Acquiring search expertise : learning experiences and threshold concepts

Expert searchers engage with information as information brokers, researchers, reference librarians, information architects, faculty who teach advanced search, and in a variety of other information-intensive professions. Their experiences are characterized by a profound understanding of information concepts and skills and they have an agile ability to apply this knowledge to interacting with and having an impact on the information environment. This study explored the learning experiences of searchers to understand the acquisition of search expertise. The research question was: What can be learned about becoming an expert searcher from the learning experiences of proficient novice searchers and highly experienced searchers? The key objectives were: (1) to explore the existence of threshold concepts in search expertise; (2) to improve our understanding of how search expertise is acquired and how novice searchers, intent on becoming experts, can learn to search in more expertlike ways. The participant sample drew from two population groups: (1) highly experienced searchers with a minimum of 20 years of relevant professional experience, including LIS faculty who teach advanced search, information brokers, and search engine developers (11 subjects); and (2) MLIS students who had completed coursework in information retrieval and online searching and demonstrated exceptional ability (9 subjects). Using these two groups allowed a nuanced understanding of the experience of learning to search in expertlike ways, with data from those who search at a very high level as well as those who may be actively developing expertise. The study used semi-structured interviews, search tasks with think-aloud narratives, and talk-after protocols. Searches were screen-captured with simultaneous audio-recording of the think-aloud narrative. Data were coded and analyzed using NVivo9 and manually. Grounded theory allowed categories and themes to emerge from the data. Categories represented conceptual knowledge and attributes of expert searchers. In accord with grounded theory method, once theoretical saturation was achieved, during the final stage of analysis the data were viewed through lenses of existing theoretical frameworks. For this study, threshold concept theory (Meyer & Land, 2003) was used to explore which concepts might be threshold concepts. Threshold concepts have been used to explore transformative learning portals in subjects ranging from economics to mathematics. A threshold concept has five defining characteristics: transformative (causing a shift in perception), irreversible (unlikely to be forgotten), integrative (unifying separate concepts), troublesome (initially counter-intuitive), and may be bounded. Themes that emerged provided evidence of four concepts which had the characteristics of threshold concepts. These were: information environment: the total information environment is perceived and understood; information structures: content, index structures, and retrieval algorithms are understood; information vocabularies: fluency in search behaviors related to language, including natural language, controlled vocabulary, and finesse using proximity, truncation, and other language-based tools. The fourth threshold concept was concept fusion, the integration of the other three threshold concepts and further defined by three properties: visioning (anticipating next moves), being light on one's 'search feet' (dancing property), and profound ontological shift (identity as searcher). In addition to the threshold concepts, findings were reported that were not concept-based, including praxes and traits of expert searchers. A model of search expertise is proposed with the four threshold concepts at its core that also integrates the traits and praxes elicited from the study, attributes which are likewise long recognized in LIS research as present in professional searchers. The research provides a deeper understanding of the transformative learning experiences involved in the acquisition of search expertise. It adds to our understanding of search expertise in the context of today's information environment and has implications for teaching advanced search, for research more broadly within library and information science, and for methodologies used to explore threshold concepts.

Donating blood and organs : using an extended theory of planned behavior perspective to identify similarities and differences in individual motivations to donate

Due to the critical shortage and continued need of blood and organ donations (ODs), research exploring similarities and differences in the motivational determinants of these behaviors is needed. In a sample of 258 university students, we used a cross-sectional design to test the utility of an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) including moral norm, self-identity and in-group altruism (family/close friends and ethnic group), to predict people’s blood and OD intentions. Overall, the extended TPB explained 77.0% and 74.6% of variance in blood and OD intentions, respectively. In regression analyses, common contributors to intentions across donation contexts were attitude, self-efficacy and self-identity. Normative influences varied with subjective norm as a significant predictor related to OD intentions but not blood donation intentions at the final step of regression analyses. Moral norm did not contribute significantly to blood or OD intentions. In-group altruism (family/close friends) was significantly related to OD intentions only in regressions. Future donation strategies should increase confidence to donate, foster a perception of self as the type of person who donates blood and/or organs, and address preferences to donate organs to in-group members only.

Dynamics of affordances and implications for design

Affordance is an important concept in HCI. There are various interpretations of affordances but it has been difficult to use this concept for design purposes. Often the treatment of affordances in the current HCI literature has been as a one-to-one relationship between a user and an artefact. According to our views, affordance is a dynamic, always emerging relationship between a human and his environment. We believe that the social and cultural contexts within which an artefact is situated affect the way in which the artefact is used. Using a Structuration Theory approach, we argue that affordances need also be treated at a much broader level, encompassing social and cultural aspects. We suggest that affordances should be seen at three levels: single user, organizational (or work group) and societal. Focusing on the organizational level affordances, we provide details of several important factors that affect the emergence of affordances.

Identity-based signcryption

The notion of identity-based IB cryptography was proposed by Shamir [177] as a specialization of public key PK cryptography which dispensed with the need for cumbersome directories, certificates, and revocation lists.

Everything you do : young adult fiction and surveillance in an age of security

Espionage, surveillance and clandestine operations by secret agencies and governments were something of an East–West obsession in the second half of the twentieth century, a fact reflected in literature and film. In the twenty-first century, concerns of the Cold War and the threat of Communism have been rearticulated in the wake of 9/11. Under the rubric of ‘terror’ attacks, the discourses of security and surveillance are now framed within an increasingly global context. As this article illustrates, surveillance fiction written for young people engages with the cultural and political tropes that reflect a new social order that is different from the Cold War era, with its emphasis on spies, counter espionage, brainwashing and psychological warfare. While these tropes are still evident in much recent literature, advances in technology have transformed the means of tracking, profiling and accumulating data on individuals’ daily activities. Little Brother, The Hunger Games and Article 5 reflect the complex relationship between the real and the imaginary in the world of surveillance and, as this paper discusses, raise moral and ethical issues that are important questions for young people in our age of security.

Developing a framework of effective prevention and response strategies in workplace sexual harassment

Sexual harassment remains a widespread workplace phenomenon, despite laws that proscribe it. Drawing initially on a typology from the violence prevention literature that conceptualizes prevention and response approaches according to when they occur, the paper synthesizes strategies identified in literature addressing workplace sexual harassment, as well as other workplace injustices or grievances. The paper utilizes this previous research to develop a framework of sexual harassment prevention strategies along two dimensions: functions and timing. The framework offers a research-informed set of organization-wide preventative and remedial approaches, a systemic approach to what is often seen as an individual problem, and a means to better focus interventions that are often disparate and unco-ordinated. The paper also highlights important areas for future research including a stronger focus on longer-term (tertiary) corrective actions.

Virtual resistance based active damping solution for constant power instability in AC microgrids

With ever-increasing share of power electronic loads constant power instability is becoming a significant issue in microgrids, especially when they operate in the islanding mode. Transient conditions like resistive load-shedding or sudden increase of constant power loads (CPL) might destabilize the whole system. Modeling and stability analysis of AC microgrids with CPLs have already been discussed in literature. However, no effective solutions are provided to stabilize this kind of system. Therefore, this paper proposes a virtual resistance based active damping method to eliminate constant power instability in AC microgrids. Advantages and limitations of the proposed method are also discussed in detail. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed active damping solution.

Contrast and Emphasis: An Essay on the Modal Adverb Ke in Declarative Sentences [对比与强调 --- 谈陈述句中的语气副词“可”]

The data-oriented empirical research on the Chinese adverb “ke” has led to the conclusion that the semantics of the word as a modal adverb is always two-fold: it marks both “contrast” and “emphasis”. “Adversativity” as used in literature on “ke” is but one type of contrast marked by “ke”. Other types of contrast marked by “ke” in declarative sentences include: a) what is assumed by the hearer and what the truth of a matter is; b) what the sentence literally talks about and what it also implicitly conveys; and c) the original wishful nature of the stated action and its final realization. In all declarative sentences, what the adverb emphasizes is the “factuality” of what is stated. Chinese Abstract [提要] 对外汉语教学的实践表明，汉语副词“可”是教学中的难点，这跟我们对其语义内涵缺乏全面准确的认识有关。为了全面揭示副词“可”的核心语义，本作者以电视连续剧《渴望》前二十集为主要语料，并结合其他一些电视剧、电视节目以及文献里已有的语料，对出现在各种语境中的“可”进行了大量的考察和归纳性研究。研究结果表明，作为语气副词的“可”其核心语义不是单一的，它总是在标示“对比”（即“不同”）的同时表示强调。它所强调的是所述内容的“事实性”或“终然性”。由于篇幅所限，本文仅对陈述句中的语气副词“可”加以讨论

The fantastic in the family sagas : implications for saga authorship

There is increasing acceptance that characterisation in the family sagas is complex enough to include the subtle incorporation of protagonists’ inner lives. Thus, despite saga authors’ apparent desire to pass on traditional stories, saga characterization brings with it the possibility of a connection between the medieval author and the early Icelandic community represented in the sagas, a break in the saga code of objective narration that adds further weight to recent arguments that saga authorship was conceived in broader terms than merely the preservation of oral tales. One such break in objectivity occurs in the range of responses to the fantastic, when characters are forced to interpret the supernatural or strange events in their lives. At such times, the author allows glimpses of the inner lives of characters, focussing our attention on the way in which characters perceived and dealt with extraordinary occurrences, but also highlighting and thematising the distinctive social context of the early Icelandic community.

Becoming a pharmacist : students' perceptions of their curricular experience and professional identity formation

Introduction Student professional identity formation is important for enabling the successful transition between academic education and professional practice. Recognition of this has resulted in significant changes in professional education (e.g., the inclusion of experiential placements and authentic learning experiences). There is limited research that examines how the curricular experience influences pharmacy studentsʼ professional identity formation. Methods Using focus groups, comprising 82 students from all levels of a four-year Australian undergraduate pharmacy course, this study examined studentsʼ perceptions of their overall curricular experience and examined how these experiences influenced the construction of their professional identities. Results Our analysis found that the pharmacy students struggled with their professional identity formation. Many were entering the degree with little understanding of what being a pharmacist entailed. Once in the educational context, the nature of the role became both apparent and idealistic but not enacted. Students experienced dissonance between the idealistic notion of pharmacy practice and the realities of placements, and this may have been enhanced by a lack of patient-centered care role models. This struggle left them concluding that the role of the pharmacist was constrained and limited. Conclusions We argue that professional identity formation needs to be in the foreground from commencement of the degree and throughout the curriculum.

MIMO and SISO identification of radiation force terms for models of marine structures in waves

This paper presents a discussion on the use of MIMO and SISO techniques for identification of the radiation force terms in models for surface vessels. We compare and discuss two techniques recently proposed in literature for this application: time domain identification and frequency domain identification. We compare the methods in terms of estimates model order, accuracy of the fit, use of the available information, and ease of use and implementation.

Public relations and engagement : theoretical imperatives of a multidimensional concept

Engagement has emerged as important concept in public relations, as stakeholders challenge the discourse of organizational primacy and organizations prioritize the need for authentic stakeholder involvement. As a multidimensional concept, engagement offers a foundation for building organizational relationships, and provides a means to facilitate community–organization interaction. This special issue on engagement and public relations presents a body of work that both explicates and expands the theoretical foundations of engagement, and contributes to scholarly understanding of its contexts, processes, and outcomes.

Natural ventilation heuristics in high-rise residential buildings : evaluation and prediction

Complex behaviour of air flow in the buildings makes it difficult to predict. Consequently, architects use common strategies for designing buildings with adequate natural ventilation. However, each climate needs specific strategies and there are not many heuristics for subtropical climate in literature. Furthermore, most of these common strategies are based on low-rise buildings and their performance for high-rise buildings might be different due to the increase of the wind speed with increase in the height. This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to evaluate these rules of thumb for natural ventilation for multi-residential buildings in subtropical climate. Four design proposals for multi-residential towers with natural ventilation which were produced in intensive two days charrette were evaluated using CFD. The results show that all the buildings reach acceptable level of wind speed in living areas and poor amount of air flow in sleeping areas.

Practical implementation of species' recovery plans - Lessons from the White-backed Woodpecker Action Plan in Sweden

Successful biodiversity conservation requires safeguarding viable populations of species. To work with this challenge Sweden has introduced a concept of Action Plans, which focus on the recovery of one or more species; while keeping in mind the philosophy of addressing ecosystems in a more comprehensive way, following the umbrella concept. In this paper we investigate the implementationprocess of the ActionPlanfor one umbrella species, the White-backed Woodpecker (WBW) Dendrocopos leucotos. We describe the plan's organisation and goals, and investigate its implementation and accomplishment of particular targets, based on interviewing and surveying the key actors. The achievement of the targets in 2005-2008 was on average much lower than planned, explained partially by the lack of knowledge/data, experienced workers, and administrative flexibility. Surprisingly, the perceived importance of particular conservation measures, the investment priority accorded to them, the money available and various practical obstacles all failed to kg? explain the target levels achieved. However qualitative data from both the interviews and the survey highlight possible implementation obstacles: competing interests with other conservation actions and the level of engagement of particular implementing actors. Therefore we suggest that for successful implementation of recovery plans, there is aneed for initial and inclusive scoping prior to embarking on the plan, where not only issues like ecological knowledge and practical resources are considered, but also possible conflicts and synergies with other conservation actions. An adaptive approach with regular review of the conservation process is essential, particularly in the case of such complex action plans as the one for the WBW.