Most research on the contribution of human capital to economic growth and its role in the distribution of income uses indirect measures of human capital such as educational attainment and work experience. Such measures are arguably inputs into the production of human capital in the form of skills, competencies and knowledge. This study uses Canadian data from the International Adult Literacy Su...

Skillful performance in a human language often involves a composite of elementary skills, such that language skills, cognitive skills, and social skills can be conflated in the judgement of a human listener. A new, computer-based method (PhonePass testing) provides an estimate of spoken language skills, relatively independent of the speaker's other social and cognitive skills. The PhonePass sys...

As organizations continuously evolve, it is important to know who can lead and manage an organization to be effective, efficient, and productive. Managers with human skills are needed to help an organization mature and develop; just like a toddler needs a parent to help him or her mature and develop into an independent, sustainable, and self-sufficient adult. This study on 200 middle managers s...

There seems to be a mismatch between the needs of firms in terms of human capital and the aptitudes and skills of university graduates. The nature and consequences of this mismatch are examined. The relation between skills shortages, perceived skills shortages, and labour market competition is studied. The allocation of general and specific training between firms and universities is analysed. N...

For a long time emotions have been kept out of the deliberate tools of science; scientists have expressed emotion, but no tools could sense and respond to their affective information. This paper highlights research at the MIT Media Laboratory aimed at giving computers the ability to comfortably sense, recognize, and respond to the human communication of emotion, especially affective states such...

This paper discusses the relevance of recent research on the economics of human development to the work of the Human Development and Capability Association. The recent economics of human development brings insights about the dynamics of skill accumulation to an otherwise static literature on capabilities. Skills embodied in agents empower people. Enhanced skills enhance opportunities and hence ...

Drawing upon Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives as a theoretical framework, this study examines attitudes toward communication skills training, knowledge of appropriate provider-patient communication, and confidence communicating with patients between first-year and fourth-year medical students at a large medical school in the southern United States. The study findings indicate that fou...

This research seeks to identify online participants’ disposition and skills. A prototype dashboard and annotation scheme were developed to support facilitators and several computational predictors were identified that show statistically significant correlations with dialogue skills as observed by human annotators.

To investigate the effects of robots on human self-assessment under the more general contexts of learning, this research focused on the evaluative feedback by robots. A psychological experiment was conducted by using a human-sized humanoid robot. The results found that the evaluative context tended to increase the subjects’ negative responses regarding disclosure of their skills to the robot an...