Collaborating on Affinity Diagrams Using Large Displays

Gathering and understanding user requirements is an essential part of design. Techniques like affinity diagramming are useful for gathering and understanding user data but have shortcomings such as the difficulty to preserve the diagram after its creation, problems during the process such as searching for notes, and loss of shared awareness. We propose an early prototype that solves problems in the process of creating an affinity diagram and enhances it using a large screen display in combination with individual PDAs

The 9/11 Litigation Database: A Recipe for Judicial Management

The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, presented the American legal system with unprecedented challenges regarding whether, and how, to compensate those who suffered harm as a result. Congress stepped in almost immediately to provide a victims’ compensation fund that dealt primarily with those who were directly and immediately affected. But many other harms manifested later. In the months that followed as many as 60,000 persons came to the World Trade Center (WTC) to aid in what amounted to around-the-clock rescue, recovery, and debris removal at the WTC site. Of that number, over 10,000 responders filed tort claims for injuries they claimed to have suffered as a result of exposure to contaminants at the site. Aside from workers’ compensation and disability insurance, their lawsuits in federal court were their only means by which to seek damages for their injuries. No one questions that the atmosphere around the WTC site was a toxic cocktail of epic proportions, especially in the earlier months. Plaintiffs’ complaints set forth claims of negligence, violation of safe-place statutes, and failure to disclose the true nature of the relevant risks. The plaintiff-responders wound up alleging over 380 different injuries arising from their exposures. They claimed that the City of New York, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, four prime contractors and hundreds of subcontractors were liable to them in tort. Congress assigned all of these responder claims to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the cases were ultimately consolidated before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who presided over all of the tort claims arising from the 9/11 attacks. An article entitled Managerial Judging: The 9/11 Responders’ Tort Litigation, coauthored by Judge Hellerstein and Special Masters Henderson and Twerski, recently published in the Cornell Law Review, contains a comprehensive analysis of the 9/11 litigation and ultimate settlement. This Article will focus and enlarge on one aspect of that subject, the creation of a program of core discovery and a database to gather and maintain information about all 10,000 claimants. The function of the database was to aid the court and the parties to manage discovery and to choose cases for further and intensive discovery and early trial in order to make it possible for the parties to negotiate a comprehensive settlement of the massive litigation

Canonically conjugate pairs and phase operators

For quantum mechanics on a lattice the position (``particle number'') operator and the quasi-momentum (``phase'') operator obey canonical commutation relations (CCR) only on a dense set of the Hilbert space. We compare exact numerical results for a particle in simple potentials on the lattice with the expectations, when the CCR are assumed to be strictly obeyed. Only for sufficiently smooth eigenfunctions this leads to reasonable results. In the long time limit the use of the CCR can lead to a qualitativel wrong dynamics even if the initial state is in the dense set.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Phys. Rev. A, in pres

Studying Group Decision Making in Affinity Diagramming

Affinity diagramming is a commonly used contextual design practice for which many tools have been developed. However, experts and novices alike eschew tool use, instead using traditional paper and whiteboard methods. This paper presents observations of traditional affinity diagramming sessions, focusing on three areas of consideration—shared awareness, cognitive offloading, and understanding, organizing and searching—that are important for collaborative tools. Specific design requirements for each of these three areas are described

Secondary prevention of fractures after hip fracture:a qualitative study of effective service delivery

There is variation in how services to prevent secondary fractures after hip fracture are delivered and no consensus on best models of care. This study identifies healthcare professionals' views on effective care for the prevention of these fractures. It is hoped this will provide information on how to develop services.Hip fracture patients are at high risk of subsequent osteoporotic fractures. Whilst fracture prevention services are recommended, there is variation in delivery and no consensus on best models of care. This study aims to identify healthcare professionals' views on effective care for prevention of secondary fracture after hip fracture.Forty-three semi-structured interviews were undertaken with healthcare professionals involved in delivering fracture prevention across 11 hospitals in one English region. Interviews explored views on four components of care: (1) case finding, (2) osteoporosis assessment, (3) treatment initiation, and (4) monitoring and coordination. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and coded using NVivo software.Case finding: a number of approaches were discussed. Multiple methods ensured there was a 'backstop' if patients were overlooked. Osteoporosis assessment: there was no consensus on who should conduct this. The location of the dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scanner influenced the likelihood of patients receiving a scan. Treatment initiation: it was felt this was best done in inpatients rather request initiation in the post-discharge/outpatients period. Monitoring (adherence): adherence was a major concern, and participants felt more monitoring could be conducted by secondary care. Coordination of care: participants advocated using dedicated coordinators and formal and informal methods of communication. A gap between primary and secondary care was identified and strategies suggested for addressing this.A number of ways of organising effective fracture prevention services after hip fracture were identified. It is hoped that this will help professionals identify gaps in care and provide information on how to develop services

Newton's law for Bloch electrons, Klein factors and deviations from canonical commutation relations

The acceleration theorem for Bloch electrons in a homogenous external field is usually presented using quasiclassical arguments. In quantum mechanical versions the Heisenberg equations of motion for an operator $\hat {\vec k}(t)$ are presented mostly without properly defining this operator. This leads to the surprising fact that the generally accepted version of the theorem is incorrect for the most natural definition of $\hat {\vec k}$. This operator is shown not to obey canonical commutation relations with the position operator. A similar result is shown for the phase operators defined via the Klein factors which take care of the change of particle number in the bosonization of the field operator in the description of interacting fermions in one dimension. The phase operators are also shown not to obey canonical commutation relations with the corresponding particle number operators. Implications of this fact are discussed for Tomonaga-Luttinger type models.Comment: 9 pages,1 figur

The unspoken voice: applying John Shotter’s dialogic lens to qualitative data from people who have communication difficulties

As speech and language therapists, we explored theories of communication and voice that are familiar to our profession and found them an inadequate basis on which to generate deep and rich analysis of the qualitative data from people who have communication difficulties and who use augmentative and alternative communication. Expanding our conceptual toolkit to include the work of John Shotter allowed us to reconceptualise voice and where it is emergent in dialogue. Reimaging voice will inform clinical and research praxis with people who have communication difficulties as it allows practitioners to attend more closely to the complexity and nuance inherent in interactions with this population. Our proposition is exemplified with excerpts from a single participant who has communication difficulties to illustrate the value of dialogic theory in praxis. This article presents a provocation for the wider academy of qualitative health research; do we have the concepts and tools to develop meaning with people whose lived experiences may also be hard to voice in monologues