ABSTRACT This paper reports the results of an international web-based survey on the use of field studies in the design and evaluation of interactive systems, which was conducted between December 2006 and February 2007. The results suggest that the advantages and disadvantages of field methods are generally well understood, but guidance is needed in their application and use. Field studies were ...

We describe methods and practices of early user involvement and human-centred design: how researchers and designers, in the ICT industry, attempt to cooperate with end-users, with the goal of making a better match with end-users’ needs and preferences. We describe six (dance) moves: participatory design, ethnographic fieldwork, lead-user approach, contextual design, codesigning, and empathic de...

The validity of semantic inferences depends on the contexts in which they are applied. We propose a generic framework for handling contextual considerations within applied inference, termed Contextual Preferences. This framework defines the various context-aware components needed for inference and their relationships. Contextual preferences extend and generalize previous notions, such as select...

The identification of the scientific production and the evaluation of the researchers is a problem we are facing at present times. Bibliometric methods use mainly statistical tools and their results are of quantitative nature. Consequently, this approach does not provide any tools of qualitative evaluation. It is for this reason we suggest to examine the specific details of the bibliographic re...

The specifications of automated learning scenarios can lead to advantages for virtual learning environments and important benefits for organizations, although research in this e-learning area has not addressed this issue. To achieve this goal, one requirement is to have an infrastructure able to support the execution of specifications of learning scenarios. This paper presents an open service-o...

We describe a logic language to formally express interdependencies between classes belonging to different schemas, the socalled interschema knowledge. These interdependencies allow a designer of a multidatabase (MDB) to establish relationships between both the intensional definition and the set of instances of classes represented in different schemas. These assertions form the „backbone“ of the...

My discussion will be focussed on the notion of a property. I first present the standard intensional definition of a property, which is formulated in terms of possible worlds, and outline some of the philosophical problems this definition leads to. Then I introduce the notion of a conceptual space and show how such spaces can be used as a basis for a new criterion of what a property is. This cr...

The Mathematics Understander (MU) is a computer program which "understands" mathematics texts expressed in the language FEL (Formal Expression Language). MU can learn new definitions, check proofs providing explanations of the steps, and solve simple problems. MU is able, in principle, to learn any branch of pure mathematics from scratch, and has understood texts in Group Theory and Classical A...

This commentary highlights previous literature focusing on cultural and environmental explanations for the racial/ethnic group hierarchy of intelligence. Assumptions underlying definitions of intelligence, heritability/genetics, culture, and race are noted. Historical, contextual, and testing issues are clarified. Specific attention is given to studies supporting stereotype threat, effects of m...

While efforts to address the management of chronic diseases in the context of large, urban hospitals are underway, the literature is silent on how to facilitate such efforts in the community clinics that provide services to many chronic-care patients who are medically underserved. We offer a contextualist framework for developing IT-enabled chronic care management in community clinics. To under...