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Processes are very important for the success within many business fields. They define the proper application of methods, technologies and company structures in order to reach business goals. Not only manufacturing processes have to be defined from the start point to their end, also other processes like product development processes need a proper description to gain success. For example in automotive industries complex product development processes are necessary and defined prior to product development. Over the last decades several product modeling languages have been developed moving to object oriented modeling languages, such as UML, but the used process modeling languages are still procedural. The paradigm shift caused by object oriented description within product modeling languages has to be transferred to process modeling languages. This paper introduces an object oriented approach for process modeling. Using UML as a starting point an object oriented process modeling method is differentiated. The basic concepts which are needed for process modeling are put into an object oriented context and are explained. The paper also deals with the most important methods behind object oriented process modeling and gives an outlook, what can be achieved by this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the globalised economy, organisational structures and methods used in product development have changed. Companies and organisations have responded by reengineering involved processes, increasing the use of information and communication technologies. Although not new, innovative concepts are required to fully support the resulting distributed virtual product development process. Modern information systems provide the access to information as well as communication, but actual software tools do not integrate the changing circumstances, arising from working in an intercultural field. Global Engineering can create problems of misunderstandings in the product development process leading to a possible lack of information as well as knowledge circulation. Knowledge Integration in collaboration supports successful communication and cooperation. It also supports finding common grounds, processes, and project language. The aim of this paper is to advance knowledge integration in product development to tackle the new challenges in Global Engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A geochemical investigation in the study area should be primarily focused on characterizing the complex chemical inventory of the groundwater, surface water, soil, rock, stream and lacustrine sediments, and soil gas. Geochemical site characterization includes a determination of geogenic background values and anthropogenic input. This distinction is possible only if the size of the area and the number of sampling points is adequate for a statistical evaluation. A geochemical investigation usually takes place following the geological, hydrogeological and geophysical surveys, the results of which are used for a focused and representative sampling strategy. The approach and the scope of a geochemical site investigation depend on the following: the objective and phase of the investigation,the contamination potential,the compartment under consideration (e.g., the groundwater, soil, or air), andthe natural environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter will suggest that experiments carried out in thought are a valid and powerful tool for the construction of insight into the behavior of the world. Thought experiments (TEs) include five components, the central of which is visualization. We suggest that the bounded yet structured visualization of imaginary worlds, integrated with logical and conceptual derivations from them, provide a powerful cognitive mechanism for ‘knowing'. We define kinds of visualization in a TE by analyzing well known historical thought experiments in science and students' TEs. We suggest that the structures of these imaginary worlds are based on a kind of ‘instinctive knowledge' which is frequently tacit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex science phenomena are often described with visual imagery. Research has shown that visual representations are not only motivating but are also critical in the communication of science concepts (citeauthorch12:mathewson1999, citeyearch12:mathewson1999). Yet very little is known about how students with little or no vision learn without access to these representations. This chapter explores how students with visual impairment learn science concepts. Through interviews with students with visual impairments, we explore concepts that are most difficult for these students to learn. The mental representations of science concepts that students with blindness build are discussed as well as the role of passive and active visuospatial processes. In addition, we describe new haptic tools that can be used to design instruction that is accessible to those students that are sighted as well as those that have visual impairments. Finally this chapter outlines the types of future research that are needed to more fully meet the challenge of providing high quality, accessible science instruction to students with visual impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter reports on the use of representational resources within a computer-based environment, called ChemSense, to support high school chemistry students' representational practices and their understanding of key chemical concepts. In designing ChemSense, we hypothesized that it would provide students with symbolic resources they could use to jointly construct representations of observable physical phenomena and to explain these phenomena in terms of underlying chemical entities and processes. This study examines the role that these representational resources play in supporting students' representational practices and their emerging chemical understanding. To elucidate how ChemSense supports the development of representational practice and chemical understanding, we provide an analysis of students' conversation while they use ChemSense in the laboratory. Our findings indicate that students use ChemSense to construct their shared understanding of chemical phenomena in a common representational space. Their representations serve as key symbolic resources in students' collaborative efforts to generate coherent explanations of the phenomena they are investigating. On the basis of our analysis we conclude that when using representational resources as part of collaborative investigations, the nature of students' conversation becomes more "chemical" and students deepen their understanding of the molecular nature of physical phenomena that have, as a result, become chemical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter focuses on how students used various multiple visual and auditory external representations to develop their understanding of limiting reagents. They used the Synchronized Multiple Visualizations of Chemistry (SMV Chem) program. SMV Chem allowed learners to use five external representations of a given chemistry topic in any order or combination that they chose. The four visual external representations consisted of a real time video of a chemical reaction (macroscopic level of understanding), a computer animation of the reaction (microscopic level), a graphical representation (symbolic level), and a text representation of a mathematical problem concerning limiting reagents. Each visual external representation had an accompanying audio track to narrate the action that occurred during the representation. The audio track could be selected or not, according to the user's choice. The module demonstrated the limiting reagents concept with a vinegar and baking soda reaction. We chose this module because the topic of limiting reagents provided students with many opportunities to explore the macroscopic, microscopic, symbolic, and mathematical levels in developing their understanding of the chemistry. Specifically we sought to identify the representations that were useful and then the particular characteristics that made those representations effective in helping students create their understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people are learning complicated scientific concepts, interacting with multiple forms of representation such as diagrams, graphs and equations can bring unique benefits. Unfortunately, there is considerable evidence to show that learners often fail to exploit these advantages, and in the worse cases inappropriate combinations of representations can completely inhibit learning. In other words, multiple representations are powerful tools but like all powerful tools they need careful handling if learners are to use them successfully. In this chapter, I will review the evidence that suggests that multiple representations serve a number of important roles in science education. I will also consider why the research on the effectiveness of multiple representations shows that all too often they do not achieve their desired educational goals and I consider what can be done to overcome these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital games worlds are systems of objects, their properties, behaviors, and the relations between them. They are immensely popular with people of all ages, currently especially the young. The educational community has begun to notice that game worlds present an attractive possibility for enhancing conventional educational achievement. The greatest potential of instructional games actually derives from the structural isomorphism between game worlds and conceptual worlds. This chapter describes how that isomorphism can be achieved through the use of structure mapping theory. A game world designed through applied structure mapping provides a way to introduce novices to expert thinking by making that thinking visible and embodied through a concrete metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research literature clearly indicates that many student misconceptions in chemistry stem from an inability to visualize structures and processes at the molecular level. A selection of these misconceptions was targeted in the VisChem project by producing a suite of molecular-level animations. The animations were produced with care to balance the often-competing demands of scientific accuracy, technical constraints, and clarity of communication. The effectiveness of a selection of these animations was evaluated when used in a conventional lecture context to assist students to build useful mental models of structures and processes at the molecular level. This research revealed that, if used appropriately, students perceived most of the intended ‘key features' and incorporated them in their mental models. There was evidence that students could transfer their ideas to similar situations, but no evidence of transfer to new topics. This indicated that these key features were not ‘internalised'. With this background we then embedded the animations as learning objects in learning activities, within a constructivist learning design. The VisChem Learning Design was developed to 1) motivate students to focus attention on the key features of their own prior mental model to explain test-tube level observations, 2) produce cognitive dissonance if their model fails, 3) actively look for new features in VisChem animations to reconcile any dissonance, and 4) then apply their refined model to new chemical topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in mobile technologies and pervasive computing provide new opportunities for supporting and enhancing learning that goes beyond that which has been made possible using the desktop PC. "Visualizations" can be presented or accessed via mobile devices or ambient displays at opportune times that can be pertinent to an ongoing physical activity. This chapter examines how external representations can be designed, accessed and interacted with to facilitate scientific inquiry processes, through using pervasive and mobile technologies. It begins by providing an overview of how different technologies have been used to support learning about and the practicing of scientific inquiry. Next, it describes the kinds of representations that are considered most effective to use. Two case studies are then presented that show how small-scale and large-scale representations were successfully integrated and used by students to understand and hypothesize about habitats and environmental restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter presents evidence for the development of visualizationbreak through touch when in circumstances where no visual information is provided. Results reported here show that local touch is translated into gestalt whole visualized patterns. It further shows that haptics, perception through touch, has semantics and that specific force patterns that constitute haptic interactions act as elements of information that are translated into visual images. It is shown that regions in the occipital brain, especially the Lateral Occipital Tactile-Visual Area, are activated when subjects attempt to recognize a shape haptically. Visualization of haptic patterns provides holistic gestalt views based on local haptic sensory cues. Haptic information contributes the micro details to visualization while the macro details are contributed by the human-visual system. It is further concluded that these findings about the processes of touch - visualization have major implications for design of cognitive technology with the intention of improving learning. A combination of touch and visual cues is advantageous to learning, providing more than each for the construction of a meaningful image of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling as an element in scientific methodology and models as the outcome of modelling are both important aspects of the conduct of science and hence of science education. The chapter is concerned with the challenges that students face in understanding the three ‘levels' at which models can be represented - ‘macro', ‘sub-micro', ‘symbolic' - and the relationships between them. A model can, at a given level, be expressed in ‘external representations' - those versions physically available to others - and in ‘internal representations' - those versions available mentally to an individual person. The making of meaning for any such representation is ‘visualization'. It is of such importance in science and hence in science education that the acquisition of fluency in visualization is highly desirable and may be called ‘metavisual capability' or ‘metavisualization'. Criteria for the attainment of metavisualization are proposed. Two approaches to the ontological categorization of representations are put forward, one based on the purpose which the representation is intended to serve, the other based on the dimensionality - 1D, 2D, 3D - of the representation. For the latter scheme, the requirements for metavisualization are discussed in some detail in terms of its components. General approaches to the development of metavisualization are outlined. Multi-disciplinary teams are needed if the research and development needed to improve visualization in science education is to take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science classrooms teach complex topics by exposing students to information through a variety of methodologies, including lectures, discussions, readings, lab experiences, and representational experiences. The goal of these activities is to help students build internal representations for course content - information stored in memory that students can retrieve to generate inferences, solve problems, and make decisions. But what are these internal representations like, and what does the nature of these representations suggest for the design of learning methodologies such as external representations? This chapter is an introduction to current and contemporary work on mental representations. In particular, we emphasize theoretical and empirical views that have focused on links between perception and action, and what those links imply for learning. In this way, basic research on the nature of memory can provide pragmatic suggestions with respect to the design, implementation, and assessment of what are commonly called ‘visualizations' (i.e., external visual representations of processes) as tools for science learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since optical vibrational spectroscopy is exquisitely sensitive to the biochemical composition of the sample and variations therein, it is possible to monitor metabolic processes and biochemical states in tissue and cells. The chances of identifying spectral indicators of diseases are much more favourable when spectroscopic imaging methods are used. Such images permit a direct correlation between the spectroscopic information and the sample histopathology. The spectroscopic imaging methods, which are barely ten years old at this point in time, become now a valuable technique for biomedical applications. In this contribution we illustrate the capability and versatility of spectroscopic imaging on the example of identification and visualization of brain tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software measurement is not easy. Many measurement programs fail to deliver actual performance improvements — for numerous reasons, as we showed in this book. You might have further questions on software measurement that go beyond the book or request specific insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter will summarize the quantifiable experiences and wisdom that the two authors collected in their (combined) over fifty years of practical software engineering. Believe it or not: We have measured all the way over these fifty years!. Knowing that it is often difficult to just use plain numbers to characterize a situation, we are also aware that beginners and practitioners need some numbers to build upon — even if their applicability is somewhat limited. We will therefore provide in this chapter concrete and fact-based guidance with numbers from our own experiences so you can use it as a baselines in your projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]