A Phenomenological Study of Learning Processes at Work: Confirming, Extending, and Challenging Holistic Learning Theory

Holistic learning theory (Yang, 2003) identified explicit, implicit, and emancipatory knowledge facets in learning. A phenomenological study of how participants’ experienced interactions between knowledge facets showed the facets expressed, informed, changed, and guided one another. The complexity of learning and the role of spirituality in learning were explored.

Improving Novice Analyst Performance in Modeling the Sequence Diagram in Systems Analysis: A Cognitive Complexity Approach

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has quickly become the industry standard for object-oriented software development. It is being widely used in organizations and institutions around the world. However, UML is often found to be too complex for novice systems analysts. Although prior research has identified difficulties novice analysts encounter in learning UML, no viable solution has been proposed to address these difficulties. Sequence-diagram modeling, in particular, has largely been overlooked. The sequence diagram models the behavioral aspects of an object-oriented software system in terms of interactions among its building blocks, i.e. objects and classes. It is one of the most commonly-used UML diagrams in practice. However, there has been little research on sequence-diagram modeling. The current literature scarcely provides effective guidelines for developing a sequence diagram. Such guidelines will be greatly beneficial to novice analysts who, unlike experienced systems analysts, do not possess relevant prior experience to easily learn how to develop a sequence diagram. There is the need for an effective sequence-diagram modeling technique for novices. This dissertation reports a research study that identified novice difficulties in modeling a sequence diagram and proposed a technique called CHOP (CHunking, Ordering, Patterning), which was designed to reduce the cognitive load by addressing the cognitive complexity of sequence-diagram modeling. The CHOP technique was evaluated in a controlled experiment against a technique recommended in a well-known textbook, which was found to be representative of approaches provided in many textbooks as well as practitioner literatures. The results indicated that novice analysts were able to perform better using the CHOP technique. This outcome seems have been enabled by pattern-based heuristics provided by the technique. Meanwhile, novice analysts rated the CHOP technique more useful although not significantly easier to use than the control technique. The study established that the CHOP technique is an effective sequence-diagram modeling technique for novice analysts.

Applying complexity science to air traffic management

Complexity science is the multidisciplinary study of complex systems. Its marked network orientation lends itself well to transport contexts. Key features of complexity science are introduced and defined, with a specific focus on the application to air traffic management. An overview of complex network theory is presented, with examples of its corresponding metrics and multiple scales. Complexity science is starting to make important contributions to performance assessment and system design: selected, applied air traffic management case studies are explored. The important contexts of uncertainty, resilience and emergent behaviour are discussed, with future research priorities summarised.

Understanding how sporting characteristics and behaviours influence destination selection: a grounded theory study of golf tourism

Sports tourism has received growing attention in academic research over the past two decades (Weed and Bull, 2009, Gibson, 2005) but greater understanding of the consumer is needed, particularly the factors influencing decisions to include sport as part of a leisure trip. This paper provides, through a focus on the sport of golf, insight into the characteristics of the sports tourist and how sports tourist behaviours influence the selection of locations deemed suitable for sports participation. This qualitative research employs a grounded theory methodology, underpinned by a constructivist epistemology, to evaluate twenty-six in-depth interviews with golf tourists. The findings propose a model which explains the relationship between golf tourist behaviours and destination selection. This identifies six strands which determine the relationship between the golf tourist, golf behaviours and destination selection (constructing the golf holiday, emotional rewards of taking a trip, total trip spend, amenities and support facilities, course characteristics and reputation of the destination). Furthermore it illuminates the complexity of these relationships through recognition of four spheres of influence (group dynamics, competition and ability, golfing capital and intermediaries). Discussion elucidates how this increased understanding of the golf tourist behaviours and destination selection might be applied to other sports, with conclusions exploring implications for the sports tourism industry and destinations.

Tackling Ageing Continence through Theory, Tools & Technology (TACT3)

The complexity of issues surrounding continence management, have been investigated by a UK multi-disciplinary research team working under the project title Tackling Ageing Continence through Theory Tools and Technology (TACT3). The team comprising engineers, chemists, health researchers, designers and social anthropologists is funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme, ‘a seven year multidisciplinary research initiative with the ultimate aim of improving quality of life of older people. The programme is a unique collaboration between five UK Research Councils , and is the largest and most ambitious research programme on ageing ever mounted in the UK’ (www.newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk). The TACT3 project comprises four work packages that are individually managed by members of the research team. One work package focuses solely on knowledge transfer of the research outputs and the management of the overall project. Another work package, entitled ‘Challenging Environmental Barriers’ has focused on the barriers in the built environment that prevent older people with continence concerns from participating in wider social life, namely access to publicly available toilet facilities. We also have a work package entitled ‘Improving Continence Interventions and Services’ which is exploring patient, carer and service providers experiences in receiving and delivering National Health Service (NHS) continence management treatments. The fourth workpackage ‘Developing Assistive Technologies’ has worked with users to develop devices that promote confidence, improve health and therefore may facilitate greater social interaction for older people with continence management concerns.

The Borel Complexity of Isomorphism for Some First Order Theories

In this work we consider several instances of the following problem: "how complicated can the isomorphism relation for countable models be?"' Using the Borel reducibility framework, we investigate this question with regard to the space of countable models of particular complete first-order theories. We also investigate to what extent this complexity is mirrored in the number of back-and-forth inequivalent models of the theory. We consider this question for two large and related classes of theories. First, we consider o-minimal theories, showing that if T is o-minimal, then the isomorphism relation is either Borel complete or Borel. Further, if it is Borel, we characterize exactly which values can occur, and when they occur. In all cases Borel completeness implies lambda-Borel completeness for all lambda. Second, we consider colored linear orders, which are (complete theories of) a linear order expanded by countably many unary predicates. We discover the same characterization as with o-minimal theories, taking the same values, with the exception that all finite values are possible except two. We characterize exactly when each possibility occurs, which is similar to the o-minimal case. Additionally, we extend Schirrman's theorem, showing that if the language is finite, then T is countably categorical or Borel complete. As before, in all cases Borel completeness implies lambda-Borel completeness for all lambda.

Safety and complexity: the inter-departmental threats to patient safety in the operating department

Purpose: Current thinking about ‘patient safety’ emphasises the causal relationship between the work environment and the delivery of clinical care. This research draws on the theory of Normal Accidents to extend this analysis and better understand the ‘organisational factors’ that threaten safety. Methods: Ethnographic research methods were used, with observations of the operating department setting for 18 month and interviews with 80 members of hospital staff. The setting for the study was the Operating Department of a large teaching hospital in the North-West of England. Results: The work of the operating department is determined by inter-dependant, ‘tightly coupled’ organisational relationships between hospital departments based upon the timely exchange of information, services and resources required for the delivery of care. Failures within these processes, manifest as ‘breakdowns’ within inter-departmental relationships lead to situations of constraint, rapid change and uncertainty in the work of the operating department that require staff to break with established routines and work with increased time and emotional pressures. This means that staff focus on working quickly, as opposed to working safely. Conclusion: Analysis of safety needs to move beyond a focus on the immediate work environment and individual practice, to consider the more complex and deeply structured organisational systems of hospital activity. For departmental managers the scope for service planning to control for safety may be limited as the structured ‘real world’ situation of service delivery is shaped by inter-department and organisational factors that are perhaps beyond the scope of departmental management.

Ideological Complex Systems: Mathematical Theory

The goal of this article is to build an abstract mathematical theory rather than a computational one of the process of transmission of ideology. The basis of much of the argument is Patten's Environment Theory that characterizes a system with its double environment (input or stimulus and output or response) and the existing interactions among them. Ideological processes are semiotic processes, and if in Patten's theory, the two environments are physical, in this theory ideological processes are physical and semiotic, as are stimulus and response.

Eulerian-Lagrangian definition of coarse bed-load transport: Theory and verification with low-cost inertial measurement units

Fluvial sediment transport is controlled by hydraulics, sediment properties and arrangement, and flow history across a range of time scales. This physical complexity has led to ambiguous definition of the reference frame (Lagrangian or Eulerian) in which sediment transport is analysed. A general Eulerian-Lagrangian approach accounts for inertial characteristics of particles in a Lagrangian (particle fixed) frame, and for the hydrodynamics in an independent Eulerian frame. The necessary Eulerian-Lagrangian transformations are simplified under the assumption of an ideal Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), rigidly attached at the centre of the mass of a sediment particle. Real, commercially available IMU sensors can provide high frequency data on accelerations and angular velocities (hence forces and energy) experienced by grains during entrainment and motion, if adequately customized. IMUs are subjected to significant error accu- mulation but they can be used for statistical parametrisation of an Eulerian-Lagrangian model, for coarse sediment particles and over the temporal scale of individual entrainment events. In this thesis an Eulerian-Lagrangian model is introduced and evaluated experimentally. Absolute inertial accelerations were recorded at a 4 Hz frequency from a spherical instrumented particle (111 mm diameter and 2383 kg/m3 density) in a series of entrainment threshold experiments on a fixed idealised bed. The grain-top inertial acceleration entrainment threshold was approximated at 44 and 51 mg for slopes 0.026 and 0.037 respectively. The saddle inertial acceleration entrainment threshold was at 32 and 25 mg for slopes 0.044 and 0.057 respectively. For the evaluation of the complete Eulerian-Lagrangian model two prototype sensors are presented: an idealised (spherical) with a diameter of 90 mm and an ellipsoidal with axes 100, 70 and 30 mm. Both are instrumented with a complete IMU, capable of sampling 3D inertial accelerations and 3D angular velocities at 50 Hz. After signal analysis, the results can be used to parametrize sediment movement but they do not contain positional information. The two sensors (spherical and ellipsoidal) were tested in a series of entrainment experiments, similar to the evaluation of the 111 mm prototype, for a slope of 0.02. The spherical sensor entrained at discharges of 24.8 ± 1.8 l/s while the same threshold for the ellipsoidal sensor was 45.2 ± 2.2 l/s. Kinetic energy calculations were used to quantify the particle-bed energy exchange under fluvial (discharge at 30 l/s) and non-fluvial conditions. All the experiments suggest that the effect of the inertial characteristics of coarse sediments on their motion is comparable to the effect hydrodynamic forces. The coupling of IMU sensors with advanced telemetric systems can lead to the tracking of Lagrangian particle trajectories, at a frequency and accuracy that will permit the testing of diffusion/dispersion models across the range of particle diameters.

A complexity-based diagnostic on the democratic unity roundtable mud: problems and alternatives (2008-2016)

Este trabajo exploratorio estudia al movimiento político Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), creada con el fin de oponerse la Gobierno socialista existente en venezuela. La crítica que este documento realiza, parte desde el punto de vista de la Ciencia de la Complejidad. Algunos conceptos clave de sistemas complejos han sido utilizados para explicar el funcionamiento y organización de la MUD, esto con el objetivo de generar un diagnóstico integral de los problemas que enfrenta, y evidenciar las nuevas percepciones sobre comportamientos perjudiciales que el partido tiene actualmente. Con el enfoque de la complejidad se pretende ayudar a comprender mejor el contexto que enmarca al partido y, para, finalmente aportar una serie de soluciones a los problemas de cohesión que presen

Feminist Disability Theory: Domestic Violence Against Women with a Disability

Women with a disability continue to experience social oppression and domestic violence as a consequence of gender and disability dimensions. Current explanations of domestic violence and disability inadequately explain several features that lead women who have a disability to experience violent situations. This article incorporates both disability and material feminist theory as an alternative explanation to the dominant approaches (psychological and sociological traditions) of conceptualising domestic violence. This paper is informed by a study which was concerned with examining the nature and perceptions of violence against women with a physical impairment. The emerging analytical framework integrating material feminist interpretations and disability theory provided a basis for exploring gender and disability dimensions. Insight was also provided by the women who identified as having a disability in the study and who explained domestic violence in terms of a gendered and disabling experience. The article argues that material feminist interpretations and disability theory, with their emphasis on gender relations, disablism and poverty, should be used as an alternative tool for exploring the nature and consequences of violence against women with a disability.