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The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between trait and situational empathy, and the effect of educational activities on empathy of nursing students towards people living with dementia.

This embedded mixed-methods study compared trait and situational empathy examined situational empathy pre/post didactic and experiential activities with nursing students and used qualitative data from focus group discussions to corroborate the quantitative data.

There was no significant difference between trait and situational empathy. Post intervention scores (situational) demonstrated improvements on empathic concern, shared affect, empathic imagination, helping motivation and cognitive empathy. Focus group discussions supported quantitative findings and also included distress.

Limitations include lack of generalizability, single group threats and exclusion of stakeholder input. Single group threats include absence of a control group, familiarity with the CSES from pre-test to post-test and reactive measurements, as the students were observed by faculty while completing the Dementia Live activity. The perspective of stakeholders would strengthen the impact of the results on implementation.

Information gleaned from this study can help inform administrators in education and in practice. CliftonStrengths assessment and Dementia Live simulation activities can be used for administrators, faculty and students in schools of nursing as well as administrators and health-care workers.

Information from this study can impact those living with dementia as well as their caregivers.

Most studies involving health-care students and empathy do not delineate between trait and situational empathy. This study is unique in that it measured both and sought a relationship between the two. Determining one's personal attributes such as trait empathy, can help students capitalize on their strengths and ultimately enhance patient care.

The purpose of this study was to examine how well a strength-based program grounded in positive psychology principles can advance the practical critical thinking skills of those pursuing the teacher training course.

This study used a single-group pre-test post-test design with 35 teacher-trainees from the Bachelor of Education course. The two-and-a-half-week strength-based program used the values in action survey to identify strengths. Pre- and post-test scores, measured with the Cornell Critical Thinking Test – Level Z, underwent Statistical Package for Social Sciences analysis including paired samples t-test for subcomponent and overall composite analysis.

Analysis of the pre- and post-test scores demonstrated a statistical significance in the critical thinking scores obtained by the teacher-trainees. Post-test scores were consistently significant. Out of the elements of critical thinking, induction, meaning, observation and credibility were more prominent. Deduction and assumption identification were also having a significant effect.

Most critical thinking programs focus on evaluating specific teaching methods for improving critical thinking skills. In education, positive psychology studies often center on students’ well-being, attention spans and academic success, aligning with wellness programs. Despite the importance of strengths in positive psychology, there is a lack of research on using a strength-based approach to boost critical thinking skills. This study aims to enhance teacher-trainees’ critical thinking by leveraging their individual strengths, moving away from traditional instructional strategies.

This paper aims to study the automotive 4.0 context to understand the consumers’ propensity towards high-tech automated cars. The paper analyses the antecedents that lead to the use of innovative vehicles. Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is adopted and extended by including further constructs, such as environmental aspects and inhibitors.

The advent of smart technologies and the internet of things has given rise to several contributions that look at consumers’ intention towards innovation adoption in the automotive industry. Furthermore, this study rises from the growing interest that sustainable mobility achieved. Based on the previous technology acceptance models and particularly TPB, this paper develops a structured questionnaire. After a pilot survey, the final questionnaire was administered online through email and social media in the Italian context. Structural equation modelling technique has been used for analysing data and testing the conceptual model.

The number of questionnaires filled out was 310, with a sample composed of young adults, characterised by different addiction levels towards technology. The results explain the drivers that lead to accept and adopt high-tech automated vehicles. This topic is still under investigation and offers potential research opportunities, considering the evolution of the market and the consumers’ habits and needs. Future research studies in this area should focus on generalising the present findings in other countries. Moreover, once this technology starts to be adopted, other constructs could be discovered, investigated and included in the model.

Mobility has raised a growing interest with the fast increasing demand for sustainability and growth of innovative solutions embedded in mobility. This research explores the TPB model’s application and the relation between its constructs, environmental aspects, inhibitors and intention to adopt automated vehicles. On this strength, it is possible to identify each construct’s relevance for obtaining social consensus on the market.

Flexible staffing arrangements have become a permanent feature of employment in many industrial societies. This article examines how employers perceive the consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements. It presents and assesses theoretically informed hypotheses on organisational situations in which negative consequences are more likely to be perceived.

This study uses data (n = 761) from a bespoke employers survey, fielded in the Netherlands in 2019. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to measure and explain employers' perception of downsides to flexible staffing arrangements.

Employers report distinct downsides to the use of flexible staffing arrangements in terms of performance, management and employee well-being. Model estimates show that employers using flexible staffing arrangements to acquire specific expertise or to follow other organisations in their sector perceive more downsides.

Empirical research on employers' perception of the disadvantageous consequences of using flexible staffing arrangements is scarce. This article highlights that this practice can discourage investments in human capital and lead to a sense of insecurity among young workers. It draws attention to the relevance of distinguishing between strategic motives when trying to understand organisational behaviour regarding non-standard forms of employment.

This paper presents a survey of research into interactive robotic systems for the purpose of identifying the state of the art capabilities as well as the extant gaps in this emerging field. Communication is multimodal. Multimodality is a representation of many modes chosen from rhetorical aspects for its communication potentials. The author seeks to define the available automation capabilities in communication using multimodalities that will support a proposed Interactive Robot System (IRS) as an AI mounted robotic platform to advance the speed and quality of military operational and tactical decision making.

This review will begin by presenting key developments in the robotic interaction field with the objective of identifying essential technological developments that set conditions for robotic platforms to function autonomously. After surveying the key aspects in Human Robot Interaction (HRI), Unmanned Autonomous System (UAS), visualization, Virtual Environment (VE) and prediction, the paper then proceeds to describe the gaps in the application areas that will require extension and integration to enable the prototyping of the IRS. A brief examination of other work in HRI-related fields concludes with a recapitulation of the IRS challenge that will set conditions for future success.

Using insights from a balanced cross section of sources from the government, academic, and commercial entities that contribute to HRI a multimodal IRS in military communication is introduced. Multimodal IRS (MIRS) in military communication has yet to be deployed.

Multimodal robotic interface for the MIRS is an interdisciplinary endeavour. This is not realistic that one can comprehend all expert and related knowledge and skills to design and develop such multimodal interactive robotic interface. In this brief preliminary survey, the author has discussed extant AI, robotics, NLP, CV, VDM, and VE applications that is directly related to multimodal interaction. Each mode of this multimodal communication is an active research area. Multimodal human/military robot communication is the ultimate goal of this research.

A multimodal autonomous robot in military communication using speech, images, gestures, VST and VE has yet to be deployed. Autonomous multimodal communication is expected to open wider possibilities for all armed forces. Given the density of the land domain, the army is in a position to exploit the opportunities for human–machine teaming (HMT) exposure. Naval and air forces will adopt platform specific suites for specially selected operators to integrate with and leverage this emerging technology. The possession of a flexible communications means that readily adapts to virtual training will enhance planning and mission rehearsals tremendously.

Interaction, perception, cognition and visualization based multimodal communication system is yet missing. Options to communicate, express and convey information in HMT setting with multiple options, suggestions and recommendations will certainly enhance military communication, strength, engagement, security, cognition, perception as well as the ability to act confidently for a successful mission.

The objective is to develop a multimodal autonomous interactive robot for military communications. This survey reports the state of the art, what exists and what is missing, what can be done and possibilities of extension that support the military in maintaining effective communication using multimodalities. There are some separate ongoing progresses, such as in machine-enabled speech, image recognition, tracking, visualizations for situational awareness, and virtual environments. At this time, there is no integrated approach for multimodal human robot interaction that proposes a flexible and agile communication. The report briefly introduces the research proposal about multimodal interactive robot in military communication.

This paper aims to adopt a moderated mediation model to examine the mediation roles of employee engagement and hindrance time pressure; the moderation roles of personality in the relationship between strengths-based psychological climate and employee innovation performance.

Applying snowball sampling and a self-administered survey, the data were collected from employees and immediate supervisors working in Chinese small-medium-sized enterprises. The PROCESS macro for SPSS was applied to examine the moderated mediation model.

The results show that a strengths-based psychological climate significantly influences employee engagement and hindrance time pressure, which, in turn, affects employee innovation performance. Both extroversion and emotional stability moderate the relationship between strengths-based psychological climate, employee engagement and hindrance time pressure but also the indirect effect of strengths-based psychological climate on employee innovation performance through employee engagement and hindrance time pressure.

Drawing on job demands and resources models, this research focusses on maximizing employee strengths instead of weaknesses and includes both two intermediating mechanisms in-between strengths-based psychological climate and innovation performance. Personality variables are applied as moderators, as the study assumes the effectiveness of the strengths-based interventions may vary depends on individual differences.

This study proposes that a strengths-based psychological climate may shift focusses from employee weakness to strengths to maximise their talents. Also, personality variables are suggested to be considered in the related human resource practices (e.g. hiring and performance appraisal) to increase the fit between employees, their jobs and the organisations.

This study develops a moderated mediation model to investigate the possible mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions in relation to the impact of strengths-based psychological climate on employee innovation performance.

Branched situational judgment tests (BSJTs) are an increasingly common employee selection method, yet there is no theory and very little empirical work explaining the designs and impacts of branching. To encourage additional research on BSJTs, and to provide practitioners with a common language to describe their current and future practices, we sought to develop a theory of BSTJs.

Given the absence of theory on branching, we utilized a ground theory qualitative research design, conducting interviews with 25 BSJT practitioner subject matter experts.

Our final theory consists of three components: (1) a taxonomy of BSJT branching features (contingency, parallelism, convergence, and looping) and options within those features (which vary), (2) a causal theoretical model describing impacts of branching in general on applicant reactions via proximal effects on face validity, and (3) a causal theoretical model describing impacts on applicant reactions among branching designs via proximal effects on consistency of administration and opportunity to perform.

Our work provides the first theoretical foundation on which future confirmatory research in the BSJT domain can be built. It also gives both researchers and practitioners a common language for describing branching features and their options. Finally, it reveals BSJTs as the results of a complex set of interrelated design features, discouraging the oversimplified contrasting of “branching” vs “not branching.”

The purpose of this paper is to characterize distracted driving by quantifying the response time and response intensity to an emergency stop using the driver’s physiological states.

Field tests with 17 participants were conducted in the connected and automated vehicle test field. All participants were required to prioritize their primary driving tasks while a secondary nondriving task was asked to be executed. Demographic data, vehicle trajectory data and various physiological data were recorded through a biosignalsplux signal data acquisition toolkit, such as electrocardiograph for heart rate, electromyography for muscle strength, electrodermal activity for skin conductance and force-sensing resistor for braking pressure.

This study quantified the psychophysiological responses of the driver who returns to the primary driving task from the secondary nondriving task when an emergency occurs. The results provided a prototype analysis of the time required for making a decision in the context of advanced driver assistance systems or for rebuilding the situational awareness in future automated vehicles when a driver’s take-over maneuver is needed.

The hypothesis is that the secondary task will result in a higher mental workload and a prolonged reaction time. Therefore, the driver states in distracted driving are significantly different than in regular driving, the physiological signal improves measuring the brake response time and distraction levels and brake intensity can be expressed as functions of driver demographics. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study using psychophysiological measures to quantify a driver’s response to an emergency stop during distracted driving.