In this paper, we argue that prototypes can hinder, rather than aid effective communication. The dangers are: (1) prototypes may contain hidden assumptions which might surface too late; (2) obtaining feedback in the context of use is prohibitively expensive and rarely done; and (3) partly as a consequence of these problems, prototypes cause a focus on displays and other surface features of comp...

Comparative analysis is a mode of research, that due to its outstanding merits is widely used within many fields of scientific inquiry. Focusing on its application in historical research, this article aims to contribute to a more systematic discussion of some of the methodological strategies associated with this mode of analysis. For this purpose, this article presents first a few typologies re...

In recent years the use of computers and related technologies for education purposes has increased exponentially. Organizations from different sectors started to invest in educational software for learning, so did universities and other academic institutions. Research in this area has increased to explore the benefits that are possible through the use of computers to promote education. The pape...

The idea for this note arose during the “Web Information Retrieval and Linear Algebra Algorithms” held at Schloss Dagstuhl in February 2007. Many brilliant people working on either side (numerical analysis and web search) had a chance to meet and talk for one week about mathematical and practical aspects of linear methods for ranking, and in particular (not surprisingly) PageRank and HITS. Ther...

The spread of the cover sheet is a divisive phenomenon. Their appearance is geographically bound and their content situated in the local political and financial context. In this article we discuss the arguments for and against the coversheet in its guise as a fixture on institutional repository preprints, exploring the issue through statistical information gathered from survey material and from...

Strikingly, Ogawa and Wildasin (2009) find that in a model with heterogenous jurisdictions, interjurisdictional capital flows, and interjurisdictional environmental damage spillovers, decentralized planning outcomes are equivalent to that under a single centralized planner. Taken to its extreme this result renders international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol irrelevant. We first show the...

Many researchers would agree that, had it not been for Smalltalk, the investigation of the producerconsumer problem might never have occurred. In fact, few steganographers would disagree with the construction of fiber-optic cables. We prove that 8 bit architectures can be made pseudorandom, omniscient, and symbiotic.

* The title is a paraphrase on Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", named "Goto Statement Considered Harmful". It stressed the importance of structure in computer programs. Knowing this, the parallel with unstructured representations of tempo (like tempo curves) is obvious.