In this world of fast-paced learning, training agencies often require their learners to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for a job at an expedited rate. Because of this rapid form of training, learners are sometimes uncertain about their abilities to execute task-based performances. This uncertainty can lead to a decrease in learners’ self-efficacy on expected task performance. In order to help with this training, trainers are using a variety of simulations and simulators to provide learners’ valuable and necessary training experiences. This mixed methods study explored the influence of high-fidelity virtual training simulators on learners’ self-efficacy. It used pre- and post-simulation-use surveys that combined general self-efficacy questions (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) and task-specific self-efficacy questions (Bandura, 1977, 1997, 2006; Bandura, Adams, Hardy, & Howells, 1980). This study had a sample size of 18 participants. It was assumed that the intent of providing learners with the vital experience needed to perform specific tasks in a high-fidelity virtual training simulator was to increase their self-efficacy on task-specific criteria. Instead, through surveys, observations, and interviews, the research revealed a decrease in learners’ self-efficacy due to heightened emotional arousal stemming from the learners’ experiences with the level of realism the simulator provide, as well as with breakdowns within the simulator. The breakdowns and the realism were the most influential aspects that influenced self-efficacy in this study. The significance of these findings shows that despite learners wanting to use high-fidelity virtual training simulators, improperly functioning simulators can negatively influence learners’ self-efficacy in task-based performances. / Ph. D.

<p>Prevas AB har utvecklat ett lagerhanteringssystem som kallas Snitcher Warehouse. Programmet körs på handdatorer och används av lagerarbetare för att underlätta det dagliga arbetet. Applikationen innehåller bland annat funktioner för att hantera gods som inkommer till lagret, det hanterar också flera olika typer av plocklistor samt funktioner för saldo och inventering. Lagerhanteringssystemet körs mot ett affärssystem som heter Movex/M3.Affärssystemet är stort och komplext samt innehåller många fler funktioner än vad Snitcher Warehouse har användning för. För att kunna demonstrera och felsöka applikationen behövs en uppkoppling mot affärssystemet samt tillgänglig testdata i det. Önskemålet från Prevas var att utveckla en simulator till deras lagerhanteringssystem, denna simulator har till uppgift attta bort beroendet av ett stort affärssystem i bakgrunden vilket kommer leda till att Prevas produkt blir mycket lättare att demonstrera, utveckla och felsöka.Syftet med examensarbetet var att utveckla en simulator i enlighet med Prevaskravspecifikation. För att skriva simulatorn använde vi programmeringsspråket Visual Basic, (VB), för att tillgodose Prevas önskemål om ett enhetligt språk genom hela systemet. Simulatorn är byggd för att vara dynamisk, det vill säga att den ska kunna anpassas för de olika behov och möjligheter som finns i lagerhanteringssystemet. Målet för simulatorn är attden ska bli enkel att använda men att den samtidigt ska fylla de flesta funktioner som en koppling mot ett riktigt affärssystem erbjuder.</p> / <p>Prevas AB has developed a warehouse application that is called Snitcher Warehouse. The program is run on PPCs, Pocket PC, and it's used by stockroom workers to make the everyday work easier. The application has functions for handling goods that arrive at the warehouse. It also handles several different types of picking-lists and functions for balance and inventory.During execution, the warehouse system connects to a business system called Movex/M3. The business system is large and very complex, and it has a lot more functions than Snitcher Warehouse has use for. To do even the simplest form of demonstrating and troubleshooting with the application, you need a connection to the business system and specific test data in it. Prevas has wanted that a simulator be developed for the warehouse system. That is to remove the dependency of having a large business system running in the background. This will make the warehouse software a lot easier to demonstrate, develop and troubleshoot. The degree project was to develop a simulator in accordance with the specifications provided by Prevas. Visual Basic was used as the programming language to implement the simulator.This was a desire from Prevas' side and it was the natural choice since the rest of the program also was written in VB. The construction of the simulator is meant to be dynamic. This means that it’s supposed to be able to adapt to the different needs and possibilities of the warehouse application. The goal for the simulator is to make it simple to use and at the same time makesure that it can support most of the functions that a connection to a real enterprise resource can.</p>

Prevas AB har utvecklat ett lagerhanteringssystem som kallas Snitcher Warehouse. Programmet körs på handdatorer och används av lagerarbetare för att underlätta det dagliga arbetet. Applikationen innehåller bland annat funktioner för att hantera gods som inkommer till lagret, det hanterar också flera olika typer av plocklistor samt funktioner för saldo och inventering. Lagerhanteringssystemet körs mot ett affärssystem som heter Movex/M3.Affärssystemet är stort och komplext samt innehåller många fler funktioner än vad Snitcher Warehouse har användning för. För att kunna demonstrera och felsöka applikationen behövs en uppkoppling mot affärssystemet samt tillgänglig testdata i det. Önskemålet från Prevas var att utveckla en simulator till deras lagerhanteringssystem, denna simulator har till uppgift attta bort beroendet av ett stort affärssystem i bakgrunden vilket kommer leda till att Prevas produkt blir mycket lättare att demonstrera, utveckla och felsöka.Syftet med examensarbetet var att utveckla en simulator i enlighet med Prevaskravspecifikation. För att skriva simulatorn använde vi programmeringsspråket Visual Basic, (VB), för att tillgodose Prevas önskemål om ett enhetligt språk genom hela systemet. Simulatorn är byggd för att vara dynamisk, det vill säga att den ska kunna anpassas för de olika behov och möjligheter som finns i lagerhanteringssystemet. Målet för simulatorn är attden ska bli enkel att använda men att den samtidigt ska fylla de flesta funktioner som en koppling mot ett riktigt affärssystem erbjuder. / Prevas AB has developed a warehouse application that is called Snitcher Warehouse. The program is run on PPCs, Pocket PC, and it's used by stockroom workers to make the everyday work easier. The application has functions for handling goods that arrive at the warehouse. It also handles several different types of picking-lists and functions for balance and inventory.During execution, the warehouse system connects to a business system called Movex/M3. The business system is large and very complex, and it has a lot more functions than Snitcher Warehouse has use for. To do even the simplest form of demonstrating and troubleshooting with the application, you need a connection to the business system and specific test data in it. Prevas has wanted that a simulator be developed for the warehouse system. That is to remove the dependency of having a large business system running in the background. This will make the warehouse software a lot easier to demonstrate, develop and troubleshoot. The degree project was to develop a simulator in accordance with the specifications provided by Prevas. Visual Basic was used as the programming language to implement the simulator.This was a desire from Prevas' side and it was the natural choice since the rest of the program also was written in VB. The construction of the simulator is meant to be dynamic. This means that it’s supposed to be able to adapt to the different needs and possibilities of the warehouse application. The goal for the simulator is to make it simple to use and at the same time makesure that it can support most of the functions that a connection to a real enterprise resource can.

Psychology / We examined the relationship between infant attractiveness and adult affect, focusing on the potential link between affect and differential treatment of attractive and unattractive infants in a two-phase study. In Phase 1, we investigated whether differing levels of infant facial attractiveness would elicit positive and negative affect from adults (N=87) using electromyography. Unattractive infant faces evoked significantly more corrugator supercilii and levator labii superioris movement (physiological correlates of negative affect) than attractive infant faces. In Phase 2, we measured caregiving behavior and explicit bias of the same adults toward two infant simulators, one attractive and one unattractive. Participants’ positive affect, as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and explicit biases predicted how well they cared for the infant simulators, but their affect measured by the facial muscle movements in the EMG portion of the study did not. These results suggest that unattractive infants may be at risk for negative affective responses from adults, though the relationship between those responses and caregiving behavior remains elusive. / text

e-Learning is an effective medium for delivering knowledge and skills. In spite of improvements in electronic delivery technologies, e-Learning is still a long way away from offering anything close to efficient and effective learning environments. To improve e-Learning experiences, much literature supports simulation based e-Learning. This thesis begins identifying various types of simulation models and their features that induce experiential learning. We focus on designing and constructing an easy-to-use Discrete Event Simulation (DES) tool for building engaging and informative interactive DES models that allow learners to control the models’ parameters and visualizations through runtime interactions. DES has long been used to support analysis and design of complex systems but its potential to enhance learning has not yet been fully utilized. We first present an application framework and its resulting classes for better structuring DES models. However, importing relevant classes, establishing relationships between their objects and representing lifecycles of various types of active objects in a language that does not support concurrency demand a significant cognitive workload. To improve this situation, we utilize two design patterns to ease model structuring and logic representation (both in time and space) through a drag and drop component approach. The patterns are the Delegation Event Model, used for linking between components and delegating tasks of executing and updating active objects’ lifecycles, and the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern, used for connecting the components to their graphical instrumentations and GUIs. Components implementing both design patterns support the process-oriented approach, can easily be tailored to store model states and visualizations, and can be extended to design higher level models through hierarchical simulation development. Evaluating this approach with both teachers and learners using ActionScript as an implementation language in the Flash environment shows that the resulting components not only help model designers with few programming skills to construct DES models, but they also allow learners to conduct various experiments through interactive GUIs and observe the impact of changes to model behaviour through a range of engaging visualizations. Such interactions can motivate learners and make their learning an enjoyable experience.

No description available.

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a surgical technique involving small incisions performed by an endoscope and several long, thin instruments. Because of its minimally invasive nature, MIS minimizes complications and speeds up recovery time compared to the traditional surgery. Unfortunately, from a surgeon's perspective, MIS is much more challenging than conventional surgery. Because the limited vision and sensing feedbacks, MIS a difficult skill for medical students and residents to master.There has been some research on the effectiveness of different kinds of training and guidance. Surgical simulation is increasingly perceived as a valuable addition to traditional medical training methods, although most existing simulators have limitations stemming from either a lack of objective performance assessment or an insufficient relation to the operating room reality.The objective of this research is to design and realize a novel prototype that advances the state of the art in surgical training, assessment, and guidance for MIS. The prototype features micro-sensors embedded into the instruments employed for simulation training. The system provides multiple training scenarios, a high fidelity training environment, repeatable, structured exercises, and objective performance assessment capabilities.The proposed Situational Awareness Enhancing System (SAES) uses a unified framework incorporating perception, comprehension, and projection software modules that provide feedback during the exercises and enable evaluation of the training procedure.A multiple sensor data fusion method was developed to help surgeons efficiently acquire information in real time. The output, "Hybridview", is produced by fusing the information from digital camera and magnetic position sensors, and shows an overlay of the positions of organs and objects with the trajectory of instruments. An intelligent inference engine was designed to formulate an objective standard based on the expertise of senior surgeons and to provide an accurate scoring method. A multi-level fuzzy inference engine and new performance metrics were implemented.To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed training system, numerous experiments were conducted. The results show that the situational awareness training system for MIS is useful and efficient.

The usage of computer networks has increased enormously recently due to many benefits; it facilitates data distribution speed, long distance communication and industrial system control. Due to these reasons, industry systems have started to use computer networks for system control and data transmission. Meanwhile, the limitations of network devices also raise many challenges for network system configuration. To have the best optimized network system, we need to study the network system by performing experiments. However, experiments on the real systems could be expensive and dangerous. Therefore, we need a model to represent the behaviours of the system. This thesis work uses object-oriented acasual modelling language Modelica to model a local area network system, and the development is performed in OpenModelica, an open source Modelica-based modelling and simulation environment. The simulation results are analysed and verified by using a separate requirement verification model.

Student Number : 8609118F - MSc(Eng) project report - School of Electrical Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / Technical support organisations (TSOs) and service groups are becoming increasingly important in the upkeep and maintenance of the highly sophisticated and optimised automation equipment and systems that drive production in the mining and manufacturing industries. This study presents a methodology for designing and analysing the performance of a TSO, with a view to ongoing optimisation. The method of approach is the ‘System Dynamics’ (SD) simulation technique, which has at its core a mathematical model of the organisational unit, and which attempts to model its behaviour over time. The organisational design is based on Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) principles. It was found that the System Dynamics modelling approach was useful for a technical support organisation. For managers and organisational strategists, the quantitative ability of SD provides an intuitive and practical way to evaluate the impact of different structural and operational scenarios in response to ever-demanding business imperatives.

With the rise in aging population, about 6.8 million American residents are depen- dent on mobility devices for their day to day activity. More than 40% of these users have di?culty in moving the mobility device on their own. These numbers serve as a motivation on developing a system than can help in manipulation with simple muscle activity and localize the mobility device in the user's home in case of medical emergencies. This research is aimed at creating a user interface of Elec- tromyographic Sensor, attached to the forearm, incorporated with present smart wheelchairs and a simple localization technique using ducial markers. The main outcome of the research is a simulator of the smart wheelchair to analyze the results of my research.