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The purpose of this paper is to inform international student study strategies as well as course design and instructional approach.

Multiple research methods are applied, starting with exploratory data analysis, principal component analysis, confirmatory ordinal factor analysis, then recursive regression.

The meta‐cognitive impacts of international learning styles on academic performance over two courses are proven.

The learning styles of multicultural university students are assessed using an online a priori instrument to determine predictive impact on academic performance across different courses.

The implications of the dendrogram models are briefly explained with respect to student counselling, student study strategies and teaching approaches. The findings are discussed with respect to rival learning style theories and to appease criticisms of meta‐analysis reviews.

Several statistically significant models were created including varimax and promax rotation solutions from ordinal factor analysis, as well as item response and latent factor dendrograms from recursive regression.

This paper aims to present a hybrid machine learning algorithm for additive manufacturing (AM) design feature recommendation during the conceptual design phase.

In the proposed hybrid machine learning algorithm, hierarchical clustering is performed on coded AM design features and target components, resulting in a dendrogram. Existing industrial application examples are used to train a supervised classifier that determines the final sub-cluster within the dendrogram containing the recommended AM design features.

Through a case study of designing additive manufactured R/C car components, the proposed hybrid machine learning method was proven useful in providing feasible conceptual design solutions for inexperienced designers by recommending appropriate AM design features.

The proposed method helps inexperienced designers who are newly exposed to AM capabilities explore and utilize AM design knowledge computationally.

The purpose of this paper is to help China's science and technology (abbr. as S&T) managers and related policy makers to allocate S&T human resources, optimize organizational systems of laboratories, design and plan some grant projects, and manage other S&T‐related work in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, by measuring and mapping of technology‐fields correlation, with nanotechnology as an example.

Methodologies such as co‐occurrence analysis, correlation analysis, multidimensional scaling (abbr. as MDS) analysis, dendrogram (tree‐like) analysis, etc. are employed to measure and map technology‐fields correlation.

It is found that the exact relevance degree of any two technology‐fields exists among the top 33 technology‐fields with high frequencies. There are three industrial clusters in Multidimentional Scaling View, that is, nanotechnology used in bio‐medical industry, nanotechnology used in new material industry and nanotechnology used in electronic industry. Hierarchy of any two technology‐fields can be found out in the dendrogram view of the top 33 technology‐fields.

This paper could be of great significance to China's S&T managers and related policy makers, especially in the area of nanotechnology, in selecting and managing generic technology and the findings in this paper can be applied in some other fields of science and technology management in China. Both technology‐fields correlation analysis and MDS and dendrogram view analysis could benefit China's policy makers in managing nanotechnology research and development activities.

This purpose of this paper is to describe a fast and easy method of both clustering samples and identifying active genes in cDNA microarray data.

The method relies on alternation of identification of the active genes using a mixture model and clustering of the samples based on Ward hierarchical clustering. The initial‐point of the procedure is obtained by means of a χ² test. The method attempts to locally minimize the sum of the within cluster sample variances under a suitable Gaussian assumption on the distribution of data.

This paper illustrates the proposed methodology and its success by means of results from both simulated and real cDNA microarray data. The comparison of the results with those from a related known method demonstrates the superiority of the proposed approach.

Only empirical evidence of algorithm convergence is provided. Theoretical proof of algorithm convergence is an open issue.

The proposed methodology can be applied to perform cDNA microarray data analysis.

This paper provides a contribution to the development of successful statistical methods for cDNA microarray data analysis.

This paper considers the classifications produced by application of the single linkage, complete linkage, group average and Ward clustering methods to the Keen and Cranfield document test collections. Experiments were carried out to study the structure of the hierarchies produced by the different methods, the extent to which the methods distort the input similarity matrices during the generation of a classification, and the retrieval effectiveness obtainable in cluster based retrieval. The results would suggest that the single linkage method, which has been used extensively in previous work on document clustering, is not the most effective procedure of those tested, although it should be emphasized that the experiments have used only small document test collections.

Reconfigurable machines tools (RMTs) are gaining momentum as the new solutions to customised products in the manufacturing world. The driving force, among others, behind these machines is the part envelope and the part family of products that they can produce. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new class of RMT known as a reconfigurable guillotine shear and bending press machine (RGS&BPM). A part family of products that this machine can produce is developed using hierarchical clustering methodologies. The development of these part families is guided by the relationship of the parts in the family in terms of complexity and geometry.

Part families cannot be developed in isolation, but that process has to incorporate the machine modules used in the reconfiguration process for producing the parts. Literature was reviewed, and group technology principles explored, to develop a concept that can be used to develop the part families. Matrices were manipulated to generate part families, and this resulted in the development of a dendrogram of six possible part families. A software with a graphic user interface for manipulation was also developed to help generate part families and machine modules. The developed concept will assist in the development of a machine by first developing the part family of products and machine modules required in the variable production process.

The developed concepts assist in the development of a machine by first developing the part family of products and machine modules required in the variable production process. The development of part families for the RGS&BPM is key to developing the machine work envelope and modules to carry out the work. This work has been presented to demonstrate the importance of machine development in conjunction with a part family of products that the machine will produce. The paper develops an approach to manufacturing where part families of products are developed prior to developing the machine. The families of products are then used to develop modules that enable the manufacture of the parts and subsequently the size of the machine.

The research was limited to the development of part families for a new RGS&BPM, which is still under development.

The study reflects the development of reconfigurable machines as a solution to manufacturing challenges in terms of group technology approaches adopted in the design phase. It also highlights the significance of the concepts in the reconfigurable machine tool design. The part families define the machine work envelop and its reconfiguration capability.

The success of the research will usher an alternative to smaller players in sheet metal work. It will contribute to the easy development of the machine that will bridge the high cost of machine tools.

The study contributes to the new approach in sheet metal manufacturing where dedicated machines may be substituted by a highly flexible reconfigurable machine that has a dual operation, making the investment for small to medium enterprises affordable. It also contributes to the body of knowledge in reconfigurable machine development and the framework for such activities, especially in developing countries.

This study aims to evaluate the usability and information architecture of the digital library (DL) website of the National Library and Archives of Iran (NLAI).

This applied study used an exploratory mixed method, card sorting. Data were collected by interviewing, observation, usability test and card sorting. By interviewing users about problems of the DL, eight tasks were predefined and users’ problems in the path were identified. Their satisfaction of the tasks and the usability rates were measured via a questionnaire. Card sorting was done to inform on the information organization of the website elements. The study population included all users of the DL of the NLAI in two groups: ten initiator users (public users) and ten expert users (librarians). SPSS was used for analysing the usability test quantitative data. MaxQda was applied for analysing interview-driven qualitative data. Qualitative content analysis, categorization (data organization and grouping) and determining main and secondary codes were applied as well. The sort optimal application was used for analysing card sorting data in the form of similarity matrix and dendrogram. For validating qualitative findings, triangulation was used. The internal reliability of the used questionnaire amounted to a = 0.87

Regarding the assigned tasks, new initiator users by consuming 367.67 s for registering and new expert users by consuming 403 s spent the most time. Task 2 ranked first in being incomplete among 40% of initiator users and Task 3 ranked first by 30% of incompleteness. Expert users had more unsuccessful attempts. Task 5 with the mean rate of 3.35 and Task 8 with the mean rate of 2.25 were the most difficult and the easiest tasks, respectively. Some usability components were rated lower than the moderate point. Only 30% of initiator users and 10% of expert users were satisfied with the website. A total of 12 categories and 452 codes were identified as main problems of the DL. The problems related to a vague perception of concepts and labels with 90 repetitions and digital source display with six repetitions ranked as the first and the last problems in working with the DL, respectively. The sort optimal package produced the card sorting results as a matrix similarity and a dendrogram. Card sorting reflected some changes in organizing information items. Interviews after card sorting emerged some new groups to be included, such as links to other digital libraries, shared databases in the organization and frequently asked questions.

The library’s website should be designed in a manner so that it can satisfy users with different traits. As the information technologies are increasingly developing, the importance of such a design increases for better service provision and effective competition.