New Piece Of Technology Research Articles

Distilling water, distilling data: questionnaires in Dutch East India Company record-keeping

ABSTRACT During the age of colonial expansion, European merchant companies used paper technologies as tools of control. This article analyses a set of tables produced in the 1690s by employees of the Dutch East India Company, as they recorded their daily efforts on a new method of desalinating ocean water. These printed “formulieren” should be viewed not only as a novel extension of the nautical logbook but also as an early phase in the development of questionnaires. Adapted from clerical formularies, these structured tabular records are an early instance of a single-purpose data collection document, one linked with a new piece of technology, for which performance was to be measured daily. These sparse columns allow us to recover the practices of the “watermakers” themselves: some filled out the tables diligently, others gave rough estimates after the fact. Each of these men approached a supposedly standard technology in a different way, allowing us to uncover surprising individualism from within columns of numbers.

No future for care without new digital media? Making time(s) for mediated informal care practices in later life

There is a growing interest in using social media and digital platforms as allies to strengthen social support among the aged. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and observations of 21 people in their 80s, the article foregrounds the multiple and intersecting temporalities of informal mediated care practices in later life through an exploration of the wide range of infrastructures on which they rely, from social media platforms to housing and urban infrastructure. We identify four temporalities of mediated informal care to assert the need to problematize the future-oriented temporalities of new caring media. The article paves the way to consider infrastructures of informal care as making time in multiple forms, irrespective of their newness or oldness, or the futures that every new piece of technology and service may potentially bring to our present.

Effectiveness of clicker‐assisted teaching in improving the critical thinking of adolescent learners

AbstractThe effect of the implementation of student response systems (SRSs) in teaching on the critical thinking (CT) of young students was investigated. The study benefited from a quasi‐experimental design and a pretest/posttest set‐up. Subjects consisted of 156 K‐8 students in Tehran during 2016–2017, selected through a multistage cluster sampling, and randomly assigned to either the experimental group (EG) or the control group (CG). The regular curriculum of the students contained a weekly session of a course titled “Thinking and Lifestyle.” Ten sessions of the course were conducted using SRS (aka clickers) for EG, whereas CG kept receiving the same content in the conventional form. The teaching period was followed by the posttest. ANCOVA showed that, in contrast with CG, EG scored significantly higher on CT test after the intervention. The effect was shown to be only significant for the students at the lower side of the performance spectrum. Thus, in this inaugural study of clickers in schools in Iran, it was empirically demonstrated that clickers, as a relatively new piece of technology, can be successfully utilized during early adolescence in the pedagogical strategies in general and for the improvement of CT of students in particular.

“The Right Step towards a Woman’s Satisfaction?”: Washing Machine as a New Piece of Technology and the Construction of the Role of Women as Housewives in Socialist Slovenia

This article discusses political implications of the fact that technological development and consumption in socialism are nowadays shown as a failed project of the socialist production. This generates a view that the Yugoslav socialism was never a part of modernity. The paper also argues that, unlike in the case of non-mechanical hand washing, the washing machine as a new piece of technology enabled the participation of men in doing laundry for the first time because of the stereotypical relationship between men and technology. The article also discusses ambiguities in understanding, using and relocating the time saved by using a washing machine (which promised the reduction of time) used for housework.

Self-efficacy as an antecedent of cognition and affect in technology acceptance

Purpose – This paper aims to examine whether self-efficacy plays an important role in shaping the effect of cognition and affects in high technology adoption. It also examines whether cognition and affect mediate the effect of self-efficacy on attitude toward adoption. Design/methodology/approach – Using an experimental survey to collect data, subjects performed two different tasks (utilitarian and hedonic) to make sure that they had cognitive and affective experiences to draw upon as they developed attitudes toward the focal innovation. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the model. Findings – The result shows that self-efficacy influenced cognitive perceptions and emotional reactions. Specifically, self-efficacy was found to play a substantive role in shaping individuals’ attitudes via a cognitive route (perceived usefulness and ease-of-use) and an affective one (pleasure, arousal and dominance). Research limitations/implications – The study of self-efficacy as an external variable provides further insights into the process and is expected to increase the explained variance of the theoretical model. Practical implications – This study confirms that a belief about something besides the product also plays a key role; it is the confidence consumers have in their own abilities to understand and effectively use a new piece of technology. Originality/value – The research makes important contributions to our understanding of technology acceptance and has implications for marketing managers.

Automated Electronic Pen Aiding Visually Impaired in Reading, Visualizing and Understanding Textual Contents

Blindness is an obstacle that is not even comprehendible for the non-blind. Many day-to-day activities may become challenging, complicated and may require much more labor for those with eye-sight problems or blindness. One of the major problems they face is understanding visual or text information which are not in the Braille form. Not every written or printed document that a blind person would like to read is available in Braille. A blind cannot read any of the handwritten documents. They feel it very difficult, while someone has to read it for them. This is the fundamental issue that we deal with, and try to solve, with a new piece of technology, which is essentially an automated text-to-audio converting pen. According to this keynote concept, any piece of text that a person would like to read/understand is converted to an audio signal. This audio signal is transmitted to the person’s ears through wireless technology such as Bluetooth. Since this technology is in the form of a pen, it is very convenient to use and is also portable. This instrument is radical and can definitely be a empowering force in a blind person’s life, and can be helpful in relieving them of their frustration of not being able to read whatever they want, thus making their life easier.

Mypoliticalspace – Making Politics Visible through Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is one of the later innovations in Internet-related developments. The term expresses less a new piece of technology but more new ways of using the Net; weblogs and social networks like myspace are among the most prominent examples of Web 2.0. Its catchphrase may be: you control your own data. Web 2.0 gimmicks bear new possibilities for young people, which are the heaviest users of the Internet, not only to get political information, but also to show and share their views and opinions. It also gives politicians a way of presenting themselves without any interference. In both ways it can contribute to a process of making politics visible. Besides assessing some data about political Internet usage the article tries to show some opportunities as well as problems related to making politics visible in Web 2.0.

A Virtual Failure: Evaluating the Success of Nintendo's Virtual Boy

A Virtual Failure:Evaluating the Success of Nintendo's Virtual Boy Steven Boyer On 15 November 1994 Nintendo unveiled its newest video game console at the annual Shoshinkai Show. The Virtual Boy sported 3-D graphics in a unique tripod-mounted unit that required gamers to immerse themselves in the dual-screen display. While Nintendo hoped that this system would be the next big thing in the gaming world, initial response was notably underwhelming, with reviewers noting a number of glaring problems inherent in the console's design (Semrad). Despite an extravagant advertising campaign and revolutionary partnership deals, the system failed to take off with the general public. Games announced for the system at the May 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo less than a year after the console's launch were never released, with Nintendo quietly allowing the system to disappear without any formal announcement. Historical accounts of the Virtual Boy are even shorter than Nintendo's support of the system, concisely dismissing it as a failure because of its lack of sales, which is generally attributed to problems of technical implementation and Nintendo's preoccupation with the impending Nintendo 64 system. Regardless of the reason, the consensus among critics is that the system was an undeniable failure. Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln put it simply: "[I]t just failed" (qtd. in Sheff 450). However, the technological and ideological goals of the system, to create a new immersive gaming platform with the utopian aspirations of virtual reality, have lived on far beyond the console's mainstream presence. This attempt still resonates with diehard fans and collectors, who continue to flock to the system over a decade after its release, suggesting a cultural significance much larger than that implied by critics. These contradictory readings of the Virtual Boy suggest that the significance of technological "failures" and, even more broadly, the definition of failure itself are characterized by a negotiable fluidity that accommodates a variety of influences. All cultural objects are necessarily overdetermined and, especially in the case of those intended for mass consumption, received by a disparate audience of individuals composed of contradictory and competing subjectivities. In the case of the Virtual Boy the disconnect between critics and niche fans brings up issues of discursive power, questioning who has the authority to make declarations of failure and the circulation to solidify these declarations in wider discourse. Furthermore, the inability of market performance to adequately explain the console's position in Nintendo's wider development and marketing strategies or its connection to media audiences' fantasies of technology underscores the necessity for a multifaceted approach to culture. Rather than signaling the endpoint for a technology, the label of "failure" indicates an opportunity to glean further insight concerning these interconnected industrial and consumer ambiguities, which, emphasized by this specific moment of conflict, provide the broader context within which the Virtual Boy exists. As Kenneth Lipartito suggests, narratives of technological change ought not confine themselves to individual instances of change but rather take into consideration sociocultural and historical factors in order to place an instance of technological innovation into a contextual framework (76–77). Failed technologies in this view "persist well beyond their material life," as new inventions come into being as projected ideas rather than functional objects, playing a significant role in how society comprehends the "open-ended technological world" that surpasses the utilitarian evolutionary models (Lipartito 57). By viewing the Virtual Boy as part of an expansive technological narrative, the device transcends the image of the isolated miscalculation to become an intersection of societal desires, expectations, and anxieties concerning technological change that resonate far beyond any individual innovation. [End Page 23] These societal forces implicate both the industrial circumstances responsible for physically creating the new piece of technology as well as the cultural contribution and response to the new development. Thus, neither a top-down view determined by market response nor a solely bottom-up, socially constructed depiction of the Virtual Boy can sufficiently account for the interplay of forces involved in its development within a technological narrative. With regard to interactive media, Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter's "three circuits of interactivity" model extracts technology, marketing, and culture from the...

Knowledge integration capabilities of Japanese companies: reconstructing intra-firm networks for technology commercialisation

Despite aggressive investments in R&D and its success, Japanese companies demonstrate poor results in technology commercialisation. Almost half of all technological patents that Japanese companies hold are dormant, being unused. The purpose of this paper is to explore why technologies become dormant and how firms can overcome the problem to facilitate the process of technology commercialisation. Based upon the questionnaire survey of Japanese manufacturing companies, we find that exposing technology to the public in early stages of the commercialisation process plays an important role in enhancing overall commercialisation performance. Technology is an equivocal and context-dependent entity and changes its meaning from one context to another. Exposing a new piece of technology to the public enables firms to acquire more information about its market potential, which in return propels the commercialisation process more effectively. This research also implies that an early market exposure of new technological innovation contributes to building an effective inter-firm R&D network.

Using MVTA to Assess Upper-Extremity MSD Risk and Performance in a Retail Environment

The Multi-Media Video Task Analysis (MVTA) tool was utilized in a retail environment to assess upper-extremity motion of cashiers. The objective of this study was to quantify wrist motion in order to evaluate the ergonomic impact of a new piece of technology on the upper-extremities. Data were collected before installation of a magnetic-based security system and four months after cashiers had been trained and used the new system in their jobs. Both video and wrist motion, collected via electro-goniometers, were captured from six cashiers processing customer transactions in a Dutch supermarket. MVTA allowed the analysts to demarcate precise sub-tasks of the demagnetizing and scanning process and link corresponding wrist posture and acceleration which allowed for a more powerful assessment. Task and workstation design recommendations were made to reduce extreme wrist postures. In addition, task time differences between the current and new systems were assessed to ensure that the change would not negatively impact performance.

Preparing technologybased teachers

The goals of the Seminar in Elementary and Secondary Education course and the Lehigh University—Moravian Academy Partnership included the development of techniques that helped emerging teachers close the gap between the potential of technology and its realization by teachers in their own classrooms. Certainly the experiences of both the preservice and the inservice teachers varied depending on the match made between the two and the expectations that each group had going into the partnership. Generally speaking, however, each pair succeeded with the overall objective: integrating a new piece of technology into an established curriculum. Some had more success than others with the working partnership created within each team. The field notes provide an outlet for the preservice teachers to express concerns. The inservice teachers used meeting time and e-mail messages to communicate concerns or problems

Integrating Micro- and Macro-Ergonomics

Understanding how a new piece of technology fits into a user's working environment is perhaps the classic definition of human factors or ergonomics – a view which fails to address the role of the organization in optimizing this fit. This paper presents a framework which tries to address this failure. The framework (the Dynamic Dilemmas model) is dynamic in that components of the framework are responding in real time to the behavior of other components – over and above any natural tendency they may have to develop and change on their own. And it is dilemma-based in that each component has its own needs and limits, not all of which can be met simultaneously, creating tricky choices concerning accommodation and optimization. In this framework traditional usability is a part of a complex process optimizing the three-way fit between people, technology and organizations, with the fit being assessed in relation to the activities, skills, limits, needs, philosophy and whims of the people, technology and organization.

Microcomputers as field tools

Methodological development often occurs in response to new technology. The recent development of inexpensive portable motion picture equipment and video tape recorders, for example, has led to a new subfield, a new society, and a new journal in anthropology. Now another new piece of technology is upon us, the microcomputer. For the first time, the availability of a computer that is relatively inexpensive and portable suggests its use in any setting where power is available. From an anthropological point of view, and given the overall goal of doing 'ethnography' (the process of acquiring an understanding of an alien way of viewing the world), the problem is to evaluate the new technology and place it in perspective. While the microcomputer has obvious uses in traditional analyses of quantified data, its potential is more interesting as an aid in qualitative work. The classic problem in ethnography is the management of large amounts of non-numeric records-field notes, transcribed informal interviews, documents, genealogies and so on. In the handling of this kind of material, the microcomputer is a potential ally. An example of the kind of work the machine can do will help to exhibit its strengths and weaknesses in the analysis of one kind of ethnographic data, and simultaneously arouse interest among other qualitative researchers. Though microcomputers are no magic solution to ethnographic problems, they will, I think, prove useful as methodological tools.

What every planner should know about people

When people encounter some new piece of technology or a new product, or even a new variation of an old one — toilets, telephones, higher education, computers, drugs, television, the pill — they not only think differently, but feel differently and act accordingly. Technology slowly alters their perceptions, expectations, motives, and adaptive strategies in systematic ways. The problem is determining what is happening to alter those strategies, how they are being altered, and how fast alteration is occurring.

Prestel and public libraries: an LA/ Aslib experiment

From time to time in the information and library world, something comes along in the way of a new idea or a new piece of technology which we feel is likely to have a significant effect on the way we do things in our professional lives. During the last fifteen years or so, the new developments have included post‐coordinate indexing systems, electrostatic copiers, the use of computers in batch mode, citation indexing, computer typesetting, on‐line search of remotely‐stored data bases, the growth of networks, The National Lending Library at Boston Spa, routine use of microforms, the British Library, and so on. There are usually a few new things either just on the scene or lurking below the horizon, like microprocessors, word processing equipment, Public Lending Right, possible new copyright legislation, the European Patents Office and possibly Euronet, which cause us to worry, perhaps, or to want to find out more about them. Finding out about any of these things, though, hasn't been too much of a problem, because we have been able to do a conventional literature search through the scholarly and professional journals, or through Government publications, and get by these means a pretty good idea of what has been going on. What I am going to talk about tonight though, Prestel, isn't really like that at all. For one thing, most of the publication about it has been in the popular press, in the shape of new announcements and press releases, with very little in the conventional journals (apart from one or two papers in the electronics and electrical press). For another thing, it seems to have come upon us relatively rapidly, even though, paradoxically, its promised public advent has been beset by a variety of delays. Then too, whereas other technological advances have appeared in different areas of human activity and have gradually infiltrated into the information and library world, here we have a radically new type of information supplying service which suddenly appears more or less full‐grown in our world from a possibly unexpected quarter. And, of course, the creature changed its name from Viewdata to Prestel not very long ago, which has not greatly helped our confusion.

Mathematica In Education: Old Wine In NewBottles Or A Whole New Vineyard?

On its own, a new piece of technology is not enough to change anything very much. Things change, in any field, not through technology alone but through way people use it. How people use it depends in turn on how they think about it. In early history of many technological innovations that went on to shape modern life profoundly there was a period in which innovation was seen, and therefore used, mainly as a new way of doing old things. The revolutionary potential of new technology lies, however, in our finding new things to do with it. The impact upon educational practice of powerful software like Mathematica has been less profound than optimists hoped or pessimists feared. In many classrooms, I argue, it may be used as an adjunct to a curriculum and pedagogy unaltered in its essence. I here compare some possible approaches to use of Mathematica with students, and ask of each one how close it comes to realising potential of software to transform experience and nature of mathematical learning. Version 3 presents our community with fresh challenges and fresh temptations. I show how Version 3, at same time as it opens up new, exciting avenues for educators, also makes it easier than before to bend Mathematica to old-fashioned pedagogic strategies that leave much of its potential unexplored. New tools for old jobs? One can't spend much time in technology-in-education circles without running into phrases like the effects of calculators on children's learning of arithmetic or the impact of computer algebra systems on traditional calculus curriculum. But no technological innovation, on its own, has any effects, still less any impact. Things don't have effects: actions do. What matters isn't what technology there is, but way that technology is used. Transactions on Engineering Sciences vol 15, © 1997 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533