1,070 research outputs found
The Self-Organization of Stuff
No full textThe common description of the configuration of stuff in a room, one of order (tidy) and chaos (messy), fails to explain the phenomenon that artifacts create structures around people and activities in a space, with both functional and cognitive properties. This form of organization, that is recognizable on various scale levels, emerges spontaneously in the system, without the conscious intention of ordering. Following the growing insight in different disciplines that a theory of complexity can more adequately describe real-world phenomena than the classical causal-mechanistic model, a theory is proposed in which a third state, one of self-organization, is added to the order-chaos dichotomy. Stuff systems are considered complex systems, whose global patterns and properties unfold in time, generated through local interactions between the parts. When projecting models that describe complex system dynamics on stuff systems, much of what we observe in a house can be explained, such as the rise of order parameters structuring the parts, life cycles of accumulation, growth, restructuring and renewal, and interdependencies across scales.The problem here, is that the constant reconfiguration of stuff can only be explained through interaction with human beings, but does not solely follow a path of top-down design. A theory is proposed that links the self-organization of stuff to action identification theory. This theory from psychology explores the cognitive construct of the action (“what one thinks one is doing”) as an order parameter filtering incoming information and thus structuring behavior. Action identification and affordance creation act in parallel and can be considered a doubly complex system creating and created by the self-organization of stuff. Because of the process through which it emerges, this form of order is functionally optimized, cognitively logic and endlessly more complex than could be designed by drawing lines on paper. Architecture is always about order, while this order comes completely for free. The proposal following this theoretical explanation is therefore a house that uses these network-like structures as the organizational pattern of the design, instead of the traditional orthogonal ‘grid’. Three designer tools that are created following the research and a simulation through agent-based modeling in Netlogo are used in the design process to make this possible.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Explorela
Recensão crítica: How to get people to do stuff: master the art and science of persuasion and motivation
No full textRecensão crítica à obra de Susan Weinschenk, "How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the art and science of persuasion and motivation"“How to Get People to Do Stuff: Master the art and science of persuasion and motivation” is a book written by Susan Weinschenk that totally delivers what the author promises. This book presents several ways on how to get staff to do things from the perspective of managers. This is the book ideal for you to read if you are in a management position. If you are a teacher or a parent this could be also a book for you – most of the strategies can also be applied with kids or students. Finally, many of the strategies of the book can also be used in everyday life.
Susan Weinschenk has a Master and Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. She worked as a professor at State University of New York and has written several books about applying psychology to business environments. She is as well an experienced behavioural psychologist
Roving librarian at a mid-sized, UK based University
No full textChapter 5 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 48, no. 8) “Rethinking Reference and
Instruction with Tablets” details the “Roving Librarian” project carried out at a mid-sized
UK university. All subject librarians have been equipped with iPads or Android tablets and
sent out to rove. Regular times and places across the university have been arranged,
primarily in social areas and working spaces where students congregate; a librarian takes a
tablet computer and offers personalized assistance to students in these varied places.
Alongside this, ad hoc support is offered to staff and students in meetings and casual
encounters, facilitated by the constant access to the mobile devices. This chapter covers the
benefits we have seen with the project and gives the results of a questionnaire carried out to
determine whether a student would be likely to use the library more after their encounter with
the Roving Librarian
Other People's Stuff
No full textabstract: Other People's Stuff studies the relationships created between objects within their environment, and how these relationships amplify the exchange of human experience. By looking at tactile relationships, material culture, and both the functional and symbolic nature of objects, one can recognize that the relationships created exemplifies the importance of human awareness and perception, while creating a tangible social reality. The research paper is accompanied by a series of woven and printed art pieces that visually express the author's analysis
Parts as counterparts
No full textDate of Acceptance: 22/10/2013Mereological nihilists are faced with a difficult challenge: explaining ordinary talk about material objects. Popular paraphrase strategies involve plurals, arrangements of particles, or fictions. In this paper, a new paraphrase strategy is put forward that has distinct advantages over its rivals: it is compatible with gunk and emergent properties of macro-objects. The only assumption is a commitment to a liberal view of the nature of simples; the nihilist must be willing to accept the possibility of heterogeneous extended simples. The author suggests reinterpreting the parthood and composition relations as modal. According to this paraphrase, composition is a kind of counterpart relation. The author shows that one can accept that mereological nihilism is metaphysically necessary, while endorsing all the claims of classical mereology. As a result, the nihilists are in exactly the same position as the classical mereologist when it comes to explaining talk about ordinary objects, but without the additional ontology.Peer reviewe
When stuff gets covered in fluff in order to build up a paradoxical existence
No full textLiving immaterially in an over-materialized world seems to have become one of today’s paradoxes. More and more often what can’t be touched looks like getting greater “weight” than palpable things, commonly known as stuff. It seems that we are living in a “fluff-made world” as Richard Lanham, author of “The Economics of Attention” (2006) underlined in his study; a world he perceives as being mainly made up of information and visual representation. Even if we are dealing with everyday realities, talking about the surrounding fluff tends to receive a science fictional connotation. Various authors have fantasized over this topic, but getting inspired by a true story, Emma Donoghue succeeded into masterly depicting the ways in which a desperate mom got the power to deliberately mix fluff and stuff in a spectacular way. “Room” (2010) is a fascinating story of a young woman kidnapped, raped and locked up for years in a room together with her son
Laura White: The Stuff of Images
No full textCastlefield Publications. Concept, editing and design by Laura White and Graphic Design Studio HIT.
Distributor: Corner House Publications, Manchester.
The Sculptural Language of images investigated through the work of Laura White and text by Lisa Le Feuvre, Andrew Renton and Laura U Marks. Ideas are explored around the physical relationship to images, where image and object are dissolved into one another in creating a haptic experience. The documentation of White’s practice and the stuff of images, is embedded within the book and its production.
Lisa Le Feuvre - Head of Sculpture studies at the Henry Moore Institute. Independent curator (co curator British Art show 7)
Andrew Renton – Reader in Art, Goldsmiths College and Director of Marlborough Contemporary.
Laura U Marks – Writer and Professor of Art at Dena Wosk University and Culture Studies, School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University.
Book Launched at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, November 2008 and CARTER Presents, London, February 2009 alongside solo exhibition:
If I had a monkey I wouldn’t need a TV Part 1 and 2
Recruitment and stuff election from hardly employed groups
No full textTato práce se bude zabývat získáváním a výběrem pracovníků z obtížně zaměstnatelných skupin. Jejím cílem je zjistit zastoupení rizikových skupin a motivů jejich zaměstnávání ve vybraných společnostech, popsat, jak se v těchto společnostech řeší získávání a výběr z těchto skupin a na základě srovnání s teoretickými východisky navrhnout opatření pro oblast získávání a výběru pracovníků z obtížně zaměstnatelných skupin. V první části bakalářské práce budou popsána teoretická východiska pro získávání a výběr pracovníků a definovány obtížně zaměstnatelné skupiny. Druhou část práce bude tvořit výzkumné šetření, ve kterém se zhodnotí aktuální situace zaměstnávání vybraných obtížně zaměstnatelných skupin v daných oblastech a ve vybraných podnicích a následně na základě rozhovorů s představiteli dvou konkrétních podniků budou zjištěny motivy pro zaměstnávání vybraných rizikových skupin a popsán systém získávání a výběru pracovníků z těchto skupin. V poslední části budou na základě výstupů z daných rozhovorů navrhnuta opatření, která by mohla zlepšit situaci podniků v této oblasti.This bachelor thesis pursues the topic of recruitment and stuff election from hardly employed groups. The goal of this work is to find out the volume of employees from hardly employed groups and motivation of their engagement, describe, how are recruitment and stuff election from these groups solved in the companies and based on the comparison with theoretic resources offer the measures for sphere of recruitment and stuff election from hardly employed groups. In the first part of bachelor thesis will be described the background of recruitment and stuff election of employees and defined hardly employed groups. The second part of the thesis will consist of author´s own research, where the current situation of employing hardly employed groups in chosen companies will be considered. Based on interviews with the representatives of two chosen companies we will be also described the system of recruitment and stuff election from these hardly employed groups
Who Uses this Stuff, Anyway?
No full textA great deal of the professional literature is devoted to developing content and faculty buy-in for institutional repositories. However, little is known about the end users of these repositories. This is unfortunate since great content is of little value if no one uses it and knowing more about users and their needs leads to more relevant content. So, we need to ask ourselves: Who exactly is using this stuff, anyway? Since 2010, Utah State University has begun surveying its IR users to answer this question. DigitalCommons@USU houses more than 26,000 documents with full-text downloads of over 800,000. With this much content and activity, our 3-year old repository has matured to a point that we are beginning to shift our focus from just seeking content to understanding our users, their needs, and how we can better meet those needs. In this presentation, we will share the results of our survey, discuss the implications of the results, and propose future directions of investigation
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