Current design models, approaches and theories are highly fragmented, have seldom been compared with one another, and rarely attempted to be consolidated. Novelty is a measure of creativity of engineering products and positively influences product success. Using physical laws and effects for designing can improve the chances of creativity but they cannot be used directly owing to their inadequate current representations. It is important to address activities, outcomes, requirements and solutions in designing. Conceptual design is an early phase in engineering design and needs to be supported better. A systematic approach for designing often increases effectiveness and efficiency. Thus, the broad objective of this thesis is to develop and validate a comprehensive understanding of how designing occurs during the conceptual phase of engineering design, and to support variety and novelty of designs during this phase. The approach followed is: (a) formulate and validate an understanding of novelty and its relationships to the designing constructs, in current designing, and(b)develop and validate a support, founded on the current designing, to improve novelty. The understanding and the support are addressed, respectively, through an integrated model and a systematic framework for designing; the model and the framework comprise activities, outcomes(including laws and effects), requirements and solutions. An integrated model of designing, GEMS of SAPPhIRE as req-sol is developed by combining activities(Generate, Evaluate, Modify, Select– GEMS), outcomes (State change, Action, Parts, Phenomenon, Input, oRgans, Effect–SAPPhIRE), requirements (req) and solutions (sol), identified from a comprehensive survey of existing design models and approaches. Validation of SAPPhIRE model with existing systems indicates that the model can be used to describe analysis and synthesis, both of which together constitute designing. Validation of the integrated model using existing videos of design sessions, to check if all its constructs are naturally used in designing, reveals that:(a) all the constructs are naturally used;(b) not all the outcomes are explored with equal intensity;(c) while high numbers of action and parts are observed, only low numbers of phenomenon, effects and organs are found. Empirical study using another set of design sessions to study the relationships between novelty and the outcomes reveals that novelty of a concept space depends on the variety of the concept space, which in turn depends on the variety of the idea space explored. Novelty and variety of a concept space also depend on the number of outcomes explored at each abstraction level. Thus, phenomena and effects are also vital for variety and novelty. Based on the above, GEMS of SAPPhIRE as req-sol framework for designing is proposed. The framework is divided into: Requirements Exploration Stage(RES) and Solutions Exploration Stage(SES). In RES and SES, requirements and solutions respectively at all the abstraction levels including SAPPhIRE are generated, evaluated, modified and selected. The framework supports task clarification, conceptual and early embodiment phases of designing, and provides process knowledge. Comparison of the framework against existing design models, theories and approaches reveals that:(a) not all existing models, theories and approaches address activities, outcomes, requirements and solutions together;(b) those that address all these constructs together do not make a distinction between requirements and solutions; and(c) no model or approach explicitly addresses novelty. The usability of the framework and Idea-inspire is assessed by applying them in an industrial project for designing novel concepts of lunar vehicle mobility system. The use of this combined support enables identification of critical requirements, development of a large variety of ideas and concepts. One of these concepts is physically and virtually modelled, and tested, and is found to satisfy all the requirements. A catalogue of physical laws and effects is developed using SAPPhIRE model to provide assistance to designers, especially for phenomena, effects and organs. Observations found during this development are reported. A comparative validation of the framework and the catalogue for their support to design for variety and novelty is done using comparative observational studies. Results from the observational studies reveal that the variety and the novelty of concept space improve with the use of the framework, or with the frame work and the catalogue, as compared to variety and novelty with no support.

Master's Thesis is about the techniques of creating a small executable program with size limited to 64kB. Describes one of the possible ways to use OpenGL for such purposes. With more detail describe the rigid body simulation, creating shaders, dynamic generating of texture and make music in intro scene applications. Presents using of WinApi to create windows, V2 synthetizer for sound and GLSL language for creating shaders. Everything is demonstratively created under Windows.

Die rasionaal vir onderhawige studie was aan die hand van narratiewe navorsingsmetodes om insig en begrip te verwerf oor wat dit beteken om die moeder te wees van 'n seun met outisme. Ek (navorser) en die moeder (deelnemer) het verskeie data-inwinning-aktiwiteite aangewend, byvoorbeeld haar lewensverhaal, waarin ek en die moeder emosionele intelligensie komponente geïdentifiseer het met die verdere doel om haar belewinge van outisme te interpreteer. 'n Narratiewe navorsing-ontwerp, wat gebaseer is op interpretavistiese en konstruktivistiese paradigmata, kan dus die betekenisvolle emosies en ander belewinge van die moeder akkuraat interpreteer en kommunikeer oor wat dit beteken om 'n moeder te wees van 'n seun met outisme. In hierdie studie maak ek as navorser gebruik van 'n kwalitatiewe navorsingsbenadering met 'n narratiewe navorsings-ontwerp, waarin 'n multimetode benadering tot data-insameling aangewend word, met die doel om die belewinge van die moeder in die vorm van 'n lewensverhaal saam te vat. Die data-inwinning-strategieë wat aangewend is het gepoog om in-diepte, ryk en persoonlike verhaal-inhoude te genereer. Die volgende aktiwiteite is gebruik : 'n informele onderhoud, herinneringsboek (collages, staaltjies, lewenslyn en metafore), en 'n intellektuele bespreking van emosionele intelligensie. Die moeder het kollaboratief deelgeneem tydens die identifisering van emosionele intelligensie komponente in haar lewensverhaal. Dit was belangrik om deurlopend kollaboratiewe besprekinge met die moeder te skeduleer, aangesien haar insae met betrekking tot die wyse waarop die data georganiseer, geanaliseer en geïnterpreteer word verband hou met haar interpretasies van outisme en die verkenning van haar belewinge aan die hand van Bar-On (2003) se emosionele intelligensie komponente. Die betekenisvolle belewinge wat op grond van die moeder se verhaal-inhoude, in samehang met haar geïdentifiseerde emosionele intelligensie komponente, bespreek word, dui daarop dat die moeder 'n optimistiese, realistiese en intro-spektiewe uitkyk het met betrekking tot ouerskap en opvoeding. Dit kan as verantwoordbaar beskou word as ek as navorser dit stel dat die moeder begrip en insig demonstreer ten opsigte van die hindernis waarmee haar seun leef. Die moeder som haar belewing van outisme die beste op met die inspirerende aanhaling van Emily Pearl Kingsley: “Say goodbye to the child you wanted, or else your focus will never be with the child you have.” / ENGLISH : The rationale for this study was to gain a better understanding of what it means to be the mother of a child with autism, through the use of narrative research accounts. The mother (participant), and I (researcher) furthermore utilized the sources of collected data, such as her life story, to identify components of emotional intelligence with the purpose of additional interpretation. A narrative research design, firmly rooted in an interpretivist and constructivist paradigm, should therefore serve to accurately interpret the significant emotions and other lived-experiences that a mother attaches to living with a child that has been diagnosed with autism. A multi-method approach, directed by a qualitative research approach and a narrative research design, was followed in an attempt to capture the mother‘s experiences and life story. Data collection strategies employed to generate an in-depth, rich and personal life story consisted of the following activities: an informal interview, memory box (collages, anecdotes, life line, and methaphors) and an intellectual discussion regarding emotional intelligence. The mother also participated in a collaborative discussion to identify emotional intelligence components relevant to her life story. Further collaboration and discussion with the mother were required to ensure that the data were organised, analysed and interpreted according to the mother‘s lived-experiences of autism, along with her emotions that were identified on the basis of Bar-On‘s (2003) emotional intelligence components. The meaningful findings drawn from the mother‘s narratives (in relation to the identified emotional intelligence components) suggest that the mother demonstrates an optmistic, realistic and introspective view on parenting. It can be regarded as accountable for me as researcher to state that the mother displays an educated an comprehensive understanding of the disability with which her child is living. The mother perhaps best summarises her experiences of autism in the words of Emily Pearl Kingsley‘s inspirational words: “Say goodbye to the child you wanted, or else your focus will never be with the child you have.” / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Educational Psychology / Unrestricted

The aim of this project is to investigate the feasibility of retrieving unstructured automotive listings from structured web pages on the Internet. The research has two major purposes: (1) to investigate whether it is feasible to pair information extraction algorithms and compute wrappers (2) demonstrate the results of pairing these techniques and evaluate the measurements. We merge two training sets available on the web to construct reference sets which is the basis for the information extraction. The wrappers are computed by using information extraction techniques to identify data properties with a variety of techniques such as fuzzy string matching, regular expressions and document tree analysis. The results demonstrate that it is possible to pair these techniques successfully and retrieve the majority of the listings. Additionally, the findings also suggest that many platforms utilise lazy loading to populate image resources which the algorithm is unable to capture. In conclusion, the study demonstrated that it is possible to use information extraction to compute wrappers dynamically by identifying data properties. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the ability to open non-queryable domain data through a unified service.

Thesis "Data Mining in the Field of English Football League Third Division's Betting Odds" deals with data mining referring to acquiring knowledge from data. The main objective of this work is to develop data models for prediction of match results and to compare these predictions with a chosen strategy of betting. The selected betting strategy is based on betting single bets with odds belonging to chosen intervals, which generate a profit. These odds intervals were discovered by analyzing 2006-2009 football matches in a created simulator. On the basis of these odds ranges data models were constructed. Each data model contains a hypothesis which is generated by SD4ft procedure of LispMiner based on all football matches played in seasons 2001-2008. Developed data models are tested afterwards using 2006-2009 football matches data. Results show that all derived data models are profitable in all four seasons under consideration. More than half of them successfully predicted 2009 matches as well. The analysis showed that betting agencies offer mostly odds which make it almost impossible to be profitable while betting on matches according to their odds. In spite of this fact I identified some odds intervals with which you can success while betting single bets on home-team, draw or visitor-team with odds falling within these intervals. Association rules with reasonable confidence and support can generate high profitability. It is important to realize that there are no data models which guarantee a certain profit. Most of developed data models are not applicable in the real world, some of them can actually generate a loss. Nevertheless there are data models to be found that could generate a profit in the real world.

The analysis of wide-angle cellular light scattering patterns is a challenging problem. Small changes to the organization, orientation, shape, and optical properties of scatterers and scattering populations can significantly alter their complex two-dimensional scattering signatures. Because of this, it is difficult to find methods that can identify medically relevant cellular properties while remaining robust to experimental noise and sample-to-sample differences. It is an important problem. Recent work has shown that changes to the internal structure of cells---specifically, the distribution and aggregation of organelles---can indicate the progression of a number of common disorders, ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative disease, and can also predict a patient's response to treatments like chemotherapy. However, there is no direct analytical solution to the inverse wide-angle cellular light scattering problem, and available simulation and interpretation methods either rely on restrictive cell models, or are too computationally demanding for routine use. This dissertation addresses these challenges from a computational vantage point. First, it explores the theoretical limits and optical basis for wide-angle scattering pattern analysis. The result is a rapid new simulation method to generate realistic organelle scattering patterns without the need for computationally challenging or restrictive routines. Pattern analysis, image segmentation, machine learning, and iterative pattern classification methods are then used to identify novel relationships between wide-angle scattering patterns and the distribution of organelles (in this case mitochondria) within a cell. Importantly, this work shows that by parameterizing a scattering image it is possible to extract vital information about cell structure while remaining robust to changes in organelle concentration, effective size, and random placement. The result is a powerful collection of methods to simulate and interpret experimental light scattering signatures. This gives new insight into the theoretical basis for wide-angle cellular light scattering, and facilitates advances in real-time patient care, cell structure prediction, and cell morphology research.

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The master thesis is focused on the simulation of the toroid coils in Ansoft Maxwell 3D software, which uses finite element method for electromagnetic field simulation. Firstly the process creation of the geometric model toroid coil with seventy-five threaded is presented. It is necessary to debug this model and prepare it for the mesh generation. Physical properties are assign to this model and it gives rise to the physical model. We will set boundaries, excitation current, core material, winding material and the parameters for the mesh generations. New material Kashke K4000 will be created in the materials library and subsequently we will define its BH curve on the basis of datasheet. Analysis is made in two modes. Direct currents (7,5A; 10A; 15A; 20A; 25A) and (non)linear materials are used in magnetostatic solution. Toroid coil is excited by current pulse in transient solution. In Ansoft Maxwell Circuit editor a source which generates current pulse will be created. This excitation will be assigned to the toroid coil as an extern source through a terminal. Core material is linear in the case of transient analysis, because Ansoft Maxwell 3D doesn´t allow to use nonlinear material in this solution. Settings are different in transient and in magnetostatic analysis. End time and time step are entered to solve this task in transient analysis. Time points are entered too. Flux density and electromagnetic field strength are calculated in these time points and later it will be possible to view the results. Calculated fields are shown as the pictures in this thesis. The procedure how to use a field calculator in the postprocessing is given as well. The achievements are summarized in the conclusion.