The web browser has emerged as a central workspace for information workers, where they make use of cloud-based applications to access their information. While this solution nicely supports access to their data from multiple devices, it presents a nightmare for organizing and coordinating data between tools for a single project. Information is typically scattered between various online tools, where storage and organization structures are replicated. Information workers are interrupted and have to switch between projects frequently. Once interrupted, resuming work on a project can be hard. To address this information fragmentation and the impact of work interruptions, I created Contextinator, a personal information manager for the web browser that lets information workers organize their work activity and information into projects. Contextinator assists in coordinating information for projects, thereby ameliorating information fragmentation for projects that live on the cloud. It assists information workers in context switching and resuming work after interruptions. In my the- sis, I describe the problem of information fragmentation in the cloud. I discuss the different areas of related work of Personal Information Management, the design of Contextinator and how it is grounded in previous research. I briefly discuss how Contextinator is implemented. I then present the results from my field-evaluation of Contextinator. Finally, I conclude by discussing future work in this research. / Master of Science

The activity-based approach to the study of travel behavior implies a shift in focus from discrete trips to activities. A fundamental tenet of this approach is that individuals, when making their own activity-travel decisions, tend to interact with other members within a household. However, most activity-based research to date has been conducted at the individual level, but not at the household level. It is now well recognized that incorporating intra-household interactions is crucial to the development of improved activity-based models, which allow for more accurate travel demand forecasts and policy evaluations. In this context, the studies described in this dissertation have been conducted to explore several critical issues that have remained largely neglected in past studies. One such issue is the identification of joint participation in activity and travel episodes, due to the fact that most activity-travel surveys have failed to collect information on involved persons. In this dissertation, an integrated spatio-temporal GIS toolkit is initially developed to automatically identify and visualize (3D) joint activity/travel episodes. Such identification makes it possible to uniquely and directly incorporate intra-household interactions into studies of activity/travel behavior. The research described in this dissertation utilizes the 2003 CHASE (Computerized Household Activity Scheduling Elicitor) survey collected in the Greater Toronto Area. Several aspects of activity/travel behavior are investigated.. First, quantitative models are developed and estimated for investigating household activity time use patterns while capturing intra-household interactions. Second, the dynamics of household time use patterns are explored through descriptive analysis and structural equations models. Finally, the household activity decision-making process is further delved into with a focus on the planning priority of joint activities. Overall, the research presented in this dissertation makes important contributions to activity-based time use and travel behavior research: (1) technically, the developed GIS toolkit is helpful to reduce costs of processing large activity-travel datasets; and (2) theoretically, the empirical results presented will form the basis toward the development and implementation of an improved activity-based model. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

No description available.

<p>Sixty-five to 78% of sample populations of individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) have symptoms of spasticity, but current assessment tools and management strategies are inadequate. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to: 1) conduct a review of the definition, pathophysiology, and management of symptoms of spasticity in individuals with SCI, 2) develop and assess a new self-report scale designed to measure the impact of spasticity on daily life in people with SCI and 3) examine the effects of body-weight supported treadmill training (BWSTT) and tilt-table standing (TTS) on spasticity outcomes. 1) Spasticity was found to be a relevant concern for the SCI population and possibly responsive to activity-based intervention. A need was identified, however, for an assessment tool that allows individuals with SCI to report the impact of their spasticity. 2) In total, 89 individuals with chronic SCI participated in three phases of scale design: development, pilot testing, and evaluation of test-retest reliability and construct validity. The Spinal Cord Injury Spasticity Evaluation Tool (SCI-SET) was developed as a 7 -day recall self-report questionnaire that takes into account both the problematic and useful effects of spasticity. The internal consistency (a) and intraclass correlation coefficient of the SCI-SET were 0.90 and 0.91, respectively. Construct validity was supported by correlations (r=-0.48 to 0.68; p</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The purpose of this research was to quantify the impact of the log variables: length, grade, and scaling diameter, on the cost of producing hardwood lumber, using the activity-based costing technique. The usual technique of calculating hardwood lumber product costs is based upon traditional cost accounting, where manufacturing costs are allocated to the products based upon the volume of each product that is produced. With the traditional cost accounting procedure, the variation in the resources used to process the logs is not taken into consideration. As a result, when the cost to manufacture the products is subtracted from the market value of the products, the resulting profit levels of the products may not be truly representative of the actual resources consumed in manufacturing the product. Using discrete-event simulation, two hardwood sawmills were modeled and a series of experiments were conducted which would not have been feasible to conduct on the mill floors. Results from the simulation experiments illustrated that the activity-based and traditional cost accounting techniques allocated different amounts of manufacturing costs to the products. The largest difference between the two cost accounting techniques was found to be the amount of raw material costs allocated to the products. For one of the sawmills modeled, log grade was identified as having the greatest influence on determining product costs and total manufacturing costs. Results from the model of the second sawmill however demonstrated that log diameter had a greater impact on determining product costs and total manufacturing costs. The commonality of the results from the two simulation models was that the differences in the volume of lumber produced, between the logs that were studied, was a critical component in determining which log parameter had the most effect on changing the dynamics of the sawmill system. To enable hardwood managers a more precise method of allocating raw material costs to the lumber products, a methodology was developed that uses the principles of activity-based costing to allocate raw material costs. The proposed methodology, termed the lumber yield method, uses lumber yield values from logs with similar characteristics to allocate raw material costs to the lumber products. Analysis of the output from the simulation models illustrated that with the lumber yield method, the amount of raw material costs allocated to the products was not significantly different than the amount allocated by the activity-based costing method. The calculated raw material costs of the products were however, found to be significantly different between the lumber yield method and the traditional volume costing method. / Ph. D.

Traditionally, knowledge management tool design has fit into the repository paradigm: a database of stored information that can be queried by an individual seeking information. These tools often rely on two distinct user groups: those who produce the knowledge and those who seek it. The disparity between these two groups - one group benefiting from the other group's work - is a leading cause of a knowledge management tool's failure. Additionally, knowledge management tools fail because the work processes of target users are not fully understood and therefore not addressed in the tool design. Developing knowledge management tools for educators presents additional obstacles in this already hazardous environment. The traditional impediments found in the development of knowledge management systems, such as trust and incentive concerns, are present along with additional concerns faced by educators such as strict time and resource constraints. And like teaching, educators have different impressions of how knowledge management practices should be done. Therefore, any knowledge management tool for educators must address these obstacles in order to be effective. This research describes the development of an activity-centric knowledge management tool. Activity-centric knowledge management tools avoid the repository paradigm by focusing on the processes in which work is done rather than the storing of information that results from such work. This approach to knowledge management in an educational environment allows teachers to focus on the work involved in teaching rather than knowledge management itself which typically involves added tasks such as entering information into a database. First, I describe current knowledge management practices of teachers by reviewing literature from education and knowledge management as well as interviews and surveys of teachers regarding how they incorporate knowledge management into their teaching practices. Next, I examine the development of the Survey Data Visualization Tool, an activity-based knowledge management tool. Finally, I analyze the use of the Survey Data Visualization Tool by a group of teachers. / Master of Science

Activity-based travel demand models are generally considered superior to their trip-based counterparts, as activity-based models (ABMs) explicitly model individuals in contrast to the aggregate nature of trip-based models. There have been a number of comparisons between trip- and activity-based models, but these comparisons focus almost exclusively on the technical ability of the two model types, while not considering the practical benefits an ABM may or may not have to a transportation agency. This research performs a more holistic comparison between trip- and activity-based models, focused specifically on the practical differences between model types, both in terms of usability and capability for complex analysis. We use the existing Wasatch Front model as a representative trip-based model, and an ActivitySim implementation in the same area as a representative ABM. We create three hypothetical scenarios in both models: a change in land use, an improvement to commuter rail service, and an increase in remote work. We discuss the process of creating each scenario in both models, and perform several example analyses with each scenario and model. We find that many commonly-cited reasons for the lack of ABM adoption may not be as applicable as previously thought. ABMs are often considered more complicated than trip-based models, requiring more data and computational resources. While ABMs do require more input data, we found that in our case the complexity of the model and the computational resources required were similar between model types. Additionally, the ABM allows for much more intuitive and straightforward interpretation of results.

The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate the use of the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) approach together with the Theory of Constraints (TOC) philosophy in determining the optimal product-mix and restrictive bottlenecks of a company. The contribution of this thesis is a new product-mix decision model that uses activity-based cost information. This new model is proposed to be used with the TOC philosophy in order to improve the financial performance of a company.</p> Four case studies, all of which are based on hypothetical data, are prepared in this research to show the applicability of the proposed model in different manufacturing environments. Specifically, the first case study shows that the conventional product-mix decision model and the model developed in this thesis can give significantly different results regarding the best product-mix and associated bottlenecks of a company. The second case study demonstrates the use of the proposed product-mix decision model in a complex manufacturing environment. Specifically, this case study shows how companies should consider alternatives such as activity flexibility and outsourcing to improve their profitability figures. The third case study is an extension of the second case study, and it is prepared to illustrate that the proposed model can be extended to include more than one time period. The final case study demonstrates the applicability of the proposed model in a lean manufacturing environment.</p> Using the proposed model developed in this research will give managers more accurate information regarding the optimum product-mix and critical bottlenecks of their companies. By applying the TOC philosophy based on this information, managers will be able to take the right actions that will improve the profitability of their companies. Specifically, they will be able to observe the effects of several alternatives, such as activity flexibility and outsourcing, on the throughput of the whole system. In addition, the proposed model should help managers to prevent making decisions that sub-optimize the system. This may occur, for example, when using only the most efficient methods to produce each product even though the capacities of these methods are limited and some other less efficient methods are currently available in the company. By extending the model to include more than one time period, managers will be able to estimate the potential bottlenecks and the amount of idle capacities of each non-bottleneck activity performed in the company ahead of time. This information is powerful and can give companies a substantial advantage over their competitors because the users of the new model will have enough time to improve the performance of their potential bottlenecks and to search for more profitable usage of excess capacities before the actual production takes place. / Master of Science

by Mak Wing-lai Tony. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [42]). / ABSTRACT / TABLE OF CONTENTS / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT / CHAPTER / Chapter I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter II --- METHODOLOGY --- p.9 / Chapter III --- RESULTS --- p.19 / Chapter IV --- DISCUSSION --- p.32 / APPENDIX / BIBLIOGRAPHY