This classic textbook is a comprehensive introduction to structural steelwork design. It describes the design theory and code requirements for common structures, connections, elements and frames. The book is structured to meet the needs of courses in structural steelwork, introducing and explaining each concept before allowing the student to test the knowledge with practical examples. Each section is illustrated with exercises for the student to reinforce their learning. It continues to be an indispensable introduction to structural steelwork design for students of structural and civil engineering.

No / The fourth edition of Structural Steelwork: Design to Limit State Theory describes the design theory and code requirements for common structures, connections, elements, and frames. It provides a comprehensive introduction to structural steelwork design with detailed explanations of the principles underlying steel design.

Recently, the interest in the business application of analytics and data science has increased significantly. The popularity of data analytics and data science comes from the clear articulation of business problem solving as an end goal. To address limitations in existing literature, this dissertation provides four novel design artifacts for Knowledge Discovery via Data Analytics (KDDA). The first artifact is a Snail Shell KDDA process model that extends existing knowledge discovery process models, but addresses many existing limitations. At the top level, the KDDA Process model highlights the iterative nature of KDDA projects and adds two new phases, namely Problem Formulation and Maintenance. At the second level, generic tasks of the KDDA process model are presented in a comparative manner, highlighting the differences between the new KDDA process model and the traditional knowledge discovery process models. Two case studies are used to demonstrate how to use KDDA process model to guide real world KDDA projects. The second artifact, a methodology for theory building based on quantitative data is a novel application of KDDA process model. The methodology is evaluated using a theory building case from the public health domain. It is not only an instantiation of the Snail Shell KDDA process model, but also makes theoretical contributions to theory building. It demonstrates how analytical techniques can be used as quantitative gauges to assess important construct relationships during the formative phase of theory building. The third artifact is a data mining ontology, the DM3 ontology, to bridge the semantic gap between business users and KDDA expert and facilitate analytical model maintenance and reuse. The DM3 ontology is evaluated using both criteria-based approach and task-based approach. The fourth artifact is a decision support framework for MCDA software selection. The framework enables users choose relevant MCDA software based on a specific decision making situation (DMS). A DMS modeling framework is developed to structure the DMS based on the decision problem and the users' decision preferences and. The framework is implemented into a decision support system and evaluated using application examples from the real-estate domain.

Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-204).

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This study evaluates the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) by IT Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. The growing popularity and acceptance of OSS continues to draw much attention in research and practice. However, researchers and IT practitioners within the UK SME sector still face challenges in understanding the issues that influence the acceptance, adoption, and diffusion of OSS. While previous research studies have focused mainly on the software development model and the unique characteristics of OSS, the area of OSS adoption by UK SMEs has largely been ignored. Furthermore, there is a lack of widely-acceptable theories that explain the adoption of OSS, implying that there is limited understanding of OSS adoption by UK SMEs. This gap in research has led this thesis to evaluate existing adoption theories and then apply the 'Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour' to model the adoption of OSS by SMEs. Based on the emerged conceptual model, an innovative and structured qualitative research design that uses a case study strategy was developed to evaluate the adoption of OSS across 10 UK SMEs in the IT industry. The analysis of the standardised data from the case study interviews led to the definition of the 16 factors of an emergent theory of OSS adoption by IT SMEs. The analysis of that empirical model has led to important conclusions including the following five issues, summarily. (1) The participant IT SMEs were drawn to different benefits, and experienced different challenges, in using OSS, suggesting that there is subjectivity and complexity in the factors influencing OSS adoption. (2) As in most Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption, ITcapability was identified to be essential for successful adoption of OSS, and therefore, it presents potential for important cooperative and collaborative support with OSS communities. (3) The emergent theory from this research study provide researchers and practitioners with variables for surveying critical-success-factors and a reference model for understanding the adoption of OSS. (4) The emergent theory and other general findings from this study are likely to have relevance in other areas of Information Systems research and practice, owing to the factors and theoretical framework that are common to OSS and general ICT acceptance, adoption, and diffusion. (5) This study appears to be the first that has focused on developing a widely-acceptable theory of OSS adoption by IT SMEs in the UK, suggesting that this innovative research study is a novel contribution that has important implications for theory and practice in OSS and general ICT acceptance, adoption, and diffusion.

Delivered through the medium of a Community of Philosophical Inquiry, this thesis outlines the experience of engaging prisoners in philosophical conversation, thereby articulat-ing the relevance of this type of education for those in long-term confinement. The research, which took place in two prisons, explores the role of prison education, community dialogue and active philosophising in encouraging personal development. With similar populations but contrasting characters, HMPs Grendon and Full Sutton provided the backdrop to grounded, ethnographically-led research. The research design reflects the exploratory nature of the approach. Derek Layder’s adaptive theory has provided a methodological framework, whilst the theoretical framework draws on desistance literature, prison sociology, and philosophical pedagogy to enhance and develop understanding of the emergent themes. However, as a criminological piece of research, it sits within the criminological, and more specifically, prison sociological paradigm. The thesis culminates in a discussion of personal development that articulates the role of education in developing growth identities among prisoner-participants. The research de-scribes the role of philosophical dialogue in developing trust and relationships between and among the participants; the relevance of this type of education to prisoners’ psychological wellbeing; and the significance of the subject-matter to participants’ perspectives. The thesis argues that prison promotes the formation of a hyper-masculine ‘survival’ identity. It goes on to argue that education, and more specifically philosophy education, can play a role in culti-vating growth identities that encourage personal exploration, self-reflection, and development of new interests and skills among prisoners.

<p>The Theory of Applied Mind of Programming (TAMP) provides a new model for describing how programmers think and learn. Historically, many students have struggled when learning to program. Programming as a discipline lives in logic and reason, but theory and science tell us that people do not always think rationally. TAMP builds upon the groundbreaking work of dual process theory and classical educational theorists (Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner) to rethink our assumptions about cognition and learning. Theory guides educators and researchers to improve their practice, not just their work but also their thinking. TAMP provides new theoretical constructs for describing the mental activities of programming, the challenges in learning to program, as well as a guidebook for creating and recognizing the value of theory.</p> <p>This dissertation is highly nontraditional. It does not include a typical empirical study using a familiar research methodology to guide data collection and analysis. Instead, it leverages existing data, as accumulated over a half-century of computing education research and a century of research into cognition and learning. Since an applicable methodology of theory-building did not exist, this work also defines a new methodology for theory building. The methodology of this dissertation borrows notation from philosophy and methods from grounded theory to define a transparent and rigorous approach to creating applied theories. By revisiting past studies through the lens of new theoretical propositions, theorists can conceive, refine, and internally validate new constructs and propositions to revolutionize how we view technical education.</p> <p>The takeaway from this dissertation is a set of new theoretical constructs and promising research and pedagogical approaches. TAMP proposes an applied model of Jerome Bruner's mental representations that describe the knowledge and cognitive processes of an experienced programmer. TAMP highlights implicit learning and the role of intuition in decision making across many aspects of programming. This work includes numerous examples of how to apply TAMP and its supporting theories in re-imagining teaching and research to offer alternative explanations for previously puzzling findings on student learning. TAMP may challenge conventional beliefs about applied reasoning and the extent of traditional pedagogy, but it also offers insights on how to promote creative problem-solving in students. </p><br>

Die Frage, wie Musiktheorien unterschiedlicher Provenienz und Charakteristik auf eine Weise miteinander verknüpft werden können, die ebenso aus fachwissenschaftlicher wie aus wissenschaftstheoretischer Perspektive akzeptabel erscheint, gewinnt für die zunehmend ausdifferenzierte Musiktheorie der Gegenwart mehr und mehr an Bedeutung. Der Beitrag geht dieser Frage nach, indem er erstens diverse Strategien des Umgangs mit theoretischer Diversität in der Analyse referiert und kritisiert, zweitens auf das Inkommensurabilitätsproblem verweist, das sich im Rahmen von Theorierezeption stellt, drittens fünf Thesen zur modifizierenden Theorierezeption diskutiert und viertens Metatheorie als Instrument eines unabschließbaren Prozesses der Selbstreflexion von Theorie konzeptualisiert. / The question of how theories of different origin and characteristics can be combined in a way that seems acceptable for music theorists as well as for philosophers of science is gaining more and more importance for the increasingly differentiated music theory of the present day. The article examines this question first by describing and criticizing various strategies of dealing with theoretical diversity in analysis; second, by referring to the incommensurability problem arising in the context of theory reception; third, by discussing five theses on modified theory reception; and finally, by conceptualizing metatheory as an interminable process of selfreflection of theory.

Information seeking and information avoidance are the mechanisms humans natural used for coping with uncertainties and adapting to environmental stressors. Uncertainties are rooted in knowledge gaps. In social sciences, the relationship between knowledge gaps and perceived risk have received little attention. A review of the information science literature suggests that few studies have been devoted to the investigation of the role of this relationship in motivating information-seeking behavior. As an effort to address the lack of theory building in the field of information science, this study attempts to construct a model of information seeking under risk (MISR) by examining the relationships among perceived risk, knowledge gap, fear arousal, risk propensity, personal relevance, and deprivation and interest curiosity as antecedents to motivation to seek information. An experimental approach and a scenario-based survey method are employed to design the study. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was conducted to test the relationships in the proposed model. Perceived risk was found to be a highly significant predictor of information seeking in moderately high-risk situations. Similarly, personal relevant has a significant negative effect on perceived risk and its interaction with knowledge gap motivates information seeking.