Cooperative learning and teamwork effectiveness: impacts of education period on cadets

Abstract Maritime industry is a multinational industry where participants of several languages and cultures operate in a global teamwork environment. Seafarers' operating procedures are totally based on a teamwork infrastructure and climate. By the introduction of Safety Management Systems, shore-based human resources are also included in the wider system of the maritime teamwork of the company where information and communication technologies have accelerated this integration. Goals and tasks for the team, team composition, team-player styles, phases of team development, communication and interpersonal skills, decision making, leadership, and evaluation of team performance are the key elements in developing the structure of the teamwork based systems. Training and development is the main instrument in preparing the human resources for the teamwork climate of modern organizations. Education methodologies that support the characteristics, which encourage teamwork and cooperation, are widely applied in maritime education. Cooperative learning and problem-based learning are among those approaches. This study analyzes the effects of cooperative learning dimensions among the cadets in a maritime higher education institute with regard to teamwork effectiveness. An empirical study has been realized to measure the effects of cooperative learning dimensions on 1) individual performance in groups, 2) effective team members. To comment on the impacts of the education period on these dimensions, the study aims to realize a comparative analysis among the cadets of a senior clas s, before and after a simulator based bridge team management course

Covert Waking Brain Activity Reveals Instantaneous Sleep Depth

The neural correlates of the wake-sleep continuum remain incompletely understood, limiting the development of adaptive drug delivery systems for promoting sleep maintenance. The most useful measure for resolving early positions along this continuum is the alpha oscillation, an 8–13 Hz electroencephalographic rhythm prominent over posterior scalp locations. The brain activation signature of wakefulness, alpha expression discloses immediate levels of alertness and dissipates in concert with fading awareness as sleep begins. This brain activity pattern, however, is largely ignored once sleep begins. Here we show that the intensity of spectral power in the alpha band actually continues to disclose instantaneous responsiveness to noise—a measure of sleep depth—throughout a night of sleep. By systematically challenging sleep with realistic and varied acoustic disruption, we found that sleepers exhibited markedly greater sensitivity to sounds during moments of elevated alpha expression. This result demonstrates that alpha power is not a binary marker of the transition between sleep and wakefulness, but carries rich information about immediate sleep stability. Further, it shows that an empirical and ecologically relevant form of sleep depth is revealed in real-time by EEG spectral content in the alpha band, a measure that affords prediction on the order of minutes. This signal, which transcends the boundaries of classical sleep stages, could potentially be used for real-time feedback to novel, adaptive drug delivery systems for inducing sleep

Fly Photoreceptors Encode Phase Congruency

More than five decades ago it was postulated that sensory neurons detect and selectively enhance behaviourally relevant features of natural signals. Although we now know that sensory neurons are tuned to efficiently encode natural stimuli, until now it was not clear what statistical features of the stimuli they encode and how. Here we reverse-engineer the neural code of Drosophila photoreceptors and show for the first time that photoreceptors exploit nonlinear dynamics to selectively enhance and encode phase-related features of temporal stimuli, such as local phase congruency, which are invariant to changes in illumination and contrast. We demonstrate that to mitigate for the inherent sensitivity to noise of the local phase congruency measure, the nonlinear coding mechanisms of the fly photoreceptors are tuned to suppress random phase signals, which explains why photoreceptor responses to naturalistic stimuli are significantly different from their responses to white noise stimuli

Unsupervised assessment of microarray data quality using a Gaussian mixture model

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Quality assessment of microarray data is an important and often challenging aspect of gene expression analysis. This task frequently involves the examination of a variety of summary statistics and diagnostic plots. The interpretation of these diagnostics is often subjective, and generally requires careful expert scrutiny.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show how an unsupervised classification technique based on the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm and the naïve Bayes model can be used to automate microarray quality assessment. The method is flexible and can be easily adapted to accommodate alternate quality statistics and platforms. We evaluate our approach using Affymetrix 3' gene expression and exon arrays and compare the performance of this method to a similar supervised approach.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This research illustrates the efficacy of an unsupervised classification approach for the purpose of automated microarray data quality assessment. Since our approach requires only unannotated training data, it is easy to customize and to keep up-to-date as technology evolves. In contrast to other "black box" classification systems, this method also allows for intuitive explanations.</p

An analysis of port state control inspections related to the ISPS Code

The ISPS Code came into effect on the 1st of July 2004. The overall objectives of the Code are to establish an international framework involving co-operation between contracting governments, government agencies, local administrations and the shipping industry to detect maritime security threats and take pro-active measures against potential terrorist attacks against ships and/or port facilities which are the vital instruments of the international trade

Career decision making in the maritime industry: research of merchant marine officers using Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS methods

Individual career planning plays a key role in achieving success, goals, and ideals in professional life. However, managing to accomplish such favorable results depends on the correct decisions of graduates to choose suitable job opportunities. Oceangoing watchkeeping officers, who are responsible for the management and administration of vessels at sea, have several job options which are differentiated by vessel type, such as; bulk carriers, chemical tankers, general cargo ships, and container ships, etc. This study aims to discuss the criteria that Turkish oceangoing watchkeeping officers take into consideration and the values they attribute to such criteria regarding their vessel type preference. The aim is to provide instructions to oceangoing watchkeeping officer candidates and academicians who are interested in these issues and related parties of maritime industry. Attribution values of the criteria are determined by means of Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the most preferred alternative vessel type is revealed through Fuzzy TOPSIS methodology. According to the study results, the most important factors are; revenue, perception of occupational health and safety, and labor work density. The most preferred ship type among alternatives is the oil tanker

Cooperative learning and teamwork effectiveness: impacts of education period on cadets

The maritime industry is a multinational industry where participants of several languages and cultures operate in a global teamwork environment. Seafarers' operating procedures are totally based on a teamwork infrastructure and climate. By the introduction of Safety Management Systems, shore-based human resources are also included in the wider system of the maritime teamwork of the company where information and communication technologies have accelerated this integration. Goals and tasks for the team, team composition, team-player styles, phases of learn development, communication and interpersonal skills, decision making, leadership, and evaluation of team performance are the key elements in developing the structure of the teamwork based systems