Route specification can be a time consuming process in flight planning, and at the same time, it should be done very diligently for the sake of a safe flight and to reach the target on time. An autonomous decision support system can save time spent on finding the most accurate and shortest route from departure to destination. Different kinds of external sources are used as input for making intelligent decisions by taking advantage of a rule based reasoning approach. In this regard, a rule based decision support concept based on Drools rule engine is proposed in order to ease the workload of pilots during route specification. / Flygruttsplanering är en tidskrävande process vid uppdragsplanering. Den bör göras med stor omsorg för att garantera en säker flygning som når målet på utsatt tid. Ett autonomt beslutstödssystem kan spara tid genom att hitta den säkraste och kortaste rutten mellan avgång och destination. I detta sammanhang används olika externa källor som indata och de ligger till grund för att fatta intelligenta beslut med hjälp av regelbaserat resonerande. Konceptet regelbaserat beslutsstöd är baserat på Drools regelmotor för att minska arbetsbördan för piloter under ruttplanering.

The Nursing Coordinators (NCs) at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) fields phone calls from patients who have been discharged and are undergoing home care procedures at a daily basis. The project described in this thesis aims to provide tools for the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that the NCs can use during the phone calls. The Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) and Ecological Interface Design (EID) approach are used to identify the information requirements to design the system. Major challenges of the telephone consultation process that are additionally identified by literature review and interviewing the NCs included visibility of patients, individual differences, and lack of standardized procedures. A combination of decision trees and visualization techniques is proposed to aid the process. Implementation of decision trees would help unload mental workload especially accesses to "knowledge in the head" as well as facilitate expert knowledge transfer to less experienced nurses. Visualization tools display integration of multiple-cues from patients in an abstract nature and can be accessed by users at any point of decision process. <br /><br /> Preliminary experiment with static images showed that visualization tools helped the decision makers more when the judgement tasks were more complex. The effects of different types of decision support on the cardiac nurses in simulated telephone consultation processes were examined. The system improved the performance of the decision makers and induced different types of strategic behaviours: a standardized checklist, OLDCAR, induced more through assessment, the decision algorithms induced efficient and more detailed recommendation, and the semantic network symptom map induced information gathering more relevant to diagnosis. <br /><br /> The research also explored methodologies to examine multi-layered decision process, where many decision makers with varying expertise are involved in modeling the strategic behaviours. This type of process can be applicable when the primary decision makers do not monitor the work domain, but can be alerted when something goes wrong.

Objectives: Based on the analysis of electromyographic (EMG) data muscles are often characterized as normal or affected by a neuromuscular disease process. A clinical decision support system (CDSS) for the electrophysiological characterization of muscles by analyzing motor unit potentials (MUPs) was developed to assist physicians and researchers with the diagnosis, treatment & management of neuromuscular disorders and analyzed against criteria for use in a clinical setting. Methods: Quantitative MUP data extracted from various muscles from control subjects and patients from a number of clinics was used to compare the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of a number of different clinical decision support methods. The CDSS developed in this work known as AMC-PD has three components: MUP characterization using Pattern Discovery (PD), muscle characterization by taking the average of MUP characterizations and calibrated muscle characterizations. Results: The results demonstrated that AMC-PD achieved higher accuracy than conventional means and outlier analysis. Duration, thickness and number of turns were the most discriminative MUP features for characterizing the muscles studied in this work. Conclusions: AMC-PD achieved higher accuracy than conventional means and outlier analysis. Muscle characterization performed using AMC-PD can facilitate the determination of “possible”, “probable”, or “definite” levels of disease whereas the conventional means and outlier methods can only provide a dichotomous “normal” or “abnormal” decision. Therefore, AMC-PD can be directly used to support clinical decisions related to initial diagnosis as well as treatment and management over time. Decisions are based on facts and not impressions giving electromyography a more reliable role in the diagnosis, management, and treatment of neuromuscular disorders. AMC-PD based calibrated muscle characterization can help make electrophysiological examinations more accurate and objective.

This thesis studies the use of a collaborative spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis tool in site evaluation with multiple participants. The approach is situated within the context of three concepts of space, choice and participation, and is informed by fields as diverse as Decision-Making, Participatory Planning, Geographical Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, Voting, and Group Collaboration. A collaborative spatial Multi-Criteria Analysis software tool called MapChoice was designed for this thesis, built upon open source components and featuring easy-to-use decision support functionality in both single-user and collaborative modes. MapChoice was then evaluated in a real-world site selection situation with a case study on the location of much-needed affordable housing in the Town of Collingwood, Ontario. Based on previous discussions and workshops on the project, a workshop was held with a group of community housing advocates to compare a set of possible sites for an affordable housing project according to a set of spatial and aspatial criteria. The study indicates that a collaborative spatial MCA approach can be used in dealing with complex planning problems, and that it has the potential to contribute to improved consensus between participants.

Point-of-use (POU) and point-of-entry (POE) water treatment are forms of decentralized water treatment that are becoming increasingly sought alternatives for ensuring the safety of drinking water. Although the acceptance of POU and POE systems is still the subject of some debate, it is generally acknowledged that they have a role to play in drinking water treatment. However, some of the main drivers for the increase in the use of POU and POE alternatives include: (1) the emergence of new technologies with high removal efficiencies of target contaminants; (2) the enhanced certification system of POU and POE treatment devices and components which ensures that devices have been well engineered to achieve defined contaminant removal targets and do not add contaminants from materials of construction; (3) the inclusion of POU and POE systems as acceptable means to comply with drinking water standards; and (4) the concerns voiced by consumers in several surveys regarding the safety of centrally treated drinking water; which, regardless of whether or not these concerns are justified, have led to an increase in the use of POU and POE treatment systems. With the commercialization of these devices the task of selecting a suitable device for treatment has become cumbersome. When the inherent complexity of a particular drinking water treatment task is added to the mix, a complex decision making situation is created. Thus the need for designing a decision support tool to compare and select POU and POE treatment systems was evident. Currently the best decision aid for selecting POU and POE systems is NSF International’s listing of the devices and their contaminant reduction claims. A significant contribution of this research is the depiction of an appropriate conceptual framework for developing usable and valid decision support systems (DSSs) to select or design water or wastewater treatment systems. A thorough investigation of the methods used to develop DSSs benchmarked a systematic approach to developing DSSs, which includes the analysis of the treatment problem(s), knowledge acquisition and representation, and the identification and evaluation of criteria controlling the selection of optimal treatment systems. Finally, it was concluded that there is a need to develop integrated DSSs that are generic, user-friendly and employ a systems analysis approach. Another significant contribution of this research is applying a systems analysis approach to outline aspects of implementation, management, and governance of POU and POE water treatment systems. The analysis also included a timeline of the progress of POU and POE treatment from regulatory, industry and certification, and research perspectives. Results of the analysis were considered the first step of a conceptual framework for the sustainability assessment of POU and POE treatment systems which acts as the basis for developing a decision support system that will help select sustainable POU or POE treatment systems. In the context of POU and POE treatment, sustainability encompasses providing: (a) safe drinking water to help maintain good human health and hygiene; (b) minimum negative impact on the environment; (c) better use of human, natural, and financial resources; (d) a high degree of functional robustness and flexibility; and (e) cultural acceptance thus encouraging responsible behavior by the users. The most significant contribution of this research is developing, for the first time, a set of sustainability criteria, objectives, and quantifiable indicators to properly assess the sustainability of the various POU and POE alternatives. Twenty five quantitative and qualitative indicators covering technical, economic, environmental, and socio-cultural aspects of implementing a POU or a POE system were defined. Results of a survey of experts’ judgment on the effectiveness of the developed list of indicators generated 52 comments from 11 experts, which helped in refining and enhancing the list. The conceptual framework for assessing the sustainability of POU and POE systems represented a blueprint for building the decision support system. Decision logic and cognitive thinking was used to formulate the calculation of the 20 refined indicators. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a recognized Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool, was employed to construct the structural hierarchy of sustainability indicators. Pairwise comparison was used to help in the analysis of indicators' relative importance and develop the indicators’ weights. A survey was designed to develop the relative weights of the indicators based on the average response of 19 stakeholders to a series of pairwise comparison questions pertaining to the relative importance of the indicators. Finally, the practical contribution of this research is the development of, for the first time, a new Decision Support System for Selecting Sustainable POU and POE Treatment Systems (D4SPOUTS) suitable for a particular water treatment case. The MCDA technique explained above is combined with designed screening rules, constraints, and case characteristics to be applied to a knowledgebase of POU and POE treatment systems incorporated in the DSS. The components of the DSS were built using Microsoft® Excel® and Visual Basic® for Applications. The quality of the DSS and aspects of its usability, applicability, and sensitivity analysis are demonstrated through a hypothetical case study for lead removal from drinking water. This research is expected to assist water purveyors, consultants, and other stakeholders in selecting sustainable and cost effective POU and POE treatment systems.

The purpose of this research was to study agricultural crop production 'decision support systems' as a means of transferring agricultural technology from research labs and plots to producers, extension specialists, agriculture service agencies, and scientists, on the Western Canadian Prairies. A 'decision support system' is a computer program that analyses problems spanning several knowledge or problem areas producing results that aid the management decision-making process. The primary objective was to develop a computer application program that would fulfill the farm manager's decision support needs and be "open" to future enhancements. This interdisciplinary study has a strong agricultural presence in the application context of the resultant computerized agricultural decision support system, with agronomics being the foundation on which the system was built, and computer science being the toolbox used to build it. Farm Smart 2000 is the resultant decision support system, providing "single-window" access to three different tiers of decision support utilizing the Internet, ' expert systems' and integrated multiple heterogeneous 'reusable agents' in a cooperative problem-solving environment. An ' expert system' is a computer program that solves complicated problems, within a specific knowledge or problem area, that would otherwise require human expertise. Expert systems integrated with each other within a decision support system are called 'agents. Reusable agents' are modular computer programs (e.g. expert systems) which can be used in more than one computer application with little or no modification. Farm Smart 2000 provides support for most management aspects of crop production including variety selection, crop rotations, weed management, disease management, residue management, harvesting, soil conservation, and economics, for the crops of wheat, canola, barley, peas, and flax. Tier-3, the most sophisticated level of Farm Smart 2000, is the focus of this dissertation and utilizes multiple reusable agents, integrating them such that they cooperate together to solve complex interrelated crop production problems. A Global Control Expert achieves the required communication and coordination among the agents resulting in an "open system", enabling Farm Smart 2000 to extend its problem-solving capabilities by integrating additional agents and knowledge, without system re-engineering, thereby remaining an ongoing technology transfer vehicle.

Health and safety have been the most important concerns in waste management formany years. However, nowadays society demands that as well as being safe, waste managementmust also be sustainable. The management of a sustainable Municipal Solid Waste is anecessary but not-prioritized aspect of environmental management in most countries with lowand middle income.This study purposes an analysis of technologies, in order to select the best and mostsuitable practices in Sustainable Waste Management Systems already applied or in advancedlevel of research in developed and developing countries. The target countries for receiving thisstudy of waste system are located in Western Africa: Ghana, Côte d‟Ivoire, Senegal andNigeria.The analysis of collection, transportation, treatment and disposal of waste, with focus onorganic matter, was presented in two groups. The first group, “collection and transportation”was analysed with attention to aspects and stakeholders presented in the Integrated SustainableWaste Management framework. In the second group, “treatment and disposal”, each technologywas analysed based on aspects of sustainable development. The decision-support software Web-HIPRE was also used to frame the final rank of solutions for the African scenario.The conclusions for those analyses were that the creation of micro and small enterprisesand community based organizations for collection and transportation should strongly beencouraged. They generate not just new employment but awareness among the population aswell. As for the treatment and disposal of organic household waste, two promising technologiesare decentralized composting and home composting with plastic bins.

Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) and the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) have been adopted by large healthcare organization to support stroke diagnosis to reduce the level of misdiagnosis occurrence. This research presents a methodology for constructing a stroke decision support system (Stroke DSS) which integrates basic information, physical and image stroke assessment criterions, constructs ischemic, hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage of stroke diagnosis flow. A prototype embedded methodology was built to support stroke diagnosis in healthcare organization. Using a design science approach, we embed the constructs of our methodology in a prototype and perform a usability evaluation to demonstrate the utility of our approach. The usability evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction. The resulting system allowed flexible knowledge model and representation that are useful for stroke diagnosis.

The business environment nowadays becomes much more dynamically and tensely than the past driven by the trend of globalization and free trading. Therefore, any enterprise in the world has to face competition from everywhere in the world. Under such complicated business environment, it¡¦s dangerous to make decision based on past experience or instinct. If some key message is missed or not collected, a disaster caused by logical decision, but far away from the reality might just happen. In last couple decades, software providers launched DSS(Decision Support System), BI(Business Intelligence), ¡K, etc. based on current enterprise IT infrastructure like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), MRPII(Manufacturing Resource Planning), ¡K, etc. to help enterprise for decision making. However, such systems are not popular in Taiwan, not to mention the successful stories. While I studied the lesson ¡§information technology and competitive advantage¡¨ conducted by Profession Kuo, I concluded from classmates¡¦ discussion that the root causes were as follows. 1. Most Taiwan manufacturers¡¦ strategy is to launch product at lower cost to allow them to win business via price war. Therefore, they are willing to invest tangible hardware, not intangible software. 2. The branches of international companies can¡¦t develop their own information system due to Corporate policy or security concern. Based on above mentioned, I started thinking if we could have a BI system that doesn¡¦t need to spend money, is easy to implement, and no need for Corporate approval. Such BI system could help management to retrieve effective and enough information for precise decision making. After evaluation, I think Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software is the most suitable solution. It¡¦s because almost all enterprises have it, it can contain 1M units of data in a file, and useful tools of macro, pivot table, sorting, filtering, VBA(Visual Basic for Application). Furthermore, the nature of spreadsheet is similar to database structure, so it can be easily integrated with database like SQL database, Microsoft Access. Thanks to Profession Kuo¡¦s coaching, I started doing research, and studied necessary tool like VBA, ¡K, etc. to warm up for this thesis. After months, I finally finish it, and I hope it can contribute to the ones that have similar problem with me.

It is getting more important to have quick response during the negotiation process due to the very competitive environment. However, in the negotiation process, it is quite often that negotiators do not have enough time to understand the negotiation issue, the available alternatives and their priorities. In addition, negotiators may also have difficulties to catch path of interactions between negotiators, i.e. negotiation dance. These problems may have negative impact on the negotiation results or even break the negotiation. The goal of this research is to help negotiators with clearer picture about the negotiation issues and the interactions between negotiators in order to have better negotiation decisions during the negotiation process. First, the challenges in understanding the negotiation issues and the interactions between negotiators are identified. Then, based on the identified challenges, five negotiation decision support agents are designed. The algorithm of each agent is proposed too. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed agents, prototypes of two agents have been developed and evaluated through an experiment. The result is positive.