Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOC) are designated geographical locations within the Great Lakes Basin with particularly degraded environmental conditions. There is a consensus among diverse sectors in the Great Lakes Basin that contaminated sediment is a major environmental problem and a key factor in many of the impairments of the human and nonhuman uses (beneficial uses) of the Great Lakes. This case study examines Randle Reef in the Hamilton Harbour (AOC) which is the largest Canadian contaminated sediment site in the Great Lakes containing 695,000 m3 of sediment contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and metals. The cleanup of the Randle Reef site is a major step in the process to restore Hamilton Harbour and remove it from the list of AOCs. The Randle Reef sediment remediation project is finally coming to fruition after more than thirty years of study, discussion, collaborations, and debate. As in the case of Randle Reef, environmental decisions are often complex and multi-faceted and involve many stakeholders with competing (sometimes conflicting) priorities or objectives representing exactly the type of problem that humans are poorly equipped to solve unaided. When professionals encounter complex issues, they often attempt to use approaches that simplify the complexity so that they can manage the problem at hand. During this process, valuable information may be lost, opposite points of view may be ignored and elements of uncertainty may be overlooked. A systematic methodology that combines both quantitative and qualitative data from scientific or engineering studies of risk, cost, and benefit, as well as stakeholder objectives and values to rank project alternatives, has yet to be fully developed for contaminated sediment decision-making. The main goal of this Ph.D. research was to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) framework to aid the complex decision-making in sediment remediation. The proposed DSS framework incorporates the five key themes that, through research, were found to be the most relevant for sediment remediation projects. These themes are 1)participation of appropriate actors with common objectives; 2)funding and resources; 3)decision-making process; 4)research and technology development; and 5)public and political support. There was a need to gather relevant information and data from various sources to develop the required DSS framework. For this purpose, expert interviews were conducted, responses were collected through a public survey, Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) was performed on available policy and research documents, and a review was undertaken of how other jurisdictions have employed DSS to aid their decision-making process. The final DSS framework has six key components as follows: 1)data module; 2)communication module; 3)document module; 4)knowledge module; 5)tools module; and 6)DSS optimization module. This generic framework can assist practitioners in developing more systematic and structured decisions for sediment remediation by incorporating an Integrated Information Management System (IIMS) along with a DSS optimization module. This IIMS+DSS method can aid the decision-making process by making it documented, reproducible, robust, transparent and provide a coherent framework to explore and analyze available alternatives in an attempt to reach the preferred solution promptly. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:53:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GiovaneMMG.pdf: 1469201 bytes, checksum: 7ac05c1313efcdfd91efc42e39d364cd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-09-24 / This work involves the organization and content perspectives on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) framework. The case study at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte was based on ECM model to analyse the information management provided by the three main administrative systems: The Integrated Management of Academic Activities (SIGAA), Integrated System of Inheritance, and Contracts Administration (SIPAC) and the Integrated System for Administration and Human Resources (SIGRH). A case study protocol was designed to provide greater reliability to research process. Four propositions were examined in order to reach the specific objectives of identification and evaluation of ECM components from UFRN perspective. The preliminary phase provided the guidelines for the data collection. In total, 75 individuals were interviewed. Interviews with four managers directly involved on systems design were recorded (average duration of 90 minutes). The 70 remaining individuals were approached in random way in UFRN s units, including teachers, administrative-technical employees and students. The results showed the presence of many ECM elements in the management of UFRN administrative information. The technological component with higher presence was "management of web content / collaboration". But initiatives of other components (e.g. email and document management) were found and are in continuous improvement. The assessment made use of eQual 4.0 to examine the effectiveness of applications under three factors: usability, quality of information and offered service. In general, the quality offered by the systems was very good and walk side by side with the obtained benefits of ECM strategy adoption in the context of the whole institution / Esse trabalho envolve a perspectiva de organiza??o e conte?do do modelo Enterprise Content Management (ECM). O estudo de caso na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte se baseou no modelo ECM para analisar a gest?o de informa??es proporcionada pelos tr?s principais sistemas administrativos: Sistema Integrado de Gest?o de Atividades Acad?micas (SIGAA), Sistema Integrado de Patrim?nio, Administra??o e Contratos (SIPAC) e o Sistema Integrado de Gest?o e Recursos Humanos (SIGRH). Um protocolo de estudo de caso foi elaborado a fim de prover maior confiabilidade ? pesquisa que fez o uso de quatro proposi??es para explicar os objetivos espec?ficos de identifica??o e avalia??o de componentes ECM sob a ?tica da UFRN. Na fase explorat?ria, uma entrevista com um especialista forneceu as diretrizes para o plano de coleta de dados. No total, 75 indiv?duos foram entrevistados. As entrevistas com quatro gestores envolvidos diretamente no projeto dos sistemas foram gravadas e tiveram dura??o m?dia de 90 minutos. Os 70 indiv?duos restantes foram abordados aleatoriamente em v?rias unidades da UFRN, abrangendo professores, servidores t?cnico-administrativos e alunos. Os resultados demonstram a presen?a de muitos elementos do modelo ECM na gest?o de informa??es administrativas da UFRN. O componente tecnol?gico com maior presen?a foi Gest?o de conte?do na web/colabora??o . Mas iniciativas de outros componentes (ex.: email e gest?o de documentos) foram tamb?m verificadas e se encontram em constante aprimoramento. A avalia??o fez uso do eQual 4.0 para analisar a efic?cia das aplica??es sob tr?s fatores: usabilidade, qualidade da informa??o e servi?o oferecido. Em geral, a qualidade oferecida pelos sistemas foi muito boa e caminha lado a lado com os benef?cios obtidos da ado??o de uma estrat?gia ECM no ?mbito de toda a institui??o