Interruptions in the workplace: A case study to reduce their effects

Collaboration is an important aspect for virtually all workplace environments. Workplaces often encourage and foster collaboration in a variety of ways with the purpose to collectively focus the group's attention on a specific problem and solve it as quickly and as efficiently as possible. While collaboration is generally viewed as a positive aspect of the workplace, the negative aspect—interruption—cannot be ignored. Interruptions are an important research area of human-computer interaction and with the growth of pervasive or ubiquitous computing on the rise, the number of interruptions we experience on a daily basis is also growing. It is for these reasons that interruption is and will continue to be a key issue in workplaces.This report presents the findings of a qualitative research project which explored interruptions in a mid-size software development company based in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this research was to identify the types of interruptions (both on- and off-task) that occur during typical office software related activities, explore the contextual characteristics surrounding these interruptions, and identify methodologies that could be used to reduce the cost of interruptions and increase employee effectiveness and satisfaction.     

Neutrinos from the Sun: The 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics presented to John Bahcall, Raymond Davis, Jr., and Masatoshi Koshiba

This award recognizes years of research by the laureates using elusive neutrinos to probe the internal workings of the sun. Bahcall and Davis identified an apparently fundamental problem: the fusion reactions that generate the sun's power deep in its core appeared to generate fewer neutrinos than expected. The number of neutrinos detected by Davis was only about a third the number calculated by Bahcall. Koshiba developed a new type of detector that not only confirmed the deficit but also showed that the neutrinos counted by Davis actually come from the Sun. Together the work of these three scientists prepared the way for the resolution of the puzzle, the discovery of a new property of neutrinos called “neutrino oscillations”. On the way from the sun, some neutrinos change identity and become nearly invisible in the detectors. This insight promises to open up new vistas in the fundamental physics of elementary particles.     

Through the kaleidoscope: Perspectives on cultural change within an integrated information systems environment

The study of information systems and their influence on organisational culture is a complex and highly contested area of research which has been the subject of much theorising. This paper intends to add to the debate through a longitudinal case study of an integrated information system implementation undertaken within a large UK university. The system known as SITS (Strategic Information Technology Services) was introduced into the university in 2006 and the focus of the research has been on culture change within the SITS environment. Document analysis, interviews and participant observation were used to collect the data for this study. What has emerged from this study is that current approaches are unable to account for the complexity of cultural studies within an integrated information systems environment and therefore we have developed the concept of the ‘cultural kaleidoscope’ as a heuristic to better understand the nature of cultural change within these circumstances.     

Three ways of knowing: Agricultural knowledge systems of small-scale farmers in Africa with reference to Kenya

Research carried out in 2011 in Kirinyaga district, Kenya, shows how sense-making theory and methodology can be used to assess the use of local agricultural and external knowledge by small-scale farmers and its effects on small-scale agriculture. Two knowledge systems, the local knowledge system and the external or scientific knowledge system, are considered dominant. The two systems can be synergistic and small-scale farmers have mixed them in their farming activities. Blending systems improve communication, livelihoods, and economies within local communities, and increases their participation in development. Data were collected in focus group discussions with farmers' groups and interviews with individual farmers. Results show that most farmers in Kirinyaga use external agricultural information in their farming practices. A significant number use combined external agricultural information and local knowledge, which forms a third knowledge system. This third system requires the validation of the farmers' innovations and documentation of the knowledge for wider dissemination. Information providers should adopt policies that promote the use of the three knowledge systems by small-scale farmers.     

Propagation of projective synchronization in a series connection of chaotic systems

Projective synchronization is a type of chaos synchronization where the response system states are scaled replicas of the drive system states. This paper deals with the propagation of projective synchronization in a series connection of N chaotic discrete-time drive systems and N response systems. By exploiting an observer-based approach, the paper demonstrates that dead-beat projective synchronization (i.e., exact synchronization in finite time for any scaling factor) is achieved between the nth drive and nth response systems. In particular, it is shown that projective synchronization starts from the innermost (Nth) drive-response system pair and propagates toward the outermost (first) drive-response system pair. Only a single scalar synchronizing signal connects the cascaded drive and response systems. Finally, an example illustrates the propagation of different types of chaos synchronization in a series connection consisting of a Gingerbreadman map, a third order hyperchaotic Henon map and a Lozi map.     

The research core of the knowledge management literature

A bibliometric analysis and a content analysis were conducted to explore the nature of the knowledge management literature. For the bibliometric analysis, three levels of Bradford analysis were used to examine the shape of the knowledge management literature based on 21,596 references from 2771 source publications. Each of the three analyses conformed to the typical curve of the Bradford distribution. For the content analysis, the texts of 630 knowledge management articles were analyzed to address the question of what research methodologies are used in the knowledge management literature. It was found that 27.8 percent of knowledge management-related articles in knowledge management journals used no identifiable research method. Of the remaining 455 refereed articles, 60 percent employed mainstream social sciences research methodologies. The remaining 40 percent of the articles using an identifiable methodology were characterized by the use of “provisional methods” that appeared to substitute for more formally defined or scientifically based research methodologies.     

Making functional units functional: The role of rhetorical structure in use of scholarly journal articles

Scholars are reading more journal articles than ever, so it is important that they focus on the relevant text within the articles they read. To support this goal, this study explores enhancements to a journal reading system by applying the idea of the functional unit, the smallest information unit with a distinct function within four major components of scholarly journal articles—Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion. This study examined a set of functional units and their associations with scholarly journal article use tasks through literature analysis and validation surveys. Forty-one typical functional units were found in psychology journal articles, with varying relevance to five tasks requiring use of information in journal articles. The relationships among sets of functional units for particular tasks were also identified. A taxonomy was developed incorporating the relationships between functional units and information use tasks, which can be used to inform system design. Based on this taxonomy, a prototype journal reading environment signalling functional units was designed and implemented for testing.     

Do expenditures other than instructional expenditures affect graduation and persistence rates in American higher education?

During the last two decades, median instructional spending per full-time equivalent (FTE) student at American 4-year colleges and universities has grown at a slower rate than median spending per FTE student in a number of other expenditure categories, including academic support, student services and research. Our paper uses institutional level panel data and a variety of econometric approaches, including unconditional quantile regression methods, to analyze whether these non-instructional expenditure categories influence graduation and first-year persistence rates of undergraduate students.