Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 2011

Information from injury data collections is widely used to formulate injury policy, evaluate injury prevention initiatives and to allocate resources to areas deemed a high priority. Obtaining quality data from injury surveillance is essential to ensure the appropriateness of these activities. This thesis seeks to develop a framework to assess the capacity of an injury data collection to perform injury surveillance and to use this framework to assess the capacity of both injury mortality and morbidity data collections in New South Wales (NSW) Australia to perform work-related or motor vehicle crash (MVC)-related injury surveillance. An Evaluation Framework for Injury Surveillance Systems (EFISS) was developed through a multi-staged process, using information from the literature to identify surveillance system characteristics, SMART criteria to assess the suitability of these characteristics to evaluate an injury data collection, and by obtaining feedback on the characteristics from a panel of surveillance experts using a two round modified Delphi study. At the conclusion of development, there were 18 characteristics, consisting of 5 data quality, 9 operational, and 4 practical characteristics, that were identified as important for inclusion within an EFISS. In addition, a rating system was created for the EFISS characteristics, based on available evidence and reasonable opinion. The evaluation of six injury data collections using the EFISS for their capacity to perform either work- or MVC-related injury surveillance illustrated the inability of any of the data collections to enumerate all cases of either work- or MVC-related injury mortality or morbidity in NSW or to capture all of the data considered necessary for work- or MVC-related injury surveillance. This evaluation has identified areas for improvement in all data collections and has demonstrated that for both work- and MVC-related injury surveillance that multiple collections should be reviewed to inform both work- and MVC-related policy development and injury prevention priority setting in NSW. The development of an EFISS has built upon existing evaluation guidelines for surveillance systems and provides an important step towards the creation of a framework specifically tailored to evaluate an injury data collection. Information obtained through an evaluation conducted using an EFISS would be useful for agencies responsible for injury data collections to identify where these collections could be improved to increase their usefulness for injury surveillance, and ultimately, for injury prevention.

Since the coining of the term "Design Patterns" in the software engineering context, and specifically as related to object-oriented applications, there has been an increasing emphasis placed on the relevance of patterns in successfully designing object-oriented software, by the provision of generic, recurring designs. Various authors have produced design pattern catalogues as a record of applied design pattern experiences [Buschmann+96] [Gamma+95] [Coad92]. These catalogues are invaluable to experienced practitioners. However, the examples are frequently given in the context of a complex application with partially coded examples. Also, there is no standard with regard to the name used to designate a particular design pattern and, in some cases, different designers have designated relatively similar patterns with quite different names. This limits their accessibility to less experienced designers who require fully coded examples applied in a familiar landscape. Thus, while patterns have dramatically shaped the manner in which object-oriented solutions are developed, the full realisation of their use and reuse potential by inexperienced practitioners is limited by lack of completely coded examples. In this thesis we consider the implementation (in Java), using fully coded examples, of a number of design patterns applied to business oriented applications. These will be applied in an application specific environment, with the resultant framework being capable of use across a family of similar applications. The source code examples are compact enough so that the pattern structure can be readily appreciated, while at the same time being large enough to demonstrate the pattern in a practical, viable sense. These are applied in a familiar application domain, business-oriented applications, resulting in an application framework, that is, a partially completed system that provide the core architecture functionality, suitable for reuse across a family of systems. In this way, the link between design patterns and their implementation via these coded frameworks will be easier to comprehend. It is anticipated that the end result will be a better appreciation of design patterns and a clearer understanding of how to apply these patterns, with the availability of a set of useful, reusable software components, with appropriate interface connection, to be used as central building blocks, in developing object-oriented solutions for business applications.

Purpose - The aim of this study is to explain two relationships: between e-loyalty and the emotional responses (e-trust and e-satisfaction) and between these emotional response and the appraisals (e-service quality and e-reputation). Method – The quantitative approach and survey method were used in this study. Both Internet survey and personal survey method were used to administrate the questionnaire. The sample of 221 students was employed in this paper. Finding – Using Bagozzi’s framework, the authors constructed the four relationships which were tested in this study. The result indicates the more satisfied customers feel about the purchase, the more loyal they become. In addition, when customers trust that the e-tailer is credible and benevolent, they tend to be more loyal. The finding also shows that the better service quality, the more satisfied customers feel about the purchase. Finally, the result indicates that the more reputed the e-tailer is in term of being honest and concerned to customers, the more customers trust in them. Originality/value – This study is one of the limited number of study using Bagozzi’s framework to research e-loyalty. In addition, this study also tried to bridge the gap in research about e-loyalty using Bagozzi’s framework by taking e-trust and e-reputation into account.

Lean construction borrows concepts from lean manufacturing and Toyota Production System in order to eliminate waste and add value to the construction process. Manufacturing processes utilizing lean principles have matured and developed a clear understanding of the relation between lean and safety. Because lean in construction is a relatively new phenomenon, there is not a completely developed understanding of how lean practices affect safety in construction. The Lean Construction Institute and the Academic Forum for Lean Construction has recently targeted this area for focused research. Since all safety incidents imply waste in time and resources, lean and safety have a common ground in the minimization of waste. This thesis researches the common ground of lean and safety in waste minimization and proposes a framework for understanding their relationship. This thesis also critically analyzes lean and safety principles to form an insight to the relationship between lean theories as well as practices and safety issues reported in construction literature. Further, literature also revealed the safety strategies and checklists that companies typically incorporate in their program. A comparative analysis of lean and safety is employed to understand their relations in a better way. This framework establishes that lean and safety have a strong relationship in the context of construction. Future work is needed to show that lean practices indeed strongly affect safety by reducing the number of incidents.

Vortrag UNIX-Stammtisch 01/99

This thesis is deriving from a telemedicine project "TeleCare" of constructing soft- ware for remote medical diagnosis between the doctor and the patient. The software has to fix the problem of managing local and remote media information. This thesis presents a telecommunication framework for synchronizing multiple media chan- nels, following research methodology, from problem description, iterative and incre- mental development to prototype finalization. For the framework, I have described the framework requirements and corresponding architecture design and implemen- tation. From the evaluation result of "TeleCare" software developed above it, I can conclude the framework has reached the problem.

Abstract In this paper an attempt will be made to identify what has been explicitly recognised as central and peripheral within the systems of innovation concept; the inclusion or exclusion of the factors that are important in understanding the political economy of innovation systems; the themes, issues and range of actors and spaces that must be included in NSI types of appreciative theory or modelling. We suspect that those who focus narrowly tend to exclude important variables that must be included in the understanding of the making and development of innovation systems. Conversely those who focus broadly may include factors that may not be helpful in creating clarity of conception and understanding of the innovation systems application to the problems and challenges of development. It is thus important to reflect and review the variety of ways the system of innovation has been used by the economists who have used the NSI perspective in their search to develop alternative frameworks to understand the problems and challenges of economic system dynamics in general and economic development in particular. We will probe how the search for an alternative economic framework for economic development through the NSI perspective have been applied with a view to advance an argument for its judicious application as an intellectual conceptual tool to help understanding and explanation of the problems and challenges of development and underdevelopment. A unified conception of systems of innovation that includes not only history and culture but also the critical political factor that closely impinges and shapes policies on the economics of innovation will be attempted with a view to valorise the explanatory analytical power of the NSI framework in the context of its value in generating new insights, practices and applications to the general problem of economic development.

No description available.

Information from injury data collections is widely used to formulate injury policy, evaluate injury prevention initiatives and to allocate resources to areas deemed a high priority. Obtaining quality data from injury surveillance is essential to ensure the appropriateness of these activities. This thesis seeks to develop a framework to assess the capacity of an injury data collection to perform injury surveillance and to use this framework to assess the capacity of both injury mortality and morbidity data collections in New South Wales (NSW) Australia to perform work-related or motor vehicle crash (MVC)-related injury surveillance. An Evaluation Framework for Injury Surveillance Systems (EFISS) was developed through a multi-staged process, using information from the literature to identify surveillance system characteristics, SMART criteria to assess the suitability of these characteristics to evaluate an injury data collection, and by obtaining feedback on the characteristics from a panel of surveillance experts using a two round modified Delphi study. At the conclusion of development, there were 18 characteristics, consisting of 5 data quality, 9 operational, and 4 practical characteristics, that were identified as important for inclusion within an EFISS. In addition, a rating system was created for the EFISS characteristics, based on available evidence and reasonable opinion. The evaluation of six injury data collections using the EFISS for their capacity to perform either work- or MVC-related injury surveillance illustrated the inability of any of the data collections to enumerate all cases of either work- or MVC-related injury mortality or morbidity in NSW or to capture all of the data considered necessary for work- or MVC-related injury surveillance. This evaluation has identified areas for improvement in all data collections and has demonstrated that for both work- and MVC-related injury surveillance that multiple collections should be reviewed to inform both work- and MVC-related policy development and injury prevention priority setting in NSW. The development of an EFISS has built upon existing evaluation guidelines for surveillance systems and provides an important step towards the creation of a framework specifically tailored to evaluate an injury data collection. Information obtained through an evaluation conducted using an EFISS would be useful for agencies responsible for injury data collections to identify where these collections could be improved to increase their usefulness for injury surveillance, and ultimately, for injury prevention.