Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study was conducted to investigate the contribution of progressive elaboration on the effectiveness of conducting projects. Effectiveness relates to project success in contrast to efficiency which relates to project management success. This study attempts to determine what the contribution of progressive elaboration of project detail is on the success of conducting projects, by examining three different aspects of project management. First, a historical background study was done of project management, highlighting the origin, paradigms and trends within project management. The underlying finding here is that in spite of the fact that it originated from a hard rules based environment, probably with memes delaying it from progress, project management is changing into a theoretically based hard and soft science, offering exciting opportunities. This was followed by a look into current best practice by means of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide). Each of their nine project management knowledge areas was explored to determine the applicability of applying progressive elaboration within that area. Both scope management and risk management presented excellent opportunities for applying progressive elaboration while cost, quality, human resource and procurement management posed to be problematic. The third comparison area shows that a theoretical foundation exists, and that the theory underwrites progressive elaboration. Progressive elaboration has the potential of improving the effectiveness of projects, and of ensuring greater project success. The practical implementation is not well presented in literature and further research in this area is proposed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doelwit van hierdie studie is om te bepaal watter invloed of bydrae progressiewe uitbreiding in projekbestuur het op die effektiwiteit van die uitvoering daarvan. Effektiwiteit hou verband met die sukses van 'n projek, in teenstelling met doelmatigheid wat verband hou met die sukses van die projekbestuur proses. Hierdie studie poog om te bepaal wat die bydrae van die progressiewe uitbouing van projek detail op die sukses van projekte is. Die vraag word beantwoord deur na drie verskillende aspekte van projekbestuur te kyk. Eerstens is ' historiese agtergrondstudie gedoen wat poog om die oorsprong, sekere paradigmas en tendense in projekbestuur te ondersoek. Die slotsom hiervan is dat alhoewel projekbestuur sy oorsprong het in harde, reëlsgebaseerde omgewing, met oorgedraagde gebruike wat verandering strem, dit tog besig is om te migreer na 'n teoreties gefundeerde hard en sag gekombineerde wetenskap wat opwindende geleenthede bied. Vervolgens is gekyk na 'n hedendaagse beste praktyk model soos gevind in die “Project Management Institute (PMI)” se “Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide(PMBOK Guide)”. Elk van die nege projekbestuurkennisareas is ondersoek om te bepaal wat die toepaslikheid van implementering van progressiewe uitbreiding in die spesifieke kennisarea is. Beide werkomvang-bestuur en risikobestuur het uitstekende geleenthede gebied vir die toepassing van progressiewe uitbreiding, terwyl koste, kwaliteit, menslike hulpbron en kontrak-bestuur uitdagings voorgehou het. In die laaste van die vergelykings areas is daar getoon dat 'n teoretiese basis vir projekbestuur bestaan en dat die teorie progressiewe uitbouing onderskryf. Progressiewe uitbreiding beloof om die effektiwiteit van die uitvoering van projekte te verbeter en sodoende die kanse op sukses van projekte te verbeter. Praktiese implementering word nie volledig in die literatuur beskryf nie en verdere navorsing in die verband word aanbeveel.

<p> </p><div> <div> <div> <p> </p><div> <div> <div> <p> </p><div> <div> <div> <p>The current state of the art in biopotential recordings rely on radiative electromagnetic (EM) fields. In such transmissions, only a small fraction of this energy is received since the EM fields are widely radiated resulting in lossy inefficient systems. Using the body as a communication medium (similar to a ’wire’) allows for the containment of the energy within the body, yielding order(s) of magnitude lower energy than radiative EM communication. The first part of this work introduces Animal Body Communication for untethered rodent biopotential recording and for the first time this work develops the theory and models for animal body communication circuitry and channel loss. In vivo experimental analysis proves that ABC successfully transmits acquired electrocardiogram (EKG) signals through the body with correlation greater than 99% when compared to traditional wireless communication modalities, with a 50x reduction in power consumption. The second part of this work focusses on the analysis and design of an Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication (EQS-HBC) system for simultaneous sensing and transmission of biopotential signals. In this work, detailed analysis on the system level interaction between the sensing and transmitting circuitry is studied and a design to enable simultaneous sensing and transmission is proposed. Experimental analysis was performed to understand the interaction between the Right Leg-Drive circuitry and the HBC transmission along with the effect of the ADC quantization on signal quality. Finally, experimental trials proves that EKG signals can be transmitted through the body with greater than 96% correlation when compared to Bluetooth systems at extremely low powers. </p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

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This thesis consists of a workshop that investigates theperformative act of designers in producing gendered productaesthetics. Product designers make many active choicesin the project they are working on, but what about thenot so active choices, the once that just happen becauseit looks right or because it fits the product? By putting thegendered assumptions of fomgiving into the hands of thedesigners, I hope to generating a realisation of the (re)creationof the gender norms of society into products. I wish toput the designers in a position where they formgive wrongin relation to the norms of product aesthetics, so that theform feels unfitting or misplaced. This to expose the suggestionof how the development of products not only isan iterative design process, but also an iterative processof re-installing norms and objectives of society into thedesign. The end product of this project will be a workshopwhere the designers gets to try out how another normativeagreement of product aesthetics would appear.

Betweenness is a project questioning the relation between us and what we surround us with. To reveal our assumptions around artifacts and by doing so create an conversation between us viewers/ users and the objects themselves. Who owns the dialogue: the object or the viewer? Taking a deeper dive into the symbols and languages of objects, the quiet voices they posses and the functions surfaces, the visualization circle around words such as visual function, ornamentation,  material displacement and attraction.  By trying to convey the objects “inner thoughts” and creating a dialogue it pushes our ideas of what is desirable, what is strange, what is useful or even beautiful. The trick is in the contrast between what we see and what we know, bordering into imaginary, creating voices for ambiguous objects.

Mitt examensarbete består av en gestaltande del och en skriftlig. Den gestaltande delen är ett utforskande i hur jag i text och bild kan gestalta känslan separationsångest. Förlusten av en annan person, en tidigare förmåga eller till och med sig själv. I det här projektet undersöker jag delvis vem jag är i förhållande till mitt skapande efter att ha genomgått en utmattning. Det har också varit viktigt att låta projektet få vara ett sökande med hjälp av handen. För att släppa kontrollen och samtidigt hitta tillit till min egen förmåga igen. I den skiftliga delen berättar jag om min arbetsprocess i både text och bild. Jag går igenom olika faser, insikter, kompromisser, vändningar och beslut i kronologisk ordning. Liksom den gestaltande delen av mitt examensarbete är även den skriftliga delen ett visuellt narrativ där bilderna ges stort utrymme.

This project report offers insight into my research, creative process and work during my two-year Master in visual communication at Konstfack, Stockholm.Clean: Not the Monochrome, Universal and Neutral Modernism You Expect is the published culmination of a period of visual research highlighting Modernism — Modernist (graphic) design and architecture to be precise — as a power structure by uncovering its connections to colonialism and design authoritarianism through misperception, whiteness, exclusive practicing and imposition.The book uses intersections of visual material, personal experience and theory to deconstruct the inheritance of the creative practitioner working in the realm of Modernism as well as its presumed neutrality.

I mitt arbete har jag undersökt liminalitet som ett rumsligt begrepp. Jag har tagit trappan som utgångspunkt för detta och arbetat fram ett förslag för gestaltning av trappan som liminalt rum. Med hjälp av teoretisk research, platsstudier och att gå ett otal trappsteg upp och ner, har jag skapat förståelse för hur taktilitet skapar och förstärker den rumsliga upplevelsen. I och med mitt arbete, har jag argumenterat för hur och varför vi skapar mening i våra liv genom liminalitet som ritual kopplat till inredningsarkitektur. Jag har även skapat förståelse för hur en gestaltning av liminalitet skulle kunna se ut rumsligt, där utgångspunkten är den taktila upplevelsen.

The cultural concepts of identity, life and nature are under constant negotiation. The world have been defined as; the given (nature) and the constructed (culture). Without this constructed dichotomy it is more complex. Nature and culture mimic each other’s qualities and as transparencies can hardly be differentiated as they can act and feel alike.1 Autonomous (hu)man made system have become so complex that we start to perceive them as nature. Although we can not trust our means of technological saviour we deny technological advances its “natural” aspects: mortality, fragility, complex interactivity and dependence on flows of energy and material sustenance.2 Altering nature is central to humans and the more we learn to control it the more it loses the natural character and enter the realms of culture. Everything is co-evolutionary a copy of a copy and as a designers and artists we must use what has already been shaped. Perhaps success is manifested when we alters existing forces and work counter cultural. Or amplify the directions we are currently rendering. Is it time to reverse our concept of not what is possible and what isn’t, but to accept the impossibility of omnipotent immortality? The world is largely messy and it is not possible, nor desirable, to know what is going on, instead we should be certain that we don’t know and learn how to feel from uncertainty, to try to make sense on how to navigate.3 Preoccupied caring for ourselves affects the strategy for survival for both humans and non-humans in this entangled universe. In our present technological reality of conquering the biological, this speculative project is in reference to the uncertainty of our future and the brutal advances that shape human minds. The crisis of being human in the surrealism of our culturally altered nature. The fear of a lost world and our need to reinvent ourselves. A reflection of the contiguity of life between species. Telling the story through an artificial enhancement strategy for solidago canadensis it is about the human hubris worldview and the unique and often troubling realities of the present and the conventional problem-solving/ truth-seeking of the messy, unstable, in flux complexity of nature and culture.4 Living in the extreme times of the weird and wonderful times of nanotechnology, synthetic biology and neuroscience it is now longer about designing the things in the environment around us but designing life itself. Our advances and innovations have huge consequences on what it means to be human, how we relate not only to each other but our coexistence in this sphere. [1]The posthuman, Rosi Braidotti, 2013 [2,4] Next Nature: Nature Changes Along with Us, Koert van Mensvoort, Hendrik-Jan Grievink, 2012 [3] Lilla drevet podcast, episode 182, 2018

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