Exploring Standards of Rigour for Design Cases

Designers share their specialized knowledge by developing design cases, which we define as representations of design efforts and outcomes disseminated to peers. In the field of instructional design this practice is not well established. In addition, many fields in which design is practiced are examining how knowledge is built by designers, and considering the methods of research most applicable to building design knowledge. We consider design cases to be the method of dissemination for that design research which is wholly of apiece with the act of design (as compared to design research carried out in the process of designing or research on design). In considering the factors required to establish this practice, we understand the issue of rigour to be critical, since without standards by which to judge the rigour of a representation this form of knowledge building may always be undervalued in comparison to others. We look to naturalistic inquiry and action research to begin exploring how rigour might be approached in developing design cases, presenting from the perspective of instructional designers and hoping to engage designers from other fields insofar as these ideas are useful to them. Keywords: Design Knowledge; Knowledge Building; Case Study/Studies; Design Research</p

Aquatic Effects of a Localized Oil Spill on Lake Conway, AR and Its Tributaries

Oil spills, no matter where they occur, elicit environmental concern and avoiding these disasters should be a priority. Old pipelines that are not regularly maintained and carry large amounts of crude oil long distances are of particular concern. One such pipeline is the 65 year-old Pegasus pipeline owned by ExxonMobil. On March 29, 2013, 795,000 L of Wabasca Heavy Canadian crude oil spilled into a neighborhood of Mayflower, Arkansas, when the Pegasus pipeline ruptured. This spill led to the evacuation of many homes in the surrounding neighborhood. Drainage ditches in the affected neighborhood drained oil into a nearby cove of Lake Conway. This lake is popular for recreational fishing, thus concerns were raised not only about the potential effects of the oil spill on area residents, but also the lake and its biological communities. Ultimately, this project assessed the effect of the oil spill in water and sediment samples on freshwater test organisms. Samples were collected at 6 sites in the affected neighborhood and in Lake Conway. Chronic Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) tests were performed on water samples using Pimephales promelas and Ceriodaphnia dubia. Acute sediment toxicity tests were performed using Chironomus dilutus. These tests measured sub-lethal toxicity in at least one of the sampled sites, indicating that further investigation of environmental after-effects is warranted

Does collaboration work?

An interview with Kevin Kenno

For the good of the group? Exploring group-level evolutionary adaptations using multilevel selection theory.

In this paper, we present an evolutionary framework, multilevel selection theory (MLS), that is highly amenable to existing social psychological theory and empiricism. MLS provides an interpretation of natural selection that shows how group-beneficial traits can evolve, a prevalent implication of social psychological data. We outline the theory and provide a number of example topics, focusing on prosociality, policing behavior, gossip, brainstorming, distributed cognition, and social identity. We also show that individual differences can produce important group-level outcomes depending on differential aggregation of individual types and relate this to the evolutionary dynamics underlying group traits. Drawing on existing work, we show how social psychologists can integrate this framework into their research program and suggest future directions for research

Political Connections and Abnormal Stock Returns: An Analysis of the Trump Nominations

Shortly after winning the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump began announcing his Cabinet nominations. I examine cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) for firms with political connections to Cabinet and some non-Cabinet level appointments. Nominee and stock characteristics are aggregated, and I find positive and significant CARs surrounding the announcement dates. Additionally, the traits of being a Cabinet nominee, being a board member, and having a narrow confirmation margin all significantly explain the CARs for various event windows and subgroups. The annualized CARs around the announcement date for these firms are often greater than 100% in excess of the market, providing strong evidence that political connections are highly sought after and rewarded by the market

'Belonging’ in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction: New Communities Created by Children

In this paper I will discuss the role that young adults play in the creation of new communities governed by young people in four dystopian novels set during the fragmentation of society in the near future. I will focus on novels narrated by or focalised through the perspective of young female protagonists, as these narratives offer intriguing explorations of young women's utopian capacity for leadership and for re-visioning traditional power relations and social structures. In their exploration of their own subjectivities, the young female protagonists must address the claims of individual self-actualisation while re-assessing the validity and appeal of traditional hierarchical systems of authority located in a radically changed and hostile world. Novels such as Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now (2004), O.T. Nelson’s The Girl Who Owned a City (1995), Marcus Sedgwick’s Floodland (2000) and Gary Kilworth’s The Electric Kid (1994) explore how the impact of the abrupt absence of parental control and adult surveillance results in the young protagonists’ forced creation and development of new concepts of community, family and ‘belonging’. Inherited hierarchical systems of individual identity and the larger social and political world are challenged during the characters' struggles for survival in these novels as the young protagonists display considerable courage, creativity and ‘heroic’ attributes in their efforts to survive and also to protect other younger children in their care. As such, these dystopian stories offer opportunities to explore gender role stereotypes and their reformulation by young people during situations which require both the conventional ‘masculine’ qualities such as leadership, bravery and endurance and also ‘feminine’ attributes such as nurturing, collaborative teamwork and compassion

“’Little Girls are Even More Perfect When They Bleed”’: Monstrosity, Violence, and the Female Body in Kristin Cashore’s Graceling Trilogy”

This article examines concepts of humanity, monstrosity, and female agency in Kristin Cashore’s recent Graceling trilogy of fantasy novels for young adults. In particular, the teenage protagonists of Graceling (2008), Fire (2009) and Bitterblue (2012) struggle to resist and reconfigure their societies' conservative systems of prejudice, fear, desire, difference, and violence regarding “natural” and “unnatural” female bodily experience. Cashore’s trilogy interrogates traditional concepts of normal and aberrant female embodiment and offers thought-provoking opportunities for personal and collective transformation