Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 92-97).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-97). Also available in print.

The incidence of autism is increasing in the U.K., with as many as 1% of children now thought to be affected by an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). This research explores the potential of emerging interactive digital media to engage children affected by an ASD, and the development of design strategies for future professional work in this field. This is accomplished through a literature and state of the art review, and by working alongside families and professionals involved in the provision of care for children with an ASD. As a a result of this process new artefacts have been created, alongside a design methodology for future work. The research reveals the need for tailorable low arousal sensory environments within mainstream schools to meet the needs of certain members of the pupil population and demonstrates how interactive digital media can be incorporated into such spaces as part of an holistic approach to a child’s school experience. Using digital media modules trained professionals can work with the child, using the media as a point of engagement.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 137-144). Also available in print.

Curiosity, as a strong motivator for exploration and discovery, has long been an underexplored but important emotional response in relation to technology. This research considers that it has great potential to improve many aspects of the user experience, especially in today’s screen-saturated context. However, engaging curiosity by novelty and uncertainty may exhaust attentional strength and challenge usability. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find ways to foster the human trait of curiosity and avoid its negative effects. To gain an in-depth understanding of curiosity, the first chapter reviews cross-disciplinary literature to expand its role in improving user experience. This ranges from serving as an attention grabber to including the values that contribute to human survival, thriving, emotional resilience, and personal development. The second chapter identifies problems in the current curiosity-provoking design methods. The chapter also emphasises design for supporting active curiosity and avoiding the creation of purely novel stimuli. This approach is to encourage active curiosity to develop. To this end, the research proceeds to conduct observational studies at a museum to broaden our understanding of factors that influence people’s curiosity and exploration within a screen-mediated context. Based on these observations, I identified that there are three conceptual elements: sociability, embodiment, and playfulness. Through theoretical discussion and reflection upon the design examples, subsequent three chapters explore the relationship between curiosity and each conceptual element. The chapters also suggest several design approaches that embrace curiosity in relation to its social, embodied, and playful nature. These include creating a sense of co-curiosity, allowing the use of covert and overt curiosity-satisfying strategies, increasing bodily exploration affordances of the screen for linking curiosity with embodiment, using metaphors of the body-screen relationship, and developing possibilities and adding enchanting effects for eliciting playfulness to enrich curiosity. In essence, this research enhances our understanding of the user experience from the perspective of curiosity, and these design suggestions also help to embrace users’ active curiosity in developing sociable, embodied, and playful well-being in the age of ubiquitous screens.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Nosso objetivo neste trabalho é investigar como o design gráfico se relaciona com os meios de produção da indústria gráfica brasileira. Não é comum encontrar referências abordando temas que relacionam design e tecnologia em livros sobre a história do Brasil, o que demonstra a urgência do resgate histórico de indústrias que implementaram novas tecnologias para atender a demandas projetuais e mercadológicas. Sediada na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, a clicheria Latt-Mayer como era comumente chamada, era sinônimo de qualidade e tecnologia. Entre seus clientes podemos apontar agências de publicidade, editoras, escritórios de designers e gráficas de todo país. Esta pesquisa se baseia em um corpus composto por imagens, documentos, manuais técnicos, reportagens, matrizes e depoimentos com pessoas que estiveram diretamente envolvidas com essa empresa. Catalogamos maquinaria e técnicas utilizadas, além de projetos gráficos relevantes que tiveram matrizes e provas produzidas na empresa. Por meio deste trabalho, é possível visualizar um abrangente painel histórico, que contempla um período em que ocorreram significativas transformações na relação entre designers e tecnologia na indústria gráfica brasileira. / Our purpose in this research is to investigate how the graphic design relates to the means of production in the Brazilian printing industry. It is unusual to find references on topics that relate design & technology in books on Brazilian history, which demonstrates the need to recapture the history of industries that have implemented new technology to answer design and market demands. Located in Rio de Janeiro, the photoengraving shop Latt-Mayer as it was commonly called, was synonymous with high quality and technological advance. Among its clients we can point to advertising agencies, publishers, design offices and the printing industry across the country. This research is based on a corpus consisting of images, documents, technical manuals, reports, and interviews with people who were directly involved with the company. We have cataloged machinery and techniques used and graphic design relevant to their patterns and had printing proofs produced by the engraving shop. With this work, we can observe a comprehensive historical panel, which includes a period in which there were significant overall changes in the relation between technology & design in the Brazilian printing industry.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Nosso objetivo neste trabalho é investigar como o design gráfico se relaciona com os meios de produção da indústria gráfica brasileira. Não é comum encontrar referências abordando temas que relacionam design e tecnologia em livros sobre a história do Brasil, o que demonstra a urgência do resgate histórico de indústrias que implementaram novas tecnologias para atender a demandas projetuais e mercadológicas. Sediada na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, a clicheria Latt-Mayer como era comumente chamada, era sinônimo de qualidade e tecnologia. Entre seus clientes podemos apontar agências de publicidade, editoras, escritórios de designers e gráficas de todo país. Esta pesquisa se baseia em um corpus composto por imagens, documentos, manuais técnicos, reportagens, matrizes e depoimentos com pessoas que estiveram diretamente envolvidas com essa empresa. Catalogamos maquinaria e técnicas utilizadas, além de projetos gráficos relevantes que tiveram matrizes e provas produzidas na empresa. Por meio deste trabalho, é possível visualizar um abrangente painel histórico, que contempla um período em que ocorreram significativas transformações na relação entre designers e tecnologia na indústria gráfica brasileira. / Our purpose in this research is to investigate how the graphic design relates to the means of production in the Brazilian printing industry. It is unusual to find references on topics that relate design & technology in books on Brazilian history, which demonstrates the need to recapture the history of industries that have implemented new technology to answer design and market demands. Located in Rio de Janeiro, the photoengraving shop Latt-Mayer as it was commonly called, was synonymous with high quality and technological advance. Among its clients we can point to advertising agencies, publishers, design offices and the printing industry across the country. This research is based on a corpus consisting of images, documents, technical manuals, reports, and interviews with people who were directly involved with the company. We have cataloged machinery and techniques used and graphic design relevant to their patterns and had printing proofs produced by the engraving shop. With this work, we can observe a comprehensive historical panel, which includes a period in which there were significant overall changes in the relation between technology & design in the Brazilian printing industry.

Aus der Einleitung: "Arbeitsabläufe werden in der Regel durch eine jahrzehntelange Praxis geprägt. Eine Vielzahl von individuellen Gewohnheiten und Aspekten bildet oft eine hermetische Abgrenzung gegenüber allen Versuchen, organisatorische Veränderungen herbeizuführen. Dies gilt in besonderem Maße für die Konstruktion. Die unvoreingenommene Betrachtung heutiger Konstruktionsabläufe lässt uns feststellen, dass der Arbeitsprozess an sich seit Anbeginn vor vielen tausend Jahren fast unverändert geblieben ist. Abgesehen von einer Reihe mehr oder weniger voneinander isolierter Computer-Aided Software-Tools, die den Konstrukteur bei der Modellierung, Simulation und Datenspeicherung unterstützen, bekommt er keine weiteren Hilfestellungen. Eine Ausnahme bilden hier automatisierte Verfahrensketten, die auf der Basis fest definierter Produktmodelle in parametrisierten Verfahren Fertigungsunterlagen automatisch erstellen können. Prozessorientiert sind auch neuere Benutzeroberflächen zur Kopplung von Simulationsanwendungen. Hiermit können Anwendungen über mehrere Softwareapplikationen hinweg geschaffen werden (ModelCenter, modeFrontier). Das Wissensmanagement hingegen ist so gut wie gar nicht in die Abläufe integriert, lässt man die Fülle der Freigabeprozeduren einmal außen vor."

A fast and efficient hierarchical optimization engine was developed to benchmark and optimize various emerging device and interconnect technologies and system-level innovations at the early design stage. As the semiconductor industry approaches sub-20nm technology nodes, both devices and interconnects are facing severe physical challenges. Many novel device and interconnect concepts and system integration techniques are proposed in the past decade to reinforce or even replace the conventional Si CMOS technology and Cu interconnects. To efficiently benchmark and optimize these emerging technologies, a validated system-level design methodology is developed based on the compact models from all hierarchies, starting from the bottom material-level, to the device- and interconnect-level, and to the top system-level models. Multiple design parameters across all hierarchies are co-optimized simultaneously to maximize the overall chip throughput instead of just the intrinsic delay or energy dissipation of the device or interconnect itself. This optimization is performed under various constraints such as the power dissipation, maximum temperature, die size area, power delivery noise, and yield. For the device benchmarking, novel graphen PN junction devices and InAs nanowire FETs are investigated for both high-performance and low-power applications. For the interconnect benchmarking, a novel local interconnect structure and hybrid Al-Cu interconnect architecture are proposed, and emerging multi-layer graphene interconnects are also investigated, and compared with the conventional Cu interconnects. For the system-level analyses, the benefits of the systems implemented with 3D integration and heterogeneous integration are analyzed. In addition, the impact of the power delivery noise and process variation for both devices and interconnects are quantified on the overall chip throughput.

Compared to other subjects, Learning Area Technology teaching is a relatively new knowledge area world-wide, especially in the South African school curriculum, and it consequently presents new challenges. One of these challenges is the fact that no previous tertiary training programmes exist for the Learning Area Technology; thus new ones have to be developed. Since limited research has been done regarding Learning Area Technology teaching, teachers of Technology are forced to base their professional teaching and learning practices on approaches from other fields of knowledge and adapt these. This is not necessarily ideal for Learning Area Technology teaching in the South African context. The following question can thus be posed: To which extent do existing pre-service training programmes develop the essential competences and skills required for the effective teaching of the Learning Area Technology? Against the background of this overarching aim of the study, this research attempted to find answers to the following research questions: • What are the competences a qualified Learning Area Technology teacher should possess? • What is the nature of Learning Area Technology teacher training in South Africa? • What is lacking in training programmes for pre-service Learning Area Technology teachers in South Africa? To provide answers to these questions, a literature study as well as an empirical study was conducted. To achieve the aim of the empirical study a phenomenological approach was applied in executing an exploratory qualitative study. A random sample was drawn from available tertiary institutions training pre-service Technology teachers in the Learning Area Technology. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with lecturers to enable the researcher to comprehend and interpret experiences and realities in terms of the research question. Findings from the literature study on the competences a qualified technology Teacher should possess indicate that a Technology teacher, upon completion of studies, should posses the following competences to present the Learning Area Technology as a subject specialist: indepth subject knowledge of the various knowledge areas for the Learning Area Technology; suitable pedagogical content knowledge to be able to transform technological knowledge to teachable matter; technological skills in technological processes and techniques; and positive values and attitudes which can be integrated successfully during various learning opportunities. It is also imperative that pre-service Learning Area Technology teachers possess knowledge of appropriate teaching strategies to accomplish critical, creative and problem-solving skills among learners. The empirical research was aimed at establishing the nature of pre-service training programmes in South Africa, as well as identifying shortcomings in the training of pre-service Technology teachers. Data analyses regarding the nature of pre-service training of Learning Area Technology teachers-.enabled the researcher to identify particular shortcomings in preservice training programmes in South Africa. The following shortcomings were identified: insufficient subject knowledge and technological subject skills; limited subject specific pedagogical knowledge; lack of real life situations in learning opportunities; and a lack of modelling of teaching strategies during facilitation of the Learning Area Technology. Based on the findings of the research which was also related to the literature, specific recommendations were made in order to improve the quality of pre-service training for the Learning Area Technology. Recommendations on the identified shortcomings include the following: the training of Learning Area Technology teachers as subject specialists by establishing standards appropriate for tertiary training in order to enhance the development of subject knowledge; the development of subject specific pedagogical content knowledge by implementing micro lessons; revision of time planning and facilities for the practising of technological skills; and sufficient opportunities to practise, analyse and reflect on teaching processes to develop proper and appropriate teaching strategies. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010