This thesis develops a paradigm for conceptual design based on the idea that dimensional analysis can improve the evaluation and comparison of concepts of solution during the conceptual design process. The conceptual design approach developed in this research is a combination of tasks which starts with the identification of the customer needs in a formalized manner is followed by the generation of design concepts taking into account the different phases of the physical life cycle and ends by the evaluation and adequacy analysis of the concepts of solution with the formalized needs.<br /><br />The General Design Theory (GDT) is used as the methodological basis of this work. Using the results of GDT, the research introduces a definition of the concept of function which is generic and not dedicated to a solution-based approach. Consequently the concept of function fulfils its intended objective of modelling the design problems at a general level. In addition to the concept of function, this thesis introduces a series of classifications based on generic concepts and rules aimed at generating concepts of solutions progressively. All these concepts are integrated into the developed metamodel framework. The metamodel provides a group of generic concepts associated with laws and mapped with a normalized functional vocabulary. The metamodel framework is an intermediate structure developed in order to provide guidance during the synthesis process and to meet the initial condition in order to transform the classification structure into a metric space. A metric space is a topological space with a unique metric. The transformation of the initial topological space into a metric space can be obtained when a series of conditions are verified. The first condition consists of clustering the concepts of solutions in order to underline the comparable aspects in each of them. This is done by using a set of dedicated rules. In addition three other fundamental conditions should be obtained. The metamodel framework ensures the first condition; an enhanced fundamental system of unit provides the second condition and a paradigm of separation of concept the third one. When all these three conditions are verified, it becomes possible to transform the design problems modelled by four types of generic variables into a series of dimensionless groups. This transformation process is achieved by using the Vashy-Buckingham theorem and the Butterfield's paradigm. The Butterfield's paradigm is used in order to select the minimum set of repeated variables which ensure the non-singularity of the metrization procedure. This transformation process ends with the creation of a machinery dedicated to the qualitative simulation of the concepts of solutions. The thesis ends with the study of practical cases.

<p>Taste, or gustation, has long been considered a primitive, and even non-rational, perceptual sense. Taste, as a subject of academic research, has been given very little attention; especially, when contrasted to other human perceptual senses. The knowledge of how people express and discuss their perceptions and sensations of tastes, and, specifically, the descriptions of tastes of chocolate, is very limited.</p><p>Furthermore, the terminological inconsistency in the vocabulary of chocolate tasting, with the risk of misunderstanding or miscommunication, suggests that a basic method for representing tastes is needed.</p><p>This thesis presents a study of how people actually express the perception or sensation of tasting, and specifically when tasting chocolate. This study also explores the possibility of crafting a method for use when describing the tastes of chocolate.</p><p>The study was carried out by holding two tasting workshops. The first one was concerned with recording conversations about tasting chocolate. Participants were asked to taste different kinds of chocolates and, freely, discuss what they perceived and sensed. In the second workshop the participants were asked to describe the tastes of chocolate using predetermined vocabulary and formatted questionnaires.</p><p>The results of this study are linguistic semantic analyses of the different words that were used, and also a proposal for a prototypical method to use when tasting chocolate.</p>

<p>Today’s information systems engineering involves large number of stakeholders, wide geographical distribution and wide range of tools. Success in system engi-neering depends on effective human communication. Early understanding and modelling of the problem domain is a key to manage large scale systems and pro-jects. This requires stakeholders to reach a certain level of shared interpretation of the domain referred throughout the development</p><p>We propose a method for semantics driven change impact assessment. In our method, first a collaborative problem analysis is conducted. The problem analysis results in an agreed and committed common understanding of the prob-lem domain, expressed in a conceptual domain model. The constructed concep-tual domain-specific model is then actively used as a communication medium, e.g., to abstract development objects from representation format in order to expli-cate their semantics. Stakeholders browse the domain model and interactively as-sociate to product fragments by selecting concept clusters that best describe the contents (intended meaning) of the product fragments.</p><p>Associations of the development objects with concepts from domain model, as well as the domain model itself constitute the basis for change impact assess-ment throughout the development. Every revision of a development object in-vokes change impact notifications that are either confirmed or rejected. Accumu-lated statistics are used to refine associations via the domain model to the direct dependency links among development objects.</p><p>The method has been implemented in a prototype system CO2SY and has been evaluated in an experiment, where a set of test users has been provided with a problem domain description including a domain model and a set of develop-ment objects. The experiment was based on two real world cases. Users were asked to perform tasks using the prototype and two comparative tools. The method and prototype have been evaluated with respect to actual performance and users perceptions. The result shows actual effectiveness, perceived ease of use and usefulness comparing to other tools used in the experiment, as well as intention of the subjects to use the method in future.</p><p>A discussion of future research directions and possible revisions of the method concludes the thesis.</p>

<p>The aim of this paper is to get a deeper understanding if research about international relations has any practical meaning. The main focal point is about the importance of the scholar idea soft power, and its meaning on foreign policy actions through expressions. A quantity and quality method is used. The point of the main theory that concerns international relations takes a rationalistic perspective, and expands it to the notion that ides can have an impact on policy outcomes. Three different types of research utilization can be traced to determine in which way an idea is getting implemented. Why certain ideas can be used lies in the foreign policy preferences with the political institutions and its policymakers. In the last ten years, policymaking preferences in the USA, Great Britain and Sweden have shifted due to change of governments, challenges by expanding institutions as the European Union (EU) and terror alerts. Soft power is an upcoming idea that can be traced in the countries policies. In conclusion, the concept is expressed in the political agendas on the margins. For the American and the British policy the importance with the idea seems to be utilized for mediation for the retention and the legitimating of there existing policies regarding hard power. The main purpose with the idea for Sweden seems to be the utilization for guidance to promote EU: s ability to act as a prominent actor in international relations. The idea is, acts and expressed foremost as a positive symbol for the countries, rather than a ground-breaking new idea that changes policies. Due to is variables already exist in the policymaking processes.</p>

The use of function has been recognized as an important part of the design process over last two decades, especially at the conceptual design stage, due to its critical role in determining the final product’s functionality. Although there are now some general methodologies dealing with functions or reasoning about functions, virtually no commercial CAD system can support conceptual design process due to their focus on geometrical modeling but not functional modeling. This paper presents a functional modeling approach to guide conceptual die design through functional reasoning steps including functional decomposition, functional supportive synthesis and function-structure mapping. The formed functional model provides a good basis to generate various die structures at the conceptual design stage, because function is a higher level of abstraction than structure, and helps to capture the designer’s intent. The functional modeling process has been implemented in a computerized design environment to expedite the conceptual die design process. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

This report describes the organization and content of lexical information required for the task of machine translation. In particular, the lexical-conceptual basis for UNITRAN, an implemented machine translation system, will be described. UNITRAN uses an underlying form called lexical conceptual structure to perform lexical selection and syntactic realization. Lexical word entries have two levels of description: the first is an underlying lexical-semantic representation that is derived from hierarchically organized primitives, and the second is a mapping from this representation to a corresponding syntactic structure. The interaction of these two levels will be discussed and the lexical selection and syntactic realization processes will be described.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

A major component of the values people place on science and their attitude toward it is their openness to new ideas or overall open-mindedness. An individual’s values and attitudes become integrally connected to their prior knowledge and conceptions regarding science and science content. Sometimes the nature of a natural phenomenon and the scientific explanation for the phenomenon is controversial. A controversial scientific concept is one that evokes emotion and forces individuals to assess the values associated with this content and make assessments of their attitudes toward it. This is especially true during learning. The purpose of this study was to provide evidence on how prior knowledge and existing conceptions are related to open-mindedness when learning science content that is regarded as controversial. The participants for this study consisted of 7 elementary science teachers and 8 secondary science teachers. Data collected for the study included the determination of how individuals assessed and used their prior/existing conceptions when learning controversial science content based on individual interviews, an individual’s level of open-mindedness as measured by the Actively Open-minded Thinking scale (AOT) and determined through the interviews, and the assessment of the change in an individual’s level of knowledge regarding geologic time as measured by the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI). The investigation consisted of multiple case studies analyzed within cases and across cases. The teachers’ use of their prior conceptions was determined through the coding of interviews based on the four appropriation modes of Integration, Differentiation, Exchange, and Bridging. Results from the interview data showed that 53% of the teachers differentiated their existing conceptions from new geologic time conceptions, while 47% integrated new conceptions with their prior conceptions. In addition, 40% of the teachers exhibited a bimodal appropriation of their existing conceptions. Bridging and exchange were the secondary appropriation modes observed among bimodal appropriators. No relationships were found between the teachers’ thinking disposition (open-mindedness) and their level of geologic time knowledge, nor where there any relationships found between the teachers’ prior conception appropriation and their geologic time knowledge or their appropriation and thinking disposition.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-112).

The purpose of the present thesis is to apply philosophical methods to the ongoing debate of the precautionary principle, in order to illuminate this debate. The thesis consists of an Introduction and five papers. Paper I con-cerns an objection to the method of conceptual analysis, the Charge from Psychology. After a brief characterisation of conceptual analysis, I argue that the Charge from Psychology is misdirected. In Paper II, the method of conceptual analysis is applied to the concept of precaution which is ana-lysed in terms of precautionary actions. The purpose is explicatory. A definition involving three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is proposed, and the implications of this analysis for the debate on the pre-cautionary principle are discussed. Paper III attempts to provide an ana-lytical apparatus which may be used for finding improved formulations of the precautionary principle. The approach is lexicographical. Several exist-ing and possible formulations of the precautionary principle are examined, and four common elements and a common structure of the precautionary principle are identified. It is suggested that the analytical apparatus pre-sented can be used in negotiations of the precautionary principle. Paper IV questions the soundness of some arguments against the precautionary prin-ciple. Five common arguments are discussed and rejected. In Paper V, two of these arguments are further discussed. I argue that an attempt at rejec-tion of the precautionary principle delivered by John Harris and Søren Holm is unwarranted, because their arguments against it are based on in-terpretations of the precautionary principle that ignore context. Paper VI deals with the idea of de minimis risk. After a discussion of the distinction between disregarding a risk and accepting it, I examine one way of deter-mining how small a risk ought to be in order to be disregarded, namely the use of natural risk levels as benchmarks. I argue that this approach fails, even if the distinction between what is natural and what is not natural can be upheld.