Crisis bargaining literature has predominantly used formal and
qualitative methods to debate the relative efficacy of actions,
public words, and private words. These approaches have overlooked
the ...reality that policymakers are bombarded with information and
struggle to adduce actual signals from endless noise. Material
actions are therefore more effective than any diplomatic
communication in shaping elites’ perceptions. Moreover, while
ostensibly “costless,” private messages provide a more precise
communication channel than public and “costly” pronouncements. Over
18,000 declassified documents from the Berlin Crisis of 1958–63
reflecting private statements, public statements, and White House
evaluations of Soviet resolve are digitized and processed using
statistical learning techniques to assess these claims. The results
indicate that material actions have greater influence on the White
House than either public or private statements; that public
statements are noisier than private statements; and that private
statements have a larger effect on evaluations of resolve than
public statements.
This study aimed to utilise the characteristics of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, including the adjustable correlated colour temperature (CCT) and illuminance levels, to evaluate the effects of ...various CCT and illuminance level combinations on visual perception and their patterns under different lighting conditions. Five white light balances with different CCTs were created together with four levels of illuminance. Based on the patterns of visual perception, when the CCT increased with the illuminance levels, the participants' visual perception changed from dim, boring, and sleepy to intense, vivid, energetic, and bright. As the CCT decreased, the participants gradually perceived the lighting as warm and relaxing. As illuminance levels increased, dim and unpleasant feelings progressively changed to bright and pleasant ones. The study attempted to identify lighting combinations that can respond to different psychological needs and can be used as a guide in the future design of lighting equipment.
Practitioner summary: Appropriate lighting conditions could aid individuals in increasing the quality of life. This study conducted an experiment to evaluate the effects of various correlated colour temperature and illuminance level combinations on visual perception by using LED lighting. The results showed the effect of the different lighting combinations on the visual perception of the participants.
Abbreviation: LED: light-emitting diode; CCT: correlated colour temperature; K: Kelvin; lx: Lux; CIE: Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage; ANSI: American National Standards Institute
In previous studies, the frequency of error factors associated with medical adverse events seems to be the only criterion for understanding the distribution of error factors in hospitals. However, ...the types of error that occur most frequently in hospitals are not necessarily the most important. Therefore, this study integrated human error analysis and fuzzy TOPSIS to reconcile this discrepancy. The purpose of the study is to identity the important human error factors in emergency departments (ED) in Taiwan. Human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS) was used to analyze 35 ED adverse events to define the error factors. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methods such as analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) were applied to evaluate the importance of error factors. Results showed that decision errors, crew resource management, inadequate supervision, and resource management were the important human error factors related to ED adverse events. This study recommends that MCDM should be applied to further analyze the results based on the criteria.
•The systematic method of human errors analysis and MCDM was used in this research.•HFACS was applied to analyze medical adverse events in ED.•TOPSIS and AHP were used to assess the important human error factors in ED.•Sensitivity analysis was used to inspect the robustness of the results of TOPSIS.•This is the first study to integrate human errors analysis and MCDM method in ED.
Abstract
Mental fatigue is a common phenomenon in modern people, especially after a long period of mental work. Individuals frequently have to make critical decisions when in a mentally fatigued ...state. As an important and complex cognitive function, risk decision-making might be influenced by mental fatigue, which is consequent with increased distraction and poor information processing. However, how mental fatigue shapes individuals’ decision-making remains relatively unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of mental fatigue on risk decision-making performance and risk-preference in a simple gambling task, using both behavioral methods and event-related potential techniques. Forty young adults were divided into a mental fatigue group and a no-fatigue group and participated in the experiments. Results showed that individuals with mental fatigue tended to be more risk-averse than those without fatigue when facing risk options. The P300 amplitudes were smaller and FRN amplitudes were larger in the mental fatigue group than in the no-fatigue group. These findings provide insight into a relationship between mental fatigue and risk decision-making, from the perspective of the neurological mechanism.
The goal of this study is to analyze the adverse drug events, using the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS), and to identify the causality between the error factors. Twenty‐five ...cases related to medication errors were identified. Seven experts were recruited to form an expert team for this study. The HFACS and root cause analysis were utilized in this study to identify the causal factors and the root causes of medication errors. The frequency of each error factor was recorded, and odds ratio was applied to measure the strength of the relevance of the error factors between adjacent levels of the HFACS. The results showed that 222 errors were identified and the main pathways and subpathways of medication errors from Level 4 to Level 1 of the HFACS were arranged in this study. According to the results, the deficiencies in organizations could be the main reasons causing adverse drug events in Taiwan.
Creativity is essential for success in business, especially in the contemporary world where innovations are a cornerstone of competitive advantage. A large body of literature has examined many ...factors which influence creative abilities with the work environment being the factor of increasing importance. Creativity has been associated with the work environment through a number of theoretical frameworks and empirical studies. However, the relationship between the work environment and creativity in different cultures has not been explored sufficiently. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by linking the concept of a creativity-supporting work environment and culture. To that end, elements of the work environment (physical, socio-organisational, and fun in the workplace) and creative personality have been analysed on multinational samples. The results clearly point that the relationship exists between dimensions of the national culture (individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and power distance) and specific elements of a creativity-supporting work environment.
Practitioner summary: Companies experience high pressure for generating creative ideas. As a result, stimulating employees' creativity has become a key strategic aim. This study, through cross-cultural primary research, provides clear managerial implications and practical advice for successful implementation and quality adoption of the creativity-supporting work environment worldwide.
Abbreviations: A-FOs: activity-based flexible offices; AVG: average; CDQS: creativity development quick scan; CP: creative personality; CPS: creative personality scale; FWP: fun in the workplace; HF/E: human factors and ergonomics; IDV: individualism; MAS: masculinity; MBA: Master of Business Administration; PDI: power distance; PWE: physical work environment; SWE: socio-organisational work environment; UAI: uncertainty avoidance; USA: United States of America; WE: work environment
Contemporary studies of conflict have adopted approaches that minimize the importance of negotiation during war or treat it as a constant and mechanical activity. This is strongly related to the lack ...of systematic data that track and illustrate the complex nature of wartime diplomacy. I address these issues by creating and exploring a new daily-level data set of negotiations in all interstate wars from 1816 to the present. I find strong indications that post-1945 wars feature more frequent negotiations and that these negotiations are far less predictive of war termination. Evidence suggests that increased international pressures for peace and stability after World War II, especially emanating from nuclear weapons and international alliances, account for this trend. These original data and insights establish a dynamic research agenda that enables a more policy-relevant study of conflict management, highlights a historical angle to conflict resolution, and speaks to the utility of viewing diplomacy as an essential dimension to understanding war.
How does battlefield activity affect belligerents’ behavior during wartime negotiations? While scholars have studied when and why warring parties choose to negotiate, few insights explain what ...negotiators do once seated at the table. I argue that actors engage in obstinate negotiation behavior to signal resolve when undergoing contentious and indeterminate hostilities. I explore this claim by analyzing all negotiation transcripts and associated daily military operations reports from the Korean War. Using text-based, machine learning, and statistical methods, I show that high levels of movement or casualties in isolation produce clear information on future trends, thus yielding more substantive negotiations, while more turbulent activity featuring high movement and casualties in tandem produces cynical negotiations. Moving past contemporary literature, this study explores micro-level dynamics of conflict and diplomacy, builds a theoretical bridge between two perennial views of negotiation, and provides a framework for studying war by applying computational methods to archival documents.
Extant scholarship on interstate war and conflict resolution predominantly utilizes formal models, case studies, and statistical models with wars as the unit of analysis to assess the impact of ...battlefield activity on war duration and termination. As such, longstanding views of war have not been tested systematically using intraconflict measures, and deeper studies of war dynamics have also been hampered. I address these gaps by creating and introducing the Interstate War Battle (IWB) dataset, which captures the outcomes and dates of 1,708 battles across 97 interstate wars since 1823. This article describes the sources used to create these data, provides definitions, and presents descriptive statistics for the basic battle data and several daily-level measures constructed from them. I then use the data to test the implications of two major theoretical perspectives on conflict termination: the informational view, which emphasizes convergence in beliefs through battlefield activity; and Zartman’s ripeness theory, which highlights costly stalemates in fighting. I find suggestive evidence for informational views and little support for ripeness theory: new battlefield outcomes promote negotiated settlements, while battlefield stagnation undermines them. The IWB dataset has significant implications, highlights future research topics, and motivates a renewed research agenda on the empirical study of conflict.
INTRODUCTION: The current research was to investigate pilots' visual scan patterns in order to assess attention distribution during air-to-air maneuvers.METHODS: A total of 30 qualified mission-ready ...fighter pilots participated in this research. Eye movement
data were collected by a portable head-mounted eye-tracking device, combined with a jet fighter simulator. To complete the task, pilots had to search for, pursue, and lock on a moving target while performing air-to-air tasks.RESULTS: There were significant differences in pilots'
saccade duration (ms) in three operating phases, including searching (M = 241, SD = 332), pursuing (M = 311, SD = 392), and lock-on (M = 191, SD = 226). Also, there were significant differences in pilots' pupil sizes (pixel2), of which the lock-on phase was the largest (M
= 27,237, SD = 6457), followed by pursuit (M = 26,232, SD = 6070), then searching (M = 25,858, SD = 6137). Furthermore, there were significant differences between expert and novice pilots in the percentage of fixation on the head-up display (HUD), time spent looking outside the cockpit, and
the performance of situational awareness (SA).DISCUSSION: Experienced pilots have better SA performance and paid more attention to the HUD, but focused less outside the cockpit when compared with novice pilots. Furthermore, pilots with better SA performance exhibited a smaller pupil
size during the operational phase of lock on while pursuing a dynamic target. Understanding pilots' visual scan patterns and attention distribution are beneficial to the design of interface displays in the cockpit and in developing human factors training syllabi to improve the safety
of flight operations.Yu C-S, Wang EM, Li W-C, Braithwaite G, Greaves M. Pilots' visual scan patterns and attention distribution during the pursuit of a dynamic target. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2016; 87(1):40-47.
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