Many practitioners commonly deal with implementing a change that is imposed by an organization. Some imposed changes require practitioners to alter more than what they do in practice but also to change their identity. Many researchers have studied identity change through the lens of sociocultural theory, specifically utilizing communities of practice theory (CoP). However, the majority of these studies used CoP theory as a vehicle to implement the imposed change. Yet some studies have found that after the trial period ends many practitioners revert back to the way they performed in practice prior to the study. One reason for this problem could be that the nature of the change experience that practitioners must undergo is not understood. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to reveal the nature of the change experience of six released-time seminary teachers in response to the adoption of the teaching and learning emphasis (TLE) within the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Specifically, the research question was "What is the nature and meaning of the change experience of a sample of released-time seminary teachers who are considered to be effective at learning to understand and implement TLE"? Researching S&I teachers' change experience is important because it may relate not only to the needs of the S&I organization, but also in a broader sense to the nature of the experience of practitioners who undergo an imposed change by the organization for which they work that alters their professional identity. Three central themes were found that represented the nature of the change experience for the sample group. The themes were represented as transformational, sociocultural, and self-reflective change. Each participant's experience varied in the particular details of his individual change experience. Nevertheless, all participants experienced some degree or kind of transformational change within their particular configuration of knowledge, character, and professional practice. Furthermore, all study participants engaged in sociocultural learning practices to facilitate their change. Finally, study participants experienced self-reflective changes.

The national laboratories (NLs) play a critical role in the economic and social development of technological latecomer countries, yet no academic study has ever quantified how knowledge inflows and internal knowledge impact the performance of the NLs. This dissertation identifies and ranks the importance of factors pertaining to knowledge inflows and project-internal knowledge, which determine the success or failure of research projects in the NLs of Thailand. A survey of 123 project managers in the NLs, which covers 208 R&D projects, has been conducted. It consists of a questionnaire and unstructured interviews in which the project managers discuss their project(s). Data from the questionnaire are analyzed by factor analysis, multiple regression and logistic regression; qualitative data from the interviews are used to interpret the quantitative results from the questionnaire. The research finds that, regardless of a project's mission, knowledge inflows from outside the project group impact performance more significantly than knowledge from inside the project group does. Second, the capacity of R&D project groups within the NLs to absorb knowledge from external sources is very selective. Absorptive capacity does not just pertain to prior related knowledge; it is also a function of the source of external knowledge, the knowledge pathway into the project group, the source of complementary or substitutive knowledge that resides within the project group, and the mission to which the knowledge contributes. Third, the NLs face an ambidexterity challenge that is commonly observed in private industry--exploiting current capabilities interferes with the national laboratories' capability to explore. The discovery of selective absorption of knowledge provides practicing managers with a toolkit of micro-levers with which they can enhance performance as measured by a variety of metrics in highly specific ways. The dissertation also proposes and validates a theoretical framework for knowledge management that decomposes the national laboratory system into nine knowledge subsystems, which can be managed at a relatively low level of the organization. The methods by which this research has been conducted can be used as a tool to benchmark how knowledge management practices in different R&D organizations and environments impact performance. Guidelines for structural adjustments to the national innovation system, which are based on these contributions, should enable policymakers in most countries to implement an Open Innovation program for their national laboratories and enhance the ambidexterity of their organizations.

The objective of this research is to build a decision model for a comprehensive assessment of solar photovoltaic technologies using multiple perspectives. These perspectives include: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political (STEEP) with each perspective consisting of multiple criteria. Hierarchical decision modeling and expert judgment quantification are used to provide the relative ranking of the perspectives and criteria. Such modeling is effective in addressing technology evaluations with competing and contrasting perspectives and criteria where both quantitative and qualitative measurements are represented. The model is then operationalized by constructing desirability functions for each criterion. The combined results provide an overall numerical score for each technology under consideration as well as criteria desirability gaps. This model is useful for assessing photovoltaic technologies from varying worldviews such as the electric utility worldview, the photovoltaic manufacturer's worldview, or the national policy worldview. This model can also provide guidance to decision makers and practitioners on areas of improvement for a selected technology. The research utilizes the electric utility worldview as a case study.

Wind is the second largest renewable energy source after solar. It is one of the fastest growing sources of electricity in the world and currently of wind energy is installed in the United States and an additional is under construction (Office of Energy and Environment Affairs, 2011). For the growth of wind electricity, one of the most prominent environmental concerns relates to the death of birds, bats and other avian species resulting from collision with turbine blades. This thesis develops a model that provides the optimal strategy of turning the turbines off in a wind farm for certain periods to mitigate bird mortalities. We first create a single turbine optimization model for each hour on each day of a single month. We maximize the expected revenue generation and limit the expected bird mortalities to a certain level to solve for the dates and times for which the turbine should be turned off. The optimization problem is found to be part of common class of problems called Knapsack problems and through experiments we conclude that a linear programming (LP) relaxation of the problem provides a near-optimal solution. We extend the single-turbine model to a multiple-turbine model applicable to a wind farm. In this case, we solve for the percentage of wind turbines that should be turned off to limit the expected bird mortalities to a certain level. Finally, we carry out an uncertainty analysis and estimate probability distributions over the outcome of optimal strategy of turning the turbine off. We consider the Cape Wind project as a case study and limit the analysis to only one species of endangered birds called the common loon. We find that in order to save an expected number of 10 such birds in the month of March; we need to turn the turbine off for a total of 23 hours spread over specific dates and times. The average cost per bird was found to be $171.

Terminological dissonance is created by the inherent ambiguity of natural language and compounded by ontological specialization efforts within fields. Terminological dissonance creates high-risk miscommunications in two key areas: within Information Technology as a singular domain, and also between IT and other fields in interdisciplinary projects. A comprehensive literature review revealed a lack of previous effort to acknowledge or solve problems of terminological dissonance within Information Technology. This research provides a comprehensive overview and definition of the terminology mediation space as it relates to Information Technology and adjacent fields. An analysis and verification of the contents and implementation of the terminology mediation tool Termediator has also been created as part of this research. The Termediator tool's conceptual model is further validated through the analysis of its synonymous and polysemous clustering methods and results.

The thesis is based on eight vocational teachers’ life stories with the aim to provide knowledge about vocational teachers and their work with pupils in teaching in the industrial-technology programme, in the context of both a working life and a vocational education which is continuously changing. The thesis answers two research questions: 1) the themes that recur in vocational teachers’ life stories about how they meet and teach their pupils and 2) the teaching goals and strategies which emerge from vocational teachers’ life stories. All in all fifteen interviews were conducted from which life stories and teacher profiles were constructed. Results show five recurring themes in the teacher profiles.  The themes are; to be a caring adult for vocational pupils, to teach them basic knowledge considered important for the education, to teach them respect and discipline, to teach them the value of fighting and not giving up, and to show them the possibility of international employment. Moreover, the teacher goals and strategies emerging from the life stories show that the teachers can be said to educate different types of industrial workers. In line with these results, vocational education can be seen as more than a preparation for working life. Vocational teachers with different life experiences create different relationships with their pupils in order to create opportunities for them to manage school and to succeed in a life after school. In an industrial-technical education and in a working life which is constantly changing, vocational teachers have received various educations and worked in various industries during different time periods. They both educate their pupils and prepare them for a future working life based on these experiences. / Avhandlingen bygger på åtta yrkeslärares livsberättelser och syftar till att bidra med kunskap om yrkeslärare och yrkeslärares arbete med elever i undervisning på industritekniska programmet. Avhandlingen fokuserar återkommande teman i yrkeslärarnas livsberättelser med avseende på hur de möter och undervisar sina elever, samt olika undervisningsstrategier och mål som kommer till uttryck i det lärarna berättar om sin undervisning. Resultaten visar att yrkeslärarnas tidigare livserfarenheter har betydelse för hur de möter och undervisar eleverna på industritekniska programmet. Detta blir tydligt genom de fem teman som återkommer i deras livsberättelser. Dessa teman handlar om att vara en omtänksam vuxen för yrkeseleverna, att undervisa i viktiga grundkunskaper, att lära eleverna respekt och disciplin, att lära dem värdet av att kämpa och inte ge upp samt att visa på möjligheten arbete i andra länder än Sverige. Vidare visar de olika undervisningsmål och -strategier som framträder ur yrkeslärarnas livsberättelser att industriteknisk utbildning handlar om mycket mer än att förbereda eleverna för en framtida anställning. Förutom detta uppenbara mål visar resultatet att yrkeslärarna, utifrån sina olika livserfarenheter, också använder sig av olika strategier för att hjälpa eleverna att klara studierna, att visa på möjligheterna att läsa vidare samt att utveckla en yrkesstolthet.

Inkjet printing has attracted much attention in recent years as a versatile manufacturing tool, suitable for printing functional materials. This facile, low-cost printing technique with high throughput and accuracy is considered promising for a wide range of applications including but not limited to optical and electronic devices, sensors, solar cells, biochips, and displays. The performance of such functional devices is significantly influenced by the deposit morphology and printing resolution. Therefore, fabrication functional devices with precise footprints by inkjet printing requires deep understanding of ink properties, material interactions, and material self-assembly. In conventional inkjet printing process, where sessile droplets are directly printed on substrates, particle depositions are usually associated with the well-known, undesirable coffee-ring effect due to the high solvent evaporation rate at the edges of the printed droplets. Such particle accumulation phenomenon in vicinity of the three-phase contact lines of sessile droplets is considered detrimental to inkjet printing applications. This study investigates the material interactions and self-assembly of colloidal inks in inkjet printing applications at different length scales. The potential of inkjet printing has been exploited through employing the dual-droplet inkjet printing of colloidal particles to investigate the self-assembly of colloidal nanoparticles at the air-liquid interface and at the three-phase contact line of sessile droplets, which provide better understanding of the particle deposition morphologies after solvent evaporation. Different from conventional inkjet printing, the dual-droplet printing involves jetting wetting droplets, containing colloidal nanoparticles dispersed in solvents with high vapor pressure, over supporting droplets composed of water only. By tuning the surface tensions and controlling the jetting parameters of the jetted droplets, monolayers with closely-packed deposition of colloidal nanoparticles are demonstrated. Various solutions are proposed to totally suppress or mitigate the coffee-ring effect in inkjet printing applications through tuning the pH value of the supporting droplets in the dual-droplet inkjet printing to control the multibody interactions (i.e., particle-particle, particle-interface, and particle-substrate interactions) or by applying magnetic field to direct the self-assembly of colloidal particles in conventional inkjet printing. In addition, the influence of various forces such as drag force, van der Waals force, electrotactic force, and capillary force on the particle deposition and assembly in vicinity of the three-phase contact line area were investigated for both the conventional and dual-droplet inkjet printing techniques. Finally, fabrication of functional devices such as stretchable conductors have also been demonstrated by inkjet printing of silver nanowires into elastomer substrate, where the viscous liquid elastomer layer shaped the printed silver wire lines into tens of micrometers in dimeter. The silver nanowires align along the printing direction during solvent evaporation, resulting in wires with good mechanical stability and electrical performance. The printing techniques and the outcomes presented in this study can be harnessed in engineering and manufacturing a wide range of technological applications ranging from high-performance optical and electronic devices to stretchable conductors and sensors.

This dissertation develops systems engineering and machine learning models for aviation maintenance support. With the constant increase in demand for air travel, aviation organizations compete to maintain airworthy aircraft to ensure the safety of passengers. Given the importance of aircraft safety, the aviation sector constantly needs technologies to enhance the maintenance experience, ensure system safety, and limit aircraft downtime. Based on the current literature, the aviation maintenance sector still relies on outdated technologies to maintain aircraft maintenance documentation, including paper-based technical orders. Aviation maintenance documentation contains a mixture of structured and unstructured technical text, mainly inputted by operators, making them prone to error, misunderstanding communication, and inconsistency. This dissertation intends to develop decision support models based on systems engineering and artificial intelligence models that can automate the maintenance documentation system, extract useful information from maintenance work orders, and predict the aircraft's top degrader signals based on textual data. The first chapter of this dissertation introduces the significant setbacks of the aviation industry and provides a working ground for the following chapters. The dissertation's second chapter develops a system engineering framework using model-based systems engineering (MBSE) methodology to model the aviation maintenance process using the systems engineering language (SysML). The outcome of this framework is the design of an automated maintenance system model that can be used to automate maintenance documentation, making it less prone to error. The third chapter of the dissertation uses textual data in maintenance work orders to develop a hybrid approach that uses natural language processing (NLP) and transformer models to predict the readiness of a legacy aircraft. The model was tested using a real-life case study of the EA-6B military aircraft. The fourth chapter of this dissertation develops an ensemble transformer model based on three different transformer models. The ensemble model leverages the benefits of three different transformer architectures and is used to classify events based on an aviation log-based dataset. This dissertation's final and fifth chapter summarizes key findings, proposes future work directions, and provides the dissertation's limitations.

The increasing trend in frequency of natural disasters in tandem with globalization of business makes the agricultural supply chain significantly vulnerable to disruption. This thesis presents a pragmatic approach for creating a Business Continuity Model that can notify supply chain planners when there is an increase in risk of agriculture supply chain disruption due to natural disasters. The methodology presented in this thesis applied big data analytics and machine learning algorithms along with agriculture product related exponential decay function to create a regionalized composite risk score, that incorporated both direct and indirect risk associated with the Agriculture Fresh Supply Chain. This model will aid supply chain planners in creating and implementing contingency plans, at the right time per given food production location. This risk score can help food manufacturing organizations to have a Business Continuity Plan that alleviate agriculture business supply chain interruptions. An example application of this model is illustrated with a melon packaging industry.

學術研究機構向來是科技創新的主要動力來源，許多與人類生活息息相關的發明多半來自於學術研究機構此一孕育創新的搖籃。此外，一個國家的學術研究能量往往也反映了該國的技術能力與競爭力，因此世界各國無不投注大量資源於大專院校及研究機構，期望除了學術產出之外，亦能將原始的創新概念透過研發活動轉化為智慧財產，並進一步將其商業化，滿足市場需求，實現知識之最大價值。 我國之學術研究能量並不落於美、歐、日等主要技術領先國之後，從我國政府投注於學術研發活動之經費、歷年發表於SCI、EI等期刊論文以及取得美國專利之數量等科技發展成果指標便可說明此點，然我國於1999年通過與美國拜杜法案意義相當之科技基本法至今已滿九年，各學研機構之專利申請量雖有成長之勢，然而2007年實際之智慧財產權收益卻僅佔研發總投入費用的0.87%；2005年全國技術貿易額收支比僅達0.23，與美、日、英等國相較，實可謂差強人意，顯見我國在研發成果商業化上已面臨一定瓶頸。 在知識大爆炸方興未艾的二十一世紀，可以預見的是將有越來越多的研發成果持續產出，學研機構花費於取得並維護智慧財產之費用亦將持續提高，如何在產出的眾多研發成果及專利中，篩選出真正有商業化潛力之標的，以將有限的人力、時間、資金等資源投注於其上並轉化為實質的經濟效益，將是學研機構進行研發成果商業化時的重要課題；此外，在學研機構法人化之潮流下，若未來大學等學研單位須自行負擔大部份資金之籌措時，此一評估機制將更顯重要。另，在資訊高度不對稱的情況下，技術需求方難以辨認技術供給方之技術是否為適合之交易標的，因此若能建立一套商業化可行性評估機制，亦能使雙方間之資訊交流更為順暢，促進技術之移轉與商業化。 因此，本研究嘗試提出一研發成果商業化可行性評估機制，以供學研機構進行內部評估，使國內「悶住」的研發能量得以透過有效的評估機制而活化。又，由於不同科技領域所適用之商業化可行性評估方式將有所差異，而生物科技領域為二十一世紀科技發展中之重要領域，且列為政府政策下的重點發展產業之一，加以作者本身之相關學經歷背景，是以本研究選擇生物科技領域研發成果為討論之重點。 本研究分別從5W的角度來探討研發成果商業化可行性之評估機制，分別是進行商業化可行性評估之目的(Why)、進行商業化可行性評估之時點(When)、商業化可行性評估之執行者(Who)、評估所需資訊之取得(How)以及進行商業化可行性評估時所需考量之因素(What)，最後建立一研發成果商業化可行性評估機制，作為本研究之核心概念以及後續個案探討之依據。 此外，本研究針對研發成果商業化可行性評估之各項構面進行介紹，並提出學研機構於進行評估時在各構面應考量之重要項目與問題。依所建立之評估機制與架構流程，將評估構面分為技術、智慧財產、市場、法規與財務五大構面，並以技術與智慧財產構面為探討之重點。 由於本研究之研究對象為學術研究機構，且以生物科技領域為重心，故由大專院校、基礎研究機構及應用研究機構中各挑選一具代表性之單位作為個案研究對象，分別為國立陽明大學、中央研究院以及財團法人工業技術研究院，透過與各機構之研發成果管理專責單位進行訪談，深入了解其運作機制與現況，以期綜覽各類型學研機構之研發成果商業化可行性評估機制，並得出研究發現及建議。 根據個案研究之發現，本研究對於國內學研機構之整體建議，主要包括：研發成果商業化可行性評估機制應依機構之目的、性質、智財管理現況加以擬定；研發成果商業化可行性評估之構面應配合研發成果之性質及開發階段而設定，並以技術構面為基礎，智財構面為樞紐連結市場與法規構面之評估，最後以財務構面進行統合；而學研機構若欲採外部審查方式執行評估工作，須考量可能之缺失；此外，研發成果商業化可行性之評估應由具備跨領域能力之團隊加以執行，並應使具備產業經驗與市場背景之人員有一定程度之涉入；再者，生物科技領域研發成果因其本質上之特殊性，故於進行商業化可行性評估時，有諸多因素需加以考量；最後，政府可主動協助建立專業之機構或團隊，提供學研機構進行研發成果商業化可行性評估甚至後續之技術行銷服務，以有效符合規模經濟、範疇經濟與專業、客觀之考量。 / Academic and research institutes are the origins of technology innovation. Many of the significant inventions were devised in these cradles of innovation. Academic and research power can often indicates the technology capability and competency of a nation. Every government invests vast resources to universities and research institutes in order not only to make academic publication but also to realize the maximum value of the knowledge through converting the innovative ideas into intellectual properties (IP) and further commercializing the R&D achievements to meet the market needs. The academic researches in Taiwan can compete with the technological leading countries such as the U.S, Japan, and E.U. countries, in terms of some science and technology indicators like R & D expenditure, SCI / EI publications, and the number of U.S. patent granted. Nevertheless, the actual revenue generated by IP in 2007 was only account for 0.87% of the total R&D input and the coverage ratio of technology balance of payments was only 0.23 in 2005. The fact indicates that there were some barriers on the path of R&D commercialization in Taiwan. In the 21st century of knowledge explosion, it is predictable that more and more R&D achievements will be generated from academic institutes and the expenses devoted to the acquisition and protection of IP will keep rising. Therefore, it will become a critical issue in academic institutes to sieve out the targets of the higher commercial potential from numerous R&D results and patents so as to concentrate the time, human and financial resources on those targets for its further commercialization. Moreover, under the highly asymmetrical information situation during the technology trading, technology buyers have difficulty in identifying whether the technology is a suitable trading target or not. A well-established feasibility evaluation mechanism will also stimulate the interflow of information and promote the technology transfer and commercialization. Accordingly, this thesis will try to establish a feasibility evaluation mechanism (FEM) for commercialization of R&D achievements in academic institutes in order to activate the stuffy R&D energy in Taiwan. Biotechnology is one of the most important fields of technology in the 21st century and thus be the main concern of the discussion of this thesis. This thesis will investigate the feasibility evaluation mechanism for commercialization of R&D achievements on a “5W” basis, including the purposes of evaluation (why), the time of evaluation (when), the executives of evaluation (who), the information needed in the evaluation process (how), and the factors that should be taken into consideration in the evaluation process (what). Accordingly, a feasibility evaluation mechanism for commercialization of R&D achievements will be established as the central concept of this study and as the ground of follow-up case analysis. In addition, each aspects of feasibility evaluation as well as the significant issues and questions of each aspect will be illustrated in this study. According to the feasibility evaluation mechanism and framework established in this study, there are five main evaluation aspects including the technical aspect, intellectual property aspect, market aspect, legal aspect, and financial aspect. The main subjects of this study were the academic institutes in biotechnology field in Taiwan, the National Yang-Ming University, the Academia Sinica, and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). These institutes are chosen as the subjects of case study standing respectively for the higher education institute, basic research institute, and the applied research institute. By way of interviewing the personnel of R&D achievements and IPR management department in the institutes in question, the feasibility evaluation mechanism implemented by different types of academic institutes was investigated to delineate the key findings, followed up with some practical advices. The overall advices proposed by this study for the academic institutes in Taiwan were summarized as follows: (1) The feasibility evaluation mechanism for commercialization of R&D achievements should be devised in accordance with the purpose, the nature, and the IP management status of each institute. (2) The feasibility evaluation should be set to match up the development stage of the R&D achievements and take the technical aspect as the groundwork, IP aspect as the pivot connecting to the market and legal aspect, and the financial aspect as an integrated result. (3) Evaluation executed by external parties may be of some defects that should be taken into consideration. (4) The feasibility evaluation for R&D commercialization should be executed by multi-disciplinary team and the industry-experienced or market personnel should as well participate in the evaluation process. (5) Due to the characteristics of biotechnology, many special factors should be involved in the evaluation process. (6) The government may actively assist in setting up a professional organization or team to provide feasibility evaluation and even the further technology marketing services to meet the consideration of economies of scale/ scope, specialty, and objectivity.