Boundary Spanning and Engineering: A Qualitative Systematic Review

Background

Engineers are often expected to span organizational, cultural, stakeholder, geographic, temporal, and other boundaries. Yet, few studies on boundary spanning have appeared in the engineering education literature, suggesting the need for improved theoretical and conceptual foundations to guide empirical studies of boundary spanning in engineering.

Purpose

To develop a more comprehensive understanding of boundary spanning, this study addresses five research questions: (a) What types of boundaries have been identified as topics of interest? (b) How are boundary spanners and boundary spanning defined? (c) What types of activities and behaviors comprise or have been linked to boundary spanning? (d) What individual competencies and characteristics have been proposed or studied as important for boundary spanning? and (e) What boundary spanning themes are most prominent in studies of engineers and other technical professionals?

Scope/Method

Using a qualitative systematic review process, we identified and analyzed 72 scholarly papers from multiple disciplines. Multiple reviewers coded each paper using a hybrid deductive‐inductive content analysis process to identify key themes related to boundary spanning.

Conclusions

The analysis resulted in a framework consisting of six boundary types, three types of roles and definitions, and five types of activities. Discussion of boundary spanning competencies was limited in the collected works, and only seven papers exclusively focused on engineers. We conclude by proposing boundary spanning as an important meta‐attribute for engineers and a promising lens for investigating engineering practice. We also relate our findings to the engineering education literature and suggest directions for future research.     

The privileged sensing framework: A principled approach to improved human-autonomy integration

ABSTRACT

A primary goal for human-autonomy integration (HAI) is to balance the strengths of human and autonomy in order to achieve performance objectives more efficiently and robustly than either the human or autonomous agents would independently. This paper proposes the Privileged Sensing Framework (PSF) as a novel approach to HAI. This approach is based on the concept of dynamically ‘privileging’ information during the process of integration by dynamically bestowing special rights based on the characteristics of each individual agent, the task context, and the performance goals. The proposed framework is tested through a series of simulation experiments that provide a clear demonstration of increased accuracy and throughput of human-autonomy performance. These proof-of-concept simulations provide initial evidence of the utility of the PSF. Continued development of this approach has the potential to revolutionise capabilities of multi-agent cooperative teams across a broad range of applications.     

Genetic effects of 1,3-butadiene and associated risk for heritable damage

A summary of the results of the studies conducted in the EU Project "Multi-endpoint analysis of genetic damage induced by 1,3-butadiene and its major metabolites in somatic and germ cells of mice, rats and man" is presented. Results of the project are summarized on the detection of DNA and hemoglobin adducts, on the cytotoxic and clastogenic effects in somatic and germinal cells of mice and rats, on the induction of somatic mutations at the hprt locus of experimental rodents and occupationally exposed workers, on the induction of dominant lethal mutations in mice and rats, and on heritable translocations induced in mice, after exposure to butadiene (BD) or its major metabolites, butadiene monoepoxide (BMO), diepoxybutane (DEB) and butadiene diolepoxide (BDE). The primary goal of this project was to collect experimental data on the genetic effects of BD in order to estimate the germ cell genetic risk to humans of exposure to BD. To achieve this, the butadiene exposure are based on data for heritable translocations and bone marrow micronuclei induced in mice and chromosome aberrations observed in lymphocytes of exposed workers. A doubling dose for heritable translocations in human germ cells of 4900 ppm/h is estimated, which, assuming cumulative BD exposure over the sensitive period of spermatogenesis, corresponds to 5-6 weeks of continuous exposure at the workplace to 20-25 ppm. Alternatively, the rate of heritable translocation induction per ppm/h of BD exposure is estimated to be approximately 0.8 per million live born, compared to a spontaneous incidence of balanced translocations in humans of approximately 800 per million live born. These estimates have large confidence intervals and are only intended to indicate orders of magnitude of human genetic risk. These risk estimates are based on data from germ cells of BD-exposed male mice. The demonstration that clastogenic damage was induced by DEB in preovulatory oocytes at doses which were not ovotoxic implies that additional studies on the response of mammalian female germ cells to BD and its metabolites are needed. The basic assumption of the above genetic risk estimates is that experimental mouse data obtained after BD exposure can be extrapolated to humans. Several points exist in the present report and in the literature which contradict this assumption: (1) the level of BMO-hemoglobin adducts was significantly elevated in BD-exposed workers; however, it was considerably lower than would have been predicted from comparable rat and mouse exposures; (2) the concentrations of the metabolites DEB and BMO were significantly higher in mouse than in rat blood after BD exposure. Thus, while metabolism of BD is qualitatively similar in the two species, it is quantitatively different; (3) no increase of HPRT mutations was shown in 19 workers exposed on average to 1.8 ppm of BD, while in a different population of workers from a US plant exposed on average to 3.5 ppm of BD, a significant increase of HPRT variants was detected; and (4) data from cancer bioassays and cancer epidemiology suggest that rat is a more appropriate model than mouse for human cancer risk from BD exposure. However, the dominant lethal study in rats gave a negative result. At present, we do not know which BD metabolite(s) may be responsible for the genetic effects even though the bifunctional alkylating agent DEB is the most likely candidate for the induction of clastogenic events. Unfortunately, methods to measure DEB adducts in hemoglobin or DNA are only presently being developed. Despite these several uncertainties the use of the mouse genetic data is regarded as a justifiable and conservative approach to human genetic risk estimation given the considerable heterogeneity observed in the biotransformation of BD in humans.     

Exploring Privacy Management on Facebook: Motivations and Perceived Consequences of Voluntary Disclosure

This study examined the perceived motivations and consequences of voluntary disclosure of Facebook active users using a survey administered to college students in a public‐speaking course. College‐age students who took the survey were motivated to use Facebook because they perceived their relationships improved with friends and family, although using Facebook could become negatively habit forming. The research suggests that users of Facebook use it more for disclosing to distant friends rather than to close friends, which is divergent from most early disclosure research that equates disclosure with intimacy. This research utilizes Communication Privacy Management Theory for the theoretical framework.     

National occupational research agenda (NORA) future directions in occupational musculoskeletal disorder health research

Musculoskeletal disorders are among the most costly health care problems facing society today. The scientific literature has indicated that psychosocial factors, individual factors, workplace physical requirements, and workplace organizational factors have been associated with risk. Since musculoskeletal risk is multi-dimensional, the magnitude of risk attributable to various factors can be of importance to scientists and policy makers in designing countermeasures to reduce injury incidence. Traditionally, the disciplines of biomechanics, physiology, and psychophysics have dominated the body of knowledge that has defined exposure limitations to work. However, recent research has explored the association of psychosocial and work organization factors with musculoskeletal problems. Advances have been made to better quantify the levels of occupational exposure by improved exposure metrics, quantification of three-dimensional loads experienced by certain joints (e.g. the spine), identification of tissue tolerance limits and tissue response to mechanical stresses, and the impact of psychosocial stresses. However, efforts to quantitatively link epidemiological, biomechanical loading, soft tissue tolerance, and psychosocial studies should be pursued to establish a better understanding of the pathways of injury and resultant preventive strategies. Although we are beginning to understand how the major risk factors influence the load-tolerance relationship of human tissue, how these risk factors interact is virtually unexplored. Since the impact of the interactions may be far greater than that of any individual factor, the impact of the interactions between risk factors must be delineated so that work-related risk can be better quantified. Efforts to quantitatively link epidemiological, biomechanical loading, soft tissue tolerance, and psychosocial studies should be pursued to establish a better understanding of the pathways of injury and resultant preventive strategies.     

Global Interoperability Using Semantics, Standards, Science and Technology (GIST)

“Global Interoperability Using Semantics, Standards, Science and Technology” is a concept that is predicated on the assumption that the semantic integration, frameworks and standards that support information exchange, and advances in science and technology can enable information-systems interoperability for many diverse users. This paper recommends technologies and approaches for enabling interoperability across a wide spectrum of political, geographical, and organizational levels, e.g. coalition, federal, state, tribal, regional, non government, and private. These recommendations represent steps toward the goal of the Semantic Web, where computers understand information on web sites through knowledge representations, agents, and ontologies.     

Assessing the performance of normal-based and REML-based confidence intervals for the intraclass correlation coefficient

Using normal distribution assumptions, one can obtain confidence intervals for variance components in a variety of applications. A normal-based interval, which has exact coverage probability under normality, is usually constructed from a pivot so that the endpoints of the interval depend on the data as well as the distribution of the pivotal quantity. Alternatively, one can employ a point estimation technique to form a large-sample (or approximate) confidence interval. A commonly used approach to estimate variance components is the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method. The endpoints of a REML-based confidence interval depend on the data and the asymptotic distribution of the REML estimator. In this paper, simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the performance of the normal-based and the REML-based intervals for the intraclass correlation coefficient under non-normal distribution assumptions. Simulated coverage probabilities and expected lengths provide guidance as to which interval procedure is favored for a particular scenario. Estimating the kurtosis of the underlying distribution plays a central role in implementing the REML-based procedure. An empirical example is given to illustrate the usefulness of the REML-based confidence intervals under non-normality.     

Practical considerations for high spatial and temporal resolution dynamic transmission electron microscopy

Although recent years have seen significant advances in the spatial resolution possible in the transmission electron microscope (TEM), the temporal resolution of most microscopes is limited to video rate at best. This lack of temporal resolution means that our understanding of dynamic processes in materials is extremely limited. High temporal resolution in the TEM can be achieved, however, by replacing the normal thermionic or field emission source with a photoemission source. In this case the temporal resolution is limited only by the ability to create a short pulse of photoexcited electrons in the source, and this can be as short as a few femtoseconds. The operation of the photo-emission source and the control of the subsequent pulse of electrons (containing as many as 5 x 10(7) electrons) create significant challenges for a standard microscope column that is designed to operate with a single electron in the column at any one time. In this paper, the generation and control of electron pulses in the TEM to obtain a temporal resolution <10(-6)s will be described and the effect of the pulse duration and current density on the spatial resolution of the instrument will be examined. The potential of these levels of temporal and spatial resolution for the study of dynamic materials processes will also be discussed.     

Using difference intervals for time-varying isosurface visualization

We present a novel approach to out-of-core time-varying isosurface visualization. We attempt to interactively visualize time-varying datasets which are too large to fit into main memory using a technique which is dramatically different from existing algorithms. Inspired by video encoding techniques, we examine the data differences between time steps to extract isosurface information. We exploit span space extraction techniques to retrieve operations necessary to update isosurface geometry from neighboring time steps. Because only the changes between time steps need to be retrieved from disk, I/O bandwidth requirements are minimized. We apply temporal compression to further reduce disk access and employ a point-based previewing technique that is refined in idle interaction cycles. Our experiments on computational simulation data indicate that this method is an extremely viable solution to large time-varying isosurface visualization. Our work advances the state-of-the-art by enabling all isosurfaces to be represented by a compact set of operations.     

Habituation of the orienting response: a gating mechanism subserving selective attention

Possibilities of involution of changes in lesser circulation after closure of experimental aortopulmonary anastomosis were studied. 37 observations at various intervals after closure of anastomosis (several minutes to 13.5 months) in 25 dogs were analyzed. Before closure the anastomosis had functioned for 1-7 months. The results of histological examinations of lungs, pressure measurements in lesser circulation, heart weight, electrocardiographic and spirographic examinations were analyzed. It was found that complete involution of changes in lesser circulation was possible only in first month of existence of anastomosis, in this case with changes of both "early" and "late" types. "Late"-type changes after four months function of anastomosis had both reversible and irreversible character, whereas "early"-type changes became irreversible already after three-month duration of anastomosis. With the "late"-type changes, the operation itself (closure of anastomosis) was accompanied by symptoms of pulmonary vasomotor paresis and heart failure, whereas in the presence of "early"-type changes the operation elicited no morphological or functional changes.