No presente trabalho serão apresentadas as diretrizes e os testes necessários para a implantação de um programa de controle de qualidade para o Eclipse 7.3.10 da Varian no Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da USP, de acordo com a mais recente publicação da AIEA o TRS 430. Os testes recomendados pelo TRS 430 são basicamente divididos em testes de aceitação, comissionamento (testes dosimétricos e não dosimétricos), e testes rotineiros. O documento da AIEA está sendo implementado para o Eclipse no HC para os feixes de fótons de dois aceleradores lineares da Varian, Clinac 600C e Clinac 2100C. Os testes de aceitação verificaram parâmetros de \"hardware\"; integração do sistema \"network\"; transferência de dados, e \"softwares\". Os resultados obtidos mostraram boa concordância com as especificações do fabricante. Para os testes dosimétricos de comissionamento, foram realizadas medidas de dose absoluta para diversos arranjos experimentais. Esses valores foram comparados com os valores de dose gerados pelo SPTC. A grande maioria dos testes apresentou cerca de 90% a 80% dos pontos comparados, dentro dos níveis de tolerância, ou seja, uma boa concordância entre os valores experimentais e os valores gerados pelo SPTC. Somente arranjos de campos assimétricos apresentaram discordâncias grosseiras, mostrando a necessidade de uma investigação mais apurada para esses casos. Os testes de comissionamento não dosimétricos também apresentaram resultados excelentes, com praticamente todas as ferramentas e desempenho geral do sistema de acordo com as recomendações estipuladas no TRS 430. Foram aplicados também critérios de aceitabilidade para a comparação entre os valores de UMs gerados pelo sistema e os valores de UMs calculados manualmente. Os feixes no Eclipse foram caracterizados com dados transferidos do CadPlan e com dados provenientes do recomissionamento dos aceleradores, assim sendo, para esses testes encontrou- se uma diferença de até 3% para campos conformacionados para os dados de feixe provenientes do recomissionamento dos aceleradores, e de até 4% para os dados de feixe transferidos do CadPlan, sendo que o nível de tolerância estabelecido pelo TRS 430 para o arranjo era de 3%. / This work presents the guidelines and necessary tests tom implement a quality assurance program for Eclipse 7.3.10 from Varian at Hospital das Clinicas, Sao Paulo University School of Medicine - Brazil, in accordance with the new IAEA publication TRS 430. The recommended tests for the TRS 430 air mainly classified into acceptance tests, commissioning (dosimetric and non-dosimetric tests), and routine tests. The IAEA document\'s recommendations are being implemented at the hospital for two Varian linear accelerators - Clinac 600C e Clinac 2100C. The acceptance tests verified \'hardware\', integration of network systems, data transfer and \'software\' parameters. The results obtained are in a good agreement with the manufacturer\'s specifications. Measurements of absolute dose in several set-ups were made for the commissioning dosimetric tests. These data were compared to the absolute doses determined by the TPS. The great majority of the tests showed 90% to 80% of the analyzed data in acceptance levels, with a good agreement between the experimental data and the data determined by the TPS. Only settings with asymmetric fields presented significant discords, showing the need for a more detailed inquiry for these settings. The non-dosimetric commissioning tests have also presented excellent results, with virtually all the system tools and general performance in compliance with TRS 430. The acceptance criteria have been applied for a comparison between the values of MUs generated by TPS and the calculated manually ones. The beams have been characterized for Eclipse with data transferred from CadPlan and with data from recommissioning of accelerators, so for these tests it was found a difference of at least 3% for the conformal field shape for the data originated in the beams of recommissioning and at least 4% for the data proceeded from CadPlan. The tolerance level established by TRS 430 for this setting was 3%.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-12-21T15:44:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Silva Pereira_.pdf: 951778 bytes, checksum: 90c6af826318df7c8204565678dff935 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-21T15:44:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Silva Pereira_.pdf: 951778 bytes, checksum: 90c6af826318df7c8204565678dff935 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-28 / Nenhuma / Com a emergência do crowdsourcing junto a difusão mundial de smartphones esforços recentes e pesquisas importantes sobre o uso de crowdsourcing na área da saúde ou ainda smarthealth visam auxiliar na melhoria hábitos de saúde, construção de históricos médicos pessoais de longo prazo, análise e revisão de dados médica, controle de dietas alimentares, gerenciamento do estresse, analise e comparação de informações e assistência em tempo real para catástrofes. Porém, nenhum deles usou de crowdsourcing para recomendação de centros clínicos de saúde. Segundo Chatzimilioudis crowdsourcing refere-se "a um modelo distribuído de solução de problemas em que uma multidão de tamanho indefinido é contratada para resolver um problema complexo através de um convite aberto". Neste âmbito, este trabalho apresenta um modelo de sistema de recomendação de centros clínicos de saúde, chamado CrowdHealth. A principal contribuição do modelo de sistema de recomendação de centros clínicos é possibilitar a criação de uma relação ganha-ganha entre seus usuários que podem ser cidadãos, médicos ou ainda entidades ligadas ao governo. Na literatura encontramos alguns trabalhos que carecem a abordagem do uso de crowdsourcing como fonte de dados para recomendação de centros clínicos de saúde. Nós desenvolvemos um protótipo de aplicação baseada no modelo de sistema de recomendação de centros clínicos de saúde para proporcionar uma visão do que seria uma aplicação baseada no modelo de sistema de recomendação de centros clínicos de saúde. Para avaliar o nosso modelo, apresentamos um cenário hipotético baseado numa possível aplicação para mensurar a percepção dos usuários quanto a utilidade dos centros clínicos de saúde. Os cenários descritos levavam em consideração os seguintes critérios: (1) a distância entre do usuário ao centro clinico, (2) a avaliação dos usuários em relação ao atendimento recebido nos centros clínicos e (3) o tempo de atendimento informado pelos usuários. Desta forma realizamos uma simulação de requisições de recomendações de usuários usando um dataset real contendo informações do Foursquare. O arquivo do dataset possuia 227428 check-in’s na cidade de Nova Iorque, EUA. O arquivo, foi dividido em duas partes, onde a primeira representava os check-in’s realizados pelos usuários nos centros clínicos, e a segunda representava usuários requisitando por recomendações de centros clínicos em outros locais. Assim, foram criadas funções para simular os processos de cálculo do tempo de atendimento e avaliação dos centros clínicos por parte dos usuários. Também simulou-se usuários requisitando por recomendações de centros clínicos em outros locais. Então, medimos precisão e recuperação dos centros clínicos de saúde sugeridos para cada usuário. Obtivemos valores médios de 57,5% e 61,33% para precisão e recuperação, respectivamente. Com isso, nossa avaliação retrata que centros clínicos de saúde recomendados por uma aplicação baseada no CrowdHealth poderiam aumentar beneficamente a utilidade de centros clínicos de saúde recomendados para os usuários. / With the emergence of crowdsourcing with the worldwide spread of smartphones recent efforts and important research on the use of crowdsourcing in health or smart-health are intended to assist in improving health habits, construction of historical long-term medical personnel, medical analysis and data review, control diets, stress management, analysis and comparison of information and real-time assistance for disasters. However, none of them used the crowdsourcing for recommendation clinical health centers. In this context, this paper presents a model of clinical health centers recommendation system called CrowdHealth. The main contribution of clinical health centers recommendation system model is possible to create a win-win relationship between its users that can be citizens, doctors or entities linked to the government. In the literature we find some papers that require the use of crowdsourcing as a data source for recommendation clinical health centers approach. We have developed a prototype application based on clinical health centers recommendation system model to provide a vision of what would be an application based on the clinical health centers recommendation system model. To evaluate our model, we present a hypothetical scenario based on a possible application to measure the perception of users and the utility of clinical health centers. The scenarios described took into consideration the following criteria: (1) the distance from the user to the clinical center, (2) the evaluation of other users on the service received in the clinical centers and (3) the time of service reported by users. Thus we performed a simulation of user requests recommendations using a real dataset containing information of Foursquare. The file dataset haved 227428 check in’s in New York City, USA. The file was divided into two parts, where the first represented the textit check in ’s performed by users in clinical centers, and the second represented by requesting users polyclinics recommendations elsewhere. Thus, functions were created to simulate service time calculation and evaluation processes of polyclinics by users. Also users was simulated by ordering polyclinics recommendations elsewhere. So we measure precision and recall of health clinical centers suggested for each user. Average values obtained from 57.5 % and 61.33 % for precision and recall, respectively. Thus, our assessment that portrays clinical health centers recommended by an application based on CrowdHealth could increase beneficially the usefulness of clinical health centers recommended for users.

Submitted by Rosina Valeria Lanzellotti Mattiussi Teixeira (rosina.teixeira@unisantos.br) on 2016-04-12T18:03:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Carla Vasco de Toledo.pdf: 9258967 bytes, checksum: 20f32851ae2b9cae63ba55ba0ee815be (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-12T18:03:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Carla Vasco de Toledo.pdf: 9258967 bytes, checksum: 20f32851ae2b9cae63ba55ba0ee815be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-17 / The current work discuss the public policies on the WHO recommendation in the 63rd General Assembly of Health that recommended ten guidelines to reduce harmful of alcohol. Alcohol is the cause of 3.3 million deaths per year. The Members of WHO are forced to adopt these recommendations because its binding character; a fact that was ruled by Brazil, culminating in the PNA (acronym for Alcohol National Policies). However, to accomplish empirically each guideline, Brazil is far from achieving its national and international goals and is also responsible for international violations of human rights by omission on reducing the harmful consumption of alcoholic beverages. / O tema versa sobre as políticas públicas da OMS, que recomendou na 63ª Assembleia Geral de Saúde dez diretrizes para reduzir o consumo abusivo de bebidas alcoólicas, causa de 3,3 milhões de mortes anuais. Por tratar-se de uma recomendação advinda de uma Organização internacional, entende-se o caráter vinculante desta, obrigando seus Estados-Membros a aplicarem as referidas diretrizes, que inclusive foi normatizada pelo Brasil, culminando na PNA. Contudo, ao depararmos com o estudo realizado de forma empírica sobre cada diretriz (10 ao todo), constatou-se que o Brasil está longe de alcançar os objetivos internacionais e nacionais, tornando-se responsável por violar o direito humano à saúde devido à sua omissão na redução do consumo indevido de bebidas alcoólicas.

Background: Hearing aid prescriptive recommendations for hearing losses having a conductive component have received less clinical and research interest than for losses of a sensorineural nature; as a result, much variation remains among current prescriptive methods in their recommendations for conductive and mixed hearing losses (Johnson and Dillon, 2011). Purpose: The primary intent of this brief clinical note is to demonstrate differences between two algebraically equivalent expressions of hearing loss, which have been approaches used historically to generate a prescription for hearing losses with a conductive component. When air and bone conduction thresholds are entered into hearing aid prescriptions designed for nonlinear hearing aids, it was hypothesized that that two expressions would not yield equivalent amounts of prescribed insertion gain and output. These differences are examined for their impact on the maximum power output (MPO) requirements of the hearing aid. Subsequently, the MPO capabilities of two common behind-the-ear (BTE) receiver placement alternatives, receiver-in-aid (RIA) and receiver-in-canal (RIC), are examined. Study Samples: The two expressions of hearing losses examined were the 25% ABG + AC approach and the 75% ABG + BC approach, where ABG refers to air-bone gap, AC refers to air-conduction threshold, and BC refers to bone-conduction threshold. Example hearing loss cases with a conductive component are sampled for calculations. The MPO capabilities of the BTE receiver placements in commercially-available products were obtained from hearing aids on the U.S. federal purchasing contract. Results: Prescribed gain and the required MPO differs markedly between the two approaches. The 75% ABG + BC approach prescribes a compression ratio that is reflective of the amount of sensorineural hearing loss. Not all hearing aids will have the MPO capabilities to support the output requirements for fitting hearing losses with a large conductive component particularly when combined with significant sensorineural hearing loss. Generally, current RIA BTE products have greater output capabilities than RIC BTE products. Conclusions: The 75% ABG + BC approach is more appropriate than the 25% ABG + AC approach because the latter approach inappropriately uses AC thresholds as the basis for determining the compression ratio. That is, for hearing losses with a conductive component, the AC thresholds are not a measure of sensorineural hearing loss and cannot serve as the basis for determining the amount of desired compression. The Australian National Acoustic Laboratories has been using the 75% ABG + BC approach in lieu of the 25% ABG + AC approach since its release of the National Acoustic Laboratories—Non-linear 1 (NAL-NL1) prescriptive method in 1999. Future research may examine whether individuals with conductive hearing loss benefit or prefer more than 75% restoration of the conductive component provided adequate MPO capabilities to support such restoration.

In spite of a 2009 memorandum from senior Air Force leaders calling for civilian employees to participate in nonresident Professional Military Education (PME) courses, employees' PME completion rates have remained low. This qualitative study investigated the perceptions of nonresident PME held by 12 employees at an installation with a nonresident PME completion rate of less than 3% in 2013. The theories of reasoned action and planned behavior guided the 5 main questions that asked participants to describe their familiarity with nonresident PME course content, availability, and structure; as well as their perceptions of organizational support for PME course participation, their capacity to complete PME courses, the role of nonresident PME in their leadership development, and the importance of PME completion for attaining their career goals. The data were manually coded and organized according to the emergent themes and subthemes. None of the participants identified any external barriers to nonresident PME completion, but factors such as supervisor support, prior participation in enlisted PME, personal interest in PME course content, and inconsistent hiring practices influenced participants' perceptions of nonresident PME for their professional development and career progression. The findings and prior research suggest the Air Force should educate PME eligible civilians regarding the benefits of nonresident PME, conduct focus groups to discover employees' specific learning needs, and assist supervisors in establishing effective mentoring relationships. These actions have the potential to enhance employee motivation, to align employee development with organizational goals and objectives, and to increase supervisor-subordinate collaboration.

Background: The value of stock recommendations have been debated for a century andthe debate has escalated since Alfred Cowles (1933) published his research in “Can StockMarket Forecasters Forecast”? As of late, savings in stocks has increased and the householdsare managing their savings more actively. The consequence of the increased interestin stocks has resulted in a growing market for stock recommendations. Not just financialmedia but daily newspapers have embraced this new found interest, hence stock recom-mendations can be found in almost all large newspapers in Sweden. Furthermore, this phe-nomenon has also lead to intensified research within stock recommendations. Researchers have under the 20th and 21st century investigated a wide number of issues concerning stock recommendations. The most common issue with different angles has been whether stockrecommendations generate abnormal returns or not? Earlier research on this issue havehowever mostly been based on the American stock market. According to us, not enoughnational research has been done on whether stock recommendations generate abnormal returnsor not on the Swedish stock market. Further we think that there is a lack of research with regards to a short time span. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate whether stock recommendations on Nasdaq OMXSLarge-Mid-Small CAP, First North and Aktietorget generate abnormal returns? Central for the study is to investigate if stock recommendation generates abnormal returns in the short-term. Secondary the study will also investigate stock recommendations effect on stock prices in the long run. Method: First step was to create databases from high frequency data, 10 minute OHLCVbars, and from closing prices. Thereafter use these as a base for statistical calculations. Conclusion: The results from this study show that analysts have succeeded with generat-ing significant abnormal returns with their recommendations. Above all it is the business journals buy recommendations that generate the highest abnormal return. Sell recommen-dations didn’t give high significant results in our measurements. Our results also show thatabnormal returns from buy recommendations are sufficiently high and the transaction costsare sufficiently low so that investors can capitalize on the analyses. We found that buy recommendations effect companies noted on Small Cap etc to a higher extent than companies noted on Large- and Mid-Cap because of the lower degree of transparency in the smaller companies. Our results also indicate that the weekly magazines generate approximatelyequal abnormal returns. The monthly generates the lowest abnormal returns in our study. In our research we also found that buy recommendations that are published when thestock market has a positive momentum perform better than when the stock market has anegative momentum. We also found that investor should closely monitor the information flow before the recommendation is published, since a positive information flow can have afavorable outcome on the size of the abnormal return. Last but not least, we observe a correlationbetween the numbers of investors the recommendation reaches and the magnitudeof the observed abnormal return. / Bakgrund: Värdet av aktierekommendationer har debatterats i snart ett sekel, och debat-ten har eskalerat ända sedan Alfred Cowles (1933) publicerade sin forskning ”Can StockMarket Forecasters Forecast?" De senaste åren har sparandet i aktier ökat och hushållenblir allt aktivare i sitt pensionssparande. Konsekvensen av det ökade intresset för sparande iaktier har resulterat i en växande marknad för aktierekommendationer. Inte bara finansiellmedia utan också dagliga tidskrifter har tagit till sig detta ökade intresse och nästan samtligastörre dagstidningar publicerar numera aktierekommendationer. Vidare har detta fenomen också lett till att forskningen kring aktierekommendationer intensifierats de senaste decennierna.Forskare har under 1900-talet och 2000-talet undersökt en mängd olika problem-ställningar kring aktierekommendationer. Varav den vanligaste problemställningen med varierandevinklar, har varit huruvida aktierekommendationer genererar överavkastning ellerej? Tidigare forskning har dock framförallt baserats på den amerikanska aktiemarknaden. I vår mening råder det brist på nationell forskning som visar huruvida aktierekommendatio-ner genererar överavkastning på bolag noterade på svenska marknadsplatser. Vidare råderdet brist på forskning som tar hänsyn till det korta tidsperspektivet. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka huruvida aktierekommendationer på Nasdaq OMXS Large-Mid-Small CAP och First North samt Aktietorget genererar överavkastning? Centralt för studien är attundersöka om aktierekommendationer är kursdrivande på kort sikt, Sekundärt kommer också studienundersöka aktierekommendationers inverkan på aktiekurser på lång sikt. Metod: Första steget var att konstruera databaser från högfrekvensdata, 10M OHLCVbars, och stängningskurser. Därefter använda dessa som grund för statistiska beräkningar. Slutsats: Resultat från vår studie visar att ekonomijournalister har lyckats med att genererasignifikant överavkastning med deras rekommendationer. Framför allt är det affärstidskrifternasköprekommendationer som genererar högst överavkastning. Säljrekommendationergav ett lägre signifikant utslag i våra mätningar. Våra resultat indikerar också på att överavkastningen från köprekommendationer är tillräckligt hög och transaktionskostnaderna tillräckligtlåga för att investerare skall kunna kapitalisera på rekommendationerna. Vi finneratt köprekommendationer är mer kursdrivande på Small Cap etc. än bolag noterade på Lar-ge- och Mid Cap på grund av den lägre graden av transparens i de mindre bolagen. Våra resultatpekar också på att Affärsvärlden, Börsveckan & Veckans affärer genererar ungefärlika stor överavkastning. Aktiespararen & Privata Affärer genererar den lägsta överavkastningeni våra mätningar. I våra efterforskningar ser vi också en stark tendens för att aktiersom rekommenderas när börsen har ett positivt momentum presterar bättre än aktier somrekommenderas när börsen har ett negativt momentum. Vi finner också att investerare börbeakta informationsflödet innan rekommendationstidpunkten då ett positivt informations-flöde kan får en gynnsam effekt på överavkastningens storlek. Sist men inte minst observe-rar vi en korrelation mellan antalet investerare rekommendationen når och magnituden påden observerade överavkastningen.

A Post-Occupancy Energy Analysis of the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center conducted with the view of recommending optimizations that result in energy savings.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 106 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The relationship between citizenship performance and overall performance and the relationship between citizenship performance and reward recommendations were investigated, with gender and scale type as possible moderators. Two hundred and fifty-four University of South Florida students were used in this study. The majority of these participants were undergraduate, psychology majors, female, and between the ages of 17 and 23. Participants were given statements describing a teacher's performance and were asked to evaluate the professor on citizenship and overall performance and recommend them for rewards. No support was found for the hypothesis that men would have a stronger relationship than women between citizenship and overall performance. No support was found for the hypothesis that men would have a stronger relationship than women between citizenship performance and reward recommendations. Scale type was not found to influence these relationships. / ABSTRACT: These results are not consistent with the shifting standards model. Numerous suggestions are made for changes to the experiment, including performing a field study instead of a lab study. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This paper explores public health campaigns as they relate to tweens and their use of technology. After considering how this demographic utilizes both traditional and new media, further examination was done on general health problems that affect this group. Three major health issues were then chosen for analysis. A relevant campaign for each issue was also evaluated, as were its overall marketing and communication efforts. The health problems and corresponding campaigns chosen include childhood obesity and the “Let’s Move” campaign, electronic aggression and the “Stop Bullying” campaign and youth suicide and the “WeCanHelpUs” campaign. From these analyses, recommendations for ways to improve each campaign were provided, as were general conclusions for reaching this demographic more efficiently and effectively. / text

Ο Παγκόσμιος Ιστός Πληροφοριών (Web) χαρακτηρίζεται σαν ένα περιβάλλον αχανές, ετερογενές, κατανεμημένο και πολύπλοκο με αποτέλεσμα να είναι δύσκολος ο αποδοτικός χειρισμός των δεδομένων των e-εφαρμογών με βάση παραδοσιακές μεθόδους και τεχνικές. Αυτό με τη σειρά του οδηγεί στην απαίτηση για σχεδιασμό, ανάπτυξη και υιοθέτηση «ευφυών» εργαλείων που θα επιλέξουν και θα εμφανίσουν στο χρήστη την κατάλληλη πληροφορία, στον κατάλληλο χρόνο και με την κατάλληλη μορφή. Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή ασχολείται με το πρόβλημα της εξόρυξης «κρυμμένης» γνώσης από συστήματα και εφαρμογές ηλεκτρονικής μάθησης (e-learning), ηλεκτρονικού εμπορίου (e-commerce) και επιχειρηματικής ευφυΐας (business intelligence) με κύριο στόχο τη βελτίωση της ποιότητας και της απόδοσης των παρεχόμενων υπηρεσιών προς τους τελικούς χρήστες. Συγκεκριμένα, τα ερευνητικά αποτελέσματα επικεντρώνονται στα ακόλουθα: α) Μεθοδολογίες, τεχνικές και προτεινόμενοι αλγόριθμοι εξόρυξης «κρυμμένης» γνώσης από e-εφαρμογές λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τη σημασιολογία των δεδομένων, β) Παραγωγή εξατομικευμένων εκπαιδευτικών εμπειριών, γ) Παραγωγή αποδοτικών συστάσεων για την αγορά online προϊόντων, δ) Παραγωγή επιστημονικών και τεχνολογικών δεικτών από διπλώματα ευρεσιτεχνίας για την ανάδειξη του επιπέδου καινοτόμου δραστηριότητας μιας αγοράς, ε) Προτάσεις για μελλοντικές ερευνητικές κατευθύνσεις που επεκτείνουν τις τεχνικές εξόρυξης γνώσης σε πιο σύνθετους τύπους εφαρμογών και αναδεικνύουν νέες ερευνητικές ευκαιρίες. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται μια προσέγγιση για την υποστήριξη εξατομικευμένου e-learning όπου η δομή και η σχέση των δεδομένων και των πληροφοριών παίζουν ουσιαστικό ρόλο. Ο προτεινόμενος αλγόριθμος βασίζεται σε μια οντολογία (ontology) η οποία βοηθά στη δόμηση και στη διαχείριση του περιεχομένου που σχετίζεται με μια δεδομένη σειρά μαθημάτων, ένα μάθημα ή ένα θεματικό. Η διαδικασία χωρίζεται σε δύο στάδια: στις offline ενέργειες προετοιμασίας των δεδομένων, δημιουργίας της οντολογίας και εξόρυξης από δεδομένα χρήσης (usage mining) και στην online παροχή της εξατομίκευσης. Το σύστημα βρίσκει σε πρώτη φάση ένα αρχικό σύνολο συστάσεων βασισμένο στην οντολογία του πεδίου και στη συνέχεια χρησιμοποιεί τα frequent itemsets (συχνά εμφανιζόμενα σύνολα στοιχείων) για να το εμπλουτίσει, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη την πλοήγηση άλλων παρόμοιων χρηστών (similar users). Με τον τρόπο αυτό, μειώνουμε το χρόνο που απαιτείται για την ανάλυση όλων των frequent itemsets και των κανόνων συσχέτισης. Εστιάζουμε μόνο σε εκείνα τα σύνολα που προέρχονται από το συνδυασμό της ενεργούς συνόδου (current session) του χρήστη και των συστάσεων της οντολογίας. Επιπλέον, αυτή η προσέγγιση ανακουφίζει και το πρόβλημα των μεγάλων χρόνων απόκρισης, το οποίο μπορεί στη συνέχεια να οδηγήσει στην εγκατάλειψη του e-learning συστήματος. Αν και η εξατομίκευση απαιτεί αρκετά βήματα επεξεργασίας και ανάλυσης, το εμπόδιο αυτό αποφεύγεται με την εκτέλεση σημαντικού μέρους της διαδικασίας offline. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο μελετάται το πρόβλημα της παραγωγής προτάσεων σε μια εφαρμογή e-commerce. Τα συστήματα συστάσεων (recommendations systems ή RSs) αποτελούν ίσως την πιο δημοφιλή μορφή εξατομίκευσης και τείνουν να μετατραπούν στις μέρες μας σε σημαντικά επιχειρησιακά εργαλεία. Η προτεινόμενη υβριδική προσέγγιση στοχεύει στην παραγωγή αποτελεσματικών συστάσεων για τους πελάτες ενός online καταστήματος που νοικιάζει κινηματογραφικές ταινίες. Η γνώση για τους πελάτες και τα προϊόντα προκύπτει από δεδομένα χρήσης και τη δομή της οντολογίας σε συνδυασμό με τις εκτιμήσεις-βαθμολογίες των πελατών για τις ταινίες καθώς και την εφαρμογή τεχνικών ταιριάσματος «όμοιων» πελατών. Όταν ένα ή περισσότερα κριτήρια ταιριάσματος ικανοποιούνται, τότε άλλες ταινίες μπορούν να προσδιοριστούν σύμφωνα με το οντολογικό σχήμα που έχουν παρόμοια χαρακτηριστικά με αυτές που ο πελάτης έχει ήδη νοικιάσει. Στην περίπτωση ενός νέου πελάτη όπου το ιστορικό του είναι κενό, πληροφορίες από την αίτηση εγγραφής του αναλύονται ώστε να ταξινομηθεί σε μια συγκεκριμένη κλάση πελατών και να παραχθούν προτάσεις με βάση το οντολογικό σχήμα. Αυτή η ολοκλήρωση παρέχει πρόσθετη γνώση για τις προτιμήσεις των πελατών και επιτρέπει την παραγωγή επιτυχημένων συστάσεων. Ακόμη και στην περίπτωση του «cold-start problem» όπου δεν είναι διαθέσιμη αρχική πληροφορία για τη συμπεριφορά του πελάτη, η προσέγγιση μπορεί να προβεί σε σχετικές συστάσεις. Τέλος, στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο μελετάται το πρόβλημα της εξόρυξης γνώσης από καταχωρήσεις διπλωμάτων ευρεσιτεχνίας που καταδεικνύουν το επίπεδο της καινοτόμου δραστηριότητας μιας αγοράς. Η προτεινόμενη προσέγγιση αφορά στην εφαρμογή τεχνικών Text Mining σε διπλώματα ευρεσιτεχνίας που βρίσκονται καταχωρημένα σε βάσεις δεδομένων διαφόρων διεθνών οργανισμών διαχείρισής τους, με στόχο την παραγωγή επιστημονικών και τεχνολογικών δεικτών για την ανάδειξη του επιπέδου καινοτομίας μιας αγοράς και συνεπώς την επιχειρηματική ευφυΐα. Αρχικά τα δεδομένα καθαρίζονται προκειμένου να βελτιωθεί η ποιότητά τους πριν την επεξεργασία. Στη συνέχεια εφαρμόζονται δύο τύποι επεξεργασίας η απλή ανάλυση (simple analysis) και η στατιστική ανάλυση (statistical analysis). Στην πρώτη περίπτωση παράγονται γραφήματα που συσχετίζουν τις πληροφορίες π.χ. κύριοι τομείς ανάπτυξης σε μια χώρα. Στη δεύτερη περίπτωση αναλύονται γλωσσολογικά τα πεδία title και abstract των διπλωμάτων ευρεσιτεχνίας και ομαδοποιούνται τα λήμματα των λέξεων. Στη συνέχεια πάνω στα δεδομένα εφαρμόζονται τεχνικές correspondence και clustering analysis έτσι ώστε αυτά να ομαδοποιηθούν σύμφωνα με τις τεχνολογίες στις οποίες αναφέρονται. Τα clusters πλέον αυτά προβάλλονται όπως και στην απλή ανάλυση παρέχοντας στο χρήστη μια πιο λεπτομερή απεικόνιση της πληροφορίας των διπλωμάτων ευρεσιτεχνίας. Ο συνδυασμός των αναλύσεων που εφαρμόζονται με βάση την προτεινόμενη μεθοδολογία επιτρέπει την αποτύπωση των τεχνολογικών εξελίξεων και καινοτομιών. Οι δείκτες που παράγονται είναι πολύ σημαντικοί αφού μπορούν να ποσοτικοποιήσουν τις πληροφορίες που αφορούν σε συγκεκριμένες τεχνολογίες. Με αυτό τον τρόπο μπορούμε να παράγουμε δείκτες για τη δραστηριότητα συγκεκριμένων φορέων, εφευρετών, χωρών, κλπ. Τέλος, τεχνολογικοί δείκτες που υποδεικνύουν μελλοντικές ελπιδοφόρες τεχνολογίες καθώς και ποιοι φορείς θα είναι πρωτοπόροι σε αυτές μπορούν να εξαχθούν. / The World Wide Web (Web) has been characterized as a vast, heterogeneous, distributed and complicated environment resulting in difficulties for the efficient handling of e-applications’ data with traditional methods and techniques. This leads to the requirement for designing, implementing and adopting “intelligent” tools, able to select and present to the user the suitable information, at the suitable time and in the suitable form. The present dissertation deals with the problem of mining “hidden” knowledge from systems and applications of electronic learning (e-learning), electronic commerce (e-commerce) and business intelligence (BI), aiming mainly at the improvement of quality and performance of the services provided to the end-users. Specifically, the results are focused on the following: a) Methodologies, techniques and proposed algorithms of mining hidden knowledge from e-applications taking into consideration the semantics of data, b) Production of personalized educational experiences, c) Generation of efficient recommendations for the online purchase of products, d) Discovery of scientific and technological indicators in patents that indicate the level of innovation activity of a market, e) Proposals for future research directions that extend the techniques of knowledge mining to more complex types of applications and indicate new research opportunities. The first chapter presents an approach for the support of personalized e-learning in the cases where the structure and the relation of data and information play essential role. The proposed algorithm is based on an ontology which helps in structuring and managing the content that is related with a given course, a lesson or a topic. The process is decomposed into two stages: the offline phase of data preparation, ontology creation and data usage mining and the online phase of producing personalization. The system finds a initial set of recommendations based on the ontology of the domain and then identifies a set of frequent itemsets (sets of items observed often) in order to enrich the initial recommendations, taking into consideration the navigation of other similar users. In this way, we decrease the time required for the analysis of all the frequent itemsets and association rules, by focusing only on those sets that derive from the combination of the current active session of the user and the ontology recommendations. Moreover, this approach also alleviates the problem of long response times that can lead to the abandonment of the system. Even if the personalization requires considerable steps of preparation and analysis, this obstacle is avoided with the implementation of important part of the process offline. The second chapter studies the problem of recommendations’ production in an e-commerce application. Recommendation systems or RSs constitute perhaps the most popular form of personalization and they tend to become in our days an important business tool. The proposed hybrid approach aims in the production of effective recommendations for the customers of an online shop that rents movies. The knowledge for the customers and the movies results from usage data and the structure of an ontology in combination with customer rates about the movies, as well as with the application of matching techniques for discovering similar customers. When one or more matching criteria are satisfied, then other movies can be specified according to the ontological schema that has similar characteristics with those that the customer already has rented. In the case of a new customer with no history information, data from his registration form are analyzed so that he is categorized in a specific group of customers and the recommendations are based on the ontology. This integration provides additional knowledge for the preferences of customers and allows the production of successful recommendations. Even in the case of cold-start problem where initial information on the customer’s behavior is not available, the approach can produce qualitative and relatively precise recommendations. Finally, the third chapter describes the problem of mining knowledge from patent registrations which indicate the level of innovation activity of a market. The proposed approach concerns the application of Text Mining techniques in patents retrieved from the databases of various national and international Patent Offices, aiming at the production of scientific and technological indicators of the innovation level of a market activity and consequently business intelligence. Initially, the data are cleaned in order to improve their quality before the analysis steps. Then two types of analysis are applied on the data: simple analysis and statistical analysis. In the first case, several charts are produced that connect the information e.g. main sectors of development in a country. In the second case, the title and abstract fields of the patents are linguistically analyzed and the lemmas of words are grouped. Then correspondence and clustering analysis are applied. The produced clusters are depicted as in the simple analysis providing the user with a detailed representation of patent information. The combination of analyses that are applied based on the proposed methodology allows the identification of technological evolutions and innovations. The produced indicators are very important since they can quantify the information that concerns specific technologies. In this way, we can produce indicators for the activity of specific institutions, inventors, countries, etc. Finally, technological indicators about the potential emerging technologies as well as the institutions that will be pioneers can be exported.