Victor and Aladar Olgyay's thermoheliodon:Controlling climate to reduce climate control

Architectural models are reductive representations. Traits included or excluded from a model reflect designer intent as well as broader values held at the time of their construction. As such, models are reflective, acting as cultural mirrors of both conscious and unconscious priorities at the time of their construction. Models are also projective, offering new conceptions and interpretations about the subjects of their representations. Italo Calvino's character Mr. Palomar reflects on the dialogic relationship between a model and reality

Critical thinking and systems thinking: towards a critical literacy for systems thinking in practice

About the book: In reflective problem solving and thoughtful decision making using critical thinking one considers evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the problem and the question at hand. In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of critical thinking. Topics discussed include developing critical thinking through probability models; the promotion of critical thinking skills through argument mapping; an instructional model for teacher training in critical thinking; advanced academic literacy and critical thinking and critical thinking and higher education

Towards Decolonizing and Africanizing Computing Education in South Africa

Many have called for action to decolonize South African universities. Decolonization focuses on dismantling Western epistemological traditions and practices entrenched in the university culture and knowledge domains. In this paper, we explore decolonization as a site of struggle in national higher-learning institutions not only politically but also epistemologically. More specifically, we examine how hegemonic and neoliberal policies that hinder decolonization and indigeneity govern efforts to Africanize computing education. We conclude with critical recommendations that can support computing departments and faculties in enriching the syllabus with indigenous knowledge

Benefits from Big Data Analytics Projects: A Critical System Heuristics Approach to Boundary Judgements

Big data analytics (BDA) has strategic value for many large organisations. However, obtaining evident benefits from BDA projects requires complex orchestration across organisational boundaries and entities. The requisite ability to distinguish a potential BDA benefit in its’ organisational context has nevertheless received limited research attention. Against this backdrop, we report a case study of benefit conceptualization in a BDA project at a large wind turbine manufacturer (Vestas). Using critical systems heuristics, a framework of systems’ stakeholders, stakes, and stakeholding issues, we analyse how the stakeholders in Vestas make boundary judgements for the BDA benefits they plan to realize. This analysis shows how a BDA benefit is a complex system involving negotiations on how a benefit ought to become evident in the organization. We discuss the implications of this finding for how BDA projects can make their boundary judgements for planned benefits explicit and defensible

Cloaked Facebook pages: Exploring fake Islamist propaganda in social media

This research analyses cloaked Facebook pages that are created to spread political propaganda by cloaking a user profile and imitating the identity of a political opponent in order to spark hateful and aggressive reactions. This inquiry is pursued through a multi-sited online ethnographic case study of Danish Facebook pages disguised as radical Islamist pages, which provoked racist and anti-Muslim reactions as well as negative sentiments towards refugees and immigrants in Denmark in general. Drawing on Jessie Daniels’ critical insights into cloaked websites, this research furthermore analyses the epistemological, methodological and conceptual challenges of online propaganda. It enhances our understanding of disinformation and propaganda in an increasingly interactive social media environment and contributes to a critical inquiry into social media and subversive politics

Environmental Values and Landscape Architecture: A New Ecological Paradigm Study

In recent decades, landscape design theory has been affected by an increase in pro-environmental values. Currently, concepts of ‘sustainability’ and ‘ecosystem services’ exert a strong influence. These concepts involve sustaining current human behaviors within the constraints of ecological limits and maintaining or enhancing the goods and services that humans receive from ecosystems, respectively. In this way, they are most characteristic of anthropocentric environmental worldviews with high degrees of concern for the instrumental values of ecosystems, which are indicative of shallow ecology. Previous researchers have advanced theoretical characterizations of the environmental values of landscape architects in terms of environmental ethics. However, as of yet, no statistics-based model has been developed for this purpose. In order to advance such a model, and in the effort to further characterize the environmental values of landscape architects, two studies were performed. Both utilized data collected with the New Ecological Paradigm (revised-NEP) survey. In the first study, a Shallow v. Deep Worldview model was used to characterize revised-NEP survey responses of landscape architecture students and alumni practitioners from Utah State University (USU) in terms of shallow or deep ecology. The results indicate that the groups exhibited essentially anthropocentric environmental values, which were characteristic of shallow ecology worldviews. In the second study, the revised-NEP survey was used to assess the environmental worldviews of general education and landscape architecture students at USU. The results indicate that the landscape architecture students exhibited greater pro-environmental worldviews, which were correlated to differences in political orientation between the groups. Overall, the results of the two studies support the notions that the study or practice of landscape architecture is correlated to greater pro-environmental values than are common for general higher education students, and that, in general, current landscape architecture students and practitioners exhibit environmental values that are characteristic of ecologically-concerned, yet essentially anthropocentric, shallow ecology worldviews

The Polythink Syndrome and Elite Group Decision‐Making

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117125/1/pops12319.pd

Towards a Human Processual Approach of Business-IT Alignment

This study answers the question whether human processual interventions are used to improve business-ICT relationships and if not, what the reasons might be for this. Human processual interventions are about improving human relations and match the problem of troubling relationships between IS and business with its associated miscommunication, unclear responsibilities, leadership issues or perceived cultural differences better than techno-structural interventions (pertaining organizational structures, business processes, alignment models, infrastructures, etc.) that are mainly put forward in the literature. Our explorative qualitative research shows that consultants recognize the human relations nature of alignment but that they have different reasons for being inclined towards techno-structural interventions. These reasons provide a mirror to the academic community. We argue that these reasons reinforce the social structure in which many IS people work and that academics are an important group to break with that structure. To this purpose, an adoption of human processual approaches is recommended

Affective neuroscience, emotional regulation, and international relations

International relations (IR) has witnessed an emerging interest in neuroscience, particularly for its relevance to a now widespread scholarship on emotions. Contributing to this scholarship, this article draws on the subfields of affective neuroscience and neuropsychology, which remain largely unexplored in IR. Firstly, the article draws on affective neuroscience in illuminating affect's defining role in consciousness and omnipresence in social behavior, challenging the continuing elision of emotions in mainstream approaches. Secondly, it applies theories of depth neuropsychology, which suggest a neural predisposition originating in the brain's higher cortical regions to attenuate emotional arousal and limit affective consciousness. This predisposition works to preserve individuals' self-coherence, countering implicit assumptions about rationality and motivation within IR theory. Thirdly, it outlines three key implications for IR theory. It argues that affective neuroscience and neuropsychology offer a route towards deep theorizing of ontologies and motivations. It also leads to a reassessment of the social regulation of emotions, particularly as observed in institutions, including the state. It also suggests a productive engagement with constructivist and poststructuralist approaches by addressing the agency of the body in social relations. The article concludes by sketching the potential for a therapeutically-attuned approach to IR