Improvements and Future Challenges for the Research Infrastructure in the Field “Experimental Economics”

Experimental economics is an established method of generating controlled and replicable empirical knowledge. It is complementary to other empirical methods in the social sciences. The research infrastructure for laboratory experiments is very good in Europe and also in Germany. One useful instrument would be to develop a short socio-economic questionnaire with questions already used in surveys that experimental economists could use to administer to their participants. The analyses of the selectivity of subject pools would then be an easy task. However, among experimental economists no standard exists yet, which limits the comparability of respective data sets. An effort shall be undertaken to “create” such a common questionnaire. The status quo with regard to data reporting is that no standard has emerged yet. There exists one data repository (in the United States) where data of experiments are collected and are freely available. Building up a data archive that integrates (merges) existing data is very laborious and requires substantial scientific inputs of interested researchers.Experimental economics, data archives, selectivity of subject pools

Player–video game interaction: A systematic review of current concepts

International audienceVideo game design requires a user-centered approach to ensure that the experience enjoyed by players is as good as possible. However, the nature of player-video game interactions has not as yet been clearly defined in the scientific literature. The purpose of the present study was to provide a systematic review of empirical evidences of the current concepts of player-video game interactions in entertainment situations. A total of 72 articles published in scientific journals that deal with human-computer interaction met the criteria for inclusion in the present review. Major findings of these articles were presented in a narrative synthesis. Results showed that player-video game interactions could be defined with multiple concepts that are closely linked and intertwined. These concepts concern player aspects of player-video game interactions, namely engagement and enjoyment, and video game aspects, namely information input/output techniques, game contents and multiplayer games. Global approaches, such as playability, also exist to qualify player-video game interactions. Limitations of these findings are discussed to help researchers to plan future advances of the field and provide supplementary effort to better know the role of less-studied aspects. Practical implications are also discussed to help game designers to optimize the design of player-video game interactions

Improving emergency and disaster response management performance : A problem-solving perspective

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to investigate how collective emergency and disaster response management performance can be further improved. Based on four studies, this research contributes with knowledge in two areas.First, collective processes that might improve response management are investigated. In this regard, collective improvisation as a concept is found limited in its usefulness and it is suggested to adopt problem solving as a broader analytical concept. In specific, collective problem representation is argued as potentially useful for investigating how response management performance can be improved. One interview study and one document study explore collective problem representation in response management. Based on interviews with response management professionals, three factors are found to impact the process of achieving a collective problem representation: formal hierarchical structures, legislation and regulations, and, relationships. How problems are represented in common operational pictures, which are widely used for sharing information about problems and solutions in responsemanagement is investigated in an empirical study of a wildfire response. Problems were found to be mainly represented in terms of geographic references and the status of the present wildfires, statements regarding resources, and, in terms of risks or potential consequences, relating to anticipated or future problems. Understandinghow problems are represented in common operational pictures enables an investigation into how these can be improved to better inform the handling of various events. The second area of contribution concerns how we can identify measures that actually improve response management performance. A complementary approach to traditional response management research is suggested: that of combining descriptive and experimental research. Descriptive studies constitute a basis for understandingresponse management problems and suggesting possible solutions. Experiments can thereafter test and evaluate the suggested solutions to see whether these should be further developed. The suggested research approach is exemplified with an experimental study testing a recommended measure in response management practice, namely goal alignment. Even though the findings indicate that goal alignment might not be an effective solution to improve response management performance, further inquiry is warranted. This thesis nevertheless calls for caution whenattributing causal explanation for successful performance to concepts without thoroughly investigating cause and effect between the two, which is supported by the findings related to collective improvisation and goal alignment. A useful way forward can be that of developing articulated models, which should describe the essential performance of the concept in question and have clear, falsifiable, connections between the concept and the outcome

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 338)

This bibliography lists 139 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during June 1990. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and psychology, life support systems and controlled environments, safety equipment, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, and flight crew behavior and performance

The Effect of Security Education and Expertise on Security Assessments: the Case of Software Vulnerabilities

In spite of the growing importance of software security and the industry demand for more cyber security expertise in the workforce, the effect of security education and experience on the ability to assess complex software security problems has only been recently investigated. As proxy for the full range of software security skills, we considered the problem of assessing the severity of software vulnerabilities by means of a structured analysis methodology widely used in industry (i.e. the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (\CVSS) v3), and designed a study to compare how accurately individuals with background in information technology but different professional experience and education in cyber security are able to assess the severity of software vulnerabilities. Our results provide some structural insights into the complex relationship between education or experience of assessors and the quality of their assessments. In particular we find that individual characteristics matter more than professional experience or formal education; apparently it is the \emph{combination} of skills that one owns (including the actual knowledge of the system under study), rather than the specialization or the years of experience, to influence more the assessment quality. Similarly, we find that the overall advantage given by professional expertise significantly depends on the composition of the individual security skills as well as on the available information.Comment: Presented at the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2018), Innsbruck, Austria, June 201