Universities are becoming more accountable for their own funding and for establishing their own societal relevance. As Governments respond to the demands of industry and commerce to fit graduates for the workplace, universities are being asked to provide students with the knowledge and skills for learning and working in an ever-changing workplace. There is a strong implication here that the traditional theory-based learning associated with higher education needs to be augmented (and complemented) by an experiential component that enables students to develop a 'feel' for the workplace and 'an instinct' for what they are likely to be doing when they are working. Demands for such a change are not only coming from industry: students are asking that their university programs be made more 'relevant' to the reality of work rather than merely for the next step in the higher education ladder which requires the 'skills of research'. Recently there has been a strong move throughout the western world towards 'cooperative education' or 'work-integrated education'. Local initiatives at individual institutions are beginning to emphasise the importance of universities developing more symbiotic relationships with the industries in which their graduates are likely to be employed. In Australia, Griffith University has, for example, set up through its Griffith Institute of Higher Education (GIHE) The Griffith Graduate Project, which is attempting to develop an institution-wide policy in this area so that a concerted and coordinated response can be made. As convenor of a Griffith University workplace-based experiential course in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, I find this study has provided an opportunity to examine the key determinants of success for a workplace-based course and to consider in detail the teaching and learning processes involved. The aim was to examine the fine-grained processes underlying the construction of new knowledge as students accommodate to the demands placed upon them. The methodology adopted was based on an interpretive constructivist paradigm and addressed a number of questions that considered the roles of the different stakeholders in a specific workplace-based course, the formal and informal expectations held of them, and the role-conflicts these stakeholders tended to experience. This meant that the basic process followed was inductive rather than deductive, worked from the specific to the general and required a methodology that did the same. Because the nature of the work in criminal justice agencies often must deal with feelings and emotion, it was assumed that the students' emotional responses could affect their learning so the methodology allowed for the subjective interpretations and responses (both appropriate and inappropriate) made by all stakeholders and the data was collected as verbatim reports of both factual reports and feeling responses. These were then analysed according to the students' own reports of learning and key principles of procedure for the design and implementation of such courses across the career spectrum were extracted. The values and approaches of action research were central to the responsive case study methodology that was developed. The study found that at its best, the course was conducted according to principles that enabled the student to experience an intuitive 'felt reality' while still making decisions on a strong cognitive base. The acquisition of knowledge appeared to depend on transactions that occurred between teacher and learner, supervisor and student in the workplace milieu. The thesis concludes with a number of recommendations and implications for developing best practice in the field. Ways in which the findings may be incorporated into university policy are also considered, as are the implications for change in the design, conduct and teaching of university professional studies courses.

Previous studies of the design studio have tended to treat learning to design as a matter of learning to think in the right way, despite the recognition that material artifacts and the ability to make and manipulate them in architectural ways is important to the design process. Through the use of empirical data gathered from watching design teachers and students in action, this thesis works to discover how material things and bodies are important to the fabrication of architectural meaning and architectural subjectivity within design studios. In particular the role of gesture is highlighted as doing important work in design studio knowledge practices. / The approach taken in this thesis is to treat design activity in design studios in a ‘post-human’ way. An analytical eye is turned to how things and people perform together and are organised in various ways, using Actor network theory (ANT) as a way to orientate the investigation. The assumption drawn from ANT is that that architectural meaning, knowledge and identity can positioned as network effects, enacted into being as the design studio is ‘done’ by the various actors — including material things, such as architectural representations, and human behaviours, such as gesture. / Gesture has been largely ignored by design studio researchers, perhaps because it tends to operate below the threshold of conscious awareness. Gesture is difficult to study because the meanings of most gestures produced during conversations are spontaneous and provisional. Despite this humans seem to be good interpreters of gesture. When studied in detail, ongoing design studio activity is found to rely on the intelligibility of gesture done in ‘architectural ways’. The main site for the observation of gesture during this study was the ‘desk crit’ where teachers and students confer about work in progress. In the data gathered for this thesis gesture is found to operate with representations in three key ways: explaining and describing architectural composition, ‘sticking’ spoken meanings strategically to representations and conveying the phenomenological experience of occupying architectural space – the passing of time, quality of light, texture and movement. / Despite the fact that most of the work of the thesis centres on human behaviour, the findings about the role of gesture and representation trouble the idea of the human as being at the centre of the action, putting the bodies of teachers and students amongst a crowd of non human others who participate together in design knowledge making practices.

Ph.D. / Electrical and Computer Engineering / Probabilistic inference is the problem of estimating the hidden variables (states or parameters) of a system in an optimal and consistent fashion as a set of noisy or incomplete observations of the system becomes available online. The optimal solution to this problem is given by the recursive Bayesian estimation algorithm which recursively updates the posterior density of the system state as new observations arrive. This posterior density constitutes the complete solution to the probabilistic inference problem, and allows us to calculate any "optimal" estimate of the state. Unfortunately, for most real-world problems, the optimal Bayesian recursion is intractable and approximate solutions must be used. Within the space of approximate solutions, the extended Kalman filter (EKF) has become one of the most widely used algorithms with applications in state, parameter and dual estimation. Unfortunately, the EKF is based on a sub-optimal implementation of the recursive Bayesian estimation framework applied to Gaussian random variables. This can seriously affect the accuracy or even lead to divergence of any inference system that is based on the EKF or that uses the EKF as a component part. Recently a number of related novel, more accurate and theoretically better motivated algorithmic alternatives to the EKF have surfaced in the literature, with specific application to state estimation for automatic control. We have extended these algorithms, all based on derivativeless deterministic sampling based approximations of the relevant Gaussian statistics, to a family of algorithms called Sigma-Point Kalman Filters (SPKF). Furthermore, we successfully expanded the use of this group of algorithms (SPKFs) within the general field of probabilistic inference and machine learning, both as stand-alone filters and as subcomponents of more powerful sequential Monte Carlo methods (particle filters). We have consistently shown that there are large performance benefits to be gained by applying Sigma-Point Kalman filters to areas where EKFs have been used as the de facto standard in the past, as well as in new areas where the use of the EKF is impossible.

Thesis (M. Sc.) -- University of Alberta, 2010. / "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Psychology, University of Alberta." Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on January 5, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

The aim of this research is to explore the question of how farmers learn, in constructing knowledge both in and for practice. It seeks to identify how they gain new ideas, make changes, develop to a level of expertise and who and what contribute to this process. The rapidity of change in a high tech environment, combined with globalisation, the new economy and the knowledge age, means that farmers are living their lives in 'fast forward' mode. There is so much new technology, research and development available that the ability to identify information relevant to a particular farming practice and to process it to knowledge is an increasing challenge. Six central South Island (N.Z.) farmers were selected purposively as case studies. The range of case profiles provides for comparison and contrast of the relative importance of formal qualifications, differences between sheep/beef farmers and dairy farmers, levels of expertise, age and experiences. The self-rating of the farmers enables a comparison of lower and higher performers, identifying characteristics which enable insight into why some farmers consistently lead new practice and why others are reluctant followers. The research is qualitative in design and approached from a constructlVIst and interpretive paradigm. Socially and experientially based, it seeks to understand the experiences of the subjects through in-depth interviews and observations. This study identifies farmers as social learners although working independently, in relative geographical isolation and often, social isolation. It concludes that these farmers learn through participation in the practice of farming. This practice includes a constellation of cOmInunities of practice, which may be resource-rich or resource-poor, depending on the range and depth of the farmer's involvement. Through full and committed participation in these practice communities and associate constellations, the practitioner's identity evolves, encouraging new practices, ideas and innovation. This study emphasises that expertise is not a permanent state but requires evolving identity, knowledge and dispositional ability; for maintenance and growth within a culture of practice. Emergent grounded theory suggests that dispositional knowledge underpins construction and use of all knowledge; that construction and use of high-order propositional and procedural knowledge requires higher-order dispositional knowledge and that mastery is developed through evolving identity, dispositions, leadership and learning, socioculturally constructed through resource-rich constellations of communities of practice.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed March 26, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 183. Thesis director: Kathryn B. Laskey. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Technology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 7, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-182). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Goel, Ashok; Committee Member: Eastman, Charles; Committee Member: Ferguson, Ronald; Committee Member: Glasgow, Janice; Committee Member: Nersessian, Nancy; Committee Member: Ram, Ashwin.

Thesis (M.Eng.). / Written for the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/17). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-117).