Graph-based notations form a significant subclass of visual languages. Studies of the use of such notations in practice have shown that users often employ pragmatic aspects, such as layout, to capture important domain information. Moreover this pragmatic information can support and guide reasoning over such representations. However, typical formalisations of graph-based notations often pay scan...

BACKGROUND Impaired social functioning has been well documented in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Existing treatments for ADHD are effective for managing core symptoms, but have limited effectiveness at improving social skills, suggesting that social deficits in ADHD may not be directly related to core symptoms of the disorder. Language problems are also commo...

This issue’s target article by William Stiles (2009) presents a general paradigm that explains how the logical operations of deduction, induction, and abduction can be applied to case-study-level observations in order to build, test, and refine applied psychology theories in areas like psychotherapy. Stiles’ paradigm is exemplified in the development of his own assimilation model of psychologic...

Introduction By 1909, when Dewey celebrated his fi ft ieth birthday, he had long since augmented the pragmatic ideas of Charles Peirce and William James and forged from them a powerful method of philosophical, social, and educational critique and reconstruction. James had labeled him a philosophical hero and his ideas were inspiring leading philosophers and progressive era reformers. Following ...

AIM This paper reports a study investigating changes in the self-reported values of nursing students over the period 1983-2005 in the light of changes in student demography. BACKGROUND Nurses' values have been studied by both qualitative and survey methods over half a century. Generally idealism and altruism are said to wane as a result of professional socialisation, whilst honesty has been r...

A multi-stakeholder symposium at the third annual Canadian Therapeutics Congress (May 2006) discussed the nature of pragmatic studies, and helped to further define their role in the drug regulatory system, formulary access decisions and in clinical practice. The symposium panel appeared to have agreed that pragmatic studies were beneficial, but revealed differences in how, when and where they s...

Pragmatic assessment and consistency in rating are among the subject matters which are still in need of more profound investigations. The importance of the issue is highlighted when remembering that inconsistency in ratings would surely damage the test fairness issue in assessment and lead to much diversity in ratings. Our principal concern in this study was observing the criteria that American...

This study investigated the effectiveness of explicit pragmatic instruction on the acquisition of requests by college-level English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Taiwan. The goal was to determine first whether the use of explicit pragmatic instruction had a positive effect on EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. Second, the relative effectiveness of presenting pragmatics through two deli...