Workflow Interruptions and Failed Action Regulation in Surgery Personnel

Background Workflow interruptions during surgery may cause a threat to patient's safety. Workflow interruptions were tested to predict failure in action regulation that in turn predicts near-accidents in surgery and related health care. Methods One-hundred-and-thirty-three theater nurses and physicians from eight Swiss hospitals participated in a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. The study participation rate was 43%. Results Structural equation modeling confirmed an indirect path from workflow interruptions through cognitive failure in action regulation on near-accidents (p < 0.05). The indirect path was stronger for workflow interruptions by malfunctions and task organizational blockages compared with workflow interruptions that were caused by persons. The indirect path remained meaningful when individual differences in conscientiousness and compliance with safety regulations were controlled. Conclusion Task interruptions caused by malfunction and organizational constraints are likely to trigger errors in surgery. Work redesign is recommended to reduce workflow interruptions by malfunction and regulatory constraints.

Unanticipated Partial Behavioral Reflection: Adapting Applications at Runtime

Dynamic, unanticipated adaptation of running systems is of interest in a variety of situations, ranging from functional upgrades to on-the-fly debugging or monitoring of critical applications. In this paper we study a particular form of computational reflection, called unanticipated partial behavioral reflection, which is particularly well-suited for unanticipated adaptation of real-world systems. Our proposal combines the dynamicity of unanticipated reflection, i.e. reflection that does not require preparation of the code of any sort, and the selectivity and efficiency of partial behavioral reflection. First, we propose unanticipated partial behavioral reflection which enables the developer to precisely select the required reifications, to flexibly engineer the metalevel and to introduce the meta behavior dynamically. Second, we present a system supporting unanticipated partial behavioral reflection in Squeak Smalltalk, called Geppetto, and illustrate its use with a concrete example of a web application. Benchmarks validate the applicability of our proposal as an extension to the standard reflective abilities of Smalltalk.

Dynamic Synchronization: A Synchronization Model through Behavioral Reflection

In conventional software applications, synchronization code is typically interspersed with functional code, thereby impacting understandability and maintainability of the code base. At the same time, the synchronization defined statically in the code is not capable of adapting to different runtime situations. We propose a new approach to concurrency control which strictly separates the functional code from the synchronization requirements to be used and which adapts objects to be synchronized dynamically to their environment. First-class synchronization specifications express safety requirements, and a dynamic synchronization system dynamically adapts objects to different runtime situations. We present an overview of a prototype of our approach together with several classical concurrency problems, and we discuss open issues for further research.

Global Cultural Law and Policy in the Age of Ubiquitous Internet

Digital technologies and the Internet in particular have transformed the ways we create, distribute, use, reuse and consume cultural content; have impacted on the workings of the cultural industries, and more generally on the processes of making, experiencing and remembering culture in local and global spaces. Yet, few of these, often profound, transformations have found reflection in law and institutional design. Cultural policy toolkits, in particular at the international level, are still very much offline/analogue and conceive of culture as static property linked to national sovereignty and state boundaries. The article describes this state of affairs and asks the key question of whether there is a need to reform global cultural law and policy and if yes, what the essential elements of such a reform should be.

How to assess the external validity of therapeutic trials: a conceptual approach

Background External validity of study results is an important issue from a clinical point of view. From a methodological point of view, however, the concept of external validity is more complex than it seems to be at first glance. Methods Methodological review to address the concept of external validity. Results External validity refers to the question whether results are generalizable to persons other than the population in the original study. The only formal way to establish the external validity would be to repeat the study for that specific target population. We propose a three-way approach for assessing the external validity for specified target populations. (i) The study population might not be representative for the eligibility criteria that were intended. It should be addressed whether the study population differs from the intended source population with respect to characteristics that influence outcome. (ii) The target population will, by definition, differ from the study population with respect to geographical, temporal and ethnical conditions. Pondering external validity means asking the question whether these differences may influence study results. (iii) It should be assessed whether the study's conclusions can be generalized to target populations that do not meet all the eligibility criteria. Conclusion Judging the external validity of study results cannot be done by applying given eligibility criteria to a single target population. Rather, it is a complex reflection in which prior knowledge, statistical considerations, biological plausibility and eligibility criteria all have place.

The long arm of time pressure at work: Cognitive failure and commuting near-accidents

This study tests whether cognitive failures mediate effects of work-related time pressure and time control on commuting accidents and near-accidents. Participants were 83 employees (56% female) who each commuted between their regular place of residence and place of work using vehicles. The Workplace Cognitive Failure Scale (WCFS) asked for the frequency of failure in memory function, failure in attention regulation, and failure in action execution. Time pressure and time control at work were assessed by the Instrument for Stress Oriented Task Analysis (ISTA). Commuting accidents in the last 12 months were reported by 10% of participants, and half of the sample reported commuting near-accidents in the last 4 weeks. Cognitive failure significantly mediated the influence of time pressure at work on near-accidents even when age, gender, neuroticism, conscientiousness, commuting duration, commuting distance, and time pressure during commuting were controlled for. Time control was negatively related to cognitive failure and neuroticism, but no association with commuting accidents or near-accidents was found. Time pressure at work is likely to increase cognitive load. Time pressure might, therefore, increase cognitive failures during work and also during commuting. Hence, time pressure at work can decrease commuting safety. The result suggests a reduction of time pressure at work should improve commuting safety.

Transition and Justice: An Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, political new beginnings have increasingly been linked to questions of transitional justice. The contributions to this collection examine a series of cases from across the African continent where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ have been declared after periods of violence and where transitional justice institutions played a role in defining justice and the new socio-political order. Three issues seem to be crucial to the understanding of transitional justice in the context of wider social debates on justice and political change: the problem of ‘new beginnings’, of finding a foundation for that which explicitly breaks with the past; the discrepancies between lofty promises and the messy realities of transitional justice in action; and the dialectic between logics of the exception and the ordinary, employed to legitimize or resist transitional justice mechanisms. These are the particular focus of this Introduction.

Funktionalität peripherer Wahrnehmung bei Trackingaufgaben

Schlüsselwörter: Multiple-Object-Tracking, Sakkadenlatenz, Erkennungsleistung Einleitung Beim Multiple-Object-Tracking müssen mehrere, sich bewegende Zielobjekte visuell ver-folgt werden. Dabei scheint es vorteilhaft zu sein, den Blick zwischen den Zielobjekten zu verankern, um Bewegungsinformationen peripher wahrzunehmen (Fehd & Seiffert, 2010). Nach Prüfung dieser Annahme (Experiment 1) wurde getestet, wie gut und schnell auf Bewegungs- und Formveränderungen der Zielobjekte reagiert werden kann (Experiment 2), um die Funktionalität der peripheren Wahrnehmung zu überprüfen Methode 14 Teilnehmer hatten die Aufgabe, zum Ende eines Einzelversuchs 4 aus 10 Vierecken wiederzuerkennen, die sich linear für 6 s in einem projizierten Quadrat bewegten. Dabei wurden 3 Geschwindigkeiten (6, 9 und 12°/s) in 9 Blöcken à 15 Versuchen präsentiert, um die Ergebnisse von Fehd und Seiffert (2010) zu replizieren. In Experiment 2 sollten Teilnehmer auf das Anhalten eines Targets oder dessen Formveränderung zur Raute (Manipulation: 0.5 s) mit Knopfdruck reagieren, bei ausbleibender Veränderung hinge-gen die 4 Zielobjekte wiedererkennen (3 Bedingungen in 10 Blöcken à 12 Versuchen). Erwartet wurde, dass Bewegungsveränderungen häufiger und schneller erkannt werden. Ergebnisse Experiment 1 ergab einen signifikanten Haupteffekt für Geschwindigkeit, F(2,26) = 62.66, p < .01, ηp2 = .83, mit höchsten Richtigkeiten bei 6°/s (58%). Ein Haupteffekt für Blickort, F(2,26) = 76.40, p < .01, ηp2 = .85, zeigt, dass der Blick unabhängig von der Geschwindig-keit länger auf dem Centroid war als auf Targets und Distraktoren. Aufgrund der höchs-ten Richtigkeiten bei 6°/s wurde diese Geschwindigkeit in Experiment 2 eingesetzt und festgestellt, dass Bewegungsveränderungen häufiger erkannt werden (83 %) als Form-veränderungen (59 %), F(1,10) = 17.20, p < .01, ηp2 = .63. Unterschiede in Sakkadenla-tenzen, F(1,10) = 6.73, p = .03, ηp2 = .40, deuten auf eine periphere Wahrnehmung der Bewegungsveränderungen hin. Experiment 3 wird zeigen, ob Sakkaden das Monitoring stören. Diskussion Die periphere Wahrnehmung scheint immer dann funktional zu sein, wenn mehrere, für eine Aufgabe relevante Objekte gleichzeitig verfolgt werden müssen und wenn Verände-rungen, besonders der Bewegung, schnell erkannt werden müssen. Weitere Untersu-chungen sollen zeigen, ob diese Funktionalität der peripheren Wahrnehmung auch im Sport (z.B. beim gleichzeitigen Verfolgen mehrerer Gegenspieler) erkannt werden kann. Literatur Fehd, H. M. & Seiffert, A. E. (2010). Looking at the center of the targets helps multiple object tracking. Journal of Vision, 10, 1–13.