Measuring Sharedness of Team-Related Knowledge: Design and Validation of a Shared Mental Model Instrument

Many researchers have explored how people share and construct similar mental models in teams. They have claimed that successful team performance depends on a shared mental model of team members about task, team, equipment and situation. Most of the literature has illustrated simplified relationships between a team's mental model and their performance without a valid instrument addressing the confined and relevant constructs of a shared mental model. This paper describes the instrument development steps and the conceptual framework for factors associated with shared mental models. After development and refinement, the instrument was finalized for use to measure team-related knowledge. The final instrument consists of 42 items that are linked to the five emergent factors of shared mental models including general task and team knowledge, general task and communication skills, attitude toward teammates and task, team dynamics and interactions, and team resources and working environment.     

Usability Study of a Distance Continuing Education Website for Human Service Professionals

ABSTRACT

A usability test of a distance continuing education website for human service professionals is discussed. The website's purpose was to help meet the continuing education needs of human service professionals in a largely rural Midwestern state. The purpose of the usability evaluation was to assess the website's ease of use, efficiency, and user satisfaction in a representative sample of human service professionals. Users completed eleven basic search tasks with the site and report their impressions of the information presented. In addition, performance data including success, time on task, and efficiency were gathered. Implications of user satisfaction and performance data highlight the importance of stakeholder's involvement in the early stages of website design.     

On the existence of linear trend free block designs

We present a class of counerexamples for a conjecture on the existence or linear trend free block designs we will also prove a considerably weakened version of this conjecture which will determine all combinations of designs parmetres for which the class of linear trend free block designs is non empty.     

宋代书籍设计、插图及美学特征

宋代雕版书籍之设计一般而言体现出朴实之显著特色。这同雕版技术及雕版书籍最早发明于中国民间及其农业文化具有渊源关系。宋代奠定的这种朴实的书籍形制设计理念,使得书籍得以广泛传播,真正成为一种空间意义上的大众媒介。宋代确立了雕版印刷术普遍采用后中国书籍的基本形制。宋代雕版书籍确立了书籍史上最早的平装典范。宋刻书籍,采用不同字体、不同字号以及特殊的标识符号区分或标示不同的编辑语言,使版面上的编辑语言及其功能十分明确。这种编辑语言及其书籍体例奠定了中国古代雕版书籍版面编辑语言的基本格局,为之后中国雕版书籍一直沿用。宋代书籍插图已比较普遍。插图的普遍应用,使得宋版书籍图文并茂,不仅书籍内容更加完整,意义更加丰富,而且书籍的视觉效果和阅读效果也更加理想,书籍文本知识和意义的传播也由此变得更加生动、直观、多彩。宋版书籍最入目者,正是其风神别具——没有二种书籍书刻之字体完全相同者——正字书体的美。宋代书籍之美,乃在于其书籍内在的宋代文化精神之美。     

Strategic Design Responsiveness: An Empirical Analysis of US Retail Store Networks

This study uses a service operations management (SOM) strategy lens to investigate chain store retailers' strategic design responsiveness (SDR)—a term that captures the degree to which retailers dynamically coordinate investments in human and structural capital with the complexity of their service and product offerings. Labor force and physical capital are respectively used as proxies for investments in human capital and structural capital, whereas gross margins are proxies for product/service offering complexity. Consequently, SDR broadly reflects three salient complementary choices of SOM design strategy. We test the effects of “brick and mortar” chain store retailers' SDR on current and future firm performance using publically available panel data collected from Compustat and the University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index databases for the period 1996–2011. We find that retailers that fail to keep pace with investments in both structural and human capital exhibit short‐term financial benefits, but have worse ongoing operational performance. These findings corroborate the importance of managers strategically maintaining the complementarity of design‐related choices for improving and maintaining business performance.     

Information Sharing in a Manufacturer–Supplier Relationship: Suppliers' Incentive and Production Efficiency

While there have been vast discussions on the materialistic benefits of continuous improvement from the Toyota and Honda experiences, the academic literature pays little attention to information sharing. In this study, we construct a dynamic adverse selection model in which the supplier privately observes her production efficiency, and in the contractual duration the manufacturer obtains an informative but imprecise signal regarding this private efficiency. We show that despite the disclosure of proprietary information, information sharing may benefit the supplier; the supplier's voluntary participation is more likely to occur when the shared information is rather imprecise. On the other hand, our analysis also reveals that this information sharing unambiguously gives rise to an upward push of the production quantity, and may sometimes lead to an upward distortion that ultimately hurts the supply chain. We also document the non‐trivial impact of the timing of information sharing on the supplier's incentive to participate.     

传统中国画的意境美对现代景观设计的启示

立足于传统中国画的意境美研究,通过总结其含蓄、空灵、诗情画意的意境特点,分析其对于古典园林景观设计的借鉴作用,并且进一步基于时代的视角挖掘中国画的意境美,指出还原本真和以景诉情两大重要特点,试图探索新时代下,中国画的意境美对于现代景观设计的启示和借鉴作用。     

Distribution of the two‐sample t‐test statistic following blinded sample size re‐estimation

We consider the blinded sample size re‐estimation based on the simple one‐sample variance estimator at an interim analysis. We characterize the exact distribution of the standard two‐sample t‐test statistic at the final analysis. We describe a simulation algorithm for the evaluation of the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis at given treatment effect. We compare the blinded sample size re‐estimation method with two unblinded methods with respect to the empirical type I error, the empirical power, and the empirical distribution of the standard deviation estimator and final sample size. We characterize the type I error inflation across the range of standardized non‐inferiority margin for non‐inferiority trials, and derive the adjusted significance level to ensure type I error control for given sample size of the internal pilot study. We show that the adjusted significance level increases as the sample size of the internal pilot study increases. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Symmetrical Design of Experiment in Global Sensitivity Analysis Based on ANOVA High-dimensional Model Representation

This article reviews symmetrical global sensitivity analysis based on the analysis of variance of high-dimensional model representation. To overcome the computational difficulties and explore the use of symmetrical design of experiment (SDOE), two methods are presented. If the form of the objective function f is known, we use SDOE to estimate the symmetrical global sensitivity indices instead of Monte Carlo or quasi-Monte Carlo simulation. Otherwise, we use the observed values of the experiment to do symmetrical global sensitivity analysis. These methods are easy to implement and can reduce the computational cost. An example is given by symmetrical design of experiment.