Visualizing Our Way through Theory Building

Intraoperative Automated Radiographic Visualization Tool Allows for Higher Accuracy of Cam Lesion Resection When Used by Novice Surgeons for Arthroscopic Femoroplasty: Lowering the Learning Curve

This article explores the perspectives of police officers and police civilian staff in England who engage with social media as part of their professional practice. It uniquely focuses on how these police professionals use visual tools, namely photographs, videos, emojis, infographics, memes and visual GIFs as part of their communicative police practices. The research is informed by qualitative interviews with police participants. Drawing on perspectives related to police visibility and semiotics, we explore ways in which the police attempt to extend traditional manifestations of visibility and to develop a ‘digital visibility’ through the purposeful and strategic use of visual tools. Four themes are identified relating to the motivations and use of visual tools online – standing out and developing a symbolic police presence online; the development of digital visibility of police work; humanising police digital interactions; and the challenges of incorporating the visual.

Исследуется применение визуализации грамматики как эффективного средства обучения русскому языку студентов-билингвов. Цель исследования состоит в теоретическом обосновании использования средств визуализации. Гипотеза исследования заключается в том, что в процессе обучения студенты-билингвы нуждаются в визуальной поддержке, так как зрительное восприятие целостного образа учебной информации существенно активизирует когнитивные процессы при выполнении учебных заданий. В качестве визуального средства были рассмотрены тестовые задания. В работе дается анализ преимуществ использования визуализации как дидактического средства, раскрыты методические аспекты его использования на курсах русского языка как неродного. Сделаны выводы о том, что использование средств визуализации активизирует психические процессы, способствует эффективному усвоению материала. The article examines the use of grammar visualization as an effective means of teaching Russian to bilingual students. The purpose of the study is to theoretically substantiate the use of visualization tools. The hypothesis of the study is that bilingual students need visual support in the learning process, since visual perception of a holistic image of educational information significantly activates cognitive processes when performing educational tasks. The test tasks were considered as a visual aid. The paper analyzes the advantages of using visualization as a didactic tool, reveals the methodological aspects of its use in courses of Russian as a non-native language. It is concluded that the use of visualization tools activates mental processes and promotes effective learning of the material.

Teaching bioethics with visual education tools, such as movies and comics, is a unique way of explaining the history and progress of human research and the art and science of medicine to high school students. For more than a decade, bioethical concepts have appeared in movies, and these films are useful for teaching medical and research ethics in high schools. Using visual tools to teach bioethics can have both interpretational and transformational effects on learners that will enhance their overall understanding of complex moral and legal issues in medicine and research.High school students are uniquely suited to learn bioethics because they will soon become legal adults. As adults, they will make moral decisions that may affect their health and wellbeing as well as that of their communities and societies.However, not all visual education tools are appropriate for bioethics pedagogy in high school. Bioethics film and comic producers must consider the specifics of student age, race, gender, belief, level of education, and sexual orientation. Such tools must not be dominated by either dystopic or utopic genres, must aim for objectivity, and must consider the complexity of ethical decision making. It is critical that the teacher, who is the final arbiter regarding the use of visual tools in the classroom, determines that the visual learning tool is acceptable for students in any particular education context. In addition, during the conceptualization and creation of these tools, bioethics film and comic producers must work harder to ensure that these visual tools are devoid of any form of stereotyping.

Visual Tools for Developing Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Capacity identifies and documents pedagogical and practice-based visual approaches to scaffolding and developing these capacities in your classes, with your clients or in your teams. The editors have selected a diverse range of best practice case studies and theoretical frameworks from leading international educators and practitioners across a broad range of disciplines to illustrate how visual tools can be used to greatest effect. Divided into four logically sequenced sections, the book will progressively build upon the array of visual tools you can employ in your practice. Initially starting with tools for collaboration it expands to include ways to overcome the challenges of cross-disciplinary collaboration. Building on this foundation you will then explore visual tools for stimulating and supporting Innovation in classrooms, with clients and customers, or your team. The third section introduces strategies for selecting visual tools to aid in Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities. The final section provides you with case studies of fully integrated practice where teams have collaborated to innovate and bring the resultant outputs to market. Visual tools for Developing Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Capacity is the perfect companion for an educator, facilitator or practitioner to help students, clients or teams maximize their potential through the use of visual tools. Read cover to cover or dip in as you need to.

A visualization tool for the kernel-driven model with improved ability in data analysis and kernel assessment

Many global organizations provide valuable sources of country-specific data to the general public. The data are a very good source of secondary information to the global firms making country entry decisions as well as providing input to the policy makers in the international organizations and the country governments. One such organization is the World Economic Forum disseminating the results of a global competitiveness study every year. The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) focuses on 12 variables that are deemed to be important for the country’s competitiveness and hence suitability for investment. The coverage of the GCI has been increasing over the years. The latest report (2012-2013) carries data on 144 countries. With the amount of data increasing it becomes important to summarize the intrinsic elements with the use of visual tools. Multivariate statistical tools could summarize vast amounts of data while retaining the critical pieces of information and the interdependencies between the variables and the objects. This chapter demonstrates the use of two such techniques, namely Cluster Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) on the World Economic Forum 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness data.

The paper explores the benefits of using various software-generated visualization techniques to engage the public in decision-making, particularly at the local level. In this context, issues of development and use of visualization tools for effective support of landscape planning and effective integration of visualization into the planning process of urban development have received special attention. Modeling methods, GIS, social networks, and automatic text analysis are considered as components for building a powerful e-government system to facilitate public participation in it.

Although the fields of data visualization and automated knowledge discovery (AKD) share many goals, workers in each field have been reluctant to adopt the tools and methods of the other field. Many AKD researchers discourage the use of visualization tools because they believe that dependence on human steering will impede the development of numerical or analytical descriptions of complex data. Many visualization researchers are concerned that their present platforms are being pushed to the limits of their performance by the most advanced visualization techniques and are therefore unwilling to incur the perceived overhead of having a database system mediate access to the data. We argue that these attitudes are somewhat short-sighted and that the techniques of these two communities are complementary. We discuss a specific visualization system that we have developed and describe the obstacles that must be overcome in integrating it into an AKD system. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

BackgroundIdentifying key determinants is crucial for improving program implementation and achieving long-term sustainment within healthcare organizations. Organizational-level complexity and heterogeneity across multiple stakeholders can complicate our understanding of program implementation. We describe two data visualization methods used to operationalize implementation success and to consolidate and select implementation factors for further analysis.MethodsWe used a combination of process mapping and matrix heat mapping to systematically synthesize and visualize qualitative data from 66 stakeholder interviews across nine healthcare organizations, to characterize universal tumor screening programs of all newly diagnosed colorectal and endometrial cancers and understand the influence of contextual factors on implementation. We constructed visual representations of protocols to compare processes and score process optimization components. We also used color-coded matrices to systematically code, summarize, and consolidate contextual data using factors from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Combined scores were visualized in a final data matrix heat map.ResultsNineteen process maps were created to visually represent each protocol. Process maps identified the following gaps and inefficiencies: inconsistent execution of the protocol, no routine reflex testing, inconsistent referrals after a positive screen, no evidence of data tracking, and a lack of quality assurance measures. These barriers in patient care helped us define five process optimization components and used these to quantify program optimization on a scale from 0 (no program) to 5 (optimized), representing the degree to which a program is implemented and optimally maintained. Combined scores within the final data matrix heat map revealed patterns of contextual factors across optimized programs, non-optimized programs, and organizations with no program.ConclusionsProcess mapping provided an efficient method to visually compare processes including patient flow, provider interactions, and process gaps and inefficiencies across sites, thereby measuring implementation success via optimization scores. Matrix heat mapping proved useful for data visualization and consolidation, resulting in a summary matrix for cross-site comparisons and selection of relevant CFIR factors. Combining these tools enabled a systematic and transparent approach to understanding complex organizational heterogeneity prior to formal coincidence analysis, introducing a stepwise approach to data consolidation and factor selection.

The article discusses the terminological aspects of the study of heterogeneous spatial systems. The specificity of this object of socio-economic research is multidimensional, which manifests itself in significant specificity for each separately considered case. Multivariance is expressed in the degree of heterogeneity, in the nature of the manifestation of heterogeneity and its combinations. In fact, we are dealing with completely different objects of study. Currently, there is a terminological confusion caused by the unsystematic use of the terminological apparatus, as well as its insufficient clarification in each specific situation. In particular, in socio-economic studies of heterogeneous spatial systems use logistic or legal terms, the concept of “transport corridor” means completely different things in the understanding of different authors (from the route of movement of the cargo, to the socio-economic community). In our article, a systematization of the conceptual apparatus of some elements of a heterogeneous spatial system from the point of view of socio-economic research is proposed. Author's definitions for the selected terms are proposed and methodological limitations of their use are determined. Conceptually new is the use of visualization tools (in our case, geoinformatics tools) in order to overcome terminological confusion and most correctly determine the object of study in each individual case. The use of the proposed terminology and methodology in the article was tested on the example of the structure of the interregional socio-economic zone of the transport corridor Ural - Northern Kazakhstan, including the agglomerations and agglomeration processes located in the transboundary zone.

Agile Project Management (APM) is a standard approach in the software industry, and because of its success in allowing projects to better meet its requirements, its application has lately been extended to other industries, without prejudice of its underlying principles and advantages. Among APM practices there are: iterative and incremental deploying the product, presence of informal communication and low bureaucracy and use of visual tools. Additionally, sprints allow the exercise of creativity to solve the presented problem and just-in-time planning to better use people’s time. However, adapting practices that were designed for developing a software to other types of products poses many challenges. To shed some light as to how agile practices may be adapted to different contexts, this work conducts a case study of a project in manufacturing that adopted an agile approach. The objective is to analyze how agile practices were applied in this project, from the factory floor to the car dealership. The analyzed project aimed to improve the quality of the after sales services of the company, reducing the percentage of customers problems and complaints related to the service. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the agile coach responsible for the project, which divided the analysis into five areas of study: work and efforts, materiality, agency and creativity, knowledge, and interests and power. Results showed that the highlighted areas are interrelated, since their benefits intertwine while achieving project success. These observed benefits match the application of APM in a software project and were related to practices such as the use of small teams, periodic short meetings, and tools for informal communication. These characteristics made improved project agility and eliminated unnecessary formal documentation and communication. Nevertheless, not all the characteristic tools of APM were used, for example, there was a lack of a project’s backlog and the utilization of an agile board, even though visual monitoring was used during the project’s execution. Future research is proposed to amplify the study, analyzing other types of projects, and develop a framework with the best practices found to implement the APM methodology outside of software projects.KeywordsAgile project managementQualityAutomotive industry

No ensino de Bioquímica a compreensão da natureza tridimensional tem sido favorecida pelo uso de ferramentas de visualização e representação de conceitos e processos. Entre estas ferramentas encontram-se os modelos concretos, que permitem, além da aprendizagem conceitual, o desenvolvimento de habilidades visuais fundamentais para a transição entre o nível macroscópico e submicroscópico. Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar as contribuições da construção e do uso de modelos 3D impressos para a aprendizagem do conceito de interação enzima-substrato, pelos licenciandos em Química matriculados na disciplina obrigatória de Bioquímica. Desenhos foram utilizados para investigar a ideia de “interação enzima-substrato”, no início e no final de uma sequência de atividades de modelagem 3D realizadas pelos licenciandos. A análise do uso dos modelos 3D impressos no processo de ensino e aprendizagem do conceito de interação enzima-substrato foi realizada comparando-se os elementos codificados nos desenhos antes e após a participação nas atividades de modelagem 3D. Os resultados apontam que a participação dos estudantes na construção dos modelos 3D impressos contribuiu para a percepção de aspectos químicos da interação enzima-substrato, no sentido de compreender a complexidade do fenômeno em questão.

The activity of tens to hundreds of neurons can be succinctly summarized by a smaller number of latent variables extracted using dimensionality reduction methods. These latent variables define a reduced-dimensional space in which we can study how population activity varies over time, across trials, and across experimental conditions. Ideally, we would like to visualize the population activity directly in the reduced-dimensional space, whose optimal dimensionality (as determined from the data) is typically greater than 3. However, direct plotting can only provide a 2D or 3D view. To address this limitation, we developed a Matlab graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to quickly navigate through a continuum of different 2D projections of the reduced-dimensional space. To demonstrate the utility and versatility of this GUI, we applied it to visualize population activity recorded in premotor and motor cortices during reaching tasks. Examples include single-trial population activity recorded using a multi-electrode array, as well as trial-averaged population activity recorded sequentially using single electrodes. Because any single 2D projection may provide a misleading impression of the data, being able to see a large number of 2D projections is critical for intuition-and hypothesis-building during exploratory data analysis. The GUI includes a suite of additional interactive tools, including playing out population activity timecourses as a movie and displaying summary statistics, such as covariance ellipses and average timecourses. The use of visualization tools like the GUI developed here, in tandem with dimensionality reduction methods, has the potential to further our understanding of neural population activity.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional model for assessing the quality of corporate environmental reporting (CER) incorporating both preparer- and user-based views.Design/methodology/approachAs opposed to frequently used researcher-chosen proxies, the authors used an online questionnaire asking preparers and users how they assess the quality of a company’s environmental report.FindingsThe analysis of the responses of 177 users and 86 preparers shows that quantity was not perceived as the most significant element in determining quality. Besides quantity, the respondents also perceived information types, measures used, themes disclosed, adopting reporting guidelines, inclusion of assurance statement and the use of visual tools as significant dimensions/features of reporting quality.Research limitations/implicationsThe online questionnaire has some limitations, especially in terms of researcher being absent to clarify meanings and, hence, possibilities that respondents may misinterpret the questionnaire elements.Practical implicationsConsidering that robust, reliable measurement of reporting quality is difficult, preparers, standard setters and policy makers need multidimensional quality models that incorporate both users’ perceptions of quality and preparers’ pragmatic understanding of the quality delivery process. These will make the preparers informed of whether their disclosure may be falling short of users’ expectations.Originality/valueAmid, increasing complexity of CER, the research contributes to the growing body of literature on assessing the quality of CER by developing a less subjective, multidimensional, preparer–user-based quality model. This innovative quality model goes beyond the traditional quality models, subjective author-based quality measures. Focussing on the three dimensions of reporting quality – content, credibility and communication – it also offers a high-level resolution of meaning of CER quality.