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A Systematic Approach Towards Developing A Philosophy Of Engineering: Engineers Dancing With Philosophers, Mike Murphy

Presentations

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Dying As An Individual: A Call For A Patient-Centered Approach To Hospice Care Research, Sarah Nicole Nebel

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This investigation focuses on patients' perspectives of hospice care as relating to the communication of the wholistic1 health care approach defined in the mission of hospice care. Given research reveals that the communication of wholistic health care is affected by factors such as individual patient health, social support systems, and interdisciplinary teams (IDTs), this study aims to examine whether the original hospice mission has been met, maintained, or communicated to hospice patients. Semi-structured, open-ended interview questions explore patients' perceptions of wholistic care and interdependence with the participants, in their health care. Responses reflected that patients are unaware of all the …

The Influence Of Humor On Approach And Avoidance Motivation, Stuart Jenkins Daman

ETD Archive

Approach and avoidance motivation have been used to study many phenomena, but no research has yet investigated the influence of humor on approach and avoidance motivation. The feelings associated with humor are also associated with situations high in safety and low in threat. These sorts of situations are likely to result in decreases in avoidance motivation. Participants viewed either a humorous video clip or a mundane video clip and then completed a series of self-report measures to assess levels of approach and avoidance motivation. Contrary to expectations, composites of measures of approach and avoidance motivation were not influenced by the …

Modeling Dynamic Controls On Ice Streams: A Bayesian Statistical Approach, L Mark Berliner, Kenneth Jezek, Noel Cressie, Yongku Kim, Calvin Lam, Cornelis Van Der Veen

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

Our main goal is to exemplify the study of ice-stream dynamics via Bayesian statistical analysis incorporating physical, though imperfectly known, models using data that are both incomplete and noisy. The physical-statistical models we propose account for these uncertainties in a coherent, hierarchical manner. The initial modeling assumption estimates basal shear stress as equal to driving stress, but subsequently includes a random corrector process to account for model error. The resulting stochastic equation is incorporated into a simple model for surface velocities. Use of Bayes' theorem allows us to make inferences on all unknowns given basal elevation, surface elevation and surface …

Active Exploration Of Emerging Themes In A Study Of Object-Oriented Requirements Engineering: The 'Evolutionary Case' Approach, Linda L. Dawson

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

The evolutionary case approach provides a framework for qualitative case study research in information systems (IS). It uses revelation, reinforcement, reflection and re-examination to explicitly explore emerging themes in interpretive case study research.

The method is based on the progressive development of a theoretical model grounded initially in the literature and then refined using sequential case studies grounded in practice. The method addresses the gap which often separates data from conclusions in qualitative case study research by documenting the “revealed” and “reinforced” changes in the theoretical model as it evolves from the empirical data.

The paper provides an illustrative study …

Investigative Methods And Tools: Developing An Integrated Approach To Critical Thinking, Evidence-Based Medicine And Biostatistics, Tam C. Ha, Frank Starmer

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Each day's work, whether a clinician, researcher or homemaker, focuses on investigative strategies and problem solving. Investigative methods and problem solving are rarely addressed formally in a medical school curriculum. Our goal with Investigative Methods and Tools was to convey to future clinician-scientists the skills to be able to confidently deal with information whether acquired from a patient, medical literature or in the laboratory. Our strategy is to convey to students major components of the investigative process including chasing curiosity, visualisation, modelling, experimental design and analysis. In addition, we depart from the traditional "jargon compliant" statistical vocabulary and focused on …

An Agent-Oriented Approach To Support Change Propagation In Software Evolution, Hoa K. Dam

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Software maintenance and evolution is arguably a lengthy and expensive phase in the life cycle of a software system. A critical issue at this phase is change propagation: given a set of primary changes that have been made to software, what additional secondary changes are needed? Although many approaches have been proposed, automated change propagation is still a significant technical challenge in software maintenance and evolution. This paper presents a Ph.D. research in the final stages of developing and evaluating a novel, agent-based, framework to support semi-automated change propagation in evolving software systems.

A Novel Approach Of Web Search Based On Community Wisdom, Weiliang Zhao, Vijay Varadharajan

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

In this paper, we propose a novel approach for Web search based on the statistical information of local setting data of web browsers in a community. The members of the community share their local setting data of browsers and this enables them to take advantage of the peer community members’s opinions in their Web search. Then we develop a new scheme that combines PageRank’s link-based ranking scores with our proposed community based popularity scores for web sites. This hybrid scheme provides a rankordering method for search query results that integrates the content consumers’ opinions with the content producers’ opinions in …

Strategic Approach To Operations Management, Senevi B. Kiridena, Prakash J. Singh

Faculty of Engineering - Papers (Archive)

Learning objectives After reading this chapter you should be able to:

• understand and interpret the concept of operations as part of organisational strategy and related analytical perspectives
• understand and interpret the notion of competitive advantage and the nature of generic competitive strategies pursued by organisations
• understand and appreciate the strategic role of the operations function and its contribution to the sustainable competitive advantage of the organisation
• understand and describe the role of competitive priorities in operationalising strategy
• discuss the concept of trade-offs as applied to key decisions and actions regarding the operations structure and infrastructure of an organisation
• demonstrate your …

Design For Social Presence In Online Communities: A Multi-Dimensional Approach, Kathy Ning Shen, Mohamed Khalifa

University of Wollongong in Dubai - Papers

In online communities, numerous technical and social design decisions determine the social interaction space and affect the community participation. Social presence has been considered as a major design principle in computer-mediated communication. While most prior IS research adopts a uni-dimensional approach and restricts social presence to be the subjective nature of media, this research adopts a multi-dimensional approach (Shen and Khalifa 2007) to examine the online community design. Compared to uni-dimensional conceptualizations of presence/social presence, multi-dimensional conceptualizations can better capture the sense of social presence induced by both technical and social factors, and therefore entail more valuable implications for community …

Using A Sensemaking Approach To Explore Interrelationships Between Policy And Practice, Barbra Mckenzie

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Increasingly the literature concerning change to schooling systems tends to use language more readily associated with that of business. Several researchers (Vinson, 2001; Hargreaves & Fullan, 1998; Fullan, 1999) warn of the shift from earlier views of education, towards a more recent perception that appears to consider education as a type of marketable commodity. Increasingly we are moving into a climate where schools are compared to business organizations, where the language of business and terms like knowledge economy (DEST, 2003:1) and middle managers (Fullan, 1999:16) are becoming more commonplace to describe the role of the modern school in society. This …

Enhancing Information Flow In A Retail Supply Chain Using Rfid And The Epc Network: A Proof-Of-Concept Approach, Samuel Fosso Wamba, Harold Boeck

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

RFID technology and the Electronic Product Code (EPC) network have attracted considerable interest from businesses and academics in recent years. The interest is even stronger in the retail industry where firms such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Tesco, Target and Metro AG are capitalizing on the potential of these technologies. Based on a field study conducted in a three-layer retail supply chain, this paper tests several scenarios integrating Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and the EPC network and evaluates, in a laboratory setting, their potential as enablers of information flow within a retail supply chain. Using an "open-loop" adoption strategy, our …

Linking Attitudes And Demographics In A Tourist Segmentation Model - A Two-Stage Approach, Uraiporn Kattiyapornpong, Kenneth E. Miller

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

Segmentation has been widely studied in tourism research e.g. Dolnicar (2004). Dawley (2006) points that commonly used segmentation variables such as demographics lead to identifiable segments which are not actionable while other useful approaches e.g. psychographics, are actionable but not identifiable. The objective of this paper is to develop a two-stage linkage approach to segmentation whereby cluster analysis using psychographic variables is conducted within demographic group. Demographic groups are selected based on propensity to travel. This research utilizes data generated from a cross-sectional self-completed survey of 49,105 Australian respondents on travel and tourism. The managerial usefulness of this segmentation is …

A Systematic Approach To An Integrated Curriculum Model For Dental Education, Tanis Maria Stewart

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the degree of curriculum integration within dental schools in North America. The intent of the study was to determine how an adaptation of the Fogarty (1991) framework of integration exhibits itself in dental education; An electronic survey conducted of the Academic Deans of dental schools in the United States and Canada resulted in a response rate of 54.09% (33/61). Frequencies, chi-square and Spearman rho (p) correlation coefficient were used for the statistical analyses of data; All survey respondents reported that their curricula include all levels of integration which comprise the adapted …

A Qualitative Case Study Approach To Define And Identify Perceived Challenges Of Knowledge Management For Casino Hotel Industry, Ming-Lun Lee

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The overall goal of this study is to analyze and establish the importance of KM applications in the hotel industry, with two purposes in mind. The first is to explore hotel organizations' awareness and perceptions of KM applications. The second purpose is to identify casino hotel executives' perceived challenges of KM. Qualitative case studies and descriptive research designs with interviews were applied to accomplish the study objectives; Case study subjects' perceptions regarding KM definitions, KM functions, and expected benefits of KM were identified and discussed. Casino hotel executives perceive knowledge sharing, change resistance, and knowledge transfer major challenges of KM. …

A System Dynamics Approach To Water Resources Planning And Management In South Florida, Dinesh Kumar Prashar

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The primary aim of this research is to test a number of policy options to reduce water consumption in agricultural and municipal sectors, and quantify its impact on environmental supply. A System Dynamics model is developed to evaluate the sustainability of agricultural, municipal, and environmental water demands in South Florida. Performance criteria of vulnerability, resilience, and reliability, are used to measure the success of the policies. In addition, scenarios with varying precipitation and population growth rates are generated to account for uncertainty; The status-quo simulations run from 1970 to 2050 show a reduction in environmental flows after 2010. That can …

The Emerging Importance Of "Social Visibility" In Defining A Particular Social Group And Its Potential Impact On Asylum Claims Related To Sexual Orientation And Gender, Fatma E. Marouf

Scholarly Works

An emerging issue in U.S. asylum claims based on "membership in a particular social group" is the relevance of social visibility in determining whether such a group exists. Of the five protected grounds for asylum, "membership in a particular social group" has always generated the most debate. In 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued guidelines that present the "protected characteristic" and "social perception" approaches as alternative ways of establishing a particular social group, instructing States Parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention (the "Convention") to determine first if there is a protected characteristic and, only if no …