Creation dependencies of evolutionary artefact and design process knowledge

As design progresses, artefact and process knowledge often evolve together. However, there is very limited knowledge on the true nature of the dependencies between these two elements of knowledge. This paper presents the first attempt to clearly define 'creation' dependencies, which cause a change in design knowledge. Three data analyses were used to identify the dependencies: two were in-depth protocol analyses of a single student product design project and a senior ship designer’s daily work, and a third was a quantitative questionnaire analysis involving seven experienced complex system designers from industry. The analyses revealed a set of 52 previously unknown creation dependencies between artefact and design process knowledge with commonality found in only 5, with additional dependencies being identified that were specific to the design being studied. Different frequencies of dependency occurrence and particular dependency loops were identified. In addition, the importance and role of domain knowledge were explicitly revealed. The described research highlights the need for further work to provide a more comprehensive definition of the nature of evolutionary artefact and design process knowledge dependencies. Identification of these dependencies offers a significant opportunity to develop tools and techniques with an enhanced ability to support 'what–if' analyses during design

A critical evaluation of competitive intelligence and insight management practice.

This thesis forms part of a PhD by Publication based on the research and scholarly work of Sheila Wright. It explores her contribution to the field of Competitive Intelligence & Insight Management (CI&IM) made through ten articles published between 2002 and 2010. The research projects that involved the collection of primary data were carried out within a qualitative research methodology using a semi-structured interview or case study method and typically adopting a pragmatic paradigm. Through this work, it has been possible to present a best-practice framework for CI&IM. Similarly, it has been possible to develop an operational framework for CI&IM, which identifies the inter-connectivity of the CI&IM tasks as well as the organisational influencing factors which can aid or hinder successful implementation. As well as engaging in a critical evaluation of current CI&IM practice the thesis indicates how the articles offer solutions which can aid the delivery of improved performance to practitioners as well as academics who teach and research the subject. The thesis also identifies the place of CI&IM in the business discipline and draws attention to the cross-boundary, inter-disciplinary nature of its reach. The development of bibliometric software and citation identification programmes has enabled the inclusion of a citation analysis for each article which also identifies the context within which that citation was made. This is presented as supporting evidence for the contribution to knowledge and value of the body of work. Through this mechanism it has also been possible, not only to identify the frequency with which the articles have been cited, but more importantly, the impact and contribution this has had on scholars who have subsequently used the output and frameworks as a basis for their own research.This is a PhD by Publication. Due to copyright restrictions, copies of the articles have been omitted in this version of the thesis. Full bibliographic details including DOI's and URL's for the articles can be found in Appendix 2

An overview on structural health monitoring: From the current state-of-the-art to new bio-inspired sensing paradigms

In the last decades, the field of structural health monitoring (SHM) has grown exponentially. Yet, several technical constraints persist, which are preventing full realization of its potential. To upgrade current state-of-the-art technologies, researchers have started to look at nature’s creations giving rise to a new field called ‘biomimetics’, which operates across the border between living and non-living systems. The highly optimised and time-tested performance of biological assemblies keeps on inspiring the development of bio-inspired artificial counterparts that can potentially outperform conventional systems. After a critical appraisal on the current status of SHM, this paper presents a review of selected works related to neural, cochlea and immune-inspired algorithms implemented in the field of SHM, including a brief survey of the advancements of bio-inspired sensor technology for the purpose of SHM. In parallel to this engineering progress, a more in-depth understanding of the most suitable biological patterns to be transferred into multimodal SHM systems is fundamental to foster new scientific breakthroughs. Hence, grounded in the dissection of three selected human biological systems, a framework for new bio-inspired sensing paradigms aimed at guiding the identification of tailored attributes to transplant from nature to SHM is outlined.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio