This thesis studies planning problems whose solution plans are program-like structures that contain branches and loops. Such problems are a generalization of classical and conditional planning, and usually involve infinitely many cases to be handled by a single plan. This form of planning is useful in a number of applications, but meanwhile challenging to analyze and solve. As a result, it is drawing increasing interest in the AI community. In this thesis, I will give a formal definition of planning with loops in the situation calculus framework, and propose a corresponding plan representation in the form of finite-state automata. It turns out that this definition is more general than a previous formalization that uses restricted programming structures for plans. For the verification of plans with loops, we study a property of planning problems called finite verifiability. Such problems have the property that for any candidate plan, only a finite number of cases need to be checked in order to conclude whether the plan is correct for all the infinitely many cases. I will identify several forms of finitely-verifiable classes of planning problems, including the so-called one-dimensional problems where an unknown and unbounded number of objects need independent processing. I will also show that this property is not universal, in that finite verifiability of less restricted problems would mean a solution to the Halting problem or an unresolved mathematical conjecture. For the generation of plans with loops, I will present a novel nondeterministic algorithm which essentially searches in the space of the AND/OR execution trees of an incremental partial plan on a finite set of example instances of the planning problem. Two different implementations of the algorithm are explored for search efficiency, namely, heuristic search and randomized search with restarts. In both cases, I will show that the resulting planner generates compact plans for a dozen benchmark problems, some of which are not solved by other existing approaches, to the best of our knowledge. Finally, I will present generalizations and applications of the framework proposed in this thesis that enables the analysis and solution of related planning problems recently proposed in the literature, namely, controller synthesis, service composition and planning programs. Notably, the latter two require possiblynon-terminating execution in a dynamic environment to provide services to coming requests. I will show a generic definition and planner whose instantiation accommodates and solves all the three example applications. Interestingly, the instantiations are competitive with, and sometimes even outperform, the original tailored approaches proposed in the literature.

To better understand the relationship of parent and peer factors in contributing to adolescent marijuana use, the present study investigated the direct and indirect effects of perceived parental knowledge and best friend drug use on adolescent marijuana use. Survey responses from 2552 grade 10, 11, and 12 students were used to explore these relationships. As expected, perceived parental knowledge had significant negative relationships with marijuana use and best friend use and best friend use had a significant positive relationship with marijuana use. As expected, males reported more marijuana use and more best friend use than did females. Yet females reported higher levels of perceived parental knowledge than males. Logistic regression revealed that best friend use partially mediated the relationship between perceived parental knowledge and marijuana use. Contrary to expectations, the mediation relationship was the same for males and females. Implications of the findings for the mediation model are discussed. / Family Ecology and Practice

This paper is aiming to discover the conditions and processes that facilitate and influence an efficient knowledge transfer in knowledge networks such as the inter-organizational SAP network SAPSA. Knowledge is a strategically important source for companies, not only because it fosters internal growth, but also because it leads to competitive advantage. In the last years the importance of knowledge networking has considerably increased and especially inter-organizational learning is considered to present a factor having critical influence on the success of a company. Through the participation in networks individuals are able to trade their knowledge and information with others experiences, ideas and expertise. Knowledge sharing and networking should hence be considered a highly social process, which is influenced by various factors and conditions. Through interviews with the different members and participative observation in the focus groups of the SAPSA network the importance and effect, these facilitating conditions were evaluated, drawing valuable conclusions on how to enhance the knowledge sharing process. It was found that the main problem of SAPSA was the low activity in the focus groups, which had a negative influence on the knowledge sharing processes. The problem however was not that the members did not consider knowledge networking per se as useful, in contrast almost all respondents regarded knowledge networking as highly beneficial stressed the advantages of knowledge sharing. This led to the assumption that the problem had to lie in the implementation of the knowledge sharing process. It furthermore was detected that for sharing different kinds of knowledge such as tacit and explicit knowledge, different forms of meeting proved to be more efficient than others and that form of knowledge and the conversion mode should be taken into consideration when deciding on the type of meeting. Various conditions were found to have impact on the efficiency of the knowledge sharing process, such as an optimal group size, the level of trust and commitment and the composition of a group and knowledge base. Furthermore communication was regarded to present an important issue having a big impact on the quality of the knowledge exchange. Management support from SAPSA and the respective user companies proved to be essential in order to increase motivation and commitment in the focus groups. Some strategic changes were considered to have a positive influence on the knowledge networking processes within SAPSA. The establishment of a clear consistent vision capturing all the different groups within the network would provide benefits in order to be able to motivate members to participate. Here the focus should lie on the decision makers, since those were the ones to have the ability to set incentives and provide resources for the users. In this process the difficulties to measure the positive outcomes of knowledge networking and the subsequent danger of an underinvestment into knowledge networking should be taken into consideration. SAPSA should increase their influence on the focus groups and provide more guidance, in order to assure the quality of the knowledge exchange in the meetings. A new communication strategy should be developed with focus on an Internet based forum, where users and management could interact with each other. Further research in other knowledge networks is necessary in order to increase the transferability of the gained results.

[Abstract]The case for knowledge management (KM) is firmly established in the wealth of extant literature available and is well corroborated in business best practices.However, the broad scope of KM and its multiple approaches in varied contexts,while credited for their diversity and flexibility, also call for greater universality and coherence in several areas, one of which is in the assessment of organisational knowledge management (OKM) practice. While literature attests to the dynamics of the different dimensions of KM, very limited research hasbeen conducted using a standardised multidimensional scale. This dissertation pertains to the application of an in-house developed instrument, called the USQ KM scale, to empirically study the three key dimensions of OKM identified through literature review, namely OKM strategy, OKM culture and OKM process/technology. The instrument was employed to assess the extent of OKM practice in organisations in Malaysia. Results of the survey on 153 managers provided insights into the state of OKM practice in Malaysia while confirming the mutually dependent relationship between the three dimensions of OKM andgiving rise to the researcher’s proposed conceptual tripartite OKM model. In addition, demographic factors such as the number of years of service in the organisation and years of service in a specific organisational role were found to have an impact on OKM, supporting previous empirically tested truths about OKM besides revealing a few unique traits in the Malaysian sample. The implications of the study for organisations in Malaysia as well as in other developing countries within similar contexts are especially meaningful for smaller local businesses without the benefit of multinational affiliations usually associated with superior KM capability afforded by greater economies of scale and more sizeable budgets for infrastructure support.

This thesis documents an investigation into the role that tacit knowledge takes in the mental life of senior managers. The research resulted from the author???s work in New South Wales in facilitating assessment and development centres over a five year period, carried out in collaboration with senior managers from several organizations. A frequent comment made by senior managers was that there seemed to be a gulf between the data obtained objectively from behaviourally measured managerial competencies and the senior managers??? own perceptions of their managerial behaviour. Having earlier researched the role of thought processes out of awareness, the author developed the overall aim of the present study ??? to develop some form of training procedures for senior managers that would enhance the use of tacit processes in their managerial behaviours. The present dissertation begins with a literature review related to the development of understanding of the role of tacit processes in the mental life of senior managers. First a review is presented of investigations of organisational behaviour reported in the literature on tacit knowledge, including issues such as learning, teams, leadership, distributed cognition and culture. Study of the role of tacit knowledge was found to be present in the study of management behaviours and during the process of the present research, related publications increased in frequency. Finally a review is presented of psychological research into the nature of tacit knowledge. This focuses on a range of historical and current views and on the author???s own earlier study of implicit learning carried out in the early 1990???s. Study One is focused on examination of the process of coding tacit assumptions. This begins with documentation of the ontology, epistemology and methodology underpinning this research. Grounded theory, a well-recognised method of qualitative analysis, was selected as most appropriate for this study and its philosophy, rationale and methods are presented. The aim of Study One was to examine the effect of repeated interviews on the codifying of tacit assumptions of senior managers. The initial research was with 13 senior managers, who were interviewed either once or on multiple occasions. The initial interviews of two of these senior managers were analysed as pilot studies, and these analyses are presented in the present dissertation. The main body of this research comprises multiple interviews (five each) carried out with two of the original thirteen senior managers. The results confirmed the importance of the method of investigation but failed to provide any depth of understanding. Apart from consolidating cognitive closure on a set of managerial competencies, attempting to render tacit knowledge explicit (making the tacit conscious) provided no other significant benefit to the senior managers. The extension of some of these previously tacit assumptions into current cognitive functioning, when coded, assisted in the retention of organisational knowledge but offered no real benefit to the senior managers themselves, no depth of self-knowledge. Study Two arose from a more realistic understanding of tacit processes. The aim of Study Two was to find a way of harnessing the influences of tacit assumptions without trying to surface them ??? to make them ???conscious.??? This is consistent with the writings of such researchers as Nonaka (1991), Baumard (1999) and Spender (2005). By adapting an existing method focusing on subtle mental processes (developed by Norm Kagan in the context of teaching counselling skills and developed further for research first by Diment, Walker and Hammer and then by Sheehan and McConkey ), the author has further developed a technique (The Explicit/Tacit Interface Technique ??? ET~IT) that accesses the tacit processes in the service of the senior manager???s aims. A multiperspective analysis was applied to the feedback interviews of six subjects. This generated a set of characteristics of the ET~IT that hold promise for it to become a useful management development tool. Cohen and Levinthal???s (1990) concept of ???absorptive capacity??? is discussed as a possible starting point for indicating individual differences in successful interfacing with tacit processes. Finally recommendations for further improvement, consideration of constraints and their minimization and methods for evaluating future research into the tacit assumptions of senior managers are presented. Study Two concludes with discussion of how the results can be used as part of senior management development.

Questions about knowledge flows between different fields of science are important &om a policy perspective. This thesis focuses on knowledge transfer between physical sciences and life sciences. Science and technology are increasingly intemvined in a complex continuum. This complexity of the science and technology today asks for a concerted, articulated and comprehensive understanding of the process of science and technology. The approach that this research has taken is to analyse the process of science and technology. The thesis asks: What is the trade of science and technologv? In order to answer this question we developed an anatomy of knowledge and we analysed the internal developments in science via the analysis of the role of the researchers as carriers and producers of knowledge. Secondly the thesis asks: What are the mechanisms and directions on which scientzjic knowledge migrates? This research postulates that the analysis of the process of science and technology translates to the analysis of the production and transfer of scientific and technological knowledge. What is obvious and essential for science and technology is the difference between the specific mechanisms of knowledge production. This thesis suggests that the modem mode of knowledge production is characterized by an increasing density of communication on three levels: between science and technology - on one hand - and society on the other-; between scientific practitioners; and with the entities of the physical and social world. Central to our research is the concept of 'mode of knowledge production ' with mode 1 and mode 2 being defined by Gibbons. The four case studies employed emphasise on how collaboration across disciplines is highly important for the production of new knowledge. The main characteristic of newly emerging fields in an increasing synergy between disciplines, which leads to several types of communication between them. With the increasing of the interdisciplinary intensity the border between the production of knowledge and the transfer of knowledge begins to be blurred. The transfer of knowledge occurs today at a more conceptual level. It follows that the production of knowledge has a large .component of knowledge transfer. To study it, ths thesis proposes a quasiquantitative model. In h s unified &mework for the knowledge tmnsfer mechanisms, transfer is seen as a process with a number of stages and forms. We tested our framework on four case studies. The third part of the thesis proposes a taxonomy of interdsciplinarity. and deals with the social engineering of knowledge transfer that is the design of adequate guidelines for policies aiming at maximization of knowledge transfer. In this way the thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of processes of development of new emerging scientific fields.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-175).

Thesis (Ph.D )--Tufts University, 2000. / Adviser: James G. Schmolze. Submitted to the Dept. of Computer Science. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-156). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. George W. Rainbolt, committee chair; Jessica Berry, Steve Jacobson, committee members. Electronic text (43 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan 18, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43).

Thesis (M.S.)--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2007. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Nov. 27, 2007). AFIT/GIR/ENV/07-M3. "March 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-107).