Ein wirtschaftlich optimal ausgelegtes Magnetschwebebahnsystem kann zur Lösung der weltweit drohenden Verkehrsprobleme beitragen, die im Zuge von Globalisierung und steigender Bevölkerung vor allem Regionen mit hohem Wachstumspotential bevorstehen. Im Grenzbereich zwischen Technikbewertung und Wirtschaftlichkeitsbetrachtung werden in der vorliegenden Forschungsarbeit einerseits Optimierungsansätze für das Subsystem „Antrieb und Energieversorgung“ des Transrapid vorgestellt. Sie leisten einen Beitrag zur Erhöhung der Wirtschaftlichkeit des Gesamtsystems über den Lebenszyklus. Auf der anderen Seite wird eine Methodik präsentiert, die es ermöglicht, die betriebswirtschaftlichen Wirkungen der einzelnen Optimierungsmaßnahmen für das Gesamtsystem abzuschätzen. Ausgangspunkt der Untersuchungen ist die Analyse von Zielsystem und aktuellem Entwicklungsstand des Transrapid-Systems. Darauf aufbauend lassen sich mögliche Optimierungsschwerpunkte für das Teilsystem „Antrieb und Energieversorgung“ ableiten und Varianten in Abhängigkeit der Auslegungsparameter erstellen. Kernstück der vorliegenden Ausarbeitung ist die Erstellung einer Optimierungsstrategie, die eine makroskopische Bewertung der Optimierungsansätze ermöglicht. Dies ist erforderlich, da sämtliche Optimierungen stark divergierende Auswirkungen auf die Betriebswirtschaftlichkeit des Gesamtsystems haben - neben den Kosten werden über die Leistungsfähigkeit auch die Erlöse eines Projekts beeinflusst. Basis der Strategie ist die Verknüpfung von Kostenänderungsfaktoren mit Leistungsfähigkeitsparametern. Infolgedessen wird im Ergebnis der Arbeit ein Werkzeug geschaffen, das unter projektspezifischen Randbedingungen als Entscheidungshilfe zur Auslegung des Transrapid-Subsystems „Antrieb und Energieversorgung“ dient.

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The study investigated whether the South African Research Chairs and the research programmes of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation Programme (DST/NRF programmes), have made an effective contribution towards the acceleration of transformation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. The study argues that the implementation of the Higher Education (HE) policies by HEIs and the South African Research Chairs are seriously undermined by legacies of colonialism and apartheid. It is further contended that unless more funds are made available to black students to study full-time, the pillars of democracy of social justice, redress and equality remain meaningless ideological slogans. Guided by the insights provided by literature review on CDA, the study focuses more on the top-down relations of dominance (policy) that fuels continuing racial discrimination in higher education institutions, which the 2008 Final Report of the Ministerial Higher Education Committee isolated for criticism. The study posits that the thematic structural unifier, which links all the pieces of the multiplicity of the competing ideas and voices and threads through the whole study, is the endless probing and unravelling of the cultural and historical factors that continue to undermine the higher education transformation agenda. The findings of this study suggest that the policy implementation of the HE transformation agenda continues to be constrained by mismatch between policy objectives and implementation results. The findings also indicate that although the research-driven performance of South African Research Chairs has progressively improved each year and student support and research outputs increased between the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years, the direct impact of the SARChI programme can only be determined when performance is measured against the South African Research Chair Holders‟ baseline performance. The data also suggest that despite access to educational services at HEIs improving, the existence of various forms of discriminatory 15 practices, are still employed, a major challenge attributed to the “great man” leadership styles adopted by many university‟s vice chancellors and councils. This evaluation study utilises a small-scale purposive sample composed of three experts, with unstructured in-depth face-to-face interviews conducted with the experts. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Whilst technology use has always been a part of the practice of health care delivery, more recently, information technology has been applied to aspects of clinical work concerned with documentation. This thesis presents an analysis of the ways that two professional groups, one clinical and one ancillary, at a single hospital cooperatively engage in a work practice that has recently been computerised. It investigates the way that a clinical group???s approach to and actual use of the system creates problems for the ancillary group. It understands these problems to arise from the contrasting ways that the groups position their use of documentation technology in their local definitions of professional status. The data on which analysis of these practices is based includes 16 hours of video recordings of the work practices of the two groups as they engage with the technology in their local work settings as well as video recordings of a reflexive viewing session conducted with participants from the ancillary group. Also included in the analysis are observational field notes, interviews and documentary analysis. The analysis aimed to produce a set of themes grounded in the specifics of the data, and drew on TLSTranscription?? software for the management and classification of video data. This thesis seeks to contribute to three research fields: health informatics, sociology of professions and social science research methodology. In terms of health informatics, this thesis argues for the necessity for health care information technology design to understand and incorporate the work practices of all professional groups who will be involved in using the technology system or whose work will be affected by its introduction. In terms of the sociology of professions, this thesis finds doctors and scientists to belong to two distinct occupational communities that each utilise documentation technology to different extents in their displays of professional competence. Thirdly, in terms of social science research methodology, this thesis speculates about the possibility for viewing the engagement of the groups with the research process as indicative of their reactions to future sources of outside perturbance to their work.

Whilst technology use has always been a part of the practice of health care delivery, more recently, information technology has been applied to aspects of clinical work concerned with documentation. This thesis presents an analysis of the ways that two professional groups, one clinical and one ancillary, at a single hospital cooperatively engage in a work practice that has recently been computerised. It investigates the way that a clinical group???s approach to and actual use of the system creates problems for the ancillary group. It understands these problems to arise from the contrasting ways that the groups position their use of documentation technology in their local definitions of professional status. The data on which analysis of these practices is based includes 16 hours of video recordings of the work practices of the two groups as they engage with the technology in their local work settings as well as video recordings of a reflexive viewing session conducted with participants from the ancillary group. Also included in the analysis are observational field notes, interviews and documentary analysis. The analysis aimed to produce a set of themes grounded in the specifics of the data, and drew on TLSTranscription?? software for the management and classification of video data. This thesis seeks to contribute to three research fields: health informatics, sociology of professions and social science research methodology. In terms of health informatics, this thesis argues for the necessity for health care information technology design to understand and incorporate the work practices of all professional groups who will be involved in using the technology system or whose work will be affected by its introduction. In terms of the sociology of professions, this thesis finds doctors and scientists to belong to two distinct occupational communities that each utilise documentation technology to different extents in their displays of professional competence. Thirdly, in terms of social science research methodology, this thesis speculates about the possibility for viewing the engagement of the groups with the research process as indicative of their reactions to future sources of outside perturbance to their work.

The study investigated whether the South African Research Chairs and the research programmes of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation Programme (DST/NRF programmes), have made an effective contribution towards the acceleration of transformation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. The study argues that the implementation of the Higher Education (HE) policies by HEIs and the South African Research Chairs are seriously undermined by legacies of colonialism and apartheid. It is further contended that unless more funds are made available to black students to study full-time, the pillars of democracy of social justice, redress and equality remain meaningless ideological slogans. Guided by the insights provided by literature review on CDA, the study focuses more on the top-down relations of dominance (policy) that fuels continuing racial discrimination in higher education institutions, which the 2008 Final Report of the Ministerial Higher Education Committee isolated for criticism. The study posits that the thematic structural unifier, which links all the pieces of the multiplicity of the competing ideas and voices and threads through the whole study, is the endless probing and unravelling of the cultural and historical factors that continue to undermine the higher education transformation agenda. The findings of this study suggest that the policy implementation of the HE transformation agenda continues to be constrained by mismatch between policy objectives and implementation results. The findings also indicate that although the research-driven performance of South African Research Chairs has progressively improved each year and student support and research outputs increased between the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years, the direct impact of the SARChI programme can only be determined when performance is measured against the South African Research Chair Holders‟ baseline performance. The data also suggest that despite access to educational services at HEIs improving, the existence of various forms of discriminatory 15 practices, are still employed, a major challenge attributed to the “great man” leadership styles adopted by many university‟s vice chancellors and councils. This evaluation study utilises a small-scale purposive sample composed of three experts, with unstructured in-depth face-to-face interviews conducted with the experts. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / To access interactive systems, blind and visually impaired users can leverage their auditory senses by using non-speech sounds. The current structure of non-speech sounds, however, is geared toward conveying user interface operations (e.g., opening a file) rather than large theme-based information (e.g., a history passage) and, thus, is ill-suited to signify the complex meanings of primary learning material (e.g., books and websites). In order to address this problem, this dissertation introduces audemes, a new category of non-speech sounds, whose semiotic structure and flexibility open new horizons for facilitating the education of blind and visually impaired students. An experiment with 21 students from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) supports the hypothesis that audemes increase the retention of theme-based information. By acting as memory catalysts, audemes can play an important role in enhancing the aural interaction and navigation in future sound-based user interfaces. For this dissertation, I designed an Acoustic EDutainment INterface (AEDIN) that integrates audemes as a way by which to vividly anticipate text-to-speech theme-based information and, thus, act as innovative aural covers. The results of two iterative usability evaluations with total of 20 blind and visually impaired participants showed that AEDIN is a highly usable and enjoyable acoustic interface. Yet, designing well-formed audemes remains an ad hoc process because audeme creators can only rely on their intuition to generate meaningful and memorable sounds. In order to address this problem, this dissertation presents three experiments, each with 10 blind and visually impaired participants. The goal was to examine the optimal combination of audeme attributes, which can be used to facilitate accurate recognitions of audeme meanings. This work led to the creation of seven basic guidelines that can be used to design well-formed audemes. An interactive application tool (ASCOLTA: Advanced Support and Creation-Oriented Library Tool for Audemes) operationalized these guidelines to support individuals without an audio background in designing well-formed audemes. An informal evaluation conducted with three teachers from the ISBVI, supports the hypothesis that ASCOLTA is a useful tool by which to facilitate the integration of audemes into the teaching environment.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Recent technological applications have made the life of people too much dependent on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and its applications. Understanding basic level science is a must in order to use and contribute to this technological revolution. Science education in middle and high school levels however depends heavily on visual representations such as models, diagrams, figures, animations and presentations etc. This leaves visually impaired students with very few options to learn science and secure a career in STEM related areas. Recent experiments have shown that small aural clues called Audemes are helpful in understanding and memorization of science concepts among visually impaired students. Audemes are non-verbal sound translations of a science concept. In order to facilitate science concepts as Audemes, for visually impaired students, this thesis presents an automatic system for audeme generation from STEM textbooks. This thesis describes the systematic application of multiple Natural Language Processing tools and techniques, such as dependency parser, POS tagger, Information Retrieval algorithm, Semantic mapping of aural words, machine learning etc., to transform the science concept into a combination of atomic-sounds, thus forming an audeme. We present a rule based classification method for all STEM related concepts. This work also presents a novel way of mapping and extracting most related sounds for the words being used in textbook. Additionally, machine learning methods are used in the system to guarantee the customization of output according to a user's perception. The system being presented is robust, scalable, fully automatic and dynamically adaptable for audeme generation.