The paper begins by pointing out the diversity of philosophical positions within information systems, and the range of reactions to this diversity. It then discusses problems within the underlying philosophies of science, particularly positivism and interpretivism. With this as a background, the paper proposes critical realism as an underpinning philosophy that has the potential to overcome bot...

The superiority of deformable human fingertips as compared to hard robot gripper fingers for grasping and manipulation has lead to a number of investigations with robot hands employing elastomers or materials such as fluids or powders beneath a membrane at the fingertips. When using such materials, it is important to account for their properties during manipulation. The rigid-body rolling kinem...

Non-profit organizations provide a large number of services of public interest, and play an important role in Australian society and economy. These organizations can very often improve or expand services to the public through the implementation of appropriate information systems and technologies. Such implementation requires undertaking a strategic information systems planning (SISP) process, a...

abstractone challenge face political system is implementation national development. there are various models for national development. some countries have relied on import model, but other has emphasis on their indigenous, the purpose of this study is designing intelligence development model in iranian national context. based on the selected theory building methodology, we have theorized intell...

facing the issues with structural complexity about which stakeholders have different views, has increasingly led to the use of soft systems methodology (ssm) in solving managerial problems. moreover, the flaws of this methodology in the stages of modeling and feasible, desirable changes, have provided the motivation for applying cognitive map (cm) and system dynamics in the ssm modeling. presen...

Cyber-infrastructures have transformed the practice of research. Researchers can now access distributed data worldwide with the help of cyber-infrastructures. User support services play an important role to facilitate researchers to accomplish their research goals with the help of cyber-infrastructures. However, the current user-support practices in cyberinfrastructures are not properly organiz...

This paper discusses the methodological implications of using participatory research in the advocacy for better care and education services for children and families. The discussion uses the example of a national study undertaken in Singapore to show how participatory research used in collaboration with participants and commissioning body as key stakeholders can help to galvanise transformative...

Soft hadron production is described as a two-step process, where the interaction of the partonic constituents of the colliding hadrons leads to the production of intermediate subsystems (fireballs), which decay subsequently into hadrons. The weights of the various final states are derived from the corresponding phase-space factors modified by empirical transition elements. The results compare w...

In this article we seek to understand and clarify the contribution of the multifaceted concept of sociality towards the design of social software systems. Our premise is that it is not software as such that is social, but the free choice of people to engage in social activities. Paraphrasing Wenger (1998): sociality cannot be designed; it can only be designed for. We adopt a soft systems approa...