A Bayesian adaptive sampling method is developed for highly coupled multidisciplinary design problems. The method addresses a major challenge in aerospace design: exploration of a design space with computationally expensive analysis tools such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or finite element analysis. With a limited analysis budget, it is often impossible to optimize directly or to explore a design space with off-line design of experiments (DoE) and surrogate models. This difficulty is magnified in multidisciplinary problems with feedbacks between disciplines because each design point may require iterative analyses to converge on a compatible solution between different disciplines. Bayesian Collaborative Sampling (BCS) is a bi-level architecture for adaptive sampling that simulataneously - concentrates disciplinary analyses in regions of a design space that are favorable to a system-level objective - guides analyses to regions where interdisciplinary coupling variables are probably compatible BCS uses Bayesian models and sequential sampling techniques along with elements of the collaborative optimization (CO) architecture for multidisciplinary optimization. The method is tested with the aero-structural design of a glider wing and the aero-propulsion design of a turbojet engine nacelle.

A general multidisciplinary design problem features coupling and feedback between contributing analyses. This feedback may lead to convergence issues requiring significant iteration in order to obtain a feasible design. This work casts the multidisciplinary design problem as a dynamical system in order to leverage the benefits of dynamical systems theory in a new domain. Three areas from dynamical system theory are chosen for investigation: stability analysis, optimal control, and estimation theory. Stability analysis is used to investigate the existence of a solution to the design problem and how that solution can be found. Optimal control techniques allow consideration of contributing analysis output and design variables constraints at the same level of the optimization hierarchy. Finally, estimation methods are employed to rapidly evaluate the robustness of the multidisciplinary design. These three dynamical system techniques are then combined in a methodology for the rapid robust design of linear multidisciplinary systems. While inherently linear, the developed robust design methodology is shown to be extensible to nonlinear systems. The applicability and performance of the developed technique is demonstrated through linear and nonlinear test problems including the design of a hypersonic aerodynamic surface for a system in which an increase in range or improvement in landed accuracy is sought. In addition, it is shown that the developed robust design methodology scales well compared to other methods.

Определение стержневых компетенций компании помогает понять потенциал её развития и создаёт основу для активного управления самыми ценными ресурсами компании. В работе определено понятие стержневой компетенции. Рассматривается идентификация стержневых компетенций в компании. Выявлены тенденции развития рынка услуг в области обеспечения безопасности труда. Изучены потребительские предпочтения. Произведена оценка компетенций команды сотрудников на примере многопрофильной организации Учебно-экспертный центр «Строитель». Предлагается методика формирования стержневой компетенции. Показаны результаты апробации предложенной методики на примере многопрофильной организации. / Definition of company’s core competences helps to understand potential of its development and provides basis of active management of the most valuable resources of the company. Сoncept of core competence is defined in the work. Identification of company’s core competence is considered. Tendencies in the development of the occupational safety and health services market belief is identified. Consumer preferences are studied. The competence of the team of employees was evaluated on the example of the multidisciplinary organization "Educational and Expert Center "Stroitel ". Methodology for identification company's core competencies is suggested. The results of testing of proposed methodology on multidisciplinary organization.

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Scale is an essential notion in geography and geographic information science (GIScience). However, the complex concepts of scale and traditional Euclidean geometric thinking have created tremendous confusion and uncertainty. Traditional Euclidean geometry uses absolute size, regular shape and direction to describe our surrounding geographic features. In this context, different measuring scales will affect the results of geospatial analysis. For example, if we want to measure the length of a coastline, its length will be different using different measuring scales. Fractal geometry indicates that most geographic features are not measurable because of their fractal nature. In order to deal with such scale issues, the topological and scaling analyses are introduced. They focus on the relationships between geographic features instead of geometric measurements such as length, area and slope. The scale change will affect the geometric measurements such as length and area but will not affect the topological measurements such as connectivity.   This study uses three case studies to demonstrate the scale issues of geographic features though fractal analyses. The first case illustrates that the length of the British coastline is fractal and scale-dependent. The length of the British coastline increases with the decreased measuring scale. The yardstick fractal dimension of the British coastline was also calculated. The second case demonstrates that the areal geographic features such as British island are also scale-dependent in terms of area. The box-counting fractal dimension, as an important parameter in fractal analysis, was also calculated. The third case focuses on the scale effects on elevation and the slope of the terrain surface. The relationship between slope value and resolution in this case is not as simple as in the other two cases. The flat and fluctuated areas generate different results. These three cases all show the fractal nature of the geographic features and indicate the fallacies of scale existing in geography. Accordingly, the fourth case tries to exemplify how topological and scaling analyses can be used to deal with such unsolvable scale issues. The fourth case analyzes the London OpenStreetMap (OSM) streets in a topological approach to reveal the scaling or fractal property of street networks. The fourth case further investigates the ability of the topological metric to predict Twitter user’s presence. The correlation between number of tweets and connectivity of London named natural streets is relatively high and the coefficient of determination r2 is 0.5083.   Regarding scale issues in geography, the specific technology or method to handle the scale issues arising from the fractal essence of the geographic features does not matter. Instead, the mindset of shifting from traditional Euclidean thinking to novel fractal thinking in the field of GIScience is more important. The first three cases revealed the scale issues of geographic features under the Euclidean thinking. The fourth case proved that topological analysis can deal with such scale issues under fractal way of thinking. With development of data acquisition technologies, the data itself becomes more complex than ever before. Fractal thinking effectively describes the characteristics of geographic big data across all scales. It also overcomes the drawbacks of traditional Euclidean thinking and provides deeper insights for GIScience research in the big data era.

Today, the air transport industry has become an essential element of global society by its great contributions to the wide exchanges of cultures/people and to the rapid growth in the world economy. However, on the other hand, the adverse impacts on the environment caused by air transport, such as air pollution, noise and climate change, are drawing, increasingly, growing public concern. In order to address the steady growth in air-travel demand in the next decades through an environmentally-friendly way and realise the ACARE 2020 environmental goals, The Clean Sky programme has been launched by European Union over the period 2008 – 2013. The project research, described in this thesis and sponsored by the Clean Sky programme, aims at evaluating the feasibility of reducing the environmental impact of commercial aviation through the introduction of changes in the aircraft operational rules and procedures, as well as the application of the new-generation propfan (open rotor) engine, based on flight trajectory multidisciplinary optimisation and analysis of commercial aircraft. In order to accomplish the above research objectives, a complete methodology to achieve and realise optimum flight trajectories has been initially proposed. Then, 12 component-level models which function as simulating different disciplines, such as aircraft performance, engine performance, engine gaseous emission, and flight noise, have been developed or selected/adopted. Further, nine system-level integration and optimisation models were built. These system-level models simulate flights from Amsterdam Schiphol airport in the Netherlands to Munich airport in Germany flown by different types of aircraft through different flight phases with different optimisation objectives. Finally, detailed investigations into the flight trajectory optimisations were performed, extensive optimisation results were achieved and corresponding description, analysis and comparisons were provided. The main contributions of this work to knowledge broadly comprise the following: 1) the further development regarding the methodology of flight trajectory multidisciplinary optimisation; 2) previous work on aircraft trajectory optimisation has often considered fixed objectives over the complete flight trajectory. This research focused on representative flight phases of a flight mission with different optimisation objectives, namely, noise impact and fuel burn during the departure phase; fuel burn and flight time during en route phase; and noise impact and NOx emission during the arrival phase; 3) this research has extended the current flight trajectory optimisations to turboprop and propfan equipped aircraft. As a result, a relative complete 2D flight trajectory multidisciplinary optimisation spectrum, spanned by primary commercial aircraft types, primary flight phases and primary optimisation objectives of interest, has been built. Although encouraging progress have been achieved, this project research, as with any other research activity, is also only ‘on the way’ rather than coming to the ‘end’ point. There are still many aspects which can be improved further and there is still much new research and exploration which can be investigated further. All these have also been suggested in this thesis.

There are many challenges facing the aerospace industry that can be addressed with new concepts, technologies, and materials. However, current design methods make it difficult to include these new ideas early in the design of aircraft. This is especially true in the structures discipline, which often uses weight-based methods based upon statistical regressions of historical data. A way to address this is to use physics-based structural analysis and design to create more detailed structural data. Thus, the overall research objective of this dissertation is to develop a physics-based structural analysis method to incorporate new concepts, technologies, and materials into the conceptual design phase. The design space of physics-based structural design problem is characterized as highly multimodal with numerous discontinuities; thus, a large number of alternatives must be explored. Current physics-based structural design methods tend to use high fidelity modeling and analysis tools that are computationally expensive. This dissertation proposes a modeling & simulation environment based on classical structural analysis methods. Using classical structural analysis will enable increased exploration of the design space by reducing the overall run time necessary to evaluate one alternative. The use of physics-based structural optimization using classical structural analysis is tested through experimentation. First the underlying hypotheses are tested in a canonical example by comparing different optimization algorithms ability to locate a global optimum identified through design space exploration. Then the proposed method is compared to a method based on higher fidelity finite element analysis as well as a method based on weight-based empirical data to validate the overall research objective.

Coordination is a vital component in health care provision and teamwork. The need for better coordination is particularly prominent in outpatient setting where patients assume the primary responsibility to follow-up on their own health care, especially when treatment is complex and lengthy in duration. Relational coordination represents a type of informal coordination process reinforced by communication and supportive relationships. This concept has been associated with enhanced interprofessional team performance, including patient care outcomes. This study aimed to examine the theoretical underpinnings of relational coordination in the outpatient setting using social capital theory. It was hypothesized that social capital, resources embedded within network of relationships, would predict relational coordination. Additionally, social capital was hypothesized to be predicted by team tenure; and relational coordination was hypothesized to be predicted by formal coordination mechanisms. A non-experimental, cross-sectional survey design was used to examine the relationship between social capital and relational coordination. Participants (N=342) were physicians and nurses recruited from outpatient clinics in two University affiliated hospitals. Study surveys were sent to 501 nurses and 187 physicians with follow-up reminders sent at three, five and seven weeks after the initial distribution of surveys. The overall response rate was 49.71%. Study variables were measured using previously validated instruments with acceptable levels of reliability and validity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for hypothesis testing. Final analysis revealed good fit of data to the hypothesized model (Chi-square=383.38, df=177, p<0.001; CFI=0.966; RMSEA=0.060; SRMR=0.0316). SEM revealed that social capital predicted both factors of relational coordination [communication (β=0.70, p<0.001); supportive relationship (β=0.81, p<0.001)], and team tenure predicted social capital (β=0.13, p<0.05). In addition, the association between team tenure and relational coordination (β=0.09, p<0.05) was found to be partially mediated by social capital. Findings of this study suggested that characteristics within relational ties are predictive of informal coordination. Administrators may facilitate teamwork through team building initiatives that foster these relational qualities, such as trust and shared language. Future research can further investigate the association between social capital and relational coordination in other health care settings, as well, in larger teams involving health care professionals in addition to physicians and nurses.

Background and aims: Many adults with congenitally malformed hearts are at risk for complications such as decreased function and capacity of the heart due to the heart defect and previously surgery. This advocates self-management behaviours related to medical treatments, physical activity, preventions of endocarditis, some restrictions regarding suitable employment and spare time activities, birth control and pregnancy, but also lifestyle concerns such as refraining from smoking and healthy eating. Sufficient knowledge and support are requirements for successful self-management. The overall aim of this thesis was to describe educational needs, develop a tool for assessing knowledge and to evaluate the effects of a follow-up model providing education and psychosocial support to adults with congenitally malformed hearts. Subjects and methods: Adults (≥18 years of age) with the ten most common heart defects namely ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, coarctation of the aortae, aortic valve stenosis (defined as uncomplicated heart defects) and tetralogy of Fallot, complete transposition of the great arteries, congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries, Ebstein anomaly and Eisenmenger syndrome (defined as complicated heart defects) were included in the studies. To apprehend the educational needs (I), sixteen adults with heart malformations, ranging from 19-55 years of age, were interviewed and data were analysed qualitatively using phenomenographic method. As a tool to evaluate knowledge, an instrument named Knowledge scale for adults with Congenital Malformed Hearts (KnoCoMH) was developed and psychometrically evaluated (II) in 19 + 114 adults with the ten most common heart defects average age 34 ± 13.5. A model for follow-up was described and initially evaluated (III) by 55 adults with the most common heart defects and finally tested in a randomised controlled trial (IV) with a total of 114 adults with congenitally malformed hearts (56 participants in intervention group and 58 in control group with average age 34 ± 13.5). The intervention group recived a model for follow-up with individualise and computer-based eduction and psychosocial support by a multidisciplinary team. Results: Two-way communication when given information was found to be crucial in order to enhance knowledge (I). Knowledge was seen as a tool for managing important areas in life. The KnoCoMH (II) was found to be a valid and reliable scale and can now be used to estimate knowledge in adults with congenitally malformed hearts. The model for follow-up (III) was effective in improving and maintaining knowledge (IV) about self-management in adults with heart malformation.

Much of literature is predicated upon the assumption that learning occurring inside the workplace is related to developing expertise associated with the tasks for which the individual is employed and has a background in. This research investigates those individuals who acquire expertise in other disciplines and how the application of that additional expertise changes and enhances the individual and the organisation. By combining perspectives across the disciplinary boundaries and developing multidisciplinary expertise, these individuals demonstrate better methods of achieving business objectives, leading to faster, more imaginative solutions, more frequently, and with significantly less effort. The literature review commenced with defining “multidisciplinary” before addressing communities that cluster around disciplines such as professional societies and Communities of Practice, Aspects of organisational, team and “learning by participation” (Ashton, 2004) literature were also considered. The study took an inductive approach using an ethnographical perspective to data collection and analysis to achieve its aim of determining the existence of multidisciplined individuals and how they acquire additional disciplines. The study used interviewing as its primary method yielding both qualitative and quantitative data from a cross sectional sample set inside a medium sized oil and gas consultancy offering technical and management advice. The disciplines inside the case organisation were mapped to ascertain boundaries where the richest learning opportunities lie. Measuring learning across the disciplines confirmed the existence of multidisciplined individuals with evidence pointing towards the integrated multidisciplined team being the ideal learning environment. The study was able to use Threshold Concepts (Meyer and Land, 2003) to demonstrate the multidisciplinary individual development process. Moreover, having examined the social interaction learning processes the potential negative impacts of Communities of Practice in encouraging this type of multidiscipline approach was highlighted. The study concluded that developing multidisciplined individuals was worthwhile but required organisations to be willing to provide the appropriate platform for such learning by more adventurous individuals who held the appropriate underlying abilities required by the additional discipline (s).