This paper presents research on how knowledge brokers attempt to translate opaque algorithmic predictions. The research is based on a 31-month ethnographic study of the implementation of a learning ...algorithm by the Dutch police to predict the occurrence of crime incidents and offers one of the first empirical accounts of algorithmic brokers. We studied a group of intelligence officers, who were tasked with brokering between a machine learning community and a user community by translating the outcomes of the learning algorithm to police management. We found that, as knowledge brokers, they performed different translation practices over time and enacted increasingly influential brokerage roles, namely, those of messenger, interpreter, and curator. Triggered by an impassable knowledge boundary yielded by the black-boxed machine learning, the brokers eventually acted like “kings in the land of the blind” and substituted the algorithmic predictions with their own judgments. By emphasizing the dynamic and influential nature of algorithmic brokerage work, we contribute to the literature on knowledge brokerage and translation in the age of learning algorithms.
Because new technologies allow new performances, mediations, representations, and information flows, they are often associated with changes in how coordination is achieved. Current coordination ...research emphasizes its situated and emergent nature, but seldom accounts for the role of embodied action. Building on a 25-month field study of the da Vinci robot, an endoscopic system for minimally invasive surgery, we bring to the fore the role of the body in how coordination was reconfigured in response to a change in technological mediation. Using the robot, surgeons experienced both an augmentation and a reduction of what they can do with their bodies in terms of haptic, visual, and auditory perception and manipulative dexterity. These bodily augmentations and reductions affected joint task performance and led to coordinative adaptations (e.g., spatial relocating, redistributing tasks, accommodating novel perceptual dependencies, and mounting novel responses) that, over time, resulted in reconfiguration of roles, including expanded occupational knowledge, emergence of new specializations, and shifts in status and boundaries. By emphasizing the importance of the body in coordination, this paper suggests that an embodiment perspective is important for explaining how and why coordination evolves following the introduction of a new technology.
In this essay, I take a postphenomenological perspective on tracing work transformation during the pandemic, arguing that this perspective helps develop novel sensitivities to the nature of work. ...Postphenomenology brings into high relief the view on work as reliant on sensory performances and embodied relations, complementing already rich accounts of work being reliant on discursive interactions, social order, and spatiality. The focus of postphenomenology on ‘non-neutrality’ and the multistability of technology provides a useful lens for revealing a multiplicity of changes, encompassing both augmentations and reductions of work experiences and evaluating their consequences for the actors involved. Finally, its attention to the transparency of technology amidst the embodied experiences gives a handle on the role of materiality in the performance of work and may be taken up as informing design efforts. A case study vignette of physiotherapy work during lockdown is offered as an illustration of applying some of the postphenomenological ideas.
Existing studies on patient data portals are informative with respect to the patient and physician perspectives, yet relatively little attention has been paid to the role of developers. This case ...study focuses on how developers view the meaning and purpose of patient portals and how their perspective differs from that of physicians. The findings show that developers and physicians have different views on whether and how the portals can help achieve transparency, efficiency, and patient empowerment. This misalignment emerges because each group makes sense of the portal through a different frame of how they see patient data, medical work, and patient behavior. The study also finds that developers cope with the frame differences by engaging in practices of coproducing, bypassing, and reframing. The implication of the study is that technological frame analysis needs to incorporate the growing complexity and institutional character of modern technology, the diversity of target groups it serves, and their corresponding frames. The study also suggests that developers, instead of being seen as mere operational IT support, may need to be seen as strategically important actor groups for healthcare organizations—since their practices matter for the strategic agenda of transforming healthcare into a more patient-centric practice.
Is flexibility or formality more useful for organizations that are pursuing improved performance? Organizational structure scholars offer opposing answers to this question, and empirical results have ...been mixed. Our study contributes to this research by describing a mediational model that links organizational flexibility to performance via opportunity exploitation. Specifically, we argue that flexible firms are able to exploit a greater number of opportunities, which, in turn, can improve performance. We also argue that the indirect effect of flexibility on performance via opportunity exploitation is stronger when top executives display higher affective commitment for their firms, meaning that they have a positive emotional attachment to their firms. Top executives with higher affective commitment can mitigate the downsides experienced by the staff of flexible firms, such as uncertainty and negative affect, which improves the outcomes of flexibility. Drawing on a sample of 211 firms and their founders, we find support for our hypotheses.
The lack of tools to monitor the dynamics of (pseudo)hypohalous acids in live cells and tissues hinders a better understanding of inflammatory processes. Here we present a fluorescent genetically ...encoded biosensor, Hypocrates, for the visualization of (pseudo)hypohalous acids and their derivatives. Hypocrates consists of a circularly permuted yellow fluorescent protein integrated into the structure of the transcription repressor NemR from Escherichia coli. We show that Hypocrates is ratiometric, reversible, and responds to its analytes in the 10
M
s
range. Solving the Hypocrates X-ray structure provided insights into its sensing mechanism, allowing determination of the spatial organization in this circularly permuted fluorescent protein-based redox probe. We exemplify its applicability by imaging hypohalous stress in bacteria phagocytosed by primary neutrophils. Finally, we demonstrate that Hypocrates can be utilized in combination with HyPerRed for the simultaneous visualization of (pseudo)hypohalous acids and hydrogen peroxide dynamics in a zebrafish tail fin injury model.
Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is a major cause of cognitive impairment in elderly people. While most research focuses on the role of the classical vascular risk factors in SVD, a description of ...the psychophysiological mechanisms leading to the age‐related brain damage may open new possibilities for prophylaxis. In the current study, we evaluated the associations between emotional abilities, interoception, and age‐related vascular white matter degeneration. The work was influenced, first, by multiple studies recognizing alexithymia as a cardiovascular risk factor; second, by theories of emotions linking body's allostasis and emotional regulation; and third, by neuroimaging data highlighting the shared role of the insular cortex in interoceptive and emotional processing. In a sample of older female adults (N = 30), we performed the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, functional MRI using the heartbeat detection task, and evaluation of white matter microstructural integrity using diffusion weighted imaging. The ability to understand and analyze emotions—one of the four components of emotional intelligence—was found to be associated with higher interoception‐related activation of the right anterior insula and preserved white matter microstructure. We interpret these results in light of the concept of Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding, which proposes that emotional processing, interoception, and allostasis (antecedent top‐down regulation of the body's internal milieu) may rely on the shared neural mechanisms of predictive coding. The study demonstrates feasibility of the investigation of cerebrovascular diseases form a psychophysiological perspective and calls for future research.
Associations between emotional intelligence and age‐related cerebrovascular brain injury are revealed in the context of neuroscientific theories of emotion and interoception, using functional neuroimaging with the heartbeat detection task. We have shown that the ability to understand emotions is related to higher insular activation and to preserved white matter microstructure.
It is generally accepted that oxidative stress plays a key role in the development of ischemia-reperfusion injury in ischemic heart disease. However, the mechanisms how reactive oxygen species ...trigger cellular damage are not fully understood. Our study investigates redox state and highly reactive substances within neonatal and adult cardiomyocytes under hypoxia conditions. We have found that hypoxia induced an increase in H
O
production in adult cardiomyocytes, while neonatal cardiomyocytes experienced a decrease in H
O
levels. This finding correlates with our observation of the difference between the electron transport chain (ETC) properties and mitochondria amount in adult and neonatal cells. We demonstrated that in adult cardiomyocytes hypoxia caused the significant increase in the ETC loading with electrons compared to normoxia. On the contrary, in neonatal cardiomyocytes ETC loading with electrons was similar under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions that could be due to ETC non-functional state and the absence of the electrons transfer to O
under normoxia. In addition to the variations in H
O
production, we also noted consistent pH dynamics under hypoxic conditions. Notably, the pH levels exhibited a similar decrease in both cell types, thus, acidosis is a more universal cellular response to hypoxia. We also demonstrated that the amount of mitochondria and the levels of cardiac isoforms of troponin I, troponin T, myoglobin and GAPDH were significantly higher in adult cardiomyocytes compared to neonatal ones. Remarkably, we found out that under hypoxia, the levels of cardiac isoforms of troponin T, myoglobin, and GAPDH were elevated in adult cardiomyocytes, while their level in neonatal cells remained unchanged. Obtained data contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms of neonatal cardiomyocytes' resistance to hypoxia and the ability to maintain the metabolic homeostasis in contrast to adult ones.
Diabetes is one of the significant risk factors for ischemic stroke. Hyperglycemia exacerbates the pathogenesis of stroke, leading to more extensive cerebral damage and, as a result, to more severe ...consequences. However, the mechanism whereby the hyperglycemic status in diabetes affects biochemical processes during the development of ischemic injury is still not fully understood. In the present work, we record for the first time the real-time dynamics of H2O2 in the matrix of neuronal mitochondria in vitro in culture and in vivo in the brain tissues of rats during development of ischemic stroke under conditions of hyperglycemia and normal glucose levels. To accomplish this, we used a highly sensitive HyPer7 biosensor and a fiber-optic interface technology. We demonstrated that a high glycemic status does not affect the generation of H2O2 in the tissues of the ischemic core, while significantly exacerbating the consequences of pathogenesis. For the first time using Raman microspectroscopy approach, we have shown how a sharp increase in the blood glucose level increases the relative amount of reduced cytochromes in the mitochondrial electron transport chain in neurons under normal conditions in awake mice.
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•A high glycemic status significantly exacerbates the consequences of the ischemic stroke.•A high glycemic status does not affect the generation of H2O2 in the neurons of the ischemic core.•A sharp increase in the blood glucose level increases the loading of the mitochondrial electron transport chain in neurons.
Abstract
For economic agents seeking to organize collectively, opportunism is a central concern – any invasion by opportunistic agents can threaten an organization’s viability. To understand how ...economic agents address this concern, we examine Magnum Photos, an enduring elite cooperative of freelance photographers that screened prospective members based on shared values. We identify two mechanisms through which these shared values engendered non‐calculative trust that renders collective organizing economically viable. We unpack how this values‐based trust attenuates hazards of opportunism and promotes risk bearing and innovation when property rights are appropriately assigned to individual members and the size of the collective organization remains relatively small. We maintain that Magnum can be regarded as a form of collective entrepreneurship adopted by risk bearing agents bound together by shared values. We provide unique insight into how economic agents in industries beset by measurement problems can organize collectively around shared values to mitigate opportunism and innovate.