Centruflow is an application that can be used to visualise structured data. It does this by drawing graphs, allowing for users to explore information relationships that may not be visible or easily understood otherwise. This helps users to gain a better understanding of their organisation and to communicate more effectively. In earlier versions of Centruflow, it was difficult to develop new functionality as it was built using a relatively unsupported and proprietary visualisation toolkit. In addition, there were major issues surrounding information currency and trust. Something had to be done, and this was a sub-project of this thesis. The main purpose of this thesis however was to research and develop a set of mathematical algorithms to infer implicit relationships in Centruflow data sources. Once these implicit relationships were found, we could make them explicit by showing them within Centruflow. To enable this, relationships were to be calculated based on providing users with the ability to 'tag' resources with metadata. We believed that by using this tagging metadata, Centruflow could offer users far more insight into their own data. Implementing this was not a straight-forward task, as it required a considerable amount of research and development to be undertaken to understand and appreciate technologies that could help us in our goal. Our focus was primarily on technologies and approaches common in the semantic web and 'Web 2.0' areas. By pursuing semantic web technologies, we ensured that Centruflow would be considerably more standards-compliant than it was previously. At the conclusion of our development period, Centruflow had been rather substantially 'retrofitted', with all proprietary technologies replaced with equivalent semantic web technologies. The result of this is that Centruflow is now positioned on the forefront of the semantic web wave, allowing for far more comprehensive and rapid visualisation of a far larger set of readily-available data than what was possible previously. Having implemented all necessary functionality, we validated our approach and were pleased to find that our improvements led to a considerably more intelligent and useful Centruflow application than was previously available. This functionality is now available as part of 'Centruflow 3.0', which will be publicly released in March 2008. Finally, we conclude this thesis with a discussion on the future work that should be undertaken to improve on the current release.

This research examines the application of the ISO 9000 model for quality management in healthcare. Exploratory case study is made of three healthcare provider organisations: community health service; independent practitioner association; Maori health network. Three research models are developed to examine identified gaps and areas of interest in healthcare quality management literature. The first model relates to differences between generic standards and specification standards. The second model relates to the fit of healthcare service delivery systems and ISO 9000. The third model relates to exploration of the linkages and co-ordination of an integrated care delivery network. One proposition and two hypotheses are developed in relation to the models, and are closely associated with gaps in healthcare service quality knowledge. Strong support is found for the first hypothesis though not the second hypothesis, and there are also some unexpected results. There is strong support that the process of implementing the ISO 9000 model will enhance healthcare management performance, even though the outcomes are unpredictable. There are indications supporting the notion that implementation of the ISO 9000 model will increase effective linkages and co-ordination within integrated care delivery networks. The body of evidence accumulated during the study did not, however, permit a valid conclusion regarding the hypothesis. The findings of the study can be extended to other healthcare service areas and through interpretation and extrapolation they add value to healthcare service quality research in general. In particular, the findings of the three case studies in this research suggest that future models for healthcare service quality should include a comprehensive generic model for quality management of individual and integrated healthcare service organisations.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / Achieving and sustaining business-IT alignment in organisations continues to be a management challenge into the new millennium. As organisations strive toward this end, researchers are attempting to better understand the alignment phenomenon. Empirical research into business-IT alignment is dominated by studies examining the relationship between business strategy, information technology and performance. Investigations into the factors enabling or inhibiting alignment are emerging. This research has traditionally taken a behavioural perspective. There is evidence of little research that examines the issue through a cognitive lens. This thesis builds on and extends the study of business-IT alignment by investigating the cognition of the key stakeholders of the alignment process - business and IS executives. Drawing on Personal Construct Theory (Kelly, 1955), this study uses a cognitive mapping methodology known as the repertory grid technique to investigate two questions: i) is there a positive relationship between business-IT alignment and shared understanding between business and IS executives?; and ii) are there differences in the cognitive maps of business and IS executives in companies that report high business-IT alignment and those that report low business-IT alignment? Shared understanding is defined as cognition that is held in common between and that which is distributed amongst business and IS executives. It is portrayed in the form of a cognitive map for each company. The study proposes that business-IT alignment is directly related to the shared understanding between business and IS executives and that the cognitive maps of these executive groups are less diverse in companies that report a high level of alignment. Eighty business and IS executives from six companies were interviewed. Cognitive maps were elicited from the research participants from which diversity between cognitive maps of business and IS executives are measured. A collective cognitive map was produced to illustrate the quality of the shared understanding in each company. The state of business-IT alignment in each company was also measured. The results of the study suggest that there is a strong positive link between business-IT alignment and shared understanding between business and IS executives. As expected, companies with a high-level of business-IT alignment demonstrate high quality shared understanding between its business and IS executives as measured and portrayed by their collective cognitive maps. The investigation further finds significant diversity in the structure and content of the cognitive maps of these executive groups in companies reporting a low-level of alignment. This study concludes that shared understanding, between business and IS executives, is important to business-IT alignment. Reconciling the diversity in the cognitive maps of business and IS executives is a step toward achieving and sustaining alignment. Practical approaches to developing shared understanding are proposed. A methodology to aid organisations in assessing shared understanding between their business and IS executives is also outlined. Finally research on business-IT alignment continues to be a fruitful and important field of IS research. This study suggests that the most interesting issues are at the interface between cognition and behaviour. The process of business-IT alignment in organisations is characterised by the individuality and commonality in the cognition of key stakeholders, its influence on the behaviour of these members and hence the organisational action taken.

Although there is a high risk of failure in the implementation of ICT projects (which appears to extend to health ICT projects), we continue to implement health information systems in order to deliver quality, cost-effective healthcare. The purpose of the research was to participate in and study the change management as a critical success factor in health ICT projects, and to examine people’s responses to change so as to develop understanding and theory that could be used in future change management programmes. The research was conducted within the context of a large infrastructure project that resulted from the emergence of a shared services organisation (from two participating District Health Boards in Auckland, New Zealand). Action research (AR) formed the basis of the methodology used, and provided the foundation for a change management programme: the AR intervention. Grounded theory (GT) was used for some of the data analysis, the generation of themes by means of constant comparison and the deeper examination of the change process using theoretical sampling. AR and GT together supported the development of theory regarding the change process associated with health ICT projects. Health ICT projects were revealed in the findings as exhibiting the properties of complex adaptive systems. This complexity highlighted the art of change management as a critical success factor for such projects. The fabric of change emerged as a composite of processes linked to project processes and organisational processes. The turning point in the change process from the before state to the after state is marked by a capability crisis which requires effective patterns of leadership, sensitive targeting of communication, effective learning, and management of increased workload and diminishing resources during the course of health ICT projects. A well managed capability crisis period as a component of change management can substantially contribute to health ICT project success.

Distribution design for databases usually addresses the problems of fragmentation, allocation and replication. However, the main purposes of distribution are to improve performance and to increase system reliability. The former aspect is particularly relevant in cases where the desire to distribute data originates from the distributed nature of an organization with many data needs only arising locally, i.e., some data are retrieved and processed at only one or at most very few locations. Therefore, query optimization should be treated as an intrinsic part of distribution design. Due to the interdependencies between fragmentation, allocation and distributed query optimization it is not efficient to study each of the problems in isolation to get overall optimal distribution design. However, the combined problem of fragmentation, allocation and distributed query optimization is NP-hard, and thus requires heuristics to generate efficient solutions. In this thesis the foundations of fragmentation and allocation in databases on query processing are investigated using a query cost model. The considered databases are defined on complex value data models, which capture complex value, object-oriented and XML-based databases. The emphasis on complex value databases enables a large variety of schema fragmentation, while at the same time it imposes restrictions on the way schemata can be fragmented. It is shown that the allocation of locations to the nodes of an optimized query tree is only marginally affected by the allocation of fragments. This implies that optimization of query processing and optimization of fragment allocation are largely orthogonal to each other, leading to several scenarios for fragment allocation. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that optimized queries are given with subqueries having selection and projection operations applied to leaves. With this assumption some heuristic procedures can be developed to find an “optimal” fragmentation and allocation. In particular, cost-based algorithms for primary horizontal and derived horizontal fragmentation, vertical fragmentation are presented.

We investigate the expressive power of different fragments of higher-order logics over finite relational structures (or equivalently, relational databases) with special emphasis in higher-order logics of order greater than or equal three. Our main results concern the study of the effect on the expressive power of higher-order logics, of simultaneously bounding the arity of the higher-order variables and the alternation of quantifiers. Let AAi(r,m) be the class of (i + 1)-th order logic formulae where all quantifiers are grouped together at the beginning of the formulae, forming m alternating blocks of consecutive existential and universal quantifiers, and such that the maximal-arity (a generalization of the concept of arity, not just the maximal of the arities of the quantified variables) of the higher-order variables is bounded by r. Note that, the order of the quantifiers in the prefix may be mixed. We show that, for every i [greater than or equal to] 1, the resulting AAi hierarchy of formulae of (i + 1)-th order logic is proper. This extends a result by Makowsky and Pnueli who proved that the same hierarchy in second-order logic is proper. In both cases the strategy used to prove the results consists in considering the set AUTOSAT(F) of formulae in a given logic F which, represented as finite structures, satisfy themselves. We then use a similar strategy to prove that the classes of [Sigma superscript i subscript m union Pi superscript i subscript m] formulae in which the higher-order variables of all orders up to i+1 have maximal-arity at most r, also induce a proper hierarchy in each higher-order logic of order i [greater than or equal to] 3. It is not known whether the correspondent hierarchy in second-order logic is proper. Using the concept of finite model truth definitions introduced by M. Mostowski, we give a sufficient condition for that to be the case. We also study the complexity of the set AUTOSAT(F) and show that when F is one of the prenex fragments [Sigma superscript 1 subscript m] of second-order logic, it follows that AUTOSAT(F) becomes a complete problem for the corresponding prenex fragment [Sigma superscript 2 subscript m] of third-order logic. Finally, aiming to provide the background for a future line of research in higher-order logics, we take a closer look to the restricted second-order logic SO[superscript w] introduced by Dawar. We further investigate its connection with the concept of relational complexity studied by Abiteboul, Vardi and Vianu. Dawar showed that the existential fragment of SO[superscript w] is equivalent to the nondeterministic inflationary fixed-point logic NFP. Since NFP captures relational NP, it follows that the existential fragment of SO[superscript w] captures relational NP. We give a direct proof, in the style of the proof of Fagin’s theorem, of this fact. We then define formally the concept of relational machine with relational oracle and prove the exact correspondence between the prenex fragments of SO[superscript w] and the levels of the relational polynomial-time hierarchy. This allows us to stablish a direct connection between the relational polynomial hierarchy and SO without using the Abiteboul and Vianu normal form for relational machines.

The mobile phone has been regarded as one of the most significant inventions in the field of communications and information technology over the past decade. Due to the rapid growth of mobile phone subscribers, hundreds of phone models have been introduced. Therefore, customers may find it difficult to select the most appropriate mobile phone because of information overload. The aim of this study is to investigate web support for customers who are selecting a mobile phone. Firstly, all the models of mobile phones in the New Zealand market were identified by visiting shops and local websites. Secondly, a list of all the features of these mobile phones was collated from local shops, websites and magazines. This list was categorised into mobile phone properties and performance criteria. An experiment then compared three different selection support methods: A (mobile phone catalogue), B (mobile phone property selection) and C (mobile phone property and performance criteria selection). The results of the experiment revealed that selection support methods B and C had higher overall satisfaction ratings than selection support method A; both methods B and C had similar satisfaction ratings. The results also suggested that males and females select their mobile phones differently, though there was no gender preference in selection support methods.

Over the years many organizations have implemented an enterprise system (ES), also called enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, to streamline the flow of information and improve organizational effectiveness to produce business benefits which justify the ES investment. The effectiveness of these systems to achieve benefits is an area being proactively researched by both professionals and academia. However, most of these studies focus on ‘what ESs do’ rather than ‘how ESs do it’. The purpose of this study is to better understand how organizations derive benefits from utilization of an ES and its data. This study utilizes a transformational model of how ES data are transformed into knowledge and results to evaluate the impact of ES information on organizational functions and processes and how this can lead to business benefits. The linkage between expected outcomes, utilization of ES data in decision-making processes, and realized or unrealized benefits provides the reason for this study. Findings reveal that the key benefits commercial firms seek from an ES include improving information flow and visibility, integration and automation of functions, cost reductions by reducing inventory, and achieving process efficiencies for both internal and external operations. The various tools and methods businesses use for transforming ES data into knowledge include the use of data warehouses and business intelligence modules that assist in extraction and manipulation of data, and reporting on particular data objects. Web portals are actively utilized to collaborate between stakeholders and access real-time information. Business tools such as KPI reporting, balanced scorecards and dashboards are used to track progress towards realizing benefits and establishing analytical decision making. Findings emphasize that benefit realization from an ES implementation is a holistic process that not only includes the essential data and technology factors, but also includes other factors such as business strategy deployment, people and process management, and skills and competency development. Findings reveal that business organizations generally lack in producing value assessments that often lead to weak business cases and insufficient benefit models which cannot be used for benefit tracking. However, these organizations are now realizing that it is not enough to put in an ES and expect an automatic improvement. Organizations are now establishing analytical and knowledge-leveraging processes to optimize and realize business value from their ES investment.

This research focuses on developing a series of mobile learning applications for future 'beyond' classroom learning environments. The thesis describes the general use pattern of the prototype and explores the key factors that could affect users‘ attitudes towards potential acceptance of the mobile learning applications. Finally, this thesis explores the user acceptance of the mobile learning applications; and investigates the mobility issue and the comparison of applying learning activities through mobile learning and e-learning.

A multiplatform e-learning system is an e-learning system that can deliver learning content to different accessing devices such as PCs, PDAs and mobile phones. The main objective of the research is to formulate a framework for multiplatform e-learning systems. This thesis focuses on the formulation, competency and constitution of the multiplatform e-learning systems framework and the implementation of a multiplatform e-learning system. In conjunction with the main objective, the research also addresses the factors that influence learner satisfaction during their engagement with a multiplatform e-learning system. In addition, the research investigates the relationships between these factors in influencing learner satisfaction. The research also intends to validate the assertion that multiplatform e-learning systems are better than non-adaptive e-learning systems. A comparative evaluation between a traditional e-learning system and a multiplatform e-learning system from end user (learner) perspective was conducted. The evaluation instrument is based on multiplatform e-learning system questionnaires (MELQ). A total of forty participants took part in the evaluation. Four participants took part in the initial pilot evaluation while thirty six participants took part in the final evaluation. Data analysis and statistical results indicate that there are potential gains in learner satisfaction score in multiplatform e-learning systems over traditional e-learning systems. The results also show that the gain is most significant in mobile devices than in desktop PCs. Statistical analysis reveals that all the factors that influence the learner satisfaction are significant and they have different levels of influence over learner satisfaction. These factors can be further organized into primary factors and secondary factors. These findings and the methodology of evaluation can play an important role for e-learning systems designer to improve the adaptation process and to enhance the level of learner satisfaction in multiplatform e-learning systems.