A psychological framework to enable effective cognitive processing in the design of emergency management information systems

Human cognitive processing and decision making are essential aspects in emergency management. Emergency situations imply additional demands to information processing. To meaningfully support decision makers in emergencies, a comprehensive understanding of the human perception and decision making processes and their underlying principles is required in the design of Emergency Management Information Systems (EMIS).This paper presents a psychological framework that models the stages and components of decision making in the context of emergency management. To this end, psychological research on human perception and information processing, knowledge and competence modelling, human judgement and decision making, individual and situational factors, stress, and self-regulation are identified as important compents of the framework. The psychological framework represents a comprehensive model of decision making of emergency managers, for a better understanding of the involved cognitive processes and influencing factors on the person level and on the context level. The paper posits the framework as a guide in the identification of requirements for emergency managers during systems analysis. This comprises systematically describing decision tasks in emergency situations and identifying needs for supporting them. The knowledge on human perception and decision making represented by the framework can also be used to inform the user interface design of the EMIS. It may also inform the evaluation of EMIS as it provides a theoretically founded representation of relevant aspects of human-computer interaction, which facilitates the identification of success indciators to be addressed in user-centred evaluation. The framework furthermore supports the design and implementation of training programmes through the differentiation and modelling of knowledge and competence relevant in emergency decision making. To demonstrate the application of the psychological framework in the design, development, and testing of EMIS a set of concrete design principles as well as exemplary paper prototypes applying these principles are presented

A novel approach and software component for supporting competence-based learning with serious games

Digital educational games constitute a major opportunity for acquiring knowledge and competences in a different way than traditional classroom- and technology-based methods. This paper presents a novel approach for a game component that structures the game play in an adaptive way. This approach consists of a combination of three learning theories and techniques. First, Competence-based Knowledge Space Theory is used structure a knowledge domain into competences and game situations. Second, the Leitner system of flashcards is used to establish structured and timed repetition of competences to be acquired. Third, the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve is taken into account to model forgetting learned competences. This approach has been implemented as a game component in line with the games component architecture of the RAGE project. The design and development of this component followed the requirements of the French games company Kiupe that includes it in its environment of games and mini-games

Neutron diffraction investigations on residual stresses contributing to the fatigue crack growth in ferritic steel tubular bridges

Fatigue crack growth observed in tubular K-joint specimens, typical of tubular bridge structures, always initiates at the chord crown toe locations whether the applied stress range is tensile or compressive. Even though other locations around the weld have highest hot-spot stresses, chord crown toe locations are still the most critical. This raises the question about the relevant tensile residual stress level at that location. The results of residual stress investigations, obtained using neutron diffraction measurements highlight that the direction and location of the maximum tensile residual stresses in K-joints is substantially different from those in the more usual tubular butt joints. Indeed, it is shown that the highest tensile residual stresses are oriented perpendicular to the weld direction, which is also the main orientation of the loading stresses applied in K-joints. This paper demonstrates that it is the complex geometry of the K-joint that causes the superposition of critical stresses, making these joints susceptible to fatigue cracking. Therefore, transverse residual stresses play a crucial part in the fatigue crack growth behaviour that applied stresses alone cannot explain. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Self-regulated learning in formal education: perceptions, challenges and opportunities

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is a term that can be used to describe an individual's ability to develop a skill set allowing him or her to learn in a number of different ways. SRL can also relate to new pedagogical theories that encourage teachers in formal education to motivate and support their students into achieving a high level of self-regulation. This paper reports on the findings of a number of surveys conducted with a wide variety of teachers in different countries, regarding their perceptions of SRL. The results and analysis of these surveys help inform not only the perceptions of SRL amongst teachers but also examine the challenges and opportunities that arise from taking this approach

May I Suggest? Comparing Three PLE Recommender Strategies

Personal learning environment (PLE) solutions aim at empowering learners to design (ICT and web-based) environments for their learning activities, mashingup content and people and apps for different learning contexts. Widely used in other application areas, recommender systems can be very useful for supporting learners in their PLE-based activities, to help discover relevant content, peers sharing similar learning interests or experts on a specific topic. In this paper we examine the utilization of recommender technology for PLEs. However, being confronted by a variety of educational contexts we present three strategies for providing PLE recommendations to learners. Consequently, we compare these recommender strategies by discussing their strengths and weaknesses in general

May I Suggest? Comparing Three PLE Recommender Strategies

Personal learning environment (PLE) solutions aim at empowering learners to design (ICT and web-based) environments for their learning activities, mashingup content and people and apps for different learning contexts. Widely used in other application areas, recommender systems can be very useful for supporting learners in their PLE-based activities, to help discover relevant content, peers sharing similar learning interests or experts on a specific topic. In this paper we examine the utilization of recommender technology for PLEs. However, being confronted by a variety of educational contexts we present three strategies for providing PLE recommendations to learners. Consequently, we compare these recommender strategies by discussing their strengths and weaknesses in general

D3.1 – First Bundle of Core Social Agency Assets

This deliverable presents and describes the first delivery of assets that are part of the core social agency bundle. In total, the bundle includes 16 assets, divided into 4 main categories. Each category is related to a type of challenge that developers of applied games are typically faced with and the aim of the included assets is to provide solutions to those challenges. The main goal of this document is to provide the reader with a description for each included asset, accompanied by links to their source code, distributable versions, demonstrations and documentation. A short discussion of what are the future steps for each asset is also given. The primary audience for the contents of this deliverable are the game developers, both inside and outside of the project, which can use this document as an official list of the current social agency assets and their associated resources. Note that the information about which RAGE use cases are using which of these assets is described in Deliverable 4.2.This study is part of the RAGE project. The RAGE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644187. This publication reflects only the author's view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains

EffectiveDB--updates and novel features for a better annotation of bacterial secreted proteins and Type III, IV, VI secretion systems

Protein secretion systems play a key role in the interaction of bacteria and hosts. EffectiveDB (http://effectivedb.org) contains pre-calculated predictions of bacterial secreted proteins and of intact secretion systems. Here we describe a major update of the database, which was previously featured in the NAR Database Issue. EffectiveDB bundles various tools to recognize Type III secretion signals, conserved binding sites of Type III chaperones, Type IV secretion peptides, eukaryotic-like domains and subcellular targeting signals in the host. Beyond the analysis of arbitrary protein sequence collections, the new release of EffectiveDB also provides a ‘genome-mode’, in which protein sequences from nearly complete genomes or metagenomic bins can be screened for the presence of three important secretion systems (Type III, IV, VI). EffectiveDB contains pre-calculated predictions for currently 1677 bacterial genomes from the EggNOG 4.0 database and for additional bacterial genomes from NCBI RefSeq. The new, user-friendly and informative web portal offers a submission tool for running the EffectiveDB prediction tools on user-provided data