In an information system which includes plenty of information services, we are always seeking a solution to enhance efficiency and reusability. Emergency medical service system is a classic information system using application integration in which the requirement of information flow transmissions is extremely necessary. We should always ensure this system is running in best condition with highest efficiency and reusability since the efficiency in the system directly affects human life. The aim of this thesis is to analysis emergency medical system in both qualitative and quantitative ways. Another aim of this thesis is to suggest a method to judge the information flow through the analysis for the system efficiency and the correlations between information flow traffic and system applications. The result is that system is a main platform integrated five information services. Each of them provides different unattached functions while they are all based on unified information resources. The system efficiency can be judged by a method called Performance Evaluation, the correlation can be judged by multi-factorial analysis of variance method.

Avec l’essor des technologies de l’information et de la communication, la société et les organisations se transforment, serecomposent tous secteurs confondus. On appelle communément disruption, le changement de paradigme économique etorganisationnel lié aux TIC, plus précisément, à la digitalisation des processus.Les modes d’échanges entre les hommes ont évolué. Notre mémoire de master 2 (Numérique, recomposition organisationnelles et appropriation des TIC, Gravereaux, 2013) nous aura permis de comprendre que les véritables changements qui opèrent en organisation se situent au-delà des usages des espaces numériques de travail et des outils TIC.Notre thèse s’inscrit dans la continuité de ce travail préliminaire qui nous avait offert de questionner, de manière introductive, quelle pouvait être la portée de la dimension politique dans l’appropriation des technologies numériques.Cette thèse de doctorat a pour but de saisir, d’identifier, d’analyser et de conceptualiser, tant sur le plan théorique que pratique, le processus de transition organisationnelle qui opère dans les établissements de santé traversés par l’informatisation du dossier de soin et par la maturation des Systèmes d’Information Hospitalier. Après avoir compris qu’il fallait dépasser les usages pour comprendre l’appropriation des TIC, nous orienterons nos réflexions et enquêtes de façon à confronter ce point de vue et à lui donner une portée opérationnelle.Les phénomènes communicationnels liés aux changements et aux transformations en organisations constituent un élément central de ces recompositions. Le chercheur doit enquêter pour questionner et saisir ces phénomènes à l’aune de la compréhension particulière d’un établissement de santé.Le regard communicationnel porté sur un espace, un vécu, en transition, tentera de mettre à jour les conditions qui participent de l’appropriation des nouveaux outils liés à la traçabilité des soins : la forme informatisée du dossier patient.Notre thèse de doctorat se propose d’apporter une contribution à des problématiques de recherches actuelles en questionnant l’individu au travail au regard des questions politico-organisationnelles liées à l’appropriation du dossier patient informatisé.Ces acteurs que nous sommes venus « étudié », soignants, médecins, personnels administratif, sont au coeur, vivent, en même temps que l’organisation, ce phénomène de disruption qui affecte l’intégralité du dispositif organisationnel.À partir d’une rupture disruptive, de nouvelles formes d’organisation du travail, liées aux changements de pratiques del’information médicale, apparaissent, émerge des dissonances. De la même façon, pour accompagner cette organisation émergente, les formes et normes de management en santé, sont amenées à se recomposer et donc à se spécialiser.Nous assistons à une recomposition globale de la Santé, dont les composantes du dispositif tendent à faire de la contribution, de la collaboration, de l’autonomie et de la traduction, les nouveaux fondamentaux du management en organisations de santé accompagnant la métamorphose digitale des routines des acteurs. / With the growth of information and communication technologies, society and organizations are transforming, recomposing all sectors combined. The common paradigm shift is to change the economic and organizational paradigm linked to ICT, more precisely, to the digitalization of processes.The modes of exchange between men have evolved. Our Master 2 thesis (Digital, Organizational Reorganization andAppropriation of ICTs, Gravereaux, 2013) allowed us to understand that the real changes that operate in organization arebeyond the use of digital workspaces and ICT tools.Our thesis is part of the continuation of this preliminary work which offered us to question, in an introductory way, what could be the scope of the political dimension in the appropriation of digital technologies.This doctoral thesis aims at capturing, identifying, analyzing and conceptualizing, both theoretically and practically, the process of organizational transition that operates in the healthcare institutions through which the computerization of the care file And by the maturation of Hospital Information Systems. Having understood that we need to go beyond the uses to understand ICT appropriation, we will orient our reflections and investigations in order to confront this point of view and to give it an operational scope.The communicationa phenomena linked to changes and transformations in organizations are a central element of theserecompositions. The researcher must investigate and question these phenomena in terms of the particular understanding of a healthcare institution.The communicative look at a space, a experience, in transition, will try to update the conditions that participate in the appropriation of the new tools related to the traceability of care: the computerized form of the patient record.Our doctoral thesis proposes to make a contribution to current research questions by questioning the individual at work withregard to the politico-organizational issues related to the appropriation of the computerized patient record.These actors, who have come to be "studied", caregivers, doctors and administrative staff, are at the heart of this phenomenon of disruption, which affects the entire organizational system, at the same time as the organization.From a disruptive rupture, new forms of work organization, linked to changes in the practices of medical information, emerge, emerging from dissonances. In the same way, to support this emerging organization, the forms and standards of health management, are led to recompose and therefore to specialize.We are witnessing a global recomposition of health, whose components of the system tend to make contribution, collaboration, autonomy and translation, new fundamentals of management in health organizations accompanying the digital metamorphosis of routines actors.

Groundwater level models have an important role in the development and application of water management and policies. Understanding the temporal and spatial variations of groundwater levels in the Gorran water protection area in Nynäshamn is important for developing management strategies. Geostatistical analysis with several different methods was used to compare groundwater level records for 13 observation wells in Gorran from 1994 to 2012. The performance of the different methods was evaluated by using mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) metrics. The results showed that geostatistical methods had a higher general accuracy when utilizing the Empirical Bayesian kriging (EBK) method in Gorran. EBK was the best method with highest precision and lowest mean absolute error. Cross-validation was also applied to evaluate the best (smallest) root mean square error (RMSE). A predicted potentiometric groundwater level was estimated from the basis of the available digital elevation model to extend the observation area within the same geological specification. / Grundvattennivåns modeller har en viktig roll i utvecklingen och tillämpningen av vattenförvaltning och politik. Genom att förstå de tidsmässiga och geografiska variationer grundvattennivån i Gorran skyddat område är viktigt för att utveckla hanteringens strategier.Geostatistical analys med olika modeller som Inverse Distanse Weighted, Radial Basic Funktion och kriging modeller användes för att jämföra grundvattennivåns rekord under 13 observations brunnar 1994 till 2012. Prestandan hos metoder utvärderades med hjälp av medelabsolutfelet (MAE) och rot medelkvadratfelet (RMSE). Resultatet visade att geostatistiska metoder hade högre noggrannhet och Empirical Bayesian kriging (EBK) var den bästa metoden med högsta precision och lägst medelabsolutfel. Cross-validering applicerades också för att utvärdera de bästa minsta kvadratiska medelvärdet (RMSE). Förutsatt potentiometrisk grundvattennivå genomfördes från digital höjdmodell för att förlänga observations område inom samma geologiska specifikation.

Denna rapport beskriver framtagande av ett koncept för ett geografiskt informationssystem som är anpassat för att köra på moderna mobila enheter ute i fält. Detta sätter krav på systemet vad gäller beräkningskraft, lagringsutrymme samt möjligheten att klara av intermittent datakommunikation. För att ta fram systemet utfördes först en förstudie med databaser och sökmotorer användes för att hitta relevant information och relevanta artiklar som kunde hjälpa till vid framtagningen av systemet. Denna fakta tillsammans med utförda tester och ”trial-and-error”-programmering ledde i slutändan till ett koncept som klarade av de krav som ställdes på systemet. ,  Det framtagna systemet består av tre huvuddelar, datalagring, server och klient. Systemet bygger på en kombination av redan färdiga lösningar och nyskapade implementationer. Den viktigaste nyheten är att systemet använder sig av en kombination av så kallade tiles samt rå vektordata. De olika sorternas datatyper används beroende på olika parametrar som kan ställas in på och anpassas på serverdelen.

This thesis is aimed to analyze current status of the company information system, to reveals it's weak points and then designs a new solution of information system.

Abstract A trivial information system consists of three components: a user, a container for the information and a tool to manage the information. The focus of this research is more complicated with several users and organisations, with several databases in those organisations and with an inter-organisational information system. In inter-organisational information systems information flows across boundaries and the boundaries as well as information itself must be carefully taken into account. This research takes seriously the users who represent different professions and who were more or less involved in the information system implementations. In a distributed project, also the container is under special attention. That is discussed in the dissertation, as well. The approach in the research is mainly interpretative and subjective. The empirical material comes from several cases but three of them acted as a background for the main case that was conducted in an academic environment. The case appeared to be versatile due to its many stakeholders and it offered several topics to be explored. The goal of the research was introduced in a meeting to the attendees: "The aim of the thesis is to describe how a joint information system of different universities was finally implemented or why it wasn't." This introduction predicted challenges that were to be overcome during the subsequent years. In addition to the versatile case, also the information system implementation offered fruitful viewpoints for the research. Inter-organisational information system projects are described in literature to some extent. This case contributes the research with the many organisations and users that were involved in the development project. Furthermore, the information system was planned to be built on ready-made specifications and it increased the challenges to succeed. This led to the lesson that a new model to be used in information system developments is needed because existing models do not support this kind of development process. The research supports the concept that action research and design science complement each other especially in development projects when the output is an information system that has been implemented in collaboration with several users and stakeholders. The results of this thesis emphasise the need to manage potential competition between participating organisations, lack of interaction between parties and security and user authentication. Proper project management is needed with active and confidential terms between all project members. In addition, flexible working routines are found workable.

Master of Science / Department of Horticulture and Natural Resources / Charles J. Barden / Windbreaks were originally promoted across the Great Plains region of the U.S to reduce wind erosion in general. A review paper published nearly 30 years ago showed yield increases for a variety of crops associated with windbreaks. However, with the widespread use of no-till systems in all farming and advanced crop genetics, the question is “Do windbreaks still provide a yield benefit?” This study compared multiple years of data from protected and unprotected fields across Kansas and few sites in Nebraska looking at relative crop yield differences of five crops: soybeans, wheat, corn, sorghum and sunflowers. Georeferenced data already existed, generated by automated combine yield monitors, and stored on farmer's computers. There were three sets of data collected for each field. The first level is general field level information, using aerial photography and on-site observations to measure the characteristics of the windbreak (length, height and density). The second was from the yield monitor; this data was analyzed with ArcGIS 10.3.1 to visualize windbreak interaction with crop yield. Multiple means comparisons (protected versus unprotected) through two sample T-tests were conducted to determine if the yield in protected areas of fields was significantly different from the yield in unprotected areas. The third data-layer is climate data that was factored into yield analysis to compare wet, normal and dry growing seasons through a Chi-Square 2x2 test analysis. Optical density of windbreaks from leaf-on/off ground-based photos was assessed using SigmaScan Pro 5.0 software as possibly an important factor influencing the windbreak effect. Finally, the yield loss was estimated from the windbreak footprint to see if yield increases are enough to compensate for the area taken out of crop production. Results showed that soybeans (81 crop/years) had the most positive response to windbreak effect with a yield increase 46% of the time, with a 16% average yield increase. Sorghum (31 crop/years) had the highest average yield increase with 25%. Narrow windbreaks (1 to 2 tree rows with an average of 52 ft. width) and those on the north edge of fields resulted in yield increases which compensated for the footprint of the windbreak more often than wider windbreaks on the south edges of fields. Significant yield increases were less than the decreases in the protected area. There was no evidence to show the windbreak effect on yield had any association with critical month precipitation for any crop or orientation group. According to the results obtained, modern hybrids and varieties are possibly less responsive to yield increases due to windbreak effect than older crop varieties. Future studies should collect more data from fields with different windbreak widths distributed more widely across the region to confirm these results. Overall, this project updated our knowledge of windbreak/crop yield interactions and may possibly influence their future role as a conservation practice in the Great Plains.

This study attempts to answer the research question ‘Can a novel model of health information system strengthen process for conducting research to understand the effects of air pollution on CVD in developing countries?’ There is limited research output from Asia and in particular, from India on studies of the deleterious effects of air pollution on CVD. This research aimed to investigate the barriers in developing countries and proposed the use of a spatiotemporal methodology to assess the effects of air pollution on CVD by developing an application based on a GIS platform. Choosing Bangalore as a case study area, secondary data from various governmental departments that included demographic data, air pollution data and mortality data were obtained. An Environmental Health Information system application based on GIS platform was developed specifically for Bangalore and with the characteristics of the datasets available. Data quality assessment was carried out on these datasets that resulted in the recommendation of a generalisable data quality framework to enable better data collection that will aid in strengthening health development policies. The data was analysed using spatial and non-spatial techniques. Results showed that levels of PM10 were of concern to the city with all areas having either high or critical levels of pollution. CVD deaths also were of concern contributing to almost 40% of total mortality. The potential years of life lost (PYLL), which is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely was calculated for the years from 2010 to 2013; this revealed that 2.1 million person years were lost in Bangalore due to CVD alone. These potential years lost is an important factor to consider, as preventive measures taken by the Government will result in a significant economic impact on the city. The limitations of few monitoring stations were overcome by using spatial interpolation techniques such as Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation technique. The performance of the interpolation was tested using cross-validation techniques and the results revealed that Bangalore city would benefit from increased measuring stations for PM10. The logistic regression conducted showed that pollution especially PM10 was a likely predictor of CVD in the city. Spatial analysis was conducted and included buffering, overlay maps, queries and Hotspot analysis highlighting the zone hotspots. The results from the research guided the development of the novel 5-I model that would assist other similar developing cities to assess the effects of air pollution on CVD. The impetus is that based on evidence, intervention policies and programs may be implemented to inform research and practice which will ultimately have social, economic and health impact on the population. On implementation of the model, hotspots will be identified in order to roll out interventions to priority areas and populations most at risk that will ultimately prevent millions of deaths and enhance overall quality of life.

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / In this thesis, the author explores the phenomena of attitudinal behaviour of some users (management and administrative support personnel) in the adaptation of enhanced information system applications (EISAs) during the last decade of the programme lifecycle of the Student Enrolment Management System (SEMS) programme at a South African university, hereinafter referred to as the University. Using the qualitative approach through Case Study Methodology and IPA in this research, the author uses research methods such as observation, content analysis, semi-structured interviews, case studies, or focus groups based on the lived experience of the interviewees. The outcome reveals that EISAs do not fail the users; instead the users of the systems failed to achieve the objectives of the EISAs at the University. It is found that personal beliefs and attitudes must be divorced from what the institution-wide objectives of the EISAs are. The notion of continually challenging and reworking previously agreed concepts and strategies is counter-productive and can become a very expensive exercise. This is evident if the total amount of money and effort spent on the SEMS programme is evaluated over the last decade. The general consensus reached at the conclusion of this research is that user attitude impacts the functionality of an application system. One of the fundamental issues highlighted is the state of mind of the people utilising EISAs in their daily work-related activities. It is found that a majority of administrative staff utilising the EISAs are physically present at the University but psychologically and emotionally absent whilst performing their daily student administrative duties. It would be useful to determine if they (the users) would be willing and able to radically change their behaviour to fit the ideal of rational discourse.

Magister Public Health - MPH / The Zimbabwean government recognizes the critical role laboratories play in ensuring the health of the nation. Well-resourced and functioning laboratories are the sine qua non of effective diagnosis, treatment and clinical monitoring of medical problems such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In Zimbabwe, frequent unavailability of essential laboratory reagents and consumables have been reported but less well-reported are the factors associated with these "stockouts" at medical laboratories. Applying qualitative research methodologies, this study sought to explore the bottlenecks to the availability of laboratory consumables at state-owned medical laboratories in Harare Province. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit stakeholders' perspectives and experiences with regard to the availability of laboratory consumables. These were complemented by observation of procurement, supply and distribution processes and individual follow-up interviews in 7 facilities where medical laboratory scientists were purposively selected. Rigour was ensured through data-source triangulation, provision of thick descriptions of the setting, maintaining an audit trail and transcribing data verbatim. Data analysis identified recurring themes and key suggestions made by respondents. A complex web of economic, human resources and supply chain factors affect laboratory commodity availability in Harare. Salient factors negatively affecting commodity availability included inadequate funding, human resources, poor communication and coordination among stakeholders, lack of transport, long lead times and limited inventory management skills. A comprehensive approach to resolving the challenge is warranted through advocating for more funding, complementing donor efforts on staff retention, improved coordination and collaboration among stakeholders and re-designing the laboratory supply chain. Further research would assist in determining ways of efficiently utilizing the limited available resources.