Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Eric A. Bernard / The profession of landscape architecture is involved in understanding, designing and, or, implementing relationships between social and natural systems within a spatial-temporal context as defined in discipline literature and the 2005 Landscape Architecture Body of Knowledge (LABOK) study. The LABOK outlines core competencies of the profession and fundamental body of knowledge expected from graduates of Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board (LAAB) accredited degree programs. Geographic Information Science (GIScience) is a emerging field aimed at spatial temporal problem solving and has been defined as, “a multi disciplinary research enterprise that addresses the nature of geographic information and the application of geospatial technologies to a basic scientific question” (DiBiase, 5, 2006; Goodchild, 1992). The Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge (GIS&TBOK) (DiBiase, 121, 2007) outlines educational objectives for the emerging field of GIScience and serves as the resource for course and curriculum planning for academic and professional programs. This study investigated where intersections exist between the spatial temporal problem solving discipline of landscape architecture and emerging field of GIScience based on the respective Body of Knowledge studies. The three phased study: 1) determined overlapping relationships between the LABOK and GIS&T BOK, 2) analyzed overlaps for their ability to help first professional degree landscape architecture programs achieve LAAB curriculum accreditation, and 3) employed a case study method to illustrate how overlaps between the LABOK and GIS&T BOK and relevant to LAAB curriculum accreditation requirements influence curricula development at Kansas Sate University. The study established 887 relationships between the two respective Bodies of Knowledge, of which, 717 were found capable of helping achieve LAAB curriculum accreditation. The study presents key areas of intersection and overlap between LABOK and GIS&T, and provides a framework for integration of GIS&T educational objectives within first professional landscape architecture degree curriculums, in a manner to achieve LAAB curriculum accreditation.

Bodies or Books of Knowledge (BoKs) have only been transcribed in mature fields where practices and rules have been well established (settled) and are gathered for any prospective or current practitioner to refer to. As a precursor to creating a BoK, it is first important to know if the domain contains settled knowledge and how this knowledge can be isolated? One approach, as described in this work, is to use Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to structure the knowledge (or parts of it) and construct a pruned concept lattice to highlight patterns of use and filter out the common and established practices that best suit the solving of a problem within the domain. In the railway domain, formal methods have been applied for a number of years to solve various modelling and verification problems. Their common use and straightforward application (with some refinement) makes them easy to identify and therefore a prime candidate to test for settled knowledge within the railway domain. They also provide other assurances of settled knowledge along the way. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Bodies provide important social information, and adults benefit from this information by recognizing and responding appropriately to bodies. Body recognition is enabled by the fact that human bodies are defined by parts, such as the limbs, torso, and head, arranged in a particular configuration. To understand the development of social cognition, it is important to analyze and document how infants come to recognize bodies. Infants are sensitive to distortions to the global configurations of bodies by 3.5 months of age, suggesting an early onset of body knowledge. It was unclear, however, whether such sensitivity indicates knowledge of the location of specific body parts or solely reflects sensitivity to the overall gestalt or outline of bodies. The current study addressed this by examining whether infants attend to specific locations in which parts of the body have been reorganized. Results of Experiments 1 and 2 show that 5-month-olds, but not 3.5-month-olds, are sensitive to the location of specific body parts, as demonstrated by a difference in allocation of attention to the body joint areas that were normal (e.g., where the arm connects to the shoulder) versus ones that were reorganized. Furthermore, to examine whether this kind of processing is driven by information from the face/head, in Experiment 3 I tested infants on images in which the face/head was removed. Infants no longer exhibited differential scanning of normal versus reorganized bodies. To further assess whether infants were responding to critical information provided by the face/head or whether their processing was disrupted solely because the headless images were incomplete bodies, Experiment 4 examined infants’ performance on body images missing limbs. Once again, infants failed to exhibit differential scanning of typical versus reorganized bodies. Together, these results suggest that 5-month-olds are sensitive to the location of body parts. However, the presence of the face/head (Experiment 3) and limbs (Experiment 4) are necessary for 5-month-olds to exhibit differential scanning of reorganized versus intact body images. Overall, by 5 months of age, infants are sensitive to precise locations of body parts, and thus demonstrate a rather sophisticated level of knowledge about the structure of the human body. The role that the face/head and limbs play in body structure knowledge development is still unclear, and future studies need to address this question.

During the past three decades, much research has occurred into students' conceptions as well as factors influencing them and how the conceptions are formed. This study reports on students' conceptions involving energy and the human body. Initially, a number of student conceptions within the overarching area of energy and the human body were identified by developing and administering questionnaires to 610 students ranging from Year 8 through to Year 12. Students' responses to the questionnaire items resulted in previously identified conceptions as well as a number of unreported ones. The unreported notions included: carbohydrates are different to sugars; energy is needed for organs to function; fats and their role in energy storage; the eye and ear do not convert energy but transfer it to the brain; sweat cools the skin due to contact with air; objects need energy to start moving but not to move; and aspects of respiration and digestion. Conceptions such as the particulate nature of energy, energy's usefulness, conservation and transfer of energy, role of digestion and respiration, sources of energy were associated with previously identified notions which were derived from both informal and formal learning situations. But, it was not possible to distinguish which source knowledge was derived from. From these notions, a series of possible pathways for conceptual development within the area of energy and the human body were described. Further analysis of the data indicated a number of ontological changes that can occur as the student-cohort became older. These ontological changes included a decline in the notion of energy being particulate to being non-particulate and not being described, through to being involved in the chemical bonds of molecules, the role and processes of digestion, the number of energy types and energy sources and how the eye and ear function. / All these conceptions changed with student age and became more scientifically acceptable in their nature as students' formal education increased. Based upon the findings of the above questionnaires, a diagnostic paper and pencil instrument set of 20 items based upon a modified two tier multiple-choice format was developed to identify student held conceptions on energy and the human body. Subsequently, an interventionist strategy was designed and implemented to help students avoid the development of misconceptions as they construct acceptable concepts related to digestion and to respiration. This strategy follows the passage of food from its ingestion through to the absorbed foods conversion into ATP for use by the body. The findings of this study are to be of use to science teachers worldwide, not only in Western Australia as the findings of this thesis are relevant to educators of students in Years 8 to 12. The findings are related to energy in general but specifically to the students' own body. These findings relate directly to an intrinsically interesting feature, the student's own body. Another outcome of these misconception findings are two instruments which are likely to be of value to educators of Years 8 to 12 students. These are a diagnostic instrument designed to identify a number of alternative conceptions learners may hold and secondly a lesson sequence dealing with digestion and respiration and the role these have in the conversion and transfer of energy in the body.

Immigration, economic, and regulatory trends in Canada have challenged all professions to examine the processes by which immigrant professionals (international graduates) achieve professional licensure and meaningful employment in Canada. The Internationally Educated Engineers Qualification Program (IEEQ) at the University of Manitoba was developed as an alternate pathway to integrate international engineering graduates into the engineering profession in Manitoba. However, universities have the neither mandate nor the historical practice to facilitate licensure for immigrant professionals and, thus, the knowledge base for program development and delivery is predominantly experiential. This study was developed to address the void in the knowledge base and support the program’s ongoing development by conducting a critical, exploratory, participant-oriented evaluation of the IEEQ Program for both formative and summative purposes. The research questions focussed on how the IEEQ participants perceived and described their experiences in the IEEQ Program, and how the participants’ outcomes in the IEEQ Program compared to international engineering graduates pursuing other licensing pathways. The study was built on an interpretivist theoretical approach that supported a primarily qualitative methodology with selected quantitative elements. Data collection was grounded in focus group interviews, written questionnaires, student reports, and program records for data collection, with inductive data analysis for qualitative data and descriptive statistics for quantitative data. The findings yielded rich understandings of participants’ experiences in the IEEQ Program, their outcomes relative to international engineering graduates (IEGs) pursuing other licensing pathways, and their perceptions of their own adaptation to the Canadian engineering profession. Specifically, the study suggests that foreign credentials recognition processes have tended to focus on the recognition and translation of human and/or institutional capital. Yet, access to and acquisition of social and cultural capital need to receive equal attention. Further, the study suggested that, while it is reasonable that language fluency is a pre-requisite for successful professional integration, there is also a fundamental link between language and cognition in that international engineering graduates are challenged to understand and assimilate information for which they may not possess useful language or the underlying mental constructs. The findings have implications for our collective understanding of the scope of the professional engineering body of knowledge.

Immigration, economic, and regulatory trends in Canada have challenged all professions to examine the processes by which immigrant professionals (international graduates) achieve professional licensure and meaningful employment in Canada. The Internationally Educated Engineers Qualification Program (IEEQ) at the University of Manitoba was developed as an alternate pathway to integrate international engineering graduates into the engineering profession in Manitoba. However, universities have the neither mandate nor the historical practice to facilitate licensure for immigrant professionals and, thus, the knowledge base for program development and delivery is predominantly experiential. This study was developed to address the void in the knowledge base and support the program’s ongoing development by conducting a critical, exploratory, participant-oriented evaluation of the IEEQ Program for both formative and summative purposes. The research questions focussed on how the IEEQ participants perceived and described their experiences in the IEEQ Program, and how the participants’ outcomes in the IEEQ Program compared to international engineering graduates pursuing other licensing pathways. The study was built on an interpretivist theoretical approach that supported a primarily qualitative methodology with selected quantitative elements. Data collection was grounded in focus group interviews, written questionnaires, student reports, and program records for data collection, with inductive data analysis for qualitative data and descriptive statistics for quantitative data. The findings yielded rich understandings of participants’ experiences in the IEEQ Program, their outcomes relative to international engineering graduates (IEGs) pursuing other licensing pathways, and their perceptions of their own adaptation to the Canadian engineering profession. Specifically, the study suggests that foreign credentials recognition processes have tended to focus on the recognition and translation of human and/or institutional capital. Yet, access to and acquisition of social and cultural capital need to receive equal attention. Further, the study suggested that, while it is reasonable that language fluency is a pre-requisite for successful professional integration, there is also a fundamental link between language and cognition in that international engineering graduates are challenged to understand and assimilate information for which they may not possess useful language or the underlying mental constructs. The findings have implications for our collective understanding of the scope of the professional engineering body of knowledge.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Higher education institutions in South Africa have invested heavily in information technology and information systems, with variable outcomes. Organisations in other sectors, such as engineering, the defence industry, public administration and business, have developed and adopted standards and guides to good practice for the development and operation of software-based systems. In the history of standards-making there was an early vision of the need to extend standardisation beyond software engineering into the world that acquires and uses systems, and yet the overall scope of available standards is still limited. Seeing slow progress in the international committees that develop nationally-endorsed standards (such as ISO-IEC/JTC1/SC7) practitioner communities moved to develop good practice guides such as COBIT and ITIL, that have found considerable interest in progressive organisations. Hence a range of potential guidance is available. In order to assess the extent to which standards and good practice guides might assist higher education, the four tertiary institutions in the Western Cape were approached and a representative range of academic, administrative and managerial individuals agreed to contribute to the study as respondents. Interviews were organised in two parts: the first an open conversation about their involvement with systems, and the second a structured examination of systems-related events that they considered significant. By inspection of those events, bipolar scales were developed by which respondents were able to characterise events (for example as ‘challenging’ or ‘easy’, or as ‘functional’ or ‘dysfunctional’). Respondents rated events on those scales. Repertory Grid analysis was applied so as to investigate which scales correlated with event success. 30 scales (out of 170) proved to be adequately correlated with success, and by principal component analysis they were combined to form nine ‘success scale’ groups, indicating nine areas where the deployment of standards or good practice guides might be expected to lead to more effective use of improved information systems. The study adopted an abductive approach to the work, keeping open the question of what might be the contribution to knowledge. In the event, a new Reference Model emerged from the data analysis that contributes to the effective choice and management of standards and good practice guides .A review of available standards and good practice guides using the new Reference Model concludes that the good practice guides are more applicable than the internationally developed standards, and in some areas management models and frameworks have a contribution to make. The utility of standards, good practice guides and management models will depend on the circumstances and context of use, which are extremely variable. A portfolio approach to the management of information systems provides a means to deal with that variability. It is further found that the IMBOK1 can be used to assess the linkages between information technology, information systems, business processes, business benefits and business strategy. The new Reference Model has a role to play in resolving the need for standards in the four junctions between those five IMBOK domains. Selected standards are assessed in that way, and an illustrative commentary is provided showing how projects and other systems-related initiatives can be assessed using the new Reference Model and the IMBOK. / Carnegie Corporation of New York

Information Technology (IT) projects continue to fail despite being managed by certified Project Management Professionals (PMP) and professionally trained non-certified Project Managers (PM). This study addressed PMPs and qualified PMs who continue to experience IT project failure at a high rate. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore perspectives of PMs and their understanding of project management best practices in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). There were 5 research questions focused on IT project failures, lessons learned, trends, deficiencies in project management framework, and adherence to standard PM practices. This study utilized a phenomenological approach and an inductive analysis based on Koskinen's theory that a lack of project management knowledge can contribute to project failure. Data were collected from open-ended interviews with 20 project managers; these data were then inductively coded and analyzed for themes and patterns. Findings yielded categories of poor scope management, cost overruns, unmanaged resources, un-realistic requirements, inadequate stakeholder management, and deficiencies in content in the PMBOK standards. The results could influence positive social change for PMs to assess the depth of project management training needed to understand early warning signs of IT project failure. These changes could promote awareness within the project management community and encourage more in-depth PM competency training.

p. 1-127 / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2013-02-26T17:18:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 666.pdf: 12363039 bytes, checksum: 458e5a1b1d632ea3d1eda66278af79f5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Tatiana Lima(tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2013-03-13T20:22:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 666.pdf: 12363039 bytes, checksum: 458e5a1b1d632ea3d1eda66278af79f5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-03-13T20:22:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 666.pdf: 12363039 bytes, checksum: 458e5a1b1d632ea3d1eda66278af79f5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / A gestão de projetos de desenvolvimento territorial está sendo, de forma crescente, confrontada com os desafios da localização e da sustentabilidade. Neste contexto, se questiona se os tradicionais modelos de gestão de projetos, fundamentados ainda no pensamento mecanicista e reducionista, podem fazer frente a estes desafios. Esta pesquisa procura, de forma indutiva, buscar respostas para esta questão, partindo da sistematização do caso do “Programa de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Sustentado da Costa dos Coqueiros”, analisando discursos da academia e das agências de assistência técnica ao desenvolvimento, bem como estudando dois modelos de referência em gestão de projetos, o Logical Framework Approach e o Project Management Body of Knowledge. Resulta destas análises a conclusão de que a concepção e a administração de projetos de desenvolvimento territorial, além de serem fortemente influenciadas pelo contexto local, requerem uma nova forma de abordagem, de caráter mais endógeno, que promova a capacitação, a participação e o empoderamento efetivo dos beneficiários e dos demais atores locais envolvidos. / Salvador

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4714.pdf: 3301604 bytes, checksum: 9af8a72e777bb07cc110b09f14be0d8b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / Project management is an ancient concept that has been studied since the 1950´s, in the cold war era, when major military projects were developed. Currently this area still has great relevance. This happens because companies can achieve their objectives of short, medium and long term through the implementation of projects. This may occur through exchange of equipment, technological change, expansion or modernization of facilities and development of new products to take advantage of opportunities identified in the market. Thus, it is vital that these projects are well managed, what can be achieved by using as main reference the PMBOK, since this guide is widely known both in the academic and professional environments. Then the time spent on project implementation can be a competitive advantage for the organization, so it is important to reduce the time needed to complete the project. So for this, the concepts and principles of QRM, which is a pragmatic approach aimed at reducing the lead time can be used. This approach is used not only on the shop-floor, but also in the administrative environment. The QRM promotes joint action with the other partners in the supply chain to reduce lead times once it become evident the holistic earned gains. From this context emerges the present work that aims to reduce the lead time in the life cycle of a project, through a proposal to integrate the QRM approach and modern project management given by the PMBOK guide. This proposal will be utilized in an illustrative case study on a project of the oil sector that is sensitive to the term. / Gerenciamento de projetos é um conceito antigo e que vem sendo estudado desde a década de 1950 no período da guerra fria, onde grandes projetos militares foram desenvolvidos. Atualmente, os projetos são vitais para as organizações, visto que, através destes, essas podem alcançar seus objetivos trocando equipamentos, alterando tecnologia, expandindo ou modernizando suas instalações e também para que sejam aproveitadas oportunidades identificadas no mercado. Dessa forma, é vital que esses projetos sejam bem gerenciados, o que pode ser auferido ao se utilizar como principal referência o PMBOK, uma vez que este é um guia amplamente conhecido tanto no ambiente acadêmico como profissional. Além disso, o prazo de implementação do projeto pode ser uma vantagem competitiva para a organização, sendo importante a redução do prazo necessário para conclusão do projeto. Para isso, utilizou-se a abordagem do QRM que visa a redução de lead time não somente no chão de fábrica, mas também no ambiente administrativo. Essa abordagem, o QRM, promove o engajamento dos outros parceiros da cadeia de abastecimento na redução de lead times, uma vez que fica evidente os ganhos holísticos auferidos por todos. A partir deste contexto, surge a presente dissertação que tem como objetivo o a redução de lead time no ciclo de vida de um projeto, através de uma proposta de integração da abordagem QRM e a moderna gestão de projetos dado pelo guia PMBOK. Esta proposta será utilizada em um estudo de caso ilustrativo em um projeto do setor de petróleo que é sensível ao prazo.