MAKING SENSE OF INFORMATION SYSTEM USE THROUGH THE TRIADIC RESEARCH METHOD

The paper presents a novel research methodology, called the Triadic Method to highlight users? personal sense making process. The method is drawn from the work of Norbert Elias (1991), George Kelly (1963) and Max Weber (1897). To illustrate the relevance of the Triadic Method, the paper presents a case study of how an experienced user, here an air traffic controller, goes about using an Information System when resolving a problem in an urgent situation. The results of the study show that air controllers? decision making process nuances a strict interpretation of Herbert Simon\u27s (1977) hypothesis of ?limited rationality?. An analysis of the data reveals that air traffic controllers\u27 use IS related data to disconfirm a series of possible choices in a systematic elimination process when resolving an air traffic conflict. These findings have methodological implications for future development of IS, notably in a current multidisciplinary research project called SAMOSA, concerning the implementation of whole-body, millimetre wave imaging scanners in French airports

Regard info-communicationnel sur la prise de décision. Application au choix d'une université au Liban

La décision est omniprésente dans l existence humaine. Dans nombre de cas, elle engage même le reste d une existence. Cette recherche problématise le rapport entre information et communication, en lien avec l engagement et la décision qui en résulte. Elle montre que la décision est contrainte par l information qui caractérise la situation et les éléments de connaissance communiqués. Son terrain expérimental concerne les lycéens devant choisir une université future - décision spécialement difficile au Liban, pays atypique assez complexe et influencé par la religion et la situation géopolitique.L objectif principal de cette thèse est de présenter une étude exploratoire cherchant à caractériser les facteurs majeurs qui déterminent les lycéens dans leur prise de décision. Partant de l information telle qu elle est projetée dans la représentation documentaire, elle s attache concrètement à étudier les formes de la médiation entre une université et un futur candidat lycéen, dans une optique de prise de décision. L étude examine les expériences vécues par des étudiants en première année universitaire, qui ont donc définitivement accompli leur prise de décision ; elle établit des liens entre la théorie de l engagement et la décision, et vise à définir des liaisons entre l information construite à partir d un document, le processus décisionnel et l ingénierie de l aide à la décision. L originalité de cette recherche réside dans la mise en œuvre d une méthode d écoute des besoins et de hiérarchisation des attentes, développée par le laboratoire DeVisU à l Université de Valenciennes, basée sur le croisement et la complémentarité de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives.L apport principal de cette recherche est de dévoiler quelles caractéristiques des institutions universitaires emportent la décision des lycéens. Car sous l effet de la concurrence nationale et internationale, la plupart des universités soignent leur attractivité et se voient contraintes de développer de nouvelles stratégies de recrutement. L enjeu est de retenir les meilleurs étudiants. Ainsi, pour la population étudiée, ce n est pas l acquisition de connaissances mais la préparation au marché du travail qui importe le plus. En outre, a contrario de nombre d idées reçues, c est la médiation humaine qui s avère avoir le pouvoir d instaurer une communication engageante et en aucun cas celle des systèmes documentaires, même de technologie avancée.The decision is omnipresent in human existence. In many cases, it even engages the remains of an existence. This research emphasizes the link between information and communication, which are related to the commitment and the resulting decision. The research shows that the decision is constrained by information characterizing the situation and elements which are provided by knowledge. Its experimental framework concerns students, who are bound to choose faculties and universities a decision relatively difficult to be taken in Lebanon, an atypical country quite complex and influenced by religion and geopolitical situation.The main objective of this thesis is to present an exploratory study in order to characterize the major factors which determine the students decision-making. Based on the information as it is projected into the documentary presentation, it literally focuses on the study of mediation between university and a future high school candidate in a decision-making framework. The study discusses the experiences of students in their first academic year, so they have already made their decision; it establishes links between the theory of commitment and decision-making. It also seeks to define links between information built from a document, decision-making and decision support. The originality of this research lies in the implementation of a method of listening to the needs and hierarchy of needs, developed by DeVisU laboratory at the University of Valenciennes, based on the intersection and as a complement for qualitative and quantitative methods.The main contribution of this research is to reveal which characteristics of academic institutions outweigh the decision of students. As a result of national and international competition, most universities treat their attractiveness and are forced to develop new recruitment strategies. The challenge is to retain the best students. Thus, for the population being studied, it is not knowledge but preparation of labor market that matters most. In addition to that, and in contrast to received wisdom, it is human mediation that has the power to create an engaging communication and in any case, the documentation systems, even of advanced technology.VALENCIENNES-Bib. électronique (596069901) / SudocSudocFranceF

In the dedicated pursuit of dedicated capital: restoring an indigenous investment ethic to British capitalism

Tony Blair’s landslide electoral victory on May 1 (New Labour Day?) presents the party in power with a rare, perhaps even unprecedented, opportunity to revitalise and modernise Britain’s ailing and antiquated manufacturing economy.* If it is to do so, it must remain true to its long-standing (indeed, historic) commitment to restore an indigenous investment ethic to British capitalism. In this paper we argue that this in turn requires that the party reject the very neo-liberal orthodoxies which it offered to the electorate as evidence of its competence, moderation and ‘modernisation’, which is has internalised, and which it apparently now views as circumscribing the parameters of the politically and economically possible

Psychiatric assessment of suicide attempters in Japan: a pilot study at a critical emergency unit in an urban area

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The incidence of suicide has increased markedly in Japan since 1998. As psychological autopsy is not generally accepted in Japan, surveys of suicide attempts, an established risk factor of suicide, are highly regarded. We have carried out this study to gain insight into the psychiatric aspects of those attempting suicide in Japan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Three hundred and twenty consecutive cases of attempted suicide who were admitted to an urban emergency department were interviewed, with the focus on psychosocial background and DSM-IV diagnosis. Moreover, they were divided into two groups according to the method of attempted suicide in terms of lethality, and the two groups were compared.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ninety-five percent of patients received a psychiatric diagnosis: 81% of subjects met the criteria for an axis I disorder. The most frequent diagnosis was mood disorder. The mean age was higher and living alone more common in the high-lethality group. Middle-aged men tended to have a higher prevalence of mood disorders.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This is the first large-scale study of cases of attempted suicide since the dramatic increase in suicides began in Japan. The identification and introduction of treatments for psychiatric disorders at emergency departments has been indicated to be important in suicide prevention.</p

Prevalence of inappropriate medication using Beers criteria in Japanese long-term care facilities

BACKGROUND: The prevalence and risk factors of potentially inappropriate medication use among the elderly patients have been studied in various countries, but because of the difficulty of obtaining data on patient characteristics and medications they have not been studied in Japan. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study in 17 Japanese long-term care (LTC) facilities by collecting data from the comprehensive MDS assessment forms for 1669 patients aged 65 years and over who were assessed between January and July of 2002. Potentially inappropriate medications were identified on the basis of the 2003 Beers criteria. RESULTS: The patients in the sample were similar in terms of demographic characteristics to those in the national survey. Our study revealed that 356 (21.1%) of the patients were treated with potentially inappropriate medication independent of disease or condition. The most commonly inappropriately prescribed medication was ticlopidine, which had been prescribed for 107 patients (6.3%). There were 300 (18.0%) patients treated with at least 1 inappropriate medication dependent on the disease or condition. The highest prevalence of inappropriate medication use dependent on the disease or condition was found in patients with chronic constipation. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed psychotropic drug use (OR = 1.511), medication cost of per day (OR = 1.173), number of medications (OR = 1.140), and age (OR = 0.981) as factors related to inappropriate medication use independent of disease or condition. Neither patient characteristics nor facility characteristics emerged as predictors of inappropriate prescription. CONCLUSION: The prevalence and predictors of inappropriate medication use in Japanese LTC facilities were similar to those in other countries

Sexual slavery without borders: trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in India

Trafficking in women and children is a gross violation of human rights. However, this does not prevent an estimated 800 000 women and children to be trafficked each year across international borders. Eighty per cent of trafficked persons end in forced sex work. India has been identified as one of the Asian countries where trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation has reached alarming levels. While there is a considerable amount of internal trafficking from one state to another or within states, India has also emerged as a international supplier of trafficked women and children to the Gulf States and South East Asia, as well as a destination country for women and girls trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation from Nepal and Bangladesh. Trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation is a highly profitable and low risk business that preys on particularly vulnerable populations. This paper presents an overview of the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation (CSE) in India; identifies the health impacts of CSE; and suggest strategies to respond to trafficking and related issues

Université Lille Nord de France École doctorale 473-SHS Laboratoire Design Visuel et Urbain Equipe d'Accueil 2445 MEDIA-REPERES. Une méthode pour l'explicitation des construits de sens au visionnage: L’explicitation du sens décisionnel de l’utilisateur par la méthode triadique selon la méthodologie de Processus d’Aide à la Décision (PAD).

This post-doctoral dissertation conceptualises sense-making constructs as a decisional process related to a communication situation. The research methodology rests on a microsocial and idiographic approach, which lends itself to a case study system of investigation. In this context, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted within the research project Media and Emotion. The research problem examines the links between perceived scenic elements of a film and spectators’ sense-making constructs in their decision to continue watching the film, or not. The originality of the study is based on a specially designed MEDIA-REPERES method to render operational the emergence of sense-making constructs as a decisional process. Such constructs are brought forward, it is argued, via iterative processes that establish attributes of similitudes and dissimilitudes between perceived phenomena. The method was successfully used with 20 spectators who were interviewed directly after having watched a four-minute car chase taken from an action film, which they had never seen. The results of the interviews indicate that for the majority of the people interviewed, the interview process had a stabilizing effect, i.e. it reinforced the spectator’s decision about wishing to see the film, or not. For others, the process brought out either a boomerang (intensification against seeing the film) or a propellant effect (intensification of wanting to see the film). The identification of these effects sheds light on a spectator’s value-system when making sense of what is perceived and in so doing clarifies design choices for decision aiding engineers and authors of audiovisual documents.Les travaux de ce mémoire d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches conceptualisent les construits de sens en tant que processus décisionnel associé à une « situation de communication ». La méthodologie s’appuie sur une approche microsociale et idiographique favorisant une recherche par étude de cas. Dans ce cadre, une étude qualitative exploratoire a été menée lors du projet Média et Emotion. La problématique de recherche de l’étude questionne les relations entre les éléments communicationnels d’un extrait de film d’action et les construits de sens des spectateurs soutenant leur décision de souhaiter voir le long-métrage en entier. L’originalité des travaux tient aux apports de la méthode MEDIA-REPERES qui rend opérationnelle l’explicitation des construits de sens, en tant que processus itératifs de similitudes et de dissimilitudes à l’égard des objets perçus comme signifiants lors d’une situation de communication. Ainsi, l’émergence des construits de sens est explicitement rattachée à des éléments de l’image et du son saisis lors du visionnage. Concrètement, 20 adultes ont visionné une course-poursuite d’un film sélectionné et leurs discours à propos de l’extrait ont été analysés. Les résultats de cette analyse mettent en évidence les systèmes de valeurs des spectateurs à l’égard du film. Pour la majorité des personnes interrogées, l’échange ultérieur concernant le film a un effet stabilisateur, c’est-à-dire un renforcement de la décision prise par la personne. Pour quelques-unes, le processus communicationnel développe un effet boomerang (atténuation de l’intensité de la décision) ou un effet propulseur (amplification de l’intensité de la décision). Ces résultats éclairent le processus décisionnel des utilisateurs de médias et fournissent des pistes en termes d’aide à la décision pour le concepteur d’une oeuvre audiovisuelle.

Making Sense of Visitors’ Sense-making Experiences: The REMIND Method

International audienceTen years of studying museum visitors’ sense-making processes have led to developing two in situ research methods. First, from a conceptual “enactive” perspective, our REMIND method seeks to understand more clearly visitors’ sense-making processes. This involves employing an eye-tracker video recording of visitors’ gaze points as the basis of semi-guided interviews conducted on the site of the museum immediately after the visit. Second, our E-MOTION method traces visitors’ paths in the museum linked to their declared level of emotions. In doing this, the method creates an emotion-map of a visitor’s journey in the museum. The two methods identify museum features conducive to sense-making, which can be linked to Gardner’s (1993) multiple intelligences, and to disengaging “sense-wrecking”

Manager les processus de contrôle de sécurité des passagers dans les aéroports publics: une pluralité de logiques d’action en tension.: Le cas du projet d’introduction des scanners corporels par ADP

National audienc