Unplanned Encounters Research Articles

Conceptualizing Information Need: A Phenomenological Study

Conceptualizing Information Need: A Phenomenological Study Omiunu, Ojinga Gideon Abstract The study investigated, through a phenomenological study, the conceptualization of Information need. A convenient sampling technique was used, ten (10) respondents were used for the study, information was obtained with the interview guide and responses obtained were analyzed thematically. The result of the study revealed that information need is the totality of Human Information Seeking Behavior which commences from the un-programmed, un-conscious, un-systematic and un-planned encounters with various information systems and sources that leads to the discovering of information needs, and to the consciously planned and mechanized search to fill this need providing solution at the long run to the need discovered. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jlis.v2n2a3

The Borders of Sense: Revisiting Iracema, Uma Transa Amazonica (1974)

A landmark of Brazilian cinema, Iracema: Uma transa Amazônica (1974), by Jorge Bodansky and Orlando Senna, remains an underexplored film. This fiction-documentary hybrid is a visual reflection on territoriality, mobility, and borders – borders that are inherently paradoxical, limits constituted by contact, lines of division drawn by virtue of the possibility of their crossing. This article considers the significance of the film as a form of sociopolitical critique carried out by narrative and allegorical components. The film, however, also contains elements that resist interpretation, relating to the filming of unplanned and improvised encounters between film and lived, historical world. This article explores the implications of this dual gesture and proposes ways to appreciate the elements in the film that do not bear intended meaning but are highly significant.

“The Coat Traps All Your Body Heat”: Heterogeneity as Fundamental to Learning

This article explores heterogeneity as fundamental to learning. Inspired by Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia, a design team consisting of an experienced classroom teacher and 2 researchers investigated how a class of 3rd and 4th graders came to understand disciplinary points of view on heat, heat transfer, and the particulate nature of matter. Through a series of planned and unplanned encounters, official versions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the particulate view of matter were juxtaposed with varied domains of experience of heat transfer and phase change in water. We analyze the children's discourse to examine how they populated these phenomena with meaning and what they learned in the process. We conclude by describing key principles and a conundrum that emerged from this research.

The challenges of small-scale evaluation in a foreign country: reflections on practice

This paper is a reflection on practice. It begins by briefly describing an evaluation of an externally-funded education programme in Kosovo (a new country in south-east Europe). The programme was managed by Save the Children in Kosovo and aimed to develop and promote models of inclusive education through three strands of activity. The first of these provided a bi-lingual multicultural learning environment for children of 3–5 years; the second was designed to integrate children with special educational needs and disabilities into mainstream education; and the third was concerned to support the inclusion of Roma/Ashkali/Egyptian children in primary schooling. The three strands of the programme were piloted in selected schools in different municipalities throughout the country for between 1 year and 3 years. The client (Save the Children in Kosovo) commissioned an independent evaluation to assist with decision-making at a time of transition for the programme. The author (who was the evaluator) discusses how she attempted to address the methodological challenges often typical of this kind of work: a small budget, a compressed time-frame, a complex and volatile socio-political climate and, last but not least, a contractual requirement to produce authoritative recommendations for action. She goes on to reflect on how and why various unplanned events and encounters that occurred outwith the parameters of the evaluation made a significant contribution to its outcomes. The author invites comments from other evaluators about their experiences in similar situations.

Taking Care of Xerox Business—Virtually

So Hiro's not actually here at all. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. In the lingo, this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse.--Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (Bantam Books, 1992). The vision of a world, like the one described by Neal Stephenson, has spurred the imagination of engineers to create environments from text-based multi-user dungeons (or MUDs) to three-dimensional tools like Google Earth, and immersive spaces like Second Life. The term virtual is often applied broadly to include everything from web-sites like MySpace and NeoPets to the class of games known as MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). While the discussion goes on about how broadly to stretch the definition, the core idea of the Metaverse is 3D graphical environments, which give the users the sensation of being immersed in another world. What's a Virtual World Anyway? The people are pieces of software called avatars. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse.--Snow Crash. The common thread in the different definitions of worlds is the ability to connect and communicate in an environment that has a sense of space into which users are immersed. You know that you're using a world when rather than simply using an application, you start thinking of yourself as being inside it. The confusion around what worlds are is also caused by the rise of other types of social networking applications as well as the highly interactive and visual nature of Web 2.0 sites like Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. 3D environments are most effective at giving users the sense of immersion that worlds provide. Not only is the environment rendered in realistic 3D graphics, but every user is represented by a 3D character, an avatar, with which they interact with the world and other users. In the past year, Xerox's Innovation Group has started to investigate how the technology of 3D worlds can impact the way people do business. These types of worlds offer the following benefits: * A pliable 3D environment.--Being immersed in a 3D world opens up new possibilities for visualization and interaction. Users can literally draw in the air to illustrate what they are talking about, and tools can be created for organizing both information and processes in ways that are not possible in a physical environment. * An immersive experience.--Not only can users simply explore the environment, but, for many, being in a natural-looking space that is navigated in the same way as the real world, is much more comfortable than being faced with abstractions like lists, windows and folders that are commonly found in other types of applications. * A high-bandwidth communication medium.--While communicating in a world via text-chat or integrated voice capabilities may be no different than using instant messaging or a VOIP client like Skype, the fact that the communication occurs while sharing the same experience can add new layers to the conversation. Users can make their avatars perform gestures and facial expressions, thereby adding a non-verbal component to the conversation. The location of avatars adds additional information, allowing the use of spatial references in the conversation. * The formation of communities.--By giving users locations where they can congregate to discuss topics of interest, worlds provide avenues for easily meeting new people. Events, meetings and seminars can be used as regularly scheduled activities to grow and strengthen a community, but unplanned encounters by people visiting the same space at the same time are just as important to form connections. Communities are valuable because they take on a life of their own, providing support for newcomers as well as giving a space for old-timers to share-experiences and learn from one another. …

Fluid Group: Concept and Clinical Application in the Therapeutic Milieu

The term fluid group as used by Gregg (1976) describes an important intervention modality for nurses working in therapeutic milieu settings. Fluid group work is a disciplined application of psychotherapeutic principles, knowledge, and skills to brief, unplanned clinical encounters. Moving into and out of spontaneous interactions with patients in a fluid manner is an important concept and educational strategy that can be used to teach nursing students within the milieu setting.

Consumption and identity: The cultural politics of shopping

Anthropologists such as Daniel Miller and Mary Douglas have suggested that modern identities are constituted through the symbolic world of consumption, with its increasingly mediated relationship to the material world, as much as they are shaped directly by the social relations of production. This has led many on the Left to be suspicious of much current work on consumption, with its apparent celebration of highly individualized ‘lifestyle’ choices, the exercise of ‘consumer sovereignty’ and the rise of so‐called ‘identity politics’. Drawing on recent empirical research on consumption in north London, this paper suggests that these suspicions may be over‐drawn. Identity need not be approached in such an individualistic manner and is most often articulated in relational terms (through notions of the family and associated expectations about gender and sexuality, or through racialized understandings of social change at varying scales from the neighbourhood to the nation). The research confirms that the majority of everyday consumption practices are still performed as routine and mundane work (mostly undertaken by women) with very limited scope for more recreational forms of ‘lifestyle shopping’. Using evidence from survey, focus group and ethnographic research, the paper examines the relationship between consumption and identity in these more relational and socially contextualized terms. It examines the transformation of the material world into the commodity form and associated fears about the increasing artificiality of our relationships with nature and with other people. It explores the domestic context of family shopping’ and the distinction between the home as a world of cleanliness and order contrasted with the street as a site of danger, dirt and pollution. It examines the extent to which such ideas are being institutionalized through the privatization of public space, where consumers are subject to increasing surveillance and control in order to reduce the chance of unplanned encounters with various (racialized or working class) Others. These findings suggest new kinds of political engagements as well as new ways of thinking about the relationship between consumption and identity.

Learning the baby: a maternal thinking and problem-solving process.

To describe a maternal problem-solving process from new mothers' day-to-day experience of caring for and developing a relationship with their babies. Qualitative study using grounded theory approach. Mothers' homes (n = 23) and workplaces (n = 2). 25 mothers of babies from 2 weeks to 7 months. Semi-structured interviews. "Learning the Baby" was a major thinking process that emerged. Systematic thinking dominated mothers' problem-solving. Even after the babies were comforted, mothers were not certain their efforts alleviated the babies' problems, because they usually were not certain of the problem. Mothers' thinking directs their caregiving actions. The findings were related to previous problem-solving and women's thinking perspectives. Nurses must use planned and unplanned encounters effectively to collaborate with and teach mothers about baby behavior and health care.

Ampère's Invention of Equilibrium Apparatus: A Response to Experimental Anomaly

André-Marie Ampère's contributions to electrodynamics came at a late stage in an unconventional career. In 1820, he had reached the age of forty-five and had not as yet done any systematic research in physics. As a member of the mathematics section of the Académie des Sciences, his only significant contributions to the physical sciences had been some constructive criticisms of Fresnel's wave theory of light and three memoirs on chemical classification and gas theory. Meanwhile, his longstanding interests in metaphysics and epistemology had resulted in pointed methodological and philosophical attitudes which both motivated and structured his subsequent work in electrodynamics. Not surprisingly, events during the first few months of Ampère's research included many unplanned and unexpected encounters as this wildly enthusiastic theoretician grappled for the first time with the recalcitrant complexity of actual experimentation in an uncharted new domain.