Intelligent agent systems for executive information scanning,filtering and interpretation: Perceptions and challenges

Using intelligent agent-based systems to support information processing for executives has not been significantly advanced in both theory and practice. Research into this field tends to focus more on technical aspects than on social perspective. When executives are faced with increasing information availability and uncertainty in the business environment, using intelligent agent-based systems to enhance executives’ information processing capability appears both an opportunity and a necessity. This study examines UK executives’ perceptions of intelligent agent-based systems for information scanning, filtering, interpretation and alerting. The study follows a deductive research design, i.e. hypothesis formulation and testing from the user’s perspective. Qualitative data was collected through focus groups and interviews with executives in the UK. The study produces rich evidence that challenges preconceptions of using agent-based information processing system by executives. The findings develop insight into executives’ behavior in information processing, which has implications for intelligent system developers and organizational information processing practice.     

Him Too? Cristiano Ronaldo and the News Coverage of a Rape Case Allegation

ABSTRACT

This paper uses critical thematic analysis to explore the news media coverage of a rape allegation case against the football player Cristiano Ronaldo. After providing the context of the case, we examine the literature on how rape cases are represented by the news media. We then proceed to a critical thematic analysis of a purposive sample of Portuguese national newspapers, first identifying ten sub-themes in a total of 140 news stories and opinion columns and then considering the patterns of three critical themes that tended to dismiss the allegations, highlight the seriousness of the allegations and neutralize sexual victimization. Each of these considers prevailing ideologies, news values and journalistic practices.     

Towards an understanding of technical change in semi-industrialized countries

Contrary to canventional wisdom, semi-industrialized countries engage, to an appreciable extent, in R&D activities leading to technical change. Much of their technical change activity consists of adaptation of foreign technology to local inputs and market preferences, and is carried out in response to contraints and distortions prevailing in their economies. Moreover, in this context, limited consideration is given to cost reduction, since the main objective is to manufacture under protection and technical change becomes a complementary response to the productive effort.A key factor in the ability to engage in such technical change activities is the availability of technically competent manpower, including scientists, engineers and technicians. At the same time, previous investment in the formation of such technical skills may result in an “excessive” supply of skilled labor, which , coupled with import constraints, will induce eexcessive adaptation of machinery and equipment and may deter from the importaion of new technology embodied in such equipment. Conversely, a pronounced scarcity of technicl skills may impade the adaptation of technology and result in excessive importantion of machinery and limit local efforts of modification, adaptation, etc.Because of the eay technical change is generated, it does not necessarily follow that it is all cases beneficial to the national economies of the countries in which it takes place. However, proper cost benefit accounting of the social returns to technical change activities is complicated by the intractable nature of many of the indirect and secondary effects, like learning from the R&D, or the impact of adaptation to domestic inputs in the development of local suppliers, etc. Also, th interdependencies between technical change and production and between various technical change activities are little understood.conventionall economic theory has contributed little to the understanding of the technical development process. The analysis of technical change in terms of the market failure metaphor, while providing useful insights, is also not very as far as understanding the problem of not very helpful as far as understanding the problem of technical change in semi-industrialized countries is concerned, since the roles of uncertainty and externalities in that situation are quite different from those foreseen in the market failure analysis for industrializerd countries. Special attention should be given to the possible application of the metaphor in trying to improve our understanding of the problems arising in the use of technical information and not only its creation. This would be particularly helpful in connection with the technical development problems of small enterprises not enjoying the benefits of the devesion of labor which are possible in larger firms.     

An assessment arms race and its fallout: high-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship

This research questions the impact of assessment on university teaching and learning in circumstances where all student work is graded. Sixty-two students and lecturers were interviewed to explore their experiences of assessment at an institution that had adopted a modular course structure and largely unregulated numbers of internal assessments. Lecturers rewarded student work with grades and controlled study behaviour with assessment. In some situations it was possible to experience hundreds of graded assessments in an academic year. Students were single-minded when it came to grades and would not work without them. These conditions contributed to competition for student attention and a grading arms race between academics and subjects. In this context, the spaces for achieving certain educational objectives, such as fostering self-motivated learners, were marginalised. Both students and lecturers were unsatisfied with this situation, but neither group could envisage radical change. Students were generally happy to accumulate small marks, while being irritated and stressed by frequent grading. Lecturers were aware of better practices but felt trapped by circumstances. The idea of slow scholarship is introduced to encourage a re-think of such assessment practices, support a positive shift in assessment culture and contribute to the theories of assessment.     

Professional development for scaling pedagogical innovation in the context of game-based learning: teacher identity as cornerstone in “shifting” practice

A dominant discourse on “scaling-up” small-scale innovations based on a limited number of successful classroom trials pervades the educational literature. We view this discourse as insensitive to the professional work of teachers and the human side of school change. Our research investigated how teacher professional development could be conceived and conducted to support take up of digital game-based learning in the context of a 3-week social studies unit on governance and citizenship. Students played a mobile game in their own time. In the classroom, teachers enacted dialogic pedagogy to facilitate students’ meaning-making of their gameplay experience. Our findings indicate that teacher identity, constituted by their interwoven knowing–doing–being–valuing is central to any effort to scale pedagogical and technological innovation. We modified our original model for the appropriation of innovation uptake by teachers to one that places teacher identity as the centrepiece of the model and cornerstone in “shifting” teacher practice.     

Quasi-stiffness of the knee joint in flexion and extension during the golf swing

Biomechanical understanding of the knee joint during a golf swing is essential to improve performance and prevent injury. In this study, we quantified the flexion/extension angle and moment as the primary knee movement, and evaluated quasi-stiffness represented by moment–angle coupling in the knee joint. Eighteen skilled and 23 unskilled golfers participated in this study. Six infrared cameras and two force platforms were used to record a swing motion. The anatomical angle and moment were calculated from kinematic and kinetic models, and quasi-stiffness of the knee joint was determined as an instantaneous slope of moment–angle curves. The lead knee of the skilled group had decreased resistance duration compared with the unskilled group (P < 0.05), and the resistance duration of the lead knee was lower than that of the trail knee in the skilled group (P < 0.01). The lead knee of the skilled golfers had greater flexible excursion duration than the trail knee of the skilled golfers, and of both the lead and trail knees of the unskilled golfers. These results provide critical information for preventing knee injuries during a golf swing and developing rehabilitation strategies following surgery.     

Playing with Our Friends and Making Money: Real Madrid FC’s Economic Model and the Impact of International Friendly Matches, 1955–1963

This paper analyzes how Real Madrid Football Club took advantage of the enormous international prestige that they gained thanks to their victories in the first five editions of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup (between 1956 and 1960) to arrange a large number of international friendly matches that generated great income. Real Madrid created a new strategy by means of friendly matches and international tours that favoured an economic model centred on signing the best players of the day, as a way to attract fans to their stadium and to achieve new victories. Having access to the documentation of the Real Madrid archive has allowed the author to rely on primary sources which support these arguments, sources that hitherto had not been used. In the same way, this research demonstrates the important economic benefits that this activity brought to the Franco dictatorship.