Things Work Research Articles

Book Reviews: Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind, How to Cite APA [Style] 6th in Psychology, Social Work, Education, and the Social Sciences, In Your Face: The New Science of Human Attraction, Introducing Neuroeducational Research: Neuroscience, Education and the Brain from Contexts to Practice, Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work, Reading Development and Difficulties, Social Development

Book Reviews: Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind, How to Cite APA [Style] 6th in Psychology, Social Work, Education, and the Social Sciences, In Your Face: The New Science of Human Attraction, Introducing Neuroeducational Research: Neuroscience, Education and the Brain from Contexts to Practice, Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work, Reading Development and Difficulties, Social Development

Topological insulators and topological nonlinearσmodels

In this paper we link the physics of topological nonlinear {\sigma} models with that of Chern-Simons insulators. We show that corresponding to every 2n-dimensional Chern-Simons insulator there is a (n-1)-dimensional topological nonlinear {\sigma} model with the Wess-Zumino-Witten term. Breaking internal symmetry in these nonlinear {\sigma} models leads to nonlinear {\sigma} models with the {\theta} term. [This is analogous to the dimension reduction leading from 2n-dimensional Chern-Simons insulators to (2n-1) and (2n-2)-dimensional topological insulators protected by discrete symmetries.] The correspondence described in this paper allows one to derive the topological term in a theory involving fermions and order parameters (we shall referred to them as "fermion-{\sigma} models") when the conventional gradient-expansion method fails. We also discuss the quantum number of solitons in topological nonlinear {\sigma} model and the electromagnetic action of the (2n-1)-dimensional topological insulators. Throughout the paper we use a simple model to illustrate how things work.

Ethnography, Reality, and Truth: The Vital Need for Studies of ‘How Things Work’ in Organizations and Management

There is considerable potential for ethnography to play a larger and more mainstream role in organization and management studies. Ethnography is not a research method. It is a way of writing about and analysing social life which has roots in both the sciences and the humanities. Whilst it prioritizes close and intensive observation in the gathering of information and insights, it may additionally and potentially use any of the full range of other research methods. A powerful rationale for ‘good’ ethnographic work is offered by Pragmatist Realist principles of truth, reality, and relevance-to-practice. Research based on these principles investigates the realities of ‘how things work’ in organizations. In doing this, it rigorously grounds and contextualizes the activities which the researcher observes and the accounts which they receive from organizational members. To do this well, researchers must avoid being diverted from the analysis of organizational patterns and managerial processes by researchers trying to ‘get into the heads’ of organizational members in order to capture their subjective experiences. Various moves can be identified which would encourage and enable more people to work ethnographically and to produce research which is inherently critical and is unfettered by attachment to any narrow specialist method, concept or ‘perspective’.

Ethnography as Work: Some Rules of Engagement

Ethnography is both a methodological approach to and an analytic perspective on social research. It has a long history and pedigree in organization and management studies and well beyond. Perhaps the most distinctive features of ethnography are its pragmatic orientations and its written products. As a way of responding to Tony Watson's essay, I look at three constitutive (and overlapping) tasks – fieldwork, headwork, and textwork – as a way to sketch out a few craft-like rules for ‘how things work’ within ethnographic circles. This is an enlargement of Tony's argument rather than a challenge. I conclude however with remarks on two areas (i.e. the native's point of view and the peripheral position of ethnography) where Tony and I seem to differ.

Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives

Open innovation has become one of the hottest topics in innovation management. This article intends to explore the limits in our understanding of the open innovation concept. In doing so, I address the questions of what (the content of open innovation), when (the context dependency) and how (the process). Open innovation is a rich concept, that can be implemented in many different ways. The context dependency of open innovation is one of the least understood topics; more research is needed on the internal and external environment characteristics affecting performance. The open innovation process relates to both the transition towards open innovation, and the various open innovation practices. As with any new concept, initial studies focus on successful and early adopters, are based on case studies, and descriptive. However, not all lessons learned from the early adopters may be applicable to following firms. Case study research increases our understanding of how things work and enables us to identify important phenomena. They should be followed by quantitative studies involving large samples to determine the relative importance of factors, to build path models to understand chains of effects, and to formally test for context dependencies. However, the evidence shows that open innovation has been a valuable concept for so many firms and in so many contexts, that it is on its way to find its final place in innovation management.

Murat Emre: bringing it all back home

Murat Emre: bringing it all back home

Situated cultural development among youth separated by war

Abstract Families migrating out of a war zone are often perceived as the lucky ones because they escape at least some of the devastating consequences of war. Nevertheless, we know little about the relative developmental effects of war for refugees and domestic survivors. This inquiry addresses that gap by focusing on how two groups of young people sharing a traditional culture used narrating as a tool to make sense of the circumstances of their post-war environments. The analysis presented in this paper draws on narratives by 64 young people whose experiences with war began when they were babies and children in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), 38 youth whose families remained in BiH and 26 who migrated to the United States. Analyses based cultural–historical activity theory reveal major differences in how these Bosnian Muslim youth growing up in diverse post-war circumstances narrated conflicts. The pattern of results indicates, for example, that the U.S. participants focused on how things work in society and an orientation to other people more than themselves, while BiH participants focused critically on adults in their society and on their own personal identity clarifications. Such uses of narrating to mediate self-society relations differ from those expected in research assuming universal orientations, such as an adolescent emphasis on identity, or assuming that traditional cultural mores organize experience. The study underscores the need for ongoing research to examine the context-sensitive nature of development. Implications for future research in normative and problematic situations are discussed.

Workarounds: The Hidden Pathway to Excellence

Nurses are regularly celebrated as creative, resourceful professionals who are able to make things work when few others can. The ability to create and implement workarounds to speed up processes is a common practice that has not been studied in depth. In spite of the perceived value of workarounds, one wonders if there is a dark side to workarounds. Workarounds may, in fact, be an obstacle to progress, an obstacle to achieving practice excellence, and may present a false sense of effectiveness. Further study is needed to determine whether workarounds are creativity gone awry. Nurses are regularly celebrated as creative, resourceful professionals who are able to make things work when few others can. The ability to create and implement workarounds to speed up processes is a common practice that has not been studied in depth. In spite of the perceived value of workarounds, one wonders if there is a dark side to workarounds. Workarounds may, in fact, be an obstacle to progress, an obstacle to achieving practice excellence, and may present a false sense of effectiveness. Further study is needed to determine whether workarounds are creativity gone awry.

Natural and Sexual Selection in a Wild Insect Population

The understanding of natural and sexual selection requires both field and laboratory studies to exploit the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of each approach. However, studies have tended to be polarized among the types of organisms studied, with vertebrates studied in the field and invertebrates in the lab. We used video monitoring combined with DNA profiling of all of the members of a wild population of field crickets across two generations to capture the factors predicting the reproductive success of males and females. The factors that predict a male's success in gaining mates differ from those that predict how many offspring he has. We confirm the fundamental prediction that males vary more in their reproductive success than females, and we find that females as well as males leave more offspring when they mate with more partners.

Concise history of science & invention: an illustrated time line

The book divides history - from prehistoric times to modern day - into ten chapters: prehistory through 849 BCE, classical and early medieval science, late medieval and renaissance science, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the age of steam, the age of electricity, the atomic age, the space age and the modern world. Within these easily digestible segments, all human scientific achievement and innovation are divided into four topical areas (astronomy and math, biology and medicine, physical sciences and engineering and invention) and displayed by region of the world (Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, the Americas, and Europe) for easy comparison. Informative sidebars - 'Inside Story', 'Turning Points', 'How Things Work' - provide short, interactive bursts of information, while two-page feature spreads explore the most revolutionary inventions in greater depth. Compelling essays and quotations enrich the pages. Readers learn how humans managed to create fire and eventually produce it at will; how the wheel came to be and how its appearance on the world stage changed the course of humankind forever; the secrets of Meso-American pyramids; how the Chinese harnessed water power; the fundamentals of early Arabian science; the evolution of creating of guns and gunpowder; and the breathtaking achievements of Gallileo, Newton and Fahrenheit. Readers also get to marvel at invention and science in the modern world, from fractals, to cell phone innovention to the Hubble Space Telescope. About 350 photos, maps, illustrations and diagrams add visually compelling emphasis to the information. A glossary explains unfamiliar scientific and technical terms, while a detailed index makes the books a substantive reference.

Transition metals in the synthesis of complex organic molecules

Formalisms, Electron Counting, Bonding (How Things Work) Organometallic Reaction Mechanisms Synthetic Applications of Transition Metal Hybrides, Homogeneous Hydrogenation Synthetic Applications of Complexes Containing Metal-Carbon alpha-Bonds Synthetic Applications of Transition Metal Carbonyl Complexes Synthetic Applications of Transition Metal Carbene Complexes Synthetic Applications of Transition Metal Alkene, Diene, and Dienyl Complexes Synthetic Applications of Transition Metal Alkyne Complexes Synthetic Applications of n3 Allyl Transition Metal Complexes Synthetic Application of Transition Metal Arene Complexes.

The Joker: A Dark Night for Depictions of Mental Illness

The heart of the cultural system is what I call the great storytelling process. From childhood onward, stories make the invisible forces of life visible by creating images of people representing ideas and social types, assigning some fate to each. Fictional and dramatic stories show how things work; news and documentary stories provide selected glimpses of how things are supposed to be. (1, pp 19, 20)

Glurbanization theory: an analysis of global cities

This article analyzes glurbanization theory. The theory rests on the premise that major urban transformations and reconfigurations through interscalar strategies and rescaling processes are a good method of increasing the capacity and status of cities (and their regions) to develop global competitive advantages. This urban model stems from the fact that cities are increasingly exposed to global competition. An important tenet of glurbanization is that large cities worldwide, called ‘global cities’, come to share the same essential attributes (i.e., cityscapes, skyscrapers, financial markets, cultural centers, etc.). Another important tenet of glurbanization is that it collapses the global and the local: urban spaces are restructured so that globalization does not become just a top-down hierarchical design whereby the nation-state dictates how things work; rather, globalization is made to happen both from ‘below’ and from ‘above’.

Collapsing the Global and the Local through Interscalar Strategies: a Glurbanization Perspective

This article examines glurbanization, a model stating that urban transformation through interscalar strategies can increase the ability and status of global city-regions to develop global competitive advantages. Interscalar strategies refer to the use of scaling processes through strategic cross-border restructuration and multiple localities. Localities are groups or communities such as neighborhoods, municipalities, suburbs, regions, and urban zones. Interscaling implies a network or relationship between each of these localities, each being at a different scale. Glurbanization, then, collapses the global and the local. It does not follow a hierarchical design whereby the nation-state controls how things work; rather, globalization now happens from both ‘below’ and ‘above’.

Coming to Grips with Breast Cancer: The Spouse's Experience with His Wife's First Six Months

This study examines the experiences of 48 spouses of wives newly diagnosed with local or regional breast cancer. Their reported experiences were organized into the core construct of coming to grips reflected by four domains: (1) feeling nailed by the breast cancer, (2) changing us, (3) taking care of me, and (4) making things work. Prior studies have underestimated the extent to which the assumptive world and day-to-day lives of spouses are shattered by the diagnosis of breast cancer and the work they do to guess how to be supportive to their wives. Interventions are needed that directly assist spouses add to their ways of managing the intrusion of their wife's breast cancer in their lives.

The present conditions of the Technological Education

The difference between the Technological education and the Science education is discussed from the point of view of artifacts or production. In Science education, the production is just a step to understand the scientific knowledge. In the Technological education, however, the production itself is the objective via design, manufacturing or evaluation. Moreover, it is pointed out that the visualization is crucial in the Technological education. It is more effective to show how things work by a demonstration or movie. As an example, a teaching material including the movie is introduced.

Cidade adentro, cidade afora: histórias entre Associação Morungaba e PACTO-USP

The partnership between the Morungaba Association and the Permanent Program Artistic Compositions and Occupational Therapy (PACTO) presented in this report takes place in a territory of reciprocal contributions that broaden and make complex the spectrum of actions offered to a population with heterogeneous characteristics by prioritizing those who are in a situation of vulnerability triggered by economic, clinical and/or social issues. A brief assessment of the history of this joint work, its projects and developments evidences its effectiveness in the assistance to the population, in the qualification of occupational therapy students and in the production of studies and researches. Everybody involved in this partnership handles the issues of the so-called third sector inasmuch as new understandings are reached by experiencing the complexity of how things work in the contemporary social environment. Through interventions cooperatively accompanied supervisors, coordinators, art educators and interns dedicate themselves to projects that have taken place in different social and cultural pieces of equipment of the city of São Paulo since 2000, thus stimulating experiences of the territory of interface among the arts, education and healthcare and related to the appropriation of public spaces.

Theories Used in Nursing Research on Smoking Cessation

Theories tell how and why things work; how and why one variable is related to another. Research findings that are theory based can be placed in a framework that advances science further than findings that are unconnected to formal theory. However, much of the research in smoking cessation is atheoretical. This review of nursing research on smoking cessation published from 1989 through 2008 revealed that nearly half of the studies were based on explicit formal theories. The transtheoretical model and self-efficacy theory were the most frequently used explicit theories with most theories emanating from psychology. Five nursing theories were identified in this review. Studies that used implicit rather than explicit theories dealt with five major concepts: nicotine dependence, social support, high-risk situations, mood-affect, and the influence of clinical diagnosis. Largely missing from this set of studies were investigations based on biobehavioral models, including genetics and neuroscience. The relevance of the theories and concepts identified in this review to current clinical guidelines on smoking cessation is discussed. With their grounding in theory and their expert knowledge of clinical issues, nurses are in an excellent position to develop theories that will help researchers in every discipline make sense of smoking cessation.

Family Exemplars During Implementation of a Home Pain Management Intervention

Postoperative pain and symptom management at home following pediatric tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (T & A) is challenging. There are few randomized clinical trials that have established postoperative care interventions that are specific and effective during home recovery. The purpose of this pilot feasibility study was to describe how children and their families implemented a randomly assigned alarm intervention designed to promote postoperative around-the-clock administration of analgesics. Thirteen children from 12 through 18 years of age were randomly assigned to either the around-the-clock (RTC) intervention group (n = 7) or the usual care group (UCG) of controls (n = 6). The RTC intervention group was requested to use an alarm as a reminder to awaken and administer analgesia during the nighttime hours of sleep. Children randomly assigned to the UCG of controls were given the same discharge education as the RTC intervention group that emphasized around-the-clock administration of analgesia. The UCG of controls were not requested to use the alarm intervention. Both groups documented pain intensity and other symptoms daily for 3 days in a diary. All children wore an actigraphy-score wrist monitor to assess sleep during the same 3 days. Telephone interviews were conducted with the children and mothers at 24 hours and 10 to 14 days after surgery. Nonparametric statistics were used to compare differences between the two groups. Children in the RTC intervention group administered significantly (p = .014) more analgesics by the second postoperative day than the UCG of controls. Pain intensity was moderate to severe for both groups. The mean hours of nighttime sleep for the two groups did not differ. Themes that emerged from the qualitative analysis of the interviews included painful challenges; struggling with decisions; making things work; a lengthy recovery; and family support. Results supported the need for research to establish evidenced-based home care interventions specific for T & A postoperative recovery. Mothers and children suggested the need for education and support that extends longer into the recovery period.

Puzzling out the world

Tunja Stone looks at the role and benefi ts of familiar indoor activities which allow children the opportunity to experiment with objects, discover combinations that will or won’t work together, and develop knowledge about how things work – all for minimal financial cost.