross-sectional data models, leaving the longitudinal course of paranoia underspecified. Here, we develop an empirical characterisation of two aspects of paranoia - persecutory and referential delusions - in individuals with psychosis over 20 years. We examine delusional dynamics by applying a Graphical Vector Autoregression Model to data collected from the Chicago Follow-up Study. We adjusted for age, sex, IQ, and antipsychotic use. We found that referential and persecutory delusions are central themes, supported by other primary delusions, and are strongly autoregressive. In a second analysis we demonstrate that social factors influence the severity of referential, but not persecutory, delusions. We suggest that persecutory delusions represent central, resistant states in the cognitive landscape, whereas referential beliefs are more flexible, offering an important window of opportunity for intervention. Our data models can be collated with prior biological, computational, and social work to contribute toward a more complete theory of paranoia and provide more time-dependent evidence for optimal treatment targets
Experimental evidence suggests intergroup relations are, by default, neutral rather than aggressive
Get PDFTouch-and-feel features in “first words” picture books hinder infants’ word learning
Get PDFLittle is known about the role of book features in infant word learning from picture books. We conducted a preregistered study to assess the role of touch-and-feel features in infants’ ability to learn new words from picture books. A total of 48 infants (Mage = 16.75 months, SD = 1.85) were assigned to a touch-and-feel picture-book condition or a standard picture-book condition (no touch-and-feel features) and were taught a novel label for an unfamiliar animal by the researcher during a book-reading session. Infants were then tested on their ability to recognize the label (i.e., choose the target from a choice of two pictures on hearing it named) and to generalize this knowledge to other types of pictures and real-world objects (scale model animals and stuffed animals). Infants in the no touch-and-feel condition performed above chance when choosing the target picture, whereas infants in the touch-and-feel condition did not. Infants in both conditions failed to generalize this knowledge to other pictures and objects. This study extends our knowledge about the role of tactile features in infant word learning from picture books. Although manipulative features like touch-and-feel patches might be engaging for infants, they may detract from learning. Depending on the purpose of the activity, parents and practitioners might find it useful to consider such book features when selecting books to read with their infants
Embedding Owner-Manager Values in the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Context:A Lockean Conceptualization
Get PDFThe salience of owner-manager values to small and medium sized enterprise (SME) engagement with ethics and social responsibility is well documented. Despite this, understanding of how these values are transposed into and become embedded within the culture, norms and practices of SMEs remains limited. Through drawing on a sample of SMEs in the South West of England, this paper identifies the mechanisms which owner-managers seek to use to embed their values within their organisations—rational values sharing, affective values sharing and building values-aligned relationships—while distinguishing a number of barriers they meet in the process. It further builds on previous research and explicates such embedding processes by means of discerning and providing rich descriptions of eight key owner-manager values. The work of Alain Locke on values is drawn on theoretically to frame the embedding of such values as a reflexive, ongoing process, while the utility of his work—largely absent from the field of business ethics so far—is highlighted
The Influence of Digitalization on Machine Manufacturers' Supply Chain to Mitigate Pandemic Challenges
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic had put pressures on manufacturers within the disposable glove industry in Malaysia, leading to order backlogs and uncertainty in supply lead times due to limited supply chain visibility. Machine manufacturers supporting the glove industry, heavily reliant on offshore partners for materials and components, are especially affected. Given the global shortages of PPE products, including gloves, this research aims to explore how digitalization can mitigate supply chain risks for these machine manufacturers. It seeks to identify how digitalization can improve supply chain performance during and after the pandemic in the disposable glove industry in Malaysia, providing valuable insights into digitalization as a risk mitigation strategy and its impact on the supply chain with specific examples from glove manufacturing
Regulating Digital Security by Design?:Implications of The Perspectives From DSbD Programme Stakeholders
Get PDFAs part of the growing necessity for inter-organisational and multi-disciplinary interaction to facilitate complex innovation in digital security, there needs to be greater engagement with regulation in the innovation process. This is particularly true in the case of security technologies that are embedded within wider systems and that are largely invisible to most of the users of that system. This paper describes stakeholders’ perspectives on regulation in the digital security innovation process and evaluates the implications of these perspectives on anticipatory regulation in digital security.Using a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured expert interviews and ethnographic participant-observation, the study draws on the authors’ involvement in a formally organised programme of academia-industry-government collaboration called Digital Security by Design (DSbD).The study highlights a relational dimension to establishing regulatory responsibilities that is enabled through interdisciplinary dialogue. The study contributes to understanding the multifaceted roles of regulation in digital security innovation across organisations and areas of expertise. It does so by identifying four themes in how regulation is perceived in the DSbD programme: ethical imperative, adding value, adoption lever and passive compliance.Incorporating regulatory responsibilities through dialogue early in the innovation process, rather than only once a security technology’s deleterious effects are noticeable, could make digital innovation and transformation safer and better regulated. It can also make regulation successfully adopted, rather than an exercise in damage control or an adversarial process between regulators and organisations.This paper presents original empirical research on how regulation is considered by stakeholders in a novel multi-disciplinary digital security innovation process. It then uses these findings as a basis to evaluate the implications for establishing regulatory responsibilities for a class of security technologies that are embedded within wider systems and that are largely invisible to most of the users of those wider systems
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