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Complex Material (complex + material)
Selected AbstractsThe perplexing role of learner control in e-learning: will learning and transfer benefit or suffer?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2010Benjamin P. Granger The appeal of e-learning is not surprising given its many proposed advantages (e.g. flexibility, responsiveness to trainees' individual needs, potential cost-effectiveness). However, as pointed out by Ruël et al., academic research in support of the proposed advantages of electronic human resource management systems is scarce. Although this is generally the case for technologically mediated training, the extant research on e-learning actually questions many of its proposed advantages. In this conceptual piece we (1) establish the link between e-learning and learner control, (2) summarize the advantages and disadvantages of learner-controlled e-learning, (3) briefly present the results of a recent study conducted in our research lab that addresses the disadvantages of learner-controlled e-learning for the training of complex material, and (4) discuss research-based recommendations for the application of learner-controlled e-learning in organizational settings. [source] Bringing Practitioner Experience into the Classroom: The United Nations Intensive Summer Study ProgramINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 4 2004Courtney B. Smith Diplomatic practitioners and policy makers represent an important, although frequently neglected, resource for teaching about international relations. The insights and stories provided by practitioners regarding key processes and events are often able to inspire our students to engage complex material and to play a much more active role in their own learning. While it is possible to argue that any type of practitioner contact is beneficial in terms of going beyond the material covered in textbooks, there are definite challenges associated with how to most effectively integrate these experiences with overall student learning. What type of format is most conducive to providing students with an insider's view? What type of preparation is required before contact with practitioners? How can student learning be evaluated in terms of assignments and debriefing activities? And finally, are traditional student feedback mechanisms appropriate for a course that involves a substantial practitioner component? This article investigates each of these challenges in the course of discussing one mechanism for bringing practitioner experience into the classroom, the United Nations Intensive Summer Study Program. [source] The Changing Power of ,Explanations': Directors, Academics and Their Sensemaking from 1989 to 2000JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 7 2002Annie Pye This paper is based on empirical research conducted with directors in large UK organizations, first in 1987,89, and again in 1998,2000. While the time frame has changed, the focus of the inquiry has remained constant , how do you ,run' a large organization , and data gathered reflect significant changes over time as to how the question is answered. This paper addresses one particular aspect of this complex material: the changing power of practitioner and academic explanations across the decade, highlighted by comparing and contrasting this data and its analysis over time. The paper illustrates a surprising degree of consistency (in contrast to 1987,89 findings) in practitioners' contemporary explanations of their organizing: all talk of strategic focus, shareholder value and corporate governance, phrases previously never mentioned. This reflects a variety of changes across the decade, including an important concentration of power amongst investors. As well as the methodological implications of ,repeating' this study, the changing power of academics' explanations ,on' organization is also discussed as conceptual frameworks gain and lose their resonance with the times. The paper concludes that sensemaking (Weick, 1995) offers the most appropriate perspective by which such shifts in the power of explanations may best be appreciated. [source] Reading information graphics: The role of spatial contiguity and dual attentional guidanceAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2009Jana Holsanova In a naturalistic newspaper reading study, two pairs of information graphics have been designed to study the effects of (a) the spatial contiguity principle and (b) the dual scripting principle by means of eye tracking measurements. Our data clearly show that different spatial layouts have a significant effect on readers' eye movement behaviour. An integrated format with spatial contiguity between text and illustrations facilitates integration. Reading of information graphics is moreover significantly enhanced by a serial format, resulting from dual attentional guidance. The dual scripting principle is associated with a bottom-up guidance through the spatial layout of the presentation, suggesting a specific reading path, and with a top-down guidance through the conceptual pre-processing of the contents, facilitating information processing and semantic integration of the material. The integrated and serial formats not only attract readers' initial attention but also sustain the readers' interest, thereby promoting a longer and deeper processing of the complex material. The results are an important contribution to the study of the cognitive processes involved in text-picture integration and offer relevant insights about attentional guidance in printed media, computer-based instructional materials and textbook design. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Very long-term recall and recognition of well-learned materialAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2002Tony Noice Three experiments examined very long-term verbatim memory (from 4 months to 28 years) for lengthy, complex material. Experiments 1 and 2 found that recall (12 and 20 months after the material was last accessed) was at or near ceiling for many participants, and was significantly higher than free-choice recognition, with recognition failure for recallable words (RF) being observed. The magnitude of the effect corresponded to that predicted by the Tulving,Wiseman (1975) function. Experiment 3 found that recall was at or near ceiling for 3 years, then declined dramatically as the retention interval increased. However, given equal amounts of context as retrieval cues, forced-choice recognition remained relatively strong for as long as 28 years. These findings provide evidence of long-term memory for exact details of complex discourse far in excess of previous demonstrations, and, under certain circumstances, extend the RF phenomenon to lengthy, well-learned texts over long retention intervals. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Charge Transport Physics of Conjugated Polymer Field-Effect TransistorsADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 34 2010Henning Sirringhaus Abstract Field-effect transistors based on conjugated polymers are being developed for large-area electronic applications on flexible substrates, but they also provide a very useful tool to probe the charge transport physics of these complex materials. In this review we discuss recent progress in polymer semiconductor materials, which have brought the performance and mobility of polymer devices to levels comparable to that of small-molecule organic semiconductors. These new materials have also enabled deeper insight into the charge transport physics of high-mobility polymer semiconductors gained from experiments with high charge carrier concentration and better molecular-scale understanding of the electronic structure at the semiconductor/dielectric interface. [source] Magnetoelectric Coupling Effects in Multiferroic Complex Oxide Composite StructuresADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 26-27 2010Carlos A. F. Vaz Abstract The study of magnetoelectric materials has recently received renewed interest, in large part stimulated by breakthroughs in the controlled growth of complex materials and by the search for novel materials with functionalities suitable for next generation electronic devices. In this Progress Report, we present an overview of recent developments in the field, with emphasis on magnetoelectric coupling effects in complex oxide multiferroic composite materials. [source] Structure of Ce2RhIn8: an example of complementary use of high-resolution neutron powder diffraction and reciprocal-space mapping to study complex materialsACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION B, Issue 2 2006J. L. Sarrao The room-temperature crystal structure of the heavy fermion antiferromagnet Ce2RhIn8, dicerium rhodium octaindide, has been studied by a combination of high-resolution synchrotron X-ray reciprocal-space mapping of single crystals and high-resolution time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction. The structure is disordered, exhibiting a complex interplay of non-periodic, partially correlated planar defects, coexistence and segregation of polytypic phases (induced by periodic planar `defects'), mosaicity (i.e. domain misalignment) and non-uniform strain. These effects evolve as a function of temperature in a complicated way, but they remain down to low temperatures. The room-temperature diffraction data are best represented by a complex mixture of two polytypic phases, which are affected by non-periodic, partially correlated planar defects, differ slightly in their tetragonal structures, and exhibit different mosaicities and strain values. Therefore, Ce2RhIn8 approaches the paracrystalline state, rather than the classic crystalline state and thus several of the concepts of conventional single-crystal crystallography are inapplicable. The structural results are discussed in the context of the role of disorder in the heavy-fermion state and in the interplay between superconductivity and magnetism. [source] |