Design Research and Domain Representation

While diverse theories about the nature of design research have been proposed, they are rarely considered in relation to one another across the broader disciplinary field. Discussions of design research paradigms have tended to use overarching binary models for understanding differing knowledge frameworks. This paper focuses on an analysis of theories of design research and the use of Web 3 and open content systems to explore the potential of building more relational modes of conceptual representation. The nature of this project is synthetic, building upon the work of other design theorists and researchers. A number of theoretical frameworks will be discussed and examples of the analysis and modelling of key concepts and information relationships, using concept mapping software, collaborative ontology building systems and semantic wiki technologies will be presented. The potential of building information structures from content relationships that are identified by domain specialists rather than the imposition of formal, top-down, information hierarchies developed by information scientists, will be considered. In particular the opportunity for users to engage with resources through their own knowledge frameworks, rather than through logically rigorous but largely incomprehensible ontological systems, will be explored in relation to building resources for emerging design researchers. The motivation behind this endeavour is not to create a totalising meta-theory or impose order on the ‘ill structured’ and ‘undisciplined’, domain of design. Nor is it to use machine intelligence to ‘solve design problems’. It seeks to create dynamic systems that might help researchers explore design research theories and their various relationships with one another. It is hoped such tools could help novice researchers to better locate their own projects, find reference material, identify knowledge gaps and make new linkages between bodies of knowledge by enabling forms of data-poesis - the freeing of data for different trajectories. Keywords: Design research; Design theory; Methodology; Knowledge systems; Semantic web technologies.</p

A Framework for Developing and Integrating Effective Routing Strategies Within the Emergency Management Decision-Support System, Research Report 11-12

This report describes the modeling, calibration, and validation of a VISSIM traffic-flow simulation of the San José, California, downtown network and examines various evacuation scenarios and first-responder routings to assess strategies that would be effective in the event of a no-notice disaster. The modeled network required a large amount of data on network geometry, signal timings, signal coordination schemes, and turning-movement volumes. Turning-movement counts at intersections were used to validate the network with the empirical formula-based measure known as the GEH statistic. Once the base network was tested and validated, various scenarios were modeled to estimate evacuation and emergency vehicle arrival times. Based on these scenarios, a variety of emergency plans for San José’s downtown traffic circulation were tested and validated. The model could be used to evaluate scenarios in other communities by entering their community-specific data

Collaborative registers of interactive art.

The ubiquity of interactive technologies has given rise to new forms and opportunities for interactive digital art. Collaboration has been identified as a way for artists to engage in complex technologically based projects. This paper considers different forms of collaboration in relation to two interactive art projects. Collaborative and participatory art practices operate on multiple registers. The findings of the research discussed in this paper corroborate previous work on co-creativity and interactive art and extend to considerations of institutional collaboration, materiality, prototyping and the advantages of creative collectives

Predictors of Readiness to Quit Among a Diverse Sample of Sexual Minority Male Smokers

ABSTRACT Introduction: Readiness to quit smoking - a pattern of attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that reflect a likelihood of engaging in cessation activities—is a useful heuristic for understanding smoking disparities based on sexual orientation. This study examined demographic, tobacco-use patterns, psychosocial and cognitive factors associated with readiness to quit among gay and bisexual male smokers. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted as part of a larger Tobacco Elimination and Control Collaboration (Q-TECC) initiative in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Readiness to quit was measured by a composite score created from four variables (motivation to quit, importance of quitting, plan to quit, and confidence in quitting) (alpha=.87, M=3.42, SD=.96, range 1-5). Results: The sexual minority smokers in the sample (N=208; M=33 years) were racially/ethnically diverse. Latino men had significantly lower levels of readiness to quit compared to African American and White men. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to explore the relative contributions of sociodemographic, tobacco-use patterns, psychosocial and cognitive factors on Readiness to Quit. In the final model, the following variables were associated with readiness to quit scores: Latino ethnicity, fewer quit attempts, positive expectancies for the beneficial effects of smoking, and lower perceived importance of smoking as an important LGBT health issue. None of the psychosocial factors were associated with readiness to quit. Discussion: Readiness to quit scores were largely predicted by modifiable attitudes, behaviors, and expectancies. Study findings have implications for improving outreach and awareness and for the development of effective treatment approaches

The Changing Nature of Collection Management in Research Libraries

The contemporary history of collection management in North American research libraries began midcentury. Since then, several issues have influenced the evolution of collection management with new forces emerging in the 1980s. In this article, we point to the challenges librarians face in managing the transition into a new and uncharted environment, including differing needs and scholarly communication patterns. We anticipate digital information will bring fundamental changes to scholarly communication and thus to collection management and point to a shift from a decentralized system of duplicate print collections to one of fewer central repositories. We believe print collections are not likely to disappear but the importance of secure storage for digital materials cannot be overemphasized. In the digital age, the "library model" for funding and sharing information will be scrutinized for its applicability in a world of access. Collection management librarians must take the lead in wedding print collection management to new storage and electronic access and delivery options to maintain and preserve the record of knowledge

Supporting Information: Fast, Copper-Free Click Chemistry, A Convenient Solid-Phase Approach to Oligonucleotide Conjugation

General experimental Analytical TLC was performed on precoated (250 μm) silica gel 60 F-254 plates from Merck. All plates were visualized by UV irradiation, and/or staining with 5% H2SO4 in ethanol followed by heating. Flash chromatography grade silica gel 60 (230-400 mesh) was obtained from Merck. Mass analysis was performed on an Ettan MALDI-TOF Pro from Amersham Biosciences or LASER-TOF LT3 from Scientific Analytical Instruments with 3- hydroxypicolinic acid or 2,’ 4’, 6’-trihydroxyacetophenone as matrix. The NMR spectra were obtained at 1H (300 MHz), 13C (75 MHz) and 31P (121 MHz) on a Bruker instrument at 25 ºC. Chemical shifts are reported in ppm downfield from TMS as standard. HPLC was carried out using a Gilson instrument equipped with a UV detector and a Nucleosil C18 column (4.0 × 250 mm) or Phenomenex Clarity. Fluorescence spectra were recorded on a Varian Cary Eclipse instrument. All other chemical agents were purchased from Aldrich Chemical Company unless otherwise noted

Narrating the Ugandan nation in Mary Okurut’s The Invisible Weevil

This article seeks to study how Mary Okurut narrates the Ugandan nation through her novel The Invisible Weevil while at the same time exploring how the author centers upon women in her imagination of the new nation. The arguments in this article are derived from concepts proposed by Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha, among other scholars, on nationalism. These are arguments that explore the question of identity formation in nations and what holds these nations together in terms of their cultural standpoints and even at times a desire for a better nation for future generations. Through a close textual analysis that focuses on elements of narratology, the study explores the issue of nationalism in the novel. Of interest to this study is how Okurut as a contemporary writer engages history in the novel to narrate the nation and the challenges it faces as it evolves through different and tumultuous leaderships. The narration is undertaken through the viewpoint of various characters who describe different periods, thus creating a channel through which knowledge from each epoch is transmitted by the actions of women who attempt to define a new nation of Uganda that would be devoid of pestilence from ‘the invisible weevil’

Metal free click chemistry on nucleosides and oligonucleotides

Chemoselective ligation of biologically significant moieties through azide alkyne Click Chemistry has recently received much attention1. The reaction is attractive in that it regioselectively affords stable triazole linked bioconjugated products under mild conditions. However, from the view point of the synthetic oligonucleotide chemist, a significant disadvantage is that the non-thermal reaction requires an in situ generated Cu (I) catalyst. Unwanted Cu (I) mediated chemistry, specifically oxidative degradation etc

Mnemotechne of design — ontology and design research theories

This thesis commences with the premise that while design practices may be said to have a very long, perhaps ancient, history, ‘Design’ as a discipline is of more recent origin, while ‘Design Research’ as a disciplinary practice emerged mid-way through the twentieth century. This inquiry is concerned with the discipline of design from the perspective of the emergence during the past half century of design research, with particular focus on the development of design research theories. The research sets out from the well-established premise that the discipline of design is heterogeneous, with diverse paradigmatic claims as to its epistemological ground, with a concomitant range of ontological implications for what is considered to be within the disciplinary domain of design. In tracing a genealogy of the emergence of design research theories from the 1960s, the research recognises the early predominance of design science and positivist frameworks in defining the disciplinary boundaries of design. Given the predominance of design science within frameworks of formal attempts to define design research theories, approaches to the heterogeneity of the field were concerned with defining a unified field through meta- or supra- categorisation. The emergence of cybernetics and computational analysis in design processes strengthened this position. The thesis recognises a fundamental dualism that has tended to define the heterogeneity of the field, dividing it between design science and design aesthetic, with the former more easily engaged in defining formal design research theories and the latter more easily working in atheoretical emphasises on individual expression and intuition. The project adopts a critical hermeneutics in order to approach analyses of design research theories with an aim to maintain a heterogeneity to the field while yet recognising a series of primordial structures that construe relationality across diverse frameworks. In undertaking this, two competing understandings of ‘ontology’ are engaged with, one opening particularly to ontology as a questioning of the grounding (the meaning of the being) of entities categorised as design, the other emerging from knowledge engineering and computational science, that understands ontology in the formal and syntactical sense of categorisation and hierarchisation. With a critical hermeneutics of design theories, the former understanding of ontology is foregrounded; with respect to engaging with information hermeneutics and semantic web capabilities for information relationality and retrieval, the latter framework is recognised. A key part of this process has been an investigation through the prototype development of a web deliverable design research resource framework to enable researchers to review and cross-reference at a granulated level the models, structures and key terms of a wide range of design research theories. In this respect, the thesis deals with comparative analyses of twenty key design research theories that have emerged over the past half century. A second hermeneutical engagement elicits a series of deep structural relations that work across these theories, eschewing a project aimed at meta-theoretical unification. Correlations are then sought with the literature in the broader understanding of theories of research, as well as information hermeneutics. The project recognises that the discipline of design has matured to the extent that it currently seeks to define its foundational frameworks from within an implicit recognition of its disciplinary integrity and identity. A Mnemotechne of Design, envisaged through semantic web technologies, aims to overcome the dualistic thinking that has dominated design discourses in a project that serves design researchers in assaying the plurality of methodological frameworks that have emerged in the discipline’s approaches to research theories