Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Driving practice'

"Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Occupational Therapy Department, College of Allied Health, Nova Southeastern University 2001."--T.p.

Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2014.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 74-76).
This paper identifies insights and methods used in practice to address two weaknesses in the traditional corporate budgeting process. One point of failure is the weak linkage between organizational strategy and budgeting - resulting in the proliferation of activities that do not support strategic priorities. The second point of failure is a strong linkage between budgeting and performance evaluation and incentives that leads to behavioral dysfunctions among employees. Together, these challenges create significant barriers to successful strategy execution in organizations. This paper defines the intended role of budgeting, details the challenges that resulted from the two points of failure, and offers a sample of thought-provoking approaches to support practitioners' use of corporate budgeting to help execute organizational strategies more effectively.
by Chandra A. Briggman.
M.B.A.

The implementation of Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) policies has reduced the rate of car crashes among adolescents. However, limited research has focused on adolescents’ supervised driving during the learner permit stage of GDL. The study aimed to describe supervised driving practice during the learner permit stage and to test predictors of individual differences in the amount and the quality of supervised driving. 183 adolescents (M age = 16.4 years, 54.1% female) and their parents (84.1% mothers) participated. Adolescents reported driving an average of 25 minutes per day. Adolescents living in single-parent households, with less family income, and with a stronger motivation to drive reported more daily driving. Adolescents with a stronger motivation to drive reported driving in more settings. Discussion focuses on implications for developing effective driving-specific parenting strategies and helping to enrich adolescents’ supervised driving experiences.

Decades of research suggest that talking on a cell phone interferes with driving performance, but the underlying mechanisms of this interference remain poorly understood. Driving and cell phone research often generalizes easy, novice laboratory tasks to the well practiced task of driving, and it frequently ignores important factors like emotion in tasks used to represent cell phone conversation. This experiment sought to address these issues. Participants performed a tracking task and two verbal tasks over 7 one-hour sessions. At some times the tasks were performed individually, and at others the tracking task was performed concurrently with one of the verbal tasks. Participants watched an anger-inducing film clip at the beginning of the 7th session and were instructed to either down-regulate or maintain that anger. Results challenged the validity of generalizing easy novice task performance to driving performance.

Driving simulators provide a safe and controllable environment, where different aspects of driving can be analyzed without risking other road users’ safety. However, as simulators cannot precisely replicate real-life scenarios, there has been an ongoing debate about how well the results of simulator studies can be generalized to the actual world. Many studies have compared the outcomes of field experiments and those involving their simulated counterparts in order to test the validity of the research on driving simulators. In nearly all cases, however, the researchers made comparisons without analyzing the underlying psychological explanations behind potential differences. This thesis will discuss why adaptation, or the process by which participants learn how to interact with a simulator, is an important precondition of validity in simulator experiments. Data collected from several experiments revealed that adaptation can distract participants from performing the main task and can systematically bias the results of the experiments. The current study demonstrated that although most researchers provide a practice session before the main scenario, there is no unified approach to determine the characteristics of practice scenarios. The practice sessions vary greatly both in duration and form; and no method has been formulated to verify that a participant has in fact adapted at the end of the practice session. To address these shortcomings, this thesis provides a methodology that mathematically models the learning pattern of subjects to steering and pedals, which can also help identify the adapted and non-adapted subjects at the conclusion of practice scenarios. A comparison of the results of two groups of subjects (control and experiment) showed that adaptation to a driving simulator is largely task-independent. This study analyzed the effect of the practice scenario design on the performance of participants in the main task, which led to the observation that during the main scenario participants tend to continue focusing on the subskills they learned during the practice scenario. Based on the results of these experiments, the thesis provides recommendations on how to measure adaptation and also how to improve the quality of the practice scenario design to minimize any unwanted impact on the main scenario.

Den snabbt växande etiska fondmarknaden är dels en respons på ökad efterfrågan från investerare, och dels en reaktion på ett ökat intresse och förståelse för miljö och etiska frågor från företagens sida. Denna studie diskuterar detta fält från företagens perspektiv. Ett flertal studier har lagt fram teorier om att socialt ansvarsfullt investerande [SRI] och etiska fonder specifikt, har potential att förändra företagens beteende. Denna uppsats placerar etiska fonder bland generella drivkrafter som har en effekt på dagens företag, och analyserar etiska fonder utifrån deras roll som en drivkraft när det gäller påverkan av företag som dessa investerar i. Från KPA Pensions etiska fondinnehav, deltog 19 företag i studien. Genom enkät och intervjuer har denna studie funnit att de etiska fonderna inte kan sägas vara en drivkraft när det gäller att påverka företagen gällande miljö och CSR frågor. Kunder, investerare och företagens egna, inre engagemang verkar vara de främsta aktörerna och drivkrafterna för att uppmuntra till arbete med dessa frågor. Enligt företagen själva, dock, finns det fortfarande positiva effekter som de etiska fonderna ger upphov till i form av positiv respons från kunder, ökad goodwill och ökade markandsandelar. En del av företagen menar att de inte har haft lika mycket kontakt med KPA Pension som de kanske hade velat, men känner att dialogen och samarbetet mellan dem och KPA Pension har varit och är värdefullt. Dessutom visar företagen tecken på förståelse att ett arbete med miljö och CSR- frågor är ett kontinuerligt sådant, och därför borde relationen mellan företagen och KPA Pension förbättras.

Problem of unutilized energy saving potential in the multifamily housing stock of European Union has been emphasized by the European Commission (2008). Comparative study at hand takes tenant – owner associations of Stockholm and Vilnius as study cases. The goal is to find out what are the motivating and obstacle factors that create reasons for tenant – owner associations to invest or to delay investment into energy saving measures. Further aim is to generate suggestions for energy saving policy improvements based on the motivating and obstacle factors for the given capitals. Targets have been implemented by series of interviews held with board leaders of tenant – owner associations. Comparative study has revealed that main obstacles for energy saving renovation is of informational nature – lack of precise, reliable and verified data distracts from investments, since it is difficult to estimate the expected payback and other financial figures. Findings in the perspective of motivating factors are of monetary nature – tenant–owner associations are mostly motivated by monetary savings.

As our society becomes more and more digitalized, IT projects play an increasingly important role. The relatively high failure rates in IT projects have spurred the development of methods and models to improve success rate by managing for outcomes rather than constraints. This thesis aims to contribute to our understanding of how outcome-based project methods are used in practice, and how they’re understood and conceptualized by their users such as project managers, product managers and interaction designers. It provides an overview of seven methods for managing projects for outcomes and presents findings regarding how users of a subset of these methods apply and reason about them. The study’s findings include the identification of six themes regarding the application and use of these methods and four concepts describing how they’re understood. The results indicate that the methods studied have a wide-reaching influence over workplace collaboration and culture, and provide generic strategies for solving problems in the domains of software development, interaction design and service design. Further research is recommended to determine how these methods can be used and improved to further enhance collaboration, communication, and motivation in the workplace and the methods’ wider influence on IT project success.

This thesis is concerned with the application of computation in the context of professional architectural practice and specifically towards defining complex buildings that are highly integrated with respect to design and engineering performance. The thesis represents applied research undertaken whilst in practice at Foster + Partners. It reviews the current state of the art of computational design techniques to quickly but flexibly model and analyse building options. The application of parametric design tools to active design projects is discussed with respect to real examples as well as methods to then link the geometric definitions to structural engineering analysis, to provide performance data in near real time. The practical interoperability between design software and engineering tools is also examined. The role of performance data in design decision making is analysed by comparing manual work-flows with methods assisted by computation. This extends to optimisation methods which by making use of design automation actively make design decisions to return optimised results. The challenges and drawbacks of using these methods effectively in real deign situations is discussed, especially the limitations of these methods with respect to incomplete problem definitions, and the design exploration resulting in modified performance requirements. To counter these issues a performance driven design work flow is proposed. This is a mixed initiative whereby designer centric understanding and decisions are computer assisted. Flexible meta-design descriptions that encapsulate the variability of the design space under consideration are explored and compared with existing optimisation approaches. Computation is used to produce and visualise the performance data from these large design spaces generated by parametric design descriptions and associated engineering analysis. Novel methods are introduced that define a design and performance space using cluster computing methods to speed up the generation of large numbers of options. The use of data visualisation is applied to design problems, showing how in real situations it can aid design orientation and decision making using the large amount of data produced. Strategies to enable these work-flows are discussed and implemented, focusing on re-appropriating existing web design paradigms using a modular approach concentrating on scalable data creation and information display.

The objective of the thesis is based on statistical data to assess the degree of risk of abuse of psychotropic substances in transport. The work is divided into two parts. The theoretical part is mainly a search, dealing with the issue. The practical part has analyzed statistical data and the questionnaire survey, whose results are compared with the results of statistical data.

Thesis (PhD) - Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007.
Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Institute for Social Research, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-243).

Knowledge Management has become a key instrument for identifying, creating and sharing organizational knowledge assets. An attractive means for sharing knowledge is Best Practices (BPs), which are proven as well as efficient and effective solutions to recurring problems. BPs can offer significant benefits, including improved performance, reduced re-work and cost savings. However, it is challenging to share and use BP Documents (BPDs) in organizations, which is the overall problem addressed in this thesis. More precisely, the thesis focuses on two sub-problems: 1) The difficulty of finding and selecting appropriate BPs in large collections of BPs impedes the use of BPs, and 2) The low quality of BPDs impedes the use of BPs. Related to these problems, the thesis addresses two sub-goals. The first one is to design a BP Annotation Template for supporting the identification and selection of BPs in BP repositories. The template can be used for organizing and indexing the contents of BPDs independent of domain. The second sub-goal is to design a BP Document Template for supporting the creation, use and evaluation of BP documentation. The BP Document Template offers a structure for describing BPs in a detailed and systematic way.   The research methodology applied is design science, which is the scientific study and creation of artifacts as they are developed and used by people with the goal of solving practical problems. The first artifact, the BP Annotation Template, has been designed and developed based on a literature study and evaluated using expert interviews. The second artifact, the BP Document Template, has been designed and developed based on a literature study using grounded theory as well as on interviews with KM experts. The BP Document Template has been evaluated using expert interviews and demonstrated by being applied in three real-life cases. By basing the two artifacts on literature studies, the two artifacts consolidate, integrate and extend previous work on BP documentation.   The evaluations indicate that the BP Annotation Template provides a strong foundation for identifying and selecting BPs, independent of domain, and that the BP Document Template can support the structuring of BP documents so that they become complete, uniform and easy-to-use. An identified drawback of the two artifacts is the need for extensive resources for implementing and applying them since they may be complex and time-consuming to use. The artifacts are expected to support BP designers as well as BP managers and BP users.

Nowadays, software systems are getting more and more complex. To tackle this challenge most diverse techniques, such as design patterns, service oriented architectures (SOA), software development processes, and model-driven engineering (MDE), are used to improve productivity, while time to market and quality of the products stay stable. Multiple of these techniques are used in parallel to profit from their benefits. While the use of sophisticated software development processes is standard, today, MDE is just adopted in practice. However, research has shown that the application of MDE is not always successful. It is not fully understood when advantages of MDE can be used and to what degree MDE can also be disadvantageous for productivity. Further, when combining different techniques that aim to affect the same factor (e.g. productivity) the question arises whether these techniques really complement each other or, in contrast, compensate their effects. Due to that, there is the concrete question how MDE and other techniques, such as software development process, are interrelated. Both aspects (advantages and disadvantages for productivity as well as the interrelation to other techniques) need to be understood to identify risks relating to the productivity impact of MDE. Before studying MDE's impact on productivity, it is necessary to investigate the range of validity that can be reached for the results. This includes two questions. First, there is the question whether MDE's impact on productivity is similar for all approaches of adopting MDE in practice. Second, there is the question whether MDE's impact on productivity for an approach of using MDE in practice remains stable over time. The answers for both questions are crucial for handling risks of MDE, but also for the design of future studies on MDE success. This thesis addresses these questions with the goal to support adoption of MDE in future. To enable a differentiated discussion about MDE, the term MDE setting'' is introduced. MDE setting refers to the applied technical setting, i.e. the employed manual and automated activities, artifacts, languages, and tools. An MDE setting's possible impact on productivity is studied with a focus on changeability and the interrelation to software development processes. This is done by introducing a taxonomy of changeability concerns that might be affected by an MDE setting. Further, three MDE traits are identified and it is studied for which manifestations of these MDE traits software development processes are impacted. To enable the assessment and evaluation of an MDE setting's impacts, the Software Manufacture Model language is introduced. This is a process modeling language that allows to reason about how relations between (modeling) artifacts (e.g. models or code files) change during application of manual or automated development activities. On that basis, risk analysis techniques are provided. These techniques allow identifying changeability risks and assessing the manifestations of the MDE traits (and with it an MDE setting's impact on software development processes). To address the range of validity, MDE settings from practice and their evolution histories were capture in context of this thesis. First, this data is used to show that MDE settings cover the whole spectrum concerning their impact on changeability or interrelation to software development processes. Neither it is seldom that MDE settings are neutral for processes nor is it seldom that MDE settings have impact on processes. Similarly, the impact on changeability differs relevantly. Second, a taxonomy of evolution of MDE settings is introduced. In that context it is discussed to what extent different types of changes on an MDE setting can influence this MDE setting's impact on changeability and the interrelation to processes. The category of structural evolution, which can change these characteristics of an MDE setting, is identified. The captured MDE settings from practice are used to show that structural evolution exists and is common. In addition, some examples of structural evolution steps are collected that actually led to a change in the characteristics of the respective MDE settings. Two implications are: First, the assessed diversity of MDE settings evaluates the need for the analysis techniques that shall be presented in this thesis. Second, evolution is one explanation for the diversity of MDE settings in practice. To summarize, this thesis studies the nature and evolution of MDE settings in practice. As a result support for the adoption of MDE settings is provided in form of techniques for the identification of risks relating to productivity impacts.
Um die steigende Komplexität von Softwaresystemen beherrschen zu können, werden heutzutage unterschiedlichste Techniken gemeinsam eingesetzt. Beispiele sind, Design Pattern, Serviceorientierte Architekturen, Softwareentwicklungsprozesse oder modellgetriebene Entwicklung (MDE). Ziel dabei ist die Erhöhung der Produktivität, so dass Entwicklungsdauer und Qualität stabil bleiben können. Während hoch entwickelte Softwareentwicklungsprozesse heute schon standardmäßig genutzt werden, fangen Firmen gerade erst an MDE einzusetzen. Jedoch zeigen Studien, dass der erhoffte Erfolg von MDE nicht jedes Mal eintritt. So scheint es, dass noch kein ausreichendes Verständnis dafür existiert, inwiefern MDE auch Nachteile für die Produktivität bergen kann. Zusätzlich ist bei der Kombination von unterschiedlichen Techniken damit zu rechnen, dass die erreichten Effekte sich gegenseitig negieren anstatt sich zu ergänzen. Hier entsteht die Frage wie MDE und andere Techniken, wie Softwareentwicklungsprozesse, zusammenwirken. Beide Aspekte, der direkte Einfluss auf Produktivität und die Wechselwirkung mit anderen Techniken, müssen aber verstanden werden um den Risiken für den Produktivitätseinfluss von MDE zu identifizieren. Außerdem, muss auch die Generalisierbarkeit dieser Aspekte untersucht werden. Das betrifft die Fragen, ob der Produktivitätseinfluss bei jedem Einsatz von MDE gleich ist und ob der Produktivitätseinfluss über die Zeit stabil bleibt. Beide Fragen sind entscheidend, will man geeignete Risikobehandlung ermöglichen oder künftige Studien zum Erfolg von MDE planen. Diese Dissertation widmet sich der genannten Fragen. Dafür wird zuerst der Begriff MDE Setting'' eingeführt um eine differenzierte Betrachtung von MDE-Verwendungen zu ermöglichen. Ein MDE Setting ist dabei der technische Aufbau, inklusive manueller und automatische Aktivitäten, Artefakten, Sprachen und Werkzeugen. Welche Produktivitätseinflüsse von MDE Settings möglich sind, wird in der Dissertation mit Fokus auf Änderbarkeit und die Wechselwirkung mit Softwareentwicklungsprozessen betrachtet. Dafür wird einerseits eine Taxonomie von Changeability Concerns'' (potentiell betroffene Aspekte von Änderbarkeit) vorgestellt. Zusätzlich, werden drei MDE Traits'' (Charakteristika von MDE Settings die unterschiedlich ausgeprägt sein können) identifiziert. Es wird untersucht welche Ausprägungen dieser MDE Traits Einfluss auf Softwareentwicklungsprozesse haben können. Um die Erfassung und Bewertung dieser Einflüsse zu ermöglichen wird die Software Manufaktur Modell Sprache eingeführt. Diese Prozessmodellierungssprache ermöglicht eine Beschreibung, der Veränderungen von Artefaktbeziehungen während der Anwendung von Aktivitäten (z.B. Codegenerierung). Weiter werden auf Basis dieser Modelle, Analysetechniken eingeführt. Diese Analysetechniken erlauben es Risiken für bestimmte Changeability Concerns aufzudecken sowie die Ausprägung von MDE Traits zu erfassen (und damit den Einfluss auf Softwareentwicklungsprozesse). Um die Generalisierbarkeit der Ergebnisse zu studieren, wurden im Rahmen der Arbeit mehrere MDE Settings aus der Praxis sowie teilweise deren Evolutionshistorien erhoben. Daran wird gezeigt, dass MDE Settings sich in einem breiten Spektrum von Einflüssen auf Änderbarkeit und Prozesse bewegen. So ist es weder selten, dass ein MDE Setting neutral für Prozesse ist, noch, dass ein MDE Setting Einschränkungen für einen Prozess impliziert. Ähnlich breit gestreut ist der Einfluss auf die Änderbarkeit.Zusätzlich, wird diskutiert, inwiefern unterschiedliche Evolutionstypen den Einfluss eines MDE Settings auf Änderbarkeit und Prozesse verändern können. Diese Diskussion führt zur Identifikation der strukturellen Evolution'', die sich stark auf die genannten Charakteristika eines MDE Settings auswirken kann. Mithilfe der erfassten MDE Settings, wird gezeigt, dass strukturelle Evolution in der Praxis üblich ist. Schließlich, werden Beispiele aufgedeckt bei denen strukturelle Evolutionsschritte tatsächlich zu einer Änderung der Charakteristika des betreffenden MDE Settings geführt haben. Einerseits bestärkt die ermittelte Vielfalt den Bedarf nach Analysetechniken, wie sie in dieser Dissertation eingeführt werden. Zum Anderen erscheint es nun, dass Evolution zumindest zum Teil die unterschiedlichen Ausprägungen von MDE Settings erklärt. Zusammenfassend wird studiert wie MDE Settings und deren Evolution in der Praxis ausgeprägt sind. Als Ergebnis, werden Techniken zur Identifikation von Risiken für Produktivitätseinflüsse bereitgestellt um den Einsatz von MDE Settings zu unterstützen.

This dissertation describes research that has been undertaken to understand factors influencing software developers' intention to perform test driven development (TDD). Unit tests are a form of testing, where tests are written for small units of software being developed. TDD is a practice where these tests are written before the functionality is written, so as to guide the design of the code for the functionality, as well as to ensure test coverage for all functionality. There has been some research conducted to understand TDD by looking at its effects on both the outcomes and the practice of software development. It has been found to increase quality by decreasing defects, while also increasing the maintainability and the changeability of the code. On the other hand, some research has also found it to increase time spent on completing tasks. Despite this, to the best of the researcher's knowledge, there hasn't been research done to understand the behavioural components of TDD, and in particular, why developers choose to practice TDD. A conceptual model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is described and used as a lens to understand intention. TPB proposes that intention to perform a behaviour (TDD in this case) is influenced by three factors: attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control. This dissertation seeks to build onto this model for the purpose of understanding TDD, and proposes the following determinants of the influences of intention: attitude is influenced by attitude towards time taken, differences in quality, maintainability and developer efficiency; subjective norm is influenced by the perceived perception of the environment regarding changes in quality, time taken, and maintainability of the code. Lastly, perceived behavioural control is posited to be made up of perceived difficulty of TDD, and how much experience a developer has. This model is then tested based on data collected from a n online survey distributed around the world. 779 responses were collected from developers in various countries around the world. The majority of the respondents to practice TDD, allowing us to gain greater insight into why those that practice TDD actually do so. Because the study is a psychographic study, perceptions were understood from the developers using an ordinal Likert scale. To analyse this data in order to prove the hypotheses, Chi -¬‐ square tests with contingency tables, Kruskal -¬‐ Wallis tests and ordinal logistic regression were used as statistical methods. It is found the data collected does not conform to the model, and recommendations are made for a future study to form a more comprehensive model.

Thesis: Ph. D. in Architecture: Design and Computation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2015.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-301).
After our initial hype over the digital revolution, we are realizing that interactive technologies, such as personal computers, smartphones, and tablets, are changing our daily experiences exponentially, without necessarily improving the way we live. Although contemporary design practitioners are increasingly interested is a more human-centered design, they objectify the experiences of the people they are designing for by not considering their own experiences during the design process. As a result, these designers do not have the means to observe, talk and reflect about the implications that their design practices and products have on their own experience and that of others. I propose a radical alternative to contemporary practices conceiving and developing new interactive technologies. I call this Transformational Design-a mindful, hands-on, and collaborative practice that allows designers to bring forth their own experiences within their creative process (designer's experience) and then talk and think about the experiences of others (user's experience) in terms of what they have directly experienced. This practice combines Mindfulness practice (Vipassana) with exploratory design (Shape Grammars) using interactive materials, including sensors, microcontrollers, and effectors. In this dissertation, I present the foundations of Transformational Design, including the conceptual guidelines-a vocabulary and models-along with the exercises to apply them in practice. In these exercises, participants express their experiences and design by putting together interactive and recycled materials. They also play as users and designers, exchanging their expressions and products, and then observing one another. I built this practice by simultaneously conceiving the foundations and exploring them in workshops with many others. In total, I conducted 14 workshops with 188 participants in Chile, India, and the US. I have found that with Transformational Design, participants can become mindful, and then express their experiences as a construction: can bring forth new experiences by engaging with their designs in ways they have not done before; and can begin reflecting on how these experiences change the lives of others in ways they could not have predicted. It is my hope that this practice will pave a meaningful alternative path, one that designers can use to begin reflecting as they are putting together new technologies, for themselves and others.
by Daniel Rosenberg.
Ph. D. in Architecture: Design and Computation

At the project site in New Jersey, eligible patients were leaving the hospital without receiving the influenza or pneumococcal vaccine. The field site has an established, evidence-based, nurse-driven protocol. The purpose of this project was to increase adherence to the current influenza and pneumococcal nurse-driven protocol on one medical-surgical unit. This unit had experienced low adherence rates to the nurse-driven protocol for vaccines, not reaching the New Jersey state target of 96% administration prior to discharge. The practice-focused question was: Will increasing awareness of evidence-based practice increase adherence to the influenza and pneumococcal vaccine protocol? A quality improvement plan was developed to address a gap in practice using the plan-do-study-act model. Internal vaccination data was the source of evidence used to drive this project. Baseline data was used from 2 months prior to the December 2017 start of the project. Once the quality improvement plan was implemented, data were collected and analyzed weekly with the quality improvement team. Findings for the pneumococcal vaccine demonstrated reaching 96% or higher while the influenza vaccine exceeded the state target reaching 100% of discharged patients being vaccinated. Implementing large surveillance boards into clinical rounds promoted increased adherence to the protocol, achieving a positive social change. Leadership worked directly with the staff to use evidence-based practice and promote nursing autonomy to administer the vaccines. An increased number of vaccinated patients leaving the medical-surgical unit was achieved.

Thesis advisor: Robert J. Starratt
Often educational researchers believe that the way to get teacher groups to improve their own teaching is to have them work in groups, share common assessments, look at the results, and choose the approach of the teacher who achieved the most success. Teachers, however, often resist this approach to identifying a "best practice" because it creates a competitive climate in which one teacher will be identified as the best. Conversations about teaching, when they do occur, thus often remain superficial. Teachers most often say to each other that they respect each other's approach; when they do disagree, they focus briefly on ideological differences and then move on to another topic before identifying the specific instructional techniques that work. This dynamic persists in all schools, but particularly in high performing schools in which most students are succeeding, teachers choose to avoid these difficult conversations and thus avoid close examination of their practices. This study examines a leadership project that strove to draw teachers into fruitful conversations about best practice by diminishing competitiveness within the group. Rather than asking them to compare student performance on common assessments, and identify the teacher whose students did the best, the Principal/Researcher focused teachers on the goal of establishing a common approach to teaching certain math topics. In order to find this common approach, teachers had to examine their practices very closely, adopting some new ones but keeping the ones that worked. Rather than the work of one teacher, the "best practice" that the group members chose was a synthesis of strong teaching methods from all members of the group
Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009
Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education
Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education

Using data to improve educational practice in schools has become a popular reform strategy that has grown as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Districts and schools across the United States are under a great deal of pressure to collect and analyze data in hopes of identifying student weaknesses to implement corrective action plans that will lead to overall student achievement in the classroom. Technology tools such as computer-based assessment and reporting systems have provided schools with immediate access to student-level data. The problem is the lack of direction in how to use the information to make instructional changes in the classroom. A review of literature provided an overview of research-based strategies that support data-driven decision making (DDDM) in the classroom. Three case studies in Louisiana were examined to build a conceptual understanding about how districts and schools use data to make informed decisions. Three research questions guided the investigation and focused on the tools used to assess, store, and retrieve student data, evidence that connects the data and improvements in teaching, and recommendations for other districts and schools. Educational practices were documented through a collection of documents, interview/questionnaire data, and physical artifacts. Results were reported in a question and answer format for three case studies. School administrators reported using data to plan, evaluate, and provide feedback to teachers. In contrast, teachers and instructional specialists revealed that data were used to assess and measure student's weekly performance. All schools utilized at least two computer-based assessment and/or reporting systems to manage student-level data within the district and/or school. Instructional coaches provided direct support to teachers. Data analysis revealed that teachers collaborated and supported each other through data team meetings and working sessions. Principals and teachers monitored student behavior through use of data management and reporting tools. Schools showed promising and positive attitudes about making changes and building a data-driven culture. Findings were supported through current research on DDDM.

Context: Developer’s within software companies work chosen choice of software development process. Choice of a particular Software Development Process impacts the work environment, end-product and might also have financial risks due to delay in delivering in the final software product. Objectives: we are investigating if the TDD could impact/applicable in large-scale industries. To achieve that we first identify the strengths and challenges while using TDD in large-scale industries. Identify what modifications can enhance the impact of TDD in large-Scale industries. Methods: Systematic Literature Review (SLR) has been used to investigate the application of TDD in large-scale industries. Using the info from SLR we conducted an online survey for validating the results obtained from SLR. As a last step we have conducted semi structured interviews to gather information from developers across industries practicing and practiced TDD. The data from the qualitative and quantitative methods is triangulated by identifying the strengths, challenges and modifications in applying TDD to large-scale industries. Results: The findings from our SLR, results validated from Survey and responses from interview participants show that TDD have both strengths, Challenges and modifications. Conclusions: Some challenges encountered when using TDD in large-scale industries are Negative test cases, linking test case modules of several developers, Communication, Overall idea about project, lack of TDD knowledge for developers practicing TDD, also lack of automation tools supporting the development of unit test-cases.

As information technology’s role in the modern economy grows in importance, society makes exponentially greater demands on the diversity and quality of the software being produced. To develop high quality software, a good software development process is important. Software process improvement is about improving software quality and reliability, employee and client satisfaction, and return on investment. From the mid 1990s onwards, agile software development has been challenging the traditional (plandriven) view of software development. Agile software development accords primacy to uniqueness, ambiguity, complexity, and change, as opposed to prediction, verifiability, and control. The fundamental differences between traditional and agile software process improvement and the lack of research on these differences, gave rise to the overall problem addressed by this thesis: “How does Software Process Improvement work change with the introduction of agile software development in plan-driven companies?” This thesis focus on answering the following research questions: What characterizes SPI in plan-driven companies?, What characterizes SPI in change-driven companies?, and What are the key SPI challenges when implementing change-driven development? This thesis summarizes six years of studies in three small and medium-sized companies in Norway. The overall research method has been the same: case study and action research. Qualitative data in the form of interviews and participant observations constitute the most important source of evidence. Through a synthesis of contributions from twelve papers, ten key findings connected to the three research questions has been identified. To summarize, software process improvement in plan-driven companies is characterized by a participative bottom-up approach when creating company best practice, focus on project management support, high individual autonomy, and long cycles of single-loop learning; the goal of reflection on projects is to improve future projects. Software process improvement in changedriven companies is characterized by supporting the whole team and not only project management, practice is improved by short cycles of single-loop learning, and the goal of reflection in projects is to improve the current project. Finally, software process improvement challenges while implementing change-driven development are to increase redundancy to create conditions for the team to self-manage, to learn how to learn, and to perceive the adoption of change-driven development as a large, long-term organizational change project. The overall contribution of this thesis is that it shows empirically that the goal of software process improvement changes from improving processes to improving practice. However, achieving this goal is challenging when only part of the organization is involved in the change. Also contributions are deep knowledge about software process improvement in plan- and change-driven small- and medium-sized companies, knowledge about software process improvement challenges when implementing change-driven development, and increase the body of literature on longitudinal action research

Treballar amb dades sempre és una part important del periodisme, però la seva combinació amb la tecnologia és una innovació per als diaris. En els últims anys, els diaris han començat a adaptar el periodisme de dades i el periodisme de dades s'ha convertit en part de les redaccions a contra de l'entorn periodístic tradicional dels diaris espanyols. Aquesta tesi té com a objectiu analitzar les pràctiques del periodisme de dades esportius a Espanya amb enfocament quantitatiu i qualitatiu amb anàlisi de contingut de 1068 articles de periodisme de dades publicades per 6 diaris (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Periódico, El País) entre 2017- 2019, i entrevistes a 15 participants de 6 diaris (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Confidencial, El País). Tant l'anàlisi quantitativa com el qualitatiu es centren en com s'està adaptant el periodisme de dades a Espanya, la seva situació actual i característiques tècniques, oportunitats i amenaces en el seu desenvolupament.
Trabajar con datos siempre es una parte importante del periodismo, pero su combinación con la tecnología es una innovación para los periódicos. En los últimos años, los periódicos han comenzado a adaptar el periodismo de datos y el periodismo de datos se ha convertido en parte de las redacciones al contrario del entorno periodístico tradicional de los periódicos españoles. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo analizar las prácticas del periodismo de datos deportivos en España con enfoque cuantitativo y cualitativo con análisis de contenido de 1068 artículos de periodismo de datos publicados por 6 periódicos (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Periódico, El País) entre 2017-2019, y entrevistas a 15 participantes de 6 periódicos (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Confidencial, El País). Tanto el análisis cuantitativo como el cualitativo se centran en cómo se está adaptando el periodismo de datos en España, su situación actual y características técnicas, oportunidades y amenazas en su desarrollo.
Working with data is always an important part of journalism but its combination with technology is an innovation for newspapers. In recent years, newspapers have started to adapt data journalism and data journalism became a part of newsrooms to the contrary of the traditional journalism environment in Spanish newspapers. This thesis aims to analyse sports data journalism practices in Spain with quantitative and qualitative approach with content analysis of 1068 data journalism articles published by 6 newspapers (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El mundo, El Periódico, El Pais) between 2017-2019, and interviews with 15 participants from 6 newspapers (Marca, Mundo Deportivo, AS, El Mundo, El Confidencial, El País). Both quantitative and qualitative analysis focus on how data journalism is being adapted in Spain, its current situation and technical features, opportunities and threats in its development.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-88).
This thesis presents new methods designed for the deconstruction and reassembly of musical works based on a target emotional contour. Film soundtracks provide an ideal testing ground for organizing music around strict timing and emotional criteria. The approach to media analysis applies Minsky's ideas of frame-arrays to the context of film music, revealing musical and emotional cue points of a work. Media deconstructions provide a framework for the assembly of new musical material, leading to the creation of soundtracks using musical commonsense.
by G. Scott Vercoe.
S.M.

Behavior-driven development (BDD) is a development practice focusing on behaviors and requirements from users and stakeholders. It is designed to develop behaviors which contribute directly to system outcomes. BDD encourages multiple stakeholders to collaborate by minimizing communication gaps and create a shared understanding of the project between technical and non-technical speakers. As a result, the development process becomes faster and the cost lower. Although BDD has many benefits, there are teams who feel inertia towards using it as their main development practice.This thesis work took place at a company with a strong agile foundation. It had the goal to investigate reasons why teams feel inertia against BDD, and thus contribute to BDD research and assist the company. The assumption that positive motivation would help in dispelling inertia was the idea behind this thesis work, and that a stronger motivation for a practice can be achieved by assessing a team’s suitability for it. To reach the goal of the thesis a qualitative research methodology was used, with a focus on obtaining a better understanding of opinions and behaviors that exist, with rounds of interviews and forms as the main method of data collection. Interviews were also consistently used throughout the thesis work to validate that it followed the right track.The inertia which teams at the company have experienced was clustered into different dimensions. These dimensions were used to develop a self-assessment tool intended to help people starting a project to assess how well BDD might fit their context. It allows people to assess their inertia in the different dimensions identified, and as well as attempting to give an overall guide to readiness, also giving some recommendations where gaps could be identified.The deliverable of the thesis work is the tool for managing inertia against BDD. It was developed in a spreadsheet-format for quick development and easy access for multiple users. However, it is important to highlight that this tool focuses on agile autonomous teams. The tool is not about forcing the development practice on someone but rather acts as an aid in giving insight into how well BDD could work for a specific project and team. Finally, to grasp the validity of the tool teams who had previous success developing projects using BDD at the company were able to try it out to see how well it reflected their project reality. The tool also got tested on teams who felt strong inertia towards BDD, to verify whether it helped them manage it or not.
Beteendedriven utveckling (BDD), är ett arbetssätt som fokuserar på beteenden och krav från både användare och intressenter. Det är utvecklat för att främja och skapa beteenen som bidrar till det önskade målet. Några av BDDs fördelar är att arbetssättet uppmuntrar intressenterna till tätt samarbete, att minska luckor i kommunikation och information samt att det skapar en delad förståelse för projektet mellan teknisktoch icke-tekniskt kunniga intressenter. En positiv konsekvens av detta är att utvecklingen tenderar att bli snabbare och kostnaderna lägre. BDD ser till att alla inblandade är eniga om vilket resultat man kan förvänta sig från ett utvecklingsprojekt, redan innan utvecklingen börjar. Detta gör att de missförstånd som är vanligt förekommande mellan intressenter och utvecklingsteam reduceras. Trots att BDD, som nämnts, har flera fördelar finns det team som känner motstånd mot att använda BDD som sitt huvudsakliga arbetssätt.Antagandet att motivation kan bidra till att minska motståndet och att motivationen kan skapas genom att påvisa för team hur lämpligt BDD skulle vara för just dem var ideén bakom detta arbete. Det utfördes på ett företag med stark agil bas. Målet var att identifiera och utreda orsakerna till att team känner motstånd mot BDD, och på så sätt bidra till forskningen och samtidigt hjälpa företaget med en ökad insikt i detta. Syftet med arbetet var att utveckla ett verktyg för att hjälpa team förstå sitt motstånd mot BDD och guida dem till hur de kan hantera det. För att nå målet användes en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med fokus på att få en bättre förståelse för åsikter och beteenden som finns angående BDD. Olika rundor av intervjuer utgjorde den huvudsakliga datainsamlingen. Intervjuer användes också kontinuerligt för att validera att arbetet höll rätt kurs.Det motstånd mot BDD som påträffades på företaget grupperades i olika dimensioner. Dessa användes för att utveckla slutprodukten av kandidatexamensarbetet, ett självskattningsverktyg. För att underlätta utvecklingen valdes ett spreadsheet-format på verktyget, detta även för att enkelt kunna dela det mellan flertalet intressenter.Det är viktigt att understryka att verktyget fokuserar på autonoma team. Det har inte som mål att tvinga någon att använda BDD, utan att agera som hjälp för att visa hur arbetssättet skulle kunna fungera för ett specifikt projekt och team. Slutligen, för att kunna verifiera kvaliteten på verktyget, utvärderades det i samarbete med team som tidigare på ett framgångsrikt sätt utvecklat ett projekt med BDD. Detta för att se om självskattningsverktygets utsägelse motsvarade teamets helhetsupplevelse. Verktyget testades också av andra team för att se om det var till hjälp för dem eller inte.

After implementing a statewide standardized testing program in 1998, the Virginia Department of Education realized that some schools were making great gains in student achievement while other schools continued to struggle. The Department conducted a study to identify the practices used by schools showing improvement. Six effective practice domains were identified. The current study was a follow-up to the research conducted by the Virginia Department of Education. A questionnaire measuring the six effective practice domains: (a) curriculum alignment, (b) time and scheduling, (c) use of data, (d) professional development, (e) school culture, and (f) leadership was administered to teachers in 148 schools in Virginia; 80 schools participated. Two questions guided the study: (1) How frequently do schools use the Virginia Department of Education effective practices, and (2) what is the relationship between the use of the effective practices and school pass rates on the 3rd grade 2005 Standards of Learning (SOL) reading test? Descriptive statistics, linear regression, and discriminant function analysis were applied to explore the relationships between the predictor variables (percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch and the use of the effective practices) and the criterion variable (school pass rate on the 2005 SOL 3rd grade reading test). Academic culture and the percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch accounted for significant amounts of the variance in school pass rates. The remaining five effective practice measures were not related to school pass rates. The measures may have affected the results. In most cases, one person was used as the proxy for the school, and this person may have provided a biased assessment of what was happening in the school.
Ed. D.

This research provides a study of practices of innovative ideation. The literature highlights the need for more radical innovation as drivers for customer delight, and more innovative approaches to understanding customers. However, both the theory and application, including the resultant practise describe and present a product-centred approach to innovation as best practise. Using an Action Research methodology within the Advanced Product Group of a well known automotive manufacturer; the technical centre of another well known automotive manufacturer and the industrial design department of a university, this exploratory and descriptive study contributes to the understanding and practise of more innovative approaches to customer driven ideation. Literature suggests that integrating customer understanding into the earliest stages of new product development was critical both to its effectiveness and its ability to innovate. This study, therefore aimed to investigate innovative ideation by considering two key factors: 1. Its integration into the early stages of the product design and development process 2. Industrial design practises of customer understanding The research concluded on Industrial Design practise as well as the evolving practise of Innovative Ideation. Industrial designers' participate in ideation processes and practices in a unique way, not fully represented or accounted for in existing prescriptions for integrating customer understanding. They require specific types of information, usually general in nature and presented visually. Information integrated into these practises is often substantiated with case study and example-based evidence or data. The potential to innovate is regarded as the single most significant motivator for designers to participate in customer understanding. Paradoxically, designers' processes use and rely upon 'product' as a focus for innovation and communication of design integrity. A designer's key role and most significant contribution, is in creative and strategic thinking: (new ideas: IDEATION): that is the integration of the actions of idea generation and the formulation of creative design responses; and the proposal of new concepts, which place a strong emphasis on increasing the desirability of 'product experiences' or new behaviours. This orientation of design considerations and the questions associated with them are particularly unique to industrial design disciplines. They are systems based and holistic in their approach in order to prioritise customer needs within the design brief. An important early aspect is the identification of customer attitudes and activities, which broadens the design considerations. This study relates these findings to an existing Empathic Design methodology and Kano's model of delight (1995), as identified best practice drivers for ideation. This study also concludes that 'Empathic Design' (it's theory, descriptions, definitions and practise) and product design as a discipline (its profile, uses and practise) need to evolve in order to embrace customer understanding as a pathway to innovation.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of a Data Driven Learning (DDL) approach on Iranian EFL learners' writing skills development and their attitudes towards the approach. A pre-test post-test control group design supplemented by a set of interviews and a questionnaire was employed to collect the required data. The control group received instructions through a conventional method while the experimental group received a certain number of classroom concordance-based handouts in addition to the conventional method. It was found that the DDL group participants can improve their declarative knowledge more than the Non-DDL group. Regarding analytic scoring, the results show that the DDL participants have improved their ‘language use’ features more than the Non-DDL group. This finding has been supported by the results obtained from analysing the ‘Accuracy’ measures. In the CAF analysis, lack of improvement in 'Complexity' features of the learners' performance and slight regression in mean length of T units and mean length of clause was explained as an indication of a trade-off between accuracy and fluency. Results obtained from qualitative data showed the participants’ positive attitudes towards the DDL approach. It was also found that DDL-based materials can help teachers in getting learners involved with learning through 'noticing'.

In order to improve his own teaching practice, the researcher observed and studied student-driven approaches to public art education that not only achieved the aims of the national standards, but also encouraged secondary students' engagement with art in personally relevant ways. Inspired and informed by these observations and studies, the researcher developed a curriculum based more on student concerns, which was studied using action research. The action research approach was driven by experimentation with the curriculum's content as well as its implementation and is fundamentally about improving the researcher's own teaching practice. Hence, the study focuses largely on the researcher's curriculum and teaching. Relationships or correlations between intrinsic motivation, engaging with art in critical ways, and classroom autonomy are explored in the present study. This thesis investigates what students might accomplish when given more autonomy over their projects and learning opportunities. This study focused largely on how a student-driven approach changed the researcher's own feelings and understandings about teaching and learning. The results of the present study lead to a variety of conclusions regarding teaching, curriculum, and student learning.

Thesis advisor: Diana Pullin
The current high stakes testing environment has resulted in intense pressure on schools to become more data-driven. As a result, an increasing number of schools are implementing systems where teachers and school leaders collaboratively analyze assessment data and use the results to inform instructional practice. This study examined how teacher participation in the analysis of assessment data influences instructional outcomes. It also examined how levels of capacity in the areas of data use, professional learning, and leadership interact to influence the ability to respond to data. The method is a qualitative case study of an elementary school in the southeastern United States that has implemented formal structures for analyzing and collaborating around assessment data. Data collection occurred through teacher and administrator interviews, data analysis meeting observations, and through the examination of school and district documents. The school in this study responded to data analysis results through three major actions: large-scale initiatives designed to improve instruction in various content areas, remediation, and individual teacher variations in instructional practices. Findings show that while teachers express support for data analysis and suggest positive benefits for the school, they also indicate that participation in data analysis and the resultant improvement efforts have had minimal to modest impact on their teaching practices. Possibly contributing to this outcome was the finding that the school had uneven capacity in the areas of data use, professional learning, and leadership. The school has a well-developed system for data access and reporting. However, it has been less successful in providing the professional learning experiences that will enable more substantial changes in teacher beliefs and practices. Furthermore, a lack of clarity regarding the instructional purpose of data analysis from multiple levels of district and school leadership and the procedural nature of the data analysis process has reduced the ability of school leaders to effectively leverage data analysis for the purpose of substantive and sustained instructional improvement
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011
Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education
Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education

Despite the importance an urban school district places on data-driven decision-making (DDDM) to drive instruction, implementation continues to remain a challenge. The purpose of this study was to investigate how support systems affected the implementation of DDDM to drive instructional practices in three urban schools that recently transitioned from priority or focus to good standing on the State Accountability Report. The study aligned with the organizational supports conceptual framework with an emphasis on data accessibility, collection methods, reliability and validity, the use of coaches and data teams, professional development, and data-driven leaders. Through the collection of qualitative data from one-on-one interviews, the research questions asked about the perspectives on data culture and data driven instructional practices of three school leaders and nine teachers. The data were triangulated to generate a thematic illustration of content that was coded and analyzed to identify solid patterns and themes. Findings suggest that leaders create a data-driven school culture by establishing a school-wide vision, developing a DDDM cycle, creating a collaborative DDDM support system, communicating data as a school community, and changing the way technology is used in DDDM initiatives. Based on the findings, a project in the form of a white paper was developed, using research to support that when data is regularly used to hone student skills, a positive shift in overall teacher practices occurs. This shift provides the potential for positive social change when students have opportunities to attain academic goals, resulting in increased student achievement and higher graduation rates.

L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és obrir la caixa negra de la creativitat i millorar el coneixement de com s'ha de gestionar en les organitzacions. De fet, gestionar la creativitat a les organitzacions requereix no tan sols comprendre què és la creativitat i els mecanismes que permeten que la creativitat aflori i es transformi en productes comercialitzables, sinó també identificar les pràctiques que poden ajudar les empreses a atraure i a retenir els qui tenen més bon potencial creatiu. A aquest efecte, s'estructura en cinc capítols. El capítol 1 examina la metodologia de la tesi i descriu detalladament les preguntes, el procés i el disseny de la recerca així com la industria cultural com a camp de recerca. El capítol 2 és un estudi conceptual que revisa la bibliografia sobre la creativitat, cercant d'aclarir les definicions. L'estudi analitza 94 definicions seleccionades després de consultar 50 llibres i 462 articles publicats en journals de gestió entre 1990 i 2008, i hi aplica la metodologia d'anàlisi de continguts. Els resultats assenyalen que, en general, són d'acceptació general sis categories conceptuals de creativitat: la creació, la síntesi, el resultat, la modificació, les interaccions i la implicació (engagement). S'analitzen amb profunditat totes aquestes categories conceptuals i els seus elements definidors. El capítol 3 busca identificar els mecanismes socials que permeten disciplinar una passió creativa i convertir-la en productes culturals que arribin al mercat. Proposa un marc teòric multinivell, centrat en dos conjunts de mecanismes: (1) els rols que encenen la creativitat (creativity-igniting roles), que activen l'esforç creatiu, i (2) les relacions que optimitzen la creativitat (creativity-enhancing relationships), que posen en relació els creadors individuals amb les firmes creatives. L'estudi es basa en la teoria de rols i en una orientació a la coordinació basada en els rols (Bechky, 2006), i agrupa quatre rols essencials que engloben les activitats bàsiques del procés de convertir la passió creativa en productes culturals: creador, emprenedor, integrador i patrocinador. S'utilitza la perspectiva relacional de l'activitat creativa per manifestar la importància de les relacions que optimitzen la creativitat en posar en relació els creadors individuals amb les empreses dedicades a la producció de productes culturals. Els mecanismes socials s'il·lustren amb tres casos d'estudi d'empreses que pertanyen a sectors culturals que segueixen diferents orientacions a l'hora de convertir la passió en productes. El capítol 4 se centra bàsicament en les pràctiques de gestió dels recursos humans (HRM) que permeten a les empreses atraure i retenir els empleats creatius. En conseqüència, aquest estudi proposa un marc conceptual i analitza el rol que juguen dues variables, la identitat ("qui som com a organització" - Albert i Whetten, 1985) i la imatge ("com pensen els membres de l'organització que la veuen els de fora" - Dutton et al. 1994), a l'hora d'influir en la relació entre les pràctiques de gestió dels recursos humans i la rotació. En concret, mostra que tant la identitat com la imatge poden augmentar o reduir la incidència de les pràctiques de gestió dels recursos humans sobre la rotació interna i externa. El capítol 5 conclou la tesi resumint, connectant i interpretant categories conceptuals resultat empírics. Per a concloure, proposa un marc teòric multinivell sobre com la creativitat ocorre en les organitzacions incloent tant els mecanismes socials com les practiques de gestió de recursos humans.
El objetivo de esta tesis es abrir la caja negra de la creatividad y mejorar el conocimiento de cómo se debe gestionar en las organizaciones. Conseguir este objetivo requiere primero, aclarar qué es la creatividad y cuáles son los elementos que la constituyen; segundo, investigar los mecanismos específicos que permiten que la creatividad se desarrolle y sea disciplinada y transformada en un producto comercializable y tercero, identificar las prácticas que ayuden a las empresas a retener talentos creativos. A tal efecto, esta tesis se estructura en cinco capítulos. El capítulo 1 examina la metodología de la tesis y describe en detalle las preguntas, el proceso y el diseño de investigación, así como la industria cultural como campo de investigación. El capítulo 2 revisa la bibliografía sobre la creatividad e investiga distintas definiciones de este término para aclarar sus categorías conceptuales: de hecho, a pesar de los numerosos intentos de definir la creatividad, falta claridad sobre su definición. Por lo tanto, el estudio analiza 94 definiciones seleccionadas tras consultar 50 libros y 462 artículos publicados en journals de gestión entre 1990 y 2008, y les aplica la metodología de análisis de contenidos. Los resultados señalan que, en general, son de aceptación general seis categorías conceptuales de creatividad: la creación, la síntesis, el resultado, la modificación, las interacciones y el engagement. Se analizan en profundidad todas estas categorías conceptuales y sus elementos definidores. El capítulo 3 busca identificar los mecanismos sociales que permiten disciplinar una pasión creativa y convertirla en productos culturales que lleguen al mercado. Avanza un marco teórico multinivel, centrado en dos conjuntos de mecanismos: (1) los roles que encienden la creatividad (creativity-igniting roles), que activan el esfuerzo creativo, y (2) las relaciones que optimizan la creatividad (creativity-enhancing relationships), que ponen en relación a los creadores individuales con las firmas creativas. El estudio se basa en la teoría de roles y en una orientación a la coordinación basada en los roles (Bechky, 2006), y agrupa cuatro roles esenciales que engloban las actividades básicas del proceso de convertir la pasión creativa en productos culturales: creador, emprendedor, integrador y patrocinador. Se usa la perspectiva relacional de la actividad creativa para manifestar la importancia de las relaciones que optimizan la creatividad al poner en relación a los creadores individuales con las empresas dedicadas a la producción de productos culturales. Los mecanismos sociales se ilustran mediante tres casos de estudio de empresas pertenecientes a sectores culturales que siguen distintas orientaciones para convertir la pasión en productos. El capítulo 4 se centra básicamente en las prácticas de gestión de los recursos humanos (HRM) que permiten a las empresas atraer y retener a sus empleados creativos. El capítulo propone un marco conceptual y analiza el rol que juegan dos variables, la identidad ("quiénes somos como organización" - Albert y Whetten, 1985) y la imagen ("cómo piensan los miembros de la organización que la ven los de fuera" - Dutton et al. 1994), a la hora de influir en la relación entre las prácticas de gestión de los recursos humanos y la rotación. En concreto, muestra que tanto la identidad como la imagen pueden aumentar o reducir la incidencia de las prácticas de gestión de los recursos humanos sobre la rotación interna y externa. El capítulo 5 concluye la tesis resumiendo, conectando e interpretando categorías conceptuales y resultados empíricos. Para concluir, propone un marco teórico multinivel sobre cómo la creatividad ocurre en las organizaciones incluyendo tanto los mecanismos sociales como las prácticas de gestión de recursos humanos.
The objective of this dissertation is to open up the black box of creativity and improve the understanding on how it can be managed in organizations. Fulfilling this purpose requires first, clarifying what creativity is and the elements that constitute it; second, investigating the specific mechanisms that allow creativity to take place and be disciplined and transformed into marketable products and third, identifying the practices that can help companies retain creative employees. Accordingly, this research has been structured in five chapters. Chapter one overviews the dissertation's methodology and describes in detail the research questions, process, and design, as well as cultural industry as an empirical setting. Chapter two reviews the literature on creativity and examines different definitions of the term, in order to provide clarity: in fact, despite the numerous attempts to define creativity, an agreement on its definition is still to emerge. Therefore, it performs a content analysis on 94 definitions collected on 50 books and 462 articles published in selected management journals from 1990 to 2008. The results suggest that six conceptual categories on creativity enjoy general support: creation, synthesis, output, modification, interactions, and engagement. All these conceptual categories and their defining elements are analyzed in depth. Chapter three seeks to identify the social mechanisms that allow disciplining a creative passion and translating it into cultural products that reach the market. It develops theory, by advancing a multi-level theoretical framework, which focuses on two sets of mechanisms: (1) creativity-igniting roles that energize a creative endeavour, and (2) creativity-enhancing relationships that link individual creators with creative firms. The chapter builds on role theory and a role-based approach to coordination (Bechky, 2006), bringing together four essential roles that encompass core activities in the process of translating creative passion into cultural products: creator, entrepreneur, integrator, and sponsor. The relational perspective to the creative activity is used to articulate the importance of creativity-enhancing relationships that bind individual creators with companies dedicated to the production of cultural products. The social mechanisms are illustrated with insights from three case studies of companies from cultural sectors that offer distinct approaches to translating passion into products. Chapter four is a study of the human resource management practices related to creative employees' retention in a creativity-driven organization. Based on one in-depth case study pertaining to the fashion and design industry, it explores the link "HRM practices-turnover", providing evidence of the role that two variables, namely, identity ("who we are as an organization" - Albert & Whetten, 1985) and image ("how organization members think outsiders see the organization" - Dutton et al. 1994), play in affecting this relationship. Chapter five concludes the dissertation by summarizing, linking and interpreting conceptual categories and empirical results. Finally, it advances a multilevel theoretical framework on how creativity happens in organizations, including both social mechanisms and HRM practices.

Palm oil production create a number of solid biomass waste products, in particular empty fruit bunches and mesocarp fiber; two cellulosic plant materials that are under-utilized and a source of environmental pollution today. Their fibred structure are interesting from an industrial design perspective as similar waste products from industrialized crops are used to create composite materials. This bachelor thesis is based on an initial research phase of the palm oil industry in Thailand, where literary studies, case-studies and interviews were used to gain understanding of how the palm oil industry in Thailand operates. This laid the foundation to a material driven design process; an exploratory phase where samples of waste products collected during the research phase were tinkered with, to create composite materials of natural fibers and starch-based plastics. The materials created were characterized by their technical properties, and evaluated through a focus group of Thai students to define their experiential characteristics. The insights learned from the evaluation were used to create a demonstrative concept of how the material can be put to future use. The experiential characterization showed that the material have valuable sensorial, performative, emotional and interpretive properties, such as strength, flexibility and translucency, while being perceived as elegant, amusing, strange and natural. This leads to the conclusion that there is possible added value in the waste products that are seen as a nuisance today. Parallel to the material driven design process, samples of empty fruit bunches and mesocarp fiber were used to develop a 3D-printing filament. While only simple test prints have been tried at the time of writing, it provides proof of concept.

Nonrigid deformation modeling and estimation from images is a technically challenging task due to its nonlinear, nonconvex and high-dimensional nature. Traditional optimization procedures often rely on good initializations and give locally optimal solutions. On the other hand, learning-based methods that directly model the relationship between deformed images and their parameters either cannot handle complicated forms of mapping, or suffer from the Nyquist Limit and the curse of dimensionality due to high degrees of freedom in the deformation space. In particular, to achieve a worst-case guarantee of ∈ error for a deformation with d degrees of freedom, the sample complexity required is O(1/∈d). In this thesis, a generative model for deformation is established and analyzed using a unified theoretical framework. Based on the framework, three algorithms, Data-Driven Descent, Top-down and Bottom-up Hierarchical Models, are designed and constructed to solve the generative model. Under Lipschitz conditions that rule out unsolvable cases (e.g., deformation of a blank image), all algorithms achieve globally optimal solutions to the specific generative model. The sample complexity of these methods is substantially lower than that of learning-based approaches, which are agnostic to deformation modeling. To achieve global optimality guarantees with lower sample complexity, the structureembedded in the deformation model is exploited. In particular, Data-driven Descentrelates two deformed images that are far away in the parameter space by compositionalstructures of deformation and reduce the sample complexity to O(Cd log 1/∈).Top-down Hierarchical Model factorizes the local deformation into patches once theglobal deformation has been estimated approximately and further reduce the samplecomplexity to O(Cd/1+C2 log 1/∈). Finally, the Bottom-up Hierarchical Model buildsrepresentations that are invariant to local deformation. With the representations, theglobal deformation can be estimated independently of local deformation, reducingthe sample complexity to O((C/∈)d0) (d0 ≪ d). From the analysis, this thesis showsthe connections between approaches that are traditionally considered to be of verydifferent nature. New theoretical conjectures on approaches like Deep Learning, arealso provided. practice, broad applications of the proposed approaches have also been demonstrated to estimate water distortion, air turbulence, cloth deformation and human pose with state-of-the-art results. Some approaches even achieve near real-time performance. Finally, application-dependent physics-based models are built with good performance in document rectification and scene depth recovery in turbulent media.

This dissertation joins an ongoing discussion in the business management and information technology literature surrounding the measurement of an organization’s business analytic capability, the benefits derived from maturing the capability and the improvements being made toward maturity. The dissertation specifically focuses on the healthcare industry in the United States and more specifically independent physician practices specializing in orthopaedics. After an extensive literature review along with expertise from industry leaders and experienced academic faculty, a survey instrument was developed to measure organizational capabilities, technology capabilities and people capabilities which together measured an organizations overall business analytic capability maturity. The survey instrument was delivered to 89 C-suite executives in the target population. A response rate of 36% was achieved resulting in a total of 32 completed responses. The research study provides evidence that improving an organization’s business analytic capability leads to an improvement in the use of analytics to drive business performance. The research study also explored whether or not the use of analytics would improve business outcomes. The results were inconclusive. This could be due to the lag time between the use of analytics and business performance. In addition, the study did not have access to actual outcome data but rather asked the CEO’s whether or not performance in several areas had improved, remained stable or had declined. This measure may not have been precise enough to provide the predictive value needed. As such, this is an area that should be explored further. Finally, the research shows that over the past two years, physician practices have been focused on and successful in improving their business analytic capabilities. Despite these improvements, opportunities exist for physician practices to further their maturity, particularly in the areas of technology capabilities and people capabilities.

Mandates have been issued for educators to collaborate and improve student achievement, requiring a change in instructional practices through teacher talk. Teachers have struggled to make the transitional conversion from team planning to observed changes in instructional practices with evidence of improvement. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how teachers collaborated while following the Ohio Improvement Process. The purpose was then to make data-driven changes regarding instructional practices in the continuous improvement cycle. The conceptual framework was constructed from the teachers' dialogic stances towards talk of instruction, along with the intellectual and emotional attitudes teachers have about making changes. The guiding research question examined the ways teachers have been influenced by each other to make changes in instructional practices. The case study design observed a sample of 10 teachers from two teacher-based teams, with five of those teachers being interviewed. Observational data were examined for dialogic stance toward talk of instructional practices, whereas interview data were analyzed looking for evidence of the cognitive restructuring. Statements were categorized as motivations and influences. The analysis revealed that the teachers are changing their thinking through motivations and influences from collaboration. Literature has supported the findings that teachers could benefit from a gradual implementation process leading to the continuous improvement cycle. By developing a policy recommendation paper with a focus on teacher learning, positive social change may include preparing and empowering teachers for the changes that occur through collaboration.

Research findings in requirements engineering (RE) report that software organizations still struggle in establishing processes that lead to proper requirements handling. This leads to the acknowledgement that the adoption of good requirements engineering practices by industry is still not common. Although some initiatives have been made to spread the use of good practices of bespoke RE, the area of market-driven requirements engineering (MDRE) still lacks a contribution in that direction. MDRE is characterized by strong market and strategic orientation, which contrasts with the customer/development organization relationship of bespoke RE. This poses several challenges to software product organizations, such as the need for aligning development activities with organizational and product strategies. In an attempt to help these organizations to realize the benefits of MDRE, this Master Thesis presents the Market-Driven Requirements Engineering Process Model (MDREPM). MDREPM is both a collection of good practices in MDRE, and an assessment tool for organizations to get a snapshot of the current state of their MDRE practices. The assessment intends to reveal problem areas of organization’s requirements process, which can then be worked upon by introducing good practices described in the model. The thesis describes the motivation for creating MDREPM, both from an academia and industry perspectives. In addition, it describes the process of developing the model, from its creation through to its validation within academia and industry. As the series of three case studies conducted indicate, the MDREPM has been shown to be useful for industry practitioners. A unanimous opinion has been found as to the good coverage it provides of issues related to MDRE, and as to its usefulness for driving improvement efforts in requirements engineering.

Purpose: Healthcare organizations are mandated to improve quality and safety for patients while stressed with shorter lengths of stay, communication lapses between disciplines, and patient throughput issues that impede timely delivery of patient care. Nurses play a prominent role in the safe transition of patients from admission to discharge. Although nurses participate in discharge planning, limited research has addressed the role and outcomes of the registered nurse as a leader in the process. The aim of this study was determine if implementation of a nurse-driven discharge planning protocol for patients undergoing cardiac implant would result in improved organizational efficiencies, higher medication reconciliation rates, and higher patient satisfaction scores. Methods: A two-group posttest experimental design was used to conduct the study. Informed consent was obtained from 53 individuals scheduled for a cardiac implant procedure. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a nurse-driven discharge planning intervention group or a control group. Post procedure, 46 subjects met inclusion criteria with half (n=23) assigned to each group. All subjects received traditional discharge planning services. The morning after the cardiac implant procedure, a specially trained registered nurse assessed subjects in the intervention for discharge readiness. Subjects in the intervention groups were then discharged under protocol orders by the intervention nurse after targeted physical assessment, review of the post procedure chest radiograph, and examination of the cardiac implant device function. The intervention nurse also provided patient education, discharge instructions, and conducted medication reconciliation. The day after discharge the principal investigator conducted a scripted follow-up phone call to answer questions and monitor for post procedure complications. A Hospital Discharge Survey was administered during the subject's follow-up appointment. Results: The majority of subjects were men, Caucasian, insured, and educated at the high school level or higher. Their average age was 73.5+ 9.8 years. No significant differences between groups were noted for gender, type of insurance, education, or type of cardiac implant (chi-square); or age (t-test). A Mann-Whitney U test (one-tailed) found no significant difference in variable cost per case (p=.437) and actual charges (p=.403) between the intervention and control groups. Significant differences were found between groups for discharge satisfaction (p=.05) and the discharge perception of overall health (p=.02), with those in the intervention group reporting higher scores. Chi square analysis found no significant difference in 30-day readmission rates (p=.520). Using an independent samples t-test, those in the intervention group were discharged earlier (p=.000), had a lower length of stay (p=.005), and had higher rates of reconciled medications (p=.000). The odds of having all medications reconciled were significantly higher in the intervention group (odds ratio, 50.27; 95% CI, 5.62-450.2; p=.000). Discussion/Implications: This is the first study to evaluate the role of the nurse as a clinical leader in patient throughput, discharge planning, and patient safety initiatives. A nurse driven discharge planning protocol resulted in earlier discharge times which can have a dramatic impact on patient throughput. The nurse driven protocol significantly reduced the likelihood of unreconciled medications at discharge and significantly increased patient satisfaction. Follow-up research is needed to determine if a registered nurse can impact organizational efficiency and discharge safety in other patient populations.
Ph.D.
School of Nursing
Other
Nursing PhD

This commentary and portfolio of works documents my compositional research into algorithmically driven synthesis and feedback systems. The foundation on which all my work rests consists of self-reference, feedback, emergent properties and algorithmically mediated interaction. Feedback is the lowest common denominator in this process and is for me an essential part of evolution and life and provides a means to create organic sonic forms that generate complex behaviours and phenomena. The predominant approach taken to realise such behaviours is by means of sound synthesis. The preference for sound synthesis is also a means by which compositional elements can interact with each other in a purely sonic manner. To me working with synthesis is like working with organic and living material instead of piling static sounds on top of, or next to each other. In order to work with complex synthesis in an intuitive and direct way I have investigated and developed new methods to control the large number parameters required. To achieve this my main tool has been algorithmically mediated interaction in combination with simple input devices such as a joystick. When sound files are utilised in a piece they are means to engender a way of working that is outside of my comfort zone. This ‘painting oneself into a corner’ is an important practical and aesthetic choice and is demonstrated in a number of documented instances in the creative portfolio. Even though a large part of my work consists of solo work my main source of inspiration comes from working with other people whether it is performing, composing, rehearsing, or building sound installations. All the collaborations I have been part of have been of great importance for me but I have chosen to discuss those that have been significant in the development of my aesthetics, my performance and studio set-up as well as my working methods.

Thesis advisor: Dorothy A. Jones
Thesis advisor: Pamela J. Grace
The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between multiple variables within a model of critical thinking and moral reasoning that support and refine the elements that significantly correlate with accuracy and clinical decision-making. Background: Research to date has identified multiple factors that are integral to clinical decision-making. The interplay among suggested elements within the decision making process particular to the nurse, the patient, and the environment remain unknown. Determining the clinical usefulness and predictive capacity of an integrated ethically driven environmental model of decision making (IEDEM-CD) in emergency settings in facilitating accuracy in problem identification is critical to initial interventions and safe, cost effective, quality patient care outcomes. Extending the literature of accuracy and clinical decision making can inform utilization, determination of staffing ratios, and the development of evidence driven care models. Methodology: The study used a quantitative descriptive correlational design to examine the relationships between multiple variables within the IEDEM-CD model. A purposive sample of emergency nurses was recruited to participate in the study resulting in a sample size of 200, calculated to yield a power of 0.80, significance of .05, and a moderate effect size. The dependent variable, accuracy in clinical decision-making, was measured by scores on clinical vignettes. The independent variables of moral reasoning, perceived environment of care, age, gender, certification in emergency nursing, educational level, and years of experience in emergency nursing, were measures by the Defining Issues Test, version 2, the Revised Professional Practice Environment scale, and a demographic survey. These instruments were identified to test and refine the elements within the IEDEM-CD model. Data collection occurred via internet survey over a one month period. Rest's Defining Issues Test, version 2 (DIT-2), the Revised Professional Practice Environment tool (RPPE), clinical vignettes as well as a demographic survey were made available as an internet survey package using Qualtrics TM. Data from each participant was scored and entered into a PASW database. The analysis plan included bivariate correlation analysis using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficients followed by chi square and multiple linear regression analysis. Findings: The elements as identified in the IEDEM-CD model supported moral reasoning and environment of care as factors significantly affecting accuracy in decision-making. Findings reported that in complex clinical situations, higher levels of moral reasoning significantly affected accuracy in problem identification. Attributes of the environment of care including teamwork, communication about patients, and control over practice also significantly affected nurses' critical cue recognition and selection of appropriate interventions. Study results supported the conceptualization of the IEDEM-CD model and its usefulness as a framework for predicting clinical decision making accuracy for emergency nurses in practice, with further implications in education, research and policy
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011
Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing
Discipline: Nursing

Information technologies are experiencing rapid transformation which has increased the amount of data available to organizational leaders. This advancement in technology and data has generated the need for increased focus at every level of the organization making evidence-based decision-making overwhelming. The research paper studies the impact of data-driven decision-making on organizational performance from the scholar-practitioner point of view with the aim of helping practitioners in this process. Based on an evidence-based approach a systematic review was used to select studies that were synthesized into a scholar-practitioner model. The approach combines what is known and not known about the research question at hand to give the best available evidence. The research evaluates thirty-four articles on data-driven decision-making, and organizational performance and provides leaders with a framework, based on evidence, to support them by simplifying this process into eight steps. The primary objective was to create a reliable assessment of the problem and evaluate the literature for solutions that are available for solving it. Using this technique, a management guide is provided so that practitioners can make the most of this research study.

Requirements Engineering has two main directions, Bespoke (product developed for one customer) and Market-Driven (several potential customers for the same product). These two are in some ways very much alike but in some aspects very different. Over the last couple of years the software development industry has tended to shift more and more to Market-Driven Requirements Engineering. This has brought attention to the challenges facing a Market-Driven development organization, without focusing on the actual shift from Bespoke development. Based on the differences and similarities between Bespoke and Market-Driven Requirements Engineering, this thesis presents a framework for shifting from the former to the latter. The framework (BESMART) involves three steps. Firstly, the organization assesses their potential to become more Market-Driven. Secondly they assess their current way of working to identify which areas that may need to be improved. Finally, BESMART provides multiple suggestions that address the identified improvement areas. The organization is then able to choose the one that best suits their needs. This also lets the organization choose a solution that they find feasible. The framework was used at a case organization during its development. This way it was ensured that the theoretical framework could actually be used in a real world setting. The practical use of BESMART resulted in some refinements aimed at making it more applicable in industry. Once the framework had been applied, it was evaluated by representatives from the case organization. The industry evaluation resulted in some improvement suggestions but showed that the framework was both useful and usable and provided an improvement plan that seemed promising enough to pilot in the organization.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Toledo, 2008.
Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Manufacturing Management and Engineering." Bibliography: leaves 156-164.