Kehittäjä-interventionistien peiliaineistokäytännöt muutoslaboratoriohankkeissa : Narratiivit käyttäjätiedon välittäjänä

This research has its background on Knowledge Practices Laboratory (KP-Lab) research project. One of the aims of KP-Lab is to create virtual and technological tools to support the interventionist who use the Change Laboratory method as a developmental tool. In this research I studied the interventionists' mirror material practices which are context and theory bound and for that reason they pose challenges on the development of new tools. I focused on the gathering and working on the mirror material. The purpose of this study was to find out what kind of user knowledge does the research on narratives of mirror material practices in Change Laboratory provide to the developers of virtual tools? I answered this question by three sub questions: 1. What kind of mirror material the interventionists gather and analyze in different phases of developmental cycle of Change Laboratory project? 2. What kind of knowledge the different mirror materials contain and how is the knowledge transformed when the mirror material is analyzed and worked on? 3. What kind of tools the interventionists use and create when gathering and working on the mirror material? What wishes do the interventionists have on tools? I interviewed five interventionists in four different projects. I created narratives from the document supported interviews. Then I analyzed the narratives in three steps: first I placed the mirror materials in the developmental cycle. Secondly, I analyzed the mirror materials by placing them in a table by the form of the knowledge. Thirdly, I examined the tools the interventionists had used and created and what wishes they had on virtual tools. This research showed that different user groups of Change Laboratory method have different needs. All interventionists transform knowledge from one form to another so they seem to need especially tools by which they can analyze and transform knowledge. It seems that standardized model of gathering and analysing mirror material is not meaningful because mirror material is constructed in accordance with the object developed. This research also shows that the mirror material has a social function. This finding should be also noted when developing virtual tools together with actual users.

Collaborative Design in a Virtual Learning Environment : Three Design Experiments in Textile Teacher Education

The aim of the study was to analyze and facilitate collaborative design in a virtual learning environment (VLE). Discussions of virtual design in design education have typically focused on technological or communication issues, not on pedagogical issues. Yet in order to facilitate collaborative design, it is also necessary to address the pedagogical issues related to the virtual design process. In this study, the progressive inquiry model of collaborative designing was used to give a structural level of facilitation to students working in the VLE. According to this model, all aspects of inquiry, such as creating the design context, constructing a design idea, evaluating the idea, and searching for new information, can be shared in a design community. The study consists of three design projects: 1) designing clothes for premature babies, 2) designing conference bags for an international conference, and 3) designing tactile books for visually impaired children. These design projects constituted a continuum of design experiments, each of which highlighted certain perspectives on collaborative designing. The design experiments were organized so that the participants worked in design teams, both face-to-face and virtually. The first design experiment focused on peer collaboration among textile teacher students in the VLE. The second design experiment took into consideration end-users needs by using a participatory design approach. The third design experiment intensified computer-supported collaboration between students and domain experts. The virtual learning environments, in these design experiments, were designed to support knowledge-building pedagogy and progressive inquiry learning. These environments enabled a detailed recording of all computer-mediated interactions and data related to virtual designing. The data analysis was based on qualitative content analysis of design statements in the VLE. This study indicated four crucial issues concerning collaborative design in the VLE in craft and design education. Firstly, using the collaborative design process in craft and design education gives rise to special challenges of building learning communities, creating appropriate design tasks for them, and providing tools for collaborative activities. Secondly, the progressive inquiry model of collaborative designing can be used as a scaffold support for design thinking and for reflection on the design process. Thirdly, participation and distributed expertise can be facilitated by considering the key stakeholders who are related to the design task or design context, and getting them to participate in virtual designing. Fourthly, in the collaborative design process, it is important that team members create and improve visual and technical ideas together, not just agree or disagree about proposed ideas. Therefore, viewing the VLE as a medium for collaborative construction of the design objects appears crucial in order to understand and facilitate the complex processes in collaborative designing.

Technicum - Chemical Lab

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R U there yet? using virtual classrooms to transform teaching practice

Access to quality higher education is challenging for many Western Australians that live outside the metropolitan area. In 2010, the School of Education moved to flexible delivery of a fully online Bachelor of Education degree for their non -metropolitan students. The new model of delivery allows access for students from any location provided they have a computer and an internet connection. A number of academic staff had previously used an asynchronous environment to deliver learning modules housed within a learning management system (LMS) but had not used synchronous software with their students. To enhance the learning environment and to provide high quality learning experiences to students learning at a distance, the adoption of synchronous software (Elluminate Live) was introduced. This software is a real-time virtual classroom environment that allows for communication through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and videoconferencing, along with a large number of collaboration tools to engage learners. This research paper reports on the integration of a live e-learning solution into the current LMS environment. Qualitative data were collected from academic staff through informal interviews and participant observation. The findings discuss (i) perceived level of support; (ii) identification of strategies used to create an effective online teacher presence; (iii) the perceived impact on the students' learning outcomes; and (iv) guidelines for professional development to enhance pedagogy within the live e-learning environment.

See you in class: Promoting a quality program for pre-service educators in regional locations through a virtual classroom

The quality of an online university degree is paramount to the student, the reputation of the university and most importantly, the profession that will be entered. At the School of Education within Curtin University, we aim to ensure that students within rural and remote areas are provided with high quality degrees equal to their city counterparts who access face-to-face classes on campus.In 2010, the School of Education moved to flexible delivery of a fully online Bachelor of Education degree for their rural students. In previous years, the degree had been delivered in physical locations around the state. Although this served the purpose for the time, it restricted the degree to only those rural students who were able to access the physical campus. The new model in 2010 allows access for students in any rural area who have a computer and an internet connection, regardless of their geographical location. As a result enrolments have seen a positive increase in new students. Academic staff had previously used an asynchronous environment to deliver learning modules housed within a learning management system (LMS). To enhance the learning environment and to provide high quality learning experiences to students learning at a distance, the adoption of synchronous software was introduced. This software is a real-time virtual classroom environment that allows for communication through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and videoconferencing, along with a large number of collaboration tools to engage learners. This research paper reports on the professional development of academic staff to integrate a live e-learning solution into their current LMS environment. It involved professional development, including technical orientation for teaching staff and course participants simultaneously. Further, pedagogical innovations were offered to engage the students in a collaborative learning environment. Data were collected from academic staff through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The findings discuss the perceived value of the technology, problems encountered and solutions sought.

Transforming teaching practice through virtual classrooms: A study of staff and student views of synchronous learning

Australia is a vast land and access to quality higher education is challenging for many Australians that live outside the larger metropolitan areas. In 2010, the School of Education at an Australian university (Curtin University in Western Australia) moved to flexible delivery of a fully online Bachelor of Education degree for their rural students. The new model of delivery allows access for students from any location provided they have a computer and an internet connection.A number of teaching staff had previously used an asynchronous environment to deliver learning modules housed within a learning management system (LMS) but had not used synchronous software with their students. To enhance the learning environment and to provide high quality learning experiences to students learning at a distance, the adoption of synchronous software (Elluminate Live) was introduced. This software is a real-time virtual classroom environment that allows for communication through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video conferencing, alongside a large number of collaboration tools to engage learners.This research paper reports on the integration of a live e-learning solution into the current Learning Management System (LMS) environment. Staff were interviewed about their perceptions and a questionnaire was administered to a sample of students to identify their experience with the synchronous software in order to inform future practice.

Mixed reality stories: How creative writers integrate virtual and physical realities

Mixed reality stories (MRS) unfold simultaneously in the physical and the virtual world. Advancements in digital technologies, which are now able to capture more contextual information about our physical environments, are enabling novel ways of blending the two worlds. To explore the process of creating stories from this perspective, we conducted a study with creative writers, in which we asked them to write a MRS script for outdoor running. While we saw instances of intentional connections between physical and virtual worlds in their work, we also observed the use of ambiguity or even deliberate contradiction with available contextual information. In this paper we discuss how these approaches can be beneficial for MRS and propose directions for future work.

Launch Envelope Optimization of Virtual Sliding Target Guidance Scheme

This paper presents an optimization of the performance of a recently proposed virtual sliding target (VST) guidance scheme in terms of maximization of its launch envelope for three- dimensional (3-D) engagements. The objective is to obtain the launch envelope of the missile using the VST guidance scheme for different lateral launch angles with respect to the line of sight (LOS) and demonstrate its superiority over kinematics-based guidance laws like proportional navigation (PN). The VST scheme uses PN as its basic guidance scheme and exploits the relation between the atmospheric properties, missile aerodynamic characteristics, and the optimal trajectory of the missile. The missile trajectory is shaped by controlling the instantaneous position and the speed of a virtual target which the missile pursues during the midcourse phase. In the proposed method it is shown that an appropriate value of initial position for the virtual target in 3-D, combined with optimized virtual target parameters, can significantly improve the launch envelope performance. The paper presents the formulation of the optimization problem, obtains the approximate models used to make the optimization problem more tractable, and finally presents the optimized performance of the missile in terms of launch envelope and shows significant improvement over kinematic-based guidance laws. The paper also proposes modification to the basic VST scheme. Some simulations using the full-fledged six degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) models are also presented to validate the models and technique used.

Virtual Special Issue: “The impact of temperature on human health: new insights”

Ambient temperature is one of the basic parameters characterising human comfort: are we too hot, too cold, or just right? The impact of temperature goes beyond comfort: inadequate temperature and temperature variations have consequences on human health, as the increasing numbers of studies have demonstrated. The topic is of particular significance at the times when climate change shifts the traditional – as we know them- temperature zones, and brings much wider temperature variations. For these reasons the impact of temperature on health has been one of the most popular topics among the articles submitted and published in Science of the Total Environment over the last few years. This Virtual Special Issue compiles 18 articles published in our journal on this topic since 2012. It is worth briefly summarizing the rich scientific insights brought by these articles, as well as broader considerations, particularly those extending to management, discussed by the authors of the articles.

Cost-efficient virtual machine management in data centers

Virtual Machine (VM) management is an obvious need in today's data centers for various management activities and is accomplished in two phases— finding an optimal VM placement plan and implementing that placement through live VM migrations. These phases result in two research problems— VM placement problem (VMPP) and VM migration scheduling problem (VMMSP). This research proposes and develops several evolutionary algorithms and heuristic algorithms to address the VMPP and VMMSP. Experimental results show the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed algorithms. Finally, a VM management framework has been proposed and developed to automate the VM management activity in cost-efficient way.

Vanhustenhuolto + living lab = mahdollinen yhtälö?

Työ on laajaan dokumenttiaineistoon, haastatteluihin ja havaintoihin perustuva living lab - tyyppisen tuotekehitysprosessin yksityiskohtainen kuvaus. Hankehistoriallisessa tapaustutkimuksessa on käytetty historiantutkimuksen menetelmiä. Vanhustenkeskuksessa toteutetun living lab -hankkeen lopputuloksena syntyi vanhusten liikkeitä monitoroiva hoitotyön apuväline: turvalattia. Living lab -tyyppisessä tuotekehittämisessä on keskeistä teknologian kehittäminen tuotteen todellisessa käyttöympäristössä siten, että käyttäjät osallistuvat aktiivisesti kehitystyön kaikkiin vaiheisiin. Tutkimuksessa hankkeen etenemistä ja turvalattiateknologian rakentumista tarkastellaan toimijaverkostoteorian ja yhteisöllisen oppimisen käsitteen tarjoamista näkökulmista. Tutkimuksessa kiinnitetään erityisesti huomiota siihen, minkälaisia intressejä teknologian kehittämiseen osallistuvilla ryhmillä on ja minkälaisia konflikteja näiden intressien pohjalta syntyy. Lisäksi tarkastelun keskiössä on käyttäjien ja tuotekehittäjien välinen oppiminen, jonka mahdollistaminen ja edistäminen on living lab -kehittämisen päämäärä. Tutkimuksen keskeinen johtopäätös on, että käyttäjiltä saatu palaute on välttämätöntä käyttökelpoisen sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon alan teknologian aikaansaamiseksi, ja turvalattian tapauksessa käyttäjäpalaute myös uudelleensuuntasi teknologisen järjestelmän innovaatioprosessia. Käyttäjien ja tuotekehittäjien yhteistyön myötä turvalattiaan kehitettiin joukko uusia toiminnallisuuksia ja käsitys tuotteen ydinominaisuuksista sekä hyötylupauksesta muuttuivat. Turvalattian tapaus osoittaa lisäksi yhteisöllisen oppimisen merkityksen innovaatioprosessissa sekä living lab -tyyppisen tuotekehittämisen potentiaalin näiden oppimisprosessien mahdollistajana ja kiihdyttäjänä. Tapaus myös valottaa sitä, kuinka monimutkainen toimintakenttä vanhustenhuolto on teknologian kehittämisen ja sen käyttöönoton näkökulmasta. Näyttäisi kuitenkin siltä, että living lab -metodologian avulla voidaan ylittää joitakin geronteknologian kehittämiseen ja myös käyttöönottoon liittyviä haasteita.

Selvitys käytäntölähtöisen innovaatioympäristötyökalun Fab Lab -konseptin soveltuvuudesta Etelä-Pohjanmaan innovaatioympäristön kehittämisen työvälineeksi

Tämän esiselvityshankkeen tavoitteena oli perehtyä Fab Lab -konseptiin ja selvittää ne reunaehdot, jotka määrittävät konseptin käyttökelpoisuutta Etelä-Pohjanmaalla ja suomalaisissa olosuhteissa yleisemmin. Etelä-Pohjanmaan voidaan olettaa olevan potentiaalinen konseptin hyödyntäjä, koska alueella on runsaasti sellaista maaseudun pienyrittäjyyttä, jonka on vaikea hyödyntää etäällä olevia teknologiapalveluja. Lisäksi arvioitiin konseptin mahdollisuudet yhdistää erilaisia innovaatiotoimijoita tavalla, joka voisi tukea Seinäjoki Science Park -yhteisön vuorovaikutusta ja täten toimia innovaatioita edistävänä kehitysalustana. Esiselvityksen tuloksena syntyi soveltuvuusanalyysi, jossa: a) Analysoitiin konseptin sisältö ja toiminnalliset reunaehdot. b) Arvioitiin konseptin suhde ja uutuusarvo alueen olemassa oleviin innovaatiopalveluihin ja toimijoihin. c) Arvioitiin konseptin mahdollisuudet toimia Seinäjoki Science Park -yhteisön vuorovaikutusta ja innovaatiotoimintaa edistävänä kehitysalustana. Soveltuvuusanalyysin pohjalta on tehty johtopäätökset Fab Lab -konseptin tarjoamista mahdollisuuksista suhteessa alueen innovaatioympäristön kehittämiseen, sekä suositukset mahdollisista jatkotoimista. Esiselvitys on toteutettu osana Seinäjoen seudun aluekeskusohjelmaa ja sen tilaajana on toiminut Seinäjoen Teknologiakeskus Oy.

What is A Virtual Service?- Broadening the Perspective on Technology-Based Services

This article expands the discussion of the impact of technology on services and contributes to a broader comprehension of the nature of virtual services. This is done by discovering dimensions that distinguish physical services from virtual services, i.e. services that are distributed by electronic means and where the customer has no direct human interaction with the service provider. Differences in the core characteristics of services, servicescape and service delivery are discussed. Moreover, dimensions that differentiate between virtual services are analysed. A classification scheme for virtual services is proposed, including the origin of the service, the element of the service offering, the customisation process, stage of the service process performed, and the degree of mobility of the service.

Towards a green synthesis of LAB's: Effect of rare earth metal ions on the benzene alkylation with 1-dodecene over NaFAU-Y zeolites

Chemically modified microporous materials can be prepared as robust catalysts suitable for application in vapor phase processes such as Friedel-Crafts alkylation. In the present paper we have investigated the use of rare earth metal (Ce3+, La3+, RE3+, and Sm3+) exchanged Na-Y zeolites as catalysts for the alkylation of benzene with long chain linear 1-olefin; 1-dodecene. Thermodesorption studies of 2,6-dimethylpyridine adsorbed catalysts (in the temperature range 573 to 873 K) show that the rare earth zeolites are highly Bronsted acidic in nature. A perfect correlation between catalyst selectivity towards the desired product (2-phenyldodecane) and Bronsted acid sites amount has been observed. (c) 2006 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.