Agents and E-commerce: Beyond Automation

The fast-growing information and communication technologies have shifted the contemporary commerce in both its information and market spaces. Businesses demand a new generation of agile and adaptive commerce systems. Towards this end, software agents, a type of autonomous artifacts, have been viewed as a promising solution. They have been taking an increasingly important part in facilitating e-commerce operations in the last two decades. This article presents a systematized overview of the diversity of agent applications in commerce. The paper argues that agents start playing more substantial role in determining social affairs. They also have a strong potential to be used to build the future highly responsive and smart e-commerce systems. The opportunities and challenges presented by proliferation of agent technologies in e-commerce necessitate the development of insights into their place in information systems research, as well as practical implications for the management

Integrating Students into Interdisciplinary Health and Health Disparities Research Teams

Major initiatives by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as the World Health Organization have produced a large and compelling body of evidence on how to reduce health disparities, which entails having a clear understanding of how social factors shape health and healthcare outcomes. Specifically, there is a need for healthcare professionals to understand social determinants of health (e.g., low socioeconomic status, lack of health insurance, and poor education) and how these lead to disparities in health for people of minority racial and ethnic groups. Little is known about how students are developed as health disparities researchers or how their research experiences impact their views about addressing social determinants of health as a career goal. The purpose of this paper is to describe how health and human sciences students were integrated into three minority HIV prevention and testing projects using the lifelong learning for health professionals (LLHP) principles and activities framework, which entails a focus on: (a) education, (b) community, and (c) organization in the planning, development, implementation, and evaluation of interdisciplinary research

Jefferson Digital Commons quarterly report: April-June 2019

This quarterly report includes: Articles CREATE Day Presentations Dissertations From the Archives Grand Rounds and Lectures House Staff Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Posters JCIPE Student Hotspotting Posters Journals and Newsletters MPH Capstone Presentations Posters Sigma Xi Research Day What People are Saying About the Jefferson Digital Common

Unpacking the Role of Feedback in Virtual Team Effectiveness

Feedback is a cornerstone of human development. Not surprisingly, it plays a vital role in team development. However, the literature examining the specific role of feedback in virtual team effectiveness remains scattered. To improve our understanding of feedback in virtual teams, we identified 59 studies that examine how different feedback characteristics (content, source, and level) impact virtual team effectiveness. Our findings suggest that virtual teams benefit particularly from feedback that (a) combines performance-related information with information on team processes and/or psychological states, (b) stems from an objective source, and (c) targets the team as a whole. By integrating the existing knowledge, we point researchers in the direction of the most pressing research needs, as well as the practices that are most likely to pay off when designing feedback interventions in virtual teams

Human-Machine Teamwork: An Exploration of Multi-Agent Systems, Team Cognition, and Collective Intelligence

One of the major ways through which humans overcome complex challenges is teamwork. When humans share knowledge and information, and cooperate and coordinate towards shared goals, they overcome their individual limitations and achieve better solutions to difficult problems. The rise of artificial intelligence provides a unique opportunity to study teamwork between humans and machines, and potentially discover insights about cognition and collaboration that can set the foundation for a world where humans work with, as opposed to against, artificial intelligence to solve problems that neither human or artificial intelligence can solve on its own. To better understand human-machine teamwork, it’s important to understand human-human teamwork (humans working together) and multi-agent systems (how artificial intelligence interacts as an agent that’s part of a group) to identify the characteristics that make humans and machines good teammates. This perspective lets us approach human-machine teamwork from the perspective of the human as well as the perspective of the machine. Thus, to reach a more accurate understanding of how humans and machines can work together, we examine human-machine teamwork through a series of studies. In this dissertation, we conducted 4 studies and developed 2 theoretical models: First, we focused on human-machine cooperation. We paired human participants with reinforcement learning agents to play two game theory scenarios where individual interests and collective interests are in conflict to easily detect cooperation. We show that different reinforcement models exhibit different levels of cooperation, and that humans are more likely to cooperate if they believe they are playing with another human as opposed to a machine. Second, we focused on human-machine coordination. We once again paired humans with machines to create a human-machine team to make them play a game theory scenario that emphasizes convergence towards a mutually beneficial outcome. We also analyzed survey responses from the participants to highlight how many of the principles of human-human teamwork can still occur in human-machine teams even though communication is not possible. Third, we reviewed the collective intelligence literature and the prediction markets literature to develop a model for a prediction market that enables humans and machines to work together to improve predictions. The model supports artificial intelligence operating as a peer in the prediction market as well as a complementary aggregator. Fourth, we reviewed the team cognition and collective intelligence literature to develop a model for teamwork that integrates team cognition, collective intelligence, and artificial intelligence. The model provides a new foundation to think about teamwork beyond the forecasting domain. Next, we used a simulation of emergency response management to test the different teamwork aspects of a variety of human-machine teams compared to human-human and machine-machine teams. Lastly, we ran another study that used a prediction market to examine the impact that having AI operate as a participant rather than an aggregator has on the predictive capacity of the prediction market. Our research will help identify which principles of human teamwork are applicable to human-machine teamwork, the role artificial intelligence can play in enhancing collective intelligence, and the effectiveness of human-machine teamwork compared to single artificial intelligence. In the process, we expect to produce a substantial amount of empirical results that can lay the groundwork for future research of human-machine teamwork

Developing the Change Agent Competencies of Occupational Therapy University Students: Using a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Approach in a Canadian Program

Canadian occupational therapy (OT) university programs must teach change agent competencies. These include promoting social justice and empowering clients, which United States occupational therapists also do. Change agent competency requirements are challenging to teach and involve multidisciplinary knowledge and non-traditional skills. As few occupational therapists feel competent to act as change agents, university programs must engage in a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) approach and identify areas of improvement. The aim of this study, informed by SoTL, was to document, as described by participants, the pedagogical activities related to teaching the change agent role in an OT program in Canada and explore possible curricular improvements. Two online 90-minute focus group meetings were held: one with ten teaching team members, the other with six current and past students. Participants were questioned regarding current formal and informal curricular activities, barriers that influenced competency development, and activities that could help improve it. Data were analyzed thematically. Actual informative teaching activities, such as ethics and multicultural courses, were deemed helpful but insufficient, with only one transformative course in the curriculum. Barriers such as a rigid, biomedical-based program structure also affected competency acquisition. Solutions to improve acquisition included mentorship and recognition of relevant extracurricular projects by the programs. SoTL offers a reflective lens to learn from collective experiences. This study showed the importance of involving students and faculty in program development and delivery improvements in order to better support educators and program administrators in their mission to meet the needs of vulnerable populations

Tennessee 4-H Center Summer Residential Camping Programs: Settings for Positive Youth Development as Perceived by Youth Campers

Adults involved in residential camping for children claim that the camp experience enhances children’s development in a variety of ways but there is little empirical research to document their claims. The purpose of this research was to explore the nature of the impact of residential camping on youth campers. The relationship between attributes of life skills practiced and the contextual features of the camp environment was the primary area of examination. The demographic variables of grade and gender were also examined to determine if significant differences in program effects existed. The study population included fourth through sixth grade youth attending Tennessee 4-H camps in the summer of 2004. The study sample included all eligible campers of the selected camp week at the four Tennessee 4-H Centers. Seventy-two percent of eligible campers participated, resulting in 720 campers as study participants. The project involved minors and was approved by the University of Tennessee Institutional Review Board and Human Subjects Committee. Data for this study were collected through a self-report survey questionnaire. A series of statistical analyses, including Pearson r correlation and linear regression, were utilized to analyze data from the research question designed to examine how campers perceive the camp environment and life skill practiced, and how the perceived presence of the components of camp predicts the broad range of life skills supported. Analyses revealed that residential campers participating in Junior Camp at the four Tennessee 4-H Centers gave high ratings to four dimensions of the camp environment, including emotional and moral support, physical safety and security, psychological safety and security, and supportive adult relationships. Campers also “agree” that life skills are enhanced at camp, including building relationships, communication and social interaction, decision-making, leadership, self-responsibility, and teamwork and cooperation. The context of the camp environment is found to support life skill practice among residential youth campers at the four Tennessee 4-H Centers. When examining the relationships of the life skills to the broad range of contextual features, together with grade and gender, they account for an average 41.4% of the variance. Although there is a significant relationship between a majority of the life skills and grade or gender, the contribution of grade or gender is minimal compared to the relationship between the life skill and the camp context. This finding indicates that other unknown factors, aside from the contextual features, grade, or gender contribute the remaining 58.6

Developmental Leadership: A New Perspective for Human Resource Development

Research indicates that numerous variables influence an organization’s ability to change and innovate. There is a need to understand a leadership model that focuses on the aspects of human resource development (HRD). Furthermore, it is important for the HRD model of leadership to foster and support creativity and innovation in organizations. In response to this need, this article identifies and explains a developmental leadership model rooted within the HRD framework of organized learning, change, interventions, and development. The focus of this work is to discuss how a developmental leadership style can generate new perspectives in HRD that translate to innovation for the organization. Consequently, this article shares a theoretical model for different roles that make up developmental leadership in practice activities, while exploring the construct of development leadership, its purpose, roles, core values, characteristics, and impact on innovation and creativity. This article explores the potential of Developmental Leadership in HRD as a driver of organizational innovation. The stakeholders involved are organizations, leaders, and followers. A clear understanding of developmental leadership and innovation informs ways of doing business at many levels