This thesis examines the use of precision agriculture data, specifically yield maps, for makingsite-specific economic decisions for improved farm management. The adoption of precisionagriculture on farms has allowed producers to collect a greater quantity and more specificinformation about production than ever before. With such information, site-specific decisions canbe made. Incorporating economic data with yield map data, two primary decision examples aredeveloped: defining areas of production and nonproduction and managing temporal risk spatiallyacross a field. Included with the production/ nonproduction decision are the effects that landtenure arrangements and risk aversion levels have on the decision. The risk maps are developedusing break-even analysis, the coefficient of variation, and a mean-variance framework, all based ona twenty year average of temporal net returns, measured spatially. The risk maps are repeatedincorporating a crop insurance option, a commonly used risk management tool. Results show thatdeveloping these maps can be used by agricultural producers to help with their decision making. Byincorporating these maps into the decision-making process, decisions can be made to increase farmprofitability.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-214).

Thesis (MEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Whenever projects fail, analysis of the causes has shown that risks were present from day one. Often individuals at some level in the project team have knowledge of these risks and they could have been identified and appropriate remedial action taken. Risk, whether identified or not, generally results in some increase in financial exposure on behalf of the organisation, but, if managed well, offers a potential that could lead to increased profits. There has been a tremendous explosion regarding the amount of data that organisations generate, collect and store. Managers are beginning to recognize the value of this asset and are increasingly relying on intelligent systems to access, analyse, summarise and interpret information from large and multiple data sources. These systems help them to make critical decisions at a faster rate or with a greater degree of confidence. Data mining is a promising new technology that helps bring intelligence into these systems. The purpose of this thesis is to present a methodology that integrates a data mining technique with a decision support system in order to form an intelligent decision support system. The implementation of such an intelligent decision support system will enable project and project risk managers to improve the management of and reduce risk within a project. This thesis consists of two sections. The first section describes the processes and characteristics of project management, project risk management, data mining and decision support systems. The aim is to provide the reader with a background about these four management methodologies. The second section describes the methodology of how the processes of project and project risk management can benefit from the integration of a data mining technique and a decision support system. An application that uses the case-based reasoning approach as a data mining technique to intelligently profile a project according to its risks is demonstrated. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Wanneer projekte misluk, toon 'n analise van die oorsake dat risiko's vanuit die staanspoor daar teenwoordig was. Individuele persone op verskillende vlakke in die projekspan is dikwels daarvan bewus. Hierdie risiko's kon geïdentifiseer gewees het en regstellende stappe kon geneem gewees het. Risiko, hetsy geïdentifiseer of nie, loop gewoonlik uit op 'n sekere mate van toename in finansiële blootstelling namens die organisasie, maar wanneer dit goed bestuur word, bied dit 'n potensiaal vir verhoogde wins. Daar is 'n geweldige vermeerdering in die hoeveelheid data wat organisasies genereer, versamel en berg. Bestuurders begin alreeds die onskatbare waarde van hierdie bate besef en steun toenemend op intelligensiestelsels vir toegang, analise, opsomming en interpretasie van inligting van omvangryke en veelsoortige databronne. Hierdie sisteme stel hulle in staat om kritieke besluite vinniger of met 'n groter mate van vertroue te neem. Dataontginning is 'n belowende nuwe tegnologie wat daartoe bydra dat intelligensie in hierdie sisteme ingebring word. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om 'n metodologie wat 'n dataontginningstegniek met 'n besluitnemingsondersteuningsisteem integreer sodat 'n intelligente besluitnemingsondersteuningsisteem gevorm kan word. Die implementering van so 'n intelligensie besluitnemingsondersteuningsisteem sal projekbestuurders en projekrisikobestuurders in staat stelom die bestuur van 'n projek te verbeter en die risiko binne die projek te verminder. Hierdie tesis word in twee dele aangebied. Die eerste deel beskryf die prosesse en karakteristieke van projekbestuur, projekrisikobestuur, dataontginning en besluitondersteuningsisteme. Sodoende word aan die leser agtergrondinligting van hierdie vier bestuursmetodologieë verskaf. Die tweede deel beskryf die metodologie en hoe die prosesse van projekbestuur en projekrisikobestuur voordeel kan trek uit die integrasie van 'n dataontginningstegniek en 'n besluitondersteuningsisteem. 'n Toepassing is ontwikkel wat die gevallebasis beredeneringsbenadering as 'n dataontginingstegniek gebruik om 'n projek op 'n intelligente wyse volgens sy risiko's uit te beeld.

This dissertation identifies possible risks in three companies operating in different areas within the national economy. Primary attention is paid to the risks listed in the A group of the ABC method, which form 20 % of the causes, but create 80 % of the consequences. Overall awareness of these risks among the managers is evaluated and suitable precautions reducing a negative impact of these risks on the company are recommended.

The established approach to safety management has failed to handle socio-technical systems that have become more complex. The main argument is this approach is based on assumptions that systems are protected against accidents by barriers (well-trained people, redundant mechanisms and safety devices, and procedures and safe systems of work). Complex systems, such as maintenance, are actually labour intensive; maintenance staff often works under pressure to finish tasks as rapidly as possible. They continuously adapt and make adjustments using available resources, time, knowledge, and competence to achieve success. Thus, they are accidents prone. Human factors inherent to maintenance accidents are most times difficult to identify. Research in this area in the oil and gas industry in maintenance management is limited in comparison to the aviation and nuclear sectors. Therefore, it has been suggested to overcome this lack by exploring the maintenance system and identifying appropriate methods and tools that lead a system to safety excellence. Resilience engineering (RE) approach has been found the suitable solution. Moreover, four system abilities (cornerstones of RE: ability to respond, to monitor, to anticipate, and to learn) have been identified to characterise the resilience of a system; if these abilities are known and increased, it will make the system As High Resilient As Possible (AHRAP). However, there is a need to bridge between RE theory and practice. Particularly, a tool that measures these abilities lacks in the oil and gas industry, specifically within the maintenance system. In doing so, a framework based on a Gap Analysis (GA) was outlined. A tool, the MAintenance System Resilience Assessment Tool- MASRAT, was developed to assess current system resilience and identify strategies for improvement to achieve safety excellence. The maintenance system of SONATRACH was explored by the analysis of the system documentation and processes, interviews with maintenance staff, questionnaires, field observations, storytelling, and functional analysis. MASRAT has been validated by means of congruency and principal components analysis, PCA (content validity), and Cronbach’s alpha (reliability). An expert panel testing was carried out to test its usability. The exploration of the system came up with a snapshot of daily activities as well as a better understanding of the maintenance system. The study identified the most significant human factors (resources, time pressure, and supervision/coordination) and their probable impact on plant safety. The elements of the system were found tightly coupled, hence the system complex. Stories describing the continuous adaptations of people to achieve assigned objectives were collected. On the other hand, MASRAT was validated. All items were rated above 0.75 in congruency test. The results of PCA for the three selected factors confirmed the items may be clustered after extraction into four components which interpretation represents the four cornerstones of RE. The analysis showed MASRAT is reproducible. Cronbach’s alpha results were found higher than what is required (0.7). MASRAT was found usable by maintenance expert panel. It was used to measure the maintenance department resilience. Strategies that may lead the system from current maturity level to excellence were identified. Eventually, recommendations were made to management to be implemented both at corporate and department levels. For the first time, the maintenance department resilience of petroleum assets was measured to fill in the gap between RE theory and practice. Besides, this can be of benefit to the petroleum industry by a better knowledge of the maintenance working environment and human factors impact on safety and by profiles determination and improvement strategies identification.

Submitted by Irene Nascimento (irene.kessia@ufpe.br) on 2017-07-14T18:38:48Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação_FabianaLeonelAmbrosioSilva.pdf: 3451937 bytes, checksum: cfeb3cbd7cc81a5e5e8b356ab0384e08 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-14T18:38:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação_FabianaLeonelAmbrosioSilva.pdf: 3451937 bytes, checksum: cfeb3cbd7cc81a5e5e8b356ab0384e08 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-28 / A falha na condução dos projetos de software é um assunto que sempre foi uma preocupação para a engenharia de software. Muitas são as iniciativas em melhoria de processo no desenvolvimento de software e gerenciamento de projetos que buscam reduzir estas falhas. Os projetos de software são complexos por natureza e estão sujeitos a uma série de incertezas. Conhecer estas variáveis pode ajudar aos gestores a tomar decisões de forma eficaz e conduzir o projeto ao sucesso. Mesmo com todas as iniciativas para que os projetos tenham sucesso, as incertezas sempre existirão. Essa constatação faz com que a área de gerência de riscos tenha uma importância significativa. O objetivo deste trabalho foi realizar uma análise do impacto do gerenciamento dos riscos no sucesso de projetos de software. A implantação das melhorias no processo de gerenciamento de risco objetivaram também atender aos modelos de maturidade CMMI e MPS.BR. Para isso, foi realizado um estudo de caso em uma organização de desenvolvimento de software. Durante o estudo de caso, a criação de um repositório de riscos organizacionais foi realizada e alimentada com cinco projetos. Um dos desafios deste trabalho foi definir conceitos e medidas objetivas para avaliar os eventos associados com o gerenciamento de riscos e com o sucesso de projetos. Uma avaliação preliminar em 15 (quinze) projetos finalizados foi realizada para entender como o gerenciamento dos riscos de cada um desses projetos, impactou no seu sucesso. / The failure of conducting software projects is an issue that becomes a concern for Software Engineering. There are many initiatives to reach process improvement in software development that intend to reduce these failures. The software projects are complex by nature and are subject to a number of uncertainties. Knowing these variables can help managers take decisions to effectively lead the project to success. Even with all these initiatives for projects to succeed, uncertainties exist. This observation means risk management has significant importance. The goal of this work was to analyze the impact of risk management on the success of software projects. The implementation of improvements in the risk management process also aimed to meet the CMMI maturity models and MPS.BR. In this direction, a case study in a software development organization was conducted. During the case study, a repository with organizational risks was the created and fed with the risks from five projects. One of this work's challenges was to define concepts and accurate measures to assess the events associated with the risk management and project success. A preliminary assessment within fifteen (15) completed projects was performed in order to understand how risk management impact on their success

This thesis deals with analysis of the crisis management in company and it is focused on occupational health and safety.

Infrastructure projects, based on the Build-Operate-Transfer, (BOT), method, have been of interest to governments of developed and developing countries for some time, resulting in their worldwide use. Using the BOT method enables governments to reallocate risks and rewards to the private sector for larger infrastructure projects throughout the projects' operating life. In order to implement a BOT infrastructure project successfully, one of the essential requirements is to carry out a thorough analysis of risks relating to the project including the social, economic, environmental, political, legal, and the financial aspects. Due to the fact that the type of risk study required for large-scale projects is so sophisticated, and therefore expensive and time consuming, the government, due to lack of expertise and time, often obtains a project viability study from the private sector. This can cause problems in that the private sector may incur financial losses or even bankruptcy, unless the host government guarantees compensation to the losers of the bid. Because all parties have different targets which they wish to achieve from the project, a may conflict arise and cause lengthy negotiations, sometimes lasting for years which often result in the death of the project. The greatest opportunity for a successful outcome for a BOT project is obtained when the extensive efforts and costs involved in the risk study process are shared by all parties. The responsibility of the decision maker is to identify, understand and analyze the many risk factors both, qualitative, (linguistic in nature) and quantitative, that will affect funding, procurement, developing, construction and operation, before proceeding with the build stage of the project. Firstly, it is necessary to evaluate the quantitative Risk Factors subjectively, and list them in order of importance. Secondly, conduct an evaluation of the qualitative factors and since the consideration of qualitative factors is subjective, the decision maker will often limit the number of factors being evaluated possibly resulting in inconsistent results. This study proposes a decision framework, which would be useful in determining the influence of the qualitative Risk Factors on the project management of BOT infrastructure projects. A methodology is provided to enable the identification of interrelationships between the Risk Factors and their influence on the project. Using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) techniques, which model the relationships between the Risk Factors, a validation of this approach will be sought using a decomposed evaluation method and also information obtained from three existing case studies, (the Channel Tunnel, Sulaibiya Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation Plant and Marsa Allam Airport). The results of the decomposed approach were compared to experts' holistic evaluations for the same case studies mentioned above. The findings indicate that the decomposed approach showed a strong correlation to the holistic approach. An evaluation of the risks for the Sulaibiya Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation Plant study is provided and suggestions made to highlight risks attached to such a project before it is actually undertaken. Using the decomposed approach enables the decision maker to see the contribution of each risk compared to all of the risks in the total project and will help to determine and subsequently minimize or preventing any risk factors and so considerably improving the risk management of the project.

Embarking on a construction project means taking a risk. Project risk management (PRM) provides an effective approach to improve decision making and minimise project risk. Project risks may not possess the same level of significance for different countries, markets and projects. Current research on PRM in China has been rather theoretical, addressing technology issues. Considering the current practice in the Chinese construction industry (CCl), the PRM needs understanding and support from the industry and a mature market environment. This research aims to establish PRM strategies for identifying and adopting the best practice to provide practical guidelines for the CCl, thus improving the PRM, motivating the reform of the Chinese construction market, and enabling the CCl to function in the competitive environment of globalisation. An extensive literature review and a number of case studies for construction projects in China have been conducted, addressing issues closely related to the research. A systematic analysis is employed and developed for project planning and decision making. Contractual risks are considered as the first step and catalyst for improving the PRM in the CCl. Built on the findings from the case studies and analysis, the research puts forward a framework of contractual risk management to study the concept, identification and classification of contractual risks. Contract interfaces are analysed for contractual risk management under various project procurement routes (PPRs). The potentially large improvements to the PRM and reform of the Chinese construction market from the introduction and application of innovative PPRs and their contractual conditions are addressed. Two mathematical models -a probabilistic analysis model and an effective information entropy model for key contractual risks -are presented. The validity and applicability of the models are demonstrated with sample data for the CCl. Detailed recommendations and guidelines for the implementation of the proposed strategies are suggested.

This thesis is concerned with what pervasive risk management is, and how it can be achieved in practice. Specifically, it examines the effect of social processes and cultural factors on how risk management can be coordinated across and embedded within business processes and organisational culture. A growing literature addresses what is termed risk management maturity: the capability of an organisation to assess, manage, communicate and govern risk (and opportunity). Notwithstanding its benefits, the emphasis of this literature on risk management benchmarking and standardisation has led, arguably, to a bureaucratisation of risk management process. Research followed a case study strategy and data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. A total of 43 interviews were conducted in one private and one public sector organisation. The findings describe a number of social processes and related cultural factors that significantly affected risk management pervasiveness in the two organisations. (1) Shared experience and respect for experience facilitated flexible coordination between operational and strategic risk management. (2) Informal, lateral communication integrated the knowledge of diverse stakeholders required to manage complex environmental risks. (3) Lack of common understanding of the purpose and function of risk management undermined coordination of risk management practice. These findings progress the debate on the balance between standardisation and informal social process to achieve pervasive risk management, and contribute to a richer description of organisational risk management maturity. The findings are of value to risk managers wishing to embed the adaptive and coordinated risk management required in dynamic and complex environments