A game of table tennis is analyzed using elementary concepts of calculus, probability, and linear algebra. The analysis includes modeling using different approaches and a comparison of the results obtained under the new and the old rules for the game. The analysis demonstrates the steps of a...

An interactive method for service design has been proposed for services that heavily depend on human expertise and performance. In this method a simulation model of the service processes is to be constructed based on ethnographic field observation, and then the model is to be validated by...

While the importance of ethnographic research for causal understanding is widely recognized, the logic of this argument has not been well articulated. The purpose of this paper is to specify the conditions under which direct field observations become essential for causal studies. It is argued in...

In this paper, I examine the decision-making process in the French Court of Asylum, which reviews appeals about decisions of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, granting or refusing refugee status. I consider the relationship between the substantial refusals...

Many studies illustrate the increasing power of financial officers in organisations, as related to a universal and inevitable process of financialisation. Through an ethnographic study, we tried to analyse concrete impacts on daily practices of this trend. We showed that the trajectory of...

Over the last forty years, nursing's claim to professional expertise has been expressed in terms of its care-giving function. Informed by a distinctive ‘holistic’ approach, models of nursing identify therapeutic relationships as the cornerstone of practice. While ‘knowing the patient’...