The practicum examines the impact of the physical layout of cities on the way we perceive them. In particular it examines the influence of natural, social, and built elements in perception of the downtown core of Winnipeg. It goes on to propose an urban design strategy for the downtown core, supported by supplementary urban design guidelines. / October 2016

This dissertation presents, describes and discusses an interdisciplinary study which investigated the design and development of a language learning instructional solution to address the problem of inadequate aural skills acquisition for college ESP (English for Special Purposes) students. Specifically, it focused on the use of mobile technology to expand learning beyond the classroom. The eighteen-month process of data collection and analysis resulted in a conceptual model and design principles for a Mobile-Enabled Language Learning (MELL) solution. Mobile-Enabled Language Learning Eco-System was thus designed, developed and trialled in the real-life learning context. Through the iterative process of the design, development and evaluation of the MELL system and its components, design principles were also generated. These design recommendations were refined and reformulated in a cyclical fashion with the help of more than 100 students and ten experts. The resulting MELLES design framework encompasses guidelines addressing the essential characteristics of the desired MELL intervention as well as procedures recommended to operationalize those features. The study also resulted in a better understanding of the broader context of ESP learning using mobile devices and the role of elements of environment, ultimately contributing to real-life praxis of the Ecological Constructivist framework and the complementary approach of Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology. / 2012-06

We have investigated the feasibility of using digital tabletop displays during design team meetings to improve access to design information. To achieve this goal, we have applied various design guidelines for tabletop interface design and requirements for digital meeting scenarios in order to implement design ideas (in a prototype named Mozaic) that specifically cater to design team meetings. Mozaic intends to improve information retrieval and browsing activities during meetings thereby improving information access through a tile based layout, pop-up menu control and filtered list. We have evaluated the features of Mozaic through an exploratory study on a tabletop display (in comparison to a commonly used desktop software tool, which was also used on the tabletop) to evaluate various design ideas and ferret out design ideas for future iterations of Mozaic. We present the result of this study as observations and user feedback and discuss them in the light of interface development for design meeting situations.

The demand for flat glass is high and increasing significantly in the building industry as a direct result of architectural requirements for lightness, transparency and natural light. Current architectural trends require glass in curvilinear forms for smooth free-form façades. Two principal challenges arise from this: to cost-effectively produce the desired curvature and; to ensure its safe performance after exposure to ageing. The recent availability of high strength glass provides an opportunity to address the first challenge by developing cold bent glass. Cold bending involves the straining of relatively thin glass components, at ambient temperatures, and is a low energy and cost effective manner of creating curvilinear forms. However, cold bending is not yet widely established as a reliable method. The aim of this thesis is to develop the understanding of cold bent glass during the bending process and to evaluate its post-ageing performance. This thesis, firstly, investigates the mechanical response of monolithic glass plates during the cold bending process. The stability of cold bent glass is investigated experimentally by bending it in double curved anticlastic shapes. A parametric numerical analysis involves different boundary conditions, geometrical plate characteristics and bending parameters. The principal outcome is that a local instability, now termed cold bending distortion, occurs when certain displacement limits are exceeded and could degrade the optical quality of the glass. An evaluation procedure is also formulated to set limits and aid designers/manufacturers to predict the mechanical response and the optical quality of the glass. Cold bent glass is subjected to permanent bending stresses throughout its service life and therefore, its strength degradation after ageing needs to be quantified. Analytical, experimental and numerical investigations are undertaken in this thesis to identify the most effective method for estimating glass strength (evaluation of destructive tests, required number of specimens, statistical analysis methods and sub-critical crack growth). The limited availability of naturally aged toughened glass and the absence of a reliable ageing standard impede the evaluation of its aged performance. Therefore, a parametric experimental investigation of artificial ageing methods on glass is undertaken in this thesis. A procedure for the evaluation of the strength of aged glass is finally, formulated to allow the selection of artificial ageing parameters that correspond to a target level of erosion. The knowledge on artificial ageing and strength prediction acquired above is finally implemented on different types of glass to determine their strength after ageing and assess their safe use in cold bending / load bearing applications. The investigation showed that fully toughened glass has a superior performance to chemically toughened or annealed glass. Overall, the research presented in this thesis demonstrates that high quality cold bent toughened glass can be created when certain applied displacement limits are respected. These can be used as a safe, cost-effective and energy efficient replacement to the more conventional hot bent glass. However, cold bending / load bearing applications in which the stressed glass surface is exposed to ageing, require glass with a relatively high case depth such as fully toughened or bi-tempered glass.

Am Anfang des Entwicklungsprozesses eines Gussbauteils für die Automobilbranche steht klassischerweise die konstruktive Ausarbeitung und die Auslegung auf Zielgrößen, wie Festigkeit, Steifigkeit bzw. die Erfüllung der Crashlasten. Im nächsten Entwicklungsschritt wird, oftmals in Zusammenarbeit mit externen Lieferanten, das Werkzeugkonzept entwickelt und die Herstellbarkeit mit Hilfe von Gießsimulationen abgesichert. Bei der Fertigung verursachen streuende Prozessgrößen, wie etwa Geschwindigkeits- oder Temperaturniveaus, Schwankungen in der Leistungsfähigkeit des Endprodukts (z. B. lokale Bruchdehnung oder Zugfestigkeit). Maßnahmen zur Erhöhung der Prozessstabilität und zur Reduktion des Verschleißes konzentrieren sich oftmals auf die erfahrungsbasierte Verbesserung des Fertigungsprozesses und Anpassungen des Anguss- und Überlaufsystems. Größere Änderungen der Bauteilgeometrie sind häufig aus zeitlichen Gründen nicht mehr möglich. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher, optimierte modularisierte Grundgeometrien, wie Rippen oder Umlenkungen, mit Hilfe von numerischen Formoptimierungen zu entwickeln, um diese schon von Anfang an in der Bauteilentwicklung zu berücksichtigen. Als Zielfunktionen dienen strömungs- und strukturmechanische Kenngrößen, um einerseits verschleißfördernde Mechanismen und füllungsbedingte Defekte zu reduzieren und andererseits die Beanspruchbarkeit zu erhöhen. Bei den Untersuchungen wird zusätzlich die Robustheit des Ergebnisses analysiert, um Verbesserungspotenziale auch bei streuenden Randbedingungen realisieren zu können.:1 Einleitung 1.1 Motivation und Problemstellung 1.2 Zielsetzung und Vorgehensweise 1.3 Stand von Wissenschaft und Technik 2 Grundlagen 2.1 Leichtmetallgussbauteile im Automobil 2.2 Geometrische Gestaltung von Gussbauteilen 2.3 Modellierung gießtechnischer Fertigungsverfahren 2.4 Strukturmechanische Modellierung von Gussbauteilen 2.5 Numerische Optimierung 3 Modellaufbau und -analyse 3.1 Geometrische Entwurfsmodelle 3.2 Strömungsmodellbildung zur Abbildung der Fertigungseinflüsse 3.3 Strukturberechnungsmodell unter Berücksichtigung materieller Defekte 4 Optimierung der Umlenkung 4.1 Optimierungsstrategie und -prozesskette 4.2 Zielfunktionen 4.3 Optimierung mit Entwurfsmodell I 4.4 Optimierung mit Entwurfsmodell II 4.5 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 5 Optimierung der Rippe 5.1 Optimierungsstrategie und -prozesskette 5.2 Ziel- und Restriktionsfunktionen 5.3 Multidisziplinäre Optimierung 5.4 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 6 Zusammenfassung 7 Ausblick Anhang Abkürzungs- und Symbolverzeichnis Literatur- und Quellenverzeichnis / The virtual development process of an automotive casting part usually begins with classical design tasks and analyses of material strength, stiffness and crash load cases. In the next step, often in cooperation with external suppliers, the tooling concept is developed and casting simulations are used to ensure manufacturability. During manufacturing there is a scatter in process parameters, such as flow velocity or temperature levels, which in turn cause a scatter in the performance of the final product (e.g. local elongation at fracture or ultimate tensile strength). Means to increase process stability and yield are often limited to knowledge-based improvements of the manufacturing process parameters and adaptations of the gating and overflow system. Major changes to the part geometry are usually no longer possible due to project time constraints. Therefore it is the goal of this thesis to optimize modularized basic geometries, like ribs or bends, by using numerical shape optimizations and employ them right from the beginning of the part development process. For the objective functions of the optimizations the disciplines of fluid dynamic filling and the resulting structural behaviour are considered. In addition, the resulting shape is analyzed with regards to robustness towards scatter in manufacturing operating conditions. By using these new modularized geometries the overall robustness of the final product is expected to be increased.:1 Einleitung 1.1 Motivation und Problemstellung 1.2 Zielsetzung und Vorgehensweise 1.3 Stand von Wissenschaft und Technik 2 Grundlagen 2.1 Leichtmetallgussbauteile im Automobil 2.2 Geometrische Gestaltung von Gussbauteilen 2.3 Modellierung gießtechnischer Fertigungsverfahren 2.4 Strukturmechanische Modellierung von Gussbauteilen 2.5 Numerische Optimierung 3 Modellaufbau und -analyse 3.1 Geometrische Entwurfsmodelle 3.2 Strömungsmodellbildung zur Abbildung der Fertigungseinflüsse 3.3 Strukturberechnungsmodell unter Berücksichtigung materieller Defekte 4 Optimierung der Umlenkung 4.1 Optimierungsstrategie und -prozesskette 4.2 Zielfunktionen 4.3 Optimierung mit Entwurfsmodell I 4.4 Optimierung mit Entwurfsmodell II 4.5 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 5 Optimierung der Rippe 5.1 Optimierungsstrategie und -prozesskette 5.2 Ziel- und Restriktionsfunktionen 5.3 Multidisziplinäre Optimierung 5.4 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 6 Zusammenfassung 7 Ausblick Anhang Abkürzungs- und Symbolverzeichnis Literatur- und Quellenverzeichnis

The prevalence of wireless standards and the introduction of dynamic standards/applications, such as software-defined radio, necessitate the next generation wireless devices that integrate multiple standards in a single chip-set to support a variety of services. To reduce the cost and area of such multi-standard handheld devices, reconfigurability is desirable, and the hardware should be shared/reused as much as possible. This research proposes several novel circuit topologies that can meet various specifications with minimum cost, which are suited for multi-standard applications. This doctoral study has two separate contributions: 1. The low noise amplifier (LNA) for the RF front-end; and 2. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The first part of this dissertation focuses on LNA noise reduction and linearization techniques where two novel LNAs are designed, taped out, and measured. The first LNA, implemented in TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 0.35Cm CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) process, strategically combined an inductor connected at the gate of the cascode transistor and the capacitive cross-coupling to reduce the noise and nonlinearity contributions of the cascode transistors. The proposed technique reduces LNA NF by 0.35 dB at 2.2 GHz and increases its IIP3 and voltage gain by 2.35 dBm and 2dB respectively, without a compromise on power consumption. The second LNA, implemented in UMC (United Microelectronics Corporation) 0.13Cm CMOS process, features a practical linearization technique for high-frequency wideband applications using an active nonlinear resistor, which obtains a robust linearity improvement over process and temperature variations. The proposed linearization method is experimentally demonstrated to improve the IIP3 by 3.5 to 9 dB over a 2.5–10 GHz frequency range. A comparison of measurement results with the prior published state-of-art Ultra-Wideband (UWB) LNAs shows that the proposed linearized UWB LNA achieves excellent linearity with much less power than previously published works. The second part of this dissertation developed a reconfigurable ADC for multistandard receiver and video processors. Typical ADCs are power optimized for only one operating speed, while a reconfigurable ADC can scale its power at different speeds, enabling minimal power consumption over a broad range of sampling rates. A novel ADC architecture is proposed for programming the sampling rate with constant biasing current and single clock. The ADC was designed and fabricated using UMC 90nm CMOS process and featured good power scalability and simplified system design. The programmable speed range covers all the video formats and most of the wireless communication standards, while achieving comparable Figure-of-Merit with customized ADCs at each performance node. Since bias current is kept constant, the reconfigurable ADC is more robust and reliable than the previous published works.

Providing context behind customer feedback remains a challenge for company’s who rely on approaching Customer Experience (CX) through standardized Customer Satisfaction (CS) metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES). Practical guidelines for monitoring CS throughout the customer journey are limited, creating a gap in academic research. This study addresses this gap by offering practical guidelines for CS, actionable insights, and alternative survey design strategies within the context of invoicing. Utilizing a Research-through-Design (RtD) approach guided by the Double Diamond design model, the study consists of four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. From a service design perspective using qualitative methods, the study acquires and analyzes both organizational and customer insights. Synthesized empirical findings emphasize the need for a more comprehensive approach that targets specific phases of the customer journey utilizing a more customer- centric approach, paving the way for alternative methods that reaches beyond just simply measuring CS. Introducing the concept of a personal companion, the study presents a dialogical approach where surveys are experienced as ongoing interactions rather mere tasks. By highlighting the importance of contextualization, alternative survey approaches, and a dialogical approach, this research aims to guide company’s in managing customer feedback strategies.