My work is broadly concerned with the question "How can designs bessynthesized computationally?" The project deals primarily with mechanical devices and focuses on pre-parametric design: design at the level of detail of a blackboard sketch rather than at the level of detail of an engineering drawing. I explore the project ideas in the domain of single-input single-output dynamic systems, like pressure gauges, accelerometers, and pneumatic cylinders. The problem solution consists of two steps: 1) generate a schematic description of the device in terms of idealized functional elements, and then 2) from the schematic description generate a physical description.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1985. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [131]-137.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept of Mathematics Education, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-66).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

A growing body of research has drawn attention to the hierarchical and bureaucratic nature of the hospital organizational environment in which nurses seek to resolve ethical problems related to patient care, whereas other studies have focused on the impact of nurses’ personal or professional qualities on those nurses’ ethical problem solving. This qualitative investigation sought to elucidate the extent to which nurses perceived their personal or professional qualities, as well as organizational characteristics, as influencing their ethical decision making. This investigator interviewed 10 registered nurses in 2 acute-care hospitals that were different in size, location, and type. A relational ethics lens assisted in the analysis of the data, emphasizing ways in which the nurses’ ethical problem solving was socially situated within a complex of relationships with others, including patients, families, physicians, and coworkers. Data analysis revealed key themes, including the nurses’ concern for patients, professional experience, layered relationships with others, interactions within the organization, and situational analysis of contexts and relationships. Subthemes included the nurses’ relationships with patients, physicians, patients’ families, and coworkers. This study revealed a range of ethical problems. Nurses saw their patients as their greatest concern; the nurses worked within a social context of multilayered and complex relationships within a hierarchical, bureaucratic organization with the desire to bring about the best outcomes for patients. The participants described ethical concerns related to the actions or decisions of physicians, patients’ family members, and nurses’ coworkers. The nurses’ deliberation to resolve these ethical problems considered risks and benefits for patients, nurses, and others. The nurses seemed to carry out a contextual assessment, analyzing the presence of mutual respect, the extent of relational engagement, and the potential for opening relational space in order to work together with others to resolve the ethical problem for the patient’s best outcome. The nurses’ ethical actions were socially situated within this complex interpersonal context. This thesis discusses implications of these findings for nursing research, education, and practice.

A growing body of research has drawn attention to the hierarchical and bureaucratic nature of the hospital organizational environment in which nurses seek to resolve ethical problems related to patient care, whereas other studies have focused on the impact of nurses’ personal or professional qualities on those nurses’ ethical problem solving. This qualitative investigation sought to elucidate the extent to which nurses perceived their personal or professional qualities, as well as organizational characteristics, as influencing their ethical decision making. This investigator interviewed 10 registered nurses in 2 acute-care hospitals that were different in size, location, and type. A relational ethics lens assisted in the analysis of the data, emphasizing ways in which the nurses’ ethical problem solving was socially situated within a complex of relationships with others, including patients, families, physicians, and coworkers. Data analysis revealed key themes, including the nurses’ concern for patients, professional experience, layered relationships with others, interactions within the organization, and situational analysis of contexts and relationships. Subthemes included the nurses’ relationships with patients, physicians, patients’ families, and coworkers. This study revealed a range of ethical problems. Nurses saw their patients as their greatest concern; the nurses worked within a social context of multilayered and complex relationships within a hierarchical, bureaucratic organization with the desire to bring about the best outcomes for patients. The participants described ethical concerns related to the actions or decisions of physicians, patients’ family members, and nurses’ coworkers. The nurses’ deliberation to resolve these ethical problems considered risks and benefits for patients, nurses, and others. The nurses seemed to carry out a contextual assessment, analyzing the presence of mutual respect, the extent of relational engagement, and the potential for opening relational space in order to work together with others to resolve the ethical problem for the patient’s best outcome. The nurses’ ethical actions were socially situated within this complex interpersonal context. This thesis discusses implications of these findings for nursing research, education, and practice.

Attempting to retrieve a target from memory via a retrieval cue can cause competition from the cue's associates, which might block the target. A 1994 study by Anderson, Bjork, and Bjork demonstrated retrieval-induced forgetting for competing associates and suggested that inhibitory control resolving competition causes the forgetting. A 2011 study by Storm, Angello, and Bjork found forgetting for incorrect associates following creative problem solving. This thesis investigated whether such forgetting is also the result of inhibitory control. Competition was manipulated by instructing participants to remember or forget incorrect associates before working on a Remote Associates Test problem. If problem-solving-induced forgetting is caused by inhibition, then to-be-remembered associates should suffer more forgetting than to-be-forgotten associates. Overall, forgetting occurred for incorrect associates participants were instructed to remember and forget. However, the first quartile of trials showed forgetting only for to-be-remembered associates following longer problem solving durations, suggesting a possible role of inhibitory control as an active means to overcome fixation in creative problem solving.

This thesis has investigated the positive and negative analogical transfer in which we proposed three hypotheses that shed more light on the process of human behaviour in problem solving. We have found that people exhibited both positive and negative analogical transfer in the conducted study. The positive and negative transfer depends on two factor process; search space and type of transformation. This predication was tested in an experiment with four conditions by using matchsticks arithmetic problems. Results have indicated the activation of positive transfer in the problems that share the same search space and type of transformation. On the other hand, negative transfer was activated when the problem search space and type of transformation were different. Results have also indicated, in several comparisons that were made, a simultaneous activation of both positive and negative transfer.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka och visa flera sätt att undervisa i matematik genom problemlösning samt att undersöka vilken inverkan forskning inom området har i praktiken. I undersökningen ingick intervjuer och lektionsobservationer hos tre lärare som systematiskt använder sig av problemlösning i sin undervisning. Resultaten från undersökningen visar att problemlösning kan användas på olika sätt och med olika syfte i matematikundervisningen. De visar också att det finns både gemensamma och särskiljande aspekter mellan de observerade lektionerna samt mellan lärarnas synsätt på problemlösning. Dessutom tyder resultaten på en viss sammankoppling mellan lärarnas undervisning och de forskningsresultat som finns rapporterade i litteraturen. Samtidigt indikerar resultaten att varje lärare har utvecklat en personlig undervisningsform utifrån sina egna förutsättningar som i några aspekter inte överensstämmer med de rapporterade resultaten inom området. / The purpose of this study was to explore and give examples of teaching mathematics through problem solving and to investigate the impact of research in the field of teachers' practice. The investigation included interviews and lesson observations with three teachers which systematically use problem solving in their teaching. The results of my investigation showed that problem solving can be used in different ways and with different purposes in the mathematics education. They also showed that there are both common and distinctive aspects in the observed practices of teaching and in the teachers' approach to problem solving. In addition, the results suggest some connection between the teachers' teaching and the research findings reported in the literature. However, the results also indicate that each teacher has developed a personalized form of teaching according to their individual circumstances and that their practice may in some aspects differ from those results reported about teaching through problem solving.

Syftet med föreliggande undersökning var att studera sambandet mel¬lan hundars ålder och deras inlärnings- respektive problemlösnings¬förmåga. Undersökningen genomför¬des på 17 hundar med ett ålders¬spann på 12 -123 månader. Hun¬darna genomförde en inlärningsövning och en problemlösnings¬övning. Det visade sig finnas en svag icke sig¬nifikans tendens att de yngre hundarna hade ett lägre antal träningstill¬fällen. En slutsats som kan dras från detta är att det krävs ett stort stickprov för att få fram reliabla resultat gällande yngre och äldre hun¬dars inlärningsförmåga.