Paths For Future Work Research Articles

Posters and Development: A Case Study of Cell Phone Posters in the Rural Congo

One of the benchmarks of the information age often forgotten is the proliferation of posters or billboards in and around workplaces, neighborhoods, airports, shopping centers, restaurants, theaters, libraries, schools, etc. More interestingly, through cell phones, posters are rapidly entering rural areas in developing countries. Although these posters come with specific messages and graphics – continually upgraded and tailored to people’s attention -- they hardly undergo scientific inquiry in circles concerned with information and communication technologies [ICTs]. The lack of attention raises questions on the role of information systems and related wireless devices being deployed in developing countries. The present paper aimed to canvass cell phone posters and unbundle the underlying practices and routines. As well as positioning posters at the center stage of ICT research, the present paper applied critical discourse analysis to inquire into ways in which development was represented or effected among populations in the rural Congo.
 The paper determined that posters were not centered on local populations and their day-to-day struggles/needs, and that the information conveyed on posters was not geared toward the development of the world’s poorest. The paper crafted some paths for future work in ICT fields and cell phone bodies of work.

Knowledge Out of Control

Abstract According to a thesis famously associated with Anscombe'sIntention, knowledge is a necessary condition of intentional action: when acting intentionally, we know what we are doing. Call this the Agential Knowledge thesis. The Agential Knowledge thesis remains, of course, controversial. Furthermore, as even some of its proponents acknowledge, it can appear puzzling: Why should acting intentionally require knowing what you are doing? My aim in this paper is to propose an explanation and defence of the Agential Knowledge thesis, based on the idea that acting intentionally is exercising control, in a relevant sense. My argument rests on two things: first, articulating a modal conception of the relevant sense of control, and, secondly, arguing that agential knowledge is distinctively practical (in a sense I explain). As I explain, the truth of the Agential Knowledge thesis opens promising paths for future work in the philosophy of action.

Designing with Gaze

Recent developments in gaze tracking present new opportunities for social computing. This paper presents a study of Tama, a gaze actuated smart speaker. Tama was designed taking advantage of research on gaze in conversation. Rather than being activated with a wake word (such as "Ok Google") Tama detects the gaze of a user, moving an articulated 'head' to achieve mutual gaze. We tested Tama's use in a multi-party conversation task, with users successfully activating and receiving a response to over 371 queries (over 10 trials). When Tama worked well, there was no significant difference in length of interaction. However, interactions with Tama had a higher rate of repeated queries, causing longer interactions overall. Video analysis lets us explain the problems users had interacting with gaze. In the discussion, we describe implications for designing new gaze systems, using gaze both as input and output. We also discuss how the relationship to anthropomorphic design and taking advantage of learned skills of interaction. Finally, two paths for future work are proposed, one in the field of speech agents, and the second in using human gaze as an interaction modality more widely.

Analysis of Conversation Competencies in Strategic Alignment between Business Areas (External Control) and Information Technology Areas in a Control Body

The process of governance in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has been the subject of many studies in recent years, especially as regards the strategic alignment between the business and ICT areas. However, only a handful of those studies focused on studying the relationships that exist between these areas, specifically the conversation competencies that so strongly influence their alignment. This study sought to investigate and analyze the gaps that exist in such conversation competencies, as found in a Brazilian Control Body, according to the perceptions of the officers in the business and ICT areas. The survey tool used here was a questionnaire, sent to all the officers of the Body’s areas, the construction of which was based on the conversation competencies. It was found that there were 28 gaps in the conversation competencies of the Brazilian Control Body that may be developed to improve the alignment of the business and ICT areas. As regards the paths for future work, a recommendation is made for the creation of a research tool that allows the verification of the percentage of alignment that exists between ICT services and the business requirements, as its application.

Gender and Public Spending: A Conceptual Model of Employment, an Empirical Application, and Paths for Future Work

With a focus on the role of public spending, this paper provides a comprehensive model of employment incorporating direct and indirect employment effects with both supply and demand-side determinants. While the pathways within the model function for both genders, the magnitudes of the effects differ strongly for women and men, especially in regard to public spending on infrastructure. Applying the model to data from the United States, I explore potential ramifications of public spending options in regard to gender equality in employment. Finally, detailed paths for future work are provided which aim to direct future studies so as to expand the knowledge of the implications of public policy options to improve women’s relative welfare. I conclude that connections between the economic and the social spheres cannot be ignored without significant detrimental outcomes for women’s welfare.

Evaluating the Effect of Program Visualization on Student Motivation

An increase in student motivation is often cited as an expected effect of software visualization, but, as far as the authors are aware, no controlled experiments have yet demonstrated this. This paper therefore presents a controlled evaluation of this effect, conducted within the framework of self-determination theory. Students were tasked with removing redundant recursion in a multiple recursive algorithm. The experimental group ( ${N}\,\,{=} \,\, 19$ ) used the SRec program visualization system, while the control group ( ${N}\,\, {=} \,\, 17$ ) could use any programming tool in which they were proficient, such as BlueJ or Eclipse. The increase in motivation was measured by the difference between student scores in pre- and post-tests of their motivation. Statistically significant increases were observed for the two more determined forms of motivation, intrinsic motivation ( ${p}\,\, {=} \,\, 0.01$ ), and extrinsic motivation via identified regulation ( ${p}\,\, {=} \,\, 0.03$ ). Student feedback about their subjective acceptance of SRec reinforced these results. These findings give experimental support to expectations for software visualization in terms of motivation. Several paths for future work are identified, in particular, the need for more experiments under various conditions to achieve deeper understanding of the motivational effect of program visualization.

Defects in Metal-Organic Frameworks: Challenge or Opportunity?

Metal-organic framework (MOF) materials are nanoporous materials whose crystalline character has made them attractive targets for synthesis of new materials and potential use in a diverse set of applications. The vast majority of studies of MOFs envision these materials as having ideal crystal structures. This Perspective gives an overview of the current understanding of defects in MOFs. Compared to related materials such as zeolites, the ability to detect and control defects in MOFs is nascent. Nevertheless, it is likely that defects will play a vital role in a number of contexts where MOFs are of widespread interest, so advancing our understanding of these structural features will be important in coming years. Potential origins of point defects, plane defects, and surface defects are discussed. The difficulty of defect detection in metal-organic frameworks is discussed and useful paths for future work are provided.

Progress in Indium Gallium Nitride Materials for Solar Photovoltaic Energy Conversion

The world requires inexpensive, reliable, and sustainable energy sources. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology, which converts sunlight directly into electricity, is an enormously promising solution to our energy challenges. This promise increases as the efficiencies are improved. One straightforward method of increasing PV device efficiency is to utilize multi-junction cells, each of which is responsible for absorbing a different range of wavelengths in the solar spectrum. Indium gallium nitride (InxGa1−xN) has a variable band gap from 0.7 to 3.4 eV that covers nearly the whole solar spectrum. In addition, InxGa1−xN can be viewed as an ideal candidate PV material for both this potential band gap engineering and microstructural engineering in nanocolumns that offer optical enhancement. It is clear that InxGa1−xN is an extremely versatile potential PV material that enables several known photovoltaic device configurations and multi-junctions with theoretic efficiencies over 50 pct. This potential is driving immense scientific interest in the material system. This paper reviews the solar PV technology field and the basic properties of InxGa1−xN materials and PV devices. The challenges that remain in realizing a high-efficiency InxGa1−xN PV device are summarized along with paths for future work. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the potential for InxGa1−xN photovoltaic technology in the future.

Culture and Colonization: Revisiting the Place of Writing in Colonial New Zealand

This essay attempts to untangle a central conceptual and analytical knot in recent New Zealand historical writing: the interrelationship between culture and colonization. It explores the ways in which approaches to New Zealand's colonial past have been transformed over the past 25 years and attempts to historicize these shifts by framing them against international intellectual developments and the cultural and political currents that reconfigured visions of the past in these islands. The essay then offers an assessment of a key preoccupation of recent scholarship: the relationships between writing and colonization. This discussion identifies some limitations of the existing work as well as underscoring where it does have real analytical purchase, before closing by pointing to some possible paths for future work. These new lines of inquiry, I argue, not only require us to ask some new questions about the cultural work writing did in a colonial context, but also necessitate a reassessment of how colonization actually worked on the ground.

“Constructing the users” in open source software development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report findings from an interpretive case study on user participation in the open source software (OSS) development context.Design/methodology/approachThrough an empirical, interpretive case study and a literature review utilising the metaphor of text in the analysis, this paper provides a refined conceptualisation of user participation in OSS development.FindingsThe paper reveals that different kinds of meanings have been attached to users and to their participation. User participation is both direct and indirect in the OSS development context. Some user groups actively take part in OSS development, while others are merely represented in it. Different kinds of intermediaries “representing the users” are identified.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is based on one case study on a small but active OSS project with an interest in users. Other kinds of OSS projects should be analysed. The analysis was focused on a discussion forum, but users can take part in OSS development by other means as well. Paths for future work should include the gathering of more varied empirical data.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that users can provide feedback to the development through discussion forums in the distributed environment, but there is a need to support the users in doing so and the developers in analysing the data. The importance of different kinds of intermediaries “representing the users” is highlighted.Originality/valueThe paper provides thorough empirical insights and a refined conceptualisation of user participation addressing the currently weakly empirically explored OSS development context.

A Multilingual Text Mining Approach Based on Self-Organizing Maps

This paper describes our work on developing a language-independent technique for discovery of implicit knowledge from multilingual information sources. Text mining has been gaining popularity in the knowledge discovery field, particularity with the increasing availability of digital documents in various languages from all around the world. However, currently most text mining tools mainly focus only on processing monolingual documents (particularly English documents): little attention has been paid to apply the techniques to handle the documents in Asian languages, and further extend the mining algorithms to support the aspects of multilingual information sources. In this work, we attempt to develop a language-neutral method to tackle the linguistics difficulties in the text mining process. Using a variation of automatic clustering techniques, which apply a neural net approach, namely the Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), we have conducted several experiments to uncover associated documents based on a Chinese corpus, Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpora, and a hybrid Chinese-English corpus. The experiments show some interesting results and a couple of potential paths for future work in the field of multilingual information discovery. Besides, this work is expected to act as a starting point for exploring the impacts on linguistics issues with the machine-learning approach to mining sensible linguistics elements from multilingual text collections.

New Directions in Ecology and Ecological Anthropology

In this essay we consider four criticisms of ecological anthropology: its overemphasis on energy, its inability to explain cultural phenomena, its preoccupation with static equilibria, and its lack of clarity about the appropriate units of analysis. Recognizing that some of these criticisms may not be justified, we nevertheless point to parallel concerns in ecology. Further, we ask whether new directions indicated by some ecologists might be appropriate paths for future work in ecological anthropology. A central theme is the desirability of focusing on environmental problems and how people respond to them. The kind of environmental problems we are especially concerned with here are those constituting to the lives of the organisms experiencing them. In other words, we are particularly concerned with problems that carry the risk of morbidity or mortality, the risk of losing an existential in which success consists simply in staying in the game (82, 85; cf 80, cited in 78). Our focus upon and responses to them emerges partly from consideration of neo-Darwinian selection theory. As Colinvaux (22, p. 499) notes: Selection . . . chooses from among individuals those which are best adapted to avoid the of life at that time and place. Our focus reflects also the new concern of biologists such as Slobodkin (81, 82, 85) with the actual processes of responding to or environmental perturbations rather than with formal alterations in hypothetical genetic systems. Related also is the emerging view among medical scientists that health is a continuing property, potentially measurable by the individual's ability to rally from insults, whether chemical, physical, infectious, psychological, or (7, 8; cf 78). At least some and perhaps all of the insults referred to in the preceding quotation can be subsumed in our category of hazards; even social and psychological insults may evoke physiological stress and disease (60, 79) as well as psychological and behavioral adaptive strategies (99). A further influence on us has been the recent proliferation of research and thinking on problems of human response to natural hazards in geography (19,