Content analysis comprises a set of techniques for organizing communication/information - a procedure used with qualitative data to make themes/topics and concepts/knowledge emerge. Communication content, considering human written or spoken discourse, is complex and presents valuable polysemous characteristic. With the dissemination of the clinical-qualitative method, the use of content analysi...

This article will closely examine the phenomenological method as applied to qualitative inquiry in psychology and psychiatry. In a critical comparison between Amedeo Giorgi's and Larry Davidson's qualitatively methods, conclusions were drawn with regard to how different kinds of qualitative inquiry are possible while remaining faithful to Husserlian philosophical foundations. Utilizing Lester E...

A diagnostic algorithm is described in this article that is based on clustering qualitative event sequences called traces. A sufficient number of training traces are used instead of an internal model to specify the faulty models of the system. The diagnosis consists of two phases. In the off-line training phase diagnostic clusters representing nominal and faulty behavior are formed from the set...

The article presents discourse analysis as a method of analyzing qualitative interview data. Using examples from a study of users’ library conceptions, it is argued that participants’ interpretations are much more context-dependent and variable than normally recognized, and that this has important implications for the use of interview data. Instead of producing definitive versions of participan...

Background Metasynthesis-the systematic review and integration of findings from qualitative studies-is an emerging technique in medical research that can use many different methods. Nevertheless, the method must be appropriate to the specific scientific field in which it is used. The objective is to describe the steps of a metasynthesis method adapted from Thematic Synthesis and phenomenology t...

Qualitative reasoners have been hamstrung by the inability to analyze large models . This includes selfexplanatory simulators, which tightly integrate qualitative and numerical models to provide both precision and explanatory power . While they have important potential applications in training, instruction, and conceptual design, a critical step towards realizing this potential is the ability t...

Teaching family medicine residents how to conduct research is increasingly being seen as a crucial component of their training, in part as a means of strengthening the discipline and in part to improve their practices. Whereas quantitative methods once dominated approaches to medical research, the application of qualitative methods is seen as an effective way to study issues in primary care.1-3...

Due to the lack of exact quantitative information or the difficulty associated with obtaining or processing such information, qualitative spatial knowledge representation and reasoning often become an essential means for solving spatial constraint problems as found in science and engineering. This paper presents a computational approach to representing and reasoning about spatial constraints in...

Conventional emotion classification methods focus on predefined segments such as sentences or speaking turns that are labeled and classified at the segment level. However, the emotional state dynamically fluctuates during human interactions, so not all the segments have the same relevance. We are interested in detecting regions within the interaction where the emotions are particularly salient,...