Sensemaking on the Pragmatic Web: A Hypermedia Discourse Perspective

The complexity of the dilemmas we face on an organizational, societal and global scale forces us into sensemaking activity. We need tools for expressing and contesting perspectives flexible enough for real time use in meetings, structured enough to help manage longer term memory, and powerful enough to filter the complexity of extended deliberation and debate on an organizational or global scale. This has been the motivation for a programme of basic and applied action research into Hypermedia Discourse, which draws on research in hypertext, information visualization, argumentation, modelling, and meeting facilitation. This paper proposes that this strand of work shares a key principle behind the Pragmatic Web concept, namely, the need to take seriously diverse perspectives and the processes of meaning negotiation. Moreover, it is argued that the hypermedia discourse tools described instantiate this principle in practical tools which permit end-user control over modelling approaches in the absence of consensus

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Value Disagreement and Two Aspects of Meaning

The problem of value disagreement and contextualist, relativist and metalinguistic attempts of solving it are laid out. Although the metalinguistic account seems to be on the right track, it is argued that it does not sufficiently explain why and how disagreements about the meaning of evaluative terms are based on and can be decided by appeal to existing social practices. As a remedy, it is argued that original suggestions from Putnam's 'The Meaning of "Meaning"' ought to be taken seriously. The resulting dual aspect theory of meaning can explain value disagreement in much the same way as it deals with disagreement about general terms. However, the account goes beyond Putnam's by not just defending a version of social externalism, but also defending the thesis that the truth conditional meaning of many evaluative terms is not fixed by experts either and instead constantly contested as part of a normal function of language

Contract Aware Components, 10 years after

The notion of contract aware components has been published roughly ten years ago and is now becoming mainstream in several fields where the usage of software components is seen as critical. The goal of this paper is to survey domains such as Embedded Systems or Service Oriented Architecture where the notion of contract aware components has been influential. For each of these domains we briefly describe what has been done with this idea and we discuss the remaining challenges.Comment: In Proceedings WCSI 2010, arXiv:1010.233

Girls’ access to education in China: actors, cultures and the windmill of development management

The world has a mixed record towards achieving EFA and the MDGs in relation to the targets on gender equity in basic education. For researchers and practitioners, this raises the question of which factors influence the processes leading to the improvement of access and quality of girls’ education and how. This case study from China examines the human and cultural dimensions of project management in determining the planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions designed to improve gender equity. The monograph combines concepts from the actor-oriented approach of development studies, with theories of culture and development management. It generates an analytical framework composed of two super ordinate ‘cultural landscapes’. One is the ‘relational’ landscape with its dimensions of power distance, masculinity-femininity, and collectivism-individualism. The other is the ‘time-orientation’ landscape with its dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and universalism-particularism. The ‘cultural landscapes’ and dimensions provide a powerful description of how the perceptions and strategies of interaction vary and change between and within individual actors. The monograph illustrates how managers act as innovators with varied perceptions and interaction strategies influenced by multiple levels of culture, social and political contexts. Using the metaphor of a windmill, the monograph suggests that project management moves beyond the linear cyclical logic presented in many of the planning texts and manuals of development agencies. The steps and stages of development management are the windmill’s blades. The cultural interactions between actors form the wind that gives the blades energy and speed. The blades run both synchronically and sequentially depending on the wind strength. The monograph recommends that development managers should move beyond superficial concerns for outputs and products to a deeper concern for human and cultural processes that lead to results for achieving EFA and the MDGs

Driving and sustaining culture change in professional sport performance teams: A grounded theory

Objectives As part of the recent upsurge of work on management and organizational factors in elite sports teams, researchers have focused on the team management-led creation and regulation of high performing cultures. The purpose of this study was to therefore add to a recently developed model of culture change best practice in Olympic sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming performance directors, and conceptualize culture change best practice in professional sports teams, as led and perceived by incoming team managers. Design and method A pragmatic research philosophy and corresponding grounded theory methodology were used to generate a practically-meaningful model of this culture change process from the perspective of UK-based professional team managers. Results Perceived best practice in team manager-led culture change was found to involve a finite phase of initial evaluation, planning, and impact adjoined to the enduring management of a holistic, integrated, and dynamic social system. With the former process acting as the catalyst for successful change, this model revealed that optimal change was felt to primarily rely on the constant acquisition, negotiation, and alignment of internal and external stakeholder perceptions. Conclusions Based on the model's principles, the optimization of professional team culture is defined by a manager's initial actions and never definitively achieved but rather constantly constructed and re-constructed in complex social and power dynamics. Beyond providing a conceptual backdrop for continued research in this area, the model is also a tool on which the practice of professional team managers and their supporting sport psychologists can be based

Reflecting on English Lingua Franca today: Expanding scenarios and growing dilemmas. An overview with introductory notes

Introduction to the volume

Explicating the role of partnerships in changing the health and well-being of local communities in urban regeneration areas: evaluation of the Warnwarth conceptual framework for partnership evaluation

This literature review is one of three outputs from a project: Explicating the role of partnerships in changing the health and well-being of local communities, one of a number of projects in a larger Higher Education Funding Council Strategic Development Fund project (HEFCE) entitled: Urban Regeneration: Making a Difference. This was a collaborative venture between Manchester Metropolitan University, Northumbria University, University of Salford and University of Central Lancashire. Bradford University was an affiliated partner

On Agent-Based Software Engineering

Agent-based computing represents an exciting new synthesis both for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, more generally, Computer Science. It has the potential to significantly improve the theory and the practice of modeling, designing, and implementing computer systems. Yet, to date, there has been little systematic analysis of what makes the agent-based approach such an appealing and powerful computational model. Moreover, even less effort has been devoted to discussing the inherent disadvantages that stem from adopting an agent-oriented view. Here both sets of issues are explored. The standpoint of this analysis is the role of agent-based software in solving complex, real-world problems. In particular, it will be argued that the development of robust and scalable software systems requires autonomous agents that can complete their objectives while situated in a dynamic and uncertain environment, that can engage in rich, high-level social interactions, and that can operate within flexible organisational structures