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The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel lean management tool to provide a comprehensive and flexible evaluation model while converting customer voices into technical characteristics in lean implementations.

For this purpose, the proposed model was constructed by belief space-evaluations, quality function deployment (QFD) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in interval type-2 fuzzy (IT2F) environment. This model involves three phases: determining the linguistic weights and belief-based relations with their IT2F-sets, processing information about IT2F-based belief-evaluations and ranking the technical characteristics using the defuzzified belief-based relative importance values.

The proposed model was applied to automotive after-sales service in Turkey to demonstrate its use in lean service-decisions. This model was compared with its classical and type-1 fuzzy versions. The ranking-results of the proposed model differed from those of the other versions. The reason is that the IT2F-environment offers a sensitive and flexible evaluation of the model’s linguistic scales.

Calculations in the proposed model may be quite involved for practitioners. An Excel-dashboard was created to simplify the computational complexity.

Researchers/practitioners can apply this model to any lean manufacturing/service implementation.

Company managers/employees/customers can recognize their perception-mechanisms via belief space-evaluations and experience how uncertainty in the perception-mechanism affects their decisions.

The proposed model provides a new lean tool due to the Bayesian model combined with QFD-AHP in IT2F-environment. This model eliminates the ambiguity in conceptual change-based lean decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of cultural algorithms (CAs) over a complete range of optimization problem complexities, from fixed to chaotic and specifically observing whether there is a given homogeneous agent topology within a culture which can dominate across all complexities.

In order to apply the CA overall complexity classes it was necessary to generalize on its co‐evolutionary nature to keep the variation in the population across all complexities. First, previous CA approaches were reviewed. Based on this the existing implementation was extended to produce a more general one that could be applied across all complexity classes. As a result a new version of the cultural algorithms toolkit, CAT 2.0, was produced, which supported a variety of co‐evolutionary features at both the knowledge and population levels. The system was applied to the solution of a 150 randomly generated problems ranging from simple to chaotic complexity classes.

No homogeneous social fabric tested was dominant over all categories of problem complexity; as the complexity of problems increased so did the complexity of the social fabric that was need to deal with it efficiently. A social fabric that was good for fixed problems might be less adequate for periodic problems, and chaotic ones.

The paper presents experimental evidence that social structure of a cultural system can be related to the frequency and complexity type of the problems that presented to a cultural system.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of a social fabric (SF) in which the expression of knowledge sources (KS) in cultural algorithms (CA) can be distributed through the population. The SF influence function is applied to the solution of selected complex engineering problems and it is shown that different parameter combinations for the SF influence function can affect the rate of solution. This enhanced approach is compared with previous approaches.

KS are allowed to influence individuals through a network. From a theoretical perspective, individuals in the real world are viewed as participating in a variety of different networks. Several layers of such networks can be supported within a population. The interplay of these various network computations is designated as the “social fabric.” Using this new influence function, when an individual is to be modified, one KS is selected to perform the modification at each generation. The selection process is done via weaving the SF, hence changing the number of individuals that follow a certain KS.

Simulation experiments show that the choice of influence function has a great impact on the problem‐solving phase. For some problems, a social network is not necessary to produce frequent convergence to an optimum. On the other hand, it is observed that the social network can help to focus search by allowing a KS to influence groups of individuals within a network rather than single unrelated individuals. The new approach shows a more focused convergence to optimal values in complex engineering problems with numerous constraints. Also, it is suggested that a SF configuration can be robust in the sense that a configuration that works well for one problem can also perform well in a more complex but unrelated problem. This suggests that a configuration can be evolved to solve suites of problems.

The introduced approach is interesting for the optimization of problems of a non‐linear complex nature.

This paper aims to recommend that English educators engage preservice teachers (PSTs) in thinking and acting agentively in twenty-first century writing instruction by prompting them to examine and (re)construct discourses around identity, beliefs and teaching contexts. It explores metacognitive interventions that supported one PST to assume agency to implement twenty-first century writing pedagogies that challenged institutional and curricular norms.

A case study design was used to explore how one PST enacted agency in teaching twenty-first century writing during student teaching. Data were collected from five stimulated recall interviews that prompted metacognition over a four-month internship semester. Emerging themes were analyzed using content analysis.

During interviews, the PST constructed narratives about herself, her beliefs and her teaching context in ways that catalyzed her agency to enact twenty-first century writing pedagogies in planning for instruction, framing learning with her students and negotiating with her colleagues. The PST perceived metacognitive intervention as a supportive framework for activating her agency to both “see” and “sell” (Nowacek, 2011) possibilities for implementing twenty-first century writing instruction in her first teaching context.

While most existing literature on teacher agency focuses on practicing teachers, this paper focuses on activating agency during teacher preparation. It draws upon theories of regulative discourse (Mills, 2015), transfer (Nowacek, 2011) and metacognition as constructs for agency to identify how English educators can prepare PSTs as agents for change.

The purpose of this paper is to find a novel optimization selection method for hyper‐parameter of support vector classification (SVC), responsible for the classification of datasets from the UCI machine learning database repository.

A novel two‐stage optimization selection method for hyper‐parameters is proposed. It makes use of explicit information derived from issues and implicit knowledge extracted from the evolution process so as to improve the performance of classifier. In the first stage, the search extent of each hyper‐parameter is determined according to the requirements of issues. In the second stage, optimal hyper‐parameters are obtained by adaptive chaotic culture algorithm in the above search extent. Adaptive chaotic cultural algorithm uses implicit knowledge extracted from the evolution process to control mutation scale of chaotic mutation operator. This algorithm can ensure the diversity of population and exploitation in the latter evolution.

The rationality of the above optimization selection method is proved by the binary classification problem. Final confirmation of this approach is the classification results compared with other methods.

This optimization selection method can effectively avoid premature convergence and lead to better computation stability and precision. It is not related on the structure of functions. SVC model corresponding to optimal hyper‐parameters by this method has better generalization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which notions of space, constituted by management accounting and operations, interact, conflict and are understood by operations managers in a variety of situations within the context of iron ore mining. The authors address a dual question: How do accounting space and production space relate to each other? And what does it mean for operations managers to reside in both those spaces at once?

The paper is based on field studies at a mining company involving operations managers who experience tensions between accounting and production responsibilities and must prioritize between different courses of action to create value.

In contrast to the view that management accounting poses a problem for operations managers in production environments, the authors show how especially discursive tensions foster reflection and choice. Operations managers prioritize their actions in accordance with management accounting or operations based on how they experience and reflect upon the tensions they encounter, dominating artifacts and their experienced relation to space. Operations managers are not tied to specific spaces, but they prioritize their responsibility to management accounting or operations depending on the space to which they feel a sense of belongingness.

Drawing upon a conceptualization of tensions between management accounting and operations as a spatial phenomenon, it is possible to understand the dilemmas experienced by operations managers in a dynamic and relational way. The authors propose that viewing tensions between management accounting and production as spatial phenomena enables a novel understanding of how such tensions can create reflexivity in responsibility with operations managers.

International figures on university expenditure on the development of next generation learning spaces (NGLS) are not readily available but anecdote suggests that simply retrofitting an existing classroom as an NGLS conservatively costs $AUD200,000, while developing new buildings often cost in the region of 100 million dollars and over the last five years, many universities in Australia, Europe and North America have developed new buildings. Despite this considerable investment, it appears that the full potential of these spaces is not being realised.

While researchers argue that a more student centred learning approach to teaching has inspired the design of next generation learning spaces (Tom, Voss, & Scheetz, 2008) and that changed spaces change practice (Joint Information Systems Committee, 2009) when ‘confronted’ with a next generation learning spaces for the first time, anecdotes suggest that many academics resort to teaching as they have always taught and as they were taught. This chapter highlights factors that influence teaching practices, showing that they are to be found in the external, organisational and personal domains.

We argue that in order to fully realise significant improvements in student outcomes through the sector’s investment in next generation learning spaces, universities need to provide holistic and systematic support across three domains – the external, the organisational and the personal domains, by changing policies, systems, procedures and localised practices to better facilitate changes in teaching practices that maximise the potential of next generation learning spaces.

This chapter describes public space exploration services’ business goals, purpose, and strategy. It reinforces space exploration organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. Next, the public service culture (Tier 2) is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why focusing on the beliefs layer is the dominant layer and the essential starting point for analysis in space exploration cultures. Next, the chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in the space exploration landscape. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal KLC cultures are explored.

The shift in undergraduate student demographic composition, particularly for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, has been coupled with an ever increasing need for faculty to be more culturally aware and responsive. Traditionally, higher education has relied on the professional development programs of disciplinary societies and associations to meet such needs. However, designing professional development for STEM faculty in ways that awaken awarenesses about racial differences and their impact on academic success requires more than the conventional faculty development offerings, which, more often than not, only give cursory nods to difference or limit programming to “cookbook” protocols of do's and don'ts. Indeed, today's STEM faculty professional development must be met with more sophisticated paradigms that foreground personal reflection and development. Safe brave spaces represent an ideal mechanism for supporting not only personal reflection but also the grappling with and letting go of the destructive values and beliefs that negatively impact undergraduate STEM student success. The chapter offers the reader a view into our perspective as conveners of safe brave professional development spaces. In it, we also share the words of a safe brave space occupier, demonstrating how the power of reflection can influence the value of safe brave spaces. As a result, the reader is left with a different lens through which STEM faculty professional development programs can and should be considered – whether it is who is in them, who is missing from them, or what is required to facilitate more productive interactions within them. Admittedly, there is more work yet to be done. Understanding that this work requires safety and bravery is a necessary next step.