Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Conceptual Solutions'

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007.
Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed April 15, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-249).

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1998.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-111).
The thesis represents a design investigation that seeks to reconsider the high-rise building. With changing uses and technologies, high-rise office towers may have become obsolete. Given the recent capabilities for communications networking, the need for businesses to occupy exclusive-use buildings in central city locations may be questioned. Instead the mixed use building type, often encountered in Southeast Asia, may point at a way of rethinking the typology of tall buildings as such. When taken to an extreme, mixed-use buildings could include use and occupation patterns as comprehensive as cities themselves. These would need to be supported by a skeletal structure of building systems that would include structural, transportation, service, climate control and inhabitation systems. Amongst designers and engineers there exists much discussion about building 'super tall buildings'. Yet there may be a need for departing from the current type of central-core high-rise buildings. In this light the thesis proposes conceptual solutions for building systems that may provide for sustaining more than 122,000 people. The idea is based on the concept of a triangulated mega-frame structure of roughly 49,700 sqm footprint that rises at a 1:5 aspect ratio to 1560m of height. The building is organized hierarchically in components of varying sizes. Interspersed between habitable modules are lobbies and spaces that act much like public places of a city. The basic module is an adaptable and suspended eight-story unit (pod). Clusters of 30 such pods, connected in pairs by common atria, form one planning unit of 242 m height. This unit is serviced by a centrally suspended structure which acts much as a public plaza/square. Five + of these planning units rise to make up the building. Woven into this assembly of modules, lobbies and plazas are vertical and horizontal connections, like streets. These again are hierarchically organized to provide for movement at different speeds and distances, much like horizontal streets or rail networks. The result is a building that provides an intense concentration of resources and delivers a degree of control, connectivity and adaptability that could suggest an alternative form of thinking about growing cities under such dense urban conditions as are prevalent in Hong Kong.
by Frank Wolfgang Ungerer.
M.Arch.

This thesis suggests the use of tools from the disciplines of Computational Linguistics and Knowledge Representation with the idea that such tools would enable the partial automation of two processes of Conceptual Design: the analysis of Requirements and the synthesis of concepts of solution. The viewpoint on Conceptual Design developed in this research is based on the systematic methodologies developed in the literature. The evolution of these methodologies provided precise description of the tasks to be achieved by the designing team in order to achieve successful design. Therefore, the argument of this thesis is that it is possible to create computer models of some of these tasks in order to partially automate the refinement of the design problem and the exploration of the design space. In Requirements Engineering, the definition of requirements consists in identifying the needs of various stakeholders and formalizing it into design speciႡcations. During this task, designers face the problem of having to deal with individuals from different expertise, expressing their needs with different levels of clarity. This research tackles this issue with requirements expressed in natural language (in this case in English). The analysis of needs is realised from different linguistic levels: lexical, syntactic and semantic. The lexical level deals with the meaning of words of a language. Syntactic analysis provides the construction of the sentence in language, i.e. the grammar of a language. The semantic level aims at Ⴁnding about the specific meaning of words in the context of a sentence. This research makes extensive use of a semantic atlas based on the concept of clique from graph theory. Such concept enables the computation of distances between a word and its synonyms. Additionally, a methodology and a metric of similarity was defined for clarifying requirements at syntactic, lexical and semantic levels. This methodology integrates tools from research collaborators. In the synthesis process, a Knowledge Representation of the necessary concepts for enabling computers to create concepts of solution was developed. Such, concepts are: function, input/output Ⴂow, generic organs, behaviour, components. The semantic atlas is also used at that stage to enable a mapping between functions and their solutions. It works as the interface between the concepts of this Knowledge Representation.

Despite the progress that has been made with regard to construction cost management, many drawbacks including the unpredictability of construction costs continue to raise concerns. This research study aimed to contribute to improving construction cost management by identifying the key issues which contribute to such drawbacks, and developing conceptual solutions to mitigate them. The design science approach has been selected as the overall research method. Design science approach has been augmented through an analysis to the root cause of each identified key issue, an inference of countermeasure to the each root cause (conceptual solution), and synthesis of the (practical) solutions. This research has identified failure to forecast, failure to support improvement opportunities, costs being considered as resulting from action, neglect of value consideration, poor support for inter-organizational cost management, negative influence on behaviour, and constraints created by budgeting, as key issues contributing to the current drawback of construction cost management. This study proposes the recognition of waste through flow theory, integrating costs to design, value generation theory, seeing construction as production, incentives aligned to improvement, separating the different functions of budgeting and the dynamic approach to managing costs as solutions to the identified drawbacks. The outcomes of this study contribute to developing practical solutions for constriction cost management, and also represent conceptual gains in the field.

Magister Educationis - MEd (Mathematics and Science Education)
The purpose of this study was to investigate how the use of a conceptual change approach could contribute to enhancing the teaching and learning of ions in aqueous solutions in Grade 10 Physical Science. More specifically, the study attempted to answer the main research question, namely, How can the conceptual change approach be used to teach ions in aqueous solutions in Physical Sciences? This study was underpinned by the theories of constructivism and conceptual change. The concept of effective teaching practice is based on approaches that promote conceptual change and provides learners with skills on learning how to learn and making meaning out of their learning - which is part of the constructivist view of learning. The sample of this research consisted of a single class in a school where the researcher is teaching. The class has 26 learners of mixed gender. The study adopted a single case study approach and was designed to allow for the use of multiple data collection methods. Data was collected through a pre- and post-tests, intervention lessons, classroom observation as well as semi-structured focused group interviews. The use of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection proved useful and provided in-depth data and allowed for triangulation. The data was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results of the research showed that learners performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test. The learners mentioned the fact that the intervention lesson played an important role in making them understand the concept better. The results also showed that, while the majority of the learners seemed to have made some progress in their conceptual development as a result of their exposure to the conceptual change method of teaching, others struggled with the approach.

This study covers several areas of long held interest and urgent relevance: the development of lasting and meaningful community identity, the design of dynamic communities well aware of their current and future potential, the preservation of rural lands, and the control of unplanned growth.Working on two tracks, the study researches through focused interviews the conceptual image of the community held by representative members and then seeks to apply principles derived from the work of Randall Arendt, Robert Yaro and others to the articulation of land planning and site design measures that can be implemented in the Northwest sector of Muncie.Based on both the research and the derivation of principles, the study offers a large number of ideas supported with illustrations toward the improvement of the conditions and the creation of a long range strategy for land development and conservation.
Department of Landscape Architecture

The risks of soft errors increase with system complexity, reduction in operational voltages, exponential growth in transistors per chip, increases in clock frequencies and device shrinking. Research into techniques to cope with soft errors has mostly focused on post-design phases such as circuit level solutions, logic level solutions, spatial redundancy, temporal redundancy, and/or error correction codes. Clearly, though, it would be better to tackle the issue early in the design process. A novel method is outlined in this research for assigning a criticality ranking to the components in a design at the conceptual phase. The ranking is easily derived with little computational effort. Further, the research flags why the component is critical. The model is then examined by refactoring to lower each component’s criticality until the goal of minimising the risks of soft errors is satisfied and constraints are maintained. The methodology is then tested against real-life systems that must have high reliability.

This thesis examines students’ understanding of economic aspects of global environmental problems. The first aim is to identify and characterise changes in business and economics students’ conceptions of negative environmental effects and pricing goods and services. The second aim is to identify and characterise changes in students’ values, beliefs and personal norms regarding effective solutions to climate change problems. Three studies were carried out with students in Swedish upper secondary schools. The first study used an open-ended questionnaire and is presented in Article I. The second and third studies drew on a longitudinal study, using both qualitative and quantitative research methods and results are presented in Article II and Article III. Article I shows that students’ awareness of environmental issues varies in relation to the type of good. Some goods are seen as more harmful to nature than others, for example, jeans were not perceived as environmentally negative while beef burgers and travel services were to some extent. This indicates that environmental references are often characterised through perceptible aspects of goods’ production i.e. being more expensive because of environmentally friendly production. Furthermore, some understanding of negative externalities was revealed. Interestingly, when value aspects of how prices should be set students more frequently refer to environmental impact. Article II describes changes in students’ price and environmental conceptions over the course of a year. It identifies the fragmentary nature of students’ every-day thinking in relation to productivity, consumer preference and negative externalities. Differences in conceptions of how prices are linked to negative impact is characterised in terms of basic, partial and complex understandings of productivity as well as basic and partial understandings of consumers’ influences. Partial conceptions are seen as students’ conceptions in a process of change towards a more scientific understanding of price and negative environmental impact. Most interestingly, the results show that more than one aspect of environmental impact and pricing are simultaneously relevant. This is highlighted by a change from views putting productivity at the centre for how prices are set to include consumers’ preferences when judgmentally describing how prices should be set. The results conclude that students show a broader content knowledge regarding pricing and the environment when including normative preferences. Article III explores changes in students’ value orientations, beliefs regarding efficient solutions to climate change and norms for pro-environmental actions. Small changes are observed regarding the three constructs. Value changes are reported in terms of a small average increase in importance of altruistic, biospheric and egoistic orientations while common individual changes are shown in shifts between weak and strong values. Beliefs regarding efficient climate change solutions are taxes and legislations while changes in market prices are perceived as being least effective. The findings show no direct relations between values and norms hence change in norms is associated with values through changes in beliefs.

At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript.

The present article addresses issues within U.S. collegiate sport as it pertains to the physical preparation and health and well-being of intercollegiate athletes. Specifically, the sport coach is often perceived as “all knowing” about every facet of their sport when, in fact, they typically are not formally educated or well-trained in current methods of enhancing sport performance. Often strength and conditioning coaches, who may also be poorly trained, are tied directly (financially and administratively) to the sport coach—a situation which has led to a subservient role heavily influenced by the wishes of the sport coach. This has unfortunately resulted in the multidimensional well-being of the athlete clearly not being a primary objective in many programs.

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (leaf 16).
This thesis explores the need for software tools to aid in the conceptual stage of product design processes in a geographically distributed work environment. While the need for such a solution exists, there have been few strides to update the tools engineers currently use. The 2.009 design process is used as a model to better understand the particular needs of conceptual design. The intent of the study is to identify elements of a software solution that can support the design process. The structure of the design is a result of analysis of potential users as well as involvement in the type of design process to which the solution is intended to cater. The solution is motivated by recent advancements in internet and software technology. The final design addresses six important needs: communication of ideas, data and deadlines, general meeting scheduling, task force communication, scheduling, timeline and purpose, remote meeting, data & communication archival, and notification of design & communication changes. This thesis provides the preliminary research necessary to support the an IT design solution.
y Diana Sim.
S.B.

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2007.
Vita.
Includes bibliographical references.
Many computer aided design (CAD) software packages focus on detailed design and not on early stage, conceptual design. The ability to conceptualize and sketch early versions of a product solution is currently limited to paper and pencil or to inadequate computer-aided industrial design programs (CAID) that focus mainly on surface design, not product design. Working on a design as a group also poses problems since the team can be geographically distributed. In an attempt to address the current inadequacies of CAD systems for distributed conceptual design, my thesis proposes a vision for a new CAD program, DC-CAD. This vision anticipates network-orientated conceptual design, and encompasses capabilities for multiple users to collaborate simultaneously on design, compare & evaluate concept sketches, comment on designs and merge changes from other designers, transfer data to detailed design CAD programs, and record concept changes over time. MIT's Product Engineering Class (2.009) was used as the basis for conceiving the software system. By analyzing design challenges that arose during the course, new software features are suggested to mitigate such problems.
(cont.) The end result is a clear vision for a new program, DC-CAD, and a storyboard example of how it could be used in a futuristic 2.009 setting. The thesis closes with recommendations on how to pursue the implementation and realization of such a CAD system.
by Mark D. Egan.
S.B.

La recherche en agriculture a un rôle important à jouer pour la population mondiale si on la considère comme un domaine stratégique pouvant fournir des connaissances ainsi qu´une base technologique à la production agricole. Ce secteur génère des extrants, des résultats ayant des impacts spécifiques dans les zones rurales, les filières agricoles, l'économie, la société et l'environnement. La recherche et l'innovation agricoles représentent un élément clé pour permettre d´atteindre les objectifs du développement durable imposés par les Nations Unies (ODD), en particulier les ODD 2 et 12 – c´est-à-dire réduire les inégalités sociales, éliminer la faim et accroître durablement la production alimentaire. Ainsi, l'évaluation de l'impact dans le domaine économique, politique, social et environnemental des recherches et des innovations devient fondamentale dans un objectif de recherche croissante de la durabilité des pays et de la planète. Les bailleurs de fonds, les institutions supérieures de contrôle, le parlement, le gouvernement, les producteurs, les filières agricoles, les consommateurs et toute la société civile ont besoin de transparence, d'efficacité et d'efficience de la part des organismes publics : ils doivent démontrer un retour sur investissement public, un impact positif sur l'économie et la société, tout en minimisant les impacts négatifs sur l'environnement. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est donc de répertorier les approches théoriques et pratiques déjà réalisées pour l'évaluation d'impact, en particulier en se penchant sur les expériences de quatre organismes de recherche, et de développer un modèle conceptuel du système de gestion de l'évaluation d'impact de l'innovation, en particulier un modèle qui sera applicable aux organismes de recherche agricole. Nous adoptons une méthodologie basée sur la revue de littérature, quatre cas d'étude comparative d'organismes de recherche agricole (le Cirad et l´Inra en France, l´Embrapa au Brésil, et le CSIRO en Australie). Les contributions innovantes de cette thèse sont : I. La construction d'un modèle conceptuel d'un système de gestion de l'évaluation d'impact basé sur le processus d'innovation ; II. Le modèle du système de l'évaluation d'impact d'innovation considèrant une vision transversale de durabilité, intégrant les dimensions environnementale, sociale, politique et économique ; III. Le système d'analyse d'impact de l'innovation reposera sur un processus unique de gestion, notamment concernant les étapes d'évaluation ex ante et ex post selon leur temporalité respective ; IV. La gestion du processus de l'innovation et de l'évaluation d'impact prévoyant l'insertion d'approches comportementales telles que les concepts d'holisme, de constructivisme et de transdisciplinarité. Cette thèse présente donc une approche originale car fournissant un outil de gouvernanceà la recherche, tout en mettantun accent innovant sur la gestion de l'impact ex-ante et ex-post. Elle aide les organisations de recherche et d'innovation à fournir chaque fois plus de solutions durables dans le cadre de leurs missions institutionnelles, et contribuant ainsi à participer aux objectifs de développement durable de l'ONU pour aller vers une agriculture plus productive et plus durable
Agricultural research has an important role for the world population by considering it as a strategic area for providing knowledge and technological base for agricultural production. This sector generates outputs, outcomes with respective impacts to rural zones, supply chains, economy, society and environment. The agricultural research & innovation represents a key piece for reaching the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDG), especially to SDG 2 and 12 – to promote sustainable agricultural to eliminate hunger and improving nutrition, as well as to promote sustainable consumption and production, respectively. In order to check whether agricultural research organizations generate sustainable impacts, it is necessary to assess the impacts of their innovations. Funders, supreme auditing institutions, parliament, government, producers, supply chains, consumers and all society require transparency, efficacity, and effectivity of public organizations: they must highlight return of public investment as well as generate positive impact to the economy and society, and minimize negative impacts to the environment. Many public research organizations around the world have developed impact assessment processes. There is no flawed theories and practices approaches to impact assessment context. Therefore, this research seeks to fill gaps or to supplement the existing approaches. The main thesis objective is to summarize theoretical and practical studied approaches on impact assessment, including the experiences of four research organizations, and to develop a conceptual model of innovation impact assessment management system, especially applicable to agricultural research organizations. It adopts a methodology based on literature review, four cases of a comparative study of agricultural research organizations (Cirad and Inra from France, Embrapa from Brazil, and CSIRO from Australia), and benchmarking these experiences studied. The innovative contributions of this thesis are I. construction of a conceptual model of an impact assessment management system based on the open innovation process; II. the model of innovation impact assessment management system considers a cross-cut view of sustainability, integrating the environmental, social, political and economic dimensions; III. the innovation impact assessment system will be based on a unique managerial process that regards ex-ante and ex-post assessment stages according to its respective temporality; IV. the management of the innovation and impact assessment processes foresees the insertion of behavioral approaches such as concepts of holism, constructivism, transdisciplinarity and agile management practices as essential requirements for the effective engagement of the internal and external actors and the effectiveness of the evaluation process. This thesis has an original approach by bringing a research governance tool with an innovative focus on ex-ante and ex-post impact management, helping research and innovation organizations to become increasingly sustainable in their institutional missions, thus contributing to the achievement of the UN's sustainable development goals towards more productive and sustainable agriculture

In recent decades, adaptation to the impacts of climate change has become a key agenda for cities around the globe. A growing body of literature has already illustrated how cities are a key driver of climate change, its main victim and a promising site for action. Meanwhile, climate change has brought not only new responsibilities but also a new lexicon for urban practitioners. Concepts such as urban climate resilience and the idea of nature’s benefits for climate adaptation, embodied in the “green concepts” – nature-based solutions (NbS), ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and blue-green infrastructure (BGI) – feature in the major global agreements. Still, they are often seen as vague, ambiguous, and therefore of limited practical value. Despite their prominence both in academia and policy discourses, their actual operationalisation and use on the ground remains understudied. This thesis aims to widen the existing scholarly knowledge by examining how urban climate resilience and ‘green concepts’ are used and operationalised at different levels of decision-making in the EU. Several bodies of literature contribute to the conceptual framework of the thesis: climate change adaptation in cities, scholarship specifically on these concepts, and studies on the role of framings and science-policy interface in environmental and climate governance. I use qualitative methods to analyse strategic policy papers and semi-structured interviews with city practitioners across Europe, plus a survey among European academics. The thesis is composed of three academic papers investigating the uptake of these concepts. Paper 1 compares the perceptions of conceptual tensions surrounding urban resilience among the EU academics and practitioners; Paper 2 looks at how urban resilience is operationalised in three science-policy projects financed by the EU; Paper 3 studies the uptake of NbS, BGI and EbA, which are seen as one of the key ways to enhance urban resilience, in urban green planning and management in four large Polish cities. This study provides a critical discussion of concepts’ operationalisation efforts and challenges and discusses the role of vagueness and uncertainty in their uptake. It contributes to the literature by expanding the geography of research beyond few ‘frontrunner’ cities as well as outlining some general tendencies in the European context.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-105). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
土木工程學研究所
107
Civil engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with the project of designing, constructing and maintaining physical and naturally built environment. The scope of the project ranges from infrastructure, public construction etc.. It is very extensive and lives with people''s livelihood. In addition to the construction aspect, it also includes the treatment of air, water, solid, architecture, etc. This study will select two cases in the practical problems encountered in many civil engineering projects, and provide preliminary ideas for solving the problem in a theoretical analysis. The first part of this study aims to provide a concept for 2D highway cornering design. It adopts different perspectives from the traditional design, and uses the free-streamline theory of fluid mechanics as the basis for cornering design. Considering the factors of excessive speed when cornering, the design hopes to increase the safety of road users. The solution process uses velocity and Schwarz-Christoffel transformation to simplify the calculation and establish complex velocity, complex potential energy hodograph and physical plane. The result of curve design using the free streamline theory is related to the ratio of the in-speed and out-speed. To consider the design of the curve of the three-dimensional, we need to consider the speed effect caused by the centripetal force and the superelevation. In addition, the concept of the vehicles and continuums is not completely consistent, so it also provides directions and recommendations for future research using this method. The second part analyzes the influence of deep pumping and shallow pumping on the subsidence. In this study, a simple mathematical method is used to analyze the subsidence due to pumping. The simplified one dimensional uncoupling equation basing on the uncoupled governing equation of the subsidence caused by the three-dimensional pumping of Tseng’s(2009), which is the mass conservation equation and the momentum conservation equation of soil and fluid respectively. It is used to analyze the multi-layered aquifer. In this study, three layers of soil with the same thickness were used as models to analyze the reaction of subsidence caused by deep and shallow pumping through different cases. The process contains the analysis of the point source and the line segment pumping, and uses the Dirac delta function to simulate the point source of pumping, and analyzes the pressure, displacement, fluid flux and stress continuous conditions between the layers. At last, the case analyses of deep pumping and shallow pumping is carried out. The results show that the displacement of the soil in deep pumping is more affected by the aquitard in the middle layer, so the impact on the subsidence of the deep pumping is larger than that the shallow pumping. The cases discuss the limitation of the governing equations of the one-dimensional uncoupled pumping induced subsidence, and the suggestions for future research.

Current practices for developing secure information systems are still closer to art than to an engineering discipline. Security is still treated as an add-on and is therefore not integrated into software development practices and tools. Experienced security artisans are still the key to achieving acceptable levels of security. Security of software system means protection afforded to an automated information system in order to attain the applicable objectives of preserving the integrity, availability and confidentiality of information system resources (includes hardware, software, firmware, information/data, and telecommunications). Many methods have been proposed for framing the security requirements, but the main target is how to find the solutions fulfilling these security requirements, to produce complete secure information system. So, we propose a Model framework for finding a complete solutions of security requirements, which are identified during the security requirement elicitation stage, using back tracking analysis. After gathering security requirements, we do back tracking analysis of the approaches used to gather security requirements, to identify the solutions necessary to fulfill the gathered security requirements. On basis of back tracking analysis, we will find conceptual solutions and security services and corresponding mechanisms which encompass the complete security of software system.
Shalender Kumar Verma

碩士
臺北市立師範學院
科學教育研究所
93
The purposes of this study were to investigate: (1) the influences of the cognition structure-based instruction model on pupil's ontological tree of the aqueous solution concept . (2) the influences of the cognition structure-based instruction model on pupil's learning achievement of aqueous solution concepts . (3) the correlation between pupils’ ontological tree of aqueous solution and pupils’ achievement. This was a quasi-experimental research of both qualitative and quantitative. The subjects were 64 third graders selected from an urban elementary school at Shulin City, Taipei. The experimental group (32 pupils) was treated with cognition structure-based instruction model while the control group (32 pupils) was treated with general instruction model. The duration of treatment was three weeks periods. Before and after the treatment, pupils of both groups were administered a “ Two-tier Questionnaire of Aqueous Solution Concepts(TQASC)”. In addition, pupils of both groups were divided into three levels, namely high, medium, and low based on their scores of the midterm examination, and six pupils were selected from each level of both groups for interview of of “Semi-Structured Interview Questionnaire of the Concept of Aqueous Solution(SSIQCAS)”. In the respect of the quality , the clinical interview and the predict analysis to examine the influence of pupil's ontological tree of the aqueous solution concept. In the respect of quantity, the comparison between two groups was gotten by the exam on pre-test and pos-test of the TQASC. The result of this study were as following: （1）(a) There was a significant interaction between experimental group’s matter verbal frequencies on SSIQCAS and control group’s.(b) There was a significant interaction between experimental group’s event verbal frequencies on SSIQCAS and control group’s. (c) There was a significant interaction between experimental group’s CBI verbal frequencies on SSIQCAS and control group’s. (d)Both groups use matter verbal, event verbal and CBI verbal in sub-concept one.(e) In sub-concept two, the pupils of the experimental group used all verbal except matter verbal, and the pupils of the control group used all verbal except CBI verbal.(f) In sub-concept three, the pupils of the experimental group own the conception of CBI and event category while the pupils of the control group only own the conception of event category.(g）The ontological tree in CBI category of the pupils treated with the structure-based instruction model were enriched, and pupils’ concept changed obviously.（2）There was a significant interaction between experimental group’s average score on TQASC and control group’s (F=9.774, P=.003<.05).（3）The correlation between pupils’ ontological tree of aqueous solution and pupils’ achievement was not significant. According to the result, the conclusions were as following: （1）the cognition structure-based instruction model can help pupils develop variety ontological tree of the aqueous solution concept and have the radical conceptual change.（2) the cognition structure-based instruction model was helpful for promoting pupils’ learning achievement of aqueous solution concepts. （3）there was no correlation between pupils’ ontological tree of the aqueous solution and pupils’ achievement, and there were high frequencies of event verbal and CBI verbal. Based on the result of the study, the researcher had proposed suggestions for teaching on aqueous solution concept and research to be conducted in the future.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.

In this knowledge economy, organizations are leveraging their competence through the knowledge they possess. Managing knowledge will potentially retain the competence held by the organization if knowledge generated across its projects and units is captured, structured and reused. Even though many tools and techniques are proposed in the literature to support these activities, their adoption in industry has been meagre. This may be due to development of tools without basing them on substantial and careful descriptive studies. This raises the following research issues: the knowledge processes and knowledge sources available in organizations and their characteristics need to be understood better. To address these gaps, following objectives are addressed in this research: ♦ To understand the specific needs and capability of the organization for capture and reuse of product development knowledge and ♦ To evaluate various alternative supports for capture and structure of relevant, evolving product development knowledge for reuse. To address these objectives, two observational studies were conducted in the organizations. To get a broader picture about the knowledge processes occurring in the organization, a KRIT model is proposed which is an acronym for Knowledge of solutions-Requirements-Interactions-Tasks, in which interactions of the designers with people and tools play the central role in processing knowledge during design. The KRIT model is validated through the demonstration of the existence of its nodes and links. From the observations it has been found that interactions ‘designer working with computer’, ‘two designers working with a computer’ and ‘two designers interacting with each other’ are most frequently occurred, and occupied most of the time during designing. Any tools to support knowledge capture and reuse should support these interactions such that capture and reuse can be intuitive and in-built in a natural way into a designer’s work habits. It is emphasized that there is a substantial need to increase the percentage of time spent by designers on capturing knowledge during the design process. This increase in time would lead to decrease in a designers’ time spent on knowledge acquisition and dissemination provided designers are capturing reusable knowledge. To answer capture and reuse of knowledge in detail in the observational studies, a new taxonomy of knowledge is proposed. By linking the representations of argumentation, designer’s activities, and the artefact being designed, we argued that the expressiveness of this taxonomy is high compared to the others proposed in the literature. The taxonomy has three broad categories of knowledge: topics, classes, and activities. Based on the definitions of the factors used in the taxonomy and the analysis of the protocols, the factors in each group under each category are argued to be mutually exclusive. In order to study the links between the proposed categories and factors in the taxonomy of knowledge, a method for converting the questions and answers (from the protocol data) into a generic format is framed. The taxonomy is validated comprehensively, and is able to cover various stages of design. Most of the designers’ time was spent working with a CAD package, in which most of the kinds of knowledge mentioned in the proposed taxonomy of knowledge was neither captured not reused. The important observations noted by comparing the knowledge captured in the preliminary study and the main study are as follows: Compared to the preliminary study, process related information and knowledge are captured higher in the main study. In the main study behavioural related content is captured more; whereas in the preliminary study structural content is captured more. The factors organization, usage, maintenance and sales captured in the preliminary study are not at all captured in the main study. In order to assess the usefulness of the knowledge captured, the kinds of knowledge needs of designers were compared with the kinds of knowledge captured. The important observations about the knowledge needs are: Irrespective of the design stages, in almost 50% of the questions, designers interacted with others to know about old issues or proposals in both the studies. A designer’s time for designing would benefit considerably if the answers for these 50% of the old questions were captured and made available for retrieval in formal documents. In both the studies, proposals based questions played a vital role in the questions analyzed. It shows that considerable proportion of time was spent by the designers on validating, by asking questions, the answers known to them. In contrast to the preliminary study, the designers’ needs for process-related information or knowledge were much higher than that for product-related information or knowledge. Comparing the generic questions obtained from the knowledge needs and knowledge captured reveals that only 14% and 26% with product related content and only 10% and 11.3% of the process based content asked by designers during designing were captured in the preliminary and the main study. These results show that there is a mismatch between knowledge captured and knowledge needed by the designers. This may be one of the primary reasons for the poor usage of documents in the organization. The generic questions generated from the questions asked by the designers and various documents will act as a guideline to the designers for what knowledge and information should and should not to be captured. Due to restrictions in the observations, a questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve the objective to collect 10% of total number of employees’ perspectives about the issues considered in this research. The important observations from the analyses of the collected questionnaire are: Designers’ perceive all types of interactions as important and frequent for information generation and sharing. These results are contradictory to the personal observations in which only interactions ‘designer working with computer’ and ‘two designers working with a computer’ occurred frequently. This shows that designers are unable to identify the kinds of interaction which they perform in their daily activities. Due to this, the information processes occurring within these interactions are not perceptible to the designers. Designers perceive that they get the right information at the right time in only 4 or more out of 10 for most of the times. This perception illustrates there is substantial need for the development of support to satisfy the information needs of designers. Analyses of the types of questions reveal that the question asking behavior of the designers is not static; the major share of questions falling under the category ‘question from answer given’ could be interpreted as: designers often do not frame exact questions to fulfil their requirements; they grab the opportunity to take as much as knowledge as possible during an interaction. Analyses of the types of answers reveal that designers gave more inferences on their answers in order to give a better response, which in turn should help reduce the number of questions subsequently asked especially in the protocol coded as ‘new answer’. Two studies have been used to assess the effectiveness of seven tools for supporting knowledge capture and reuse. The important observations from the initial study are: Mobile E-Notes TakerTM is ranked higher because this equipment provides a blend of properties between the paper and computer. These observations stress the importance of features provided for knowledge generation, modification, capture and reuse in the system. The observations from analyzing the three top rated tools (Mobile E-Notes TakerTM, Tablet with viewing facility and Computer with RhinocerosTM CAD package) to understand influence of these tools on knowledge capture and reuse during conceptual designing are: The differences observed in the percentage of capture between the usage of the three tools demonstrate that tools have an influence on the knowledge capture activity. Even though none of the three tools capture adequate knowledge during designing, Mobile e-Notes TakerTM seems to be the best tool for capture compared to the other two tools, both in the original and redesign experiments. These results suggest that some other mechanisms should be added to these tools so that their effectiveness of capturing could be increased. One mechanism is to incorporate the proposed KRIT model and the taxonomy of knowledge during designing. This integration will be one of the good mechanisms to aid knowledge capture and reuse, because the knowledge capture will occur along with the knowledge creation process. We believe that through this integration the purpose to enhance the knowledge capture and reuse during the design process will be achieved.

abstract: The mathematics test is the most difficult test in the GED (General Education Development) Test battery, largely due to the presence of story problems. Raising performance levels of story problem-solving would have a significant effect on GED Test passage rates. The subject of this formative research study is Ms. Stephens’ Categorization Practice Utility (MS-CPU), an example-tracing intelligent tutoring system that serves as practice for the first step (problem categorization) in a larger comprehensive story problem-solving pedagogy that purports to raise the level of story problem-solving performance. During the analysis phase of this project, knowledge components and particular competencies that enable learning (schema building) were identified. During the development phase, a tutoring system was designed and implemented that algorithmically teaches these competencies to the student with graphical, interactive, and animated utilities. Because the tutoring system provides a much more concrete rather than conceptual, learning environment, it should foster a much greater apprehension of a story problem-solving process. With this experience, the student should begin to recognize the generalizability of concrete operations that accomplish particular story problem-solving goals and begin to build conceptual knowledge and a more conceptual approach to the task. During the formative evaluation phase, qualitative methods were used to identify obstacles in the MS-CPU user interface and disconnections in the pedagogy that impede learning story problem categorization and solution preparation. The study was conducted over two iterations where identification of obstacles and change plans (mitigations) produced a qualitative data table used to modify the first version systems (MS-CPU 1.1). Mitigation corrections produced the second version of the MS-CPU 1.2, and the next iteration of the study was conducted producing a second set of obstacle/mitigation tables. Pre-posttests were conducted in each iteration to provide corroboration for the effectiveness of the mitigations that were performed. The study resulted in the identification of a number of learning obstacles in the first version of the MS-CPU 1.1. Their mitigation produced a second version of the MS-CPU 1.2 whose identified obstacles were much less than the first version. It was determined that an additional iteration is needed before more quantitative research is conducted.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Educational Technology 2018

碩士
國立台北師範學院
數理教育研究所
91
Abstract The study based on the human constructivism theory, the purpose of the study was to investigate the cognition of the concepts of “acids and bases in aqueous solution ” on “Daily Acids-Bases”, held by the fifth grade elementary students, their misconceptions, the source of the misconceptions and mechanism of conceptual change. The study will be implemented into three parts, they are: 1. The use of paper and pencil test and concept map to collect students’ conceptions on acids and bases in aqueous solution. 2. Interviews with students. 3. A three-tier concept diagnostic. Both qualitative and quantitative methods employed in this study. The qualitative research was based on the purposeful sampling method. There were 139 students participating in activities related to this research and 13 students were selected (from the 139 students) and be interviewed and checked their conception. The results and findings indicated as follows: 1. Analysis on conceptual change on acids-bases: (1) Distinguish between acids and bases in aqueous solution’s characteristic: in addition to using body senses, also using more acid and bases’ indicator to distinguish. (2) Building and applying the acid and bases indicator’s relevant concept: litmus testing paper and Bromothymol Blue indicator’s relevant concept’s building and applying. (3) Building and applying the cognition conception of acid-bases’ neutralization. 2. Mechanism of conceptual change of conception acids and bases in aqueous solution. The study discovered several key factors, which influenced students’ mechanism of conceptual changes that were: 1. Construct new concept by individual analysis and interpretation on new selected data by. There were three key factors, which were teacher’s guidance, classmate’s interaction and assimilation, adjustment and recombination of personal experiences. 2. Conceptual changes due to use of new experiment tools, the important key factors were : (1) Starting new methods to explore problems. (2) Becoming a foundation of interpretation. (3) Becoming a base for communication and construction between social groups. 3. The guidance of new concept against original concept. There were two key factors which cause the conceptual changes: (1) Choosing different concepts from original conceptual structure (2) Changing of student’s original concepts. 4. Result from competing between new and original concept. Key word: human constructivist,concepts of acids and bases, mechanism of conceptual change, teaching strategy.