Theories on motivation and their implication for supporting communication, learning and decisionmaking in relation to organic food systems

Efforts to promote communication, learning, decision making and change of individual and/or collective practices in relation to sustainability issues require more or less explicit theories on agents and what motivate them to act. The aim of this paper is to open for an interdisciplinary discussion on how different approaches to motivation make sense or not when focusing on how to develop tools aiming at supporting communica¬tion, learning and decision-making related to organic food systems. We present four quite different approaches to motivation – an economic, an approach challenging conventional understandings of motivational change, a psychosocial, and a relational – and open for a discussion on how these approaches relate to each other and whether it is possible to apply and distinguish between different ways of using the concept of motivation when we cross disciplinary borders in order to cooperate on developing tools for multi-criteria assessment and communication

Social Robots in Collaborative Learning: Consequences of the Design on Students' Perception

International audienc

Current Status and Future Development of Structuring and Modeling Intelligent Appearing Motion

The two topics covered by this symposium were intelligent appearing motion and Virtual Environments (VE). Both of these are broad research areas with enough content to fill large conferences. Their intersection has become important due to conceptual and technological advances enabling the introduction of intelligent appearing motion into Virtual Environments. This union brings new integration challenges and opportunities, some of which were examined at this symposium. This chapter was inspired by the contributions of several of the conference participants, but is not a complete review of all presentations. It will hopefully serve as a basis for formulating a new approach to the understanding of motion within V

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Intermediate Institutions for Interactive Learning Processes in a Governance Perspective: the Case of Aeronautic Industry in Campania Region.

The present paper presents the results of the empirical analysis on fifteen enterprises and twenty no-industrial organizations involved at different level in the Aeronautical Cluster in the Campania Region. Information and data on the selected sample are colleted both by a study of the industrial sector, and also by suitable questionnaires and interviews, that the authors have submitted to the entrepreneurs and to the top managers of either the enterprises or the no-industrial organizations. The authors have focalized their study by applying the SWOT analysis on the following issues: • the cluster’s structure by analysing the relational skill developed by single actors of the cluster and by their impact on the innovation capacity of the enterprises; • the effectiveness of cluster’s governance strategies and how different actors actually participate to the local development processes of the aeronautical industrial sector. On these bases the authors wanted to deduce possible policy options for different kind of actors to optimize the cluster’s governance. Particularly they will describe in the present paper some indications to: 1) the SME’s that present strong relations with customers but low integration with large part of the others actors, i.e. with no-customers enterprises; 2) the large enterprises related to the industrial policies and to the suppliers' governance; 3) the policy makers at local level and the intermediate institutions for a better support of the local enterprises. In fact, the research results are based on the conscientious awareness that the analyzed sector is at a critical point, for which it is necessary that all the actors involved put together their efforts in order to steer and to direct the development process, both by identifying participative mechanisms at local level and also by strengthening those exogenous elements which are able to promote local development. Obviously only part of the criticisms can be solved at local and national level and some of them can be solved only partially. This observation opens the question of policy at the international level which can be determinate only with a more exhaustive integration into transnational networks. The research described in the present paper has been undertaken within the framework of the project: “IKINET – International Knowledge and Innovation Network†(EU FP6, N° CIT2-CT-2004-506242).

USE OF VISUALIZATION IN DIGITAL FINANCIAL REPORTING: THE EFFECT OF SPARKLINE

Information visualization (InfoViz) is an essential component of decision support systems (DSS). Sparklines is a visualization tool. This study examines if Sparklines in digital financial reports aids novice investors and if so under what circumstances? Does it enhances decision-making performance and facilitates effective decision-making experience? Additionally, does it lowers decision making effort; reduces dilution effect from non-relevant data in financial reports and mitigates recency bias in using digital financial reports? The hypothesis is guided by the theory of Proximity Compatibility Principle and the Theory of Cognitive Fit. The research methodology for this study is a repeated measure, controlled laboratory based experiment. A pilot test was conducted in with a sample of forty undergraduate students from Gatton College of Business and Economics. The sample size for this study was 275 subjects. The result revealed that there was significant effect of sparklines on decision making performance and it provides an incremental value over a tabular format. Sparklines makes an important contribution towards mitigating recency bias. The results also suggested that the irrelevant information cue in the shareholder’s report were not able to weaken the impact of relevant information in the audited financial data reported using sparklines. Sparklines increased the attention of the readers to the tables. Subjects performed the integrative tasks and spatial better when using Sparklines. For tasks such as symbolic tasks, Sparkline does not necessarily improve decision performance. It was also found out that decision makers experience greater satisfaction when using sparklines. The overall cognitive load experienced by subjects was lower using sparklines when task demands are high (such as in a bankruptcy prediction task). Interestingly, the results indicate that there is no significant effect of sparkline on decision confidence and time. In conclusion, recall of facts and pattern among subjects was found superior with use of sparkline. This study provides an empirical and justifiable basis for policy makers to make explicit recommendations about use of novel graphics such as sparkline in digital financial reports. Limitations of this study are noted