Design for Interpreting the Innovation Occuring Within a Free/Open Source Software Development Community

Organizations that sell products and services related to free/open source software (FOSS) have an interest in the development community that produces that software. This paper proposes a design theory for an information system that tracks the innovation of a FOSS development community. The design theory is constructed using Information System Design Theory (Walls, Widmeyer, & El Sawy, 1992) and is based upon three kernel theories: one that describes six design principles that support distributed cognition (Boland, Tenkasi, & Te\u27eni, 1994), one that provides factors found to contribute to successful innovation (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997), and one that provides a framework for analyzing the FOSS development approach (Feller & Fitzgerald, 2000). A system based upon this design is argued to be beneficial for an organization that places a high value on information about a given FOSS development community

Liberty Support for Singerian Inquiring Systems: Designs from Early American Patriots

Adopting the “heroic mood” is a method of Singerian inquiring systems (Churchman, 1971) that promotes the discovery of new knowledge by expedition. The heroic mood fortifies and encourages an inquirer to embark upon a purposeful journey that critically examines the status quo and leads the way to novel solutions. However, if an inquirer adopts the heroic mood, what prevents this adventurer from losing control of the inquiry process and hindering the free inquiry of others? Along with the knowledge-seeking maneuvers emboldened by the heroic mood come risks. This research asks what guidelines should be designed into a knowledge management system to aid a Singerian inquirer’s assessment of liberty, both the inquirer’s liberty and the liberty of others. A tentative set of five guidelines for the design of liberty support are derived from the stories of five early American patriots who performed knowledge tasks in the ethically challenging conditions of social revolution

A Tool for Identifying Swarm Intelligence on a Free/Open Source Software Mailing List

A software tool designed using the concepts of swarm intelligence and text mining is proposed as an aid in the analysis of free/open source software (FOSS) development communities. A prototype of the tool collects textual data from an electronic mailing list, a primary mode of FOSS developer communication. The tool enables a user to compare patterns of discussion topics found in the text with patterns of swarm intelligence. The research of this design is congruent with Madey et al.‟s (2002) observation that the open source software development phenomenon shows an emergent behavior and can be modeled after agent-based, biologically-inspired swarms. The goal of a tool for identifying emergent intelligence on FOSS mailing lists is to increasing the user‟s understanding of a given FOSS development community

Churchman\u27s Inquiring Systems: Kernel Theories for Knowledge Management

Churchman [1971] defines inquiry as an activity that produces knowledge. He examines the epistemologies of five schools of philosophy from the perspective of general systems theory, asking the question as to whether each is suitable as the basis for the design of computer-based inquiring systems. He considers systems design and design theory in some detail. We believe that Churchman\u27s inquiring systems can form the basis for the design of knowledge management systems and that the IS research community has hardly tapped the potential of inquiring systems in that regard. Mason and Mitroff [1973] brought inquiring systems into the IS literature early on, essentially making the work endogenous to the field. We argue that building on inquiring systems can contribute to developing IS as a discipline by maintaining continuity in research and developing a theory that IS can call its own. We believe that the lack of use of Churchman\u27s work may be due to its lack of visibility in recent years and attempt to remedy that by summarizing the basics of the inquirers in some detail, trying not to interpret, but to remain faithful to the original. The paper encourages readers to study the original and develop their own notion of how the inquirers might be used in knowledgemanagement work. There are probably as many different perspectives on how inquiring systems could support KMS as there are IS researchers willing to study them. We would like to encourage a proliferation of such perspectives

Challenging claims in the study of migratory birds and climate change

Recent shifts in phenology in response to climate change are well established but often poorly understood. Many animals integrate climate change across a spatially and temporally dispersed annual life cycle, and effects are modulated by ecological interactions, evolutionary change and endogenous control mechanisms. Here we assess and discuss key statements emerging from the rapidly developing study of changing spring phenology in migratory birds. These well-studied organisms have been instrumental for understanding climate-change effects, but research is developing rapidly and there is a need to attack the big issues rather than risking affirmative science. Although we agree poorly on the support for most claims, agreement regarding the knowledge basis enables consensus regarding broad patterns and likely causes. Empirical data needed for disentangling mechanisms are still scarce, and consequences at a population level and on community composition remain unclear. With increasing knowledge, the overall support (‘consensus view’) for a claim increased and between-researcher variability in support (‘expert opinions') decreased, indicating the importance of assessing and communicating the knowledge basis. A proper integration across biological disciplines seems essential for the field's transition from affirming patterns to understanding mechanisms and making robust predictions regarding future consequences of shifting phenologies

Magnetic phases near the Van Hove singularity in s- and d-band Hubbard model

We investigate the magnetic instabilities of the nondegenerate (s-band) and a degenerate (d-band) Hubbard model in two dimensions using many-body effects due to the particle-particle diagrams and Hund's rule local correlations. The density of states and the position of Van Hove singularity change depending on the value of next-nearest neighbor hopping t'. The Stoner parameter is strongly reduced in the s-band case, and ferromagnetism survives only if electron density is small, and the band is almost flat at small momenta due to next-nearest neighbor hopping. In contrast, for the d-band case the reduction of the Stoner parameter which follows from particle-particle correlations is much smaller and ferromagnetism survives to a large extent. Inclusion of local spin-spin correlations has a limited destabilizing effect on the magnetic states.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

The Influence of Mineralization on Intratrabecular Stress and Strain Distribution in Developing Trabecular Bone

The load-transfer pathway in trabecular bone is largely determined by its architecture. However, the influence of variations in mineralization is not known. The goal of this study was to examine the influence of inhomogeneously distributed degrees of mineralization (DMB) on intratrabecular stresses and strains. Cubic mandibular condylar bone specimens from fetal and newborn pigs were used. Finite element models were constructed, in which the element tissue moduli were scaled to the local DMB. Disregarding the observed distribution of mineralization was associated with an overestimation of average equivalent strain and underestimation of von Mises equivalent stress. From the surface of trabecular elements towards their core the strain decreased irrespective of tissue stiffness distribution. This indicates that the trabecular elements were bent during the compression experiment. Inhomogeneously distributed tissue stiffness resulted in a low stress at the surface that increased towards the core. In contrast, disregarding this tissue stiffness distribution resulted in high stress at the surface which decreased towards the core. It was concluded that the increased DMB, together with concurring alterations in architecture, during development leads to a structure which is able to resist increasing loads without an increase in average deformation, which may lead to damage

Intraarticular location predicts cartilage filling and subchondral bone changes in a chondral defect: A randomized, blind, long-term follow-up trial involving 82 rabbit knees

Open Access - This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the source is credited.Background and purpose: The natural history of, and predictive factors for outcome of cartilage restoration in chondral defects are poorly understood. We investigated the natural history of cartilage filling subchondral bone changes, comparing defects at two locations in the rabbit knee. Animals and methods: In New Zealand rabbits aged 22 weeks, a 4-mm pure chondral defect (ICRS grade 3b) was created in the patella of one knee and in the medial femoral condyle of the other. A stereo microscope was used to optimize the preparation of the defects. The animals were killed 12, 24, and 36 weeks after surgery. Defect filling and the density of subchondral mineralized tissue was estimated using Analysis Pro software on micrographed histological sections. Results: The mean filling of the patellar defects was more than twice that of the medial femoral condylar defects at 24 and 36 weeks of follow-up. There was a statistically significant increase in filling from 24 to 36 weeks after surgery at both locations. The density of subchondral mineralized tissue beneath the defects subsided with time in the patellas, in contrast to the density in the medial femoral condyles, which remained unchanged. Interpretation: The intraarticular location is a predictive factor for spontaneous filling and subchondral bone changes of chondral defects corresponding to ICRS grade 3b. Disregarding location, the spontaneous filling increased with long-term follow-up. This should be considered when evaluating aspects of cartilage restoration

Cardiovascular responses to cognitive stress in patients with migraine and tension-type headache

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal relationship between autonomic changes and pain activation in migraine and tension-type headache induced by stress in a model relevant for everyday office-work.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We measured pain, blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and skin blood flow (BF) during and after controlled low-grade cognitive stress in 22 migraineurs during headache-free periods, 18 patients with tension-type headache (TTH) and 44 healthy controls. The stress lasted for one hour and was followed by 30 minutes of relaxation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cardiovascular responses to cognitive stress in migraine did not differ from those in control subjects. In TTH patients HR was maintained during stress, whereas it decreased for migraineurs and controls. A trend towards a delayed systolic BP response during stress was also observed in TTH. Finger BF recovery was delayed after stress and stress-induced pain was associated with less vasoconstriction in TTH during recovery.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is hypothesized that TTH patients have different stress adaptive mechanisms than controls and migraineurs, involving delayed cardiovascular adaptation and reduced pain control system inhibition.</p