Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-148). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (BTech (Fashion Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010 / Petite women face many difficulties when purchasing clothing (Kam, 2006). This has been the common reaction expressed by a number of petite women all over the globe (Kam, 2006). Although there have been efforts made to accommodate petite women in South Africa( National Textiles Research brief, 2007) regarding clothing such as Edgars in particular there is still a large amount of petite women who feel dissatisfied. To test whether poorly fitted clothing does have a psychological effect on the petite women, interviews will be conducted with students attending CPUT and UCT. Research on theories revolving around the human mind and how the perception of other people influence our own perceptions of our self image were covered and the product of this research will be a new sizing system for petite women and a range of smart wear which allows women to express themselves age appropriately. The apparel industry has been growing and has worked side by side with technology to address many problems concerning fit and have succeeded in many departments. The fashion industry has in fact paid little attention to petite individuals not recognizing the psychological effect it has on the consumer and could largely benefit if the industry concentrates more on fit, aesthetic and design problems.

Today, mobile technology is part of everyday life and activities and the mobile ecosystems are blossoming, with smartphones and tablets being the major growth drivers. The mobile phones are no longer just another device, we rely on their capabilities in work and in private. We look to our mobile phones for timely and updated information and we rely on this being provided any time of any day at any place. Nevertheless, no matter how much you trust and love your mobile phone the quality of the information and the user experience is directly associated with the sources and presentation of information. In this perspective, our activities, interactions and preferences help shape the quality of service, content and products we use. Context-aware systems use such information about end-users as input mechanisms for producing applications based on mobile, location, social, cloud and customized content services. This represents new possibilities for extracting aggregated user-centric information and includes novel sources for context-aware applications. Accordingly, a Design Research based approach has been taken to further investigate the creation, presentation and tailoring of user-centric information. Through user evaluated experiments findings show how multi-dimensional context-aware information can be used to create adaptive solutions tailoring the user experience to the users’ needs. Research findings in this work; highlight possible architectures for integration of cloud computing services in a heterogeneous mobile environment in future context-aware solutions. When it comes to combining context-aware results from local computations with those of cloud based services, the results provide findings that give users tailored and adapted experiences based on the collective efforts of the two.

The uncanny is a feeling that is closely related to fear and fright but is not quite the same. It is a feeling of unsettling discomfort – that there is something that one does not understand. This project explores the aesthetic of the uncanny through tailoring. By using draping and the inherent body-altering techniques within tailoring this project shows alternative expression within tailoring by distortion of body and garment.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Tailoring messages is the process of customizing messages that are more relevant for the receiver, with the aim of improving the recipient’s engagement with and understanding about information in the message. Little research has been done to look at tailored messages in technical communication about healthcare technology, even though the use of technology in healthcare, and the complexity of that technology, continues to increase. Research was performed to investigate if students who plan to work in the healthcare technology field can demonstrate an understanding about tailoring messages and can tailor messages in their technical communication. A four-phase Action Research Cycle for inquiry into teaching and learning was used to modify course materials and analyze work for six assignments submitted by 14 students enrolled in Technical Communication for the Health Care Professions, TCM 38000, during the 2015 spring semester. Although TCM 38000 has always been open to students in other majors, the majority of students who take the course are in the Health Engineering Technology Management (HETM) program at Purdue’s School of Engineering and Technology on the campus of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in Indianapolis. Overall, the modifications made to TCM 38000 were successful in helping students begin to learn about tailoring messages and create messages tailored for a specific end-user in their technical communication developed for some course assignments. In their Reflections for a User Manual assignment, the majority of students explained that they used what they learned through course materials and discussions to reach beyond their learning and come up with techniques for tailoring messages on their own. Students used word choice, information content and role-play techniques to determine the end-user’s information needs and then to tailor messages in their manuals to address those needs. After reflecting on the results of the research, some course materials will be modified so that students can gain a deeper understanding about tailoring messages and can have more opportunities to practice writing tailored messages in course assignments. Research implications expand beyond the classroom into workplace training for organizations that have both technical and non-technical employees that must effectively communicate.

British fashion is poised amidst a clutch of conflicting narratives, representations and ideologies. Through an examination of these rival encounters and the events that have gone to generate them, this thesis gives an insight into the culture of contemporary fashion, its dilemmas and the industry it supports. In particular, my discussion looks at the relationship between fashion and national identity. It posits fashion as a site central both to the re-branding of Britain and also to contestations over British identity itself, including the gendering of Britishness and its class relations. Using the cases of two iconic British fashion companies, Paul Smith Ltd and Mulberry Plc, I explore how the apparently straightforward and economically driven process of the globalisation of British fashion is, in fact, a far more culturally nuanced and locally embedded encounter than has previously been suggested. I unpack the different ways in which Paul Smith and Mulberry go about negotiating and sometimes even shaping and mobilising a sense of nationness in what is a rapidly globalising commercial marketplace. For in spite of their shared iconic national status both companies go about generating and deploying their self-confessed British character in exceedingly different ways. It is through an exploration of Paul Smith and Mulberry's contrasting corporate strategies, symbolic production techniques and product profiles that I investigate the different meanings afforded by the term Britishness. Indeed the thesis contends that, in the arena of fashion, Britishness is characterised less through some distinct essence or by a particular 'look' and more through its 'narratives of ambiguity'. In turn, it suggests that an understanding of these narratives goes some way in problematising and disrupting commonly imagined notions of Britishness borne out of Anglo-centric, androcentric and bourgeois tradition and, still further, it looks at how such notions might be re-worked in more multiple and complex ways.

The software industry and the information service providers in Taiwan are facing global competition but generally falling behind the international level for their software development ability due to short of capable manpower and lack of software engineering concept. Moreover, the domestic output value of software is relatively low and the domestic market is also too small; companies are struggling for the market and making profit has become difficult. To solve this issue the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) has developed several combinations of the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) in recent years. In this study, theories of implementing CMMI in the software industry are discussed. Taking risk management for a software project as example, we have established the structure and guides of process tailoring for projects of various scales. On the process of risk management, we firstly defined the tailoring aspects according to the CMMI Level 3 implement process, and then interviewed the case study company for their eight plans to analyze and induce the possible tailoring guides. Our findings are as follows. 1. Establishing the risk management strategy (1) Making a risk plan, including activities such as risk definition, analysis, reduction, treatment and monitoring. (2) Providing implement methods, judgment rules, execution thresholds, treatment process, or tools for those activities. (3) Producing necessary output, such as data, records, and documents. (4) Setting up timeframe for risk monitoring or re-evaluation, at least once a month. 2. Establishing the tailoring guides for the process (1) Adjustment and change are allowed, depending on the project property. (2) Feedback is necessary for design and implementation. (3) Concrete and practical methods are necessary; the system is not fully reliable. The research model and structure of this study can be further applied to the newly developed SEI models or other large-scale international standards in the future as a reference for the software organizations to improve their software process.

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Psychological Sciences / Laura A. Brannon / Sun exposure, with its link to the development of skin cancer and other health issues, can be a serious health hazard. In particular, those who primarily work outdoors and are consistently exposed to the sun’s rays are at elevated risk for such health problems. Previous research efforts have focused on appealing to these outdoor workers to practice sun protection behaviors, such as using sunscreen, wearing a hat, or wearing items of clothing that reduce the amount of skin exposed to the sun’s rays. In an effort to promote such sun protection behaviors, study 1 used a 3 X 2 between-subjects design to investigate the effects of tailored messaging and the inclusion of content regarding financial consequences of skin cancer on outdoor workers’ intention to practice sun protection behaviors. Results from study 1 suggest that tailored messaging was equally as effective as targeted messaging, with both being more effective than generic messaging. This finding indicates that some degree of personalization is necessary when promoting safe sun practices to outdoor workers, but that tailoring to individuals is unnecessary. Additionally, the inclusion of financial content in messaging resulted in participants having greater intentions to practice sun protection behaviors. In study 2, managers and supervisors of outdoor workers were studied in determining the importance of consequences related to employee well-being and financial consequences for employers when it comes to encouraging sun protection behaviors in their employees. Using a four-level between-subjects intervention, it was found that managers and supervisors who received messages that emphasized the financial consequences of employee sun exposure had greater intentions to encourage sun protection behaviors in their employees than those who received a message focused solely on employee well-being. This finding indicates that employers may be most concerned with financial consequences when it comes to promoting employee health. Together, studies 1 and 2 provide insight into the most effective methods for promoting sun protection for outdoor workers.