This study investigates the impact of multimedia on the effectiveness of information scanning. Information scanning is the act of seeking and receiving a wide variety of special information to develop a thorough understanding of the organization and the environment. The application domain of this study is Executive Support Systems. The experimental task is to identify potential threats and opportunities, a strategic information-scanning activity, based on the information stored in three ESS prototypes. Forty subjects from four organizations participated in the experiment. A random assignment process allocated them into three groups. The control group used the text-based ESS. The first experimental group used the visual multimedia ESS. The second experimental group used the audiovisual multimedia ESS. The experiment was carried out on the sites of the participating organizations. The investigator measured the effectiveness of information scanning based on the number of threats and opportunities each subject identifies. A close-ended questionnaire measured subjects' retention of information. The results of this study support the cognitive-fit theory. The findings indicate that multimedia is not an appropriate presentation format for analytical tasks. Subjects who use text-based ESS identify significantly more threats and opportunities than subjects who use audiovisual multimedia ESS. The cognitive style of subjects does not moderate the impact of multimedia. The results show that the use of multimedia does not necessarily improve retention of information. Further research is needed to determine the most effective combination of text, graphics, animation, video, and sound.

To facilitate collaborative design in vocational education institutions, we have conducted a project to establish a nationwide PDM platform for four different schools spread all over the country. The particular aim of a follow up project introduced in this paper is to sensitize the participating students to sustainable design and lifecycle assessment (LCA) and provide them with hands-on tools through the PDM platform to accomplish these tasks. As a collaborative case study project, a cordless drill driver was chosen to be re-designed with respect to Ecodesign aspects. Since LCA is truly a holistic task, we focused on the ecological aspects of material and production stage. Distribution, usage and end-of-life stages were left out as well as economic and social aspects. The drill driver was divided into housing, drill chuck, gear and power unit. Each component was assigned to one of the schools and had to be designed with respect to reduced environmental impacts. Since different CAD systems are used the decision to provide the needed tools and environmental information within the PDM platform rather than CAD environment was easy. Some of the PDM systems on the market do also provide lifecycle analysis modules but it is rather a black box approach than a transparent data and reporting source. Because LCA heavily relies on the method itself and the way analysis is conducted we decided to develop our own tools. Therefore, a new, adapted interface was developed using open source business intelligence software called Pentaho to facilitate on the fly reporting and analytics of the work in progress by the users. Furthermore, the Ecoinvent database was connected to the PDM system to provide required information on carbon footprint and cumulated energy demand. The paper discusses strength and weaknesses of tools and methods with respect to the introduced case study and gives an outlook on ontology representation for the data model for better analysis capabilities.

The work peruses a study and analysis of integrated management system in the two basic chapters. The first chapter introduction informs the reader about definitions that describe the IMS term the best. An adumbration of developments in approach to quality, environment and the labour safety and protection follows. One part of the work pays attention to developments in numbers of certifications in the Czech Republic and world-wide to show popularity of the IMS as a certificate able instrument. The theoretic part consists of a listing of brief properties of actual standardisation documents valid in the Czech Republic. The most important documents in each area builds so-called criteria standards thus standards defining requests to introduce and maintain the systems properly. Wide part of the work is dedicated to interpretation of such criteria standards. The first part conclusion deals in a method that is a base and resource for the part two. The second part contains characteristics of two analysed companies, description of individual areas using defined criteria and collected information evaluation. The work has been set up on a base of studying lot of information and documents both in electronic and hard copy versions. All of them have been collected from public sources and from said companies in a direct personal cooperation and communication.

While biological scientists justify their research into human genetic engineering on the grounds of its 'therapeutic' potential, art - particularly the genre of science fiction (whose origins can be traced to Mary Shelly's famous tale, Frankenstein) - has acted on the social through culture to alert us to the perilous repercussions of usurping the role of the 'Creator of Life.' Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, the scientific project of mapping human DNA seemingly complete, the plight of the genetically-engineered human has become an intense focus of cultural critique. This doctoral project can be differentiated by its focus on aesthetic inquiry into the implications for expressions and representations of corporeality in relation to contemporary biomedical engineering. It has incorporated stem cell research that entails the manipulation and redirection of adult stem cell fates. The project takes the form of practical and theoretical investigations into cellular responses, and is framed within the matrices of both an innovative collaborative art/science research model and the evolving process of practice-led arts research. The exploratory research is discursively located within the system/environment paradigm. This allows for boundaries between the philosophic and scientific disciplines of: 1. epistemology, 2. ethics and aesthetics and 3. biology and technology to become nodes in a relational network associated with: 1. living and non-living, 2. sentience and consciousness and 3. conceptions of humanness. The cycle of practice-led research culminates in a body of work that began with a project entitled apoptosis, and developed into a three part quasi-scientific vital force series of installations. Each of these installations references nineteenth century scientific experimental processes employed in a search for the essential components of the human being itself. The series of interactive installations is discussed and the processual, pioneering research model, whereby the artist becomes the 'human guinea pig' is theoretically and visually articulated. In addition, time-lapse videomicrograph image data, collected through laboratory experiments is interpreted and recontextualised by the artist-researcher for representation in the vital force series of immersive installations. In these installations the implications of the issues raised by biomedical engineering processes are expressed as a very physical, tactile encounter. The aim is that these encounters engender a multi-sensory experience for the individual viewer, who, when immersed in the aesthetic, corporeal, interactive installations as a participant who completes the work through their engagement. Thus, the significance of the study lies in its re-privileging of the aesthetic experience of corporeality in the discourses surrounding genetic manipulation. This exegesis, like the doctoral project itself, is cyclical; following the inseparable processes of theory and practice through which the implications of the core research issues for a hybrid art/science practice are explored. It echoes the qualitative, post-positivist research methodology used throughout the project, which aimed to overcome the third person perspective through such strategies as interactivity and hybridity.

To facilitate collaborative design in vocational education institutions, we have conducted a project to establish a nationwide PDM platform for four different schools spread all over the country. The particular aim of a follow up project introduced in this paper is to sensitize the participating students to sustainable design and lifecycle assessment (LCA) and provide them with hands-on tools through the PDM platform to accomplish these tasks. As a collaborative case study project, a cordless drill driver was chosen to be re-designed with respect to Ecodesign aspects. Since LCA is truly a holistic task, we focused on the ecological aspects of material and production stage. Distribution, usage and end-of-life stages were left out as well as economic and social aspects. The drill driver was divided into housing, drill chuck, gear and power unit. Each component was assigned to one of the schools and had to be designed with respect to reduced environmental impacts. Since different CAD systems are used the decision to provide the needed tools and environmental information within the PDM platform rather than CAD environment was easy. Some of the PDM systems on the market do also provide lifecycle analysis modules but it is rather a black box approach than a transparent data and reporting source. Because LCA heavily relies on the method itself and the way analysis is conducted we decided to develop our own tools. Therefore, a new, adapted interface was developed using open source business intelligence software called Pentaho to facilitate on the fly reporting and analytics of the work in progress by the users. Furthermore, the Ecoinvent database was connected to the PDM system to provide required information on carbon footprint and cumulated energy demand. The paper discusses strength and weaknesses of tools and methods with respect to the introduced case study and gives an outlook on ontology representation for the data model for better analysis capabilities.

Product success is a major goal of designing and design research. Designing involves developing systems. A system interacts with its environment to satisfy its requirements. Therefore, designing should involve developing the concept of both the system and its surrounding. Depending on how the concept of the system changes will impinge on the concept of the environment, and vice-versa; design must co-evolve the concepts of both the system and its environment to adapt them to each other. A comprehensive review of literature on designing to explore the use of system-environment view in designing revealed that while the concept of systems is used by many design models, implicitly or explicitly, the concept of environment is rarely used as an evolvable construct in designing. Activities, outcomes, requirement-solution and system-environment views play a significant role in product success. Thus, it is important to explicitly address these views in designing. Further, integration of these views is important for explaining various complex characteristics of designing such as requirement-solution co-evolution and system-environment co-evolution. Integration of views is important also for mapping the steps in design models using these views, so as to be able to characterize design models, or benchmark one design model against another. Literature has been reviewed to identify the constructs in these views that are essential for representing the design process. Srinivasan and Chakrabarti [2010] had earlier developed a model of designing by integrating three of these views: activities, outcomes, and requirement-solution. However, this model did not incorporate the system-environment view. In this thesis, a system-environment view is developed, with both the system and environment as explicit and evolvable constructs in designing. The thesis then proposed an extended, integrated model of designing which combines the constructs of the identified views of activities, outcomes, requirement-solution and system-environment. The proposed model is empirically validated using protocols from six design sessions; the sesessions had been undertaken well before the proposed model was developed.Validation involved checking whether or not instances of all the constructs in the model are naturally present in these design sessions, and whether or not every event in these design sessions could be described using the constructs of the proposed model. Further, the explanatory power of the proposed model is illustrated by explaining how system-environment co-evolution and requirement-solution co-evolution occur during the design sessions captured in the protocols. Also, a standard prescriptive approach to designing –Pahl and Beitz approach – is used to demonstrate how a design model can be mapped using the constructs of the proposed model–the first step to characterizing or benchmarking design models.

Coal-fired power plants’ typically large capacity and relatively low electricity generation costs in the Chinese power market can be compared with their typically low specific thermal efficiency and older age on average. At the same time, the environment pollution caused by local coal-fired power plants has started to receive due attention. Sustainable renewable energy sources and the application of effective conversion technologies for those has become a top priority of China's current energy strategy. Biomass in general and anaerobic biogas in particular can be regarded as clean, locally available renewable energy resources. Replacing coal with biomass-derived energy is especially relevant for certain locations in China. For the case of Henan province, work has already been undertaken by the local authorities for the proper estimation of the biomass potential and the selection of most applicable energy conversion technologies with the lowest environmental footprint to replace aging coal-fired plants with various biomass-based power generation facilities. / Kolkraftverkens typiska stora kapacitet och relativt låga elproduktionskostnader på den kinesiska elmarknaden kan jämföras med deras typiskt låga specifika verkningsgrader och äldre ålder i genomsnitt. Samtidigt har miljöföroreningarna som orsakas av lokala kolkraftverk börjat uppmärksammas på riktigt i Kina. Hållbara förnybara energikällor och tillämpningen av effektiv konverteringsteknik för dessa har blivit en topprioritet för Kinas nuvarande energistrategi. Biomassa i allmänhet och anaerobisk biogas (rötgas) i synnerhet kan betraktas som rena och lokalt tillgängliga förnybara energiresurser. Byte av kol mot biobränslen blir särskilt relevant för vissa platser i Kina. När det gäller Henanprovinsen har en del arbete redan gjorts av de lokala myndigheterna för en korrekt uppskattning av biomasspotentialen och en analys av de mest tillämpliga teknologier för omvandling av bioenergi med lägsta miljöpåverkan som ersätter åldrande koleldade anläggningar med olika biobränslen.

Graduation theses is directed on the Management System and the characteristics of the company and its development since 2003. Theses is introduced on the Integrated Management System, which consists of the Quality Management System, the Environmental Management System and the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series. The theses is especially directed on the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series. Management System is analyzed and steps are recommended to improve these processes.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:15:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 5792.pdf: 2150785 bytes, checksum: 967083b129be653705657afbcab00714 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-27 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / This thesis consists of three studies in the context of cavity quantum electrodynam- ics. Firstly, we investigate the quantum-to-classical transition of a dissipative cavity .eld by measuring the correlations between two non-interacting atoms coupled to the cavity mode. We note that there is a time window in which the mode presents a classical be- havior, which depends on the cavity decay rate, the atom-.eld coupling strength and the number of atoms. Then, considering the steady state of two atoms inside the cavity, we note that the entanglement between the atoms disappears while the intracavity mean number of photons (ñ) increases. However, the mutual information, the classical corre- lations and the quantum discord reach asymptotic non-zero values even in the limit of (continue...) / Esta tese é constituída por três estudos no contexto de Eletrodinâmica Quântica de Cavidades. Primeiramente, investigamos a transição quântico-clássica de um campo de uma cavidade dissipativa através da geração de correlação entre dois átomos de dois níveis não interagentes acoplados a um modo da cavidade. Em primeiro lugar, mostramos que há uma janela de tempo na qual o modo da cavidade exibe um comportamento clássico, que depende da taxa de decaimento da cavidade, do acoplamento átomo-campo e do número de átomos. Em seguida, considerando o regime estacionário, vemos que o emaranhamento entre os átomos desaparece à medida que o número médio de fótons intracavidade (ñ) é aumentado. Entretanto, a informação mútua, as correlações clássicas e a discórdia quântica atingem valores assintóticos não nulos mesmo no limite (continua...)