Review of practice-led research in art, design & architecture

This review report sets out the outcomes of a 10 month investigation to describe the landscape of practice-led research in Art, Design and Architecture (ADA) in the UK and beyond. We were asked for a qualitative review but of course it has been important to gather some numbers to check and illustrate our observations. We have consulted widely, both face to face and in the virtual world, with experts and novices in the UK and around the world. We have tried to strike a balance between the natural desire of our colleagues to debate the more contentious aspects of this territory (they were never going to forgo that opportunity) and the equally strong wish of the AHRC that we should provide a clear description of what is happening. We have collected some diverse examples of research and subjected them to various examinations. We have also examined a selection of research projects funded by AHRC and other projects by creative practitioners, funded by a non-research organisation. From all this we have been able to describe the landscape in a straightforward sense: We have measures of the proportions of ADA academics involved in practice-led research. We have clarified differences in the ways that the different ADA disciplines engage with practice-led research and identified some problems that indicate possible future support strategies. We have discussed some problems with general definitions of research and identified issues that should be addressed to ensure that the AHRC definition can be applied to the full range of practice-led research. We have picked out some specific case examples that illustrate the range of contexts, methods and contributions made by practice-led researchers, and more are described in detail in Appendix F. We have also sought to assess how this research relates to the wider international picture in which the UK appears to have a strong position in both volume and development of research. We have also set out some issues that affect this community of researchers: What strengths and weaknesses have we observed and where is there a need to support development? Do the AHRC definition of research and guidance on practice-led research provide an effective framework? We have illustrated the state of development of research in ADA, and some reasons why it is less robust than might be expected from such long established disciplines. We recommend that the career path of researchers in ADA needs some attention and make some suggestions about how that could be achieved. We have also indicated some areas of inquiry that might be supported to advance the theory and methods of practice-led research. In particular we have come to the conclusion that conventional ideas of contribution to knowledge or understanding may not be serving us well. This is significant to fine artists but we believe that it relevant across ADA and a shared effort to develop appropriate new models would be a constructive development. The full set of recommendations can be found in chapter 5

Evaluating a New Pattern Development Process for Interface Design: Application to Mental Health Services

Increased incidence of mental illness in Australia\u27s indigenous youth is a major concern. Despite significant investment in programs to improve the situation, the absence of reliable and valid tools to assess the quality of mental health services is hindering progress. This project creates patterns that can be used to build better evaluation tools. This study develops and tests a new pattern language development process for the design of culturally sensitive user interfaces. Drawing on the pattern approach within the human-computer interface literature, we propose a distinctive set of procedures that aim to: (1) improve the validity of patterns; (2) improve the organisation of pattern languages; and (3) integrate stakeholder values into the interface design process. As a proof of concept, we will test our approach in the mental health services setting using data from a sample of indigenous youth in the Northern Territory of Australia

Information Outlook, January 2007

Volume 11, Issue 1https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2007/1000/thumbnail.jp

On the engineering of crucial software

The various aspects of the conventional software development cycle are examined. This cycle was the basis of the augmented approach contained in the original grant proposal. This cycle was found inadequate for crucial software development, and the justification for this opinion is presented. Several possible enhancements to the conventional software cycle are discussed. Software fault tolerance, a possible enhancement of major importance, is discussed separately. Formal verification using mathematical proof is considered. Automatic programming is a radical alternative to the conventional cycle and is discussed. Recommendations for a comprehensive approach are presented, and various experiments which could be conducted in AIRLAB are described

Sentiment computation of UK-originated Covid-19 vaccine Tweets: a chronological analysis and news effect.

This study aimed to analyse public sentiments of UK-originated tweets about COVID-19 vaccines using six chronological data periods between January and December 2021. The dates are based on six BBC news reports about the most significant developments in the three main vaccines administered in the UK - Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Oxford-AstraZeneca. Each data period spans seven days, starting from the news report. The study employed the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) model to analyse the sentiments in the 4,172 extracted tweets. The BERT model adopts the transformer architecture and uses the 'Masked Language Model' and 'Next Sentence Prediction'. The results show that the overall sentiments for all three vaccines were negative across all six periods, with Moderna having the least negative tweets and the highest percentage of positive tweets overall, while AstraZeneca attracted the most negative tweets. However, for all the considered periods, period 3 (23 -29 May 2021) received the least negative and the most positive tweets, following the BBC report – COVID - Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs work against Indian variant, despite reports of blood clot cases associated with AstraZeneca in the same period. Periods 5 to 6, where there was no breaking news relating to COVID Vaccines, had no significant changes. We, therefore, conclude that the BBC News reports on COVID Vaccines significantly impacted public sentiments regarding the COVID-19 Vaccines

Journalistic image access : description, categorization and searching

The quantity of digital imagery continues to grow, creating a pressing need to develop efficient methods for organizing and retrieving images. Knowledge on user behavior in image description and search is required for creating effective and satisfying searching experiences. The nature of visual information and journalistic images creates challenges in representing and matching images with user needs. The goal of this dissertation was to understand the processes in journalistic image access (description, categorization, and searching), and the effects of contextual factors on preferred access points. These were studied using multiple data collection and analysis methods across several studies. Image attributes used to describe journalistic imagery were analyzed based on description tasks and compared to a typology developed through a meta-analysis of literature on image attributes. Journalistic image search processes and query types were analyzed through a field study and multimodal image retrieval experiment. Image categorization was studied via sorting experiments leading to a categorization model. Advances to research methods concerning search tasks and categorization procedures were implemented. Contextual effects on image access were found related to organizational contexts, work, and search tasks, as well as publication context. Image retrieval in a journalistic work context was contextual at the level of image needs and search process. While text queries, together with browsing, remained the key access mode to journalistic imagery, participants also used visual access modes in the experiment, constructing multimodal queries. Assigned search task type and searcher expertise had an effect on query modes utilized. Journalistic images were mostly described and queried for on the semantic level but also syntactic attributes were used. Constraining the description led to more abstract descriptions. Image similarity was evaluated mainly based on generic semantics. However, functionally oriented categories were also constructed, especially by domain experts. Availability of page context promoted thematic rather than object-based categorization. The findings increase our understanding of user behavior in image description, categorization, and searching, as well as have implications for future solutions in journalistic image access. The contexts of image production, use, and search merit more interest in research as these could be leveraged for supporting annotation and retrieval. Multiple access points should be created for journalistic images based on image content and function. Support for multimodal query formulation should also be offered. The contributions of this dissertation may be used to create evaluation criteria for journalistic image access systems

Development of Organization and Human Research Management

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Exploring business models for medical games: Key components and challenges

The costs of health care are going up in many countries. In order to provide affordable and effective health care solutions, new technologies and approaches are constantly being developed. In this research, video games are presented as a possible solution to the problem. Video games are fun, and nowadays most people like to spend time on them. In addition, recent studies have pointed out that video games can have notable health benefits. Health games have already been developed, used in practice, and researched. However, the bulk of health game studies have been concerned with the design or the effectiveness of the games; no actual business studies have been conducted on the subject, even though health games often lack commercial success despite their health benefits. This thesis seeks to fill this gap. The specific aim of this thesis is to develop a conceptual business model framework and empirically use it in explorative medical game business model research. In the first stage of this research, a literature review was conducted and the existing literature analyzed and synthesized into a conceptual business model framework consisting of six dimensions. The motivation behind the synthesis is the ongoing ambiguity around the business model concept. In the second stage, 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted with different professionals within the value network for medical games. The business model framework was present in all stages of the empirical research: First, in the data collection stage, the framework acted as a guiding instrument, focusing the interview process. Then, the interviews were coded and analyzed using the framework as a structure. The results were then reported following the structure of the framework. In the results, the interviewees highlighted several important considerations and issues for medical games concerning the six dimensions of the business model framework. Based on the key findings of this research, several key components of business models for medical games were identified and illustrated in a single figure. Furthermore, five notable challenges for business models for medical games were presented, and possible solutions for the challenges were postulated. Theoretically, these findings provide pioneering information on the untouched subject of business models for medical games. Moreover, the conceptual business model framework and its use in the novel context of medical games provide a contribution to the business model literature. Regarding practice, this thesis further accentuates that medical games can offer notable benefits to several stakeholder groups and offers advice to companies seeking to commercialize these games.siirretty Doriast