20,411 research outputs found
Evolution of Conversations in the Age of Email Overload
Email is a ubiquitous communications tool in the workplace and plays an
important role in social interactions. Previous studies of email were largely
based on surveys and limited to relatively small populations of email users
within organizations. In this paper, we report results of a large-scale study
of more than 2 million users exchanging 16 billion emails over several months.
We quantitatively characterize the replying behavior in conversations within
pairs of users. In particular, we study the time it takes the user to reply to
a received message and the length of the reply sent. We consider a variety of
factors that affect the reply time and length, such as the stage of the
conversation, user demographics, and use of portable devices. In addition, we
study how increasing load affects emailing behavior. We find that as users
receive more email messages in a day, they reply to a smaller fraction of them,
using shorter replies. However, their responsiveness remains intact, and they
may even reply to emails faster. Finally, we predict the time to reply, length
of reply, and whether the reply ends a conversation. We demonstrate
considerable improvement over the baseline in all three prediction tasks,
showing the significant role that the factors that we uncover play, in
determining replying behavior. We rank these factors based on their predictive
power. Our findings have important implications for understanding human
behavior and designing better email management applications for tasks like
ranking unread emails.Comment: 11 page, 24th International World Wide Web Conferenc
Relationship Amongst Technology Use, Work Overload, and Psychological Detachment from Work
Permanent connection to the work world as a result of new technologies raises the possibility of workday extensions and excessive workloads. The present study addresses the relationship between technology and psychological detachment from work resulting from work overload. Participants were 313 professionals from the health sector who responded to three instruments used in similar studies. Through PLS-SEM, regression and dependence analyses were developed, and through the bootstrapping method, significance of factor loadings, path coefficients and variances were examined. Results of the study corroborate a negative effect of technology use on psychological detachment from work and a positive correlation between technology and work overload. Additionally, there is a significant indirect effect of technology on psychological detachment from work as a result of work overload. Findings extend the literature related to the stressor-detachment model, and support the idea that workers who are often connected to their jobs by technological tools are less likely to reach adequate psychological detachment levels. Implications for the academic community and practitioners are discusse
Fatigue crack propagation in a quasi one-dimensional elasto-plastic model
Fatigue crack advance induced by the application of cyclic quasistatic loads
is investigated both numerically and analytically using a lattice spring model.
The system has a quasi-one-dimensional geometry, and consists in two
symmetrical chains that are pulled apart, thus breaking springs which connect
them, and producing the advance of a crack. Quasistatic crack advance occurs as
a consequence of the plasticity included in the springs which form the chains,
and that implies a history dependent stress-strain curve for each spring. The
continuous limit of the model allows a detailed analytical treatment that gives
physical insight of the propagation mechanism. This simple model captures key
features that cause well known phenomenology in fatigue crack propagation, in
particular a Paris-like law of crack advance under cyclic loading, and the
overload retardation effect.Comment: To be published in the International Journal of Solids and Structure
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