This thesis describes a study of the potential contribution of industrial design to the adaptation of agricultural machinery for use in Malaysia. The study identifies the nature of agricultural machinery and equipment design which uses mainly adaptation concepts as a means of getting a 'quick' design. The nature of industrial design with regard to agricultural machinery and equipment design in Malaysia and the UK was also studied. This research has established the potential of industrial designers to contribute in this area of design activity. This researchu tilised a combinedm ethodologyo f'triangulation' where quantitative surveysa nd qualitative studies were used. Literature surveys, a groundwork study, questionnaire surveys, case studies, interviews, and observations were carried out. Case studies and interviews were the main methods of data collection while questionnaire surveys helped to provide information, support, and validate findings from the former methods. Case studies and interviews involved five establishmentsin Malaysia and four companiesi n the UK. Adaptation designw as confirmed as'a successfulc oncept, however, the processesin volved in the designo f machinesa nd equipmentn eedt o be developeda nd improved. There were generally no specific design processes or procedures adhered to while carrying adaptation design work. They were determinedb y the samef actors i. e. the types of projects, aims/objectiveso f project, duration and date-line, funding and level of adaptation design. From the quantitative survey and qualitatives tudyr esults,i t was establishedth at industrial design should be incorporated into the adaptation design concept. The role of industrial designers in adaptation design can be that of assisting and advising the engineers and working collectively as a team. The potential contributionso f industriald esignersw ould be to improve 'appearance('a esthetics),q uality, and overall design. Industrial design knowledge in human-factors- ergonomics/anthropometricswere also sort for in order to satisfy factors such as safety and ease of use. Industrial designers were also needed to achieve designs which could reduce costs and to increase sales of machinery/equipmenpt roducts. The thesis concludes that the diverse nature of agricultural machinery and equipment design, especiallyfo cusingo n the adaptationd esignc oncept,r equiresa synthesisa pproachr equiring the participation and consideration of such factors as: inter-disciplinary relationships, agricultural policy, designp olicy, designe ducation,a nd public awarenessA. ll thesef actors coupled with the contributions made by industrial designers would bring improvements to the success rates of adaptation design. V

Steel-Concrete-Steel (SCS) composite construction consists of two relatively thin steel plates with the space between filled with concrete. Various forms of this construction exist, using overlapping shear studs and single bar connectors to provide shear reinforcement to the concrete and provide a shear transfer at the interface. The problem with current systems that rely purely upon shear studs or bar connectors is that they are prone to slip between the steel faceplates and concrete core. This slip leads to a loss of composite action causing a loss of stiffness and a reduced fatigue life. An extensive experimental programme consisting of 32 beam specimens and 34 other small scale specimens formed the basis for the study of the behaviour of surfaced SCS specimens under a variety of load conditions. The results of this test program showed that surfaced SCS specimens behaved in a more composite manner. This increase in composite action manifested itself in a number of ways. • Reduced slip between steel plate and concrete core • Increased stiffness of specimen • More even crack distribution This extensive experimental study was backed up with an analytical study to understand and predict the behaviour of the surfaced SCS elements. This study has led to a new method of predicting the capacity of such sections, to a greater degree of accuracy than current methods allow. Further to this a FE parametric study was carried out to investigate the sensitivity of the elements to changes in the main geometrical and material variables.

No description available.

No description available.

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to look at how teachers use micro-blogging, in this case Twitter (www.twitter.com), for their own personalized professional learning and how effective Twitter is as a professional development (PD) tool. In order to measure the effectiveness of the tool, the researcher first gleaned nine essential characteristics of effective PD from the literature. This list was validated by experts in the PD community. The significance of this study was to reveal how participants actually used Twitter for PD, what their perspectives on the tool were, and how effective their experiences were with Twitter as a PD tool. Results of this study can be used to improve current practice, and provide a low cost, accessible, and available mechanism to foster an on-going, learner-centered, approach to PD, thus allowing teachers to become more involved in their own professional growth. For the 4 participants in this study, Twitter use for PD and its effectiveness varied greatly. The effectiveness of the tool depended on the participant&rsquo;s fluency with the technology and attitude towards social media. For the most fluent participant, Twitter met most of the requirements for effectiveness; however, Twitter use did not automatically provide a mechanism for reflection or self-assessment; nor did Twitter use provide an evaluation of the experience, both requirements of effective PD. With added evaluation and self-assessment processes, and with a fluent practitioner, Twitter does have the potential to be a very effective PD tool with its low cost, accessibility, and availability.</p>

<p> <b>Introduction:</b> Technology is as much rural as it is urban, but mobile health (mHealth) could have a unique impact on health and quality of life for rural populations. The adoption of mobile technologies has soared in recent decades leading to new possibilities for mHealth use. This project considers the impact of these technologies on rural populations. Specifically, it is focused on assessing the barriers of physicians and healthcare organizations to adopt mHealth into their care plans. Gaps in knowledge exist in assessing organizational readiness for mHealth adoption, the use of patient-reported data, and the impact on rural healthcare. This project seeks to address those gaps. </p><p> <b>Methods:</b> Utilizing semi-structured, open-ended interviews as the primary instrument of inquiry, clinicians&rsquo; current practices, motivators, and barriers to the use of mHealth technologies were identified. Thematic analysis revealed code-category linkages that identify the complex nature of a rural healthcare organization&rsquo;s current climate from a physician perspective. A thematic map was developed to visualize the flow from category to code. Those linkages were then utilized to construct a refined mHealth readiness model. </p><p> <b>Results:</b> Thirteen Wisconsin-based clinicians from the Marshfield Clinic Health System participated in interviews and consults. The interviews uncovered current practices, with 53.8% of participants reporting that they do encourage the use of mHealth apps or wearable devices with patients. Perceived barriers to adoption were categorized into three primary pillars &ndash; personal (clinician), patient, and organizational. Organizational was the most prominent category, with codes such as time, uniformity, and policy/direction. </p><p> <b>Conclusion:</b> Clinicians, particularly physicians have tight schedules with very limited time for continuing education, research, or exploration into new technologies. Limited clinician time can lead to a lack of familiarity with new and emerging technologies. Clinicians are interested and motivated to learn more, but also need assistance with screening and quality reviews. Organizationally-led directives and suggestions, such as a menu of technologies, would be used. </p><p> There are some risks that would need to be mitigated, but if organizations were prepared to manage mHealth it is very likely that physicians could improve the quality of care for their patients. However, many organizations including Marshfield Clinic are not yet prepared to prescribe or prohibit the use of mHealth technologies. Healthcare institutions should consider investing in mHealth analysis, tool development, and the promotion/recommendation of sanctioned tools for clinicians to use with patients.</p>

Service orientation is a design paradigm consisting of a set of principles governed by a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to support the creation of software systems as a composition of interoperable services. The ability to effectively compose services is not a trivial task due to the dynamic nature of the execution environment of service compositions. In this context, dynamic service selection and composition is a critical requirement and one of the major research challenges for service-based systems. This research investigates the identification, detection and prediction of the need for adaptation as well as ways to autonomously reconfigure the service composition during its execution time in order to improve service reliability and conformance with systems requirements and policies. We propose a framework for proactive adaptation of service compositions that extends current approaches for dynamic service composition by proactively and individually identifying the need for adaptation for each parallel running instance of service composition while avoiding unnecessary changes and distributing load request among different service operations when necessary. Our framework has been tested and validated using different prototypes implemented in both simulated and real environments. The results were favourable with the research objectives and indicates a major gain in the use of the proposed proactive techniques in the execution and adaptation of web service compositions.

Among the several numerical methods which are available for solving complex problems in many areas of engineering and science such as structural analysis, fluid flow and bio-mechanics, the Finite Element Method (FEM) is the most prominent. In the context of these methods, high quality meshes can be crucial to obtaining accurate results. Finite Element meshes are composed of elements and the quality of an element can be described as a numerical measure which estimates the effect that the size/shape of an element will have on the accuracy of an analysis. In this thesis, the strong link between mesh geometry and the accuracy and efficiency of a simulation is explored and it is shown that poor quality elements cause both interpolation errors and poor conditioning of the global stiffness matrix. Numerical optimisation is the process of maximising or minimising an objective func- tion, subject to constraints on the solution. When this is applied to a finite element mesh it is referred to as mesh optimisation, where the quality of the mesh is the objec- tive function and the constraints include, for example, the domain geometry, maximum element size, etc. A mesh optimisation strategy is developed with a particular focus on optimising the quality of the worst elements in a mesh. Using both two and three dimensional examples, the most efficient and effective combination of element quality measure and objective function is found. Many of the problems under consideration are characterised by very complex geometries. The nodes lying on the surfaces of such meshes are typically treated as unmovable by most mesh optimisation software. Techniques exist for moving such nodes as part of the mesh optimisation process, however, the resulting mesh geometry and area/volume is often not conserved. This means that the optimised mesh is no longer an accurate discretisation of the original domain. Therefore, a method is developed and demonstrated which optimises the positions of surface nodes while respecting the geometry and area/volume of a domain. At the heart of many of the problems being considered is the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation where the need to ensure mesh quality in an evolving mesh is very important. In such a formulation, a method of determining the updated nodal positions is required. Such a method is developed using mesh optimisation techniques as part of the FE solution process and this is demonstrated using a two-dimensional, axisymmetric simulation of a micro-fluid droplet subject to external excitation. While better quality meshes were observed using this method, the time step collapsed resulting in simulations requiring significantly more time to complete. The extension of this method to incorporate adaptive re-meshing is also discussed.

No description available.

No description available.