The applicability of aesthetic knowledge in organizational decision making processes

We argue that aesthetic knowledge, which is a form of tacit knowledge of beauty and related concepts, is an important, yet under-researched, topic in the study of organizational decision making processes. The significance of aesthetic knowledge for decision making processes is derived from its universal application by humans to commonplace practices; its use as the basis of decision criteria in complex situations to which the effective application of logic and reason is difficult; and its role both in assisting cognition in general and in enabling the choice of solutions generated from rational decision making processes. Despite its importance, the empirical research examining the application of aesthetic knowledge in organizational decision making processes is limited. Further detailed study of aesthetic knowledge in the context of organizational decision making processes is required to extend the recent movement in the field aimed at examining the role that extrarational, human-centered factors play in organizational decisions.

Creative industries and innovation in a knowledge economy

The cultural and creative industries contribute to the knowledge economy by their role in reproducing cultural knowledge and through provision of entertainment, experience and leisure goods with cultural content, for which they are widely acknowledged as suffering serious market failure problems (Baumol and Bowen, 1966; Throsby and Withers, 1979). But they also contribute to the innovation process, an aspect that has only recently been appreciated. Specifically, the creative industries are a driver of the knowledge economy by their contribution to the innovation process on the demand side of consumer uptake of new ideas and by their facilitation of consumer-producer interaction. The creative industries are, in this respect, a legitimate part of the innovation system of a knowledge economy.

Knowledge is People Doing Things, Knowledge Economies Are People Doing Things with Better Outcomes for More People

Description ‘The second volume of the Handbook on the Knowledge Economy is a worthy companion to the highly successful original volume published in 2005, extending its theoretical depth and developing its coverage. Together the two volumes provide the single best work and reference point for knowledge economy studies. The second volume with fifteen original essays by renowned scholars in the field, provides insightful and robust analyses of the development potential of the knowledge economy in all its aspects, forms and manifestations.’ – Michael A. Peters, University of Illinois, US

A world map of knowledge in the making : Wikipedia's Inter-Language Linkage as a dependency explorer of global knowledge accumulation

Analysis of Wikipedia's inter-language links provides insight into a new mechanism of knowledge sharing and linking worldwide.

Teachers' knowledge for social education : perspectives from the middle years of schooling

Social education in Australia is a divisive educational issue. The last decade has been marked by the controversial integrated social studies curriculum, Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) where history, geography and environmental studies were integrated with civics and citizenship. The introduction of a compulsory K-10 Australian Curriculum from 2011, however, marks the return to history and geography and the abandonment of SOSE. Curriculum reform aside, what do teachers think is essential knowledge for middle years social education? The paper reports on a phenomenographical exploration of thirty-one middle school teachers’ conceptions of essential knowledge for SOSE. Framed by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) theoretical framework of the knowledge base for teaching, the research identified seven qualitatively different ways of understanding essential knowledge for social education. The study indicates a professional practice-based theorisation of social education that justifies attention to discipline-based knowledge and teacher identity in the middle years.

Identification of vitronectin as a novel insulin-like growth factor-II binding protein

We have previously reported the presence of a 70 kDa insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-II-specific binding protein in chicken serum using Western ligand blotting approaches. In order to ascertain the identity of this 70 kDa IGF-II binding species, the protein has been purified from chicken serum using a combination of ion-exchange and gel-permeation chromatography. Interestingly, amino acid sequencing of the purified protein revealed that it has the same N-terminal sequence as chicken vitronectin (VN). The protein has the ability to specifically bind IGF-II and not IGF-I as determined by ligand blotting, cross-linking and competitive binding assay approaches. In addition, the protein binds 125I-des(l-6)-IGF-II, suggesting that the interaction with IGF-II is different to those with other characterized IGF-binding proteins. Importantly, we have ascertained that both human and bovine VN also specifically bind IGF-II. These results are particularly relevant in the light of the recent report that the urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor, a protein that also binds VN, has been shown to associate with the cation-independent mannose-6-phosphate/GF-II receptor and suggest a possible role for IGF-II in cell adhesion and invasion.

Children’s rights in India : parents’ and teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and perceptions

Individuals’ attitudes influence their behaviour towards children, including whether children’s rights and welfare are promoted. The attitudes generally present in a society shape a culture of how children are perceived and treated. This study explored the attitudes and knowledge of 300 Indian parents and teachers regarding children’s rights, and their perceptions about whether selected rights were secured in reality. Findings revealed that most parents and teachers had positive attitudes about children’s rights, including rights to health and education, and freedom from child marriage and inappropriate work. Yet, about one quarter of participants did not think children should have the rights to freedom of expression and association. Knowledge of laws promoting children’s rights was poor. Most parents and teachers perceived a denial of seven key rights in Indian children’s lived experience. Overall, fijindings suggest a need to heighten awareness of children’s rights and needs, which can improve attitudes towards the treatment of children. Effforts to heighten awareness and attitudes towards children’s rights are needed across society and in key sectors to enhance children’s lived experience.

The identification of therapeutic targets in metastatic melanoma

Metastatic melanoma, a cancer historically refractory to chemotherapeutic strategies, has a poor prognosis and accounts for the majority of skin cancer related mortality. Although the recent approval of two new drugs combating this disease, Ipilimumab and Vemurafenib (PLX4032), has demonstrated for the first time in decades an improvement in overall survival; the clinical efficacy of these drugs has been marred by severe adverse immune reactions and acquired drug resistance in patients, respectively. Thus, understanding the etiology of metastatic melanoma will contribute to the improvement of current therapeutic strategies while leading to the development of novel drug approaches. In order to identify recurrently mutated genes of therapeutic relevance in metastatic melanoma, a panel of stage III local lymph node melanomas were extensively characterised using high-throughput genomic technologies. This led to the identification of mutations in TFG in 5% of melanomas from a candidate gene sequencing approach using SNP array analysis, 24% of melanomas with mutations in MAP3K5 or MAP3K9 though unbiased whole-exome sequencing strategies, and inactivating mutations in NF1 in BRAF/NRAS wild type tumours though pathway analysis. Lastly, this thesis describes the development of a melanoma specific mutation panel that can rapidly identify clinically relevant mutation profiles that could guide effective treatment strategies through a personalised therapeutic approach. These findings are discussed in respect to a number of important issues raised by this study including the current limitation of next-generation sequencing technology, the difficulty in identifying ‘driver’ mutations critical to the development of melanoma due to high carcinogenic exposure by UV radiation, and the ultimate application of mutation screening in a personalised therapeutic setting. In summary, a number novel genes involved in metastatic melanoma have been identified that may have relevance for current therapeutic strategies in treating this disease.

Eliciting Expert Knowledge in Conservation Science

Expert knowledge is used widely in the science and practice of conservation because of the complexity of problems, relative lack of data, and the imminent nature of many conservation decisions. Expert knowledge is substantive information on a particular topic that is not widely known by others. An expert is someone who holds this knowledge and who is often deferred to in its interpretation. We refer to predictions by experts of what may happen in a particular context as expert judgments. In general, an expert-elicitation approach consists of five steps: deciding how information will be used, determining what to elicit, designing the elicitation process, performing the elicitation, and translating the elicited information into quantitative statements that can be used in a model or directly to make decisions. This last step is known as encoding. Some of the considerations in eliciting expert knowledge include determining how to work with multiple experts and how to combine multiple judgments, minimizing bias in the elicited information, and verifying the accuracy of expert information. We highlight structured elicitation techniques that, if adopted, will improve the accuracy and information content of expert judgment and ensure uncertainty is captured accurately. We suggest four aspects of an expert elicitation exercise be examined to determine its comprehensiveness and effectiveness: study design and context, elicitation design, elicitation method, and elicitation output. Just as the reliability of empirical data depends on the rigor with which it was acquired so too does that of expert knowledge.

A database for person re-identification in multi-camera surveillance networks

Person re-identification involves recognising individuals in different locations across a network of cameras and is a challenging task due to a large number of varying factors such as pose (both subject and camera) and ambient lighting conditions. Existing databases do not adequately capture these variations, making evaluations of proposed techniques difficult. In this paper, we present a new challenging multi-camera surveillance database designed for the task of person re-identification. This database consists of 150 unscripted sequences of subjects travelling in a building environment though up to eight camera views, appearing from various angles and in varying illumination conditions. A flexible XML-based evaluation protocol is provided to allow a highly configurable evaluation setup, enabling a variety of scenarios relating to pose and lighting conditions to be evaluated. A baseline person re-identification system consisting of colour, height and texture models is demonstrated on this database.

When non-significance may be significant : lessons learned from a study of the development, implementation and evaluation of a fleet risk assessment tool

This paper reports on the development and implementation of a self-report risk assessment tool that was developed in an attempt to increase the efficacy of crash prediction within Australian fleet settings. This study forms a part of a broader program of research into work related road safety and identification of driving risk. The first phase of the study involved a series of focus groups being conducted with 217 professional drivers which revealed that the following factors were proposed to influence driving performance: Fatigue, Knowledge of risk, Mood, Impatience and frustration, Speed limits, Experience, Other road users, Passengers, Health, and Culture. The second phase of the study involved piloting the newly developed 38 item Driving Risk Assessment Scale - Work Version (DRAS-WV) with 546 professional drivers. Factor analytic techniques identified a 9 factor solution that was comprised of speeding, aggression, time pressure, distraction, casualness, awareness, maintenance, fatigue and minor damage. Speeding and aggressive driving manoeuvres were identified to be the most frequent aberrant driving behaviours engaged in by the sample. However, a series of logistic regression analyses undertaken to determine the DRAS-WV scale’s ability to predict self-reported crashes revealed limited predictive efficacy e.g., 10% of crashes. This paper outlines proposed reasons for this limited predictive ability of the DRAS-WV as well as provides suggestions regarding the future of research that aims to develop methods to identify “at risk” drivers.

Visualising mathematical knowledge and understanding

Contemporary mathematics education attempts to instil within learners the conceptualization of mathematics as a highly organized and inter-connected set of ideas. To support this, a means to graphically represent this organization of ideas is presented which reflects the cognitive mechanisms that shape a learner’s understanding. This organisation of information may then be analysed, with the view to informing the design of mathematics instruction in face-to-face and/or computer-mediated learning environments. However, this analysis requires significant work to develop both theory and practice.

Proteomics science & society : the role of knowledge translation in moving towards clinical applications

Background: Outside the mass-spectrometer, proteomics research does not take place in a vacuum. It is affected by policies on funding and research infrastructure. Proteomics research both impacts and is impacted by potential clinical applications. It provides new techniques & clinically relevant findings, but the possibilities for such innovations (and thus the perception of the potential for the field by funders) are also impacted by regulatory practices and the readiness of the health sector to incorporate proteomics-related tools & findings. Key to this process is how knowledge is translated. Methods: We present preliminary results from a multi-year social science project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, on the processes and motivations for knowledge translation in the health sciences. The proteomics case within this wider study uses qualitative methods to examine the interplay between proteomics science and regulatory and policy makers regarding clinical applications of proteomics. Results: Adopting an interactive format to encourage conference attendees’ feedback, our poster focuses on deficits in effective knowledge translation strategies from the laboratory to policy, clinical, & regulatory arenas. An analysis of the interviews conducted to date suggests five significant choke points: the changing priorities of funding agencies; the complexity of proteomics research; the organisation of proteomics research; the relationship of proteomics to genomics and other omics sciences; and conflict over the appropriate role of standardisation. Conclusion: We suggest that engagement with aspects of knowledge translation, such as those mentioned above, is crucially important for the eventual clinical application ofproteomics science on any meaningful scale.