Research on concept learning in educational settings has traditionally been conducted in the Piaget-inspired cognitive conflict paradigm in which students’ naïve conceptualizations are confronted with anomalous data or contradicting views or are paired with peers who have different views (socio-cognitive conflict). Inducing conceptual change has been extensively shown to be a hard goal to achie...

Available online: 25 January 2015 Background: Substance abuse is one of the most complicated social problems. Understanding socio-demographic characteristics of those who abuse substances could help deal with this problem more efficiently. The main objective of this study was to determine socio-demographic characteristics associated with alcohol drinking, cigarettes smoking and drug abuse among...

Networked computers and multi-agent systems (MAS) are commonly used as a platform for a new range of applications, many of which feature dynamic network infrastructures, heterogeneous components, unpredictable events, sub-optimal operation (failure to comply to specifications), incomplete and inconsistent information, absence of centralised control, and so on. This paper focuses on the role of ...

Technology-focused literature on socio-technical transitions shares some of the complex systems sensibilities of social-ecological systems research. We contend that the sharing of lessons between these areas of study must attend particularly to the common governance challenges that confront both approaches. Here, we focus on critical experience arising from reactions to a transition management ...

Curiosity is the strong desire to learn or know more about something or someone. Since learning is often a social endeavor, social dynamics in collaborative learning may inevitably influence curiosity. There is a scarcity of research, however, focusing on how curiosity can be evoked in group learning contexts. Inspired by a recently proposed theoretical framework [29] that articulates an integr...

This paper contributes to our current knowledge about culture and e-business Web design by investigating Amazon and Taotao, two leading e-business platforms based in America and China respectively. It is revealed that the forms of cultural reification in the two Webs include categorization, representation and structuration. All of them vary from culture to culture and this variation can be capt...

This document reports on a brief literature review about social and cognitive functions of spatial features used when collaborating in both physical and virtual settings. Those concepts come from various fields like social, cognitive as well as environmental psychology or CSCW (Computer Supported Collaborative Work). I briefly summarize the social and cognitive affordances of spatial features l...

Herbert H. Clark’s Joint Action Theory (JAT) has been groundbreaking for understanding the social and cognitive mechanisms that allow people to effectively coordinate joint actions in conversational, face-to-face settings. Using a method we call “Pair Analytics,” we have extended the application of JAT to the study of analytical reasoning in computer-mediated, human-to-human interactions. Pair ...

Socio-technical systems are an interplay of social (humans and organizations) and technical components interacting with one another to achieve their objectives. Security is a central issue in such complex systems, and it cannot be tackled only through technical mechanisms: the encryption of sensitive data while being transmitted, does not assure that the receiver will not disclose them to unaut...

background: nursing is considered as a profession at risk for high levels of stress and burnout, and these levels may be increasing as the care they deliver becomes complex. the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between burnout and socio-demographic characteristics of nurses. materials and methods: a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical design was used. the sample cons...