The Mountain Gorillas of Central Africa are one of the most highly endangered species in the world, with only 740 individuals surviving. One of the greatest threats to this species is disease. Health of wildlife is continually garnering more attention in the public arena due to recent outbreaks of diseases such as West Nile and High Pathogenic Avian Influenza. However, no system currently exists to facilitate the management and analysis of wildlife health data. The research conducted herein was the development and testing of a health information monitoring system for the mountain gorillas entitled Internet-supported Management Program to Assist Conservation Technologies or IMPACT?. The system functions around a species database of known or unknown individuals and provides individual-based and population-based epidemiological analysis. The system also uses spatial locations of individuals or samples to link multiple species together based on spatial proximity for inter-species comparisons. A syndromic surveillance system or clinical decision tree was developed to collect standardized data to better understand the ecology of diseases within the gorilla population. The system is hierarchical in nature, using trackers and guides to conduct daily observations while specially trained veterinarians are used to confirm and assess any abnormalities detected. Assessment of the decision tree indicated that trackers and guides did not observe gorilla groups or individuals within groups similarly. Data suggests that, to be consistent, trackers and guides need to conduct observations even on the day that veterinarians collect data. Validity and reliability remain to be tested in the observation instrument. Assessment of pathogen loads and distributions within species surrounding the gorillas indicates that humans have the greatest pathogen loads with 13 species, followed by cattle and chimpanzees (11), baboon (10), gorillas (9), and rodents (3). Spatial aggregation occurred in Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Trichuris; however, there is reason to question the test results of the former 2 species. These data suggest that researchers need to examine the impact of local human and domestic animal populations on gorillas and other wildlife.

No description available.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The use of Information Systems (ISs) has been widely accepted and proven to increase the service quality in many organizations. Academic libraries have embraced the use of ISs and have implemented them to perform different activities. The efficient utilization and management of ISs in libraries will help libraries to derive maximum benefit from adopted ISs. The research used the DeLone and McLean (2003) IS success theory to determine the impact of IS management on the quality of the IS, the use of the IS and the benefits gained. The researcher used nine (30%) of the thirty university libraries which are members of the consortium of academic and research libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) - an association of libraries that help with the IS and electronic resource use of member libraries. A mixed method approach with questionnaires, interviews combined with content analysis of the university websites was used to gather data. Findings indicated that academic libraries in Ghana are making use of some ISs including; ILS, DAM, social media, websites, among others, amidst a number of challenges. The research also revealed that the management of ISs affects the quality thereof. Quality of ISs affects use, and use affects the benefits gained from use. The researcher proposed an IS management standard guideline which Ghanaian academic libraries could adopt for using and managing ISs to enhance efficiency and better service delivery.

This research investigates the role of laboratory information systems on business outcomes in medical pathology in Australia. Pathology information systems are inherently large-scale systems handling large numbers of data daily to service not only the pathology laboratory itself, but also referring medical practitioners. Patient results are often required in a

This thesis seeks to explore how management can work together to adopt an Inter-organisational Information System (IOIS) for Supply Chain Management (SCM) at different levels of collaboration sophistication. 20 common issues associated with collaboration and adoption of IOIS for SCM, were identified from the current literature. Two theoretical frameworks were developed. First, an IOIS for SCM Adoption Framework was constructed to understand the IOIS for SCM adoption process. Secondly, an Inter-organisational Collaboration Framework was constructed and used as a lens to examine and understand the process of inter-organisational collaboration. Five underlying theories, namely agency, needs and motivation, resource dependency, cultural and negotiated order, were drawn on to develop an understanding of collaboration in this latter framework. The study of collaboration for IOIS adoption is exploratory. Eight organisations were approached from three industries and sixteen interviews were carried out with managers who are involved in the supply chain activities. Data was primarily collected using an interview instrument based on literature, and documentary and archival evidence. Interviews were transcribed and cross-case analysis was conducted on the data. Three of the four levels of collaboration sophistication were supported. At the highest level of collaboration, namely cooperation sophistication, the organisations that were studied have growth motivations, same interests and common business objectives, and prepare to develop strategy and finance projects while reengineering their business processes and redesigning their supply chains collectively. Collaboration is not limited to one dimension but multi-dimensional. An organisation collaborates with its partners in one project but that at the same time, they may not want to collaborate on a different project due to differences in business objectives. When there is a disagreement between parties, negotiation is an important process to help resolve their differences. The process of collaboration was summarised into three perspectives: industry, intra-organisational and inter-organisational. These perspectives can assist practitioners who need to understand how to address the process of collaboration in the adoption of IOISs for SCM with their partners.

The city of Kumasi in Ghana struggles with a number of environmental issues, including excessive road traffic, air and water pollution, flooding, and inadequate solid waste management. If there is a group that is directly affected by these issues, it certainly is the city’s population. At the same time, the people of Kumasi—who are the constituents of the local administration, called KMA—have few to none means of obtaining objective information about the state of the urban environment, and therefore no way of holding the city administration accountable concerning environmentally relevant decisions. This case study aims to explore the possibility of alleviating this transparency issue by creating an ‘environmental information system’ (EIS) for the city. The term EIS in this context denotes an information system which can be used to publish environmental information on the web, to be utilised by students, professionals, NGOs, and the general public. The case study seeks to provide answers to two research questions: What are the software requirements for an EIS for Kumasi? And: How can free software be used to satisfy these requirements? The case study takes an approach based on Soft Systems Methodology and agile software development techniques to explore the software requirements. As part of the study, a prototype of the EIS was developed in order to explore the requirements even more, and in order to determine the applicability of currently available free software. The results of the requirements analysis include the following observations: geographical information is essential in presenting the city’s environmental issues, therefore the EIS is based on geographic information system (GIS) software and techniques; the information should be presented to the public in an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand way in order to reach the largest possible percentage of the target group; the environmental information that is available at local institutions (such as the largest local university KNUST, the city administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency) is scarce and semantically and syntactically heterogeneous—therefore, the EIS must be able to consolidate such information in order to present it in an easy-to-understand way; many of the involved actors have no or little knowledge in GIS techniques, therefore the EIS must be usable without such knowledge. In the implementation process, heavy use was made of free software components: GeoServer for publishing geographical data using WMS and WFS; PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension for data storage; JPA/Hibernate for storing metadata in PostgreSQL; Spring MVC, jQuery UI and many other libraries for creating a user-friendly web application; OpenLayers for displaying and editing geographical data in the web application; GeoTools for handling geographical data on the server-side. During implementation, actual environmental information was entered into the EIS in order to provide a realistic semantic environment for the agile development process. The study concludes that—while the implemented prototype does not include all of the features which were identified as required, and while a ‘full’ soft systems analysis (as opposed to the ‘soft systems perspective’ which was applied) would have led to a more complete picture of the software’s organisational environment—the implementation of an environmental information system for Kumasi, based solely on free software, is viable in the current technical and organisational environment. KNUST is foreseen to be an adequate organisation to manage the development and operation of the system, since the necessary technical knowledge is available. The successful operation of the EIS relies on environmental information being provided by data producers such as the KMA, the EPA, the Ghana Statistical Service, and various departments at KNUST.

<p>The construction industry is often accused of beingfragmented and inefficient in nature due to the lack ofcontinuity and repetitive behaviour in projects. For many yearsinformation technology has been put forward as a solution. But,despite the potentials, little gains have been harvested by thedevelopment of computerised information systems (IS). Theoverall aim of this research is to determine if a moreaccessible and clearly described housing development processcould be enabled by an information system, which in itself,could improve both individual and project (group) performance.Two research questions are being put forward; first, will aprocess-oriented IS positively impact on the performance ofproject managers and in particular on the performance ofproject groups? Second, how important is a process-orientedinformation management process for the success of the IS? Toanswer these questions an action research approach with largeinfluences of survey research has been adopted. The researchconsists of two phases; a process orientation within a largeSwedish housing development company and a survey of projectmanagers¡¦ attitudes towards a new process-orientedIS also including a study of dependencies found among variablesof information system success (ISS). To enable a verificationof the success of the IS an assessment instrument - hypothesismodel - for evaluating ISS was developed. The assessmentinstrument was built on DeLone and McLean's (1992) ISS modeland extended to include measures of information managementprocess quality (process quality). The hypothesis model wasthen tested empirically with a questionnaire survey. Astatistical test was also performed to test the hypothesisedrelationships of the augmented ISS model. In summarising thefindings of the data analysis, it is evident that the new ISreceived unexpected support from the respondents. The findingsalso indicate that the collected and analysed data show supportfor numerous of the hypothesised relationships of ISS.Conclusions are drawn that confirm the presence of a processquality measure for assessing ISS. From a practitioner'sperspective, this research suggests a course of action forprocess oriented organisational development. It also indicatesbeneficiary useof a process focus in IS development.</p><p><b>KEYWORDS:</b>Process orientation, information system,information system success, information management, projectmanagement</p>

This thesis seeks to explore how management can work together to adopt an Inter-organisational Information System (IOIS) for Supply Chain Management (SCM) at different levels of collaboration sophistication. 20 common issues associated with collaboration and adoption of IOIS for SCM, were identified from the current literature. Two theoretical frameworks were developed. First, an IOIS for SCM Adoption Framework was constructed to understand the IOIS for SCM adoption process. Secondly, an Inter-organisational Collaboration Framework was constructed and used as a lens to examine and understand the process of inter-organisational collaboration. Five underlying theories, namely agency, needs and motivation, resource dependency, cultural and negotiated order, were drawn on to develop an understanding of collaboration in this latter framework. The study of collaboration for IOIS adoption is exploratory. Eight organisations were approached from three industries and sixteen interviews were carried out with managers who are involved in the supply chain activities. Data was primarily collected using an interview instrument based on literature, and documentary and archival evidence. Interviews were transcribed and cross-case analysis was conducted on the data. Three of the four levels of collaboration sophistication were supported. At the highest level of collaboration, namely cooperation sophistication, the organisations that were studied have growth motivations, same interests and common business objectives, and prepare to develop strategy and finance projects while reengineering their business processes and redesigning their supply chains collectively. Collaboration is not limited to one dimension but multi-dimensional. An organisation collaborates with its partners in one project but that at the same time, they may not want to collaborate on a different project due to differences in business objectives. When there is a disagreement between parties, negotiation is an important process to help resolve their differences. The process of collaboration was summarised into three perspectives: industry, intra-organisational and inter-organisational. These perspectives can assist practitioners who need to understand how to address the process of collaboration in the adoption of IOISs for SCM with their partners.

The purpose of this diploma thesis was to build a management information system for a given microenterprise and to implement it successfully. This thesis aims to assess the risks, costs and benefits of the information system and to provide recommendations for analogous projects of the information system implementation in the future. The thesis is divided into two parts, theory and case study. The former summarises the most important fact on management information systems in general, the latter introduces the given microenterprise and pursues the process from building of the system to its implementation in the enterprise. Microsoft Access, database management system, proved to be a good solution for building an information system for the enterprise. The thesis delivers the following results: the information system itself, costs and benefits evaluation and the set of recommendations for similar projects. The main contribution of this thesis consists in the focus on microenterprises and in the real example pursued in the second part of the thesis.

Diploma thesis analyzes procedure of implementing new component of information system on universities in Czech Republic. Data were collected with the aid of question-form and complemented by interview on chosen universities. Analyze of implementation is divided into several areas: IS architecture, component cooperation, opening analysis, contractor selection, contract, methodology used, project management, time table, global analysis, verification of data purity, testing, training, documentation and acceptance. General recommendations of implementation new component into information system are made from gained information in chapter 6 and summary of thesis.