O objetivo desse estudo foi investigar os efeitos de diferentes estruturas de prática no processo adaptativo da aprendizagem de uma tarefa de timing coincidente em função da idade. Crianças (n=40), adultos (n=47) e idosos (n=57) foram distribuídos em grupos de prática constante, aleatória, constante-aleatória e aleatória-constante. A tarefa consistiu em tocar certos alvos de forma seqüencial em integração a um estímulo visual. O delineamento envolveu duas fases de aprendizagem: estabilização e adaptação. Os dados foram analisados em relação aos erros absoluto, variável, constante e de execução. Os resultados mostraram que o processo adaptativo na aprendizagem de crianças, adultos e idosos de uma tarefa de timing coincidente foi beneficiado pela prática constante-aleatória / The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different practice schedule on the adaptive process of the coincident timing task learning in function of age. Children (n=40), adults (n=47) and elderly (n=57) were distributed in constant, random, constant-random and random-constant practices group. The task consisted of touching response keys sequentially in conjunction with a visual stimulus. The experimental design involved two learning phases: stabilization and adaptation. The data were analyzed in terms of absolute, variable, constant and execution errors. The results showed that adaptive process in the learning of children, adults and elderly of a coincident timing task was beneficed by constant-random practice

O objetivo desse estudo foi investigar o efeito de diferentes estruturas de prática no processo adaptativo de aprendizagem motora em função da validade ecológica da situação experimental. Participaram do estudo 104 crianças distribuídas em oito grupos experimentais (2 níveis de validade ecológica x 4 estruturas de prática). A tarefa foi rebater uma bola de tênis de mesa lançada por um equipamento ou pelo experimentador, com o objetivo de acertar um alvo localizado do lado oposto da mesa. O estudo envolveu duas fases: estabilização e adaptação. O desempenho foi analisado por meio da somatória e do coeficiente de variação dos pontos alcançados em blocos de dez tentativas. Os resultados mostraram que os efeitos das práticas constante, aleatória, constante-aleatória e aleatória-constante no processo adaptativo de aprendizagem motora foram similares em ambos os níveis de validade ecológica manipulados. Mas, diferente do verificado em situação de laboratório, a prática constante foi a estrutura menos efetiva no processo adaptativo de aprendizagem motora em ambas as situações experimentais / The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different practice schedules in the adaptive process of motor learning in relation to the experimental situations ecological validity. 104 children participated distributed in eight experimental groups (2 levels of ecological validity x 4 practice schedules). The task was to hit a table tennis ball thrown by equipment or experimenter, aiming to hit a target located on the opposite side of the table. The study comprised two phases: stabilization and adaptation. Performance was analyzed through the summation and variation coefficient of the points reached in ten trial blocks. Results showed that the effects of constant, random, constant-random and random-constant practice on adaptive process of motor learning were similar for both levels of ecological validity. But, different from what was observed on laboratory situations, constant practice was the less effective on adaptive process of motor learning in both experimental situations

O estudo teve como objetivo investigar, a partir de uma perspectiva de processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora, o efeito da liberdade na escolha da resposta em diferentes momentos do processo de estabilização. A possibilidade de escolher a ordem dos componentes que compõem uma seqüência de movimentos (liberdade na escolha da resposta) tem se mostrado benéfica à aquisição de habilidades motoras. Contudo, o efeito da liberdade na escolha da resposta pode ser mediado pelo processo de estabilização funcional. Para investigar esta hipótese, 135 voluntários com média de idade de 22 (± 4,1) anos, de ambos os sexos, foram alocados a nove grupos experimentais, derivados da combinação de três condições experimentais (SEM, MED e ALT) e dois momentos da estabilização (antes e após a estabilização inicial do desempenho). A liberdade na escolha da resposta foi operacionalizada neste estudo como a possibilidade de escolher a ordem de uma seqüência de toques em sensores, em uma tarefa complexa de timing coincidente. Os resultados mostraram que não houve efeito da condição experimental do início da prática no desempenho na fase de adaptação, porém condições intermediárias de liberdade de escolha no final da prática não apresentaram queda na consistência frente à modificação da tarefa. Nesse sentido, a liberdade na escolha da resposta não trouxe prejuízos à adaptação / The objective of the study was to investigate, from an adaptive process perspective on motor learning, the effect of freedom in response choice in different moments of the stabilization process. The possibility of choosing the order of the components which generate a movement sequence (freedom in response choice) has been shown as beneficial to motor skills acquisition. However, the effect of freedom in response choice could be mediated by the process of functional stabilization. To investigate the hypothesis, a hundred thirty-five volunteers with mean age of 22 (± 4,1) years were assigned to nine experimental groups, derived from the combination of three experimental conditions (SEM, MED and ALT) and two moments of stabilization (before and after initial performance stabilization). Freedom in response choice was manipulated in this study as the possibility of choosing the order of tapping a sequence of sensors, in a complex anticipation timing task. Results showed there was no effect of experimental condition in the beginning of practice in performance in adaptation phase, although intermediate conditions of freddom of choice didnt show decrease in consistency following task modification. In this sense, freedom in response choice wasnt detrimental to adaptation

Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding is extensively used in aerospace applications, due to its unique ability to produce higher quality welds compared to other shielded arc welding types. However, most TIG welding is performed manually and has not achieved the levels of automation that other welding techniques have. This is mostly attributed to the lack of process knowledge and adaptability to complexities, such as mismatches due to part fit-up. Recent advances in automation have enabled the use of industrial robots for complex tasks that require intelligent decision making, predominantly through sensors. Applications such as TIG welding of aerospace components require tight tolerances and need intelligent decision making capability to accommodate any unexpected variation and to carry out welding of complex geometries. Such decision making procedures must be based on the feedback about the weld profile geometry. In this thesis, a real-time position based closed loop system was developed with a six axis industrial robot (KUKA KR 16) and a laser triangulation based sensor (Micro-Epsilon Scan control 2900-25).

O estudo teve como objetivo investigar, a partir de uma perspectiva de processo adaptativo em aprendizagem motora, o efeito da liberdade na escolha da resposta em diferentes momentos do processo de estabilização. A possibilidade de escolher a ordem dos componentes que compõem uma seqüência de movimentos (liberdade na escolha da resposta) tem se mostrado benéfica à aquisição de habilidades motoras. Contudo, o efeito da liberdade na escolha da resposta pode ser mediado pelo processo de estabilização funcional. Para investigar esta hipótese, 135 voluntários com média de idade de 22 (± 4,1) anos, de ambos os sexos, foram alocados a nove grupos experimentais, derivados da combinação de três condições experimentais (SEM, MED e ALT) e dois momentos da estabilização (antes e após a estabilização inicial do desempenho). A liberdade na escolha da resposta foi operacionalizada neste estudo como a possibilidade de escolher a ordem de uma seqüência de toques em sensores, em uma tarefa complexa de timing coincidente. Os resultados mostraram que não houve efeito da condição experimental do início da prática no desempenho na fase de adaptação, porém condições intermediárias de liberdade de escolha no final da prática não apresentaram queda na consistência frente à modificação da tarefa. Nesse sentido, a liberdade na escolha da resposta não trouxe prejuízos à adaptação / The objective of the study was to investigate, from an adaptive process perspective on motor learning, the effect of freedom in response choice in different moments of the stabilization process. The possibility of choosing the order of the components which generate a movement sequence (freedom in response choice) has been shown as beneficial to motor skills acquisition. However, the effect of freedom in response choice could be mediated by the process of functional stabilization. To investigate the hypothesis, a hundred thirty-five volunteers with mean age of 22 (± 4,1) years were assigned to nine experimental groups, derived from the combination of three experimental conditions (SEM, MED and ALT) and two moments of stabilization (before and after initial performance stabilization). Freedom in response choice was manipulated in this study as the possibility of choosing the order of tapping a sequence of sensors, in a complex anticipation timing task. Results showed there was no effect of experimental condition in the beginning of practice in performance in adaptation phase, although intermediate conditions of freddom of choice didnt show decrease in consistency following task modification. In this sense, freedom in response choice wasnt detrimental to adaptation

Exascale systems of the future are predicted to have mean time between node failures (MTBF) of less than one hour. At such low MTBF, the number of processors available for execution of a long running application can widely vary throughout the execution of the application. Employing traditional fault tolerance strategies like periodic checkpointing in these highly dynamic environments may not be effective because of the high number of application failures, resulting in large amount of work lost due to rollbacks apart from the increased recovery overheads. In this context, it is highly necessary to have fault tolerance strategies that can adapt to the changing node availability and also help avoid significant number of application failures. In this thesis, we present two adaptive fault tolerance strategies that make use of node failure pre-diction mechanisms to provide proactive fault tolerance for long running parallel applications on large scale systems. The first part of the thesis deals with an adaptive fault tolerance strategy for malleable applications. We present ADFT, an adaptive fault tolerance framework for long running malleable applications to maximize application performance in the presence of failures. We first develop cost models that consider different factors like accuracy of node failure predictions and application scalability, for evaluating the benefits of various fault tolerance actions including check-pointing, live-migration and rescheduling. Our adaptive framework then uses the cost models to make runtime decisions for dynamically selecting the fault tolerance actions at different points of application execution to minimize application failures and maximize performance. Simulations with real and synthetic failure traces show that our approach outperforms existing fault tolerance mechanisms for malleable applications yielding up to 23% improvement in work done by the application in the presence of failures, and is effective even for petascale and exascale systems. In the second part of the thesis, we present a fault tolerance strategy using adaptive process replication that can provide fault tolerance for applications using partial replication of a set of application processes. This fault tolerance framework adaptively changes the set of replicated processes (replicated set) periodically based on node failure predictions to avoid application failures. We have developed an MPI prototype implementation, PAREP-MPI that allows dynamically changing the replicated set of processes for MPI applications. Experiments with real scientific applications on real systems have shown that the overhead of PAREP-MPI is minimal. We have shown using simulations with real and synthetic failure traces that our strategy involving adaptive process replication significantly outperforms existing mechanisms providing up to 20% improvement in application efficiency even for exascale systems. Significant observations are also made which can drive future research efforts in fault tolerance for large and very large scale systems.

當身處一個競爭激烈的行業，企業想要保持發展，就必須與時俱進，積極創新。但企業應該從哪裡找到創新的機會？除了技術和產品之創新，越來越多企業開始關注商業模式的創新。過去，對商業模式創新的討論大部分集中在企業的內部系統活動改造，或是期待從開放創新中尋找機會。本研究嘗試把商業模式理解為一種敵我對應關係，從主流企業與後進者的攻防戰中理解創新的調適過程。通過分析「非主流」的後進者如何回應主流設計，並由主流企業之迷思理解後進者如何找出商業模式創新的可能。本研究發現，商業模式創新的本質是動態的，而其過程是調適的。後進者可以由主流企業建構商業模式之迷思中，找到自身商業模式創新的諸多樣貌與調適的巧思。 / In an industry that faces intensified competitions, firms need innovate constantly and timely so as to maintain steady growth. But where could firms identify opportunities for innovation? In addition to the innovation of technologies and products, more and more firms pay attention to business model innovation. Previously, our understanding of business model innovation is limited to firms’ business activity systems, or to seek opportunities from open innovation. This thesis attempts to consider the business model as a kind of responsive process between rivals; and to analyze the adaptation of business model within the defensive process between the mainstream firms and the second mover. By analyzing how the non-mainstream player may respond to the evolving dominant design, it is posisble to recognize the myths of the development of mainstream business models. This research suggests that business model innovations are dynamic in their nature and adaptive in their developmental process. The second mover could identify various patterns of new business models and conceive creative adaptation from the mainstream firms’ myths in building their own business models.

Research and Development engineering is at the corner stone of humanity’s evolution. It is perceived to be a systematic creative process which ultimately improves the living standard of a society through the creation of new applications and products. The commercial paradigm that governs project selection, resource allocation and market penetration prevails when the focus shifts from pure research to applied research. Furthermore, the road to success through commercialisation is difficult for most inventors, especially in a vast and isolated country such as Australia which is located a long way from wealthy and developed economies. While market leading products are considered unique, the actual process to achieve these products is essentially the same; progressing from an idea, through development to an outcome (if successful). Unfortunately, statistics indicate that only 3% of ‘ideas’ are significantly successful, 4% are moderately successful, and the remainder ‘evaporate’ in that form (Michael Quinn, Chairman, Innovation Capital Associates Pty Ltd). This study demonstrates and analyses two techniques developed by the author which reduce uncertainty in the engineering design and development phase of new product development and therefore increase the probability of a successful outcome. This study expands the existing knowledge of the engineering design and development stage in the new product development process and is couched in the identification of practical methods, which have been successfully used to develop new products by Australian Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Excel Technology Group Pty Ltd (ETG). Process theory is the term most commonly used to describe scientific study that identifies occurrences that result from a specified input state to an output state, thus detailing the process used to achieve an outcome. The thesis identifies relevant material and analyses recognised and established engineering processes utilised in developing new products. The literature identified that case studies are a particularly useful method for supporting problem-solving processes in settings where there are no clear answers or where problems are unstructured, as in New Product Development (NPD). This study describes, defines, and demonstrates the process of new product development within the context of historical product development and a ‘live’ case study associated with an Australian Government START grant awarded to Excel Technology Group in 2004 to assist in the development of an image-based vehicle detection product. This study proposes two techniques which reduce uncertainty and thereby improve the probability of a successful outcome. The first technique provides a predicted project development path or forward engineering plan which transforms the initial ‘fuzzy idea’ into a potential and achievable outcome. This process qualifies the ‘fuzzy idea’ as a potential, rationale or tangible outcome which is within the capability of the organisation. Additionally, this process proposes that a tangible or rationale idea can be deconstructed in reverse engineering process in order to create a forward engineering development plan. A detailed structured forward engineering plan reduces the uncertainty associated with new product development unknowns and therefore contributes to a successful outcome. This is described as the RETRO technique. The study recognises however that this claim requires qualification and proposes a second technique. The second technique proposes that a two dimensional spatial representation which has productivity and consumed resources as its axes, provides an effective means to qualify progress and expediently identify variation from the predicted plan. This spatial representation technique allows a quick response which in itself has a prediction attribute associated with directing the project back onto its predicted path. This process involves a coterminous comparison between the predicted development path and the evolving actual project development path. A consequence of this process is verification of progress or the application of informed, timely and quantified corrective action. This process also identifies the degree of success achieved in the engineering design and development phase of new product development where success is defined as achieving a predicted outcome. This spatial representation technique is referred to as NPD Mapping. The study demonstrates that these are useful techniques which aid SMEs in achieving successful new product outcomes because the technique are easily administered, measure and represent relevant development process related elements and functions, and enable expedient quantified responsive action when the evolving path varies from the predicted path. These techniques go beyond time line representations as represented in GANTT charts and PERT analysis, and represent the base variables of consumed resource and productivity/technical achievement in a manner that facilitates higher level interpretation of time, effort, degree of difficulty, and product complexity in order to facilitate informed decision making. This study presents, describes, analyses and demonstrates an SME focused engineering development technique, developed by the author, that produces a successful new product outcome which begins with a ‘fuzzy idea’ in the mind of the inventor and concludes with a successful new product outcome that is delivered on time and within budget. Further research on a wider range of SME organisations undertaking new product development is recommended.