Thinking Tools Research Articles

The influence of lean thinking on philanthropic organisations' disaster response processes

PurposeThis paper aims to reveal the philanthropy landscape processes for dealing with disasters and examine the influence of lean thinking in managing philanthropy for disasters. It sought to leverage continuous improvement and maximise disaster response and humanitarian logistics efficiency.Design/methodology/approachA sequential quantitative, qualitative research methods strategy was utilised involving data collection with literary analysis and two sets of online surveys with 212 NGO staff members in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In addition, in-depth key informant interviews were conducted with 23 staff members at various management levels from these countries.FindingsThe study found that lean thinking had a positive, statistically valid influence at a 95% confidence level. Community incorporation, government support and collaboration with other philanthropic organisations were critical success factors. When lean thinking tools were applied (any tools), philanthropic organisations experienced waste reduction and value addition, where waste reduction accounted for 67% variation, and value-addition accounted for 58%, respectively. These were the same benefits experienced in other industries, thus, justifying lean thinking's applicability in the non-profit sector. Lean was most helpful about the communication and duplication of efforts challenges humanitarian or philanthropic organisations face when responding to a disaster.Practical implicationsThe study equips leaders and philanthropic organisations with suggestions to manage and respond to disasters in a lean and effective manner. The study helps philanthropy leaders rethink their funding and response models to pursue lean policies catering to humanitarian organisations and the communities they serve.Originality/valueThe study closes significant gaps in the literature and practice by adopting a multi-sectoral lens that borrows from business and manufacturing tools into a non-profit context. It enables documentation of processes and logistical management by philanthropy organisations for continuous improvement and elimination of waste to ensure efficiency in the philanthropic role of alleviating the impact of disasters. The study also affirms the need for philanthropic organisations to incorporate community feedback, use lean tools to collaborate with other responding organisations and work closely with the local authorities to fulfil the government's supportive role: the primary source and executor in disaster response.

Research on Application of Mathematical Modeling Based on Matrix Theory

As a simple tool for understanding complex things, matrix has been widely used in various disciplines and mathematical modeling. The development of any discipline is closely related to quantitative analysis and research, and mathematics plays a vital role in quantitative research. Matrix is one of the most basic mathematical concepts, and it is also a simple thinking tool for people to grasp the essence of complex practical things. Matrix is widely used in mathematical modeling. In the process of mathematical modeling, we often encounter some mathematical models that can be handled by graphs and adjacency matrices of graphs. Using adjacency matrix to represent graphs is simple and intuitive, and adjacency matrix can represent some practical information of graphs. In this paper, the application of adjacency matrix in mathematical modeling is analyzed and studied, and on this basis, the application of matrix in mathematical modeling is further studied and popularized.

Service design from the perspective of “six thinking hats”: A comparison of storytelling strategies of experts and novices

It has been broadly proved that storytelling, which is regarded as a natural creative human activity, serves as an effective thinking tool for improving creativity in service design. In practice, however, the lack of support for storytelling affects the perceived usefulness and ease of storytelling for novice designers. This results in a low willingness to use storytelling, poor usage, and low design innovation among novice designers. Research has identified significant differences between experts and novices in the design process, and summarizing these differences in thinking strategies can effectively guide novices in design activities. In previous research, we have successfully used the six thinking hats for novices to learn expert strategies and enhance their creativity. The purpose of this study is to compare differences between experts and novices in storytelling strategies and design behaviors in process, in order to understand how to support novices in storytelling and enhance creativity. The study uses verbal protocol analysis to explore the differences between three teams of novices and three teams of experts. We use the De Bono's "six thinking hats" thinking tool to decode designers' implicit and latent design thinking and use Burke's "dramatistic pentad" theory to extract the design teams' storytelling thinking. The results show significant differences between experts and novices in storytelling strategy and construction process, where experts tend to have more efficient storytelling strategies and design behaviors than novices. The expert strategies we found can guide design educators to support students when solving service design problems and provide important theoretical support and methodological guidance for instructing novices in expert storytelling strategies.

Generative prototypes to promote participation in the collaborative design of wearable health technologies

The potential of design artefacts as generative tools is well documented in the early stages of the design process. Yet, how prototypes continue to act generatively in the later stages is less well understood. This paper shares observations from two projects spanning the entire design process, from conceptual ideas to mass-produced objects. Through quotes and observations documenting participants interacting with prototypes, we illustrate the importance of designed physical artefacts as tools to promote expansive conversations with end-users. We find that generative prototypes foster empathy; support decision-making and communication across disciplines; allow participants to enact use and explore user experience within the early stages of a design process and provide permission to imagine possible futures. These findings encourage design practitioners to think about using high-fidelity generative prototypes throughout the design process as a powerful tool for design thinking, collaboration, and co-creation that embrace speculation and playful creativity.

The implementation of manipulative influence in indirect communication

This article reveals the problem of indirect communication through the implementation of verbal manipulative influence in political discourse. Indirect communication can be classified as one of the most dynamic areas of modern linguistic research. Increasingly, indirect ways of expressing communicative meanings are associated with the implementation of verbal manipulative influence. Our understanding of verbal manipulation in political discourse comes from the understanding of language as a tool of thinking, a tool for obtaining knowledge about a person, culture and society, and discourse as a social practice, being determined by social structures, simultaneously creates and reproduces them. The relevance of the topic of this article is due not only to the constant interest in political discourse both in the scientific community and in society as a whole, but also by a number of factors indicating the need to study this type of discourse as a kind of indirect communication in close connection with the discursive practices of verbal manipulation. The verbal manipulation is considered in the article within the framework of pragmalinguistics as a psychological impact, as well as through the prism of cognitive linguistics. The article presents the results of the analysis of the pre-election and subsequent public speeches of D. Trump and H. Clinton in order to identify verbal manipulative influence, at the phonetic (acoustic analysis of sound and spectral analysis of tone, carried out using the PRAAT program), morphemic-morphological and lexical levels. Key words: indirect communication, manipulation, verbal influence, discourse, political discourse.

The Philosophical Relationship Between the Origin of English and Chinese Affixes and Their Word Format

Western scholars believe that the difference between Chinese and Western languages is a conceptual gap in their traditions, apply the Western phonetic-centered language philosophy theory to study Chinese and Chinese characters, and put forward a series of ideas and views on the comparison of Chinese characters and Western languages, believing that Chinese characters as a thinking tool are far inferior to languages with perfect grammatical forms, and that Chinese remains in the childhood stage of human language development. This paper aims to reveal how Western scholars based on phonetic centrism and logocentrism ignore the particularity of Chinese characters, and should not copy the western language philosophy theory when understanding the nature of Chinese characters, but should pay attention to the characteristics and advantages of Chinese characters in the process of historical development.

CRITICAL THINKING AS A MEANS OF RESISTANCE IN INFORMATION WAR

The article reveals the connotationof the key concepts “information war” and “critical thinking”. The study analyzes the features of information war as a manipulative technology and reveals the role of critical thinking tools (analysis, synthesis, interpretation) in counteraction to information sabotage. It has been proven that the process of information influence on public and individual consciousness is ambiguous – it can be either positive and contribute to raising the level of public awareness of urgent problems, or it can carry out information attacks with the aim of destructive influence on consciousness, cultivation of hatred and dispersal of the feeling of “treason”. It is argued that information manipulation affects the consciousness of a person through an avalanche of rumors, manipulations, and fakes, aimed at weakening and ultimately destroying the ability of self-identification and self-determination. This is an extremely dangerous situation that can lead to a state of disorientation if countermeasures are not used, one of which is the tools of critical thinking and fact-checking to evaluate information.

Chinese model of development in business culture

 The purpose of this article is to study and evaluate the Chinese model in the development of culture in business relations, which has become an extremely relevant trend in recent years in China. In an environment where the number of urgent business problems is increasing, which cannot be solved without the concept of Chinese business culture, the development of a business model and new approaches becomes inevitable. Chinese business culture is based on the cooperation strategies and interactions that have characterized the international activities of Chinese companies in recent decades, as caution must be exercised due to differences in the political and cultural environment, which create risk and create uncertainty for foreign investors. Analyzing the values of Chinese companies, as well as considering the basic classification of corporate culture in Chinese business, can only be done by those who have deep and broad knowledge and the tools of critical thinking and action that allow them to maintain a clear mind and balanced decisions. Since the Chinese specific model is responsible for the development of business culture most relevant to China, use real practical examples in the field of science and technology in the ideas of promoting the Chinese model in business culture.

Laboratory as a tool for innovation in social science teaching

This article analyzes the results of a teaching innovation project developed during the academic year 2021-2022, whose main objective was to assess the need to in- clude a compulsory subject of mediation and collaborative conflict resolution in the degree in Social Work at UCM. To this end, an international working group has been formed in the form of an Ideas Lab that has developed a research combining quan- titative (questionnaire) and qualitative (Design Thinking) tools, whose results have allowed to develop a proposal that has been submitted to the dean's office for consideration in the future modification of the degree. But undoubtedly, the most remarkable thing is that through the laboratory it has been possible to guaran-tee essential elements for the quality of the training of our university community: transversality, transdisciplinarity, internationalization and transfer of knowledge.

Design Research Insights on Text Mining Analysis: Establishing the Most Used and Trends in Keywords of Design Research Journals

Design research topics attract exponentially more attention and consideration among researchers. This study is the first research article that endeavors to analyze selected design research publications using an advanced approach called “text mining”. This approach speculates its results depending on the existence of a research term (i.e., keywords), which can be more robust than other methods/approaches that rely on contextual data or authors’ perspectives. The main aim of this research paper is to expand knowledge and familiarity with design research and explore future research directions by addressing the gaps in the literature; relying on the literature review, it can be stated that the research area in the design domain still not built-up a theory, which can unify the field. In general, text mining with these features allows increased validity and generalization as compared to other approaches in the literature. We used a text mining technique to collect data and analyzed 3553 articles collected in 10 journals using 17,487 keywords. New topics were investigated in the domain of design concepts, which included attracting researchers, practitioners, and journal editorial boards. Such issues as co-innovation, ethical design, social practice design, conceptual thinking, collaborative design, creativity, and generative methods and tools were subject to additional research. On the other hand, researchers pursued topics such as collaborative design, human-centered design, interdisciplinary design, design education, participatory design, design practice, collaborative design, design development, collaboration, design theories, design administration, and service/product design areas. The key categories investigated and reported in this paper helped in determining what fields are flourishing and what fields are eroding.

Cultures and Works of Tay People Through Vocative Words

Culture has a close relationship with many fields, including Linguistics. Language is a special product of culture. It is a means of communication and a tool for thinking. Language is a means to reflect, maintain and develop culture. Any meaningful sign of a language contains a cultural element. Vocative words are one of those cases. The article explores the vocative words system in the language of the Tay people in Tuyen Quang Province, Vietnam and concludes that culture is not only a factor that generates language, but also an environment for language to exist and develop. develop. Through the system of vocative words in the Tay language, it shows the cultural characteristics of respect affection of the Tay people.

Toward More Meaningful Tech Integration: Supporting Preservice Teachers to Connect and Ideate

Mentor teacher technology practices are typically not considerations when identifying practicum placements for preservice candidates. Yet, these shape how new teachers use technology in their own future classrooms. Grappling with patterns in candidate gathered observational data (121 pre-service teachers over seven separate technology-focused courses), this study explored the perceived impact of a designed Thinking Tool and ideation process in lieu of practicum experiences revealing little to no modeling of student use of technology for in-process learning. Data were collected from the Thinking Tool and candidate reflections, and findings suggest a value add toward generating multiple innovative applications. Ideation resulted in moving beyond book-end use in instructional designs to creatively integrating technology to support student talk and sense-making, collaboration, and student organization, engagement, and content creation.

A student-driven multilevel approach for increasing energy sustainability of remote areas in the Emilia Romagna Apennines

This paper is aimed at discussing a series of energy sustainability solutions proposed by a master class of students in environmental engineering using analytical and visual collaborative tools. The activities described are part of the class “Sustainability and renewable sources” at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Six groups of 3-4 students worked on six energy efficiency and sustainability projects chosen from a remote area of the Apennines in Emilia Romagna. The specificity of the case-study framework allowed the implementation of projects where different sustainability aspects are integrated using tools of transitional thinking: agro-food production, use of renewable energy sources, waste management and social integration were considered. Each group identified the key actors for each project, allowing them to approach sustainability from a multilevel perspective. Net Present Value analyses were applied to evaluate economic viability of each project. Photovoltaic power plants and boilers fueled with local wood are the main renewable energy source identified to promote energy sustainability in each project. As result, the combination of the six works creates a powerful tool to demonstrate possible best practices for remote mountain areas.

Precise thinking tools and the impact of computer science on professional practice

Introduction. The main intellectual competence of IT professionals includes culture of thinking, the ability to generalize, analyze, and perceive information. But what do we mean by the culture of thinking today? If it is based on consistency and creativity, as leading IT-companies require from university graduates, it immediately indicates the complexity and even inconsistency of the requirements for the expected qualities of thinking from newly-qualified professionals. Because, on the one hand, they need to be able to systematize the available data into a certain structure; on the other hand, they have to abandon the existing one and achieve a fundamentally different solution. The purpose of this article is to identify the core of thinking tools in professional practice and describe precisely them using set-theoretical analysis. Materials and Methods. We proceed from the fact that thinking, as a part of the nature of reality, reaches the level required for professional practice when it satisfies at least three conditions: stability, accuracy and completeness of the description of a particular system or process. Since we cannot extract thinking from historical and cultural way of cognition, which is sometimes called an episteme, it is necessary, first of all, to rely on examples of such a context as the evolution of the linguistic state of the human population and the evolution of the architecture of the design of distributed systems in the information space. The mathematical basis is taken from the experience of teaching and using the set-theoretical method in mathematics disciplines within computer fields of study. Results. Within the framework of the proposed methodology, some important tools of professional thinking are formulated in the precise language of computer science. The structures of stable retention of objective thinking, the accuracy of retention of meaning, the minimum completeness of the system, bricolage and the option of the basic figure of creativity visualization are described. This methodology allows to see the logic of branching in the evolution of different languages, as well as the logic of the evolution of software systems. Conclusions. The set-theoretical tools of thinking reveal the logic within the development of distributed systems in the modern information environment and, apparently, significantly affect the tools of thinking in various fields of knowledge.

Renewing Realist Constructivism: Does It Have Potential as a Theory of Foreign Policy?

This article raises the possibility of de- and reconstructing realist constructivism for the purpose of studying foreign policy, with an emphasis on explaining and forecasting change and continuity. I discuss why Samuel Barkin’s explication of realist constructivism has in my view struggled to take off as an IR perspective and which tenets appear problematic, especially when applying them to foreign policy. I suggest a way of revitalising realist constructivism across three layers of theorising: political ontology, explanatory theory, and praxis. Constructivism’s “open ontology”offers a meeting point with classical realism, together with its (less deterministic and more interpretivist) explanatory approach. Classical realism adds to the third layer with its focus on practice sensibility, including the choices actors make in highly uncertain contexts. Its strong interest in discovering the truth of politics is important here. I argue that such a synthesis, which is informed by Ned Lebow’s conceptualisation of causation as “inefficient”, could be well-suited to unpack the complex reality of foreign policy. I seek to make the case for realist constructivism as a dynamic thinking tool, among others when investigating the effects of material, intersubjective and subjective factors on foreign policy decisions and outcomes. While my propositions can only be sketched here, the goal is to encourage further debate about the value of realist constructivism, which has ebbed since the mid-2000s.

Library-faculty collaboration in the light of a business administration bachelor’s program: ‘The Scientific Wave’

In contemporary digital society, information literacy is increasingly important and viewed as a necessary life skill for all ages, social groups, and professional sectors, hence also affecting higher education. Universities need to develop strategies and approaches to integrate these skills into course syllabi, assignments and assessments based on close library-faculty collaboration. However, librarians and faculty members in higher education traditionally often have separate agendas and limited collaboration. This paper illustrates the background and process of constructing a successful librarian-faculty partnership, as a shared framework entitled the ‘Scientific Wave’ throughout a bachelor’s program in business administration to enhance students’ critical thinking, research skills and information literacy in particular. A case study approach was applied, and data collection was conducted during 2014–2019. The outcomes of a shared framework and library-faculty collaboration are discussed from the perspectives of students, library, and faculty. Findings show that a shared framework based on close collaboration between librarians and faculty, strategic anchoring and visualization in curricula, syllabi, course objectives and assessments developed in line with the mission of the university have an impact on students’ information literacy skills during their education and after graduation. The Scientific Wave is a co-designed continuous framework based on the separate but complementary skills of librarians and faculty to provide students with tools for critical and creative thinking, research skills and lifelong learning in today’s digital society.

Epistemological Foundations of Complexity Theory

The present investigation studies the evolution of complexity based on the epistemological analysis of various documentary sources, some related to changes in society as a whole and others with the new concepts that have progressively been shaping and content to the concept of complexity. For this, the multisystemic conformation of society, the relationships and interdependence of its parts or subsystems, and how they operate in interdependence, promoting new spaces for growth, development, and new complexity, were studied. The work makes a systematic approach to the concept of complexity, seeking to achieve an epistemological synthesis that relates the theories that interpret society as an empirical construct and the various theories that seek to explain it, distinguishing those that address the micro-social level from those that refer to the society as a whole. Among the findings, it can be seen that the concept of complexity has evolved, moving from the fundamental concepts of systems theory to those that analyze the origin and behavior of societies. For this, the sources of complexity are identified, some from people, others from subsystems, and finally from society. Conceptually, new terms such as particles, waves, waves, and surges appear, seeking to explain the genesis of complexity and those factors that describe its evolution through attractors that move between order and chaos, generating structures catalytic or dissipative as required by society. Finally, based on complex thinking and available analytical tools, this work contributes significantly to the study of complexity theory.

New Design Knowledge and the Fifth Order of Design

Abstract In this article, I examine the foundations of design knowledge and how they have been disrupted as the design discipline moves progressively away from industrial production. I consider design knowledge as a collection of different cognitive processes for developing artifacts for the human-made world. Adopting David Kolb's (1984, p.38) definition of learning as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience,” I discuss the change in design knowledge by examining how the characteristics of designed items have changed. Building on theories by Neri Oxman and Richard Buchanan, I identify relevant areas of design practice in which creativity is breaking free from disciplinary silos to flow between physical, digital, metaphysical, and biological layers. I then propose an updated map of the orders of design as a thinking tool and compass. I read the evolutions of design as it enters the Fifth Order of concerns, characterized by the centrality of data both as input and as output to a design process. Today, design deals with relationships and perceptions; it dialogues with people and all species ranging from machines to micro-organisms, all of which actively participate in reaching objectives. Here, design creates conversations to achieve several goals, including engagement, discovery, and decision making. Finally, I propose a shift in the traditional principles of designing, moving away from the idea of perfect solutions and toward learning systems that are good enough for now.

الوظيفة الحجاجية للاستعارة (خطب الشيخ عبدالرحمن السديس نموذجا)

This research paper deals with the argumentative function of metaphor in Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais's Gomaa speeches (Friday Speeches) as a tool of thinking and a knowledge structure that affects the text itself and the recipients. It covers with analysis one of the most important issues in the social and political arena that casts its shadow over the world including the Arab World: it is terrorism with its interrelated misconceptions and deviant ideas. The concept of terrorism has been dealt with in seven speeches of Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais.

온라인 텔레스트레이션을 활용한 다중 표상적 은유 교육 연구

This study is an attempt to propose a multiple representational metaphor education model that combines linguistic representation and visual representation using online telestration. The advent of the media and online era has incorporated not only the understanding of linguistic representation l but also the understanding of visual representation into an important phase of cognitive behavior and requires the implementation of online learning. In such an era's needs, it can be said that teaching-learning makes metaphors be used as a tool for thinking and cognition in an online environment, learning leads learners to a new horizon of perception by combining linguistic representation and visual representation. The multiple representational metaphor education model using online telestration will have a two-way dynamic interaction in an online environment, and it will be possible to improve learning capabilities by expressing various representations. Multiple representational metaphor education using online telestration will allow us to consider new perspectives and various possibilities of expression to interpret the world by converging and rephrasing verbal and visual representations using media in an online environment.