Enacting language games: the development of a sense of ‘we‐ness’ in online forums

A sense of ‘we‐ness’– enacted through collective identity and culture – is both crucial in online, remote contexts, and particularly difficult to develop in such settings. Using Wittgenstein's concept of language games, we examine how participants of two online forums construct collective identity and culture through their discursive practices. We suggest a strong performative interpretation of the notion of language games, i.e. members of a community produce a sense of we‐ness through their participation in the language game while also defining their expected behaviours and actions. We illustrate how the notion of language games offers an approach for researching and analysing the emergence of collective identity and culture in online forums.     

Blogging privacy rule orientations,privacy management,and content deletion practices: The variability of online privacy management activity at different stages of social media use

The purpose of this study was to examine social media users’ blogging privacy rule orientations, privacy management regulation, and content deletion practices as distinct types of activity occurring at different stages of the blogging process (before, during, and after blogging) that may aid in understanding the functioning of blogging disclosure activity overall. The study was guided by a complementary application of both the uses and gratifications perspective and communication privacy management (CPM) theory. A central tenet of both theories suggests that people are variably active in their communication behavior. We identified five discrete blogger privacy rule orientations explaining different online choice-making practices: the self-centric, the utilitarian, the planner, the protector, and the unworried orientations toward blogging. We also identified six different motives for deleting previously-posted information: conflict management, protection of personal identity/safety, fear of retribution, employment security, impression management, emotional regulation, and relational cleansing. Path analysis revealed several direct and indirect paths among bloggers’ motives for deleting previously posted material and their level of disinhibition, blogging privacy rule orientations, amount of time blogging, and privacy management practices. As use of social media increases, exploring variations in privacy management regulation practices is critical.     

Emergence of Collective Behavior in Evolving Populations of Flying Agents

We demonstrate the emergence of collective behavior in two evolutionary computation systems, one an evolutionary extension of a classic (highly constrained) flocking algorithm and the other a relatively un-constrained system in which the behavior of agents is governed by evolved computer programs. The first system demonstrates the evolution of a form of multicellular organization, while the second demonstrates the evolution of a form of altruistic food sharing. In this article we describe both systems in detail, document the emergence of collective behavior, and argue that these systems present new opportunities for the study of group dynamics in an evolutionary context. We also provide a brief overview of the breve simulation environment in which the systems were produced, and of breve’s facilities for the rapid, exploratory development of visualization strategies for artificial life.     

Participation and common knowledge in a case study of student blogging

The interaction between participation and the emergence of common knowledge is the subject matter of this paper. A case study of a single class provides the focal point of analysis. During the semester the students participated in a blogging activity. As a result of their participation, the students create and distribute knowledge. The online efforts of the students can be described as participation in both a discourse and knowledge community. At one level, blogging is an activity composed of writing, reading, and commenting, and at a second level, the students share their thoughts in their own voices. At a third level, over the course of the semester, the student posts and commentary form a commons of information that can be mined later in the semester for other kinds of learning activities. Knowledge creation, distribution, and accumulation are analyzed in terms of student participation at both the level of individual events and from the perspective of an ongoing community.     

The role of identity in health information systems development: A case analysis from Mozambique

There is a need to look beyond the immediate process of implementation of computerized information systems to understand the broader social context in which the information and communication technology is being implemented. Using an interpretive approach to the implementation of a computerized health information system in a rural district in Mozambique we reconstruct an important aspect of this context from our interviews and observations—how the process of collective identity formation and information systems implementation are interconnected. Using this understanding of collective identity, we emphasize the importance of communication and shared meanings in developing and extending the primary health care network and in the successful implementation of a computerized health information system. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Collective agility,paradox and organizational improvisation: the development of a particle physics grid

This paper examines systems development in a global collaborative community of high‐energy physics and offers insights and implications for agile systems development in other large scale and distributed settings. The paper studies the ongoing construction of the UK's computing grid for particle physics (GridPP), a grid that is itself part of the world's largest grid, the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid. We observe in this project a collective, agile and distributed performance through which the Grid is constructed. We express this through the concept of ‘collective agility’ which captures a large distributed performance rather than the more conventional sense of agility as small‐group and deliberate systems development practices. The collective agility of GridPP is analysed as a process of ‘enacted emergence’ expressed through the dynamics of six improvisation paradoxes.     

An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging in higher education

Abstract   We report on a study involving Masters-level students who blogged as a part of a distance-learning course at the Open University, UK. We present an empirically-grounded framework that can be used to guide educators when they are considering blogging as part of their courses, and can be used by students' whose courses include blogging activities. In our analysis of semi-structured interviews with students, we identified six factors that influenced their blogging: perceptions of, and need for, an audience; perceptions of, and need for, community; the utility of, and need for comments; presentational style of the blog content; overarching factors related to the technological context; and the pedagogical context of the course. The students' blogging behaviours were varied and depended upon the way in which they addressed each of the six factors. These factors, along with the associated questions in the proposed framework, provide insights about the activity of blogging from a student's perspective. Therefore, the framework can guide the design of blogging activities in courses.     

Simulating Emergent Properties of Coordination in Maude: the Collective Sort Case

Recent coordination languages and models are moving towards the application of techniques coming from the research context of complex systems: adaptivity and self-organization are exploited in order to tackle the openness, dynamism and unpredictability of today's distributed systems. In this area, systems are to be described using stochastic models, and simulation is a valuable tool both for analysis and design. Accordingly, in this work we focused on modelling and simulating emergent properties of coordination techniques.We first develop a framework acting as a general-purpose engine for simulating stochastic transition systems, built as a library for the Maude term rewriting system. We then evaluate this tool to a coordination problem called collective sort, where autonomous agents move tuples across different tuple spaces according to local criteria, and resulting in the emergence of the complete clustering property.     

Gender Differences in British Blogging

This article asks whether blogging in the United Kingdom, which started later than in the United States, reproduces the gender differences in blogging behavior and the gender inequalities in recognition that have been observed in studies based largely on U.S. bloggers. A sample of 48 female and male British bloggers answered a questionnaire about their blogging practices and attitudes; data were also collected from their blogs and by means of online tools. For both sexes, blogging is mainly a leisure activity, and men and women find the same range of satisfactions in blogging. However, more women use blogging as an outlet for creative work, whether as a hobby or as a livelihood. The results support several reasons advanced in previous research for the lower public profile of women bloggers.     

Multimedia blogging in physical education: Effects on student knowledge and ICT self-efficacy

The main idea behind this study was to explore the educational potential of multimedia blogging for academic disciplines such as Physical Education (PE) that are not heavily based on written discourse and where multiple representations are important in learning. A class blog was utilized as a means for PE students to reflect on and showcase their performances of four specific basketball skills, through creating multimedia posts on these skills and receiving comments from their instructors, peers and an external expert. The effectiveness of multimedia blogging was evaluated, in terms of the acquisition of knowledge of the specific basketball skills and the self-efficacy in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), as compared to that of an equivalent multimedia website which lacked the blogging component. Students’ responses to the blogging activity were also investigated. The sample were 70 undergraduate PE students who were assigned to two groups, one of which used the class blog (Group A, N = 35) and the other one the website (Group B, N = 35), both for 11 weeks. The study followed a pretest/posttest experimental design, taking before and after measurements of each group through written questionnaires. Participation in the blogging activity did have a positive impact on students’ ICT self-efficacy, given that Group A students exhibited significant gains in Internet self-efficacy as well as in multimedia processing and blogging self-efficacy, whereas those of Group B did not. Students’ responses to the blogging activity were also positive. However, within both groups no significant increase was found in students’ knowledge of the basketball skills. The implications of the findings for higher education and future research are discussed.     

Bloggers and Readers Blogging Together: Collaborative Co-creation of Political Blogs

A significant amount of research has focused on blogs, bloggers, and blogging. However, relatively little work has examined blog readers, their interactions with bloggers, or their impact on blogging. This paper presents a qualitative study focusing specifically on readers of political blogs to develop a better understanding of readers?? interactions with blogs and bloggers. This is the first such study to examine the same blogging activity from both readers?? and bloggers?? perspectives. Readers?? significance and contributions to blogs are examined through a number of themes, including: community membership and participation; the relationship between political ideology, reading habits, and political participation; and differences and similarities between mainstream media (MSM) and blogs. Based on these analyses, this paper argues that blogging is not only a social activity, but is a collaborative process of co-creation in which both bloggers and readers engage. Implications of this finding contribute to the study and understanding of reader participation, to the design of technologies for bloggers and blog readers, and to the development of theoretical understandings of social media.     

Blogging Practices: An Analytical Framework

This article proposes a general model to analyze and compare different uses of the blog format. Based on ideas from sociological structuration theory, as well as on existing blog research, it argues that individual usage episodes are framed by three structural dimensions of rules, relations, and code, which in turn are constantly (re)produced in social action. As a result, "communities of blogging practices" emerge-that is, groups of people who share certain routines and expectations about the use of blogs as a tool for information, identity, and relationship management. This analytical framework can be the basis for systematic comparative and longitudinal studies that will further understanding of similarities and differences in blogging practices.     

Scientific Data Collections and Distributed Collective Practice

As the basic sciences become increasingly information-intensive, the management and use of research data presents new challenges in the collective activities that constitute scholarly and scientific communication. This also presents new opportunities for understanding the role of informatics in scientific work practices, and for designing new kinds tools and resources needed to support them. These issues of data management, scientific communication and collective activity are brought together at once in scientific data collections (SDCs). What can the development and use of shared SDCs tell us about collective activity, dynamic infrastructures, and distributed scientific work? Using examples drawn from a nascent neuroscience data collection, we examine some unique features of SDCs to illustrate that they do more than act as infrastructures for scientific research. Instead, we argue that they are themselves instantiations of Distributed Collective Practice (DCP), and as such illustrate concepts of transition, emergence, and interdependency that may not be so apparent in other kinds of DCPs. We propose that research into SDCs can yield new insights into institutional arrangements, policymaking, and authority structures in other very large-scale socio-technical networks.     

Towards an analysis framework for investigating students' engagement and learning in educational blogs

Educational blogs are currently gaining in popularity in schools and higher education institutions, and they are widely promoted as collaborative tools supporting students' active learning. However, literature review on educational blogging revealed a lack of a complete and consistent framework for studying and assessing students' engagement and the impact of blogging on students' learning. This study reports on the application of an analysis framework for evaluating blogging learning activities, based on two well‐documented models, those of Community of Inquiry (CoI) and Social Network Analysis. The framework proposed is examined through an empirical study involving 21 K‐9 students, coming from two classes, in Greece. This investigation shed light into the different ways of students' engagement in a blog‐based project, namely their social and cognitive presence that supported the development of a CoI and learning. The results suggest that the students, through their different roles in the blog, achieved higher thinking and cognitive levels.     

Applying an intelligent notification mechanism to blogging systems utilizing a genetic-based information retrieval approach

Blogging systems have received a lot of attention in recent years due to their wide spectrum of applications. The comment function is a significant part of a blog application, which can be used to gather the readers’ feedback and produce social interactions with them. However, most of the existing blogging systems only provide simple comment notification mechanisms for bloggers. Since a popular blog may receive thousands of comments in a short period of time, it is almost impossible for the notification mechanism to inform the blogger about every comment, even meaningful ones. In this paper, we propose a Two-stage Intelligent Notification Mechanism (TINM) for blogging systems to carry out intelligent comment notification, so that the blogger only receives meaningful comments. To reduce the computation cost in the keyword retrieval, a Genetic-based Information Retrieval Approach (GIRA) was designed. Experimental results show that the proposed approach reduces the computation cost during keyword retrieval, and still leads to near optimal results.     

Efficient Collective Communications in Dual-Cube

The hypercube, or n-cube, has been widely used as the interconnection network in parallel computers. However, the major drawback of the hypercube is the increase in the number of communication links for each node with the increase in the total number of nodes in the system. This paper introduces a new interconnection network, namely dual-cube, for large-scale parallel computers and describes the algorithms for efficient collective communications in dual-cube. The dual-cube network mitigates the problem of increasing number of links in the large-scale hypercube network while retains hypercube's topological properties. Design of efficient routing algorithms for collective communications is the key issue for any interconnection network. In this paper, we show that the collective communications can be done in dual-cube with almost the same communication times as in hypercube.     

受生物群体智能启发的多机器人系统研究

首先,介绍了生物社会中的群体智能．接着,讨论了群体机器人技术中的群体控制、群体通信和群体形态等主要研究内容及其发展趋势,并介绍了群体机器人系统的几个典型任务环境．最后,通过一个物体搜集任务的仿真实例来说明群体智能设计原则在多机器人系统中的应用．     

基于手机支付的停车场智能收费系统设计

设计了一种基于手机支付的停车场收费系统，该系统不仅应用了手机支付这一新型的支付手段，而且使用了人工智能技术作为车辆信息的自动输入手段，实现了整个系统的自动化、智能化，并保证了整个系统的安全性和可靠性。     

Blocking a chemical communication between Trichoplax organisms leads to their disorderly movement

ABSTRACT

We described an ‘expansion’ phenomenon of the Trichoplax sp. H2. The animals were transferred from algal mats to a Petri dish without food with the subsequent passage into the similar Petri dish. The animals’ motion and receding into the distance at the new place was modelled by the increasing spacing between individuals/objects. A collective behaviour of trichoplaxes was disrupted by the addition of 0.01% Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA), which assumedly blocked an interaction of signalling molecules with receptors. BSA-treated trichoplaxes demonstrated the stochastic motion that is in a good agreement with the model of independent random particles.     

Collaboration as an Activity Coordinating with Pseudo-Collective Objects

A coalition is a collaborative pattern inwhich people must work together to accomplish atask, but where organizational constraintsstand in the way of their making use of thecoordination techniques that typically enablecollaboration. Trinity is a software systemthat uses a virtual world to provide coalitionswith synthetic coordination capabilitiesfunctionally equivalent to those that occurnaturally in an organized collaboration. Thevirtual world functions as apseudo-collective object since it plays thecoordination role of a collective object. Thedesign philosophy underlying Trinity is heavilyinformed by some of the fundamental concepts ofActivity Theory. To illustrate these ideas, wewill examine below the case of coordinatingoperational information for the coalition ofpeople who maintain the stream of data coursingthrough a securities brokerage, describingalong the way the relevant Activity Theorybackground and the architecture of the virtualworld.