In a domain with diverse multi-disciplinary views of what a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is, tracking progress and developing efficient WSNs is inherently a complex process. The main motivation of this work is advancing state-of-the-art WSNs by adaptively utilizing their components, and enlisting the utility of resources in network vicinity. As WSNs increase in density and expand in scale, we continue to witness an increase in overlapped deployments that serve independent applications. In most scenarios, new networks are deployed for new applications without considering previous or neighboring WSNs. This thesis presents the resource reuse (RR-WSN) paradigm. Adopting a generic framework for resource utilization, we achieve synergy between heterogeneous sensing systems. We abstract the view of a WSN in terms of functional capabilities, and offer a component-based view to boost sensor node (SN) potential and contribution to WSN operation. Thus SNs provide resources. On the other hand, we formally derive a set of functional requirements per application. The design and deployment of WSNs thus converges to an optimal assignment of functional requirements to resources. Two mainstream designs of WSNs are addressed in this thesis. The first involves WSNs with static deployments of nodes, whereby multiple applications run on networks in a given vicinity, yet the resources and applications share an owner (e.g., on a University Campus). We then present a Binary Integer Programming formulation to find the optimal assignment of resources to these functional requirements, while minimizing the energy impact of running each functional request. We further extend our scope to include WSNs that depend on transient nodes, such as smartphones, in a dynamic (DRR-WSN) paradigm, which could contribute significantly to the resource pool. Intuitively, multiple-owners are involved as resource providers and require different applications. Thus, we address the valuation of resources as they are shared across network owners. We finally present a maximal matching problem of finding the lowest cost for running each application, based on the available resource pool in the vicinity required. Extensive performance evaluation depicts the impact of RR-WSN design on WSN operation and longevity in various scenarios. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-27 04:44:14.556

Tyrimo objektas: Straipsniai, kurie analizuojami besiremiant atsirinktais raktiniais žodžiais, siekiant pateikti pagrindinius mokymosi neuromokslo aspektus. Tyrimo problema: Mokymosi neuromokslas, ugdymo įtaka smegenų struktūroms ir funkcijoms, ir smegenų plastiškumo ypatumai yra plačiai nagrinėjamos temos tarp užsienio mokslininkų, tačiau Lietuvoje mažai tyrinėjamos. Vis dar pastebima, kad mokymosi įstaigose per dažnai naudojamas tradicinis mokymo modelis, besimokantieji stengiasi įsiminti teikiamą informaciją ir pritaikyti įgytas žinias. Tačiau mūsų smegenys nėra pritaikytos mintinam arba tradiciniam mokymosi modeliui, į mokymosi procesą turi būti įtraukti regėjimo, klausos ir kinesteziniai pojūčiai, tam, kad smegenys būtų aktyvinamos. Tyrimo tikslas: Apžvelgti šiuolaikinę mokslinę literatūrą, apimančią neuromokslo požiūrį į žmogaus mokymosi gebėjimus. Tyrimo uždaviniai: 1. Išnagrinėti galvos smegenų plastiškumo ypatumus. 2. Išnagrinėti kaip ugdymas gali įtakoti galvos smegenų struktūras, funkcijas ir elgseną. 3. Išnagrinėti dabartinę situaciją, kas tai yra neurougdymo mokslas. 4. Panagrinėti mokymosi neuromokslo raidą ir pokyčius. 5. Išanalizuoti naujausią mokslinę literatūrą apimančią įvairių sričių neurougdymą. Tyrimo rezultatai: 1. Galvos smegenys yra labai plastiškos ir kuo jos labiau aktyvinamos, tuo labiau kinta jų struktūra. Smegenų plastiškumui įtaką daro šie veiksniai: sensorinė ir motorinė patirtis, mokymasis, natūralus atpildas, socialiniai žaidimai, senėjimas... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The object of the research: Articles which are analysed with reference to the selected keywords, on purpose of presenting the main aspects of studying neuroeducation. The problem of the research: Studying neuroeducation, the influence of education on brain structures and functions, and the peculiarities of brain plasticity are widely analysed topics among the foreign scientists, but in Lithuania they are little analysed. It can still be noticed that in educational institutions a traditional teaching model is used too often, the learners try remembering the given information and to apply the gained knowledge. But our brain is not adapted for the said or traditional studying model; the studying process should include the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic senses for the brain to be activated. The aim of the research: To review the modern nonfiction covering the human neuroeducation of various abilities. The tasks of the research: 1. To analyse the peculiarities of the plasticity of the brain. 2. To analyse how education can influence the structures, functions and behaviour of the brain. 3. To analyse the recent situation, what is neuroeducational science. 4. To analyse the development and changes of studying neuroscience. 5. To analyse the newest nonfiction covering human studying abilities. The results of the research: 1. After analysing the nonfiction, it is possible to define the main factors which have influence on the plasticity of the brain: sensory and motor experience... [to full text]

South African organisations face the challenge of creating organisations that will engage employees in ways that allow for the optimisation of their strengths. This can be achieved by following a strength-based approach (SBA). An SBA aims to achieve optimisation of human functioning, where talents and strengths are the focus and weaknesses are understood and managed. Although previous research suggests that an SBA has positive influences on individual and organisational outcomes, no instrument exists within the South African context that measures employees’ perception of the extent to which they believe their organisation makes use of their strengths and talents. Recently, a new scale was developed to address this need. However, no studies have been done to see how well the items of this scale function. The objectives of this research were to 1) conceptualise an SBA according to literature, 2) determine whether the items in the SBA scale are unidimensional, 3) to determine the internal validity and reliability of the new SBA scale, and 4) make recommendations for future research. A cross-sectional quantitative research design was used whereby online and hardcopy versions of the questionnaire were distributed to participants. A sample of 699 participants was collected from the Gauteng and North-West provinces. Rasch analysis was used to determine the reliability and validity of the items. Acceptable item reliability was found. Both the item and person separation indices were acceptable. Mean infit and outfit indices for both person and item were acceptable. The seven-point frequency-based Likert scale worked satisfactorily overall, although categories 0, 1, and 2 were under-utilised. Finally, the infit and outfit statistics for all eight items functioned satisfactorily, except for one item. Recommendations are made for practice as well as for future research. / Thesis (MA (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Pakistani families with disabled children are among the most disadvantaged population groups in the UK. Previous research has indicated difficulties with accessing support services as well as problematic attitudes towards disability within the Pakistani community. As no substantial improvement in their situation was evidenced since early studies in the 1990s, a participatory action research study was undertaken with six Pakistani families to explore how an actionoriented, emancipatory approach could facilitate them to explore their support needs and how these might be met, in further depth. An occupational justice perspective was used to clarify how cultural and familial expectations influenced family members’ occupational balance and well-being. After an exploratory phase in which all family members were interviewed and family interactions observed in their own homes, three action research groups were formed for women, men and children respectively. Each group carried out their own action research around their chosen topic. Through participation in the project the participants gained important skills as well as a better understanding of their situation and how they could be more proactive in improving it. Furthermore, the fact that all family members were actively involved in the project helped them to start implementing changes in behaviour and communication at home. Key findings of the study were that the importance of faith in accepting the disabled child and dealing with negative community attitudes needs to be recognised and fostered; that the social model of disability needs to be more explicit about the influence of religion and culture on the lived experience of disabled people; that the central support need of parents is for practitioners to build up a supportive relationship with them as persons in their own right; and that (the lack of) belongingness had a very significant impact on the disabled child’s and their mothers’ well-being.

Despite two decades of empirical studies focusing on programmers and the problems with programming, usability of textual programming languages is still hard to achieve. Its younger relation, visual programming languages (VPLs) also share the same problem of poor usability. This research explores and investigates the usability issues relating to VPLs in order to suggest a set of design principles that emphasise usability. The approach adopted focuses on issues arising from the interaction and communication between the human (programmers), the computer (user interface), and the program. Being exploratory in nature, this PhD reviews the literature as a starting point for stimulating and developing research questions and hypotheses that experimental studies were conducted to investigate. However, the literature alone cannot provide a fully comprehensive list of possible usability problems in VPLs so that design principles can be confidently recommended. A commercial VPL was, therefore, holistically evaluated and a comprehensive list of usability problems was obtained from the research. Six empirical studies employing both quantitative and qualitative methodology were undertaken as dictated by the nature of the research. Five of these were controlled experiments and one was qualitative-naturalistic. The experiments studied the effect of a programming paradigm and of representation of program flow on novices' performances. The results indicated superiority of control-flow programs in relation to data-flow programs; a control-flow preference among novices; and in addition that directional representation does not affect performance while traversal direction does - due to cognitive demands imposed upon programmers. Results of the qualitative study included a list of 145 usability problems and these were further categorised into ten problem areas. These findings were integrated with other analytical work based upon the review of the literature in a structured fashion to form a checklist and a set of design principles for VPLs that are empirically grounded and evaluated against existing research in the literature. Furthermore, an extended framework for Cognitive Dimensions of Notations is also discussed and proposed as an evaluation method for diagrammatic VPLs on the basis of the qualitative study. The above consists of the major findings and deliverables of this research. Nevertheless, there are several other findings identified on the basis of the substantial amount of data obtained in the series of experiments carried out, which have made a novel contribution to knowledge in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology of Programming, and Visual Programming Languages.

The purpose of the thesis is to make a contribution to the development of an empirically informed theory of identity work in organisations on the basis of a gestalt paradigm. Since its emergence almost three quarters of a century ago, gestalt has been applied to therapy, personal development, leadership education and organisational consulting. Gestalt remains, however, fundamentally a paradigm, which preferentially projects onto and deals with complex and dynamic organisational phenomena at individual, dyadic or small group levels. It can be argued that, with its focus on phenomenology and awareness, the gestalt paradigm is predominantly methodological, with only ambiguous or weak links to explicitly articulated epistemology or ontology. A long-term professional, consulting relationship with a trade union branch enabled conducting action research in order to explore the constituents and dynamics of its organisational identity, prior to and following significant change. The subsequent dismantling and closure of the branch demanded an adjustment of research design. The new situation offered a unique opportunity to follow the existentially challenged organisation as its members reacted to and made sense of the closure. The research is contextualised in three analytical clusters: identity and identity work, gestalt paradigm, and trade unions as organisations, institutions and social movements. An ontology of the intersectional field is posited, and on this foundation, four statements, seen as fundamental conditions for identity work, are operationalised through six propositions explicating identity work in a gestalt paradigm perspective. Methodologically, the overall design is informed by a constructivist grounded theory approach, moving abductively - iteratively and even recursively - between inductive and deductive analysis and reflection. The empirical component of the thesis comprises participant observation, field notes, in-depth interviews during and subsequently two years after the closure, and memos. The data proved relevant and informative in terms of identity work in the organisation. The result of the research is a hypothesis about identity work in organisations, firmly anchored in and commensurate with a present-day revised gestalt paradigm, which contribute to a formal development of a gestalt organisational theory. The hypothesis states that: “Identity work in organisations is a dialectical positioning, both individual and collective, between the existential polar opposites of inclusion and exclusion. The processes through which identity work is enacted are cognitive, affective, and conative, instrumentally served by the contact boundary dynamics of egotisming, confluencing, projecting, retroflecting, introjecting, and deflecting. “ The empirical findings are considered robust, and the theory formulation meaningful. Acknowledging the specific circumstances of the study organisation and empirical design, however, a more general application of the hypothesis requires further research in diverse contexts for verification and possibly refinement of the gestalt theoretical concepts at the organisational level. The research results are of interest to gestalt practitioners who teach or work in or with organisations, and equally so for those interested in dynamic process perspectives in which attention shifts - whether at the level of the individual, group, or organisation - from static assessment of reified identity to real-time identity work; from structure to mutual interaction and influence, in order to balance the well-being of the human beings “in” and “profitability” of the organisation.

Ökad konkurrens tillsammans med allt mer kundspecifika produkter ökar komplexiteten i tillverkningsprocesser. För en långsiktig överlevnad behöver företags produktioner styras väl med ständigt förbättringsarbete, där fokusering på minimering av variation är väsentligt för ett högt kapacitetsutnyttjande. Syftet med arbetet var att identifiera hur variation kan hanteras för att höja en tillverkningsprocess kapacitet. En tillverkningsprocess studerades därmed på ett fallföretag för att ge en nulägesbeskrivning som sedan analyserades med teorin. Av analysen kunde orsak och verkan till processens variation antas vilket gav grund för ett experiment. Experimentet utfördes som tre tester där syftet var att undersöka vilka faktorer som minskar variationen samt höjer kapaciteten. Resultatet av experimentet blev att variationen kan hanteras med införandet av ett dragande system tillsammans med de förändringar som detta kräver. Kapaciteten som höjdes med den minskade variationen gav inte en total kapacitetshöjning i processen. För att uppnå detta krävdes dessutom att arbetsinnehållet omfördelas mellan de olika processmomenten.

I följande uppsats så analyseras alternativa och ofta uppseendeväckande tolkningar av kända konstverk, närmare bestämt interpretationer som menar sig peka på dolda budskap från konstnären. Bildtolkningarna granskas i ljuset av spårsökande paradigm samt det skelett som utgör konspirationsteorier. Konspirationsteorier handlar ofta om makt och politik, men det hindrar inte att strukturen som upprätthåller dessa teorier kan sprida sig till och florera även inom andra ämnen. Undersökningen analyserar vad som händer med bildtolkningarna när de sätts i relation till teorier om konspirationsteorier. Resultatet visar att bildtolkningarna i hög grad är formulerade som samt bygger upp sin bevisning i enlighet med konspirationsteorier, och det spårsökande paradigmet är ständigt närvarande med ett fokus på detaljer för att bättre förstå helheten.

This study is centred on transformation towards sustainable living. It investigated how global education prepares learners to live a sustainable lifestyle. To explore this area, the concept of sustainability, global education and transformative learning were critically examined, with a view to finding their relationships. Literature on sustainability, transformative learning and global education were reviewed to find out how their relationships impact on international students learning about sustainable living. The focus of the thesis is on environmental sustainability, especially through management of anthropogenic factors. The mixed methods research, involving the collection of quantitative and qualitative data was employed for the study. Quantitative data collection was done using survey instruments while qualitative data collection was through face-to-face interview of research participants. Each set of data was collected and analysed separately. The outcomes of the analysis of the two sets of data were integrated at the stage of discussion of findings. The aim of the study was to find out whether global education transforms learners towards sustainable living. Findings from the study showed that global education field transforms students towards sustainable living. Evidence from the study suggests that global education help students to acquire the skills and knowledge required for living sustainably. Also, the actions and behaviours of international students were found to be influenced more towards sustainable lifestyle than those from the host country. The degree of transformation students experience was measured by attitude change, intention to change and actions of students toward the environment. This study contributed to the conceptual understanding of the relationship between global education and transformation of learners towards sustainable living. It made both theoretical and practical contribution to knowledge. The findings from the study will be of benefit to different impact groups. These groups include business organisations, policy makers in government, educational institutions, and individuals.

As an extension of previous studies (Urbanczyk, Angel, & Kennelly, 1988) examining the effects of unimanual finger tapping on lateralized cognitive tasks, lateral body orienting was added to an established dual task paradigm to generate differential hemispheric activation and shifts of attention. One hundred twenty university students retained sequences of digits or spatial locations for 20 seconds either alone or during finger tapping. By turning both head and eyes left or right, the hemisphere congruent with the sequences (LH for digits, RH for locations) or incongruent (vice versa) was activated. Activation had little effect on retention means but greatly affected resource composition supporting task performance. Congruent orientation produced significantly higher positive correlations between digit and location tasks than incongruent orientation. Females showed higher sequence retention correlations than males across both orienting groups. For females, congruent activation enhanced tapping rates and retention-tapping correlations. For males, activation affected neither of these. Discussed in light of neuroanatomical research, these results suggest that congruent attentional orienting may integrate regions of the less activated hemisphere into networks of the more activated hemisphere. This unification may occur more readily across the female corpus callosum, producing a greater dependence upon a general attentional resource than for males, who appear to depend more upon hemispheric resources.