Knowledge Communication in Product Development Projects

During the last decades, a number of studies have been concerned with com-munication related to new product development. These have looked at either intra-organizational communication between departments or communication between new product development teams and external stakeholders such as customers or suppliers. Only little research, however, has combined internal and external stakeholder communication and explored the role of technology uncertainty on communication. The purpose of this study is to examine how technology uncertainty affects project manager communication behavior during new product development. We carried out an embedded case study of a major NPD project in the automation industry. The findings indicate that technology uncertainty is positively related to communication frequency between project manager and project stakeholders during the early phase of NPD project. In addition we found a negative association between technology uncertainty and the breadth and depth of communication between project manager and stakeholders in early phase of the NPD project. These findings indicate that under high technology uncertainty, managers of NPD projects modify their communication behavior not only with respect to how frequently they communicate with stakeholders, but also to which stakeholders they communicate and how deeply they engage different stakeholders in different phases of the new product development project.

Automated decision making and problem solving. Volume 2: Conference presentations

Related topics in artificial intelligence, operations research, and control theory are explored. Existing techniques are assessed and trends of development are determined

A resilience assessment framework for complex engineered systems using graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT)

System resilience characterizes the capability of maintaining the required functionality under disruptions, which is of great significance in evaluating the productivity and safety of complex engineered systems. Although most studies conduct resilience assessment from qualitative and quantitative perspectives, system functionality that reflects functional requirements for complex engineered systems needs to be elaborated. In addition, given that complex engineered systems achieve dynamic performance during disruptions, measuring the actual performance under uncertainty is imperative. To this end, this paper develops a quantitative framework to assess the resilience of complex engineered systems. The developed framework comprises three phases, functionality analysis, performance evaluation, and resilience assessment. Firstly, system functionality is analyzed using a functional tree illustrating the relationship between functions. The overall objective, primary functions, and sub-functions are identified according to task requirements. Secondly, system performance is quantified considering uncertain factors through Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT). Probabilistic branches and network logic are employed to represent the implementation of various functions. Finally, resilience assessment is carried out from the perspectives of anticipation, absorption, adaptation, and restoration abilities. A case study on the satellite network shows the effectiveness of the developed framework. The developed framework determines system functionality based on task requirements, evaluates system performance with limited information, and accurately assesses system resilience

Design and performance analysis of an Integrated Voice/Data (IVD) protocol for a token ring network

A high performance integrated voice/data (IVD) protocol for token ring networks that operates over a wide range of data traffic levels is developed and analyzed in this dissertation;The problems raised by integrating voice/data in local area networks are identified. These problems include variable network access delay and end-to-end delay limit of voice packets, and queueing delay of data packets;In the design of the IVD protocol, a packet format is selected, conditions for selecting network parameters are derived, and a channel allocation strategy is described to provide high quality of voice over a wide range of data traffic levels while preserving satisfactory data performance;The implementation issues, specification, and operation of the proposed protocol are described based on the standard IEEE 802.5 token ring protocol. The implementation issues are studied for two principal purposes: not to modify the operating data protocol and to utilize the bandwidth for data packets when voice stations are idle. A state transition diagram is used to specify the proposed protocol;A discrete-event model of the proposed IVD protocol is developed for the accurate performance evaluation of data and real-time voice traffic. In modeling the protocol, all the necessary information which affects the state of the system are considered including location of stations;The voice/data performance of the proposed IVD token ring protocol is evaluated and the effects of voice on data and vice versa are studied. The proposed protocol provides high quality of voice without a large degradation on the data performance over a wide range of data loads

Traversing the journey from student teacher to full teacher certification

This research aims to investigate the journey of student teachers as they complete their program of study and begin their careers in the teaching profession. There is little documented evidence of what, if any, impact an initial teacher education program can have on teachers as they move through the profession – from student to newly qualified teacher to fully certificated teacher. This project will explore this relationship and how graduates call on the knowledge acquired in their initial teacher education qualification to inform their practice as teachers. The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is currently undertaking a project examining Future Focussed Initial Teacher Education this project will complement this work as well as the Ministry of Education's Draft Strategic Plan for Early Learning. The aims of both of these pieces of work are to provide quality learning outcomes for all children and effective teaching strategies. This project will explore these aims and the relationship between an initial teacher education program. Abstracts—Day 1: Wednesday, July 3rd ● 33 The research is a longitudinal study with three phases. The first phase investigated graduates perceptions of preparedness to teach and as they enter the workforce how their field-based initial teacher education training has contributed to this. The next two phases will follow the newly qualified teachers as the transverse the induction and mentoring towards full certification. In these two phases of this research the participants will become teacher researchers

Early Human Vocalization Development: A Collection of Studies Utilizing Automated Analysis of Naturalistic Recordings and Neural Network Modeling

Understanding early human vocalization development is a key part of understanding the origins of human communication. What are the characteristics of early human vocalizations and how do they change over time? What mechanisms underlie these changes? This dissertation is a collection of three papers that take a computational approach to addressing these questions, using neural network simulation and automated analysis of naturalistic data.The first paper uses a self-organizing neural network to automatically derive holistic acoustic features characteristic of prelinguistic vocalizations. A supervised neural network is used to classify vocalizations into human-judged categories and to predict the age of the child vocalizing. The study represents a first step toward taking a data-driven approach to describing infant vocalizations. Its performance in classification represents progress toward developing automated analysis tools for coding infant vocalization types.The second paper is a computational model of early vocal motor learning. It adapts a popular type of neural network, the self-organizing map, in order to control a vocal tract simulator and in order to have learning be dependent on whether the model\u27s actions are reinforced. The model learns both to control production of sound at the larynx (phonation), an early-developing skill that is a prerequisite for speech, and to produce vowels that gravitate toward the vowels in a target language (either English or Korean) for which it is reinforced. The model provides a computationally-specified explanation for how neuromotor representations might be acquired in infancy through the combination of exploration, reinforcement, and self-organized learning.The third paper utilizes automated analysis to uncover patterns of vocal interaction between child and caregiver that unfold over the course of day-long, totally naturalistic recordings. The participants include 16- to 48-month-old children with and without autism. Results are consistent with the idea that there is a social feedback loop wherein children produce speech-related vocalizations, these are preferentially responded to by adults, and this contingency of adult response shapes future child vocalizations. Differences in components of this feedback loop are observed in autism, as well as with different maternal education levels