941 research outputs found

    Using protocol analysis to explore the creative requirements engineering process

    Full text link
    Protocol analysis is an empirical method applied by researchers in cognitive psychology and behavioural analysis. Protocol analysis can be used to collect, document and analyse thought processes by an individual problem solver. In general, research subjects are asked to think aloud when performing a given task. Their verbal reports are transcribed and represent a sequence of their thoughts and cognitive activities. These verbal reports are analysed to identify relevant segments of cognitive behaviours by the research subjects. The analysis results may be cross-examined (or validated through retrospective interviews with the research subjects). This paper offers a critical analysis of this research method, its approaches to data collection and analysis, strengths and limitations, and discusses its use in information systems research. The aim is to explore the use of protocol analysis in studying the creative requirements engineering process.<br /

    On Search of a General Model of Technology Innovation

    Get PDF
    Working Paper Ircres-CNR 04/2021. This work has the objective to present a general model of technology innovation considering technology as a separated discipline from scientific research and economy. That is justified by the fact that many technologies have been developed without economic purposes but after generating technologies with a great economic importance, and that there are limits to the study of fundamentals of technology only from an economic point of view. The study defines some principles that are at the base of technology and of its innovation. These principles lead to a model considering technology as a time-oriented structure of technological operations, and allowing the definition of concepts such as technological space, technological landscape and space of technologies. From this model it is possible to explain various technological processes including the nature of knowhow and the transfer of technology. The model then defines three organizational structures for innovation concerning the industrial R&D project, the startup-venture capital and the industrial platform systems, and then the stages of the innovation process. It follows the development of a model of technology innovation of a territory, based on loops of fluxes of knowledge and capitals, and in which these three organizational structures are in action. Applications of the general model of technology innovation concern the relation between science and technology, the technological competitivity, the relation between R&D investments and growth, new possible statistical studies, the relation between technology and the environment and the importance of intermediate scientific and technical education. The work terminates giving a perspective of evolution of the organizational structures for innovation toward a system of industrial platforms network

    A Ludological Perspective on Argument

    Get PDF
    This introductory paper explores a new perspective on argumentation that draws upon the resources of ludology – the critical and academic of study of games qua games. In the Philosophical Investigations, one of the later Wittgenstein’s more mysterious suggestions is that if one understands how games work, then one would be able to understand how natural language works. Similarly, it will be argued that if we look to how games function as games, we will be able to understand how the ‘argument-game’ functions. The epistemic importance of rhetorical argumentation rather than analytic demonstration becomes apparent if we consider ‘argument’ as the communicative interaction in which arguers attempt to improve the cognitive attitudes of a real or potential audience. The activity of arguing is crafted – but not scripted – by the formal aspects of a complex system of interacting elements that give rise to an emergent field of ‘possibility-space’ in which arguments take place. In recognizing how we indirectly craft second-order fields through our first-order design choices, we gain a new perspective and a new set of tools with which to reflect upon the relation between bias, fairness and objectivity in argumentation. Keywords: argumentation theory, language-game, ludology, philosophy, rhetori

    Ludics for a Ludic Society. The Art and Politics of Play

    Get PDF
    This dissertation provides an analysis of, and critical commentary on, the practice of playfulness as persistent phenomenon in the arts, technology and theory. Its aim is to introduce political reflections on agency through the study of playful technological artefacts, which were largely ignored in the recent discussions on game and play. Following the critical analysis of historic discourses and actual studies of play under differing auspices, and in order to understand play as inherently political agency, this thesis’ research question addresses the immersive effects of playful agency in symbolic exchange systems and in the material consciousness of the player. This thesis conducts an analysis of material cultures, in order to categorise play as technique of an inherent critique of technological culture. It traces the development of contemporary technological objects and their materiality in relation to the application of the concept of affordance in design theory. The author consequently proposes a new category of ‘play affordances’ in order to describe these new requirements of play found in consumer technologies. The structure of the analysis in the distinct chapters is informed by a stringent historic, theoretical and arts analysis and an alternating arts practice. The convergence of these elements leads to insights on further uses, options and perspectives of the research problems discussed, in particular in relation to the requirements of playful interaction in contemporary technologies, which increasingly radicalises the importance of play. The thesis’ hypothesis states that playful practices in arts and technologies provide models for political agency, like the strategic use of Con-Dividualities (Jahrmann 2000). This term describes the concept of shared identities in society or social media consumer technologies, as discussed in historic case studies and the author’s own arts practice, related to the modification of technologies as methodology of arts research. In this way the arts practice and theory of playfulness informs the emergence of a new methodology of research, intervention and participation in society through the arts of play, which is coined as Ludics, as an original outcome of this thesis

    Design Ltd.: Renovated Myths for the Development of Socially Embedded Technologies

    Full text link
    This paper argues that traditional and mainstream mythologies, which have been continually told within the Information Technology domain among designers and advocators of conceptual modelling since the 1960s in different fields of computing sciences, could now be renovated or substituted in the mould of more recent discourses about performativity, complexity and end-user creativity that have been constructed across different fields in the meanwhile. In the paper, it is submitted that these discourses could motivate IT professionals in undertaking alternative approaches toward the co-construction of socio-technical systems, i.e., social settings where humans cooperate to reach common goals by means of mediating computational tools. The authors advocate further discussion about and consolidation of some concepts in design research, design practice and more generally Information Technology (IT) development, like those of: task-artifact entanglement, universatility (sic) of End-User Development (EUD) environments, bricolant/bricoleur end-user, logic of bricolage, maieuta-designers (sic), and laissez-faire method to socio-technical construction. Points backing these and similar concepts are made to promote further discussion on the need to rethink the main assumptions underlying IT design and development some fifty years later the coming of age of software and modern IT in the organizational domain.Comment: This is the peer-unreviewed of a manuscript that is to appear in D. Randall, K. Schmidt, & V. Wulf (Eds.), Designing Socially Embedded Technologies: A European Challenge (2013, forthcoming) with the title "Building Socially Embedded Technologies: Implications on Design" within an EUSSET editorial initiative (www.eusset.eu/

    Approaches To Fracture Healing Under Inflammatory Conditions: Infection And Diabetes

    Get PDF
    Non-union is a devastating complication of fracture and can be precipitated by abnormal inflammatory states including infection and diabetes. This thesis focuses on four related research problems that are addressed through original scientific investigation and literature review. In addressing these questions, this dissertation presents evidence for the following conclusions through in vivo animal models and using methods including bacterial cell culture and counting, histology, radiography, and micro-computed tomography: 1. Rifampin-loaded hydrogels decrease bacterial load and improve fracture healing in a MRSA-infected open fracture model. 2. MRSA-infected nonunion is characterized by impaired chondrocyte maturation and is associated with IL-1 and NF-KB activation. 3. Local teriparatide improves radiographic fracture healing in a type 2 diabetic mouse model, but is inferior to systemic treatment. 4. Systemic administration of teriparatide, along with systemic antibiotics, improves fracture healing in a diabetic, MRSA-infected mouse tibia fracture model. This current work is not without limitation, and many aspects of this work are still in progress. Nevertheless, the author hopes that this dissertation will serve as providing meaningful, foundational data for future laboratory and clinical studies to improve our understanding of inflammatory fracture healing and arrive at new therapies to advance the practice of fracture care

    Developmental Changes in Cognition: An Evaluation of a Philosophy for Children Program

    Get PDF
    The formal operational stage seems to differ considerably from earlier Piagetian stages. The first three Piagetian cognitive stages seem to develop fully in all individuals, unless there is a major cultural difference or a major psychopathology (Bruner, 1966). In contrast, there is disagreement in the literature as to whether formal operational reasoning fully develops in all normal individuals. Both Dulit (1972) and Tomlinson-Keasey (1972) found evidence that some normal individuals never attain formal operational reasoning. Others however (Jackson, 1965; Lovell, 1961) agree with Piaget (Inhelder and Piaget, 1958) that the emergence of formal operational reasoning occurs invariably between 11 and 12 years of age. The uncertainty about the nature or age of emergence of formal operations is clear. It may be due partly to the variability in the method of assessment of formal operational reasoning; different formal tasks may measure different areas of formal reasoning competence. Berzonsky, Weiner and Raphael (1975) have thus suggested that formal reasoning is a potential competency that is developed in each area as a function of specific situational variables or specific environmental experiences. Even Piaget (1972) has recently admitted that the acquisition of formal thinking may depend in part on particular educational and cultural factors

    Comparison of control parameters for roller blinds

    Get PDF
    Roller blinds can reduce the heating and cooling building energy consumption required to maintain thermal comfort. The effectiveness of roller blinds is influenced by the strategies and input parameters for their control. This study is the first to identify the most effective of seven alternative control parameters to control roller blinds. It further defines the benefits from using paired control parameters to maximise energy savings and optimise occupants’ comfort. For the particular case studies and conditions examined, it is concluded that operating roller blinds using indoor air temperature as a single control parameter with rule-based controller provided, 16 %, 19 % and 45 % in heating, cooling and lighting energy savings in Dublin, Berlin and Madrid respectively compared to a window without roller blinds, with an average 51 % daylight discomfort reduction. Using both internal temperature and outdoor ambient temperature to control the roller blinds had little effect on energy need, with only a further 0.6 %, 0.5 % and 0.3 % energy savings and an average of 2 % reduction in daylight discomfort achieved compared to using solely indoor temperature as the control parameter

    The changing geography of the European automobile system

    Get PDF
    Based on the research done by the European thematic network CoCKEAS (FP6), the paper analyses the recent changes in the European automobile geography. It discusses the impacts of the EU enlargement: integration of Central and Eastern European countries and new spatial competition for Southern European countries (Spain, Portugal). The study of the geographic distribution of automobile production within Europe focuses on the dynamic of specialisation of regions through collective learning processes, and the clustering of design and assembly activities (supplier parks).automobile industry, cluster, Europe, location, proximity, spatial division of labour
    • 

    corecore