Teaching and learning family and consumer sciences through K-W-L charts

While much of the control and many of the activities found in today’s classrooms have been placed in the hands of the learners and learning has become inquiry-based, there remains a need for teachers to use teaching tools that would facilitate this student-centered teaching process. This article identifies the K-W-L Chart as one such tool and follows a case study of four Kuwaiti ‘Family and Consumer Sciences’ teaching / learning events to evaluate their ability to enhance the learning outcomes of eight students. The research was designed from a qualitative, multi-tiered design approach and was assessed through a constant comparative method of data analysis of interview responses, classroom observations and worksheet-assessments. The results showed that the use of K-W-L Charts influenced the teachers and learners toward a more inquiry-based approach and facilitated a more student-centered and collaborative learning environment, raising the level of interest and the amount of personal input given by the students.

Sequential monitoring of hospital adverse events when control charts fail : the example of fall injuries in hospitals

Objective To evaluate methods for monitoring monthly aggregated hospital adverse event data that display clustering, non-linear trends and possible autocorrelation. Design Retrospective audit. Setting The Northern Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Participants 171,059 patients admitted between January 2001 and December 2006. Measurements The analysis is illustrated with 72 months of patient fall injury data using a modified Shewhart U control chart, and charts derived from a quasi-Poisson generalised linear model (GLM) and a generalised additive mixed model (GAMM) that included an approximate upper control limit. Results The data were overdispersed and displayed a downward trend and possible autocorrelation. The downward trend was followed by a predictable period after December 2003. The GLM-estimated incidence rate ratio was 0.98 (95% CI 0.98 to 0.99) per month. The GAMM-fitted count fell from 12.67 (95% CI 10.05 to 15.97) in January 2001 to 5.23 (95% CI 3.82 to 7.15) in December 2006 (p<0.001). The corresponding values for the GLM were 11.9 and 3.94. Residual plots suggested that the GLM underestimated the rate at the beginning and end of the series and overestimated it in the middle. The data suggested a more rapid rate fall before 2004 and a steady state thereafter, a pattern reflected in the GAMM chart. The approximate upper two-sigma equivalent control limit in the GLM and GAMM charts identified 2 months that showed possible special-cause variation. Conclusion Charts based on GAMM analysis are a suitable alternative to Shewhart U control charts with these data.

Design challenges for electronic medication administration record systems in residential aged care facilities: A formative evaluation

Introduction Electronic medication administration record (eMAR) systems are promoted as a potential intervention to enhance medication safety in residential aged care facilities (RACFs). The purpose of this study was to conduct an in-practice evaluation of an eMAR being piloted in one Australian RACF before its roll out, and to provide recommendations for system improvements. Methods A multidisciplinary team conducted direct observations of workflow (n=34 hours) in the RACF site and the community pharmacy. Semi-structured interviews (n=5) with RACF staff and the community pharmacist were conducted to investigate their views of the eMAR system. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach to identify challenges associated with the design of the eMAR system. Results The current eMAR system does not offer an end-to-end solution for medication management. Many steps, including prescribing by doctors and communication with the community pharmacist, are still performed manually using paper charts and fax machines. Five major challenges associated with the design of eMAR system were identified: limited interactivity; inadequate flexibility; problems related to information layout and semantics; the lack of relevant decision support; and system maintenance issues.We suggest recommendations to improve the design of the eMAR system and to optimize existing workflows. Discussion Immediate value can be achieved by improving the system interactivity, reducing inconsistencies in data entry design and offering dedicated organisational support to minimise connectivity issues. Longer-term benefits can be achieved by adding decision support features and establishing system interoperability requirements with stakeholder groups (e.g. community pharmacies) prior to system roll out. In-practice evaluations of technologies like eMAR system have great value in identifying design weaknesses which inhibit optimal system use.

Aids in the design of microstrip components I: Getsinger's chart

Charts relating the capacitance to the width, spacing, thickness and height above the ground plane of coupled microstrips have been obtained. These are used to design hairpin line and hybrid hairpin line filters as well as multiplexers using microstrip comb line filters. The experimental results agree reasonably well with the design specifications. Getsinger's original charts for parallel coupled bars between parallel plates have been formulated for the microstrip case. Corresponding charts relating the capacitances to the width, spacing, thickness and height above the ground plane of coupled microstrips have been obtained. Examples of the use of these charts are shown in the design of hairpin lines and hybrid hairpin line filters as well as multiplexers using comb line filters. The hairpin line/hybrid hairpin line filters were designed to operate at a central frequency of 9÷5 GHz with 11 per cent bandwidth and 0÷5 dB ripple. The three filters constituting the comb line filters have center frequencies of 2÷4, 3÷0 and 3÷6 GHz. The components so designed were fabricated and tested. The dielectric used for the microstrip was teflon. Experimental curves for the attenuation (insertion loss) and VSWR are given. The design specifications arc satisfied quite well.

Materials selection in mechanical design

A novel materials-selection procedure has been developed and implemented in software. The procedure makes use of Materials Selection Charts: a new way of displaying material property data; and performance indices: combinations of material properties which govern performance. Optimization methods are employed for simultaneous selection of both material and shape.

Design and process selection for joints in flexible materials

The application of high performance textiles has grown significantly in the last 10 to 15 years. Various research groups throughout the United Kingdom, such as the Department of Trade and Industry, have identified technical textiles as a field for future development. There is little design guidance for joining of flexible materials or general property models that can be applied to theses materials. This lack is due to the large diversity of properties, structures and resulting behaviours of the materials that are classified as "Flexible Materials". This dissertation explores the issues that are involved in characterising the materials at the fibre, bulk and textile levels. Different units of measurement are used for each stage of the manufacturing process of flexible materials and this disparity creates problems when trying to make general comparisons (e.g. comparing textiles to polymer films). Thus, a possible solution to this is to create selection charts that allow designers to compare the strength of materials for a given mass per unit area. A design tool was created using the Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES) software to enable the selection of joining processes for material. The tool is effective in selecting a reduced number of viable joining processes. Through case studies it was shown that designers are required to examine the selected processes (identified by the software) in greater detail - in particular the economics and geometry of the joint - in order to identify the optimum joining process.

Stack ventilation in multi-storey atrium buildings: A dimensionless design approach

Using a simplified mathematical model, a preliminary design strategy for steady stack ventilation in multi-storey atrium buildings is developed. By non-dimensionalising the governing equations of flow, two key dimensionless parameters are identified - a ventilation performance indicator, λ, and atrium enhancement parameter, E - which quantify the performance of the ventilation system and the effectiveness of the atrium in assisting flows. Analytical expressions are determined to inform the vent sizes needed to provide the desired balance between indoor air temperature, ventilation flow rate and heat inputs for any distribution of occupants within the building, and also to ensure unidirectional flow. Dimensionless charts for determining the required combination of design variables are presented with a view to informing first-order design guidance for naturally ventilated buildings. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Prototype Generation from Ontology Charts

Semantic Analysis is a business analysis method designed to capture system requirements. While these requirements may be represented as text, the method also advocates the use of Ontology Charts to formally denote the system's required roles, relationships and forms of communication. Following model driven engineering techniques, Ontology Charts can be transformed to temporal Database schemas, class diagrams and component diagrams, which can then be used to produce software systems. A nice property of these transformations is that resulting system design models lend themselves to complicated extensions that do not require changes to the design models. For example, resulting databases can be extended with new types of data without the need to modify the database schema of the legacy system. Semantic Analysis is not widely used in software engineering, so there is a lack of experts in the field and no design patterns are available. This make it difficult for the analysts to pass organizational knowledge to the engineers. This study describes an implementation that is readily usable by engineers, which includes an automated technique that can produce a prototype from an Ontology Chart. The use of such tools should enable developers to make use of Semantic Analysis with minimal expertise of ontologies and MDA.

Constrained optimization model for the design of an adaptive (X)over-bar chart

An economic-statistical model is developed for variable parameters (VP) (X) over bar charts in which all design parameters vary adaptively, that is, each of the design parameters (sample size, sampling interval and control-limit width) vary as a function of the most recent process information. The cost function due to controlling the process quality through a VP (X) over bar chart is derived. During the optimization of the cost function, constraints are imposed on the expected times to signal when the process is in and out of control. In this way, required statistical properties can be assured. Through a numerical example, the proposed economic-statistical design approach for VP (X) over bar charts is compared to the economic design for VP (X) over bar charts and to the economic-statistical and economic designs for fixed parameters (FP) (X) over bar charts in terms of the operating cost and the expected times to signal. From this example, it is possible to assess the benefits provided by the proposed model. Varying some input parameters, their effect on the optimal cost and on the optimal values of the design parameters was analysed.

Adaptive control charts: A Markovian approach for processes subject to independent disturbances

Recent studies have shown that adaptive X control charts are quicker than traditional X charts in detecting small to moderate shifts in a process. In this article, we propose a joint statistical design of adaptive X and R charts having all design parameters varying adaptively. The process is subjected to two independent assignable causes. One cause changes the process mean and the other changes the process variance. However, the occurrence of one kind of assignable cause does not preclude the occurrence of the other. It is assumed that the quality characteristic is normally distributed and the time that the process remains in control has exponential distribution. Performance measures of these adaptive control charts are obtained through a Markov chain approach. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A stochastic shift model for economically designed charts constrained by the process stage configuration

An economic model including the labor resource and the process stage configuration is proposed to design g charts allowing for all the design parameters to be varied in an adaptive way. A random shift size is considered during the economic design selection. The results obtained for a benchmark of 64 process stage scenarios show that the activities configuration and some process operating parameters influence the selection of the best control chart strategy: to model the random shift size, its exact distribution can be approximately fitted by a discrete distribution obtained from a relatively small sample of historical data. However, an accurate estimation of the inspection costs associated to the SPC activities is far from being achieved. An illustrative example shows the implementation of the proposed economic model in a real industrial case. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Joint control charts for monitoring location and dispersion

The T-2 and the generalized variance vertical bar S vertical bar charts are used for monitoring the mean vector and the covariance matrix of multivariate processes. In this article, we propose for bivariate processes the use of the T-2 and the VMAX charts. The points plotted on the VMAX chart correspond to the maximum of the sample variances of the two quality characteristics. The reason to consider the VMAX statistic instead of the generalized variance vertical bar S vertical bar is the user's familiarity with the computation of simple sample variances; we can't say the same with regard to the computation of the generalized variance vertical bar S vertical bar.

A hierarchy of adaptive (X)over-bar control charts

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Economic design of a Vp X̄ chart

We develop an economic model for X̄ control charts having all design parameters varying in an adaptive way, that is, in real time considering current sample information. In the proposed model, each of the design parameters can assume two values as a function of the most recent process information. The cost function is derived and it provides a device for optimal selection of the design parameters. Through a numerical example one can foresee the savings that the developed model possibly provides. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Adaptive control charts for attributes

We develop a general model for adaptive c, np, u and p control charts in which one, two or three design parameters (sample size, sampling interval and control limit width) switch between two values, according to the most recent process information. For a given in-control average sampling rate and a given false alarm rate, the adaptive chart detects changes in the process much faster than a chart with fixed parameters. Moreover, this study also offers general guidance on how to choose an effective design.