On contradiction clouds

AbstractOur proposal, through this article, addresses the issue of obtaining, representing and selecting the appropriate subset of contradictions among a complete set of contradictions resulting from an initial situation framing within a specific domain. This contribution has to be understood within the Inventive Design context since most of its grounding relies on the fact that any problem can be formulated as a contradiction (in the sense of TRIZ). By proposing the concept of “contradiction cloud” as three value graphical representation of a set of elementary contradictions, we claim that designers considerably reduce the fuzziness of a contradiction choice prior entering in a solving phase in Inventive Design processes. The modes of interpretation of this cloud will be also presented. The impact of this new element in the teaching of TRIZ was tested both in educational situations within the framework of our engineering curriculum and in several industrial partnerships. A discussion section will then highlight the assets, the limits and the perspectives of our contribution

The Truth about Sherlock Holmes

According to possibilism, or non-actualism, fictional characters are possible individuals. Possibilist accounts of fiction do not only assign the intuitively correct truth-conditions to sentences in a fiction, but has the potential to provide powerful explanatory models for a wide range of phenomena associated with fiction (though these two aspects of possibilism are, I argue, crucially distinct). Apart from the classic defense by David Lewis the idea of modeling fiction in terms of possible worlds have been widely criticized. In this article, I provide a defense of a possibilist account against some lines of criticism. To do so, I assume that names for fictional characters are directly referential and a possible-worlds model that accommodates transworld identity. On this background, I argue, it is possible to construct an elegant model of fictional discourse using familiar models of information exchange in ordinary discourse, and I sketch how this model can be used to i) make a natural distinction between fictional and counterfactual discourse, ii) account for creativity, and iii) sustain a natural definition of truth-in-fiction that avoids certain familiar objections to possibilism. Though I set aside questions about the metaphysical commitments of a possible-world interpretation here, there is accordingly reason to think that the battle over possibilist treatments of fiction will have to be fought over metaphysical foundations rather than technical shortcomings

Knowledge based Approach for Formulating TRIZ Contradictions

AbstractThe article presents how to innovate a product using information extraction from patents literature to identify and overcome TRIZ contradictions. Each initial inventive situation has to be formulated in terms of contradictions in order to use the most effective tool for problem solving provided by the TRIZ theory.The authors propose, (1) an algorithm guiding the user to move from an indefinite problem situation to obtain a clearer problem formulation, following a process inspired to the ARIZ approach for fixing physical contradictions, and (2) some strategies and tools for selecting, acquiring and finally modeling the necessary information to improve the effectiveness in building the contradiction model.All those strategies have been implemented in a knowledge management tool called KOM, working as an automatic patent searching engine based on a functional oriented search. An exemplary application is presented to explain how KOM is integrated in the problem definition process

Sports review: A content analysis of the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and the Sociology of Sport Journal across 25 years

The International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and Sociology of Sport Journal have individually and collectively been subject to a systematic content analysis. By focusing on substantive research papers published in these three journals over a 25-year time period it is possible to identify the topics that have featured within the sociology of sport. The purpose of the study was to identify the dominant themes, sports, countries, methodological frameworks and theoretical perspectives that have appeared in the research papers published in these three journals. Using the terms, identified by the author(s), that appear in the paper’s title, abstract and/or listed as a key word, subject term or geographical term, a baseline is established to reflect on the development of the sub-discipline as represented by the content of these three journals. It is suggested that the findings illustrate what many of the more experienced practitioners in the field may have felt subjectively. On the basis of this systematic, empirical study it is now possible to identify those areas have received extensive coverage and those which are under-researched within the sociology of sport. The findings are used to inform a discussion of the role of academic journals and the recent contributions made by Michael Silk, David Andrews, Michael Atkinson and Dominic Malcolm on the past, present and future of the ‘sociology of sport’

Inclusive Education: Are We There? Some Global Challenges, Contradictions and Anomalies

Since the signing of the Salamanca statement in 1994, various countries have vowed to implement inclusive education. Different version of inclusion have been adopted worldwide but critics are beginning to suspect that, while inclusion sounds good in theory, it has not yet translated into implementable and realisable ideals. The study on which this analytical paper is based therefore explored challenges, contradictions and anomalies in the implementation of inclusive education globally. Various articles by leading scholars in the field of inclusive education were reviewed. The findings indicate, inter alia, that inclusive education has not yet come into its own right due to the varied contexts, conceptualisations and interpretations of the notion. It follows that leading scholars and practitioners in the field of inclusion should review the status quo, as well as reconceptualise and redesign the strategies to enhance its pedagogical implementation

A new multi-criteria tie point filtering approach to increase the accuracy of UAV photogrammetry models

Extracting accurate tie points plays an essential role in the accuracy of image orientation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry. In this study, a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) automatic filtering method is presented. Based on the quality features of a photogrammetric model, the proposed method works at the level of sparse point cloud to remove low-quality tie points for refining the orientation results. In the proposed algorithm, different factors that affect the quality of tie points are identified. The quality measures are then aggregated by applying MCDM methods and a competency score for each 3D tie point. These scores are employed in an automatic filtering approach that selects a subset of high-quality points which are then used to repeat the bundle adjustment. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, various internal and external studies were conducted on different datasets. The findings suggest that our method is both effective and reliable. In addition, in comparison to the existing filtering techniques, the proposed strategy increases the accuracy of bundle adjustment and dense point cloud generation by about 40% and 70%, respectively

Ideology, Instrumentality and Economics Education: on the Secretion of Values within Philanthropy, Financial Capability and Enterprise Education in English Schools

In England state provision for economics education in schools has been negligible. Except for a marginal number of students opting to study economics at secondary level, the subject has been largely limited to implicit lessons in philanthropy through liberal activities such as fundraising for charity and the like. Now, however, New Labour has countered this neglect by adding Personal Financial Capability and Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Education to the statute book. This paper takes issue with both the implicit and explicit curriculum for economics education in an attempt to uncover its assumptions and critique underlying policy.

Engineering Innovation (TRIZ based Computer Aided Innovation)

This thesis describes the approach and results of the research to create a TRIZ based computer aided innovation tools (AEGIS and Design for Wow). This research has mainly been based around two tools created under this research: called AEGIS (Accelerated Evolutionary Graphics Interface System), and Design for Wow. Both of these tools are discussed in this thesis in detail, along with the test data, design methodology, test cases, and research. Design for Wow (http://www.designforwow.com) is an attempt to summarize the successful inventions/ designs from all over the world on a web portal which has multiple capabilities. These designs/innovations are then linked to the TRIZ Principles in order to determine whether innovative aspects of these successful innovations are fully covered by the forty TRIZ principles. In Design for Wow, a framework is created which is implemented through a review tool. The Design for Wow website includes this tool which has been used by researcher and the users of the site and reviewers to analyse the uploaded data in terms of strength of TRIZ Principles linked to them. AEGIS (Accelerated Evolutionary Graphics Interface System) is a software tool developed under this research aimed to help the graphic designers to make innovative graphic designs. Again it uses the forty TRIZ Principles as a set of guiding rules in the software. AEGIS creates graphic design prototypes according to the user input and uses TRIZ Principles framework as a guide to generate innovative graphic design samples. The AEGIS tool created is based on TRIZ Principles discussed in Chapter 3 (a subset of them). In AEGIS, the TRIZ Principles are used to create innovative graphic design effects. The literature review on innovative graphic design (in chapter 3) has been analysed for links with TRIZ Principles and then the DNA of AEGIS has been built on the basis of this study. Results from various surveys/ questionnaires indicated were used to collect the innovative graphic design samples and then TRIZ was mapped to it (see section 3.2). The TRIZ effects were mapped to the basic graphic design elements and the anatomy of the graphic design letters was studied to analyse the TRIZ effects in the collected samples. This study was used to build the TRIZ based AEGIS tool. Hence, AEGIS tool applies the innovative effects using TRIZ to basic graphic design elements (as described in section 3.3). the working of AEGIS is designed based on Genetic Algorithms coded specifically to implement TRIZ Principles specialized for Graphic Design, chapter 4 discusses the process followed to apply TRIZ Principles to graphic design and coding them using Genetic Algorithms, hence resulting in AEGIS tool. Similarly, in Design for Wow, the content uploaded has been analysed for its link with TRIZ Principles (see section 3.1 for TRIZ Principles). The tool created in Design for Wow is based on the framework of analysing the TRIZ links in the uploaded content. The ‘Wow’ concept discussed in the section 5.1 and 5.2 is the basis of the concept of Design for Wow website, whereby the users upload the content they classify as ‘Wow’. This content then is further analysed for the ‘Wow factor’ and then mapped to TRIZ Principles as TRIZ tagging methodology is framed (section 5.5). From the results of the research, it appears that the TRIZ Principles are a comprehensive set of innovation basic building blocks. Some surveys suggest that amongst other tools, TRIZ Principles were the first choice and used most .They have thus the potential of being used in other innovation domains, to help in their analysis, understanding and potential development.Great Western Research and Systematic Innovation Ltd U