Thesis (M.A.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Master of arts in arbitration and dispute resolution, City University of Hong Kong, School of Law. Title from title screen (viewed on Sept. 20, 2006) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 7, 2007) "Master of Arts in arbitration and dispute resolution" Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D. Law)--University of Waikato, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-309)

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Akron, Dept. of Computer Science, 2009. / "May, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 11/18/2009) Advisor, Chien-Chung Chan; Committee members, Kathy J. Liszka, Zhong-Hui Duan; Department Chair, Wolfgang Pelz; Dean of the College, Chand Midha; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Recent advances in geographic information systems (GIS) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have been summarised, concentrating on the theoretical aspects of their construction and use. Existing projects combining AI and GIS have also been discussed, with attention paid to the interfacing methods used and problems uncovered by the approaches. AI and GIS have been combined in this research to create an intelligent GIS for design. This has been applied to off-shore pipeline route design. The system was tested using data from a real pipeline design project.

No description available.

This research programme was carried out in order to establish design methods and procedures for thermowells and implement these methods in a computer-based expert system. Thermowells are accessories for the temperature measurement instrumentation and they have to protect the temperature sensor from hazardous environments at high pressures and temperatures. The sensor also needs protection from the flow of the fluid it is immersed in as it can cause the sensor to vibrate and subsequently damage it. Thermowells have to be designed in such a way that they can resist the vibration caused by the flowing fluid, do not collapse due to the surrounding pressure and the thermowell's material has to be compatible with the fluid to avoid corrosion of the thermowell. At the same time they have to transfer the heat of the fluid to the sensor to enable the temperature measurement. A literature review was carried out to establish the available methods and procedures concerning thermowell design. The procedures that deal with the calculation of the natural frequency of thermowells, which is required to ensure the thermowell is not damaged by vibration, were verified using practical vibration analysis techniques. After establishing the appropriate procedures to determine the vibration, pressure, stress and thermal aspects concerning thermowell design, they were implemented in an expert system. The software package KAPPA-PC was used to develop the application. After careful testing and elimination of different errors encountered during the testing phase, an expert system was delivered that carries out the analysis of a given thermowell design and also designs a thermowell for a specified application.

The ability of an expert system to explain its reasoning is fundamental to the system's credibility. Explanations become even more vital in systems which use methods of uncertainty propagation. The research documented here describes the development of an explanation sub-system which interfaces with the P.R.O. Expert System Toolkit. This toolkit has been used in the development of three small ecological expert systems. This project has involved adapting the results of research in the field of explanation-generation, to the requirements of the ecologist users. The subsystem contains two major components. The first lists the rules that fired during a consultation. The second component comprises routines responsible for quantifying the effects on the system conclusions of the answers given to questions. These latter routines can be used to perform sensitivity analyses on the answers given. The incorporation of such routines in small expert systems is quite unique

Endorsement is avery common marketing strategy and has been traced back to the 19th century. Expert endorsement is a type of endorsement that is frequently used to endorse a multitude of different products. Previous research on endorsement has shown a positive connection between endorsement and credibility. This research aims to examine expert endorsement and how it relates to perceived credibility. This research had a qualitative approach and explored credibility of expert endorsement from the consumer’s point of view by using the source model theories. The main findings were that expert endorsement does have a positive effect on the perceived credibility of the endorsement. But as previous research suggested not all the source factors: Trustworthiness, expertise attractiveness likability similarity and familiarity were as vital for the credibility of the expert. The most important source of credibility when engaging in expert endorsement was the perceived expertise of the expert.