Information systems have become an essential part of every business organization's production and management process. It is critical to an enterprise to integrate its organization and information systems. However, the lack of computer-supported tools for modeling organization and information systems has put their integration far beyond our reach. In this research, a metasystem approach that can integrate organization and information system modeling by means of group decision support systems (GDSS) and computer-aided software engineering (CASE) has been proposed. A prototype system, called MetaPlex, has been designed and implemented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. The emphasis in design and implementation of MetaPlex has been on making the underlying knowledge representation expressive enough to meet modeling requirements and ensuring that the user interface is easy for managers and users to use. The use of a GDSS makes it possible to capture strategic assumptions and business objectives, as well as structures of an organization, from managers through face-to-face group meetings. The application of the metasystem concepts in generating GDSS tools makes the customization of a GDSS environment possible. Because of GDSS environment driven by a metasystem can be used to acquire information about a target system from multiple experts in a structured format that can be integrated with CASE tools, this approach provides a basis for a seamless integration of GDSS and CASE tools to support both organization and information system modeling.

This dissertation presents a theoretical model of information systems (IS) project management that aims to improve the rate of project success, estimated at time of writing to be less than 50% despite over thirty years of experience. The inquiry into IS managementand the development of the CED Model of IS Project Management presented in this dissertation were informed by critical social theory and pragmatics. IS projects are conceptualised as a collaborative undertaking by everyone affected by the project : the constituents. The model identifies the central role of constituents' expectations and their critical examination of the intended, desired and feared outcomes. By being based in the political, economic, technical and social dimensions of IS projects, this dissertation makes a theoretical contribution to the IS discipline. Furthermore, by establishing a set of prescriptions for how a project should be conducted by identifying who should take part (the constituents), how they should interact(engaging in the project discourse) and how the processes should be managed(driven by the constituents' expectations), the model provides guidance for IS practitioners to increase the likelihood of successfully implementing the project. From a research perspective, this dissertation presents an example of empirically grounded IS research, informed by critical-pragmatic theoretic concerns, that is highly relevant for IS practice. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / The CD-ROM includes "all source code of the impleemntation" -- leaf 207. Bibliography: leaves 199-202.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-172). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Computer Science)) -- Universiteit van Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-191). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (vol. 1, leaves 155-160).

Wanda J. Orlikowski. / "May 1993." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-42). / Supported by the Center for Information Systems Research, MIT.

M.Comm. / The art of information system development has undergone a difficult and tortuous evolution over the past two and a half decades (Texas Instruments;1988:17). For the participants in this software development struggle, it has been frustrating to watch the quantum leaps made in the computing hardware arena, while advances in software quality and productivity have shuffled along at a considerably more modest pace. It is now the time to step across the threshold into a new approach in the evolution of system development one in which the right problems are solved, and high-quality solutions are produced very quickly.The new approach starts with understanding the business problem and then applying the most appropriate technologies to meet the business challenge. The approach must not be locked into any one type of technology but rather work with the user and outside vendors to determine the combinations of hardware, software and custom software development that will supply the highest quality solution. The specific goal of this study is to determine the most effective approach to system development to focus on the single most important thing: solving business problems in a way that exceeds user's expectations.

A shock is essentially a propagating variation in the pressure or density of a medium. If the medium is transparent, such as air, and the shock radially symmetric, the refractive fringe diagnostic can be used to examine its general features. A laser beam probes the shock, the central part of the beam, refracted to different degrees by the different density features within the shock, interferes with itself and with the outer unrefracted part creating a series of coarse and fine fringes. By examining this interference pattern one can gain insight into the density profile underlying the shock. A series of such experiments was conducted by the Plasma Physics Research Institute at the University of Natal in 1990. To model the situation computationally, they developed a ray-tracer which produced interference patterns for modified theoretical density profiles based on those predicted by Sedov. After numerous trials, an intensity pattern was produced which agreed approximately with experimental observations. Thus encouraged, the institute then sought to determine density profiles directly from the interference patterns, but a true mathematical deconvolution proved non-trivial and is still awaited. The work presented in this thesis reconstructs the ray-tracer using software engineering techniques and achieves the desired deconvolution by training a neural network of the back-propagation type to behave as an inverse ray-tracer. The ray-tracer is first used to generate numerous density profile - interference pattern pairs. The neural network is trained with this theoretical data to provide a density profile when presented with an interference pattern. The trained network is then tested with experimental interference patterns extracted from captured images. The density profiles predicted by the neural network are then fed back to the ray-tracer and the resultant theoretically determined interference patterns compared to those obtained experimentally. The shock is examined at various times after the initial explosion allowing its propagation to be tracked by its evolving density profile and interference pattern. The results obtained prove superior to those first published by the institute and confirm the neural network's promise as a research tool. Instead of lengthy trial and error sessions with the unaided ray-tracer, experimental interference patterns can be fed directly to an appropriately trained neural network to yield an initial density profile. The network, not the researcher, does the pattern association. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, 1996.