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1 – 10 of over 34000Jon J. Fallesen and Stanley M. Halpin
Pew and Mavor (1998) called for an integrative representation of human behavior for use in models of individual combatants and organizations. Models with integrated representation…
Abstract
Pew and Mavor (1998) called for an integrative representation of human behavior for use in models of individual combatants and organizations. Models with integrated representation of behavior have only been achieved at rudimentary levels according to those performing the studies (e.g. Pew & Mavor, 1998; Tulving, 2002) and those building the models (e.g. Warwick et al., 2002). This chapter will address aspects of cognitive performance that are important to incorporate into models of combat based on acceptance of theory, strength of empirical data, or for other reasons such as to bridge gaps where incomplete knowledge exists about cognitive behavior and performance. As a starting point, this chapter will assess which of Pew and Mavor’s recommendations are still appropriate as determined by a review of selected literature on cognition and its representation. We will also provide some review and extensions of key literature on cognition and modeling and suggest a way ahead to close the remaining gaps. Different aspects of cognition are described with recent findings, and most are followed by an example of how they have been represented in computer models or a discussion of challenges to their representation in modeling.
– The purpose of this paper is to analyse everyday reasoning in public administration. This is done by focusing on front line tax inspectors’ decisions about tax evasion.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse everyday reasoning in public administration. This is done by focusing on front line tax inspectors’ decisions about tax evasion.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents ethnography of bureaucracy and field audits. The material stems from fieldwork conducted in the Central Customs and Tax Administration.
Findings
The paper shows that the tax inspectors reason about tax evasion in a casuistic manner. They pay attention to similar cases and to particular circumstances of the individual cases. In deciding on tax evasion, the inspectors do not just administer the laws; they also enact a policy of fair-mindedness. Doing this they are constrained by time and man-powers, but also enabled by various organizational devices.
Research limitations/implications
The tax inspectors that the author followed were carefully chosen and acted in accordance with procedures. The ethnography should be understood in relation to this set-up.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper is that it shows that ethnography can open the territory of everyday reasoning in public administration. Also, it shows the discretionary room that any front line tax inspector navigates in. This is significant as revenue collection often is described as formal and dominated by a legal steering in which rules are univocal.
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Vibeke Asmussen Frank, Anne‐Sofie Christensen and Helle Vibeke Dahl
Overall within cannabis research, only a few studies have specifically targeted the use of cannabis among the adult population, and consequently very little is known about the…
Abstract
Purpose
Overall within cannabis research, only a few studies have specifically targeted the use of cannabis among the adult population, and consequently very little is known about the consumption practices of this user group. The purpose of this paper is to explore how adult cannabis users integrate cannabis use into their daily life; a use that can be characterized as recreational use, i.e. a non‐problematic use of cannabis for pleasure and to get intoxicated. Despite the fact that cannabis use is illegal and larger societal views on consuming cannabis still is subject to stigmatization and “unruly conduct”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative interviews with 39 persons who were cannabis users as well as growers. The interviewees could not be described as “deviants” and the vast majority of them were socially well integrated. For how long the interviewees had been using cannabis depended on age as well as different life circumstances.
Findings
The paper shows how cannabis users commonly employ two strategies when integrating cannabis use into their everyday life and keeping up a meaningful life: refraining from using cannabis in particular situations and smoking alone. The interviewees in particular find it unacceptable to smoke cannabis when around children, engaging with family members, and when at work. The interview narratives reveal how cannabis consumption as narrated by the interviewees is embedded not only in balancing a controlled use applicable to the everyday situations and practices that the interviewees are engaged in, but also to more wider, societal norms and values around acceptable and unacceptable use of cannabis. The main analytical concept applied is moral reasoning.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to research on adult cannabis users.
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Rebecca Joy Denniss and Aidan Davison
This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay reasoning about climate change. Although awareness is growing that lay people interact with scientific knowledge about climate change in complex ways, relatively little is known about this interaction. Much quantitative research on public attitudes to climate change does little to draw out the cognitive and experiential processes by which lay people arrive at understandings of climate change.
Design/methodology/approach
Through narrative analysis of qualitative interviews, this paper examines lay rationalities of climate change as a process of not only knowing the world (epistemology), but of being oriented towards the world (ontology) and valuing the world (axiology).
Findings
The findings emphasise the extent of individual variation in lay interpretations of climate change, and their internal complexity. Almost all participants display differences in reasoning about climate change when considering their personal lives as compared to the wider, public world. Distinct accounts of self and world in lay rationalities are evident in the ways that participants imagine the future and express their feelings of culpability for and responsibility to act on climate change.
Originality/value
This paper argues that lay reasoning about climate science does not just engage ways of knowing the world but also ways of being in and valuing the world so as to open up multiple trajectories for comprehension.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that researchers in the information disciplines should embrace ethnomethodology as a way of forming deeper insights into the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that researchers in the information disciplines should embrace ethnomethodology as a way of forming deeper insights into the relationship between people and recorded knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper introduces the core concepts of ethnomethodology as a means of articulating what this perspective brings to the understanding of the way that society is accomplished. A selection of key studies are then examined to highlight important ethnomethodological findings about the particular relationship of documents to human actions and interactions.
Findings
Ethnomethodology highlights the fact that people transform their experiences, and the experiences of others, into documents whose status as an objective object help to justify people’s actions and inferences. Documents, as written accounts, also serve to make peoples’ actions meaningful to themselves and to others. At the same time, ethnomethodology draws attention to the fact that any correct reading of these documents relies partly on an understanding of the tacit ideologies that undergird people’s sense-making and that are used in order to make decisions and get work done.
Originality/value
This conceptual framework contributes to the information disciplines by bringing to the fore certain understandings about the social organization of document work, and the attendant social arrangements they reveal. The paper also outlines, from a methodological perspective, how information science researchers can use ethnomethodology as an investigative stance to further their knowledge of the role of documents in everyday life.
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Current indexing methods used in automated bibliographic and full text information retrieval assume that knowledge can be adequately represented as a semantic network which is…
Abstract
Current indexing methods used in automated bibliographic and full text information retrieval assume that knowledge can be adequately represented as a semantic network which is manipulable by means of Boolean operators. However, this semantic approach requires the user to state formally what it is that he wants to find. This paper presents an alternative argumentation‐based method. It involves representing a learned article by means of rhetorical structure rather than by a semantic representation of content.
Sandra Lynch, Daryl Adair and Paul Jonson
This chapter takes an interdisciplinary approach combining expertise in sports management and in philosophy to examine the premises underpinning the contested claim that…
Abstract
This chapter takes an interdisciplinary approach combining expertise in sports management and in philosophy to examine the premises underpinning the contested claim that professional athletes have a special obligation to be role models both within and beyond the sporting arena. Arguments for and against the claim are briefly addressed, as a prelude to identifying and elucidating a set of factors relevant to a consideration of this alleged special obligation. The chapter considers understandings of sport, play and athleticism from an ethical perspective and examines their relationship to professionalism to determine the extent to which ethical imperatives can logically be upheld or undermined within the professional context. The chapter concludes that professional athletes cannot be expected to be able to respond to the demand that they act as role models within and beyond the sporting arena unless the tensions implicit within that demand are articulated. The chapter calls for recognition of the complexity of ethical decision-making in the context of professional sport and recommends that the training of professional athletes should prepare them to deal with this complexity. Recognition of the complexity of decision-making with the professional sporting context suggests the need for further research into optimal training strategies for young professional athletes and into the genesis and reasonableness of the demand that such athletes act as role models both within and beyond the sporting arena.
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Ralph P. Ferretti, Charles D. MacArthur and Cynthia M. Okolo
The purpose of this paper is to report about the presence of misconceptions in the historical thinking of fifth-grade children with learning disabilities (LD) and their normally…
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to report about the presence of misconceptions in the historical thinking of fifth-grade children with learning disabilities (LD) and their normally achieving (NA) peers. We also sought to determine the effects of implementing an integrated instructional unit about 19th century U.S. Westward Expansion on children's historical misconceptions. This unit was taught over an eight-week period by a special education teacher (subsequently referred to as Ms. M) who had approximately two years of prior professional teaching experience. In addition to quantitative information about changes in children's content knowledge, we report interview data about children's understanding of historical content and historical reasoning. Furthermore, we captured on videotape approximately 12h of classroom instruction. Ms. M and the first author of this paper independently reviewed and then discussed these videotapes for the purpose of assessing the effects of her teaching practices on the development of children's historical understanding. The implications of our findings are discussed.