Subtractive and additive manufacturing technology in moulding industry

This report is a review of additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques. This approach (additive manufacturing) has resided largely in the prototyping realm, where the methods of producing complex freeform solid objects directly from a computer model without part-specific tooling or knowledge. But these technologies are evolving steadily and are beginning to encompass related systems of material addition, subtraction, assembly, and insertion of components made by other processes. Furthermore, these various additive processes are starting to evolve into rapid manufacturing techniques for mass-customized products, away from narrowly defined rapid prototyping. Taking this idea far enough down the line, and several years hence, a radical restructuring of manufacturing could take place. Manufacturing itself would move from a resource base to a knowledge base and from mass production of single use products to mass customized, high value, life cycle products, majority of research and development was focused on advanced development of existing technologies by improving processing performance, materials, modelling and simulation tools, and design tools to enable the transition from prototyping to manufacturing of end use parts.

The social values of wireless technology in the institutional context

Despite growing attention, social values, compared to economic aspects, of information technology (IT) capture substantially less attention in the mainstream IT literature. In the context of mobile technology, social values might be as critical to help justify technology investment as the predominant economics perspective in the existing IT literature. As wireless networks and relevant mobile technologies continue to penetrate the global society and business world, an emerging social phenomenon rapidly reshapes how organizations interact with the technology and reposition themselves in their specific institutional context where organizations often develop networked alliance to compete against one another. This study thus seeks to shed light on how organizations make sense of the social aspects of wireless network implementation. Preliminary understanding derived from two higher education organizations' experiences is summarized. Implications for future research endeavor are suggested.

High-speed label-free functional photoacoustic microscopy of mouse brain in action.

We present fast functional photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) for three-dimensional high-resolution, high-speed imaging of the mouse brain, complementary to other imaging modalities. We implemented a single-wavelength pulse-width-based method with a one-dimensional imaging rate of 100 kHz to image blood oxygenation with capillary-level resolution. We applied PAM to image the vascular morphology, blood oxygenation, blood flow and oxygen metabolism in both resting and stimulated states in the mouse brain.

The Didache and Traditioned Innovation: Shaping Christian Community in the First Century and the Twenty-First Century

Church leaders, both lay and clergy, shape Christian community. Among their central tasks are: building communal identity, nurturing Christian practices, and developing faithful structures. When it comes to understanding the approach of the earliest Christian communities to these tasks, the Didache might well be the most important text most twenty-first century church leaders have never read. The Didache innovated on tradition, shaping the second generation of Christians to meet the crises and challenges of a changing world.

Most likely composed in the second half of the first century, the Didache served as a training manual for gentile converts to Christianity, preparing them for life in Christian community. This brief document, roughly one third the length of Mark’s gospel, developed within early Jewish-Christian communities. It soon found wide usage throughout the Mediterranean region, and its influence endured throughout the patristic and into the medieval period.

The Didache outlines emerging Christian practices that were rooted in both Jewish tradition and early Jesus material, yet were reaching forward in innovative ways. The Didache adopts historical teachings and practices and then adapts them for an evolving context. In this respect, the writers of the Didache, as well as the community shaped by its message, exemplify the pattern of thinking described by Greg Jones as “traditioned innovation.”

The Didache invites reflection on the shape and content of Christian community and Christian leadership in the twenty-first century. As churches and church leaders engage a rapidly changing world, the Didache is an unlikely and yet important conversation partner from two millennia ago. A quick read through its pages – a task accomplished in less than half an hour – brings the reader face to face with a brand of Christianity both very familiar and strikingly dissimilar to modern Christianity. Such dissonance challenges current assumptions about the church and creates a space in which to re-imagine our situation in light of this ancient Christian tradition. The Didache provides a window through which we might re-examine current conceptualizations of Christian life, liturgy, and leadership.

This thesis begins with an exploration of the form and function of the Didache and an examination of a number of important background issues for the informed study of the Didache. The central chapters of this thesis exegete and explore select passages in each of the three primary sections of the Didache – the Two Ways (Didache 1-6), the liturgical section (Didache 7-10), and the church order (Didache 11-15). In each instance, the composers of the Didache reach back into a cherished and life-giving aspect of the community’s heritage and shape it anew into a fresh and faithful approach to living the Christian life in a drastically different context.

The thesis concludes with three suggestions of how the Didache may provide a resource for the way the Church in the present thinks about training disciples, shaping community, and developing leadership structures. These conversation starters offer beginning points for a richer, fuller discussion of traditioned innovation in our current church context. The Didache provides a source of wisdom from our spiritual forebears that modern Christian leaders would do well not to ignore. With a look through the first century window of the Didache, twenty-first century Christians can discover fresh insights for shaping Christian community in the present.

A philosophy in action: Carl Einstein and Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen

Carl Einstein is a not very well known figure within German culture, but his essay Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen remains ignored even among scholars of his work despite containing highly valuable clues to understand the intersection between philosophy and politics that characterizes much of the European thought of the twentieth century. Given this situation, after an initial part where the author’s personality and his latest ideas and actions are taken in account, the article makes a thorough review of Die Fabrikation der Fiktionen by doing firstly a comparison of the different interpretations that it has received until now, and continues by carrying out a new reading of its main ideas –the conflict between Realität and Wirklichkeit or the very concept of Fiktion– and an exercise of contrast between the essay and certain works by contemporary thinkers like Siegfried Kracauer and Paul Nizan.

An Examination of Customers’ Attitudes about Table Top Technology in Full-Service Restaurants

This paper examines the influence of customer-facing technology in full-service restaurants. As a new addition to the service experience, tabletop devices offer the customer more control over the dining experience, and also increase customer participation in the service process, which has the potential to upset the traditional exchange between service providers and customers in restaurants. To examine how customers react to the use of tabletop devices, this study examines 1,343 point-of-sales transactions from 20 units of a full-service casual dining restaurant chain and matches customer in-restaurant transactions to their reactions to tabletop devices used during their meals. Results show that over 70% of the customers who used tabletop devices reported positive affect toward the device, with approximately 79% of customers reporting that the device improved their experience, citing convenience, ease of use, and credit card security as some benefits of using the technology. Approximately 80% of the customers who used the device reported that they would return to the restaurant because of the positive affect. The results also indicate that likeability of the device and tip percentage were positively and significantly connected to customer reports of the devices having a positive effect on experience and on desire to return. In addition, when customers reported increased return intentions, likeability of the device was higher regardless of reports of the device improving restaurant experience, showing that the introduction of tabletop devices had a positive effect for most—but not all—customers.

Creative Reflection in Action

This (Students as Academic Partners) project aimed to explore the potential of a creative approach to reflection. Developing approaches to reflective practice is directly relevant for teachers and those who are training to become teachers. Individual reflections were produced by project participants based on several very short video clips of children in a nursery school. These individual reflections were extended into a collaborative reflection highlighting common themes. This broader focus seeks to contribute to an encompassing discourse related to early years practice. The poster aims to show how critical reflection and speculation can develop an understanding of the child, their development and potential barriers to this development. Through observing stills from the video footage, viewers of the poster are challenged to speculate about the child’s body language, what they might be doing or whether the learning environment is suitable to develop and progress their knowledge and understanding further?

The Influence of Table Top Technology in Full-service Restaurants

The use of tabletop technology continues to grow in the restaurant industry, and this study identifies the strengths and weakness of the technology, how it influences customers, and how it can improve the bottom line for managers and business owners. Results from two studies involving a full-service casual dining chain show that dining time was significantly reduced among patrons who used the tabletop hardware to order or pay for their meals, as was the time required for servers to meet the needs of customers. Also, those who used the devices to order a meal tended to spend more than those who did not. Patrons across the industry have embraced guest-facing technology, such as online reservation systems, mobile apps, payment apps, and tablet-based systems, and may in fact look for such technology when deciding where to dine. Guests’ reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, with 70 to 80 percent of consumers citing the benefits of guest-facing technology and applications. The introduction of tabletop technology in the full-service segment has been slower than in quick-service restaurants (QSRs), and guests cite online reservation systems, online ordering, and tableside payment as preferred technologies. Restaurant operators have also cited benefits of guest-facing technology, for example, the use of electronic ordering, which led to increased sales as such systems can induce the purchase of more expensive menu items and side dishes while allowing managers to store order and payment information for future transactions. Researchers have also noted the cost of the technology and potential problems with integration into other systems as two main factors blocking adoption.

New Framework and Metrics for Economic Evaluation of Medical Technology in the Presence of Heterogeneity and Its Application to the Evaluation of Bariatric Surgery

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-07

Developmental TVET rhetoric in-action: the White Paper for post-school education and training in South Africa

This paper explores the extent to which latest developments in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training System in South Africa respond to key principles espoused for a developmental, democratic and inclusionary ideal. The White Paper for post school education and training approved by Cabinet in November, 2013 is referred to by the Minister as the “definitive statement of the governments vision for the post school system” and as such represents a crucial strategy document intended to chart the TVET direction to 2030. Using key theoretical constructs from development theory, this paper provides an assessment of the TVET strategy contained is the paper and explores the extent to which it does respond to the agenda defined by the promise. It is argued that the challenges outlined are not yet able to provide the blueprint for a TVET transformative vision. It is concluded that while the development rhetoric contained in the paper is plausible, the creative tinkering of the system is unlikely to lead to the radical revisioning necessary for a truly transformative TVET system. The underlying assumptions regarding purpose, impact and outcome will need to be carefully reconsidered if the system is to be responsive to the promises of the democratic developmental ideal to which the government is committed. (DIPF/Orig.)

Motivation in action: A process model of L2 motivation

As part of a long-term project aimed at designing classroom interventions to motivate language learners, we have searched for a motivation model that could serve as a theoretical basis for the methodological applications. We have found that none of the existing models we considered were entirely adequate for our purpose for three reasons: (1) they did not provide a sufficiently comprehensive and detailed summary of all the relevant motivational influences on classroom behaviour; (2) they tended to focus on how and why people choose certain courses of action, while ignoring or playing down the importance of motivational sources of executing goal-directed behaviour; and (3) they did not do justice to the fact that motivation is not static but dynamically evolving and changing in time, making it necessary for motivation constructs to contain a featured temporal axis. Consequently, partly inspired by Heckhausen and Kuhl's 'Action Control Theory', we have developed a new 'Process Model of L2 Motivation', which is intended both to account for the dynamics of motivational change in time and to synthesise many of the most important motivational conceptualisations to date. In this paper we describe the main components of this model, also listing a number of its limitations which need to be resolved in future research.

Electronic Technology in NL Schools: An Environmental Scan, 2015-16

This study was designed to obtain information on the prevalence of electronic technology—in terms of availability and use—in classrooms in Newfoundland and Labrador. An online survey was developed and delivered electronically to a randomly chosen sample of 800 k-12 educators in Newfoundland & Labrador’s English School District during Winter, 2016. In total, 377 surveys were completed. Among other things, the findings showed that SMART Boards and iPads were receiving significant usage while the usage of computer labs and of various social media tools was not particularly high.

Temporary teams learning and performance: the case of 3D printing technology in orthopaedic surgery

This dissertation contributes to the scholarly debate on temporary teams by exploring team interactions and boundaries.The fundamental challenge in temporary teams originates from temporary participation in the teams. First, as participants join the team for a short period of time, there is not enough time to build trust, share understanding, and have effective interactions. Consequently, team outputs and practices built on team interactions become vulnerable. Secondly, as team participants move on and off the teams, teams’ boundaries become blurred over time. It leads to uncertainty among team participants and leaders about who is/is not identified as a team member causing collective disagreement within the team. Focusing on the above mentioned challenges, we conducted this research in healthcare organisations since the use of temporary teams in healthcare and hospital setting is prevalent. In particular, we focused on orthopaedic teams that provide personalised treatments for patients using 3D printing technology. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected using interviews, observations, questionnaires and archival data at Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute, Bologna, Italy. This study provides the following research outputs. The first is a conceptual study that explores temporary teams’ literature using bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review to highlight research gaps. The second paper qualitatively studies temporary relationships within the teams by collecting data using group interviews and observations. The results highlighted the role of short-term dyadic relationships as a ground to share and transfer knowledge at the team level. Moreover, hierarchical structure of the teams facilitates knowledge sharing by supporting dyadic relationships within and beyond the team meetings. The third paper investigates impact of blurred boundaries on temporary teams’ performance. Using quantitative data collected through questionnaires and archival data, we concluded that boundary blurring in terms of fluidity, overlap and dispersion differently impacts team performance at high and low levels of task complexity.