Search results

The effects of normal surface suction and blowing on the Strouhal frequencies in vortex shedding over porous square cylinders was analysed numerically. The general characteristics determined were (1) an initial increase followed by a decreasing behaviour in the Strouhal frequency with increasing suction velocity and (2) a decrease in the Strouhal frequency with increasing blowing velocity. The numerical results were compared to an existing preliminary model, yielding fairly close agreement.

Current technology offers many possibilities for remote communication. Nevertheless, people with cognitive and communicative disabilities have limited access to common communication technology like text messaging via a mobile phone. This study is part of the project Text messaging with picture symbols ‐ possibilities for persons with cognitive and communicative disabilities. Semi‐structured interviews were used to investigate the experience of using Windows mobiles with adapted functions for text messaging by three men and four women. The participants' opinions about the content and organisation of the project were also evaluated. All participants except one experienced increased possibilities for remote communication via text messaging. Increased participation was another relevant finding. Technical aids and interventions were individually tailored and the majority of the participants thought that Talking Mats for goal setting and repeated interviews during the project had been successful methods.

Multimedia technology has been the object of hype for a number of years now. But what is it really? Is it a viable commercial solution or simply a fringe technology with no real benefit to the average end‐user? The glossy description of multimedia is that it is the mix of sound and vision just like television — but it's more than that, because it is interactive and it has great appeal in its application as a method for companies to produce top‐notch, all‐singing, all‐dancing presentations: taking graphics, voice, music and video and manipulating them to provide three‐dimensional PC‐generated business shows. This technology is incredible but its promise has yet to be realised.

The purpose of this study was to assess particular student outcomes when design thinking was integrated into an environmental engineering course. The literature is increasingly promoting design thinking for addressing societal and environmental sustainability engineering challenges. Design thinking is a human-centered approach that identifies needs upfront.

In an undergraduate engineering course, Design for the Environment, students have begun to obtain hands-on experience in applying design thinking to sustainability challenges. This case study investigates the association between the use of design thinking and student creativity with sustainability design solutions. Student perspectives on their own creativity and future sustainable design practices as a result of the course were also investigated.

The findings were favorable for design thinking, being associated with a significant difference and medium-to-large effect with regards to solution novelty. A qualitative analysis showed a positive association between design thinking and students’ perceptions of their creativity and future anticipated sustainability practices. Using a content analysis of reflective writings, students’ application of design thinking was assessed for comprehensiveness and correctness. A two-week introductory design-thinking module and significant use of in-class active learning were the course elements that most notably impacted students’ use of design thinking.

This case study preliminarily demonstrates that application of design thinking within an environmental engineering course may be associated with beneficial outcomes related to creativity and sustainability.

A review of the literature did not uncover studies of the use of design thinking for undergraduate socio-environmental challenges to promote creativity and sustainable-practices outcomes, although the literature has been calling for the marrying of these two areas.

This review refers to LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts) on CD‐ROM which is available from SilverPlatter Information Ltd. The version of the software used was numbered 1.4 and dated April 1988. The database covered the time period 1969 to March 1988. The system used for the test was an Opus PC II with a Hitachi 1503S CD‐ROM drive. This opus is an IBM PC‐XT compatible which had 1 Mb of RAM and a 20 Mb hard disk. The operating system was MS‐DOS version 3.2 with the MS‐DOS CD‐ROM extensions.

Examines the productivity of journals which published articles on library and information sciences on Kenya from 1961 to 1991 to determine the number of articles published by each journal, the core productive journals and authors, the language, subject and title dispersion of journals and the extent to which the journals are indexed and abstracted. The methods adopted were frequency distribution, percentages and the graphical application of Bradford′s law. Reveals that 74 journals published 414 articles on the subject. Maktaba was the most productive journal; Otike was the most productive author; dispersion of articles among journals and subjects was low; English language accounted for 95.7 per cent of the literature; indexing coverage of the journals is 39 per cent, while abstracting coverage is 44 per cent.

The literature on abstracts recommends the revision of author supplied abstracts before their inclusion in database collections. However, little guidance is given on how to carry out such revision, and few studies exist on this topic. The purpose of this research paper is to first survey 187 bibliographic databases to ascertain how many did revise abstracts, and then study the practical amendments made by one of these, i.e. LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts).

Database policies were established by e‐mail or through alternative sources, with 136 databases out of 187 exhaustively documented. Differences between 100 author‐supplied abstracts and the corresponding 100 LISA amended abstracts were classified into sentence‐level and beyond sentence‐level categories, and then as additions, deletions and rephrasing of text.

Revision of author abstracts was carried out by 66 databases, but in just 32 cases did it imply more than spelling, shortening of length and formula representation. In LISA, amendments were often non‐systematic and inconsistent, but still pointed to significant aspects which were discussed.

Amendments made by LISA editors are important in multi‐ and inter‐disciplinary research, since they tend to clarify certain aspects such as terminology, and suggest that abstracts should not always be considered as substitutes for the original document. From this point‐of‐view, the revision of abstracts can be considered as an important factor in enhancing a database's quality.

This case study deals specifically with the issue of manufacturing strategy, and business strategy.

The case can be used in a number of course contexts, including undergraduate and MBA programs. The focus is on both business strategy and manufacturing strategy issues. The case can be assigned as an opening vignette, during the initial phases of business strategy, since the case situations and concepts are both simple and clear. It can also be assigned for an in-depth treatment of manufacturing strategy.

The case focuses on Capital Mills Limited (CML), a flour milling company, and concentrates on whether the company should refurbish its two 40-year old flour mills at a cost of US$6 million or if the company should invest US$15 million in the construction and installation of a new, fully-automated “Lights out” flour mill. This decision is viewed as a “make or break” decision for CML, since for the first time in the company's 40 year history will it face significant direct competition, in the form of the impending entry of a second flour milling company.

The case has four primary learning objectives, namely to: illustrate the linkages between business level strategy and the functional level, manufacturing strategy; discuss the role of a company's history and internal resource structure in the decision making process; explore how operational issues influence capital expenditure decisions; and explore the perspective of managers in different functions in an organization that is facing a new competitive challenge.

Teaching notes are available – consult your librarian for access.

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study evaluated a Master of Science program in Clinical and Translational Research (MSCTR) geared toward training physicians in research methodology. The purpose of this study is to allow trainees to articulate their expectations, needs and experiences in the MSCTR and to develop novel training methods and/or curriculum modifications to improve physician-scholar training.

The mixed-method study design with qualitative emphasis included interviews, participant journal entries and a survey. Interview and journal entry data were analyzed using a modified seven-stage hermeneutic analysis and survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Findings suggest three major areas for improvement, namely, curriculum, mentorship/relationships and instructional methods. Concluding recommendations to address these three areas include: make ongoing curriculum updates to provide a sequential pathway but also allow for flexibility, improve statistical training, invest in online courses and create a more structured mentorship program.

Extant research, though minimal, has evaluated clinical research training programs in terms of alumni productivity. However, this is the first study of its kind to examine a clinical research training program primarily qualitatively and from the perspective of its students and alumni.

In continuous improvement (CI) projects, cause-and-effect diagrams are used to qualitatively express the relationship between a given problem and its root causes. However, when data collection activities are limited, and advanced statistical analyses are not possible, practitioners need to understand causal relationships. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this research, the authors present a framework that combines cause-and-effect diagrams with Bayesian belief networks (BBNs) to estimate causal relationships in instances where formal data collection/analysis activities are too costly or impractical. Specifically, the authors use cause-and-effect diagrams to create causal networks, and leverage elicitation methods to estimate the likelihood of risk scenarios by means of computer-based simulation.

This framework enables CI practitioners to leverage qualitative data and expertise to conduct in-depth statistical analysis in the event that data collection activities cannot be fully executed. Furthermore, this allows CI practitioners to identify critical root causes of a given problem under investigation before generating solutions.

This is the first framework that translates qualitative insights from a cause-and-effect diagram into a closed-form relationship between inputs and outputs by means of BBN models, simulation and regression.