Emergent Collaboration on Twitter: A Case Study of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

This paper explores the organizing elements that foster emergent collaboration within large-scale communities on online social platforms like Twitter. This study is based on a case study of the #BlackLivesMatter social movement and draws on organizing dynamics and online social network literature, combined with the analysis of 2050 tweets collected from days where the movement had high levels of activity. Drawing on the literature review, we propose a framework consisting of three organizing elements: structure, engagement, and communicative content that are essential in analyzing online collaboration. This paper uses this framework to analyze the collected tweets and identify how actors organize and engage in large-scale communities founded by emergent online collaboration. This paper identifies characteristics of how these key elements and a dynamic interplay between the two logics of action foster emergent collaboration in social movements using Twitter

The effect of door-to-balloon delay in primary percutaneous coronary intervention on clinical outcomes of STEMI: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

BACKGROUND: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a medical emergency in which sudden occlusion of coronary artery(ies) results in ischemia and necrosis of the cardiac tissues. Reperfusion therapies that aim at reopening the occluded artery remain the mainstay of treatment for AMI. Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), which enables the restoration of blood flow by reopening the occluded artery(ies) via a catheter with an inflatable balloon, is currently the preferred treatment for AMI with ST segment elevation (STEMI). The door-to-balloon (D2B) delay refers to the time interval counting from the arrival of a patient with STEMI at a hospital to the time of the balloon inflation (or stent deployment) that reopens the occluded artery(ies). Reducing this delay in primary PCI is thought to be an important strategy toward achieving better patient outcomes. Unfortunately, significant reduction of D2B delay in the USA over the last decade has not been shown to be associated with improved STEMI mortality. It has been suggested that the lack of impact could be due to the expanding use of primary PCI in STEMI as well as the survival cohort effect, leading to a shift toward a higher risk population receiving the procedure. Others have suggested that reduction in D2B delay may not be as impactful as expected, given that it only represents a small fraction of the total ischemic time. Although most existing evidence have pointed to the presence of a beneficial effect of shorter D2B delay, some inconsistencies however exist. This study aims to synthesize available evidence in order to answer the following questions: (1) what is the overall effect of D2B delay on clinical outcomes in patients with STEMI treated with primary PCI? (2) What factors explain the differences of the effect estimates among the studies? (3) What are the important strength and limitation of the existing body of evidence? METHOD: We will search PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry, CINAHL Database, and the Cochrane Library using a predefined search strategy. Other sources of literature will include proceedings from the European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the EUROPCR, and the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database. We will include data from observational studies (case-control and cohort study design) and randomized control trials (that have investigated the relationship of D2B time and clinical outcome(s) in an adult (older than 18) STEMI population). Mortality (cardiac related and all-cause) and incidence heart failure (HF) have been prioritized as the primary outcomes. All eligible studies will be assessed for risk of bias using the Risk Of Bias in Non-randomized Studies - of Interventions tool. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, and Evaluation (GRADE) framework will be used to report the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations. We will proceed to analyze the data quantitatively if the pre-specified conditions are satisfied. DISCUSSION: Recent discussion on the negative findings of improved D2B delay over time being unrelated to better STEMI outcomes at the population level has reminded us of an important knowledge gap we have on this domain. This systematic review will serve to address some of these key questions not previously examined. Answers to these questions could clarify the controversies and offer empirical support for or against the suggested hypotheses. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42015026069 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0304-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

First year medical students’ learning style preferences and their correlation with performance in different subjects within the medical course

Background: Students commencing their medical training arrive with different educational backgrounds and a diverse range of learning experiences. Consequently, students would have developed preferred approaches to acquiring and processing information or learning style preferences. Understanding first-year students’ learning style preferences is important to success in learning. However, little is understood about how learning styles impact learning and performance across different subjects within the medical curriculum. Greater understanding of the relationship between students’ learning style preferences and academic performance in specific medical subjects would be valuable. Methods: This cross-sectional study examined the learning style preferences of first-year medical students and how they differ across gender. This research also analyzed the effect of learning styles on academic performance across different subjects within a medical education program in a Central Asian university. A total of 52 students (57.7% females) from two batches of first-year medical school completed the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire, which measures four dimensions of learning styles: sensing-intuitive; visual-verbal; active-reflective; sequential-global. Results: First-year medical students reported preferences for visual (80.8%) and sequential (60.5%) learning styles, suggesting that these students preferred to learn through demonstrations and diagrams and in a linear and sequential way. Our results indicate that male medical students have higher preference for visual learning style over verbal, while females seemed to have a higher preference for sequential learning style over global. Significant associations were found between sensing-intuitive learning styles and performance in Genetics [β = −0.46, B = −0.44, p < 0.01] and Anatomy [β = −0.41, B = −0.61, p < 0.05] and between sequential-global styles and performance in Genetics [β = 0.36, B = 0.43, p < 0.05]. More specifically, sensing learners were more likely to perform better than intuitive learners in the two subjects and global learners were more likely to perform better than sequential learners in Genetics. Conclusion: This knowledge will be helpful to individual students to improve their performance in these subjects by adopting new sensing learning techniques. Instructors can also benefit by modifying and adapting more appropriate teaching approaches in these subjects. Future studies to validate this observation will be valuable

Users’ privacy perceptions in interorganizational information sharing

Existing privacy theories shed light on the mechanisms at work when users decide to share information with an organization – yet do not sufficiently encompass the common practice of sharing user information across organizations. This research study introduces the concept of Interorganizational Information Sharing (IIS) and theorizes on boundary uncertainty and boundary control to develop a model of privacy perceptions in IIS. To empirically validate this model, we collect data through an online survey in the context of smart fitness devices. Our research aims at advancing and articulating the concept of IIS, conceptualizing privacy perceptions based on that understanding, and subsequently relating those perceptions to behavioral intentions to protect privacy in IIS. We thereby contribute to IS privacy literature, considering the complexity of information sharing relationships in a granular manner

On Rapport Uncertainty in the Sharing Economy - Extending the Categories of Uncertainty

Sharing Economy platforms enable a close physical interaction among strangers by mediating goods and services owned or provided by individuals. This close physical interaction is an inherent part of the service experience, is highly individual and thus can hardly be evaluated beforehand. This gives rise to a novel type of service uncertainty that we term as rapport uncertainty. Building on the hierarchical decomposition of service quality, we construct an uncertainty model that encompasses three uncertainty categories consumers face when sharing a resource: rapport, technical, and environment uncertainty. Our empirical study in a ride sharing context reveals that rapport uncertainty differs from other categories of uncertainty and significantly reduces the intention to transact with a service provider. Our findings illustrate how the concept of uncertainty must be extended to reflect the nature of shared service experiences. We suggest that owners of these platforms should actively manage this aspect through platform design

Unraveling User Perceptions of Interorganizational Information Sharing

Collecting large amounts of user information is becoming an increasingly important source of value for businesses. Such data sets may be expanded through engaging in value co-creation with other organizations. Sharing user information across organizations, however, might evoke users’ privacy concerns. Existing mechanisms and concepts developed in prior information privacy research on sharing information between one user and one organization may no longer apply as multiple organizations become involved. This creates the necessity to understand more granularly how users perceive privacy situations that involve sharing their information across organizations – and how their concerns may be alleviated through control mechanisms. Employing the lens of Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory, we conceptualize this phenomenon as Interorganizational Information Sharing (IIS) and theorize on perceived uncertainty and control to unravel user perceptions in IIS. We present our ideas for a research model, as well as our planned methodology for empirical validation