Use Of Viewpoints Research Articles

Outsourced Health Care Services

This paper provides answers to the question of how medical doctors and nurses at health centres narrate their experiences of outsourced health care services and make sense of their position in the new organization. The article contributes to the debate on the recent change in the marketization and transformation of health care organizations. The research material consists of seven group interviews with medical doctors and nurses. The method makes use of viewpoints from the narrative approach. The results of the analysis indicate that the workers interviewed are primarily rational professional actors. They do not actively take an emotional position. The short contracts between public or private actors mean that work processes in the outsourced health care organizations are intermittent. It may be necessary for the workers to adopt a strong professional identity without strong mental ties to the employer.

Using Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (CASI) systems to obtain the views of looked after children: A pilot study

An increasing number of local authorities are introducing Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (CASI) systems. Self-complete measures such as those incorporated into CASI systems may encourage a greater level of self-disclosure from young people. Viewpoint CASI systems have been used successfully to gather sensitive information from young people as they may be seen to be less threatening than face-to-face interviews. The aim of this small-scale study was to pilot the use of Viewpoint within a local authority to access the views of looked after children about their life experiences and emotional well-being, and to compare it with traditional paper and pencil methods. Eight young people agreed to take part in the study; five completed the study using Viewpoint and three used the paper and pencil method. While the sample in this exploratory study is very small, limiting the generalisation of findings, the results, when taken together with other research on the efficiency of CASI techniques, suggest that young people may be more likely to complete sensitive questionnaires administered using computers than they are using paper and pencil methods, and that motivation for completion of computer-based surveys may be further increased if game-breaks are used and questionnaire length kept to a minimum.

Un modèle et une méthode de conception centrés interaction

Complexity of interactive systems is the result of partial knowledge that someone has on it. Such systems are specified by local properties and their global behavior is generally emerging. Complexity management is a permanent objective of software engineering. Object oriented design has given place to several approaches aiming at controlling complexity: aspect programming which separates functional and non functional aspects, the approach by view points and the approach by components. One of the main problems facing with view points is the synthesis of the view points. Interaction centred approach we propose integrates the use of view points based on interactions. The method suggested is based on the formalization of the knowledge of the active and passive entities, the interactions between entities and by taking into account of the regulation of the studied systems. A multiagents approach is used within this framework. From a decisional point of view, our approach makes it possible to evaluate the consequences of decision-makings relative to various temporal horizons (closing of roads, creation of carpark...).

Jong lesers se identifisering met karakters: skryfteorie en -praktyk

Young readers’ identification with characters: the theory and practice of creative writing It is generally acknowledged that reader identification with characters contributes to readers’ involvement in the text and the subsequent pleasure derived from reading stories. It seems that establishing a relationship with the implied reader of the text comes naturally for successful authors. There is, however, a lack of coherent theory on reader identification with characters which can be used in the teaching of creative writing. This article combines insights gained from various disciplines in order to develop a coherent theory of the phenomenon of reader identification. Of special interest are the results of reader-response research regarding the relation between individuals’ development phase and identification with characters. Some of the possibilities which the writer can utilise to establish a relationship with the reader and influence the nature of reader identification with characters are the choice of characters and their depiction in the text, the narrative strategy and the use of viewpoint.

Viewpoints in co-design: a field study in concurrent engineering

We present a field study aimed at analysing the use of viewpoints in co-design meetings. A viewpoint is a representation characterised by a certain combination of constraints. Three types of viewpoints are distinguished: prescribed viewpoint, discipline-specific viewpoint and integrated viewpoint. The contribution of our work consists in characterising the viewpoints of various stakeholders involved in co-design (‘design office’ disciplines, and production and maintenance disciplines), the dynamics of viewpoints confrontation and the cooperative modes that enable these different viewpoints to be integrated.

A Formal Framework for Viewpoint Consistency

Multiple Viewpoint models of system development are becoming increasingly important. Each viewpoint offers a different perspective on the target system and system development involves parallel refinement of the multiple views. Viewpoints related approaches have been considered in a number of different guises by a spectrum of researchers. Our work particularly focuses on the use of viewpoints in Open Distributed Processing (ODP) which is an ISO/ITU standardisation framework. The requirements of viewpoints modelling in ODP are very broad and, hence, demanding. Multiple viewpoints, though, prompt the issue of consistency between viewpoints. This paper describes a very general interpretation of consistency which we argue is broad enough to meet the requirements of consistency in ODP. We present a formal framework for this general interpretations highlight basic properties of the interpretation and locate restricted classes of consistency. Strategies for checking consistency are also investigated. Throughout we illustrate our theory using the formal description technique LOTOS. Thus, the paper also characterises the nature of and options for consistency checking in LOTOS.

Teaching molecular 3‐D literacy

Teaching molecular 3‐D literacy

Viewpoint consistency in ODP

Open Distributed Processing (ODP) is a joint ITU/ISO standardisation framework for constructing distributed systems in a multi-vendor environment. Central to the ODP approach is the use of viewpoints for specification and design. Inherent in any viewpoint approach is the need to check and manage the consistency of viewpoints. In previous work we have described techniques for consistency checking, refinement, and translation between viewpoint specifications, in particular for LOTOS and Z/Object-Z. Here we present an overview of our work, motivated by a case study combining these techniques in order to show consistency between viewpoints specified in LOTOS and Object-Z.

Viewpoints and consistency: translating lotos to Object- z

This paper presents a translation between the formal description technique lotos and the object-oriented specification language Object- z. The need for such a translation lies in the use of formal methods in viewpoint specification, and in particular in the Open Distributed Processing standard. The use of viewpoints as a set of partial interlocking specifications brings an obligation to check the consistency of these partial specifications, and to do so we need to relate specifications written in differing languages. The work presented here aims to support the consistency checking of viewpoints written using formal methods by defining a translation from lotos to Object- z. A lotos specification describes both an ADT component and a behavioural model, the former is translated into the z type system, and the behavioural specification is translated into a collection of Object- z classes where we relate lotos actions to operations in the Object- z specification. A case study is presented, illustrating the translation and consistency checking techniques discussed in the paper.

VOCAL: A framework for test identification and deployment

Viewpoint oriented verification and validation (VOCAL) is a novel technique for the identification and application of a structured life-cycle based software testing process to a broad array of systems. Application of the technique can be specfically tailored to embedded, interactive and multimedia applications, as well as those systems requiring a well defined approach in the quality assurance process. The authors introduce an approach for performance enhancement during the testing process. Problems faced when constructing software systems in time-constrained, market-driven development processes are highlighted. Emphasis is given to test process improvements by stressing some of the ‘failures’ encountered when using traditional test models. Traditionally, testing follows the stages of specify, develop, test and release in a standard waterfall based approach. The use of viewpoints will be introduced as a technique for structuring, identification, organisation and deployment of test information. Finally, the method is illustrated with a small example using a bank ATM machine. In conclusion, the authors evaluate VOCAL, and outline areas of future work.

What courseware dedicated to computer science?

Computer science is a field where the concept acquisition depends both on knowledge and know-how. Some aspects such as the situated learning, the use of viewpoints and the negotiated tutoring play an important part in the programming learning. All these notions require specific tools intented for a teacher who designs a computer science courseware. So, this paper presents an authoring system which is particularly specialized in the student interface generation and the tutoring strategy execution.

Cross-viewpoint consistency in open distributed processing

The paper discusses the use of viewpoints in the ODP (Open Distributed Processing) standardisation initiative. The ODP reference model is a new framework, going beyond OSI (Open Systems Interconnection). Multiple viewpoints are used to specify complex ODP systems. Consistency of viewpoint specifications is clearly a central issue. In addition, formal techniques have an increasingly significant role within ODP, and so mechanisms are needed that support consistency checking of formal specifications. An overview is provided of the ODP reference model and the use of viewpoints within it, before discussing consistency within ODP and how it can be realised using formal notations. Consistency checking is illustrated using the LOTOS formal description technique.

Supporting organizational problem solving with a work station

Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. An approach to supporting work in the office is described. Using and extending ideas from the field of artificial intelligence (AI) we describe office work as a problem-solving activity. A knowledge-embedding language called OMEGA is used to embed knowledge of the organization into an office worker's work station in order to support the office worker in problem solving. A particular approach to reasoning about change and contradiction is discussed. This approach uses OMEGA's viewpoint mechanism, which is a general contradiction-handling facility. Unlike other knowledge representation systems, when a contradiction is reached the reasons for the contradiction can be analyzed by the deduction mechanism without having to resort to search mechanisms such as a backtracking. The viewpoint mechanism is the heart of the problem-solving support paradigm, a paradigm which supplements the classical AI view of problem solving. An example is presented in which OMEGA's facilities are used to support an office worker's problem-solving activities. The example illustrates the use of viewpoints and of OMEGA's capabilities to reason about its own reasoning processes. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.3.4 [ Information Storage and Retrieval ]: Systems and Software— information networks ; H.4.1 [ Information Systems Applications ]: Office Automation; I.2.1 [ Artificial Intelligence ]: Applications and Expert Systems— office automation ; I.2.4 [ Artificial Intelligence ]: Knowledge Representation Formalisms and Methods— semantic networks