• Refine Query
  • Source
  • Publication year
  • to
  • Language
  • 761
  • 246
  • 68
  • 63
  • 61
  • 24
  • 18
  • 16
  • 13
  • 10
  • 10
  • 9
  • 8
  • 8
  • 7
  • Tagged with
  • 1633
  • 1633
  • 847
  • 471
  • 374
  • 307
  • 218
  • 204
  • 197
  • 191
  • 190
  • 154
  • 139
  • 137
  • 137
  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
441

Understanding and applying decision support systems in Australian farming systems research

Robinson, Jeffrey Brett, University of Western Sydney, College of Science, Technology and Environment, School of Environment and Agriculture January 2005 (has links)
Decision support systems (DSS) are usually based on computerised models of biophysical and economic systems. Despite early expectations that such models would inform and improve management, adoption rates have been low, and implementation of DSS is now “critical” The reasons for this are unclear and the aim of this study is to learn to better design, develop and apply DSS in farming systems research (FSR). Previous studies have explored the merits of quantitative tools including DSS, and suggested changes leading to greater impact. In Australia, the changes advocated have been: Simple, flexible, low cost economic tools: Emphasis on farmer learning through soft systems approaches: Understanding the socio-cultural contexts of using and developing DSS: Farmer and researcher co-learning from simulation modelling and Increasing user participation in DSS design and implementation. Twenty-four simple criteria were distilled from these studies, and their usefulness in guiding the development and application of DSS were assessed in six FSR case studies. The case studies were also used to better understand farmer learning through models of decision making and learning. To make DSS useful complements to farmers’ existing decision-making repertoires, they should be based on: (i) a decision-oriented development process, (ii) identifying a motivated and committed audience, (iii) a thorough understanding of the decision-makers context, (iv) using learning as the yardstick of success, and (v) understanding the contrasts, contradictions and conflicts between researcher and farmer decision cultures / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
442

Women as Farm Partners: Agricultural Decision Support Systems in the Australian Cotton Industry

Mackrell, Dale Carolyn, n/a January 2006 (has links)
Australian farmers are supplementing traditional practices with innovative strategies in an effort to survive recent economic, environmental, and social crises in the rural sector. These innovative strategies include moving towards a technology-based farm management style. A review of past literature determines that, despite a growing awareness of the usefulness of computers for farm management, there is concern over the limited demand for computer-based agricultural decision support systems (DSS). Recent literature indicates that women are the dominant users of computers on family farms yet are hesitant to use computers for decision support, and it is also unclear what decision-making roles women assume on family farms. While past research has investigated the roles of women in the Australian rural sector, there is a dearth of research into the interaction of women cotton growers with computers. Therefore, this dissertation is an ontological study and aims to contribute to scholarly knowledge in the research domain of Australian women cotton growers, agricultural DSS, and cotton farm management. This dissertation belongs in the Information Systems (IS) stream and describes an interpretive single case study which explores the lives of Australian women cotton growers on family farms and the association of an agricultural DSS with their farm management roles. Data collection was predominantly through semi-structured interviews with women cotton growers and cotton industry professionals such as DSS developers, rural extension officers, researchers and educators, rural experimental scientists, and agronomists and consultants, all of whom advise cotton growers. The study was informed by multiple sociological theories with opposing paradigmatic assumptions: Giddens' (1984) structuration theory as a metatheory to explore the recursiveness of farm life and technology usage; Rogers' (1995) diffusion of innovations theory with a functionalist approach to objectively examine the features of the software and user, as well as the processes of technology adoption; and Connell's (2002) theory of gender relations with its radical humanist perspective to subjectively investigate the relationships between farm partners through critical enquiry. The study was enriched further by drawing on other writings of these authors (Connell 1987; Giddens 2001; Rogers 2003) as well as complementary theories by authors (Orlikowski 1992; Orlikowski 2000; Trauth 2002; Vanclay & Lawrence 1995). These theories in combination have not been used before, which is a theoretical contribution of the study. The agricultural DSS for the study was CottonLOGIC, an advanced farm management tool to aid the management of cotton production. It was developed in the late 1990s by the CSIRO and the Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), with support from the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC). CottonLOGIC is a software package of decision support and record-keeping modules to assist cotton growers and their advisors in the management of cotton pests, soil nutrition, and farm operations. It enables the recording and reporting of crop inputs and yields, insect populations (heliothis, tipworm, mirids and so on), weather data, and field operations such as fertiliser and pesticide applications, as well as the running of insect density prediction (heliothis and mites) and soil nutrition models. The study found that innovative practices and sustainable solutions are an imperative in cotton farm management for generating an improved triple bottom line of economic, environmental and social outcomes. CottonLOGIC is an industry benchmark for supporting these values through the incorporation of Best Management Practices (BMP) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) principles, although there were indications that the software is in need of restructuring as could be expected of software over five years old. The evidence from the study was that women growers are participants in strategic farm decisions but less so in operational decisions, partly due to their lack of relevant agronomic knowledge. This hindered their use of CottonLOGIC, despite creative attempts to modify it. The study endorsed the existence of gender differences and inequalities in rural Australia. Nevertheless, the study also found that the women are valued for their roles as business partners in the multidisciplinary nature of farm management. All the same, there was evidence that greater collaboration and cooperation by farm partners and advisors would improve business outcomes. On the whole, however, women cotton growers are not passive agents but take responsibility for their own futures. In particular, DSS tools such as CottonLOGIC are instrumental in enabling women cotton growers to adapt to, challenge, and influence farm management practices in the family farm enterprise, just as CottonLOGIC is itself shaped and reshaped. Hence, a practical contribution of this study is to provide non-prescriptive guidelines for the improved adoption of agricultural DSS, particularly by rural women, as well as increasing awareness of the worth of their roles as family farm business partners.
443

Acquisition of Fuzzy Measures in Multicriteria Decision Making Using Similarity-based Reasoning

Wagholikar, Amol S, N/A January 2007 (has links)
Continuous development has been occurring in the area of decision support systems. Modern systems focus on applying decision models that can provide intelligent support to the decision maker. These systems focus on modelling the human reasoning process in situations requiring decision. This task may be achieved by using an appropriate decision model. Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) is a common decision making approach. This research investigates and seeks a way to resolve various issues associated with the application of this model. MCDM is a formal and systematic decision making approach that evaluates a given set of alternatives against a given set of criteria. The global evaluation of alternatives is determined through the process of aggregation. It is well established that the aggregation process should consider the importance of criteria while determining the overall worth of an alternative. The importance of individual criteria and of sub-sets of the criteria affects the global evaluation. The aggregation also needs to consider the importance of the sub-set of criteria. Most decision problems involve dependent criteria and the interaction between the criteria needs to be modelled. Traditional aggregation approaches, such as weighted average, do not model the interaction between the criteria. Non-additive measures such as fuzzy measures model the interaction between the criteria. However, determination of non-additive measures in a practical application is problematic. Various approaches have been proposed to resolve the difficulty in acquisition of fuzzy measures. These approaches mainly propose use of past precedents. This research extends this notion and proposes an approach based on similarity-based reasoning. Solutions to the past problems can be used to solve the new decision problems. This is the central idea behind the proposed methodology. The methodology itself applies the theory of reasoning by analogy for solving MCDM problems. This methodology uses a repository of cases of past decision problems. This case base is used to determine the fuzzy measures for the new decision problem. This work also analyses various similarity measures. The illustration of the proposed methodology in a case-based decision support system shows that interactive models are suitable tools for determining fuzzy measures in a given decision problem. This research makes an important contribution by proposing a similarity-based approach for acquisition of fuzzy measures.
444

An Agent-based hybrid framework for decision making on complex problems.

Zhang, Zili, mikewood@deakin.edu.au January 2001 (has links)
Electronic commerce and the Internet have created demand for automated systems that can make complex decisions utilizing information from multiple sources. Because the information is uncertain, dynamic, distributed, and heterogeneous in nature, these systems require a great diversity of intelligent techniques including expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks, and genetic algorithms. However, in complex decision making, many different components or sub-tasks are involved, each of which requires different types of processing. Thus multiple such techniques are required resulting in systems called hybrid intelligent systems. That is, hybrid solutions are crucial for complex problem solving and decision making. There is a growing demand for these systems in many areas including financial investment planning, engineering design, medical diagnosis, and cognitive simulation. However, the design and development of these systems is difficult because they have a large number of parts or components that have many interactions. From a multi-agent perspective, agents in multi-agent systems (MAS) are autonomous and can engage in flexible, high-level interactions. MASs are good at complex, dynamic interactions. Thus a multi-agent perspective is suitable for modeling, design, and construction of hybrid intelligent systems. The aim of this thesis is to develop an agent-based framework for constructing hybrid intelligent systems which are mainly used for complex problem solving and decision making. Existing software development techniques (typically, object-oriented) are inadequate for modeling agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. There is a fundamental mismatch between the concepts used by object-oriented developers and the agent-oriented view. Although there are some agent-oriented methodologies such as the Gaia methodology, there is still no specifically tailored methodology available for analyzing and designing agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. To this end, a methodology is proposed, which is specifically tailored to the analysis and design of agent-based hybrid intelligent systems. The methodology consists of six models - role model, interaction model, agent model, skill model, knowledge model, and organizational model. This methodology differs from other agent-oriented methodologies in its skill and knowledge models. As good decisions and problem solutions are mainly based on adequate information, rich knowledge, and appropriate skills to use knowledge and information, these two models are of paramount importance in modeling complex problem solving and decision making. Follow the methodology, an agent-based framework for hybrid intelligent system construction used in complex problem solving and decision making was developed. The framework has several crucial characteristics that differentiate this research from others. Four important issues relating to the framework are also investigated. These cover the building of an ontology for financial investment, matchmaking in middle agents, reasoning in problem solving and decision making, and decision aggregation in MASs. The thesis demonstrates how to build a domain-specific ontology and how to access it in a MAS by building a financial ontology. It is argued that the practical performance of service provider agents has a significant impact on the matchmaking outcomes of middle agents. It is proposed to consider service provider agents' track records in matchmaking. A way to provide initial values for the track records of service provider agents is also suggested. The concept of ‘reasoning with multimedia information’ is introduced, and reasoning with still image information using symbolic projection theory is proposed. How to choose suitable aggregation operations is demonstrated through financial investment application and three approaches are proposed - the stationary agent approach, the token-passing approach, and the mobile agent approach to implementing decision aggregation in MASs. Based on the framework, a prototype was built and applied to financial investment planning. This prototype consists of one serving agent, one interface agent, one decision aggregation agent, one planning agent, four decision making agents, and five service provider agents. Experiments were conducted on the prototype. The experimental results show the framework is flexible, robust, and fully workable. All agents derived from the methodology exhibit their behaviors correctly as specified.
445

Public Housing Tenant Relocation: Residential Mobility, Satisfaction, and the Development of a Tenant's Spatial Decision Support System.

Baker, Emma January 2002 (has links)
This study is an examination of residential mobility and its outcomes focussing on the forced relocation of public housing tenants from The Parks area of metropolitan Adelaide. In Euro-American countries, this type of residential mobility is increasingly used as a means of facilitating urban regeneration and countering the effects of the ongoing decrease in local public housing stock. The result is growing numbers of public tenants affected by relocation. The study agues that these public tenants have the right to a basic level of residential satisfaction, and in order for this satisfaction to be provided; the conditions and character of its formation must be understood. The thesis examines residential mobility and the formation of residential satisfaction to provide a basis for understanding the outcomes and effects of relocation, who is most affected, and how to target solutions to improve the relocation process. Despite the fact that households experience similar influences, and make their residential decisions in largely predictable ways, the formulation of residential satisfaction and the effects of relocation are highly individualised. Successful relocation is shown to be dependent on the inclusion of tenants' expert knowledge about their own residential satisfaction; this means that resident involvement in the process is crucial. This thesis investigates a means of combining these findings to improve the outcome of the relocation process for each individual tenant and their household. A prototype Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) is constructed to allow relocating tenants to participate in their own relocation decision process. This SDSS allows local, spatially referenced information to be combined with each tenants own expert knowledge. This information is combined through a structured decision process, which is presented in a portable computer program with a simplified user interface. This SDSS is tested by relocating tenants and key stakeholders from The Parks to evaluate its usefulness in improving the relocation process. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Geography and Environmental Studies, 2002.
446

Understanding and applying decision support systems in Australian farming systems research

Robinson, Jeffrey Brett, University of Western Sydney, College of Science, Technology and Environment, School of Environment and Agriculture January 2005 (has links)
Decision support systems (DSS) are usually based on computerised models of biophysical and economic systems. Despite early expectations that such models would inform and improve management, adoption rates have been low, and implementation of DSS is now “critical” The reasons for this are unclear and the aim of this study is to learn to better design, develop and apply DSS in farming systems research (FSR). Previous studies have explored the merits of quantitative tools including DSS, and suggested changes leading to greater impact. In Australia, the changes advocated have been: Simple, flexible, low cost economic tools: Emphasis on farmer learning through soft systems approaches: Understanding the socio-cultural contexts of using and developing DSS: Farmer and researcher co-learning from simulation modelling and Increasing user participation in DSS design and implementation. Twenty-four simple criteria were distilled from these studies, and their usefulness in guiding the development and application of DSS were assessed in six FSR case studies. The case studies were also used to better understand farmer learning through models of decision making and learning. To make DSS useful complements to farmers’ existing decision-making repertoires, they should be based on: (i) a decision-oriented development process, (ii) identifying a motivated and committed audience, (iii) a thorough understanding of the decision-makers context, (iv) using learning as the yardstick of success, and (v) understanding the contrasts, contradictions and conflicts between researcher and farmer decision cultures / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
447

Decision support systems for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia.

Clark, Scott R. January 2009 (has links)
Delay to antibiotic treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) greater than 4 hours following hospital admission is associated with a 15% increase in mortality. Paper-based guidelines have been widely introduced to improve CAP care, but these interventions have under-performed due to poor compliance in complex clinical workflows. Unlike passive paper-based guidelines, alerting systems based on computer-based decision support systems (CDSS) have the capacity to actively draw attention to delayed clinical processes. Formal consideration of local workflow is key to the design and successful implementation of CDSS. I used workflow analysis techniques to develop an evidence-based alerting system designed to reduce the delay to treatment of CAP in the emergency department (ED) of an Australian tertiary hospital. A sample of 6 CAP patients were observed during October 2001 to derive a structural process flow model, which was refined via stakeholder interview. A deterministic process flow model was then developed using an existing retrospectively compiled CAP database, consisting of 246 patients admitted June-December 1998 and 146 patients admitted May-December 2000. A stratified control sample presenting with respiratory symptoms (n=74, January-December 2003) was collected for the assessment of diagnosis and chest x-ray (CXR) accuracy. Treatment delay greater than 4 hours was associated with failure to diagnose CAP in the ED, the absence of CXR evidence, low triage score, delayed CXR, and failure to treat in the ED. ED physicians only identified 54-57% of those discharged with CAP. Radiologists only reported CAP features in 47% - 67% of initial CXRs for these patients. I hypothesised that a CDSS-based alerting system, composed of a CAP early diagnosis model (EDM) and a simple risk model (CRB-65), would identify enough CAP patients to reduce the percentage treated after 4 hours. I constructed an evidence-based naïve Bayesian EDM (sensitivity = 36%, specificity = 93%). It was able to identify 24% of CAP patients that died in hospital, 38% of those with antibiotics delayed greater than 4 hours, and 26% of those with CXR delayed greater than 4 hours. CAP-specific risk models were equivalent to the Australasian Triage Score (ATS) in predicting mortality. I simulated alerting policy by combining the CDSS with the deterministic process flow model. Alerting for treatment at triage or initial physician assessment, when the EDM was positive, approximately halved the median treatment time of 5.53 hours, and decreased the number treated after 4 hours (62%) by 1/3. Treating EDM-positive patients as ATS category 2 produced a similar effect. Current triage practices, embodied mainly by the disease-independent, sign and symptom based ATS are too coarse to deal with conditions such as CAP, where there is high diagnostic uncertainty and delays in diagnosis and treatment are critical determinants of outcomes. Better outcomes may be achieved with quicker diagnostic and treatment workflows via: analysis of current diagnosis and treatment workflows, analysis and correlation of a comprehensive set of patient symptoms, signs and risk factors for the specific disease, and improving triaging and subsequent workflow through a disease-specific CDSS based on early diagnostic models derived from the previous analyses. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1374804 / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Medicine, 2009
448

Engineering Automotive Electronic Systems: Decision Support for Successful Integration

Fröberg, Joakim January 2007 (has links)
<p>The electronic system of a modern vehicle is essential to achieve a successful automotive product. Vehicle development is performed by integrating components that include embedded electronics from several suppliers.</p><p>This thesis present results on the subject of integration of automotive electronic systems. Our studies aim at providing knowledge on how to integrate automotive electronic systems successfully in a setting where vehicles are developed based on existing platforms. We focus on early phases of automotive electronic system development and in particular on the decisions taken in integration of electronic sub-systems. The contribution is the presented support for making decisions to successfully integrate electronic systems for modern vehicles. The contribution includes an overview of driving factors of automotive electronics system design, a validated set of success practices for the integration of electronic components, and the proposal and demonstration of a decision model. The influential factors and the validated set of practices stems from case studies of products and projects while the proposed decision model is a result of combining two general models for architecture analysis and decision making, ATAM and AHP.</p><p>We demonstrate that choices in strategy and design preceding integration are central to achieve a successful integration. Our studies show that problems arise from omitted strategy decisions and we provide a checklist for decision making in the areas; functionality, platform, integration design, and assigning responsibilities. We provide a recommendation that we validate in a multiple cases study where fulfillment of recommendations is demonstrated to affect project success in integration projects.</p><p>The potential gain for OEMs using our results lies in achieving more solid foundations for design decisions. Designers and managers could potentially find central decisions on integration strategy early that, if omitted, could cause delays. Thus, applying the result could avoid pitfalls and enable successful integration projects.</p>
449

Possibilities for the development of a decision support system for diagnosing heart failure

Olsson, Linda January 2007 (has links)
<p>Heart failure is a common disease which is difficult to diagnose. To aid physicians in diagnosing heart failure, a decision support system has been proposed. Parameters useful to the system are suggested. Some of these, such as age and gender, should be provided by the physician, and some should be derived from electro- and phonocardiographic signals.</p><p>Various methods of signal processing, such as wavelet theory and principal components analysis, are described. Heart failure should be diagnosed based on the parameters, and so various forms of decision support systems, such as neural networks and support vector machines, are described. The methods of signal processing and classification are discussed and suggestions on how to develop the system are made.</p>
450

protoBOM : Framework that semi-automatically generates Decision Support Systems based on Software Product Lines

Gomez Lacruz, Maria January 2008 (has links)
<p>This thesis presents the development of a prototype of the Baseline Oriented Modeling</p><p>(BOM) approach, called protoBOM.</p><p>BOM is a framework that semi-automatically generates Decision Support Systems in a</p><p>specific domain, based on Software Product Lines.</p><p>protoBOM semi-automatically generates applications as PRISMA architectural models by using Model-Driven Architecture and Software Product Line techniques. These models are automatically compiled and the object code (C#, in .NET) is generated obtaining an executable application.</p><p>In protoBOM, the user constructs Decision Support Systems in a simpler way by using the</p><p>ontologies of the diagnosis and the application domains by means of Domain Specific Languages. The interfaces will be closer to the problem domain, which will facilitate user interaction in a manner simple and intuitive.</p>

Page generated in 0.1409 seconds