Mesh Quality: A Function of Geometry, Error Estimates or Both?

The issue of mesh quality for unstructured triangular and tetrahedral meshes is considered. The theoretical background to finite element methods is used to understand the basis of present-day geometrical mesh quality indicators. A survey of more recent research in the development of finite element methods describes work on anisotropic meshing algorithms, and on providing good error estimates that reveal the relationship between the error and both the mesh and the solution gradients. The reality of solving complex three-dimensional problems is that such indicators are presently not available for many problems of interest. A simple tetrahedral mesh quality measure using both geometrical and solution information is described. Some of the issues in mesh quality for unstructured tetrahedral meshes are illustrated by means of two simple examples.     

Anthropomorphism of computers: Is it mindful or mindless?

In analyzing the human tendency to treat computers as social actors (CASA), researchers tend to rule out the anthropomorphism explanation because anthropomorphism is understood to be “a sincere, conscious belief” that computers are human and/or deserving of human attributions. But, does anthropomorphism have to be necessarily mindful? Could it not also be a mindless tendency, especially given that most of us have somewhat long associations with our computers and have built human-like bonds with them? We examined these questions empirically by investigating whether the user tendency to treat computers as human beings is conscious (mindful) or non-conscious (mindless). We manipulated two variables (presence/absence of human-like agent and the low/high interactivity) on a health website and experimentally investigated whether they serve as anthropomorphic cues to trigger mindful attributions of human-ness to the website or mindless evaluations of the site in human terms. We found evidence for mindless anthropomorphism, with implications for user judgments of credibility of information on the site.     

Effective Leadership Style: Both Universal and Contingent?

More than 2,000 employees from different types of private and public organizations in Sweden and USA rated their managers with regard to actual and appropriate leadership style and the operation demands in the departments the managers were responsible for. Three aspects of these domains were measured, namely change, employees and production. The manager’s competence was also rated and used as a criteria for effectiveness. The results revealed that the subordinates do not experience much adjustment between actual leadership behavior and situational demands, but correlations between appropriate leadership style and organizational demands show that they observe a need for such adjustments. There are substantial correlations between rated actual leadership style and competence across situations. However, ANOVAs revealed some interaction effects of style and situation on competence for production-oriented leadership behavior. The results are viewed as support of the thesis that effective leadership is mainly universal.     

Is Zendia the Isle of Pines?

Among several authoritative and diverse sources, this article is an attempt by the author, who believes that the Isle of Pines is Zendia and that it was the first choice as a landing site to establish a provisional government in exile, to be followed by a second landing onto mainland Cuba.     

Is object-oriented requirements engineering of interest?

Different communities deal with the use of object-oriented (O-O) ideas for requirements engineering. Their views are different and many misunderstandings are around. Although O-O approaches are the most widely used in practice apart from pure natural language, there does not seem to be much interest in the scientific treatment of open issues in this regard. This article argues for taking such issues up (again).

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Presence: Is it just pretending?

Our sense of presence in the real world helps regulate our behaviour within it by telling us about the status and effectiveness of our actions. As such, this ability offers us practical advantages in dealing effectively with the world. It is also an automatic or intuitive response to where and how we find ourselves in that it does not require conscious thought or deliberation. In contrast, the experience of presence or immersion in a movie, game or virtual environment is not automatic but is the product of our deliberate engagement with it, an engagement which first requires a disengagement or decoupling with the real world. Of course, we regularly decouple from the real world and embrace other, possible worlds every time we daydream, or engage in creative problem solving or, most importantly, for the purposes of this discussion, when we make-believe. We propose that make-believe is a plausible psychological mechanism which underpins the experience of mediated presence.     

eGames: Is imagination the forgotten ingredient?

Commercial eGames strive to create seamless transitions between realistic virtual worlds. This condenses the experience and can create more intense engagement. However, there is no evidence that this is essential in eGames used for educational applications. Educators seek nearly opposite attributes. They need materials that can be disaggregated into units small enough to fit within timetables and that can be edited and customised to fit curricula without resort to programming. This paper proposes the alternative of a meta-game – a loose string of game and puzzle tasks in the tradition of heroes’ journeys, tournaments, scavenger hunts, and road rallies. Imagination and symbolism provide the links between otherwise unrelated clues, puzzles, and tasks. Spreadsheets serve as the ideal hub for meta-games. Current spreadsheets include form controls such as scroll bars and buttons, share the same multimedia applications as other office software, and can even create animation. The spreadsheet has the versatility to fill the niche of the cardboard box as a plaything. Research is reviewed that supports a role for eGames with less overt reward and more left to the imagination.     

Egypt's Ongoing Uprising and the Role of Social Media: Is there Development?

In an age, where social media is seen to be a new driving force and a vehicle with a significant impact on political transformation and change, this paper highlights some of the paradoxes and challenges it poses. It has become an important platform for the mobilization, organization and implementation of social movements around the world. However, Egypt's uprising was a function of people, passion and not of any particular communication technology, social media tool or application. It was definitely not the Facebook, Twitter or social media revolution, it was the people uprising that capitalized on state-of-the-art technology to realize a dream of a nation in availing “bread, freedom and social justice.” Having said that, there is no doubt that social media boosted the people's desire for a better future, democracy and socioeconomic development that was for many decades put on hold by the consecutive regimes that ruled Egypt since 1952. The role of social media was more of a catalyst, a driver, a communication tool that helped as a platform for societal change. Yet, the country is still in a state of flux driven by the force unleased through social media manifested in speeding-up the process and in the dissemination of information across different segments of the society irrespective of their social or economic background, location or age. Expectations are high and aspirations reflect the desire of a nation to level up to its full potential; it is going to take some time but undoubtedly Egypt is on the right track. This paper demonstrates the clash of generations between older state power and younger citizens and the role social media played in the political transformation in the build-up to Egypt's uprising in January 2011 and beyond.     

The Politics of Hostage Rescue: Is Violence a Route to Political Success?

Over the years, law enforcement agencies have acquired extensive experience with hostage incidents, and most Western countries have officers trained in all aspects of hostage resolution. There are also articles and manuals outlining how to deal with the media coverage of hostage takings (Scanlon, 1989). However, because hostage rescue efforts can provide dramatic visuals that attract enormous audiences, the media have steadily intensified their coverage of such incidents. Today, a group of previously obscure persons can suddenly dominate the media agenda by successfully resisting an armed assault or by seizing hostages and calling themselves terrorists. After defining a hostage incident and looking at the strategy for dealing with such incidents, this article examines the implications of two fatal incidents: the stand‐off involving religious fanatics at Waco, Texas; and the Air France hijacking that started in Algiers and ended in Marseille, France. Both became number one on the Western media agenda, and both became political crises involving the head of state; one threatening a president’s credibility, the other enhancing a president’s status. Together they suggest that the escalating media coverage of such incidents raises questions not only about the effectiveness of current response strategies, but also about political leadership. This article discusses a number of strategies that have been tried or suggested. It also debates whether involvement has a positive or negative effect on political leaders. It concludes that, from the evidence available, a successful hostage rescue can yield political rewards.     

Evaluating Anti-Virus Software: Which Is Best?

Abstract

A few years ago, computer securitymeant protecting yourself fromviruses and changing passwords.Today, computer security is much morecomplex and viruses have fallen to the back-ground. So how does one chose the bestvirus product today? What does one lookfor? This article provides some insight andsuggestions.     

Object-Oriented Analysis: Is It Just Theory?

Academic researchers and practitioners frequently describe a situation in which the object-oriented (OO) approach strongly supports the design and coding phases of software development but only weakly supports the analysis phase. Such observations conflict with impressions imparted by textbooks and training programs. This article examines whether object oriented analysis (OOA) theory has been deployed in practice (with or without support of computer-aided software engineering tools) or whether it exists only in theory. This study explores 54 projects, diverse in scope and topic, all of which were implemented using object-oriented tools. The study shows that practitioners haven't widely adopted the theoretically popular OOA and suggests a cost-benefit perspective, arguing that OOA fails to attract practitioners because of a low ratio of costs to benefits relative to other methodologies. In particular, practitioners perceive the cost of system modeling using OOA methodologies and UML diagrams as high relative to its benefits. The authors present of recommendations to reduce costs and increase benefits in OOA.     

Is the List of Incomplete Open Cubes Complete?

Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes is the major project by the twentieth-century conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. In this paper we interpret the enumerative component of the project as embeddings of graphs. This formulation permits use of an algorithm to check the completeness of the list of the structures produced by the artist. Our conclusion is that the artist found the correct number of structures (that is, 122), but that his list contains a mistake in the presentation of a pair of incomplete cubes, a discovery that appears not to have been noted before.     

What Is Common in Accounts of Common Ground?

Tenenberg, Roth, and Socha’s paper “From I-awareness to we-awareness in CSCW” is, or should be, of special significance to those in the CSCW and HCI communities with more than a passing interest in the theoretical issues that underpin our work. It can be argued, and I would be a proponent of this view, that fundamental intellectual disagreements too seldom get an airing in our community, perhaps because it is in large part conference driven. Because of this, underlying perspectival disagreements can appear rather arcane. One of the great merits of the contributions to this special issue, I hope and believe, is that they will appear less so after careful reading.     

Integration of Usability Evaluation Studies via a Novel Meta-Analytic Approach: What are Significant Attributes for Effective Evaluation?

The overall discovery rates, which are the ratios of sum of unique usability problems detected by all experiment participants against the number of usability problems existed in the evaluated systems, were investigated to find significant factors of usability evaluation through a meta-analytic approach with the n-corrected effect sizes newly defined in this study. Since many studies of usability evaluation have been conducted under specific contexts showing some mixed findings, usability practitioners need holistic and more generalized conclusions. Due to the limited applicability of the traditional meta-analysis to usability evaluation studies, a new meta-analytic approach was established and applied to 38 experiments that reported overall discovery rates of usability problems as a criterion measure. Through the meta-analytic approach with the n-corrected effect sizes, we successfully combined 38 experiments and found evaluator's expertise, report type, and interaction between usability evaluation method and time constraint as significant factors. We suggest that in order to increase overall discovery rates of usability problems, (a) free-style written reports are better than structured written reports; (b) when heuristic evaluation or cognitive walkthrough is used, the usability evaluation experiments should be conducted without time constraint, but when think-aloud is used, time constraint is not an important experimental condition; (c) usability practitioners do not need to be concerned about unit of evaluation, fidelity of evaluated systems, and task type; and (d) HCI experts are better than novice users or evaluators. Our conclusions can guide usability practitioners when determining evaluation contexts, and the meta-analytic approach of this study provides an alternative way to combine the empirical results of usability evaluation besides the traditional meta-analysis.