Based on the results of numerous studies, researchers have found that metacognition, or the ability to "think about thinking," plays a significant role in students' design education. Educators are increasingly focused on metacognition in design education, not only with the subject matter, but also with the development of metacognitive skills for self-regulated and lifelong learning. Since the early 2000s, there have been an increasing number of studies on the role of metacognition in education. However, there is a lack of research on the nature of metacognitive processing in design education and how metacognitive strategies develop in design students. This study focuses on the process of learning, in terms of design thinking, and specifically on the role of metacognitive learning. The purpose of the inquiry is to extend metacognitive theory to design learning and uncover the factors and influences of metacognitive thinking and learning during a student's first year in the Design Lab. In this study, the researcher probed the students' metacognitive ability in different design learning-tasks. The research frames metacognitive aspects of students' learning based on evidence obtained from students while they were working in the Design Lab. The evidence is as follows: verbal description (oral or written), experiential (videos or notes about people in action) and artifactual objects of the learning process (sketches and models). The field studies utilized a constructivist paradigm to examine the various forms of thinking in action, and the actions that occur during a learning-task. Verbal protocol analysis of video recordings of students engaged in selected learning design tasks was used to uncover the metacognitive thinking that develops during the execution of the learning-task. The researcher used a thematic data analysis process to develop an understanding of the data and identify common themes that arose from the investigation. Themes were generated through the interpretation of the data in light of the literature reviewed, the research questions, and the researcher's personal knowledge and intuition. The cyclical process of metacognitive thinking for design students was examined based on three main categories: Reflective process knowledge, reflective process monitoring, and reflective process control. The research reveals that metacognitive thinking plays an important role in design idea generation and development, and is an important part of the creative process in design. As one would expect, based on metacognitive theory, the differences between high-performing and low-performing students are well explained. High-performing students focused more on metacognitive thinking, especially monitoring their design process, while low-performance students were more concerned with cognition, or doing the task. The findings have added new knowledge to the fields of metacognition and self-regulated learning by identifying the conscious thinking process that occurs when students engage in design learning in the first year Design Lab. This knowledge will be helpful to design educators in formulating design learning-tasks for students in their labs in tandem with fully utilizing the environment of their school. / Ph. D. / Researchers have indicated that metacognition or the ability to “think about thinking” plays a significant role in the education of design students. Educators are focusing on metacognition in design education not only to improve students’ performance in design education but also to improve students’ metacognitive skills that can be utilized for self-regulated and lifelong learning. Although there have been increasing number of studies on metacognition in the past decade, there is still a need to further investigate metacognition in design education and also how to develop metacognitive strategies in design students. This study focuses on the influence of metacognition on designers thinking and learning process. The purpose of this research is to extend the current metacognition theories to design environment and uncover the factors and influences of metacognitive thinking and learning during a student’s first year in the Design Lab. In this study the researcher used different design learning-tasks to better understand students’ metacognitive abilities, which is done by analyzing the data acquired from students while they were engaged in the Design Lab. The following types if data was acquired: verbal description (oral or written), experiential (videos or notes about people in action) and artifactual objects of the learning process (sketches and models. To better understand students’ metacognitive thinking, they were video/audio taped as they worked on the design learning-tasks. The researcher used a thematic data analysis process to extract the common themes that existed in the data. Themes were generated by interpreting students’ actions in light of the reviewed literature, the research questions, and the personal knowledge and intuition of the researcher. Metacognitive thinking is divided in to three main subcategories: Reflective process knowledge, reflective process monitoring, and reflective process control. Results indicated that the metacognitive thinking plays an important role in the generation and development of design ideas and is an important part of the creative process in design. The metacognitive theory was able to clearly explain the differences between High-performance and Low-performance students. High-performing students focused more on metacognitive thinking, especially monitoring their design process, while low-performance students were more concerned with cognition, or doing the task. The findings have added new knowledge to the fields of metacognition and self-regulated learning by identifying the conscious thinking process that occurs when students engage in design learning in the first year Design Lab. This knowledge will be helpful to design educators in formulating design learning-tasks for students in their labs in tandem with fully utilizing the environment of their school.

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1937 W41

Thesis (MEng) -- Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Modern mineral processing plants are characterised by a large number of measured variables, interacting through numerous processing units, control loops and often recycle streams. Consequentially, faults in these plants propagate throughout the system, causing significant degradation in performance. Fault diagnosis therefore forms an essential part of performance monitoring in such processes. The use of feature extraction methods for fault diagnosis has been proven in literature to be useful in application to chemical or minerals processes. However, the ability of these methods to identify the causes of the faults is limited to identifying variables that display symptoms of the fault. Since faults propagate throughout the system, these results can be misleading and further fault identification has to be applied. Faults propagate through the system along material, energy or information flow paths, therefore process topology information can be used to aid fault identification. Topology information can be used to separate the process into multiple blocks to be analysed separately for fault diagnosis; the change in topology caused by fault conditions can be exploited to identify symptom variables; a topology map of the process can be used to trace faults back from their symptoms to possible root causes. The aim of this project, therefore, was to develop a process monitoring strategy that exploits process topology for fault detection and identification. Three methods for extracting topology from historical process data were compared: linear cross-correlation (LC), partial cross-correlation (PC) and transfer entropy (TE). The connectivity graphs obtained from these methods were used to divide process into multiple blocks. Two feature extraction methods were then applied for fault detection: principal components analysis (PCA), a linear method, was compared with kernel PCA (KPCA), a nonlinear method. In addition, three types of monitoring chart methods were compared: Shewhart charts; exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) charts; and cumulative sum (CUSUM) monitoring charts. Two methods for identifying symptom variables for fault identification were then compared: using contributions of individual variables to the PCA SPE; and considering the change in connectivity. The topology graphs were then used to trace faults to their root causes. It was found that topology information was useful for fault identification in most of the fault scenarios considered. However, the performance was inconsistent, being dependent on the accuracy of the topology extraction. It was also concluded that blocking using topology information substantially improved fault detection and fault identification performance. A recommended fault diagnosis strategy was presented based on the results obtained from application of all the fault diagnosis methods considered. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Moderne mineraalprosesseringsaanlegte word gekarakteriseer deur ʼn groot aantal gemete veranderlikes, wat in wisselwerking tree met mekaar deur verskeie proseseenhede, beheerlusse en hersirkulasiestrome. As gevolg hiervan kan foute in aanlegte deur die hele sisteem propageer, wat prosesprestasie kan laat afneem. Foutdiagnose vorm dus ʼn noodsaaklike deel van prestasiemonitering. Volgens literatuur is die gebruik van kenmerkekstraksie metodes vir foutdiagnose nuttig in chemiese en mineraalprosesseringsaanlegte. Die vermoë van hierdie metodes om die fout te kan identifiseer is egter beperk tot die identifikasie van veranderlikes wat simptome van die fout vertoon. Aangesien foute deur die sisteem propageer kan resultate misleidend wees, en moet verdere foutidentifikasie metodes dus toegepas word. Foute propageer deur die proses deur materiaal-, energie- of inligtingvloeipaaie, daarom kan prosestopologie inligting gebruik word om foutidentifikasie te steun. Topologie inligting kan gebruik word om die proses in veelvoudige blokke te skei om die blokke apart te ontleed. Die verandering in topologie veroorsaak deur fouttoestande kan dan analiseer word om simptoomveranderlikes te identifiseer. ʼn Topologiekaart van die proses kan ontleed word om moontlike hoofoorsake van foute op te spoor. Die doel van hierdie projek was dus om ʼn prosesmoniteringstrategie te ontwikkel wat prosestopologie benut vir fout-opspooring en foutidentifikasie. Drie metodes vir topologie-ekstraksie van historiese prosesdata is met mekaar vergelyk: liniêre kruiskorrelasie, parsiële kruiskorrelasie en oordrag-entropie. Konnektiwiteitsgrafieke verkry deur hierdie ekstraksie-metodes is gebruik om die proses in veelvoudige blokke te skei. Twee kenmerkekstraksiemetodes is hierna toegepas om foutdeteksie te bewerkstellig: hoofkomponentanalise (HKA), ʼn liniêre metode; en kernhoofkomponentanalise (KHKA), ʼn nie-lineêre metode. Boonop was drie tipes moniteringskaart metodes vergelyk: Shewhart kaarte, eksponensieel-geweegde bewegende gemiddelde kaarte en kumulatiewe som kaarte. Twee metodes om simptoom veranderlikes te identifiseer vir foutidentifikasie was daarna vergelyk: gebruik van individuele veranderlikes; en inagneming van die verandering in konnektiwiteit. Die konnektiwiteitgrafieke was daarna gebruik om hoofoorsake van foute op te spoor. Dit is gevind dat topologie informasie nuttig was vir foutidentifikasie vir meeste van die fouttoestande ondersoek. Nogtans was die prestasie onsamehangend, aangesien dit afhanklik is van die akkuraatheid waarmee topologie ekstraksie uitgevoer is. Daar was ook afgelei dat die gebruik van topologie blokke beduidend die fout-opspooring en foutidentifikasie prestasie verbeter het. ʼn Aanbevole foutdiagnose strategie is voorgestel.

The role of the public policy process as a factor in geographical change is examined by means of a study of US public policy in the lagging region of Appalachia. A review of the socio-economic problems of this region, and of US government attempts to overcome these problems, identifies the difficulty of drawing conclusions on the basis of attempting to reconcile opposing value systems at the full regional level. In order to enhance the depth of geographical analysis possible, a detailed study of a sample of Local Development Districts (LDDs) within Appalachia is taken up in order to assess the working out of public policy at the local level. Quantifiable census data of economic and demographic variables are used to provide a foundation against which the opinions of LDD staff can be evaluated. In a synthesis of this data it is shown that major improvements have taken place in the quality of life of the people of Appalachia between 1960 and 1980; that over this period the LDDS have provided an important catalytic role, both in bringing local-scale infrastructure to largely rural areas, and in developing local involvement in decision-making; and that there is little ground for suggesting that local development would have taken place on such a scale without the LDD presence. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the public policy process should be regarded as a major factor in the explanation of geographical change; that the best application of public policy is through the marriage of different scales of infrastructure provision and geographical unit; that both public policy and theoretical modelling should recognise the dynamic nature of society; and that geographers can make important contributions to the public policy process.

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It is neccessary for every firm to review their process in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. The purpose of this study is to provide importance of mapping in reverse flow, how non-value added activities can be identified within the firm using mapping process in the e-commerce reverse flow from logistics service provider perspective. Lastly, the difference between forward and and reverse flow of parcels within the firm

SAMMANFATTNING Den här rapporten handlar om kreativitet. Den bygger på att jag studerat, observeratoch reflekterat över min självupplevda process i samband med att jag komponeradelåtar. Detta blev mitt projekt. Mina tankar har nedtecknats i en projektdagbok som ärrapportens huvudkälla. Jag har även intervjuat två personer jag finner kreativa, om deras upplevelser ochidéer. Sedan har jag funnit en del intressant litteratur på området. Frågor som väglett mig rör vilka faktorer som utmärker sig i en kreativitetsprocessoch om/ hur jag kan påverka dem? Resultatet av mitt projekt blev fem låtar. Var och en med olika utgångspunkt ochteknik. Mina slutsatser hoppas jag kan leda till att jag kan stötta och peppa andra kreatörer påvägen mot skapande.

Since 1990, the number of travels by train has increased by approximately 75 % in Sweden. The necessity of track maintenance has caught the attention of the Swedishgovernment and during the next few years there will be an increase in maintenance.This forces the train company SJ AB to make changes in their normal train servicesduring these planed track maintenances.This thesis examines the way SJ AB works with adapting their traffic to track workand in particular how information flows in the organisation regarding this, togetherwith how the information is communicated within SJ AB. The objective is to improvethe communication regarding track work but also examine if the concept of Lean canbe implemented in the communication within the organization.This study shows how the process with communication needs to be moretransparent and open. This enables for all involved parties throughout SJ AB to followthe steps in the process and therefore gain awareness of progress and obstacles thatoccur. Three aspects of Lean were discovered from empirical results and representwhere improvement could be made in internal communication. These weretransparency, standards and feedback. Finally, the last part in making thecommunication more effective would be to educate employees in language andrhetoric to make them speak and write in the same language. This would minimize theproblems with interpretation of information regarding track maintenance and makethe communication flow through the organization in an effective way.