Ho Sum Yee May. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1997-98, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 123). / Chapter □ --- Introduction / Existing State / Chapter □ --- Background / Chapter □ --- Existing Problems / Chapter □ --- Client Profile / Chapter □ --- Opportunities / Chapter □ --- Keywords / Chapter □ --- Site Selection Process / Site Analysis / Site Analysis Summary / Future State / Chapter □ --- Mission / Chapter □ --- lssues& Goals / Chapter □ --- Performance Requirements / Chapter □ --- Concepts - Elements Proposed / Chapter □ --- Schedule of Accomodation / Chapter □ --- Bubble Diagrams of Spatial Relationship / Case Studies / Chapter □ --- Precedents Studies / Design State / Chapter □ --- Planning Strategy / Site impact & Strategy / Site Planning & Zoning / Functional Relationship / Chapter □ --- Building Design / Concept Develop / Design Exploration / Design Development / Chapter ´ةŒ --- the street along the underground plaza / Chapter ´ةŒ --- the gathering space for the public in the Channel Plaza / Chapter ´ةŒ --- structural expression of the Interactive News Gallery / Chapter ´ةŒ --- entering sequence of the Freedom Park / Chapter ´ةŒ --- environmental issues / Chapter □ --- Special Study / Mediarchitecture / Chapter □ --- Bibliography

Esta tese trata da atuação das novas instâncias participativas voltadas para a governança territorial constituídas para atender ao Programa de Promoção da Sustentabilidade de Espaços Sub-Regionais, da Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento Regional. Busca identificar a contribuição dos arranjos institucionais deliberativos, denominados Fóruns das Mesorregiões Diferenciadas, enquanto espaços privilegiados para a prática da democracia deliberativa, na governança do desenvolvimento dos seus respectivos territórios. Para tanto, foram escolhidos como objetos de estudo dois fóruns mesorregionais, localizados na macrorregião Sul do país, abrangendo os estados do Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina e Paraná. A abordagem empírica foca-se na atuação do Fórum da Mesorregião Metade Sul do Rio Grande do Sul (Fórum MESOSUL) e do Fórum da Mesorregião Grande Fronteira do Mercosul (Fórum MESO MERCOSUL), constituídos para atuar na integração e articulação dos diferentes atores regionais para a construção, implementação, monitoramento e avaliação de planos, projetos e ações de interesse público para o desenvolvimento das mesorregiões. Buscou-se por meio de uma base teórica-metodológica compreender a atuação e o processo de deliberação destes fóruns, enquanto estratégias inovadoras de governança territorial participativa, em novas escalas de planejamento do desenvolvimento. Com base neste propósito, buscou-se analisar a trajetória sócio-histórica dos Fóruns MESOSUL e MESO MERCOSUL enquanto possíveis instâncias de governança territorial. No estudo empírico dos Fóruns se verificou suas características de espaço de governança territorial participativa. A forma como as deliberações são efetivadas, representam uma inovação em relação às práticas tradicionais de planejamento e gestão do desenvolvimento, embora com algumas fragilidades e dificuldades, a atuação destes fóruns representa um avanço no processo de descentralização político administrativo, principalmente por atuarem em uma escala intermediária entre a municipal e a estadual, onde a multiplicidade de estruturas públicas e privadas se entrecruza, constituindo uma complexa rede de poder e de interesses individuais e coletivos. Conclui-se que os respectivos fóruns se enquadram como arranjos institucionais deliberativos e as suas práticas demonstram um esforço de governança territorial, mesmo que ainda não atenda aos modelos ideais. A expectativa quanto à realização desta pesquisa é a de contribuir com informações sobre o campo do conhecimento das políticas de desenvolvimento local/regional do país, bem como, das estruturas de governança territorial constituídas em espaços territoriais diferenciados. / This thesis focuses on the practice of the new participative bodies aimed at the territorial governance set to meet the Program for the Promotion of Sustainability of Sub-Regional Spaces, of the National Policy for Regional Development. It seeks to identify the contribution of deliberative institutional arrangements, called Forums of the Differentiated Mesoregions, while privileged spaces for the practice of the deliberative democracy, in the governance of the development of their respective territories. In order to do so, two mesoregional forums were chosen as study objects, located in the South macro-region of tthe country, comprising the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná. The empirical approach focuses on the practice of the Fórum da Mesorregião Metade Sul do Rio Grande do Sul - Forum of the Mesoregion Southern Half of (Forum MESOSUL) and the Fórum da Mesorregião Grande Fronteira do Mercosul – Forum of the Mesoregion of the Mercosur Great Border (Fórum MESO MERCOSUL), comprised to work in the integration and articulation of the different regional actors for the construction, implementation, monitoring and assessment of plans, projects and actions of public interest for the development of the mesoregions. We aimed, through a theoretical-methodological basis, to understand the work and the process of deliberation of these forums as innovative strategies of participative territorial governance, in new scales of development planning. Based on this purpose, the aim was to analyze the social-historical course of the MESOSUL and MESO MERCOSUL Forums while possible instances of territorial governance. In the empirical study of the Forums it has been noticed their characteristics of space of participative territorial governance. The way the deliberations are made represent an innovation in terms of the traditional planning practices and development management, although with some weaknesses and difficulties, the practice of these forums represents an advance in the process of political and administrative decentralization, mainly as they work in an intermediary scale between the city and state level, where the diversity of public and private institutions intertwines, resulting in a complex network of power and individual and collective interests. The conclusion is that the respective forums fit in as deliberative institutional arrangements and their practices show an effort of territorial governance even though it does not yet serve the ideal models. The expectation concerning the completion of this research is to contribute with information on the field of knowledge about policies of local/regional development of the country as well as structures of territorial governance comprised in differentiated territorial spaces.

World Social Forum, and the worldwide appearance of regional, national and local Social Forums (SF), is an important part of the movement for global justice. The aim of this thesis is to explore how the SF as a global phenomenon is interpreted and staged locally in Sweden. Central questions are: What local meanings are given to the SF phenomenon when it is introduced and organized in a local context? What relations are created between the various actors in this organizational process in terms of coalitions and power relations? How do the SFs relate to the Swedish institutionalized popular adult education? These questions are explored in the four articles on which this thesis rests. Ethnographic field studies of local organizational processes constitute the empirical basis of theoretically informed hermeneutic interpretations. A neo-gramscian perspective is used to analyze the SF as a potentially counter-hegemonic popular education phenomenon. This perspective has been complemented by mainly two theoretical concepts, that is, framing and symbolic capital. Results demonstrate how the emergence of SFs in Sweden is characterized by a widespread desire among various activists and organizations to build coalitions. In the establishment of SFs the institutionalized popular adult education play both the role of a source of economic and material resources and of being a link between various organizations. However, in the wide and formally open organizational process, specific distinctions and hierarchies arise that might neutralize the SF’s ideological impact and its potential for counter-hegemonic coalition construction. Finally, a Swedish academic debate on the concept of “folkbildning” (popular adult education) is addressed. It is argued that there is a need to widen the scope of this debate to more frequently focus on global (popular) educational phenomena (such as the social forums) in research on “folkbildning”, and not only pay attention to “typical” national or Nordic institutions and traditions.

This study is a research of the frequency of acronyms in an online forum and the meaning of the most frequent ones in their context. In the study, definitions are given for language forms used online so that one is able to compare a set of similarities and differences between these online varieties and the Standard English. The method consists of identifying and searching for a set of CMD-typical acronyms. These acronyms are taken from prior studies as well as from Crystal’s (2006:91f) list of known CMD-acronyms. The material is retrieved from an online forum of asynchronous communication, and the results show the frequency of the acronyms as well as discuss their meanings in context. The results indicate that acronyms are highly infrequent in asynchronous environments, and their use decreases from 2010 to 2013. The conclusion of this study is that the infrequency of acronyms in asynchronous environments may be due to the nature of asynchronous online communication, in which users have time to write their replies. When comparing this study’s corpora with studies on frequencies in synchronous environments, the acronym frequency in this study was lower than the frequency shown in the synchronous studies.

The development of virtual sponsored communities has created great possibilities for people and companies to interact on shared platforms. To create interaction in the community, it is essential to create the perception of trustworthiness of the community. The purpose of this study is to examine which concepts of trust-building constitute the perception of trustworthiness of virtual sponsored communities. A theoretical framework based on previous studies on trust-building in virtual communities is used to provide the basis for our empirical studies. The paper examines the virtual sponsored community of an online video game, World of Warcraft, with both quantitative surveys and qualitative netnographical observations to determine the important concepts which affect the perception of trustworthiness of the community from the perspectives of the sponsor and the gamers. Our findings show that the concepts of quality content, privacy policy, interaction, knowledge growth, satisfaction, embeddedness, shared value and perceived responsiveness constitute the perception of trustworthiness of the virtual sponsored community. The findings also show implications for causal relationships between the concepts affecting the perception of trustworthiness for future studies.

Nowadays, the rapid development of New Technologies of Information such as internet has a tremendous impact on people's life and environment. People now are not only using Blog and social network as a mean to share their life, but also they are using this platform to divulge and promote their diaries, articles, and life experiences. Fashion Guide, the most famous website in Taiwan, combining Blogs, social websites ,discussions forums is an eloquent example. This research is trying to find out whether Fashion Guide website has an influence on Taiwanese female purchasing behavior of cosmetics. This empirical evidence underscoring the impacts of websites such as Fashion Guide on females purchasing decision has the following outcomes: 1-Fashion Guide¡¦s members are over 80 percent and are mostly living in north of Taiwan, most of them are working for IT industries and their age range from 26 to 30 years old.2-The motivation of using the website lies on the fact that they are avoiding risks, above all the risk of getting the products they do not like.3-The members of Fashion guide find the discussion forums more trustworthy than social networks and Blogs.4-Most of members believe that Fashion Guide¡¦s website contents are more reliable than television commercials and suppliers cosmetics websites, therefore in the future marketing can make use of forums, social networks and blogs as a non-negligeable broadcasting platform.

Thèse doctorat : Sciences de Gestion : Strasbourg : 2006. / Thèse : 2006STR1EC08. Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. 16 p.

An electronic advice network provides employees opportunities to tap diverse experts within the organization at an unprecedented speed and scale. It is formed when an advice seeker initiates an online discussion thread joined by members of various communities, each specializing in a specific domain. This dissertation recognizes the substantial gap in our understanding of how to best harness the performance potential of expertise diversity provided through an electronic advice network within a firm. It thus investigates the process by and conditions under which expertise diversity in an electronic advice network promotes the advice seeker’s learning and performance. A field study was conducted via multi-methods including observation, interviews, and survey at a global company running discussion forums spanning internal virtual communities. The unit of analysis was at the discussion thread level. 190 discussion threads comprising 1,200 participants and associated outcomes (rated by their respective advice seekers) were analyzed. Findings suggest that, for the seeker to realize the performance potential of diverse inputs, discussion participants should facilitate the seeker’s learning by engaging in collective elaboration—articulating the differences and relevance of their diverse inputs. The seeker learned and performed the least when discussion participants were highly diverse but did not engage in collective elaboration. Discussion participants engaged in collective elaboration to the extent that they had previously established shared syntactic and semantic understanding of each other’s expertise domains through participation in each other’s communities. This dissertation contributes to the virtual communities literature by unearthing the relationships between expertise diversity and the advice seeker’s learning and performance and explaining when and how the seeker benefits from the diverse knowledge shared through an electronic advice network. The moderating role of collective elaboration explains why prior research may have found no or even a negative relationship between expertise diversity and discussion outcomes. It also contributes to the team literature by offering boundary conditions for the previous findings on expertise diversity and common ground. The collective elaboration construct can be also adopted by team diversity researchers to better understand where a disruption in the chain of group-level information processing may occur in some diverse teams. / text

Knowledge is the critical success factor for organizations to compete in the contemporary business world. Organizations that can make full use of their collective expertise and knowledge are likely to be more innovative, efficient and effective in the marketplace. With the development of advanced information and communication technology, organizations are undertaking various knowledge management initiatives to augment traditional ways of knowledge transfer. This dissertation intended to understand how various factors influence knowledge workers' knowledge sourcing behavior in the multimodal knowledge network. More specifically, our research question is: How do task characteristics, knowledge characteristics and individual characteristics influence knowledge workers' channel preferences during their knowledge sourcing activities?We built a knowledge sourcing preference model which predicts knowledge workers' preferences among various knowledge channels. We identified eight important antecedents from a wide spectrum of task characteristics, knowledge characteristics, and individual characteristics. We also identified three representative knowledge sourcing channels: face-to-face communication with colleagues, knowledge repositories, and discussion forums. We developed eight hypotheses on how each of the antecedent influence channel preferences.We tested our hypotheses through a survey we conducted in an international information technology company. Out of the eight hypotheses, the hypotheses on the influences from knowledge codifiability, knowledge volatility, extroversion/introversion dimension of the personality, and reciprocation wariness are supported. The hypotheses on the influences from task interdependency and task urgency are partially supported. The hypotheses on the influences from task routineness and expertise are not supported.This study furthers our understanding of knowledge workers' knowledge sourcing behavior in a multimodal knowledge network. The results of this study help organizations understand the advantages and disadvantages of various sourcing channels under certain circumstance of tasks, knowledge, and individuals. With this understanding, organizations will be able to have reasonable expectations on the utilization of knowledge transfer approaches, and to improve the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer initiatives. This will enable the organizations to cultivate environments or design systems to develop the types of channels to accommodate the preferences of knowledge workers with various combinations of tasks, knowledge and individual characteristics.

This study used a skill theory framework (Fischer & Bidell, 2006) and a microdevelopmental lens to characterize how six grade 8 students' conceptual understanding of conservation of matter changed in the context of a short discussion-based instructional unit. On average, students' conceptual understanding increased significantly, suggesting that a discussion-based approach might be effective in supporting students' learning. The general characteristics of focus students' microdevelopmental pathways were in accordance with those found in other microdevelopmental studies (e.g., Yan & Fischer, 2002), but changes in complexity of misconceptions might be intricately linked to how students learned conservation of matter. The analysis of conversational dimensions suggested that doubting, among other factors, might play an important role in students' learning. This study argues for an integrated microdevelopmental approach that includes conversational dimensions and characterizes changes in the complexity of misconceptions.