Serious Play Approaches for Creating, Sharing, and Mobilizing Tacit Knowledge in Cross-disciplinary Settings

abstract: Serious play—the notion of bringing the benefits of play to bear on work-related tasks—is receiving more attention as a remedy to many challenges of the modern knowledge economy. Exploring and defining the role of serious play approaches to facilitate collaborative problem-solving and value creation, this dissertation consists of four related research papers. The first research paper (RP1) reconciles three different conceptualizations of knowledge into a new theory of knowledge. This pluralistic definition allows knowledge to change character across the span of the value creation process. The paper further introduces a model called the Wheel of Knowledge (WoK) for mobilizing knowledge throughout the different knowledge conversions of the value creation process. The second research paper (RP2) advocates that serious play can scaffold and accelerate these knowledge conversion processes, it disaggregates existing serious play approaches, and starts to operationalize the WoK by using it to match different types of serious play approaches to different types of knowledge conversion challenges. The third research paper (RP3) validates the WoK by sorting the serious play literature according to how it applies to the different knowledge conversion processes. The paper provides a framework for ascertaining the applicability of serious play methods to specific knowledge conversion challenges and identifies under-explored research areas of the serious play field. The fourth research paper (RP4) tests the recommendations of RP3 by applying the LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) method to a knowledge conversion challenge focused on tacit knowledge sharing. It reports on a mixed-methods, multi-session case study in which LSP was used to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue and deliberation about a wicked problem. Results show that LSP is particularly useful in the beginning of a value creation process and that it facilitates socialization and tacit knowledge sharing. Taken together the papers demonstrate the necessity, potential, and application of serious play as a catalyst for the knowledge conversion processes presented in the WoK. It is now clear that different serious play approaches are suitable as respectively: an accelerator for trust-building and collective creativity, as a conduit for iterative innovation, and as a way of making rote tasks more engaging.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Design 201

Creating and Capturing Sustainable Value for Additive Manufacturing

This research has explored the business model and sustainable value in the context of additive manufacturing (AM). In terms of the sustainable value of AM business models, it indicates that the AM business models not only generate monetary revenue through selling machines, materials, and other products but also create value for the environment and society via using environmental- friendly materials, recycling, reusing, achieving resource efficiency and improving social wellbeing. However, sustainable value is surprisingly overlooked in incumbent AM companies, and the profitable business models are yet to be identified. The research revealed that AM companies typically still set a one-dimensional profit maximization goal without considering the consequences for the broader social and ecological contexts. Most AM companies do not know how to maximize the sustainable value of AM technologies through business model innovation which creates a significant knowledge gap for the industry. The research seeks to address the central question: how can AM companies develop business models to create and capture sustainable value? The purpose of this research is to help AM companies identify opportunities to create and capture sustainable value outcomes. One objective of the research is to contribute to knowledge about business models and sustainability concepts. Another objective is to contribute to practice and offer the frameworks that can facilitate strategic planning and sustainable business model development. The research adopts a qualitative approach and involves six case studies and two focus groups, representing seven sectors and companies from three countries with 43 participants in total at the exploratory stage and descriptive stage, respectively. The research has generated empirical insights, theoretical models, and practical frameworks that help AM scholars and practitioners better understand AM business models as well as create and capture sustainable value. The research has filled the literature gap and met the industrial need and made contributions to both academic knowledge and industrial practice.Cambridge International Scholarship/China Scholarship Counci

Selected NSF projects of interest to K-12 engineering and technology education

The National Science Foundation (NSF) portfolio addressing K-12 engineering and technology education includes initiatives supported by a number of programs. This list includes projects identified by searching lists of awards in the respective NSF programs as well as projects suggested for inclusion by researchers, practitioners, and program officers. The list includes projects concerned with standards in technology education, teacher professional development, centers for learning and teaching, preparation of instructional materials, digital libraries, and technological activities in informal settings, as well as small numbers of projects in several other areas. This compilation provides current information on projects of interest to educators, instructional designers, consultants, and researchers who are concerned with the development, delivery, and evaluation of instruction to develop technological literacy, particularly in K-12 engineering and technology education. Projects are grouped under headings for each program providing primary funding. Within each program, the award numbers determine the order of listing, with the most recent awards at the beginning of the list. Each award entry includes the project title, NSF award number, funding program, amount of the award to date, starting and ending dates, the principal investigator (PI), the grantee institution, PI contact information, the url of the project Web site, a description of the project’s activities and accomplishments, relevant previous awards to the PI, products developed by the project, and information on the availability of those products

Nonterrestrial utilization of materials: Automated space manufacturing facility

Four areas related to the nonterrestrial use of materials are included: (1) material resources needed for feedstock in an orbital manufacturing facility, (2) required initial components of a nonterrestrial manufacturing facility, (3) growth and productive capability of such a facility, and (4) automation and robotics requirements of the facility

Endogenous UMIs as quantifiable reporter elements – validation studies & applications in rAAV vectorology

In the creation of recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vectors, terminal DNA elements known ITRs (inverted terminal repeats) of the direct the intracellular synthesis and packaging of nonviral DNA. The need to clonally amplify ITR sequences in one form or another thereby underlies the existence of all rAAV clinical products and research materials worldwide. Their tendency to form strong nonduplex structures raises problems. The genetic precursors to rAAV vectors – typically prokaryotic plasmids – are known to possess heterogenous ITR sequences as a result of replicational instability, the effects of which on vector yield and efficacy are unclear and have not been systematically explored. To shed much-needed light on this decades-old problem, I utilised unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) as reporter elements for different rAAV plasmid preparations, so that massively parallel sequencing could be used to analyse their DNA and RNA derivatives through the course of production and in vivo gene transfer. The range of vector potencies observed, while not calamitous, definitively erases the notion that this problem can be further overlooked. The success of this unconventional strategy proved to be an equally notable outcome, offering unprecedented insights into population kinetics, and achieving quantitative consistency between biological replicates comparable to q/dPCR measurement replicates of single samples. This triggered concerted efforts to formally investigate the capabilities of UMIs used in this fashion. The probabilistic principles underlying the technique were formalised and empirically validated, confirming precision capabilities akin if not superior to dPCR and qPCR at equivalent levels of stringency. Experiments also revealed a pattern of measurement bias with potentially adverse implications for other areas of count analysis including differential gene expression

Assessing vulnerability and modelling assistance: using demographic indicators of vulnerability and agent-based modelling to explore emergency flooding relief response

Flooding is a significant concern for much of the UK and is recognised as a primary threat by most local councils. Those in society most often deemed vulnerable: the elderly, poor or sick, for example, often see their level of vulnerability increase during hazard events. A greater knowledge of the spatial distribution of vulnerability within communities is key to understanding how a population may be impacted by a hazard event. Vulnerability indices are regularly used – in conjunction with needs assessments and on-the-ground research – to target service provision and justify resource allocation. Past work on measuring and mapping vulnerability has been limited by a focus on income-related indicators, a lack of consideration of accessibility, and the reliance on proprietary data. The Open Source Vulnerability Index (OSVI) encompasses an extensive range of vulnerability indicators supported by the wider literature and expert validation and provides data at a sufficiently fine resolution that can identify vulnerable populations. Findings of the OSVI demonstrate the potential cascading impact of a flood hazard as it impacts an already vulnerable population: exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities, limiting capabilities and restricting accessibility and access to key services. The OSVI feeds into an agent-based model (ABM) that explores the capacity of the British Red Cross (BRC) to distribute relief during flood emergencies using strategies based upon the OSVI. A participatory modelling approach was utilised whereby the BRC were included in all aspects of the model development. The major contribution of this work is the novel synthesis of demographics analysis, vulnerability mapping and geospatial simulation. The project contributes to the growing understanding of vulnerability and response management within the NGO sector. It is hoped that the index and model produced will allow responder organisations to run simulations of similar emergency events and adjust strategic response plans accordingly

Climbing the water ladder: multiple-use water services for poverty reduction

Multiple use / Models / Water productivity / Research projects / Water supply / Domestic water / Irrigation water / Water governance / Poverty / Gender / Rural areas / Wells / Water harvesting / Runoff / Water storage / Water purification / Appropriate technology / Costs / Local government / Non governmental organizations / Case studies / Ehiopia / Nepal / Zimbabwe / Bolivia / India / Colombia / Thailand / South Africa

Component-based software engineering: a quantitative approach

Dissertação apresentada para a obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Informática pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaBackground: Often, claims in Component-Based Development (CBD) are only supported by qualitative expert opinion, rather than by quantitative data. This contrasts with the normal practice in other sciences, where a sound experimental validation of claims is standard practice. Experimental Software Engineering (ESE) aims to bridge this gap. Unfortunately, it is common to find experimental validation efforts that are hard to replicate and compare, to build up the body of knowledge in CBD. Objectives: In this dissertation our goals are (i) to contribute to evolution of ESE, in what concerns the replicability and comparability of experimental work, and (ii) to apply our proposals to CBD, thus contributing to its deeper and sounder understanding. Techniques: We propose a process model for ESE, aligned with current experimental best practices, and combine this model with a measurement technique called Ontology-Driven Measurement (ODM). ODM is aimed at improving the state of practice in metrics definition and collection, by making metrics definitions formal and executable,without sacrificing their usability. ODM uses standard technologies that can be well adapted to current integrated development environments. Results: Our contributions include the definition and preliminary validation of a process model for ESE and the proposal of ODM for supporting metrics definition and collection in the context of CBD. We use both the process model and ODM to perform a series experimental works in CBD, including the cross-validation of a component metrics set for JavaBeans, a case study on the influence of practitioners expertise in a sub-process of component development (component code inspections), and an observational study on reusability patterns of pluggable components (Eclipse plug-ins). These experimental works implied proposing, adapting, or selecting adequate ontologies, as well as the formal definition of metrics upon each of those ontologies. Limitations: Although our experimental work covers a variety of component models and, orthogonally, both process and product, the plethora of opportunities for using our quantitative approach to CBD is far from exhausted. Conclusions: The main contribution of this dissertation is the illustration, through practical examples, of how we can combine our experimental process model with ODM to support the experimental validation of claims in the context of CBD, in a repeatable and comparable way. In addition, the techniques proposed in this dissertation are generic and can be applied to other software development paradigms.Departamento de Informática of the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT/UNL); Centro de Informática e Tecnologias da Informação of the FCT/UNL; Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the STACOS project(POSI/CHS/48875/2002); The Experimental Software Engineering Network (ESERNET);Association Internationale pour les Technologies Objets (AITO); Association forComputing Machinery (ACM

Development of Open Source Software and Hardware Tool-Chains for Novel Electronics

3-D printing technologies have become widely adopted and have spurred innovation and efficiency across many markets. A large contributor to the success of 3-D printing are open source, low cost electronics. On-site circuit manufacturing, however, has not become as widely utilized as 3-D printing. This project attempts to address this problem by proposing and demonstrating an open source circuit board milling machine which is inexpensive, easily manufactured, and accurate. In three interdependent sub-projects, this thesis defines a standard method for designing open source hardware, the design of the bespoke circuit mill, and explores an application of the mill for novel circuit manufacturing. The first sub-project develops a standardized process for designing, prototyping, and distributing open source hardware. Following these steps can help ensure success for each individual part of the project. In order to validate the procedure, a case study is explored of designing low cost parametric glass slide driers. The second sub-project details the design and construction of a circuit prototyping machine. The open source design procedure is implemented to assure maximum effectiveness. A software interface is also designed to control and carry out processing steps on the milling machine. The mill minimizes lead time and production costs of experimental circuitry. The mill also stands as a strong open source tool that can help foster growth in distributed manufacturing of electronics for a wide array of applications. The third and final sub-project explores a flexible and scalable power monitoring system. The electronics are designed according to the open source design procedure and are manufacturable with the circuit milling machine. The power meter can be used to monitor and log power consumption of a wide range of loads, including both AC and DC