Coal is a fossil fuel mineral, which is presently a major source of electricity and energy to industries. From past to present, there are many coal reserves around the world and large scale coal mining operates in various areas such as the USA, Russia, China, Australia, India, and Germany, etc. Thailand’s coal resources can be found in many areas; there are lignite mining in the north of Thailand, the currently operational Mae Moh Lignite Mine, and also coal reserves in the south of Thailand, such as Krabi and Songkhla, where mines are not yet operating. The main consumption of coal is in electricity production, which increases annually. In 2019, the Thai Government and Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) plans to run a 800 MW coal power plant at Krabi, which may run on imported coal, despite there being reserves of lignite at Krabi; the use of domestic coal is a last option because of social and environmental concerns about the effects of coal mining. There is a modern trend in mining projects, the responsibility of mining should cover not only the mining activity, but the social and environmental protection and mine closure activities which follow. Thus, the costs and decisions taken on by the mining company are increasingly complicated. To reach a decision on investment in a mining project is not easy; it is a complex process in which all variables are connected. Particularly, the responsibility of coal mining companies to society and the environment is a new topic. Thus, a tool to help to recognize and generate information for decision making is in demand and very important. In this thesis, the system dynamics model of coal mine planning is made by using Vensim Software and specifically designed to encompass many variables during the period of mining activity until the mine closure period. The decisions use economic criteria such as Net Present Value (NPV), Net Cash Flow (NCF), Payback Period (PP), and Internal Rate of Return (IRR), etc. Consequently, the development of the decision support system of coal mine planning as a tool is proposed. The model structure covers the coal mining area from mine reserves to mine closure. It is a fast and flexible tool to perform sensitivity analysis, and to determine an optimum solution. The model results are clear and easily understandable on whether to accept or reject the coal mine project, which helps coal mining companies make the right decisions on their policies, economics, and the planning of new coal mining projects. Furthermore, the model is used to analyse the case study of the Krabi coal-fired power plant in Thailand, which may possibly use the domestic lignite at Krabi. The scenario simulations clearly show some potential for the use of the domestic lignite. However, the detailed analysis of the Krabi Lignite Mine Project case shows the high possible risks of this project, and that this project is currently not feasible. Thus, the model helps to understand and confirm that the use of domestic lignite in Krabi for the Krabi Coal Power Plant Project is not suitable at this time. Therefore, the best choice is imported coal from other countries for supporting the Krabi Coal Power Plant Project. Finally, this tool successfully is a portable application software, which does not need to be installed on a computer, but can run directly in a folder of the existing application. Furthermore, it supports all versions of Windows OS.

Coal is a fossil fuel mineral, which is presently a major source of electricity and energy to industries. From past to present, there are many coal reserves around the world and large scale coal mining operates in various areas such as the USA, Russia, China, Australia, India, and Germany, etc. Thailand’s coal resources can be found in many areas; there are lignite mining in the north of Thailand, the currently operational Mae Moh Lignite Mine, and also coal reserves in the south of Thailand, such as Krabi and Songkhla, where mines are not yet operating. The main consumption of coal is in electricity production, which increases annually. In 2019, the Thai Government and Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) plans to run a 800 MW coal power plant at Krabi, which may run on imported coal, despite there being reserves of lignite at Krabi; the use of domestic coal is a last option because of social and environmental concerns about the effects of coal mining. There is a modern trend in mining projects, the responsibility of mining should cover not only the mining activity, but the social and environmental protection and mine closure activities which follow. Thus, the costs and decisions taken on by the mining company are increasingly complicated. To reach a decision on investment in a mining project is not easy; it is a complex process in which all variables are connected. Particularly, the responsibility of coal mining companies to society and the environment is a new topic. Thus, a tool to help to recognize and generate information for decision making is in demand and very important. In this thesis, the system dynamics model of coal mine planning is made by using Vensim Software and specifically designed to encompass many variables during the period of mining activity until the mine closure period. The decisions use economic criteria such as Net Present Value (NPV), Net Cash Flow (NCF), Payback Period (PP), and Internal Rate of Return (IRR), etc. Consequently, the development of the decision support system of coal mine planning as a tool is proposed. The model structure covers the coal mining area from mine reserves to mine closure. It is a fast and flexible tool to perform sensitivity analysis, and to determine an optimum solution. The model results are clear and easily understandable on whether to accept or reject the coal mine project, which helps coal mining companies make the right decisions on their policies, economics, and the planning of new coal mining projects. Furthermore, the model is used to analyse the case study of the Krabi coal-fired power plant in Thailand, which may possibly use the domestic lignite at Krabi. The scenario simulations clearly show some potential for the use of the domestic lignite. However, the detailed analysis of the Krabi Lignite Mine Project case shows the high possible risks of this project, and that this project is currently not feasible. Thus, the model helps to understand and confirm that the use of domestic lignite in Krabi for the Krabi Coal Power Plant Project is not suitable at this time. Therefore, the best choice is imported coal from other countries for supporting the Krabi Coal Power Plant Project. Finally, this tool successfully is a portable application software, which does not need to be installed on a computer, but can run directly in a folder of the existing application. Furthermore, it supports all versions of Windows OS.

Information visualization (InfoViz) is an essential component of decision support systems (DSS). Sparklines is a visualization tool. This study examines if Sparklines in digital financial reports aids novice investors and if so under what circumstances? Does it enhances decision-making performance and facilitates effective decision-making experience? Additionally, does it lowers decision making effort; reduces dilution effect from non-relevant data in financial reports and mitigates recency bias in using digital financial reports? The hypothesis is guided by the theory of Proximity Compatibility Principle and the Theory of Cognitive Fit. The research methodology for this study is a repeated measure, controlled laboratory based experiment. A pilot test was conducted in with a sample of forty undergraduate students from Gatton College of Business and Economics. The sample size for this study was 275 subjects. The result revealed that there was significant effect of sparklines on decision making performance and it provides an incremental value over a tabular format. Sparklines makes an important contribution towards mitigating recency bias. The results also suggested that the irrelevant information cue in the shareholder’s report were not able to weaken the impact of relevant information in the audited financial data reported using sparklines. Sparklines increased the attention of the readers to the tables. Subjects performed the integrative tasks and spatial better when using Sparklines. For tasks such as symbolic tasks, Sparkline does not necessarily improve decision performance. It was also found out that decision makers experience greater satisfaction when using sparklines. The overall cognitive load experienced by subjects was lower using sparklines when task demands are high (such as in a bankruptcy prediction task). Interestingly, the results indicate that there is no significant effect of sparkline on decision confidence and time. In conclusion, recall of facts and pattern among subjects was found superior with use of sparkline. This study provides an empirical and justifiable basis for policy makers to make explicit recommendations about use of novel graphics such as sparkline in digital financial reports. Limitations of this study are noted.

This thesis presents a comprehensive work on computerised analysis of fetal heart rate (FHR) features, including feature extraction, feature selection, analysis of influencing factors and setting up/validation of a computerised decision support system. Firstly, a novel feature – pattern readjustment – was extracted and tested. Clinical data were used to train a Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect pattern readjustment. Then, the association of pattern readjustment and adverse labour outcome was investigated. The validation results with clinical experts show that the pattern readjustment can be accurately detected, while the study on labour outcome shows that the feature is related to fetal acidemia at birth. Secondly, Genetic Algorithms were employed as a feature selection method to select a best subset of FHR features and to use them to predict fetal acidemia with linear and nonlinear SVM. The diagnostic power of the classifier output using selected features was tested on the total set of 7,568 cases. As the classifier output increases, there is a consistent increase of the risk of fetal acidemia. Thirdly, an important influencing factor on FHR features - signal loss – was investigated. A bivariate model was built to estimate error based on signal loss. Validation results show that the bivariate model can accurately predict the error generated by signal loss. The influence of signal loss on labour outcome classification was also investigated. Finally, a computerised decision support system to estimate the risk of fetal acidemia was set up based on the above studies. The system was validated using new retrospective data. Validation results show that the system is capable of predicting adverse labour outcome and providing timely decision support. It is the first time an intrapartum computerised FHR decision support system has been built and validated on this size of dataset. With further improvements, such a system could be implemented clinically in the long term.

L'aide à la décision se fonde sur l'observation d'un environnement évolutif dont on scrute les évènements. Ces évènements peuvent être de différentes natures, dont les connexions qui peuvent se créer au sein d'un réseau d'acteurs. L'observation des bases documentaires ne semble plus suffisante pour nourrir l'aide à la décision. En effet, les nouveaux outils de communication et de collaboration, dont l'usage se répand rapidement au sein des organisations, sont sources de nouvelles formes d'informations peu ou mal utilisées par les systèmes actuels d'aide à la décision des organisations. L'objectif de la thèse est de concevoir une plate-forme (modélisation et développement) pour les organisations permettant à leurs membres de bénéficier de médias sociaux et à leurs décideurs de bénéficier d'outils d'aide à la décision prenant en compte tous les types de ressources circulant sur cette plate-forme. / Decision support is partly based on the observation of a dynamic and mutating environment (Situation Awareness). The events of such environments can be of different types, including new relations created within a network of actors. We think classical documentary databases are no longer sufficient to serve situation awarness. The quick spread and adoption of new communication and collaboration tools in organizations, bring new kind of information, like the social network of the organization, which are currently not or badly taken in account by organizational decision support systems. The aim of this thesis is to design a platform, which provides to organizations both the social media to help their members to collaborate and the decision tools, which take into account all types of information exchanged in the platform.

A dissertação argumenta que, contrariamente ao afirmado por alguns autores, o Balanced Scorecard não é simples repetição de conhecimentos já estabelecidos. Apoiado em critérios extraídos de textos escritos pelos Profs. Fernando Henrique Cardoso e Sérgio de Iudícibus, afirma que o Balanced Scorecard é uma contribuição original à literatura de contabilidade gerencial, não porque trata de temas nunca antes tratados mas porque repensa temas antigos, chamando a atenção para pontos que estavam esquecidos ou mal compreendidos, mostrando a vinculação entre pontos vitais que não estavam claramente articulados. O Balanced Scorecard mostra como esses conhecimentos estabelecidos podem ser aplicados aos tempos modernos, para atender às exigências impostas pelo ambiente mais competitivo para as empresas. O Balanced Scorecard, consequentemente, aumenta a compreensão do tema "vinculação entre estratégia e operação". A decodificação de temas complexos num particular arranjo, facilitando a integração entre firmas de software e firmas de consultoria, num ambiente ansioso por novas ferramentas gerencias, associadas a subestimação das dificuldades para implantação, para se estabelecer um padrão adequado de medidas e para a vinculação com o sistema de recompensas, levaram a que o Balanced Scorecard tenha virado um modismo. Os problemas com o ensino de contabilidade, apontados por Wickhan Skinner e por David Allen e a falta de uma teoria geral, apontada por por John Kay, ajudam a a entender a vinculação entre a contribuição de Kaplan & Norton e sua vulgarização. / This dissertation argues that the Balanced Scorecard is not a simple reproduction of established knowledge, although some authors have assured the opposite. Rested on criteria extracted from texts written by Profs. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Sérgio de Iudícibus, this dissertation supports that the Balanced Scorecard is an original contribution to the management accounting literature, not in function of dealing with new issues, but in function of rethinking old knowledge, stressing points that were forgotten or misunderstood, and making explicit the linkages among vital points that were not clear articulated in literature. The Balanced Scorecard indicates how this established knowledge can be applied in nowadays to support/fill the requirements of a more competitive environment faced by companies. The Balanced Scorecard, in consequence, increases the understanding of the theme "linking strategy to action". The translation of complex themes in a particular arrangement, which facilitated the integration of software and consulting firms, in an environment anxious for new managerial tools, added to the fact that the difficulties to define an adequate standard of measurements, to implement the Balanced Scorecard and to link it to the reward system were underestimated, lead it to become a fad. Problems in teaching accounting pointed out by Wickhan Skinner and by David Allen and the lack of a general theory, pointed out by John Kay, are insights that can help to understand the linkage between the Kaplan & Norton contribution and its vulgarization.

O presente trabalho trata do planejamento da movimentação de contêineres vazios ao longo de um conjunto de portos, buscando o balanceamento entre as demandas e ofertas dos mesmos em todos os portos ao menor custo, e considerando as restrições de capacidade de transporte dos modais envolvidos. Para isso será adotado um modelo de fluxo em rede multi-produto para representar o sistema de movimentação de contêineres vazios e que servirá de base para o desenvolvimento de uma formulação matemática, a qual, implementada através de uma ferramenta computacional de otimização, determina os fluxos de vazios no sistema. A verificação do modelo proposto deu-se através de testes em problemas reduzidos de movimentação de vazios, assim como em um problema cujos resultados foram publicados na literatura. Os resultados sugeriram a adequabilidade e confiabilidade do modelo proposto que pode, então, ser aplicado a um problema real da empresa de navegação Hamburg Süd, tendo seus resultados comparados aos resultados fornecidos pela mesma. / This dissertation deals with the empty containers movement planning throughout a set of ports, aiming the balancing between the demands and supplies in all the ports at minimal cost, and considering the capacity constraints of the transport modes considered. A multi-commodity network flow model will be adopted to represent the empty containers movement system. This model supports the development of a mathematical formulation which, through a computational optimization tool, determines the flows of empty containers throughout the system. The verification of the proposed model was given through tests in reduced problems, as well as in a problem which results had already been published in literature. The results had suggested the adequateness and trustworthiness of the proposed model, which could, then, be applied to a real problem of the navigation company Hamburg Süd, and the results could be compared with the ones given by the company.

Atualmente as empresas estão testando continuamente sua capacidade de criação e investimentos que estão se tornando cada vez mais altos, como forma de se ajustarem às novas situações do mercado. Isto leva às organizações a necessidade de disporem seus recursos em novas tecnologias sempre voltadas às inovações, pois a competição entre as empresas está cada dia mais acirrada. Para uma organização alcançar seu espaço no mercado, um dos principais recursos que esta necessita, é a criação e uso de um bom planejamento estratégico organizacional. Com um plano estratégico, a empresa tem condições de criar um ambiente de mudanças quando necessário, obtendo de forma simples, uma visão mais segura de seu futuro e auxiliando o processo de tomada de decisão, onde normalmente estas decisões são tomadas baseando-se em comparações e tendências, sendo importante à realização de análises em diversas dimensões do negócio a fim de realizar planejamentos com base nos dados disponíveis pelos sistemas da organização. Neste caso, é possível relacionar que o planejamento estratégico empresarial estando consistente com os sistemas de informação da empresa, pode contribuir para o processo de tomada de decisão organizacional, auxiliado pelos sistemas de apoio à decisão, que são os responsáveis por oferecer as informações estratégicas da empresa, pré-definidas em um bom plano estratégico e apresentá-lo de maneira eficiente e fácil compreensão à alta administração permitindo a escolha da melhor alternativa para o sucesso de sua empresa. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo mostrar o relacionamento entre o planejamento estratégico e os sistemas de apoio à decisão, de modo a apresentar o que é necessário para que todo esse processo gere os melhores resultados a tomada de decisão organizacional. / Now the companies are testing its creation capacity and investments that are becoming more and more high continually, as form of if they adjust to the new situations of the market. This takes to the organizations the need of its dispose resources in new technologies, always returned to the innovations, because the competition among the companies is every more intransigent day. For an organization to reach its space in the market, one of the main resources that this needs, it is the creation and use of a good organizational Strategic Planning. With a strategic plan, the company has conditions of creating an atmosphere of changes when necessary, obtaining in a simpIe way, a safer vision of its future and aiding the process of taking of decision, where these decisions are usually taken basing on comparisons and tendencies, being important the accomplishment of anaIyses in severaI dimensions of the business of the company. For that, it becomes necessary the construction of a business model in order to accomplish planning with base in the available data for the systems of the organization. In this case, it is possible to relate that the managerial Strategic Planning being consistent with the information systems of the company, it can contribute to the process of taking of decision organizational, aided by the Decision Support Systems, that they are the responsible for to offer the strategic information of the cornpany defined in a good strategic plan and to present them of efficient way and easy understanding to the high administration allowing the choice of the best alternative for the success of its company. The present work has as objective to show the relationship between the Strategic Planning and the Decision Support Systems, in way to present what is necessary so that this whole process generates the best results the taking of decision organizational.

As organizações sofreram mudanças significativas nas últimas décadas devido a adoção de novos meios administrativos para se manterem competitivas em um mercado que se encontra em constante mudanças. Nesta pesquisa estes meios são identificados como sendo os colaboradores capacitados, Sistemas de Informação, Sistema de Apoio à Decisão e outras tecnotogias correlacionadas como Data Warehouse, Data Mining e OLAP. Com estas tecnologias inseridas dentro do ambiente organizacional torna-se necessário capacitar os colaboradores de modo que estes possam processar as informações a fim de mapear, perceber e interpretar seus ambientes para guiar suas decisões e ações. Diante deste problema, o objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar um estudo teórico da importância de se criar competências nos colaboradores, bem como um referencial teórico sobre Sistemas de Informação e Sistemas de Apoio à Decisão. Estas mudanças acarretaram alterações na forma de lidar com os recursos humanos dentro do ambiente organizacional, pois na atual conjuntura o conhecimento e a capacidade de lidar com a informação superou o capital, de modo que este só será bem aplicado e administrado por colaboradores devidamente capacitados para alavancar os resultados dentro da organização. / The organizations have suffered significant changes in the last decades due to adoption of new administrative means in order to stay competitive in a constant changing market. In this research the means are identified as being the qualified collaborators, the Systems of Information, System of Support to the Decision and other technologies correlated as Data Warehouse, Dates Mining and OLAP. Since, these technologies are inserted in the organizational environment becomes necessary to train collaborators. So, they can to process, to map, to notice and interpret the environment information in order to direct its decisions and actions. Before this problem, the main of this work is to present a theoretical study about the importance to create competencies in the collaborators, as well a theoretical referential about the information and decision support systems. These new administrative means end up changing the way that the human resources are managed in the organizacional atmosphere since the knowledgement and the capacity to work with the information have overcame the capital. Therefore, the last will be applied and administered properly by qualified collaborators which will be able to improve the results obtained by the organization.

Although distribution and warehousing theory have been extensively studied in terms of optimisation and functional excellence the extension of these concepts into supply chain management has not been fully explored. In addition information at which decision level warehousing strategies are formed is limited. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate which supply chain drivers and subordinate variables that affect warehousing decisions and how these can be used for warehousing strategies. The findings will serve as a decision support in strategic warehouse network design. To fulfil the purpose of the thesis a case study was performed at a sportswear company contributing to the textile and apparel focus of the research. The case company is facing a potential restructure of its warehousing network as the current distribution strategy has created different constraints and complexities which have lead to problems. Through a literature review important supply chain drivers as well as warehousing variables have been identified and serve as the basis for the case company investigation conducted using interviews and a survey. The empirical findings contribute to the results by determining whether decisions regarding the variables are on a strategic, tactical or operational level. The result is a Decision Support System integrating supply chain drivers, warehousing variables and decision levels. The framework fills gaps found in the literature by defining different decision levels of warehousing and by integrating warehousing in the supply chain strategy. The Decision Support System is subsequently applied to the case company revealing areas which need to be considered and improved prior to a restructuring of its warehousing network. By using the Decision Support System a textile and apparel company can map its supply chain and warehousing strategy revealing strengths and weaknesses in the network. The Decision Support System facilitates decisions regarding warehousing and simplifies the process of moving from the strategy employed to the best practice strategy thereby increasing customer satisfaction and achieving a competitive advantage. / Program: Textilt management med inriktning styrning av textila värdekedjor