Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-45).

Thesis (D.B.A.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2009. / Includes bibliographical references: leaves 204-222.

We introduce a new methodological framework, called Bewextra, for the creation of the knowledge of needs in organizations. The development of our framework builds on theoretical engagement with literature from several disciplines including visioning and philosophy of needs as well as empirical data from vision development processes we have accompanied. To the best of our knowledge it is the first theoretical work that describes learning from an envisioned future and the generation of need knowledge as an abductive process in a methodologically replicable way. The advantages and practical implications of our method introduced are discussed in detail.

This study is situated within an International Political Economy (IPE) approach and centres on an analysis of the World Bank’s ‘development knowledge’. This is a term used in the dissertation to describe the pool of knowledge and understanding linked to development which the World Bank produces. The study also incorporates a case study of the World Bank’s development partnership with South Africa, particularly through the 2008 - 2012 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS). The World Bank- South Africa partnership is characterised by a knowledge sharing approach. Importantly, the study aims to provide an understanding of the ideology and norms that underpin the World Bank’s development knowledge. Reviewed literature points toward a preferred neo-liberal ideology of development knowledge in the Bank; this is the departure point for this study’s analysis. The study is based on two levels of analysis, examined through a critical theoretical framework and discourse analysis as a methodological tool. The first level of analysis considers the structural power dynamics in the international arena which influence the ideology of development knowledge in the Bank. This study categorises these power dynamics as internal and external levers of power. The former has more to do with the Bank’s financial clout and intellectual leadership, while the latter considers the influence of powerful states, particularly the United States of America (USA), over the production of development knowledge in the World Bank. The dissertation suggests that these levers of power establish the transmission mechanisms which diffuse the ideas of powerful actors into the development knowledge of the Bank, while limiting the influence of less powerful actors. The second level of analysis, which is the South Africa case study, aims to ascertain the presence or lack of a ‘normative convergence’ on development ideals between the World Bank and South Africa. Normative convergence means shared or unified beliefs relating to how development is conceptualised between South Africa and the World Bank. The aim of this level of analysis is to identify how the presence or lack of normative convergence bears upon the efficacy of the Bank’s knowledge sharing approach in the case of South Africa. The study concludes that there is evidence which points to a neo-liberal paradigm of development within the World Bank and South Africa. A normative convergence on development ideals between the World Bank and South Africa thus exists. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Political Sciences / MA / Unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to investigate adolescent knowledge of physical, mental, social, and emotional development of babies and young children. The study was concerned with the effects of the following factors on adolescent knowledge of child development; geographic location, family size, ordinal position, and years of homemaking classes in school. Questionnaires were administered to 200 homemaking students in high schools in Parker and Tarrant counties. The only factor significant at the .05 level in affecting.adolescent knowledge was geographic location. Students from rural high schools obtained higher overall child development knowledge scores than students from urban high schools. Further research to compare the knowledge of students not enrolled in homemaking classes to the knowledge of students enrolled in homemaking classes is recommended.

The term business as an economical activity brings along many issues related to / managerial activities, competition, marketing, finance, risk, etc. which all of them include a high level of decision making that need to be supported by trust able knowledge. Due to the unique specifications of the construction industry and the high sensitivity regarding the decisions made accompanied with the business, knowledge and knowledge management have been considered essential for the industry. As a fundamental step of a well structured knowledge management system, classification of the knowledge plays an important role in organizing and representing a domain. Among the many aspects of decision making, decisions regarding the business development of a company play a crucial role in the survival and growth of an available business. However up to now, the literature has a shortage on a comprehensive work which attempts to classify the knowledge in this specific domain of the construction industry. In an effort to cover this gap in the literature, this study focuses on developing a knowledge taxonomy for business development management in a construction company based on semi-structured interviews with Turkish construction professionals. The taxonomy designed by referring to expert opinion is comprised of five major concepts: Business environment, Clients, Partners, Related parties, and own Company. The presented taxonomy is tested on real cases and believed to be used for representing, storing, sharing, retrieving and in general, managing knowledge related to business development management of a construction organizations for decision supporting purposes. More over in order to demonstrate how the presented taxonomy can be used in a company a knowledge management tool has been designed.

The aim of this thesis is to point out the critical position of University Continuing Education Units in the context of knowledge economy for their contribution to local development, and to analyse to what extent these units in the case of Turkey serve for this function. For this purpose, first, the nature of knowledge economy and transformations initiated in this process in labour markets and in nature of education are analysed. Next, new understanding of lifelong learning and restructuring process in universities, which are connected with transformation in these two fields, are discussed. Later, position of cities and importance of urban policy for local development within the context of knowledge economy is examined. Consequently, as a product of these intertwined transformations, it is revealed that University Continuing Education Units appear to be key actors for cities for their contribution to local development. Then, based on the facts developed in the theoretical arguments / data of University Continuing Education Units of Turkey and Middle East Technical University Continuing Education Center (METU CEC) scrutinised in order to reveal how far these units in Turkey serve for local development. Finally, findings and conclusions are summarised, and policy proposals are developed for University Continuing Education Units should follow in order to serve local development effectively.

This research thesis presents the development of a novel Lean Knowledge Life Cycle (LeanKLC) framework to support the transformation into a Lean Product Development (LeanPD) knowledge environment. The LeanKLC framework introduces a baseline model to understand the three dimensions of knowledge management in product development as well as its contextualisation with acclaimed LeanPD process models. The LeanKLC framework comprises 23 tasks, each accomplished in one of the seven key stages, these being: knowledge identification, previous knowledge capture, knowledge representation, knowledge sharing, knowledge integration, knowledge use and provision and dynamic knowledge capture. The rigorous research methodology employed to develop the LeanKLC framework entailed extensive data collection starting with a literature review to highlight the gap in the current body of knowledge. Additionally, industrial field research provides empirical evidence on the current industrial perspectives and challenges in managing product development knowledge. This research was part of a European FP7 project entitled Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD), which provided the opportunity to involve industrial collaborators in action research to support practical aspects during the LeanKLC framework development. The synthesis with the current LeanPD paradigm is accomplished by demonstrating the LeanKLC stages in two distinct streams related to the development of A3 thinking for problem solving and the development of trade-off curves to facilitate set based design at the conceptual stage. The novel LeanKLC is validated in two case studies providing the industry with detailed insights on real product development applications. In particular this research highlights that the LeanPD knowledge environment is a wide subject area that has not yet been thoroughly understood and that industry engagement in empirical research is vital in order to realise any form of LeanPD transformation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Creative Technologies and Media. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-148)

Knowledge graphs have emerged as a sophisticated advancement and refinement of semantic networks, and their deployment is one of the critical methodologies in contemporary artificial intelligence. The construction of knowledge graphs is a multifaceted process involving various techniques, where researchers aim to extract the knowledge from existing resources for the construction since building from scratch entails significant labor and time costs. However, due to the pervasive issue of heterogeneity, the description diversity across different knowledge graphs can lead to mismatches between concepts, thereby impacting the efficacy of knowledge extraction. This Ph.D. study focuses on automatic knowledge graph extension, i.e., properly extending the reference knowledge graph by extracting and integrating concepts from one or more candidate knowledge graphs. We propose a novel knowledge graph extension framework based on entity type recognition. The framework aims to achieve high-quality knowledge extraction by aligning the schemas and entities across different knowledge graphs, thereby enhancing the performance of the extension. This paper elucidates three major contributions: (i) we propose an entity type recognition method exploiting machine learning and property-based similarities to enhance knowledge extraction; (ii) we introduce a set of assessment metrics to validate the quality of the extended knowledge graphs; (iii) we develop a platform for knowledge graph acquisition, management, and extension to benefit knowledge engineers practically. Our evaluation comprehensively demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed extension framework and its functionalities through quantitative experiments and case studies.