Information Flow and Influence during Collective Search, Discussion, and Choice

If decision-relevant information is distributed among team members, the group is inclined to focus on shared information and to neglect unshared information, resulting often in suboptimal decisions. This classical finding is robust in experimental settings, in which the distribution of information is created artificially by an experimenter. The current paper looks at information sharing effects when access to information is not restricted, and decision makers are very familiar with the decision task. We analyzed archival search and discussion data obtained from business executives completing a personnel selection exercise. Information popularity in the population from which groups were composed predicted number of group members accessing items during information searches and whether the group discussed the items. The number of group members who accessed an item predicted whether information was repeated during discussion, and repetition predicted which items were included on an executive summary. Moreover, cognitively central group members were more influential than cognitively peripheral members. One implication is that collective decision making amplifies what is commonly known at the expense of disseminating what is not.Information Sharing, Cognitive Centrality, Group Decision Making, Collective Choice, Archival Data

Medical-legal partnerships: the role of mental health providers and legal authorities in the development of a coordinated approach to supporting mental health clients\u27 legal needs in regional and rural settings

INTRODUCTION: Medical-legal partnerships (MLP) are a model in which medical and legal practitioners are co-located and work together to support the health and wellbeing of individuals by identifying and resolving legal issues that impact patients\u27 health and wellbeing. The aim of this article is to analyse the benefits of this model, which has proliferated in the USA, and its applicability in the context of rural and remote Australia. METHODS: This review was undertaken with three research questions in mind: What is an MLP? Is service provision for individuals with mental health concerns being adequately addressed by current service models particularly in the rural context? Are MLPs a service delivery channel that would benefit individuals experiencing mental health issues? RESULTS: The combined searches from all EBSCO Host databases resulted in 462 citations. This search aggregated academic journals, newspapers, book reviews, magazines and trade publications. After several reviews 38 papers were selected for the final review based on their relevance to this review question: How do MLPs support mental health providers and legal service providers in the development of a coordinated approach to supporting mental health clients\u27 legal needs in regional and rural Australia? CONCLUSIONS: There is considerable merit in pursuing the development of MLPs in rural and remote Australia particularly as individuals living in rural and remote areas have far fewer opportunities to access support services than those people living in regional and metropolitan locations. MLPS are important channels of service delivery to assist in early invention of legal problems that can exacerbate mental health problems

A Proton Magnetic Resonance Study of the Association of Lysozyme with Monosaccharide Inhibitors

It has been shown that the acetamido methyl protons of N-acetyl-d-glucosamine undergo a chemical shift to higher fields in their proton magnetic resonance spectrum when the inhibitor is bound to lysozyme. The observed chemical shift in the presence of the enzyme is different for the agr- and ß-anomeric forms of 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-d-glucopyranose indicating either a difference in the affinity of the anomeric forms for lysozyme or different magnetic environments for the methyl protons in their enzyme-bound state. That the agr- and ß-anomeric forms of GlcAc bind to lysozyme in a competitive fashion was indicated by observing the proton magnetic resonance spectra in the presence of 2-acetamido-d3-2-deoxy-agr-d-glucopyranose. The methyl glycosides, methyl-agr-GlcAc and methyl-ß-GlcAc, were also shown to bind competitively with both anomers of GlcAc. Quantitative analysis of the chemical shift data observed for the association of GlcAc with lysozyme was complicated by the mutarotation of GlcAc between its agr- and ß-anomeric forms. However, in the case of the methyl glucosides, where the conformation of each anomer is frozen, it was possible to analyze the chemical shift data in a straightforward manner, and the dissociation constant as well as the chemical shift of the acetamido methyl protons of the enzyme-inhibitor complex was determined for both anomers. The results indicate that the two anomers of methyl-GlcAc bind to lysozyme with slightly different affinities but that the acetamido methyl groups of both anomers experience identical magnetic environments in the enzyme-inhibitor complex

Descriptive profile of mothers by their experience of out-of-home care in childhood: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

It is well documented that care-experience can lead to more problematic post-16 transitions and poorer adult outcomes, but less is known about what works to lessen the associations. This research addresses six of the seven key areas of concern identified in the 2013 Care Leaver Strategy – education, employment, finance, health, housing and on-going support – to help inform strategies to assist agencies working with care-leavers and families who are struggling across domains. We find that mothers who had out-of-home care experience in their childhood have poorer socio-economic and psycho-social resources available to them in adulthood, but when their age, ethnicity and qualification levels are taken in to account, any negative pregnancy, childbirth and parenting experiences are fully attenuated. However, care leavers who became parents continue to obtain less education, and experience poorer financial and housing circumstances. Of particular concern are the high levels of general and mental health problems observed across a range of measures together with low levels of life satisfaction in general. The wellbeing of one of the most disadvantaged group of women in our society clearly needs to be better addressed if we are to avoid the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage associated with care experience being passed on to their children

Non-Perturbative Theory of Dispersion Interactions

Some open questions exist with fluctuation-induced forces between extended dipoles. Conventional intuition derives from large-separation perturbative approximations to dispersion force theory. Here we present a full non-perturbative theory. In addition we discuss how one can take into account finite dipole size corrections. It is of fundamental value to investigate the limits of validity of the perturbative dispersion force theory.Comment: 9 pages, no figure

Rational decision making in autonomous agents

Making rational decisions is one of the key elements in the design of autonomous agents with successful behavior. Even though there have been many proposals for the support of decision making, most of them can be described either as descriptive or prescriptive. The main goal of our work is to establish the relationship between two of these models, namely bdi and mdps, in order to gain further understanding of how decisions in one model are viewed from the point of view of the other. This goal is important for the development of agent design strategies that unite the best of both worlds.Eje: Inteligencia artificial distribuida, aspectos teóricos de la inteligencia artificial y teoría de computaciónRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

On the problem of comparing two models for rational decision making in autonomous agents

The main objective of this work is to establish a basis for comparing BDI agents with the optimality of decision theory models such as POMDPs. It is argued that a direct comparison is not possible due to the intractability of the algorithms used for solving POMDPs, and therefore an approximation must be used. We propose the reduction of the state space, and the combination of sub-solutions as the main approaches towards this goal. Throughout this work, the tileworld testbed is used as a frame of reference for the discussion of the various concepts.Eje: Agentes y Sistemas Inteligentes (ASI)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI