Gender and digital divide 2000-2008 in two low-income economies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya and Somalia in official statistics

The Beijing World Conference on Women held in 1995 by the United Nations member states, approved strategies for improving women's access to and use of new communication technologies. The aim of this paper is to retrieve official statistics for the years 2000-2008 with regard to sex differences, gender and digital divide (specifically concerning telecommunication technologies) in two low-income economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya and Somalia. This paper reveals that official statistics on sex discrepancies and, the gender divide regarding access, use and benefits of telecommunications are still almost totally lacking for the countries in view. However, the digital divide is successively closing, and the telecommunication process in Kenya was quite rapid at the end of the period. Official statistics from Somalia are difficult to comprehend due to the absence of official data and a lack of evidence-based knowledge. Fifteen years after the Beijing Conference in 1995 there is still a lack of comprehensive statistics regarding new communication technologies for low-income economies such as Kenya and Somalia.     

Theory talk in the library science scholarly literature: An exploratory analysis

In the discipline of library and information science (LIS), a qualitative analysis of the meaningful use of theory in contemporary scholarly literature is critical to helping scholars expand their repertoire of knowledge about various theories and helping them make informed decisions about how to skillfully integrate theory in their research. This study explored how theory was presented and talked about in seven prominent library science-focused journals from 2009 to 2011. Through a process of analytic induction, categories representing a continuum of theory talk were identified and their relationships examined. Three main types of theory talk in library research are defined, ranging from minimal (theory dropping), moderate (theory conversation), to major (theory generation). The categories and their relationships generate a rich discussion about the intensity and degree to which theory is being discussed and used in a less-examined subset of library and information science research journals. This research contributes both an explanatory structure and substantive discussion regarding theory use in library science to the professional literature.     

Text reference service: Teens' perception and use

Focus group interviews were conducted to investigate how teen library users perceive and use text reference service. Findings indicate that teens have a mixed attitude toward the service, and they anticipate using it primarily for imposed queries. Teens' perception of three aspects of the service is also discussed: response time, librarians' use of texting abbreviations, and the impact of texting constraints. Strategies are provided to increase awareness, motivate use, and meet expectations. Findings will help inform libraries' text reference practice, providing them with a clear understanding of how teens can benefit from the service, and how their information needs can be fulfilled to their satisfaction. Such an understanding will then lead libraries to develop more effective strategies to promote and deliver library services to teens, strengthen the role libraries play in teens' information-seeking process, and establish a positive and sustaining relationship between teens and libraries.     

The emotional design of everyday things: The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science presented to Donald A. Norman

Donald Norman changed and continues to change the way in which we live our technology-infused and technology-based lives. Norman was one of the founders of the field of cognitive science and based on that work, he went on to create the field of user-centered design. It is the latter work for which he was awarded the 2006 Benjamin Franklin award in Computer and Cognitive Science. When one works within the paradigm of user-centered design, technology is created so that it is based on human cognitive capabilities, and is therefore, usable.¹ When technology is not designed in this way, it is often experienced as unusable.In creating the field of user-centered design, Donald Norman works at a conceptual level; his influence is therefore both widespread and profound.     

Innovation strategy and performance during economic transition: Evidences in Beijing, China

This paper evaluates the relevance of innovation strategy to various categories of Chinese firms and investigates its relationship with innovation performance during the economic transition of the 1990s. Data from 1244 Chinese firms in Beijing are used to ascertain the relative importance of different innovation objectives, along with the innovation strategies adopted by manufacturing firms. Results show that innovation activities were confined to the domestic sphere and mainly directed at quality improvement. Chinese manufacturing firms which obtained support from the government through the high-tech firm accreditation system generally perform better. They had already started moving away from a reliance on imported technology and equipment, and using indigenous R&D efforts to innovate for the coming market economy.     

Convergent designs in fine fashion: An evolutionary model for stylistic innovation

In this paper we propose and test an evolutionary model of stylistic innovation, that is the change in the aesthetic and symbolic elements of products and services. Style is an increasingly relevant phenomenon in many industries and our goal is to develop a model of how styles get introduced and adopted. We build on existent literature on technological change to frame the dynamics of how style changes across time. In the model we propose, companies face periods of ferment with relevant stylistic variations and periods of convergence on a single trend—that is the stylistic convergent design versus the technologic dominant design. We identify the drivers of convergence in stylistic innovation. We test the model with a longitudinal empirical study (1984-2002) in the fine fashion industry, explaining the main differences between a stylistic and a technological evolutionary model.     

Demand articulation in emerging technologies: Intermediary user organisations as co-producers?

User involvement is assumed to be beneficial to innovation processes. Intermediary user organisations contribute to articulating societal demands for innovations. However, the learning processes inside these organisations are still not understood well. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates intermediaries using an event history approach. It yields characteristic learning mechanisms, e.g. concerning the management of expectations or actively building a case. If intermediaries overcome challenges regarding positioning, representation and the level of proactivity, they can play a precarious role in demand articulation in the context of new technologies.     

The 2003 Benjamin Franklin medal in chemistry for pioneering the development of ultra-fast and multi-dimensional spectroscopies and their applications is presented to Robin M. Hochstrasser

Throughout his distinguished career of over 40 years, Robin Hochstrasser has made significant contributions to several areas of science in the fields of chemical and biochemical physics. He has been at the forefront and made fundamental contributions to the fields of photochemistry, solid-state chemistry, ultra-fast laser spectroscopies, and protein dynamics. He has been a prolific researcher, producing over 560 publications. His work has been characterized by experts in the fields as “a constant stream of experiments of lasting significance” (J. Phys. Chem. 100 (1996) 11791).Robin began his career in the 1960s using a variety of magnetic and electric field measurements to study crystals at low temperatures to understand spin quantization in solids and electron exchanged-mediated energy transfer. This work, described as a “classic contribution” (J. Phys. Chem. 100 (1996) 11791) was the basis for much of the subsequent experimental and theoretical work on the effect of magnetic fields on molecular spectra and on the measurements of dipole moments.In the late 1970s, Robin recognized the power of laser technology for the study of molecules and soon became a leader in the field investigating solid, gas phase, and condensed phase systems. He developed and applied various ultra-fast laser techniques to study the structure and dynamics of complex molecules in liquid phase, chemical, and biochemical reactions. He made seminal contributions to the development of two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy (2D IR) on a time scale of a picosecond or less. This 2D IR spectroscopy measures coupling between two functional groups in a large molecule and can thus be used to measure distances, as for example, two amide carbonyl groups in a peptide molecule. On the ultra-fast timescale, one application of 2D IR is to gain information on the rate of protein folding and unfolding in solution. Some of Robin's greatest contributions to understanding biomolecules are said to be in the experimental studies on the picosecond and femtosecond dynamics of heme proteins. Using techniques he developed he was able to observe the interactions of oxygen, carbon monoxide, and nitric oxide with hemoglobin inside the protein.     

A rapid review method for extremely large corpora of literature: Applications to the domains of modelling, simulation, and management

While literature reviews with a large-scale scope are nowadays becoming a staple element of modern research practice, there are many challenges in taking on such an endeavour, yet little evidence of previous studies addressing these challenges exists. This paper introduces a practical and efficient review framework for extremely large corpora of literature, refined by five parallel implementations within a multi-disciplinary project aiming to map out the research and practice landscape of modelling, simulation, and management methods, spanning a variety of sectors of application where such methods have made a significant impact. Centred on searching and screening techniques along with the use of some emerging IT-assisted analytic and visualisation tools, the proposed framework consists of four key methodological elements to deal with the scale of the reviews, namely: (a) an incremental and iterative review structure, (b) a 3-stage screening phase including filtering, sampling and sifting, (c) use of visualisation tools, and (d) reference chasing (both forward and backward). Five parallel implementations of systematically conducted literature search and screening yielded a total initial search result of 146 087 papers, ultimately narrowed down to a final set of 1383 papers which was manageable within the limited time and other constraints of this research work.