Stabilometric Correlates of Motor and Motor Imagery Expertise

Motor Imagery (MI) reproduces cognitive operations associated with the actual motor preparation and execution. Postural recordings during MI reflect somatic motor commands targeting peripheral effectors involved in balance control. However, how these relate to the actual motor expertise and may vary along with the MI modality remains debated. In the present experiment, two groups of expert and non-expert gymnasts underwent stabilometric assessments while performing physically and mentally a balance skill. We implemented psychometric measures of MI ability, while stabilometric variables were calculated from the center of pressure (COP) oscillations. Psychometric evaluations revealed greater MI ability in experts, specifically for the visual modality. Experts exhibited reduced surface COP oscillations in the antero-posterior axis compared to non-experts during the balance skill (14.90%, 95% CI 34.48–4.68, p < 0.05). Experts further exhibited reduced length of COP displacement in the antero-posterior axis and as a function of the displacement area during visual and kinesthetic MI compared to the control condition (20.51%, 95% CI 0.99–40.03 and 21.85%, 95% CI 2.33–41.37, respectively, both p < 0.05). Predictive relationships were found between the stabilometric correlates of visual MI and physical practice of the balance skill, as well as between the stabilometric correlates of kinesthetic MI and the training experience in experts. Present results provide original stabilometric insights into the relationships between MI and expertise level. While data support the incomplete inhibition of postural commands during MI, whether postural responses during MI of various modalities mirror the level of motor expertise remains unclear.

An Adaptive Trust Model Based on Fuzzy Logic

In cooperative environments is common that agents delegate tasks to each other to achieve their goals since an agent may not have the capabilities or resources to achieve its objectives alone. However, to select good partners, the agent needs to deal with information about the abilities, experience, and goals of their partners. In this situation, the lack or inaccuracy of information may affect the agent's judgment about a given partner; and hence, increases the risk to rely on an untrustworthy agent. Therefore, in this work, we present a trust model that combines different pieces of information, such as social image, reputation, and references to produce more precise information about the characteristics and abilities of agents. An important aspect of our trust model is that it can be easily configured to deal with different evaluation criteria. For instance, as presented in our experiments, the agents are able to select their partners by availability instead of the expertise level. Besides, the model allows the agents to decide when their own opinions about a partner are more relevant than the opinions received from third parties, and vice-versa. Such flexibility can be explored in dynamic scenarios, where the environment and the behavior of the agents might change constantly.

THE EFFECT OF HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF SELECTED BREWERIES IN THE SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

This study examined the effect of manpower planning on organizational performance in the Brewery industry in South-East, Nigeria. The literature review section touched on all the four-main sections of the review which include conceptual review, theoretical framework, theoretical exposition and empirical review. The study adopted descriptive survey design and used summary and descriptive statistics as well as regression analysis as the main tools of analysis. All tests were conducted at 0.05 level of significance. Preliminary results indicated that F-Statistic of 18.029 is statistical significant and as such, the model was considered valid for predictions. The regression coefficient showed that 61.7 percent relationship exists between the dependent and independent variables. The coefficient of determination also showed that 52.9 percent variation in the dependent variable can be explained by the regressors. Major findings are that manpower planning in the area of forecasting to anticipate employees number and skills/expertise level have significant positive effect on organizational performance. It was concluded that human resource planning is very essential for optimal performance in the brewery industry. The study recommended among others that the issue of human resource planning should be treated in the organization with the seriousness that it deserves. Keywords: Human Resource Planning, Manpower Forecasting, Manpower Planning, Organizational Performance, Brewery Industry and Southeast Nigeria.

Personalizing image enhancement for critical visual tasks: improved legibility of papyri using color processing and visual illusions

This article develops theoretical, algorithmic, perceptual, and interaction aspects of script legibility enhancement in the visible light spectrum for the purpose of scholarly editing of papyri texts. Novel legibility enhancement algorithms based on color processing and visual illusions are compared to classic methods in a user experience experiment. (1) The proposed methods outperformed the comparison methods. (2) Users exhibited a broad behavioral spectrum, under the influence of factors such as personality and social conditioning, tasks and application domains, expertise level and image quality, and affordances of software, hardware, and interfaces. No single enhancement method satisfied all factor configurations. Therefore, it is suggested to offer users a broad choice of methods to facilitate personalization, contextualization, and complementarity. (3) A distinction is made between casual and critical vision on the basis of signal ambiguity and error consequences. The criteria of a paradigm for enhancing images for critical applications comprise: interpreting images skeptically; approaching enhancement as a system problem; considering all image structures as potential information; and making uncertainty and alternative interpretations explicit, both visually and numerically.

A Chemistry-Oriented Cost-Effective Expert Team Formation in Social Networks

<p>The growth of social networks in modern information systems has enabled the collaboration of experts at an unprecedented scale. Given a social network and a task consisting of a set of required skills, Team Formation (TF) aims at finding a team of experts who can cover the required skills and can communicate in an effective manner. However, this definition has been interpreted as the problem of finding teams with minimum communication cost which neglects two aspect of team formation in real life. The first is that in reality experts are multi-skilled, hence communication cost cannot be a fixed value and should vary according to the channels employed. The second ignored aspect is disregarding teams with high expertise level who can still satisfy the required communication level. To tackle above mentioned issues, I introduce a dynamic formof communication for multi-facet relationships and use it to devise a novel approach called Chemistry Oriented Team Formation (ChemoTF) based on two new metrics; Chemistry Level and Expertise Level. Chemistry Level measures scale of communication required by the task andExpertise Level measures the overall expertise among potential teams filtered by Chemistry Level. Moreover, I adopt a personnel cost metric to filter costly teams. The experimental results on the corpus compiled for this purpose suggests that ChemoTF returns communicative and cost-effective teams with the highest expertise level compared to state-of-the-art algorithms. The corpus itself is a valuable output which contains comprehensive scholarly information in the field of computer science.</p>

A Chemistry-Oriented Cost-Effective Expert Team Formation in Social Networks

<p>The growth of social networks in modern information systems has enabled the collaboration of experts at an unprecedented scale. Given a social network and a task consisting of a set of required skills, Team Formation (TF) aims at finding a team of experts who can cover the required skills and can communicate in an effective manner. However, this definition has been interpreted as the problem of finding teams with minimum communication cost which neglects two aspect of team formation in real life. The first is that in reality experts are multi-skilled, hence communication cost cannot be a fixed value and should vary according to the channels employed. The second ignored aspect is disregarding teams with high expertise level who can still satisfy the required communication level. To tackle above mentioned issues, I introduce a dynamic formof communication for multi-facet relationships and use it to devise a novel approach called Chemistry Oriented Team Formation (ChemoTF) based on two new metrics; Chemistry Level and Expertise Level. Chemistry Level measures scale of communication required by the task andExpertise Level measures the overall expertise among potential teams filtered by Chemistry Level. Moreover, I adopt a personnel cost metric to filter costly teams. The experimental results on the corpus compiled for this purpose suggests that ChemoTF returns communicative and cost-effective teams with the highest expertise level compared to state-of-the-art algorithms. The corpus itself is a valuable output which contains comprehensive scholarly information in the field of computer science.</p>

Differences in expertise level for anticipatory skill between badminton ‘in game’ strokes and serves

Over the past decades, researchers in racquet sports have been testing the role of visual anticipation and expert attunement to essential kinematic information for responding to ‘in game’ strokes as well as serves. However, anticipatory behaviour to both strokes has not been compared directly, in spite of the different characteristics of these strokes in the context of badminton. Therefore, this study explored the differences in anticipatory behaviour among elite ( n = 26), competitive ( n = 15) and novices ( n = 17) between in game strokes and serves in badminton by use of lab based video temporal occlusion tests. In two separate blocks, last strokes (LS) and serves (S) were presented with different occlusion points (− 200 and − 100 ms before shuttle–racquet contact, at shuttle–racquet contact, and + 100 after shuttle–racquet contact) in a randomised order. The main results from the analysis of variance were that (a) elites generally showed faster and more accurate responses, and (b) responses were generally faster in LS conditions than in serves. These results add to the current body of knowledge on anticipatory behaviour in racquet sports, and the practical implications for coaching and training are discussed.

Outcomes of staged reconstruction of Zone 2 flexor tendon injuries in recent wide-awake surgical settings and an earlier case series

We report outcomes of patients who were managed with two-stage tendon grafting for neglected Zone 2 flexor tendon injuries from 2012 until 2019. The patients were divided into two cohorts: recent series (Series 1) included patients treated with local anaesthesia and epinephrine (16 fingers, from 2015), and earlier series (Series 2) included patients treated with either general or local intravenous anaesthesia and tourniquet (12 fingers, before 2015). The patients in Series 1 achieved statistically better mean total active motion of the operated fingers and grip compared with the contralateral hand than the earlier series ( p = 0.03, p = 0.01, respectively). With the Tang grading system, excellent and good results were achieved in 13 and six fingers of the patients in Series 1 and Series 2, respectively. We conclude that wide-awake second stage of staged flexor tendon grafting provides fine-tuned adjustment of length and tension of the graft, but we cannot conclude about comparative outcomes between two series because the sample size is small and the earlier series was operated by the same surgeons with lower expertise level. Level of evidence: IV

How Do Cardiology Practitioners Interpret an Electrocardiogram: An Eye Tracking Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Visual expertise refers to advanced visual skills demonstrated when executing domain‐specific visual tasks. Understanding healthcare practitioners’ visual expertise across different levels in the healthcare sector is crucial in clarifying how to acquire accurate interpretations of electrocardiograms (ECGs). OBJECTIVE The study aims to quantify, through the use of eye-tracking, differences in the visual expertise of medical practitioners, such as medical students, cardiology nurses, technicians, fellows, and consultants, when interpreting ECGs. METHODS Sixty-three participants with different healthcare roles participated in an eye-tracking study that consisted of interpreting 10 ECGs with different heart abnormalities. A counterbalanced within-subjects design was employed with one independent variable consisting of the expertise level of the medical practitioners and two measured eye-tracking dependent variables (fixations count and fixations revisitation). Eye-tracking data was assessed according to the accuracy of interpretation and frequency interpreters visited different leads in ECGs. In addition, the median and standard deviation in the interquartile range for the fixations count and the mean and standard deviation for the ECG lead revisitations were calculated. RESULTS Accuracy of interpretation ranged between 98% among consultants and 52% among medical students. Eye-tracking features also reflected this difference in the accuracy of interpretation. The results of the eye fixations count and eye fixations revisitations indicate that the less experienced medical practitioners need to observe various ECG leads more carefully. However, experienced medical practitioners rely on visual pattern recognition to provide their ECG diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS The results show that visual expertise for ECG interpretation is linked to the practitioner’s role within the healthcare system and the number of years of practical experience interpreting ECGs. Medical practitioners focus on different ECG leads and different waveform abnormalities according to their role in the healthcare sector and their expertise levels.