This research investigated the perceptions held by pupils, across four Northern Ireland schools, towards routine school-based practical work activities and project work in Technology and Design (T&D) and also that which had been contextualized within an industrial setting. The views of the Heads of Departments (HoDs) of each school and four local industrialists were also probed in relation to the latter. The study is important as it is one of only a few studies of T&D to be conducted in Northern Ireland and, to the author's knowledge, it is the only study to date that has focussed on young people's perceptions on this key aspect of the subject. Indeed, there is recognised to be a lack of the pupils' voice in the technology education literature more generally. The research was carried out by means of in-depth interviews with both pupils in Year 10, the final year of Key Stage 3 (KS3), and pupils in Year 12, the final year of Key Stage 4 (KS4). The schools were from both the selective and the non-selective sectors. In Northern Ireland KS3 refers to the first three years of post-primary schooling (Years 8, 9 and 10) and KS4 refers to the following two years (Years 11 and 12). A total of 22 Year 10 and 22 Year 12 pupils participated in the study. Two sets of interviews were conducted with the pupils, Interview One dealing with their routine practical work and Interview Two focussing on practical work which was associated with local industry. The HoDs and the four industrialists also took part in the second series of interviews.

by Gerald L. Beauregard and Mandayam A. Srinivasan. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--Boston University, College of Engineering, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-189). / Supported by the Office of Naval Research. N61339-94-C-0087 Supported by the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division. N61339-93-C-0083

My thesis is concerned with the engagement and disengagement of South Asian girls and women with technology education in Britain. The research arose out of the need to establish whether South Asian girls and women had been included in, and benefited from, the attempts to encourage more girls and women into the fields of science, engineering and technology. Existing theoretical, especially feminist, frameworks for understanding the experiences of girls and women in science, engineering and technology, were largely silent about the experiences of minority ethnic girls and women, especially those of South Asian heritage; their experiences and perspectives were subsumed under an assumed generic female experience, which I have termed 'universal wonian' syndrome. Similarly, existing theoretical discourses for understanding the specific experiences of South Asian girls and women in education and the labour market, were too broad in focus and unable to offer any commentary about their position in relation to specific subjects and/or occupations. My thesis is intended to make a contribution towards assessing whether the initiatives to proniote girls and women into technology are of relevance and applicability to South Asian girls and women. I adopted an 'anti-oppressive' epistemological and methodological framework within which to locate the research process, from initial conceptualisation to final data analysis. In particular I focused on anti-racist, feminist, and Black feminist epistemology and methodology. I utilised both quantitative and qualitative methods, within a reflexive framework for gathering and analysing data, in order to respond better to changing research circumstances.. My thesis is intended to make a contribution to the wider understanding of epistemological and methodological research issues, especially in terms of the applicability of anti-racist, feminist and Black feminist standpoint epistemology. It is intended to contribute especially to our knowledge about ethical concerns which researchers need to be cognisant of from the outset of their research project. Data was gathered and analysed by me using a grounded theory approach, which resulted in my use of a theoretical model proposed by Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992). This theory is intended to examine the connections between gender and ethnicity in the process of nation-building, but I felt that it could also be used to explain the ways in which gender and ethnicity acted upon the South Asian girls and women in their choice of subject of study and subsequent jobs/occupations. The data analysis revealed that many of the initiatives to encourage girls and women into fields in which they were under-represented, had had very little, if any impact upon the subject and occupational choices of South Asian girls and women in this study, as those initiatives had focused on addressing primarily, if not exclusively gender issues, whereas the lives and decision-making processes of the South Asian girls and women were informed by the experience of a particularly ethnicised-gendered experience. Consequently the thesis moves beyond focusing exclusively on the ways in which South Asian girls and women make choices about technology education and occupations, to a concern with how they make choices about education and work in general, through negotiating with various discourses around questions of gender, ethnicity/race, class and religion.

In deafness, which is caused by the malfunctioning of the inner ear, an implantation of a cochlear implant (CI) is able to restore hearing. The CI is a neural prosthesis that is located within the cochlea. It replaces the function of the inner hair cells by direct electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve fibers. The CI enables many deaf or severe hearing-impaired people to achieve a good speech perception. Nevertheless, there is a lot of potential for further improvements. Compared to normal-hearing listeners rate pitch discrimination is much worse. Rate pitch discrimination is the ability to distinguish the pitch of two stimuli with two different pulse rates. This ability is important for enjoying music as well as speech perception (in noise). Further, the small dynamic range in electrical hearing (compared to normal-hearing listeners) and therefore the small intensity resolution limits the performance of CI users. Both, rate pitch coding and dynamic range were investigated in this doctoral thesis. For the first issue, a pitch discrimination task was designed to determine the just-noticeable-difference (JND) in pitch with 200 and 400 pps as reference. Additionally to the default biphasic pulse (single pulse) the experiment was performed with double pulses. The double pulse consists out of two biphasic pulses directly after each other and a small interpulse interval (IPI) in between. Three different IPIs (15, 50, and 150 µs) were tested. The statistical analysis of JNDs revealed no significant effects between stimulation with single-pulse or double-pulse trains. A follow-up study investigated an alternating pulse train consisting of single and double pulses. To investigate if the 400 pps alternating pulse train is comparable in pitch with the 400 pps single-pulse train, a pairwise pitch comparison test was conducted. The alternating pulse train was compared with single-pulse trains at 200, 300 and 400 pps. The results showed that the alternating pulse train is for most subjects similar in pitch with the 200 pps single-pulse train. Therefore, pitch perception seemed to be dominated by the double pulses within the pulse train. Accordingly, double pulses with different amplitudes were tested. Based on the facilitation effect, a larger neuronal response was expected by stimulating with two pulses with a short IPI within the temporal facilitation range. In other studies, this effect was shown to be maximal in CIs of the manufacturer Cochlear, with first pulse amplitudes set at or slightly below the electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) threshold. The second pulse amplitude did not influence the facilitation effect and therefore could be choose at will. Similarly, this effect was tested in this thesis with CIs of the manufacturer MED-EL. Nevertheless, to achieve a proper signal-to-noise ratio, technical issues had to be addressed like a high noise floor, resulting in incorrect determination of the ECAP threshold. After solving this issues, the maximum facilitation effect was around the ECAP threshold as in the previous study with Cochlear. For future studies this effect could be used in a modified double pulse rate pitch experiment with the first pulse amplitude at ECAP threshold and the second pulse amplitude variable to set the most comfortable loudness level (MCL). The last study within this thesis investigated the loudness perception at two different loudness levels and the resulting dynamic range for different interphase-gaps (IPG). A larger IPG can reduce the amplitude at same loudness level to save battery power. However, it was unknown if the IPG has an influence on the dynamic range. Different IPGs (10 and 30 µs) were compared with the default IPG (2.1 µs) in a loudness matching experiment. The experiment was performed at the most comfortable loudness level (MCL) of the subject and the amplitude of half the dynamic range (50%-ADR). An upper dynamic range was calculated from the results of MCL and 50%-ADR (therefore not the whole dynamic range was covered). As expected from previous studies a larger IPG resulted in smaller amplitudes. However, the observed effect was larger at MCL than at 50%-ADR which resulted in a smaller upper dynamic range. This is the first time a decrease of this dynamic range was shown. / Bei einer Taubheit, welche durch eine Schädigung des Innenohres hervorgerufen wird, ist es möglich das Gehör mittels eines Cochlea-Implantates (CI) wieder herzustellen. Das Implantat befindet sich innerhalb der Hörschnecke und ist in der Lage, die Funktion der inneren Haarzellen zu ersetzen. Dies geschieht durch direkte elektrische Stimulation der auditorischen Nervenfasern. Dadurch ermöglicht das CI Ertaubten oder stark Schwerhörigen, ein gutes Sprachverstehen zu erlangen. Dennoch gibt es weiterhin Verbesserungspotential. Im Vergleich zu Normalhörenden ist unter anderem die Tonhöhenunterscheidung stark eingeschränkt. Die Unterscheidung von Tonhöhen ist sowohl für den Musikgenuss als auch für das Sprachverstehen (im Störgeräusch) wichtig. Ebenso verfügen CI Träger über einen vergleichsweise kleinen Dynamikbereich und einer daraus resultierenden geringen Auflösung der Intensitäten. Dies kann zu einer Beeinträchtigung des Hörens führen. Sowohl die Fähigkeit der Tonhöhenunterscheidung als auch der Dynamikbereich werden in der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit untersucht. Hierfür wurde zunächst ein Tonhöhenunterscheidungs-Experiment entworfen, bei welchem der kleinste wahrnehmbare Unterschied zweier Pulsraten ermittelt wurde. Die Pulsraten 200 und 400 pps dienten als Referenzwert. Neben dem standardmäßig verwendeten Biphasischen Puls, wurden Doppelpulse genutzt. Diese bestehen aus zwei aufeinander folgenden biphasischen Pulsen gleicher Amplitude, welche durch ein kurzes interpuls Intervall (IPI) separiert sind. In dem Experiment wurden drei unterschiedliche IPIs getestet (15, 50 und 150 µs). Die Analyse des kleinesten wahrnehmbaren Tonhöhenunterschieds ergab keine signifikanten Unterschiede zwischen dem einfachen Puls und den Doppelpulsen. Ein Folgeexperiment beschäftigte sich mit einer alternierenden Pulsfolge bestehend aus dem einfachen und dem Doppelpuls. In einem paarweisen Vergleichsexperiment wurde die alternierende Pulsfolge bei 400 pps mit einem Einfachpuls bei 200, 300 und 400 pps in ihrer Tonhöhe verglichen. Es zeigte sich, dass die alternierende Pulsfolge bei 400 pps mehrheitlich mit dem Einzelpuls bei 200 pps vergleichbar war. Demzufolge scheint die Tonhöhenwahrnehmung der alternierenden Pulsfolge von dem Doppelpuls dominiert zu werden. Auf beide Experimente aufbauend, wurden Doppelpulse mit unterschiedlichen Amplituden untersucht. Basierend auf den Bahnungseffekt (Facilitation-Effekt), kann eine größere neuronale Antwort hervorgerufen werden, indem mit Doppelpulsen mit kurzem IPI stimuliert wird. In einer anderen Studie konnte anhand von CIs der Firma Cochlear gezeigt werden, dass dieser Effekt maximal war, wenn die Amplitude des ersten Pulses nahe der Schwelle zum elektrisch evozierten Summenaktionspotential (ECAP) liegt. Die Amplitude des zweiten Pulses dagegen hatte keinen Einfluss auf den „Facilitation“-Effekt und konnte beliebig gewählt werden. Dieser Effekt wurde mit CIs der Firma MED-EL in der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit nachgestellt. Es zeigte sich, dass auch hier der größte „Facilitation“-Effekt auftrat, wenn die Amplitude des ersten Pulses nahe der ECAP-Schwelle lag. In zukünftigen Studien könnte dieser Effekt für einen modifizierten Doppelpuls genutzt werden, um mit diesem das ursprüngliche Tonhöhenunterscheidungs-Experiment zu wiederholen. Dabei würde die Amplitude des ersten Pulses der ECAP-Schwelle entsprechen, während die zweite Pulsamplitude variiert wird, um den größten, möglichst angenehmen, Lautheitspegel zu erhalten. In einer letzten Studie wurde das Lautheitsempfinden bei zwei unterschiedlichen Lautheiten bei unterschiedlichen Interphasen-Gaps (IPG) untersucht und der daraus resultierende Dynamikbereich. Eine Vergrößerung des IPGs führt bei gleich bleibendem Lautheitsempfinden zu geringeren Stimulations-Amplituden und ist dadurch in der Lage die Batterie schonen. Allerdings ist der Einfluss auf den Dynamikbereich bisher unbekannt. In einem Lautheits-Experiment wurden Pulse mit verschiedenen IPGs (10 und 30 µs) mit dem standardmäßig verwendeten IPG (2.1 µs) in ihrer Lautheit angeglichen. Dieses Verfahren wurde bei MCL und der Amplitude des halben Dynamikbereichs (50%-ADR) durchgeführt. Aus den ermittelten Werten konnte ein „oberer“ Dynamikbereich zwischen MCL und 50%-ADR ermittelt werden. Es zeigte sich, dass sich die Amplituden mit größerem IPG, wie erwartet, verringerten. Jedoch zeigte sich ein stärkerer Effekt bei MCL, was eine Verringerung des Dynamikbereichs zur Folge hat. Dies ist das erste Mal, dass eine Verringerung des Dynamikbereichs gezeigt wurde.

In this study, John Gray&rsquo / s theory of value-pluralism is critically analyzed. Gray&rsquo / s modus vivendi, based on Isaiah Berlin&rsquo / s criticism of monism, is a theory that aims to create the conditions in which peace and diversity in late-modern societies can be protected. Gray argues that a legally pluralistic system where collectives have autonomy is more serving to peace than its liberal alternatives. This study argues that Gray fails to achieve its goal of promoting diversity. This is due to the fact that Gray&rsquo / s theory does not recognize &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / as standards for a legitimate regime. It is argued in this study that without &lsquo / personal autonomy&rsquo / and &lsquo / right of exit&rsquo / , legally pluralist systems curb the conditions that makes diversity possible and thereby work at the expense of diversity rather than for diversity.

The radical democratic conception of civil society strives for theoretically constructing and politically defending civil society as a social sphere autonomous from both the economy and state. As a position taken against Marxist and liberal theories, radical civil societarianism views the cultural and normative structures of modern societies as independent from and prior to systemically conceived economic and political relations. These structures is purported to give way to spontaneous social solidarity characterising civil society. With the mechanisms of domination and exploitation defined outside civil society, this approach ends up with excessive voluntarism characterising social relations thereof. Similarly, in the Turkish context, the dominant centre-periphery approach is predicated upon the external contradiction between the vertical state-society relations and horizontal relations between social actors. It is argued that the dominance of the former has caused the underdevelopment of civil society which is a particular expression of the latter. In any case, social conflicts are detached from structural political and economic mechanisms and conceived in voluntaristic terms. Consequently, the normative position radical civil societarianism takes vis-&agrave / -vis social movements fails to go beyond an imposition of the arbitrary notion of &ldquo / civility&rdquo / through the discourse of self-limitation.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the challenges of immigration on the modern concept of citizenship by interpreting the perceptions of individuals. It tries to reveal the ways in which citizenship practices and conceptualizations of second-generationTurkish-Germans support and/or diverge from the theoretical approaches that attempt to explicate the immigration/citizenship problem. Second-generation Turkish-Germans&rsquo / experiences and perceptions of citizenship are investigated with respect to three aspects of citizenship that are legal status, identity, and civic virtue.

O σκοπός της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι διττός και, εμπεριέχει δραστηριότητα τόσο στο κομμάτι της εφαρμοσμένης όσο και της βασικής έρευνας. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, περιλαμβάνει την εφαρμογή σύγχρονων υπολογιστικών μεθόδων (Μέθοδος Πεπερασμένων Στοιχείων, Μέθοδος Πεπερασμένων Όγκων) στη μελέτη της ροής του αίματος, καθώς και την ανάπτυξη σύγχρονων υπολογιστικών μεθοδολογιών που δε στηρίζονται στη χρήση πλέγματος. Ταυτόχρονα μελετάται η αποτελεσματική εφαρμογή των μεθόδων της Υπολογιστικής Ρευστομηχανικής στην ιατρική πρακτική (Simulation Treatment Planning), για την αποτελεσματική πρόληψη, διάγνωση και θεραπευτική αντιμετώπιση των νόσων του καρδιακού και περιφερικού αγγειακού συστήματος. Η διαδικασία υλοποίησης των προσομοιώσεων έχουν σκοπό την υποβοήθηση του θεράποντα ιατρού στη λήψη ιατρικής απόφασης σχετικά με τη θεραπευτική αγωγή. Παράλληλα, στο κομμάτι της βασικής έρευνας αναπτύσσονται σύγχρονες υπολογιστικές μέθοδοι οι οποίες πρόκειται να καλύψουν τις αδυναμίες που παρουσιάζουν οι διαδεδομένες υπολογιστικές μέθοδοι. Η υλοποίησή τους βρίσκει ανταπόκριση και πεδίο εφαρμογής σε διάφορους τομείς της Επιστήμης και της Μηχανικής. Έτσι, θα παρουσιαστούν αποτελέσματα μόνο στο τομέα της Υπολογιστικής Ρευστομηχανικής. Τα κριτήρια αυτά θα στηριχθούν σε ποσοτικές συνδυαστικές αναλύσεις, οι οποίες ενσωματώνουν το state-of-the-art της μορφολογικής απεικόνισης των αγγείων στο state-of-the-art των μεθοδολογιών της υπολογιστικής ρευστομηχανικής, οι οποίες είναι άμεσα σχετιζόμενες με την εκτίμηση των αιμοδυναμικών παραγόντων και τάσεων που εφαρμόζονται σε πάσχουσες περιοχές του αγγειακού συστήματος, όπως στενώσεις, θρόμβοι και ανευρύσματα. / The aim of present doctoral thesis is double fold and, includes research activity both in the fields of applied and basic research. More precisely, it includes the application of modern numerical methods (Finite Element Method, Finite Volume Method) for the study of blood flow, as well as the development of modern numerical methodologies, which do not rely on the use of a computational mesh, that is the so-called meshless or Meshfree methods. Furthermore, the effective application of sophisticated numerical methods in the medical practice (Simulation Treatment Planning) has been studied, since there is a great necessity for effective prevention, diagnosis and therapeutic confrontation of illnesses the cardiac and vascular system. The simulation conducted they aim to assist the doctor in the decision-making. At the same time, regarding of area of the basic research, sophisticated numerical methods were developed and applied to various applications of science and engineering. More precisely, results will be presented for Computational Fluid Dynamics problems.

Design continuously re-defines its meaning. Over the last years, the way designers interpret information, solve problems as well as prototype and express ideas has received increased attention from domains outside of traditional design, especially from the business world. However, much of the design thinking discourse outside of traditional design centres around a few widely-read practitioner books and only builds on a rudimentary understanding of its principles. Likewise, the academic literature only offers a few rigorous investigations of the application of design thinking in the management and innovation domain, especially when it comes to thedevelopment of novice multidisciplinary teams. Therefore, this thesis provides an evaluation of the influence of the following five key themes discussed in the design thinking literature: Team diversity, iteration, learning styles, creative confidence, and team communication. These themes were explored during a quantitative quasi-experimental research study, which was built on a novel research framework. Data wascollected from 42 German research participants over a period of 10 month. The longitudinal perspective enabled the researcher to illustrate how novices develop design thinking competencies in projects over time. While investigating team diversity, multidisciplinary teams were found to produce significantly better project outcomes than single-discipline teams. On the other hand, diversity of personality traits was not found to have a significant effect on the final performance of teams. The exploration of iteration behaviour revealed that multidisciplinary teams did not iterate significantly more than single-discipline teams. In addition, more experienced participants approached design thinking projects slightly less iteratively thannovices. Overall, the degree of iteration was not found to have a significant effect on the final team performance. Regarding the use of different learning styles, it was discovered that, teams with a balance of learning styles achieved significantly better project outcomes than less-balanced teams. In terms of learning styles, participants approached design thinking tasks mainly through rational conceptualisation rather than concrete experience. Theanalysis of individual and team confidence showed that creative confidence developed slowly and linearly over the course of a project, but only partly carried over to new project and team settings. Furthermore, no evidence was found that higher levels of creative confidence directly influenced the quality of the project outcomes. The investigation of team communication revealed that the importance of individuals in design thinking teams significantlychanged over the course of a project. Contrary to previous assumptions, high degrees of internal team cohesion were found to have a significant negative effect on project outcomes. While several of these findings clarify and reiterate existing design thinking theory, others call for an adjustment of theory and highlight the need for more rigorous research. Several recommendations are offered for practitioners, educators, and researchers on how to incorporate the presented findings into practice and future research.

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