Nowadays, we are surrounded by artifacts that are capable of adaptive behavior, such as electric pots, boiler timers, automatic doors, and robots. The literature concerning human beings’ conceptions of “traditional” artifacts is vast, however, little is known about our conceptions of behaving artifacts, nor of the influence of the interaction with such artifacts on cognitive development, especially among children. Since these artifacts are provided with an artificial “mind,” it is of interest to assess whether and how children develop a Theory of Artificial Mind (ToAM) which is distinct from their Theory of Mind (ToM). The study examined a new theoretical scheme named ToAM (Theory of Artificial Mind) by means of qualitative and quantitative methodology among twenty four 5-7 year old children from central Israel. It also examined the effects of interacting with behaving artifacts (constructing versus observing the robot’s behavior) using the “RoboGan” interface on children’s development of ToAM and their ToM and looked for conceptions that evolve among children while interacting with behaving artifacts which are indicative of the acquisition of ToAM. In the quantitative analysis it was found that the interaction with behaving artifacts, whether as observers or constructors and for both age groups, brought into awareness children’s ToM as well as influenced their ability to understand that robots can behave independently and based on external and environmental conditions. In the qualitative analysis it was found that participating in the intervention influenced the children’s ToAM for both constructors and for the younger observer. Engaging in building the robot’s behavior influenced the children’s ability to explain several of the robots’ behaviors, their understanding of the robot’s script-based behavior and rule-based behavior and the children’s metacognitive development. The theoretical and practical importance of the study is discussed.

This paper provides an overview of the impact that social media has on the development of collaborative learning within a cohort environment in a doctoral program. The researchers surveyed doctoral students in an education program to determine how social media use has influenced the doctoral students. The study looked at the following areas: a) the ability of social media use to develop a collaborative learning environment, b) access to social media content which supports learning, and c) whether social media use has contributed to the enhancement of the doctoral students’ academic achievement and learning progress. As social media use and on-line learning become more prevalent in education, it is important to continue to understand the impact that social media has on improving students’ ability to achieve their academic goals. This study provides insight on how doctoral students used social media and how social media use has influenced academic development in their cohort environment. In addition, this paper provides a discerning view into the role social media plays when developing a collaborative learning environment in a cohort.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of the research was to examine the relationship between the sub-dimensions of organizational culture perceptions, such as task culture, success culture, support culture, and bureaucratic culture and job motivations of ISMEK Lifelong Learning Center teachers. Background: It is thought that if teachers’ perceptions of organizational culture and levels of job motivation are assessed and the effects of school culture on the motivation level of teachers investigated, solutions to identified problems can be developed. Methodology: The study was conducted using survey research. The sample population consisted of 354 teachers working for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Lifelong Learning Center (ISMEK). The personal information form prepared by the researchers, the School Culture Scale developed by Terzi (2005) and the Job Motivation Scale developed by Aksoy (2006) were administered to the teachers. Contribution: This study will contribute to research on the job motivations of teachers involved in adult education. Findings: The findings indicated that task culture differs according to gender. Teachers report high levels of job motivation, but job motivation varies with gender, education level, and number of years working at the ISMEK Lifelong Learning Center. A significant relationship was found between sub-dimensions of organizational culture and job motivation. Organizational culture explains more than half of the change in job motivation. The sub-dimensions of organizational culture, task culture, achievement culture, and support culture were found to be significantly predictive of job motivation. Recommendations for Practitioners: In order to increase motivation of teachers, a success-oriented structure should be formed within the organization. It is necessary for teachers and managers to support each other and to establish a support culture in their institutions. In order to establish a culture of support, managers need to receive in-service training. Recommendation for Researchers: This study was carried out in the ISMEK Lifelong Learning Center and similar studies can be done in classrooms, training centers, and study centers. Impact on Society: Teachers working in adult education should be afforded a more comfortable working environment that will positively impact job motivation, resulting in a higher quality of education for students. Therefore, this research may contribute to an increase in the number of students who engage in lifelong learning opportunities. Future Research: This qualitative study utilized a relational survey model. A more in-depth qualitative study employing observation and interviews is warranted.

Web portals have been used as information products to deliver personalized, feature-rich, and flexible information needs to Internet users. However, all portals are not equal. Most of them have relatively a small number of visitors, while a few capture the majority of surfers. This study seeks to uncover the factors that contribute the perceived quality of a general portal. Based on 21 factors derived from an extensive literature review on Information Product Quality (IPQ), web usage, and media use, an experimental study was conducted to identify the factors that are perceived by web portal users as most relevant. The literature categorizes quality factors of an information product in three dimensions: information, physical, and service. This experiment suggests a different clustering of factors: Content relevancy, Communication interactiveness, Information currency, and Instant gratification. The findings in this study will help developers find a more customer-oriented approach to developing high-traffic portals.

Aim/Purpose: This study was undertaken to shed light on how the use of a heteronormative mobile dating application creates an environment to promote psychological empowerment among female users within the online dating scene. The study focused on a mobile dating application which specifically challenges traditional gender roles, namely Bumble. Background: Mobile dating applications have become an increasingly popular medium for people to meet potential partners. However, users’ pre-existing social norms and biases inform how they communicate on these platforms, and stereotyped judgment about women perpetuates ideologies which continue to oppress them within the cyber world. Despite this, very little research has investigated the experiences of female users of mobile dating applications. Methodology: The study was qualitative in nature, and 10 semi-structured interviews of female Bumble users were conducted. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Contribution: The study contributes to knowledge by highlighting how key features of mobile dating applications influence various aspects of psychological empowerment as articulated in the findings. Findings: The findings show that the Bumble application supports Intrapersonal variables of Psychological Empowerment of female users relative to Domain Specific Perceived Control and Self-Efficacy, Motivation to Control and Perceived Competence. However, Domain Specific Perceived Control can also be negatively impacted due to self-doubt when female users receive little to no matches. Interactional variables of psychological empowerment are also supported, as Bumble allows female users to be critically aware of the need to screen potential partners, understand relevant causal agents, develop skills relative to initiating conversations and mobilize resources. However, Bumble is not effective in supporting behavioral variables of psychological empowerment because of limitations in the tool’s functionality and the behavior of the people interacting on the platform. Recommendations for Practitioners: The findings are important as they suggest the need to enhance the features available to female users in order to better suit their needs and desire to take control of their lives in the context of dating and/or friendship. Recommendation for Researchers: The findings reveal the need for a change of perceptions and attitudes on the part of some users to create a safer and more considerate virtual dating space, to truly achieve psychological empowerment. Future Research: More research is required on how male and female users domesticate mobile dating applications and how the use of these applications influence their daily lives from a socio-cultural point of view.

Psychological empowerment has been studied extensively over the past few decades in a variety of contexts and appears to be especially salient within dynamic and complex environments such as healthcare. However, a recent meta-analysis found that psychological empowerment relationships vary significantly across studies, and there is still a rather limited understanding of how empowerment operates across levels. Accordingly, we advance and test a multi-level model of empowerment which seeks to better understand the unique and synergistic effects between unit and individual empowerment in hospital units. Analysis of data involving 544 individuals in 78 units, collected from multiple sources over three different time periods, revealed that unit empowerment evidenced a synergistic interaction with individual-level psychological empowerment as related to individuals' job performance, as well as an indirect effect on performance via individual empowerment, while controlling for previous performance levels. Notably, these effects were significant at relatively high, but not at relatively low levels of unit empowerment. Furthermore, we found that unit voice climate increased unit empowerment and thereby enhanced individual psychological empowerment. These findings suggest that, in complex and dynamic environments, empowering work units is an important means by which leaders can enhance individuals' performance.

We develop and test a theoretical model that explores how individuals appraise different types of stressful job demands and how these cognitive appraisals impact job performance. The model also explores how charismatic leaders influence such appraisal and reaction processes, and by virtue of these effects, how leaders can influence the impact of stressful demands on their followers' job performance. In Study 1 (n = 74 U.S. Marines), our model was largely supported in hierarchical linear modeling analyses. Marines whose leaders were judged by superiors to exhibit charismatic leader behaviors appraised challenge stressors as being more challenging, and were more likely to respond to this appraisal with higher performance. Although charismatic leader behaviors did not influence how hindrance stressors were appraised, they negated the strong negative effect of hindrance appraisals on job performance. In Study 2 (n = 270 U.S. Marines) charismatic leader behaviors were measured through the eyes of the focal Marines, and the interactions found in Study 1 were replicated. Results from multilevel structural equation modeling analyses also indicate that charismatic leader behaviors moderate both the mediating role of challenge appraisals in transmitting the effect of challenge stressors to job performance, and the mediating role of hindrance appraisals in transmitting the effect of hindrance stressors to job performance. Implications of our results to theory and practice are discussed. Keywords: stress, leadership, job performance, multilevel modeling

Hierarchy is a reality of group life, for humans as well as for most other group-living species. And yet, there remains considerable debate about whether and when hierarchy can promote group performance and member satisfaction. We suggest that progress in this debate has been hampered by a lack of clarity about hierarchy and how to conceptualize it. Whereas prevailing conceptualizations of hierarchy in the group and organization literature focus on inequality in member power or status (i.e., centralization or steepness), we build on the ethological and social network traditions to advance a view of hierarchy as cascading relations of dyadic influence (i.e., acyclicity). We further suggest that hierarchy thus conceptualized is more likely to capture the functional benefits of hierarchy whereas hierarchy as inequality is more likely to be dysfunctional. In a study of 75 teams drawn from a wide range of industries, we show that whereas acyclicity in influence relations reduces conflict and thereby enhances both group performance and member satisfaction, centralization and steepness have negative effects on conflict, performance, and satisfaction, particularly in groups that perform complex tasks. The theory and results of this study can help to clarify and advance research on the functions and dysfunctions of hierarchy in task groups.

Using data from 607 subjects organized in 161 teams (84 laboratory teams and 77 organizational field teams), we examined how leader humility influences team interaction patterns, emergent states, and team performance. We developed and tested a theoretical model arguing that when leaders behave humbly, followers emulate their humble behaviors, creating a shared interpersonal team process (collective humility). This collective humility in turn creates a team emergent state focused on progressively striving toward achieving the team's highest potential (collective promotion focus), which ultimately enhances team performance. We tested our model across three studies wherein we manipulated leader humility to test the social contagion hypothesis (Study 1), examined the impact of humility on team processes and performance in a longitudinal team simulation (Study 2), and tested the full model in a multistage field study in a health services context (Study 3). The findings from these lab and field studies collectively supported our theoretical model, demonstrating that leader behavior can spread via social contagion to followers, producing an emergent state that ultimately affects team performance. Our findings contribute to the leadership literature by suggesting the need for leaders to lead by example, and showing precisely how a specific set of leader behaviors influence team performance, which may provide a useful template for future leadership research on a wide variety of leader behaviors.

Research concerning why and how to promote social interaction and learner reflection in management education and training is somewhat underdeveloped. In this investigation, we used a predictive, quasi-experimental design with 246 students from a business school in Colombia who were enrolled in 10 sections of a leadership course to examine expected effects of instructional methods that promoted different levels of social interaction and reflection on self-reported learning behaviors (dialogue and reflection activities), self-efficacy for class performance, and instructors' assessments of students' skill demonstration (team work, communication, influence, and work proficiency and effort). In comparisons to students participating in instructional conditions with less social interaction and fewer reflective activities, students participating in an instructional condition that promoted higher levels of these activities exhibited considerably greater student-student dialogue, instructor-student dialogue, and reflection. These learning behaviors in turn led to enhanced self-efficacy for class performance and skilled activity. In addition, students' perceptions of psychological safety partially mediated relationships between instructional method and dialogical and reflective activities. The implications of these findings for coupling action, dialogue and reflective activities in management education and training as well as avenues for future research are discussed.

John McFall becoming the first person with a physical disability to be effectively cleared for future missions by ESA

Over US missile deployment in Japan, Moscow and Beijing will jointly engage in 'double counteraction,' says Zakharova

The influence of Latin-American culture on music has been quite profound. It has gently filtered its way into nearly every genre of music from classical ... Read more

The post The Influence of Latin American Rhythms on Piano Music appeared first on CMUSE.

The influence of W.A. Mozart across all areas of culture has been colossal, from the Baby Mozart Project through to contemporary song. You can hardly ... Read more

The post Mozart’s Operatic Influence on Modern Pop Music appeared first on CMUSE.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) was a composer who, like many of his contemporaries, drew deep inspiration from his natural environment. His passion for his home country ... Read more

The post The Influence of Nature in the Compositions of Jean Sibelius appeared first on CMUSE.

Reggae music has had a profound influence on many aspects of Western culture from fashion to popular music. Across the United Kingdom, the USA and ... Read more

The post The History and Influence of Reggae Music appeared first on CMUSE.

Your social media timelines are filled with influencers; people with huge numbers of fans and followers who are sometimes paid to promote products. Influencers haven’t always been transparent about paid content but new guidelines could change that.

Also, plogging, the fitness trend that’s making streets cleaner all over the world; Durian, the fruit that’s all the rage in South-East Asia but to Westerners smells like old socks; Plus, Lucas Hixson the man who saves dogs from danger zones; and from the beaches of Southern California the story of a Senegalese Olympic hopeful and her trainer.

(Logos of the Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, Instagram and LinkedIn applications are displayed on the screen of an Apple iPhone. Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images)

Late last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology signed a five-year extension of a multimillion-dollar partnership with Skolkova, a Russian technology research institute. This partnership has long raised espionage fears among foreign policy experts and the FBI. The contract renewal was a reversal in an MIT-Russia partnership that appeared to be dormant. The extension came just three months after the US federal government announced it is investigating MIT’s compliance with reporting requirements for the Russian money it has received in connection with the project.

Also, the Trump administration is taking a closer look at funding from Chinese donors because it suspects widespread economic espionage; and President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines says he's following through on a promise to kick US troops out of his country.

(Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Viktor Vekselberg (L-R centre front), Renova Group Board Chairman and Skolkovo Foundation President, visit the Skolkovo Technopark in Moscow. Credit: Alexander Astafyev/Getty Images)

The Russian Embassy called the officials' announcement “baseless” in an emailed statement, saying Russia “has not interfered and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States.”

The post Federal agencies say Russia and Iran are ramping up influence campaigns targeting U.S. voters appeared first on Boston.com.

LinkedIn can provide an effective way to bypass gatekeepers and connect with your prospects directly.

In Episode 41, the S+H examines the July issue’s feature story on influence in safety. Also, Mike Kassman from CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training discusses trenching and excavation safety in the “Five Questions With …” segment.

Boston — Do you eat lunch with co-workers? The food choices – healthy or unhealthy – of your lunch bunch are very likely to influence your own choices, results of a recent study led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Massachusetts Amherst show.

Ingredients that affect gut health are characterized as prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, and newly defined “postbiotics.” Ongoing research is elucidating the mechanisms by which these ingredients confer health benefits, demonstrating how trending ingredients such as fiber affect the gut microbiome on a molecular level, by interaction with microorganisms either directly or within intestinal cells. 

Mounting research into causes of dementia and cognitive decline have produced the recognition that two of the potentially modifiable risk factors into these conditions are diet and exercise. In a recent study at King’s College, London 418 adults age 65 and up were tested every two to three years over a 12-year period. Results revealed that cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s Disease were linked to levels of neural stem cell death. Importantly, underlying which was low levels of vitamin D, carotenoids, and lipids

The ingredients most likely to influence purchasing decisions were probiotics, vitamins and minerals and fiber.

Houzz's 2024 study reveals nearly half of pet owners prioritize their animals when renovating, and flooring was the most popular upgrade.

Children's Geographies; 02/01/2024
(AN 175911763); ISSN: 14733285
Academic Search Premier

Children's Geographies; 02/01/2024
(AN 175911761); ISSN: 14733285
Academic Search Premier

Children's Geographies; 04/01/2024
(AN 178088143); ISSN: 14733285
Academic Search Premier

Journal of Family History, Ahead of Print. This article examines the reasons for the underdevelopment of commercial health insurance as a family risk-sharing mechanism, from the viewpoint of traditional Chinese clan culture. Using genealogical data to create city-level indicators of clan culture, this study investigates its impact on the demand for family-oriented commercial health insurance. […]

The post The Influence of Clan Culture on the Demand for Family Commercial Health Insurance: The Case of China was curated by information for practice.

The post New York Child Care Subsidy Staff Describe How Policy Implementation Influences Latino Families’ Receipt of Subsidies was curated by information for practice.

Two Christian activists urged fellow believers to remain active in politics, contending that they have an obligation to become “major influencers” in American society by restoring civility to political discourse. 

A Christian social media influencer recently shared a video of his encounter with a satanist and his prayer for the man that has since gone viral. 

The National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc. (NMFTA) served as the lead sponsor for the CyberTruck Challenge. This year marked the third year that NMFTA had served in this sponsorship role.

A global study by Checkout.com, the global digital payments company, highlights the consumer buying behaviour which is powering today’s digital economy. The research, conducted across the UK, US, UAE and China, reveals a number of trends, including the growing spending power of Generation Alpha.

Explore Aquarius Season's unique energy, from innovation to social connection. Learn how this zodiac period influences creativity, relationships, and self-expression.

This study examines the quality of charge density obtained by fitting the multipole model to wavefunctions in different basis sets. The complex analysis reveals that changing the basis set quality from double- to triple-zeta can notably improve the charge density related properties of a multipole model.

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a widely used method for nanoparticle characterization. A common approach to analysing nanoparticles in solution by SAXS involves fitting the curve using a parametric model that relates real-space parameters, such as nanoparticle size and electron density, to intensity values in reciprocal space. Selecting the optimal model is a crucial step in terms of analysis quality and can be time-consuming and complex. Several studies have proposed effective methods, based on machine learning, to automate the model selection step. Deploying these methods in software intended for both researchers and industry raises several issues. The diversity of SAXS instrumentation requires assessment of the robustness of these methods on data from various machine configurations, involving significant variations in the q-space ranges and highly variable signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) from one data set to another. In the case of laboratory instrumentation, data acquisition can be time-consuming and there is no universal criterion for defining an optimal acquisition time. This paper presents an approach that revisits the nanoparticle model selection method proposed by Monge et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 202–212], evaluating and enhancing its robustness on data from device configurations not seen during training, by expanding the data set used for training. The influence of SNR on predictor robustness is then assessed, improved, and used to propose a stopping criterion for optimizing the trade-off between exposure time and data quality.

Count-loss characteristics of photon-counting 2D detectors are demonstrated for eight bunch-modes at SPring-8 through Monte Carlo simulations. As an indicator, the effective maximum count rate was introduced to signify the X-ray intensity that the detector can count with a linearity of 1% or better after applying a count-loss correction in each bunch-mode. The effective maximum count rate is revealed to vary depending on the bunch-mode and the intrinsic dead time of the detectors, ranging from 0.012 to 0.916 Mcps (megacounts per second) for a 120 ns dead time, 0.009 to 0.807 Mcps for a 0.5 µs dead time and 0.020 to 0.273 Mcps for a 3 µs intrinsic detector dead time. Even with equal-interval bunch-modes at SPring-8, the effective maximum count rate does not exceed 1 Mcps pixel−1. In other words, to obtain data with a linearity better than 1%, the maximum intensity of X-rays entering the detector should be reduced to 1 Mcps pixel−1 or less, and, in some cases, even lower, depending on the bunch-mode. When applying count-loss correction using optimized dead times tailored to each bunch-mode, the effective maximum count rate exceeds the values above. However, differences in the effective maximum count rate due to bunch-modes persist. Users of photon-counting 2D detectors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the count-loss characteristics dependent on bunch-mode, and to conduct experiments accordingly. In addition, when designing the time structure of bunch-modes at synchrotron radiation facilities, it is essential to take into account the impact on experiments using photon-counting 2D detectors.

The crystal structures of 16 boron sub­phthalo­cy­an­ines (BsubPcs) with structurally diverse axial groups were analyzed and com­pared to elucidate the impact of the axial group on the inter­molecular π–π inter­actions, axial-group inter­actions, axial bond length and BsubPc bowl depth. π–π inter­actions between the iso­indole units of adjacent BsubPc mol­ecules most often involve concave–concave packing, whereas axial-group inter­actions with adjacent BsubPc mol­ecules tend to favour the convex side of the BsubPc bowl. Furthermore, axial groups that contain O and/or F atoms tend to have significant hy­dro­gen-bonding inter­actions, while axial groups containing arene site(s) can participate in π–π inter­actions with the BsubPc bowl, both of which can strongly influence the crystal packing. Bulky axial groups did tend to disrupt the π–π inter­actions and/or axial-group inter­actions, preventing some of the close packing that is seen in BsubPcs with less bulky axial groups. The atomic radius of the heteroatom bonded to boron directly influences the axial bond length, whereas the axial group has minimal impact on the BsubPc bowl depth. Finally, the crystal growth method did not generally appear to have a significant impact on the solid-state arrangement, with the exception of water occasionally being incorporated into crystal structures when hygroscopic solvents were used. These insights can help with the design and fine-tuning of the solid-state structures of BsubPcs as they continue to be developed as functional materials in organic electronics.

Energy-dispersive Laue diffraction (EDLD) is a powerful method to obtain position-resolved texture information in inhomogeneous biological samples without the need for sample rotation. This study employs EDLD texture scanning to investigate the impact of two salivary peptides, statherin (STN) and histatin-1 (HTN) 21 N-terminal peptides (STN21 and HTN21), on the crystallographic structure of dental enamel. These proteins are known to play crucial roles in dental caries progression. Three healthy incisors were randomly assigned to three groups: artificially demineralized, demineralized after HTN21 peptide pre-treatment and demineralized after STN21 peptide pre-treatment. To understand the micro-scale structure of the enamel, each specimen was scanned from the enamel surface to a depth of 250 µm using microbeam EDLD. Via the use of a white beam and a pixelated detector, where each pixel functions as a spectrometer, pole figures were obtained in a single exposure at each measurement point. The results revealed distinct orientations of hydroxyapatite crystallites and notable texture variation in the peptide-treated demineralized samples compared with the demineralized control. Specifically, the peptide-treated demineralized samples exhibited up to three orientation populations, in contrast to the demineralized control which displayed only a single orientation population. The texture index of the demineralized control (2.00 ± 0.21) was found to be lower than that of either the STN21 (2.32 ± 0.20) or the HTN21 (2.90 ± 0.46) treated samples. Hence, texture scanning with EDLD gives new insights into dental enamel crystallite orientation and links the present understanding of enamel demineralization to the underlying crystalline texture. For the first time, the feasibility of EDLD texture measurements for quantitative texture evaluation in demineralized dental enamel samples is demonstrated.

How do analyst relations professionals sort through the noise to help deliver the not-so-secret sauce for a company's success? We spoke with ESET's expert to find out.

Los Angeles, CA (August 17, 2016) Despite their extensive national press coverage, campaign visits might not be worth presidential candidates' time and resources. A new study out today finds that voters are largely unaware of and unresponsive to campaign visits. The study was published as part of a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (a journal from SAGE Publishing) titled "Elections in America."

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Bread is a universal language. Nearly every culture has historical roots in forming judicious combinations of water and grains, seeds, pulses, starches, and other substrates, often functionally lightened with some sort of leavening, and perhaps a dash of salt for flavor. It’s the quintessential expression of science, art, and sustenance.

Workers are frequently the first to be exposed to the effects of climate change, and they are exposed for longer periods of time and at higher intensities than the broader population. Given this, when it comes to climate change adverse effects on workers, such as disease or injury, may be among the first indicators of the health effects of climate change on the general public.