CONCEPT OF VIRTUAL INTERACTIVE CENTRE PERFECTING PROFESSIONAL SKILLS OF BORDER GUARD OFFICERS

2020 ◽  
Vol 153 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Burnat

The paper presents a project aimed to develop, start, and test a modern didactic centre for the Border Guard. Implementation of an innovative interactive 3D multimedia cave for perfecting the procedures of using the weapons and direct enforcement means, and checking the persons, vehicles and goods, shall improve the qualifications of the border guard officers in conditions similar to realistic ones. The virtual interactive centre for perfecting professional skills is aimed to train the officers on a wide range of situations starting from operational planning, depending on the encountered and changeable situation including also terroristic incidents, and throughout the decision making at operational conditions relevant to the Border Guard tasks, the use of shooting skills and means of direct enforcement, and ending on providing the first aid and teaching the preparation of reports. It is important that a decision made by a trainee at a specific moment of scenario could trigger a following stage of an evolving situation or its termination. It is assumed that the course of an exercise may be recorded and replayed to make a detailed analysis of actions undertaken by trainees, and to discuss faults, and to find out correct solutions for critical situations.

2013 ◽  
pp. 581-600
Author(s):  
John P. Isaacs ◽  
David J. Blackwood ◽  
Daniel Gilmour ◽  
Ruth E. Falconer

Sustainable decision making for strategic planning is a challenging process: requiring an understanding of the complex interactions among environmental, economic and social factors. Commonly, such decisions are dominated by economic factors hence there is a need for a framework that supports inclusive decision making throughout all stages of urban and rural planning projects. Towards this the authors have developed the Sustainable City Visualization Tool (S-CITY VT) which comprises 1) indicators (these provide the basis for assessment and monitoring of sustainability) selected according to scale and development 2) modelling techniques that provide indicator values, as not all of the indicators can be measured, and allows spatio-temporal prediction of indicators 3) Interactive 3D visualisation techniques to facilitate effective communication with a wide range of stakeholders. The sustainability modelling and 3D visualisations are shown to have the potential to enhance community engagement within the planning process thus enhancing public acceptance and participation within the urban or rural development project.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Isaacs ◽  
David J. Blackwood ◽  
Daniel Gilmour ◽  
Ruth E. Falconer

Sustainable decision making for strategic planning is a challenging process: requiring an understanding of the complex interactions among environmental, economic and social factors. Commonly, such decisions are dominated by economic factors hence there is a need for a framework that supports inclusive decision making throughout all stages of urban and rural planning projects. Towards this the authors have developed the Sustainable City Visualization Tool (S-CITY VT) which comprises 1) indicators (these provide the basis for assessment and monitoring of sustainability) selected according to scale and development 2) modelling techniques that provide indicator values, as not all of the indicators can be measured, and allows spatio-temporal prediction of indicators 3) Interactive 3D visualisation techniques to facilitate effective communication with a wide range of stakeholders. The sustainability modelling and 3D visualisations are shown to have the potential to enhance community engagement within the planning process thus enhancing public acceptance and participation within the urban or rural development project.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 238212052094359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda A Olsen ◽  
Lana M Minshew ◽  
Kathryn A Morbitzer ◽  
Tina P Brock ◽  
Jacqueline E McLaughlin

To ensure students are prepared for the rapidly evolving world of health care, curricula must be aligned with emerging innovations, as well as professional skills likely to influence students’ abilities to be successful. At the 2019 annual meeting of PharmAlliance institutions, we asked experts to identify innovations and professional skills necessary for the future of pharmacy practice. Experts identified a wide range of topics, including personalized and precision medicine, digital health, interprofessional collaboration, clinical decision making, and overcoming complexity and ambiguity. While these findings are useful for informing curriculum content, we must also commit to ensuring our pharmacy curricula are emerging, forward thinking, and effective at preparing students for the challenges in health care.


Author(s):  
Christopher Rosenmeier

Xu Xu and Wumingshi were among the most widely read authors in China during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Despite being an integral part of the Chinese literary scene, their bestselling fiction has, however, been given scant attention in histories of Chinese writing. This book is the first extensive study of Xu Xu and Wumingshi in English or any other Western language and it re-establishes their importance within the popular Chinese literature of the 1940s. Their romantic novels and short stories were often set abroad and featured a wide range of stereotypes, from pirates, spies and patriotic soldiers to ghosts, spirits and exotic women who confounded the mostly cosmopolitan male protagonists. Christopher Rosenmeier’s detailed analysis of these popular novels and short stories shows that such romances broke new ground by incorporating and adapting narrative techniques and themes from the Shanghai modernist writers of the 1930s, notably Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying. The study thereby contests the view that modernism had little lasting impact on Chinese fiction, and it demonstrates that the popular literature of the 1940s was more innovative than usually imagined, with authors, such as those studied here, successfully crossing the boundaries between the popular and the elite, as well as between romanticism and modernism, in their bestselling works.


2020 ◽  
pp. 301-323
Author(s):  
Natalya I. Kikilo ◽  

In the Macedonian literary language the analytic da-construction used in an independent clause has a wide range of possible modal meanings, the most common of which are imperative and optative. The present article offers a detailed analysis of the semantics and functions of the Macedonian optative da-construction based on fiction and journalistic texts. The first part of the article deals with the specificities of the optative as a category which primarily considers the subject of a wish. In accordance with the semantic characteristics of this category, optative constructions are used in those discourse text types where the speakers are explicitly designated (the most natural context for the optative is the dialogue). The analysis of the Macedonian material includes instances of atypical usage of the optative da-construction, in which the wish of the subject is not apparent and thereby produces new emotional tonalities perceptible to the reader of a fiction/journalistic text. The study describes Macedonian constructions involving two different verb forms: 1) present tense form (da + praes) and 2) imperfective form (da + impf). These constructions formally designate the hypothetical and counterfactual status of the optative situation, respectively. Thus, the examples in the analysis are ordered according to two types of constructions, which reflect the speaker’s view on the probability of the realisation of his/her wish. Unrealistic wishes can be communicated through the present da-construction, while the imperfective construction denotes situations in which the wish can be realised in the future. The second part of the article is devoted to performative optative da-constructions, which express formulas of speech etiquette, wishes and curses. The analysis demonstrates that these constructions lose their magical functions, when used outside of the ritual context, and begin to function as interjections.


Author(s):  
Takeuchi Ayano

AbstractPublic participation has become increasingly necessary to connect a wide range of knowledge and various values to agenda setting, decision-making and policymaking. In this context, deliberative democratic concepts, especially “mini-publics,” are gaining attention. Generally, mini-publics are conducted with randomly selected lay citizens who provide sufficient information to deliberate on issues and form final recommendations. Evaluations are conducted by practitioner researchers and independent researchers, but the results are not standardized. In this study, a systematic review of existing research regarding practices and outcomes of mini-publics was conducted. To analyze 29 papers, the evaluation methodologies were divided into 4 categories of a matrix between the evaluator and evaluated data. The evaluated cases mainly focused on the following two points: (1) how to maintain deliberation quality, and (2) the feasibility of mini-publics. To create a new path to the political decision-making process through mini-publics, it must be demonstrated that mini-publics can contribute to the decision-making process and good-quality deliberations are of concern to policy-makers and experts. Mini-publics are feasible if they can contribute to the political decision-making process and practitioners can evaluate and understand the advantages of mini-publics for each case. For future research, it is important to combine practical case studies and academic research, because few studies have been evaluated by independent researchers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 186 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 142-152
Author(s):  
Justin M Curley ◽  
Katie L Nugent ◽  
Kristina M Clarke-Walper ◽  
Elizabeth A Penix ◽  
James B Macdonald ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Introduction Recent reports have demonstrated behavioral health (BH) system and individual provider challenges to BH readiness success. These pose a risk to winning on the battlefield and present a significant safety issue for the Army. One of the most promising areas for achieving better BH readiness results lies in improving readiness decision-making support for BH providers. The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) has taken the lead in addressing this challenge by developing and empirically testing such tools. The results of the Behavioral Health Readiness Evaluation and Decision-Making Instrument (B-REDI) field study are herein described. Methods The B-REDI study received WRAIR Institutional Review Board approval, and BH providers across five U.S. Army Forces Command installations completed surveys from September 2018 to March 2019. The B-REDI tools/training were disseminated to 307 providers through random clinic assignments. Of these, 250 (81%) providers consented to participate and 149 (60%) completed both initial and 3-month follow-up surveys. Survey items included a wide range of satisfaction, utilization, and proficiency-level outcome measures. Analyses included examinations of descriptive statistics, McNemar’s tests pre-/post-B-REDI exposure, Z-tests with subgroup populations, and chi-square tests with demographic comparisons. Results The B-REDI resulted in broad, statistically significant improvements across the measured range of provider proficiency-level outcomes. Net gains in each domain ranged from 16.5% to 22.9% for knowledge/awareness (P = .000), from 11.1% to 15.8% for personal confidence (P = .001-.000), and from 6.2% to 15.1% for decision-making/documentation (P = .035-.002) 3 months following B-REDI initiation, and only one (knowledge) failed to maintain a statistically significant improvement in all of its subcategories. The B-REDI also received high favorability ratings (79%-97% positive) across a wide array of end-user satisfaction measures. Conclusions The B-REDI directly addresses several critical Army BH readiness challenges by providing tangible decision-making support solutions for BH providers. Providers reported high degrees of end-user B-REDI satisfaction and significant improvements in all measured provider proficiency-level domains. By effectively addressing the readiness decision-making challenges Army BH providers encounter, B-REDI provides the Army BH health care system with a successful blueprint to set the conditions necessary for providers to make more accurate and timely readiness determinations. This may ultimately reduce safety and mission failure risks enterprise-wide, and policymakers should consider formalizing and integrating the B-REDI model into current Army BH practice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0272989X2110190
Author(s):  
Ilyas Khan ◽  
Liliane Pintelon ◽  
Harry Martin

Objectives The main objectives of this article are 2-fold. First, we explore the application of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods in different areas of health care, particularly the adoption of various MCDA methods across health care decision making problems. Second, we report on the publication trends on the application of MCDA methods in health care. Method PubMed was searched for literature from 1960 to 2019 in the English language. A wide range of keywords was used to retrieve relevant studies. The literature search was performed in September 2019. Articles were included only if they have reported an MCDA case in health care. Results and Conclusion The search yielded 8,318 abstracts, of which 158 fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were considered for further analysis. Hybrid methods are the most widely used methods in health care decision making problems. When it comes to single methods, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is the most widely used method followed by TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution), multiattribute utility theory, goal programming, EVIDEM (evidence and value: impact on decision making), evidential reasoning, discrete choice experiment, and so on. Interestingly, the usage of hybrid methods has been high in recent years. AHP is most widely applied in screening and diagnosing and followed by treatment, medical devices, resource allocation, and so on. Furthermore, treatment, screening and diagnosing, medical devices, and drug development and assessment got more attention in the MCDA context. It is indicated that the application of MCDA methods to health care decision making problem is determined by the nature and complexity of the health care problem. However, guidelines and tools exist that assist in the selection of an MCDA method.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bougie ◽  
Ryutaro Ichise

AbstractDeep reinforcement learning methods have achieved significant successes in complex decision-making problems. In fact, they traditionally rely on well-designed extrinsic rewards, which limits their applicability to many real-world tasks where rewards are naturally sparse. While cloning behaviors provided by an expert is a promising approach to the exploration problem, learning from a fixed set of demonstrations may be impracticable due to lack of state coverage or distribution mismatch—when the learner’s goal deviates from the demonstrated behaviors. Besides, we are interested in learning how to reach a wide range of goals from the same set of demonstrations. In this work we propose a novel goal-conditioned method that leverages very small sets of goal-driven demonstrations to massively accelerate the learning process. Crucially, we introduce the concept of active goal-driven demonstrations to query the demonstrator only in hard-to-learn and uncertain regions of the state space. We further present a strategy for prioritizing sampling of goals where the disagreement between the expert and the policy is maximized. We evaluate our method on a variety of benchmark environments from the Mujoco domain. Experimental results show that our method outperforms prior imitation learning approaches in most of the tasks in terms of exploration efficiency and average scores.


2021 ◽  
pp. 004728752110149
Author(s):  
Hwirim Jo ◽  
Namho Chung ◽  
Sunyoung Hlee ◽  
Chulmo Koo

Despite the revolutionary system of online booking, the decision-making process for booking hotels is still very stressful for customers, who face much uncertainty. The wide range of products and great volume of information result in significant cognitive overload. Therefore, online travel agencies (OTAs) try to reduce customers’ cognitive effort requirements and to induce effective decision making by triggering potential actions through perceived affordance. This study aims to explore the influence of perceived affordance on purchase decisions and postpurchase emotion in the context of OTAs. The findings show that explicit affordance and hidden affordance significantly affect impulsive buying, thus resulting in postpurchase discomfort and regret. Additionally, the outcomes of a multiple group analysis revealed a significant moderating effect of regulatory focus orientation on impulsive buying and postpurchase regret during an overall purchase process involving OTAs.


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