SEGAL (Robert A.), Theorizing About Myth

Theorizing about software development practices

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t The paper focuses on the challenge of generating theoretical support for software development, especially when human software developers are involved in the software development process. We outline a model, " Coat Hanger " , for theorizing about development practices. The model focuses on the intended rationale for the actual realization and resulting impac...

Theorizing about Group Support Systems

Theory is critical to science. Group Support Systems (GSS), as a field of scientific inquiry is no exception. The important issue about theory in GSS is then not why theory, but where should theory come from (or how should theory be developed) and how to assess it (or evaluate its usefulness). This paper expounds on these issues by considering various approaches to theorizing about GSS, and del...

The Myth of the Nation-State: Theorizing Society and Polities in a Global Era

The analysis of globalization requires attention to the social and political units that are being variously undermined, restructured or facilitated by this process. Sociology has often assumed that the unit of analysis is society, in which economic, political and cultural processes are coterminous, and that this concept maps onto that of nation-state.This article argues that the nation-state is...

Debunking the first myth about debunking

The myth about nonlinear differential equations

Taking the example of Koretweg–de Vries equation, it is shown that soliton solutions need not always be the consequence of the trade-off between the nonlinear terms and the dispersive term in the nonlinear differential equation. Even the ordinary one dimensional linear partial differential equation can produce a soliton. Solitary waves and solitons are often described [1-8] as a consequence of ...