Analyse von Innovationsprozessen im Kontext von E-Government

E-Government requires technical and organizational innovation. Research has already shown that the respective innovation process is complex and contingent upon specific organizational structures. Managing such innovation processes successfully is difficult. Drawing on assumptions of micropolitical behavior, a framework of innovation arenas is proposed. It supports the analysis of ongoing E-Government projects as well as the ex post investigation of successful or failed projects. Testing this framework in case studies already demonstrates its usefulness for individual actors making strategic choices about change management. Furthermore, the results indicate that many commonly held assumptions about successful change management have to be reconsidered.     

Families at Risk: Comment on Dirkzwager, Bramsen, Adèr, and van der Ploeg (2005).

New findings from a study by A. J. E. Dirkzwager, I. Bramsen, H. Adèr, and H. M. van der Ploeg (2005; see record 2005-06518-006) provide important empirical information on the adverse psychological and functional adjustment of families of former Dutch peacekeepers suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this comment the authors consider a few methodological limitations and issues for future study, including the need for intergenerational studies of the legacy of peacekeeping-related PTSD. Attention to considering the treatment needs of families of traumatized former peacekeepers is encouraged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commentary on special issue of Canadian Psychology devoted to political correctness.

Comments on the articles of J. J. Furedy (see record 199801996-002), O. E. Favreau (see record 199801996-003), H. J. Klatt (see record 199801996-004), C. Stark (see record 199801996-005), and K. S. Dobson (see record 199801996-007), on the multifaceted topics surrounding political correctness in academia, including academic freedom, and women's issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Ontology Based Cyclone Tracks Classification Using SWRL Reasoning and SVM

Abstract: Tropical cyclones (TC) are often associated with severe weather conditions which cause great losses to lives and property. The precise classification of cyclone tracks is significantly important in the field of weather forecasting. In this paper we propose a novel hybrid model that integrates ontology and Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify the tropical cyclone tracks into four types of classes namely straight, quasi-straight, curving and sinuous based on the track shape. Tropical Cyclone TRacks Ontology (TCTRO) described in this paper is a knowledge base which comprises of classes, objects and data properties that represent the interaction among the TC characteristics. A set of SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) rules are directly inserted to the TCTRO ontology for reasoning and inferring new knowledge from ontology. Furthermore, we propose a learning algorithm which utilizes the inferred knowledge for optimizing the feature subset. According to experiments on the IBTrACS dataset, the proposed ontology based SVM classifier achieves an accuracy of 98.3% with reduced classification error rates.     

Investigating touchscreen typing: the effect of keyboard size on typing speed

Two studies investigated the effect keyboard size has on typing speed and error rates for touchscreen keyboards using the lift-off strategy. A cursor appeared when users touched the screen and a key was selected when they lifted their finger from the screen. Four keyboard sizes were investigated ranging from 24.6 cm to 6.8 cm wide. Results indicate that novices can type approximately 10 words per minute (WPM) on the smallest keyboard and 20 WPM on the largest. Experienced users improved to 21 WPM on the smallest keyboard and 32 WPM on the largest. These results indicate that, although slower, small touchscreen keyboards can be used for limited data entry when the presence of a regular keyboard is not practical. Applications include portable pocket-sized or palmtop computers, messaging systems, and personal information resources. Results also suggest the increased importance of experience on these smaller keyboards. Research directions are suggested.     

Dimensions underlying children's emotion concepts.

Prior evidence had indicated that for adults, emotion concepts (as indexed by words such as "happiness," "fear") are interrelated in a highly systematic fashion. These interrelationships can be represented by placing emotion words in a roughly circular order in a 2-dimensional space. The axes of the space are interpretable as the bipolar dimensions of pleasure–displeasure and arousal–sleepiness. In this study, teachers provided a set of emotion words they thought to be the emotion lexicon of their pupils; the interrelationships among these emotion concepts were explored in 4 studies with 677 3rd–7th graders and 34 undergraduates: 2 factor-analytic studies of self-report data and 2 multidimensional-scaling studies of similarity data. All 4 studies supported the hypothesized circular ordering of emotion words within a 2-dimensional space and the interpretation of the dimensions as pleasure and arousal. The 2-dimensional structure accounted for the data of 3rd graders, almost as well as it did for college students; there were no age differences in the salience of either of the 2 dimensions. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)