Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits (CASSM) Tutorial notes

Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits (CASSM) in a novel approach to usability analysis that focuses attention on misfits between user and system concepts. We believe that as an approach it has several desirable qualities: o It focuses on concepts rather than tasks or procedures. Consequently, it complements the majority of existing approaches to usability evaluation. In particular, it analyses conceptual misfits between user and system. o By intentionally supporting ‘sketchy’ analysis, CASSM avoids the ‘death by detail’ that plagues many evaluation techniques. CASSM analyses do not have to be complete or consistent to be useful – though of course a thorough analysis is likely to have these properties. Also, CASSM analyses are often quite succinct, compared to (for example) a Cognitive Walkthrough (Wharton et al, 1994), Heuristic Evaluation (Nielsen, 1994) or GOMS analysis (John & Kieras, 1996). o As a notation, it provides a ‘bridge’ between the core ideas underpinning work on mental models and design issues, and may thus make prior work on mental models more readily accessible to design practice. [This should be regarded as a hypothesis that has not yet been tested.] o The CASSM notation provides a relatively formal definition of many of Green’s Cognitive Dimensions (see, for example, Green, 1989; Green & Petre, 1996; Blackwell & Green 2003). In this way, it further supports assessment of a system in terms of CDs. This is discussed in detail towards the end of this document. Although the name (CASSM: Concept-based Analysis of Surface and Structural Misfits) emphasises the importance of misfits, you should be aware that there are other kinds of user–system misfits that are outside the scope of CASSM; for example, inconsistencies in procedures for similar tasks would be picked up by other techniques but are not directly addressed within CASSM. CASSM focuses on conceptual structures

The Discourse of Management and the Management of Discourse

Discourse is a pervasive tool of management; one might even say that discourse is what managers do. A widespread assumption among managers is that discourse is not only a pervasive tool, but an effective one for precise communication of information, for making decisions, and for enlisting action, essentially a transmission tool. This paper maintains that the transmission view is a limited conception of language use, one which leads to a faulty conception of what managers do. It ignores the need for an ethics of communication and misjudges the creative aspects of language use. Management discourse is a far more complex and fluid phenomenon, one requiring not just effective use, but management itself. In other words consideration of the discourse of management leads us to the need for the management of discourse.

Predicting ecosystem shifts requires new approaches that integrate the effects of climate change across entire systems.

Most studies that forecast the ecological consequences of climate change target a single species and a single life stage. Depending on climatic impacts on other life stages and on interacting species, however, the results from simple experiments may not translate into accurate predictions of future ecological change. Research needs to move beyond simple experimental studies and environmental envelope projections for single species towards identifying where ecosystem change is likely to occur and the drivers for this change. For this to happen, we advocate research directions that (i) identify the critical species within the target ecosystem, and the life stage(s) most susceptible to changing conditions and (ii) the key interactions between these species and components of their broader ecosystem. A combined approach using macroecology, experimentally derived data and modelling that incorporates energy budgets in life cycle models may identify critical abiotic conditions that disproportionately alter important ecological processes under forecasted climates

The Challenge to Educate: An Account of Inaugurating a Catholic School in Tanzania

In this article, the author examines how some of the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching (dignity of the human person, seeking the common good, and preferential option for the poor and vulnerable) along with the notion of integral formation, a principal belief of Catholic education, helped form a perspective on development that counterposed the neoliberal understandings of development he encountered from government officials as he set about opening a Catholic secondary school in Tanzania. After tracing the various strains of influence, including the thought of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, the article makes use of the fruits of an analysis of data to propose a set of principles to those inaugurating educational projects in the developing world. The article concludes by suggesting potentially wider application. Keywords Catholic social teaching, integral formation, development, Julius Nyerere El desafío de educar: relato de la inauguración de una escuela católica en Tanzania En el presente artículo el autor examina cómo algunos de los preceptos de la enseñanza social católica (dignidad del ser humano, búsqueda del bien común, y la opción preferencial por los pobres y vulnerables), junto con la noción de formación integral (creencia principal de la educación católica) ayudaron a formar una perspectiva del desarrollo que se contrapuso a las concepciones neoliberales de desarrollo que encontró en los funcionarios gubernamentales al proponerse abrir una escuela secundaria católica en Tanzania. Tras rastrear las distintas influencias, incluyendo los pensamientos de Julius Nyerere, primer presidente de Tanzania, el artículo emplea los frutos de un análisis de datos para proponer una serie de principios para los proyectos educativos inaugurales en el mundo en desarrollo. El artículo concluye con sugerencias para una aplicación potencialmente más amplia. Palabras clave enseñanza social católica, formación integral, desarrollo, Julius Nyerere Les défis présentés par l\u27éducation : compte-rendu de l\u27inauguration d\u27une école catholique en Tanzanie Dans cet article, l\u27auteur observe comment certains principes fondateurs de la doctrine sociale catholique (dignité de la personne humaine, recherche du bien commun et la préférence en faveur des pauvres et personnes vulnérables), de même que la notion de formation intégrale (une des croyances principales de l\u27enseignement catholique) ont permis de prendre une position en matière de développement qui met en opposition les conceptions néo-libérales sur le développement rencontrées chez les hauts fonctionnaires du gouvernement alors qu\u27il préparait l\u27ouverture d\u27une école secondaire catholique en Tanzanie. Après avoir cherché l\u27origine des divers courants d\u27influence, y compris la pensée de Julius Nyerere, le premier président de Tanzanie, l\u27article utilise les fruits d\u27une analyse de données pour proposer un ensemble de principes à ceux qui inaugurent des projets éducatifs dans les pays en développement. L\u27article s\u27achève en suggérant une application potentiellement plus vaste. Mots-clés : doctrine sociale catholique, formation intégrale, développement, Julius Nyerer

Recovering a lost baseline: missing kelp forests from a metropolitan coast

© 2008 AuthorThere is concern about historical and continuing loss of canopy-forming algae across the world’s temperate coastline. In South Australia, the sparse cover of canopy-forming algae on the Adelaide metropolitan coast has been of public concern with continuous years of anecdotal evidence culminating in 2 competing views. One view considers that current patterns existed before the onset of urbanisation, whereas the alternate view is that they developed after urbanisation. We tested hypotheses to distinguish between these 2 models, each centred on the reconstruction of historical covers of canopies on the metropolitan coast. Historically, the metropolitan sites were indistinguishable from contemporary populations of reference sites across 70 km (i.e. Gulf St. Vincent), and could also represent a random subset of exposed coastal sites across 2100 km of the greater biogeographic province. Thus there was nothing ‘special’ about the metropolitan sites historically, but today they stand out because they have sparser covers of canopies compared to equivalent locations and times in the gulf and the greater province. This is evidence of wholesale loss of canopy-forming algae (up to 70%) on parts of the Adelaide metropolitan coast since major urbanisation. These findings not only set a research agenda based on the magnitude of loss, but they also bring into question the logic that smaller metropolitan populations of humans create impacts that are trivial relative to that of larger metropolitan centres. Instead, we highlight a need to recognise the ecological context that makes some coastal systems more vulnerable or resistant to increasing human-domination of the world’s coastlines. We discuss challenges to this kind of research that receive little ecological discussion, particularly better leadership and administration, recognising that the systems we study out-live the life spans of individual research groups and operate on spatial scales that exceed the capacity of single research providers.Sean D. Connell, Bayden D. Russell, David J. Turner, Scoresby A. Shepherd, Timothy Kildea, David Miller, Laura Airoldi, Anthony Cheshir

An American Beauty Rose

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/1019/thumbnail.jp

'Mine's a Pint of Bitter': Performativity, gender, class and representations of authenticity in real-ale tourism

Leisure choices are expressive of individual agency around the maintenance of taste, boundaries, identity and community. This research paper is part of a wider project designed to assess the social and cultural value of real ale to tourism in the north of England. This paper explores the performativity of real-ale tourism and debates about belonging in northern English real-ale communities. The research combines an ethnographic case study of a real-ale festival with semi-structured interviews with organisers and volunteers, northern English real-ale brewers and real-ale tourists visiting the festival. It is argued that real-ale tourism, despite its origins in the logic of capitalism, becomes a space where people can perform Habermasian, communicative leisure, and despite the contradictions of preferring some capitalist industries over others on the basis of their perceived smaller size and older age, real-ale fans demonstrate agency in their performativity