Rethinking model prototyping through the MedMNIST+ dataset collection

The integration of deep learning based systems in clinical practice is often impeded by challenges rooted in limited and heterogeneous medical datasets. In addition, the field has increasingly prioritized marginal performance gains on a few, narrowly scoped benchmarks over clinical applicability, slowing down meaningful algorithmic progress. This trend often results in excessive fine-tuning of existing methods on selected datasets rather than fostering clinically relevant innovations. In response, this work introduces a comprehensive benchmark for the MedMNIST+ dataset collection, designed to diversify the evaluation landscape across several imaging modalities, anatomical regions, classification tasks and sample sizes. We systematically reassess commonly used Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Vision Transformer (ViT) architectures across distinct medical datasets, training methodologies, and input resolutions to validate and refine existing assumptions about model effectiveness and development. Our findings suggest that computationally efficient training schemes and modern foundation models offer viable alternatives to costly end-to-end training. Additionally, we observe that higher image resolutions do not consistently improve performance beyond a certain threshold. This highlights the potential benefits of using lower resolutions, particularly in prototyping stages, to reduce computational demands without sacrificing accuracy. Notably, our analysis reaffirms the competitiveness of CNNs compared to ViTs, emphasizing the importance of comprehending the intrinsic capabilities of different architectures. Finally, by establishing a standardized evaluation framework, we aim to enhance transparency, reproducibility, and comparability within the MedMNIST+ dataset collection as well as future research. Code is available at github.com/sdoerrich97/rethinking-model-prototyping-MedMNISTPlus

The group mind of hybrid teams with humans and intelligent agents in knowledge-intense work

Studies regularly demonstrate how well intelligent agents (IAs) can support humans or are demonstrably superior to them in some areas. Given that some tasks likely remain unsuitable for even the most intelligent machines in the mid-future, work in hybrid teams of humans and IAs—where the capabilities of both are effectively combined—will most likely shape the way we work in the coming decades. In an abductive study, we investigate an early example of hybrid teams, consisting of a conversational intelligent agent (IA) and humans, that aims to improve health behavior or change personality traits. We theorize Transactive Intelligent Memory System (TIMS) as a new vision of collaboration between humans and IAs in hybrid teams, based on our empirical insights and our literature review on transactive memory systems theory. Our empirical evidence shows that IAs can develop a form of individual and external memory, and hybrid teams of humans and IAs can realize joint systems of transactive memory—a competence that current literature only ascribes to humans. We further find that whether individuals view IAs merely as external memory aids or as part of their teams’ transactive memory is moderated by the tasks’ complexity and knowledge intensity, as well as the IA’s ability to complete the task. This theorizing helps to better understand the role of IAs in future team-based working processes. Developers of IAs can use TIMS as a tool for requirements formulation to prepare their software agents for collaboration in hybrid teams

What Does Leadership Do to the Leader? : Using a Pattern-Oriented Approach to Investigate the Association between Daily Leadership Profiles and Daily Leader Well-Being

Leader behavior can vary daily, and leaders face multiple demands and problems in one day. Therefore, studying how leader behaviors interplay on the day-level (i.e., daily leadership profiles) is essential. Building on conservation of resources theory as a meta-theory, we investigated which daily leadership profiles exist and whether profile membership changes across one week. Additionally, we examined whether the leadership profiles are differentially related to leaders' daily well-being (i.e., emotional exhaustion, positive and negative affect), mediated by their daily experienced thriving and time pressure. In a diary study over five workdays (N = 289 leaders), we found three qualitatively different daily leadership profiles: one dominated by passive behaviors (passive), one dominated by transformational and contingent reward behaviors (transformational-rewarding), and one with elevated transformational and all transactional behaviors (comprehensive). The transformational-rewarding and the comprehensive profile showed greater stability across the week than the passive profile. Days in the transformational-rewarding profile were most beneficial for leaders' well-being. In contrast, days in the comprehensive profile seemed to be a double-edged sword for leaders, as indicated by higher experienced thriving and positive affect and simultaneously enhanced experienced time pressure, emotional exhaustion, and negative affect. Taken together, we illuminate the interplay of leadership behaviors on the day-level and the differential associations with leaders' well-being

Kulturelle Bildung als Referenzpunkt einer transdisziplinär vernetzten Religionslehrkräftebildung

Die Steigerung der Kohärenz zwischen den an der akademischen Religionslehrkräftebildung beteiligten Fächern und eine schulbezogene Perspektivierung der gelehrten Studiumsinhalte markiert an vielen universitären Standorten eine Herausforderung. Dies führt bisweilen dazu, dass Studierende sich isolierte Wissensbestände aneignen, die sie nur bedingt in unterrichtlicher Hinsicht adaptieren können. Im Beitrag werden Erträge aus einem Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekt präsentiert, das an der Universität Bamberg im Rahmen eines Großprojektes zur Verbesserung der Lehrkräftebildung unter anderem die transdisziplinäre Vernetzung der Religionslehramtsstudiengänge fokussiert hat. Den Referenzpunkt für forschungsbasierte Innovationsmaßnahmen bildete das Thema „kulturelle Bildung“.Improving the coherence between the subjects in academic teacher training for RE is a challenge at many universities. There is also a lack of school-related perspectives in the teaching content. This sometimes leads to students acquiring isolated knowledge that they can only adapt to a limited extent for teaching purposes. The article presents findings from a research and development project at the University of Bamberg that focused on the trans- disciplinary networking of RE degree programmes as part of a large-scale project to improve teacher training. To this end, ‘Cultural education’ formed the reference point for research-based innovation measures

On the macro-political dynamics of conflict inflation

In recent times, the notion that inflation may be the result of conflicting claims by workers and capitalists over the distribution of income has experienced a revival in the academic and policy debate. Against this background, we investigate in this paper the macrodynamics of conflict inflation without and with the additional influence of the political sphere in an extended version of the baseline model of behavioral political cycles proposed by Galí (J Econ Behav Organ 212:50–67, 2023). By means of numerical simulations, we illustrate the reaction of main macroeconomic variables to the emergence of conflicting claims over the distribution of income between workers and capitalists, as well as their possible effects at the political sphere

Taking Individual Choices Seriously : A process perspective of self-selection in strategy work

An increasing body of work investigates the participation of a diverse set of actors in strategy making. We argue that extant research tends to gloss over a fundamental condition underpinning such participation: while participation may reflect a hierarchical mandate, insofar as it relates to the actual involvement of employees, it is the result of a process of self-selection. From this perspective, forms of participative strategizing are neither fully the outcome of deliberate top-down choice, nor do they form a random pattern that is subject to the whims of individual employees. Such forms of strategizing are rather, as we argue in this paper, based on an endogenous logic of whether and how an individual self-selects, and in turn involves her/himself in the process, or not. To conceptualize the broader phenomenon of strategy participation, we draw on practice theory to conceptualize how individuals knowingly choose to involve themselves in strategizing events and we develop in turn a process model of self-selection as an ongoing social accomplishment. This model elaborates different patterns of participation in strategy making (stabilizing and shifting trajectories) with variable emergent outcomes. We end the paper by discussing the implications of our theorizing for ongoing research on open and participatory strategizing, and for the body of work on strategy as practice