Resemioticization of Periodicity: A Social Semiotic Perspective

Chemical periodicity is arguably one of the most important ideas in science, and it has profoundly influenced the development of both modern chemistry and physics (Scerri 1997, 229). While the definition of periodicity has remained largely stable in the past 150 years, the periodic system has been visualized in a wide range of forms including (to name just a few) tables, spirals, and zigzags. Furthermore, information technology makes it much easier, and offers innovative ways, to produce new versions of periodic depictions (e.g., WebElements (Winter 1993)). The multitude of periodic visualizations arouses growing interest among scholars with different academic backgrounds. For instance, educational researchers and practitioners (e.g., Waldrip et al. 2010) wrestle with the question of which visual representation will most effectively help students master the subject content of periodicity. Likewise, philosophers tend to identify the ultimate display of the periodic system, which they use as evidence to support a realistic view of periodicity (Scerri 2007, 21). Other researchers, however, take a different attitude toward the stunning diversity of periodic depictions. In a seminal paper, Marchese (2013) examines the visualization of periodicity at different stages of history from the perspectives of tabular, cartographic, and hypermedia design. His analysis illuminates the periodic table’s plasticity and endeavors to justify the constant transformation of the periodic displays as a necessary means to meet scientists’ changing needs. While all these studies generally emphasize the importance of periodic depictions in scientific research and education, they tend to give primacy to the notion of “periodic system.” By contrast, the periodic table seems to play a secondary role, which either passively reflects the chemical law or responds to the evolving knowledge of chemical elements. Such a view runs the risk of underestimating the significant function of the periodic table as a productive research tool, one which enabled Mendeleev to successfully predict the existence and the properties of undiscovered elements such as germanium in 1869 (Kibler 2007, 222). It is important to note that science and technology are “both material and semiotic practices” (Halliday 1998, 228, italics in original).

Cultural Adaption of Hypermedia

Culturally adapted hypermedia design attracts increasing scientific attention. Complementing the conventional human-computer interaction studies we investigate the current state of companies’ cultural adaptation of their websites. This study evaluates a sample of 215 websites with respect to design and navigational aspects. Subsequently, we discuss the possibilities of structuring hypermedia and enabling the adaptation to culturally bounded user expectations. Moreover, we introduce metrics for assessing navigational burdens and outline the advantages of multi-trees for structuring hypermedia.

MODELING, DEPLOYING, AND CONTROLLING VOLATILE FUNCTIONALITIES IN WEB APPLICATIONS

One of the main characteristics of most Web applications is their high dynamism. Once implemented and deployed for the first time, new functionalities are added to meet new or changed requirements. Some of these functionalities may appear on the Web in response to an unexpected event, or phenomena (such as a natural calamity) after which they are removed. Some others are activated periodically, to coincide with a particular date, or period of the year (such as, return to school, Christmas holidays, etc.). Implementing such volatile functionalities usually impacts on a number of aspects of a Web application, including content, navigation, presentation, business processes, and user operations. Their cyclic activation/deactivation, which requires repetitive changes in the application code, may be the cause of waste of effort and application quality deterioration, up to incorrect functioning. In this paper, we present an approach to decouple the design and implementation of volatile functionalities from that of stable ones, i.e. the core functionalities of the application. The approach is instantiated in the context of the Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Method (OOHDM), but its principles and related techniques are generally applicable to any other Web engineering method. We show how our approach enables the deployment and removal of these functionalities in a cost-effective and safe way and at runtime, thus providing business agility. A framework to classify volatile functionalities and a number of examples are also reported.