Influencing Individual Perceptions of Deep Level Diversity in Virtual Learning Teams (VLT)

Two emerging trends are impacting both universities and corporate training programs: virtual learning and diversity. Virtual Learning Teams (VLT) learn by solving intellectual and cognitive tasks that require the sharing and utilization of information to achieve learning objectives. VLT members are separated by spatial distance and do not have the same opportunities to communicate as do traditional learning teams. Compounding the operational challenge of establishing and maintaining VLT member relationships is the fact that their members are often non-traditional students who tend to be diverse in terms of demographics, work experience, and beliefs compared to traditional teams. Naturally, this creates challenges in facilitating social integration. One way in which social integration may be enhanced is through leveraging the very communication technology that VLTs are reliant upon. Results of our study provide insight into how communication technology can support learning.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116289/1/Newell et al. 2009.pd

The Role of Leadership in Facilitating the Performance of Dispersed Teamwork

A mature body of research on leadership has investigated the impact of a variety of leadership behaviors and styles on team performance. This corpus of work is built on an assumption that team leaders can motivate, direct, and monitor teams by way of sustained, personal contact with team members. However, this assumption is being challenged by recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Use of ICTs has altered traditional team-based structures, enabling organizations to employ teams composed of members who are dispersed across geographic boundaries, while severing the direct, personal ties leaders have to team members. Recent reviews of the literature on dispersed teamwork point to the unique challenges faced by dispersed teams, including difficulties with communication, knowledge transfer, coordination, and Social exchange. No less than five of these reviews call for research on leadership as a means to alleviate these challenges. This dissertation proposal, organized as three essays, seeks to respond to this call by examining leadership issues with respect to task structure, team development, and team structure. Essay 1 explores the role of empowering leadership in helping dispersed teams, and individuals within these teams, cope with information systems development (ISD) risk factors. Essay 2 investigates how technology capabilities can be leveraged to support coaching behaviors directed at facilitating interpersonal processes. Essay 3 draws on the theory of behavioral complexity in leadership to examine how leaders can help dispersed teams respond to the challenges incurred by differing forms of geographic dispersion. The models are tested with data collected from members and leaders of dispersed teams in a large, multinational organization. Results show that leaders have significant and varied influences on dispersed team functioning and can be both beneficial and detrimental for dispersed teams under different conditions. This dissertation makes importance contributions to both research and practice by deepening our understanding of the impacts of leadership in the dispersed team context and providing insight into leadership interventions designed to support dispersed teams in coping with the challenges they face

Metacognitive Awareness of Facial Affect in Higher-Functioning Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Higher-functioning participants with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewed a series of face stimuli, made decisions regarding the affect of each face, and indicated their confidence in each decision. Confidence significantly predicted accuracy across all participants, but this relation was stronger for participants with typical development than participants with ASD. In the hierarchical linear modeling analysis, there were no differences in face processing accuracy between participants with and without ASD, but participants with ASD were more confident in their decisions. These results suggest that individuals with ASD have metacognitive impairments and are overconfident in face processing. Additionally, greater metacognitive awareness was predictive of better face processing accuracy, suggesting that metacognition may be a pivotal skill to teach in interventions

Non-invasive diagnostic tests for Helicobacter pylori infection

BACKGROUND: Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) infection has been implicated in a number of malignancies and non-malignant conditions including peptic ulcers, non-ulcer dyspepsia, recurrent peptic ulcer bleeding, unexplained iron deficiency anaemia, idiopathic thrombocytopaenia purpura, and colorectal adenomas. The confirmatory diagnosis of H pylori is by endoscopic biopsy, followed by histopathological examination using haemotoxylin and eosin (H & E) stain or special stains such as Giemsa stain and Warthin-Starry stain. Special stains are more accurate than H & E stain. There is significant uncertainty about the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive tests for diagnosis of H pylori. OBJECTIVES: To compare the diagnostic accuracy of urea breath test, serology, and stool antigen test, used alone or in combination, for diagnosis of H pylori infection in symptomatic and asymptomatic people, so that eradication therapy for H pylori can be started. SEARCH METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, the Science Citation Index and the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Database on 4 March 2016. We screened references in the included studies to identify additional studies. We also conducted citation searches of relevant studies, most recently on 4 December 2016. We did not restrict studies by language or publication status, or whether data were collected prospectively or retrospectively. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included diagnostic accuracy studies that evaluated at least one of the index tests (urea breath test using isotopes such as13C or14C, serology and stool antigen test) against the reference standard (histopathological examination using H & E stain, special stains or immunohistochemical stain) in people suspected of having H pylori infection. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently screened the references to identify relevant studies and independently extracted data. We assessed the methodological quality of studies using the QUADAS-2 tool. We performed meta-analysis by using the hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic (HSROC) model to estimate and compare SROC curves. Where appropriate, we used bivariate or univariate logistic regression models to estimate summary sensitivities and specificities. MAIN RESULTS: We included 101 studies involving 11,003 participants, of which 5839 participants (53.1%) had H pylori infection. The prevalence of H pylori infection in the studies ranged from 15.2% to 94.7%, with a median prevalence of 53.7% (interquartile range 42.0% to 66.5%). Most of the studies (57%) included participants with dyspepsia and 53 studies excluded participants who recently had proton pump inhibitors or antibiotics.There was at least an unclear risk of bias or unclear applicability concern for each study.Of the 101 studies, 15 compared the accuracy of two index tests and two studies compared the accuracy of three index tests. Thirty-four studies (4242 participants) evaluated serology; 29 studies (2988 participants) evaluated stool antigen test; 34 studies (3139 participants) evaluated urea breath test-13C; 21 studies (1810 participants) evaluated urea breath test-14C; and two studies (127 participants) evaluated urea breath test but did not report the isotope used. The thresholds used to define test positivity and the staining techniques used for histopathological examination (reference standard) varied between studies. Due to sparse data for each threshold reported, it was not possible to identify the best threshold for each test.Using data from 99 studies in an indirect test comparison, there was statistical evidence of a difference in diagnostic accuracy between urea breath test-13C, urea breath test-14C, serology and stool antigen test (P = 0.024). The diagnostic odds ratios for urea breath test-13C, urea breath test-14C, serology, and stool antigen test were 153 (95% confidence interval (CI) 73.7 to 316), 105 (95% CI 74.0 to 150), 47.4 (95% CI 25.5 to 88.1) and 45.1 (95% CI 24.2 to 84.1). The sensitivity (95% CI) estimated at a fixed specificity of 0.90 (median from studies across the four tests), was 0.94 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.97) for urea breath test-13C, 0.92 (95% CI 0.89 to 0.94) for urea breath test-14C, 0.84 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.91) for serology, and 0.83 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.90) for stool antigen test. This implies that on average, given a specificity of 0.90 and prevalence of 53.7% (median specificity and prevalence in the studies), out of 1000 people tested for H pylori infection, there will be 46 false positives (people without H pylori infection who will be diagnosed as having H pylori infection). In this hypothetical cohort, urea breath test-13C, urea breath test-14C, serology, and stool antigen test will give 30 (95% CI 15 to 58), 42 (95% CI 30 to 58), 86 (95% CI 50 to 140), and 89 (95% CI 52 to 146) false negatives respectively (people with H pylori infection for whom the diagnosis of H pylori will be missed).Direct comparisons were based on few head-to-head studies. The ratios of diagnostic odds ratios (DORs) were 0.68 (95% CI 0.12 to 3.70; P = 0.56) for urea breath test-13C versus serology (seven studies), and 0.88 (95% CI 0.14 to 5.56; P = 0.84) for urea breath test-13C versus stool antigen test (seven studies). The 95% CIs of these estimates overlap with those of the ratios of DORs from the indirect comparison. Data were limited or unavailable for meta-analysis of other direct comparisons. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: In people without a history of gastrectomy and those who have not recently had antibiotics or proton ,pump inhibitors, urea breath tests had high diagnostic accuracy while serology and stool antigen tests were less accurate for diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection.This is based on an indirect test comparison (with potential for bias due to confounding), as evidence from direct comparisons was limited or unavailable. The thresholds used for these tests were highly variable and we were unable to identify specific thresholds that might be useful in clinical practice.We need further comparative studies of high methodological quality to obtain more reliable evidence of relative accuracy between the tests. Such studies should be conducted prospectively in a representative spectrum of participants and clearly reported to ensure low risk of bias. Most importantly, studies should prespecify and clearly report thresholds used, and should avoid inappropriate exclusions

Brief Report: Reduced Temporal-Central EEG Alpha Coherence During Joint Attention Perception in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although prior studies have demonstrated reduced resting state EEG coherence in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), no studies have explored the nature of EEG coherence during joint attention. We examined the EEG coherence of the joint attention network in adolescents with and without ASD during congruent and incongruent joint attention perception and an eyes-open resting condition. Across conditions, adolescents with ASD showed reduced right hemisphere temporal-central alpha coherence compared to typically developing adolescents. Greater right temporal-central alpha coherence during joint attention was positively associated with social cognitive performance in typical development but not in ASD. These results suggest that, in addition to a resting state, EEG coherence during joint attention perception is reduced in ASD

Brief Report: Reduced Temporal-Central EEG Alpha Coherence During Joint Attention Perception in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although prior studies have demonstrated reduced resting state EEG coherence in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), no studies have explored the nature of EEG coherence during joint attention. We examined the EEG coherence of the joint attention network in adolescents with and without ASD during congruent and incongruent joint attention perception and an eyes-open resting condition. Across conditions, adolescents with ASD showed reduced right hemisphere temporal-central alpha coherence compared to typically developing adolescents. Greater right temporal-central alpha coherence during joint attention was positively associated with social cognitive performance in typical development but not in ASD. These results suggest that, in addition to a resting state, EEG coherence during joint attention perception is reduced in ASD

What should AI want from the supercomputers

Abstract While some proposals for supercomputers increase the powers of existing machines like the CDC and Cray supercomputers, others suggest radical changes of architecture to speed up non-traditional operations such as logical inference in PROLOG, recognition/action in production systems, or message passing We examine the case of parallel PROLOG to identify several related computations which subsume those of parallel PROLOG, but which have much wider interest, and which may have roughly the same difficulty of mechanization Similar considerations apply to some other proposed architectures as well, raising the possibility that current efforts may be limiting their aims unnecessarily EXCITEMENT HAS BEEN GROWING over computers bigger, faster, and more capable than ever before, the so-called supercomputers. Some of the proposals for new machines amplify the strengths of existing supercomputers like the CUBER 205 and the CRAY-1, while other proposals depart more radically from traditional architectures by organizing @ 198