We propose an information extraction framework to support automated construction of decision models in biomedicine. Our proposed technique classifies text-based documents from a large biomedical literature repository, e.g., MEDLINE, into predefined categories, and identifies important keywords for each category based on their discriminative power. Relevant documents for each category are retrieved based on the keywords, and a classification algorithm is developed based on machine learning techniques to build the final classifier. We apply the HITS algorithm to select the authoritative and typical documents within a category, and construct templates in the form of Bayesian networks. Data mining and information extraction techniques are then applied to extract the necessary semantic knowledge to fill in the templates to construct the final decision models. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

A public organization has a section for customer service which is responsible of order entry from customers concerning errands within real estate and business equipment, cleaning, transport operations and handicap appliance. According to the co-ordinators in hospitals within the organisation the customers are requesting for staff to talk to physically, meaning a person to speak with face to face. The customers experiencing that it’s sometimes difficult to call customer service or use the web form, which is the only communication paths in the current situation. Proposed changes presented claim that a complement to customer service with local service centers in every hospital. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a change proposition by weigh between efficiency and working environment, this by using multi-criteria analysis. To achieve the goal a decision model is designed in the decision tool DecideIT. The aim of the study is to recommend decision makers to choose one of the options based on as rational grounds as possible. The result of the study showed that the preferred alternative is not to supplement customer service with local service centers. For the most part, the result depending on the survey (represented result from working environment criteria) which showed that the majority of customers do not request a person to speak with face to face at all. / Inom en offentlig verksamhet finns en kundtjänst vilken hanterar orderläggning åt personal inom verksamheten av felanmälan och beställningar för fastighet- och verksamhetsutrustning, Städ- och transportverksamheter samt hjälpmedel. Enligt samordnare på sjukhus inom offentlig verksamhet efterfrågar personal möjlighet att prata med en fysisk person ansikte mot ansikte, då de anser att det ibland är svårt att ringa eller använda webformulär vilka är de ända kontaktvägarna i dagsläget. Utifrån detta har ett förändringsförslag presenterats gällande att komplettera kundtjänst med lokala servicecenter på varje sjukhus. Studiens syfte har varigt att med multikriterieanalys avväga mellan effektivitet och arbetsmiljö vid ett kompletteringsförslag av kundtjänst. För att uppnå syftet med studien har en beslutsmodell konstruerats i beslutsverktyget DecideIT. Målet med studien har varigt att rekommendera beslutsfattare inom verksamheten att komplettera kundtjänst eller inte utifrån så rationella grunder som möjligt. Resultatet visade att det föredragna alternativet är att inte komplettera kundtjänst med lokala servicecenter. Till största del är resultatet beroende på enkätundersökningen (representerar kriteriet arbetsmiljö) vilken visade på att större delen av kunderna till kundtjänst inte efterfrågar en fysisk person att prata med ansikte mot ansikte över huvud taget.

Do ponto de vista financeiro, o objetivo de uma empresa é promover a maximização da riqueza econômica dos seus acionistas. Por essa lógica, uma decisão de investimento só deve ser aceita se o retorno oferecido pelo projeto superar o custo do capital nele empregado. Nas decisões de financiamento, busca-se atingir a estrutura ótima de capital da empresa, que leve a minimização da média ponderada dos custos de capital da companhia e, consequentemente, à maximização da riqueza do acionista. Mas, ao contrário das decisões de investimento e de financiamento, as decisões de dividendos não possuem como princípio norteador um único parâmetro a ser seguido, já que diversos fatores financeiros, legais, fiscais e até mesmo comportamentais afetam essa decisão. A literatura de finanças apresenta um modelo para a decisão de dividendos chamado de Modelo de Dividendos Residuais (MDR). Nele, o percentual de dividendos a ser distribuído é determinado com base no lucro líquido contábil, no índice alvo de capital próprio da empresa e no orçamento de capital. No entanto, além de não priorizar a maximização da riqueza do acionista, entende-se que o MDR deixa de contemplar algumas importantes variáveis que deveriam ser levadas em consideração no momento da definição payout de dividendos, conforme preconizado pela literatura de finanças. Neste trabalho, foi realizada uma pesquisa empírica que verificou se, na prática, os gestores das companhias brasileiras de capital aberto levam em consideração os diversos fatores apresentados pelos estudos acadêmicos como sendo fundamentais para as decisões de dividendos. Em seguida, foi proposto um modelo conceitual de apoio ao processo de tomada de decisão de destinação dos lucros que leva em consideração fatores como a geração de valor econômico ao acionista, as particularidades legais e tributárias brasileiras, o poder de distorção da inflação na formação do lucro contábil, a estrutura ótima de capital da empresa, a existência de projetos futuros com valor presente líquido positivo, o fluxo de caixa livre para o acionista, entre outros. Esse modelo tem como objetivo oferecer um mapa decisorial conceitual mais abrangente do que o MDR e espera-se que forneça um parâmetro mais adequado para as decisões de dividendos por parte dos gestores empresariais brasileiros. / From the financial management point of view, the objective of a company is to promote the maximization of their shareholders economical wealth. So, an investment decision could only be accepted if the return on this investment surpass the capital spend to generate it. In financing decisions, the goal is to achieve the companys optimal capital structure leading to the minimization of the weighted average cost of capital of the company, consequently, the maximization of the shareholder wealth. But, unlike the investment and financing decisions, the dividends decisions do not have as a guiding principle a single parameter to be followed, since several financial, legal, fiscal and even behavioral factors affect this decision. The financial management literature presents a model of dividends decisions called Residual Dividend Model (RDM), a model in which the percentage of dividends to be shared is determined based on accounting net profit, on the equity target measure and on the capital budget. However, besides not to prioritize the maximization of the shareholders wealth, it is understood that the RDM fails to address some important variables that should be taken into account when setting the dividend payout, as showed by the financial management literature. The present study aimed to verify by an empirical research whether the managers of Brazilian public companies take into account the various factors presented by academic studies as being essential for the dividend decisions. And then it was proposed a conceptual model to support the decision making process for the profit destination which takes into consideration factors such as economic value to shareholders, the particularities of Brazilian legal and tax systems, the distortion caused by the inflation in the accounting profit, the optimal capital structure of the company, the existence of future projects with positive net present value, free cash flow to shareholders, among others. This model aims to provide a decision map concept wider than the RDM and it is expected to provide a more appropriate parameter for the dividends decisions by the Brazilian business managers.

Optimizing well spacing in unconventional gas reservoirs is difficult due to complex heterogeneity, large variability and uncertainty in reservoir properties, and lack of data that increase the production uncertainty. Previous methods are either suboptimal because they do not consider subsurface uncertainty (e.g., statistical moving-window methods) or they are too time-consuming and expensive for many operators (e.g., integrated reservoir characterization and simulation studies). This research has focused on developing and extending a new technology for determining optimal well spacing in tight gas reservoirs that maximize profitability. To achieve the research objectives, an integrated multi-well reservoir and decision model that fully incorporates uncertainty was developed. The reservoir model is based on reservoir simulation technology coupled with geostatistical and Monte Carlo methods to predict production performance in unconventional gas reservoirs as a function of well spacing and different development scenarios. The variability in discounted cumulative production was used for direct integration of the reservoir model with a Bayesian decision model (developed by other members of the research team) that determines the optimal well spacing and hence the optimal development strategy. The integrated model includes two development stages with a varying Stage-1 time span. The integrated tools were applied to an illustrative example in Deep Basin (Gething D) tight gas sands in Alberta, Canada, to determine optimal development strategies. The results showed that a Stage-1 length of 1 year starting at 160-acre spacing with no further downspacing is the optimal development policy. It also showed that extending the duration of Stage 1 beyond one year does not represent an economic benefit. These results are specific to the Berland River (Gething) area and should not be generalized to other unconventional gas reservoirs. However, the proposed technology provides insight into both the value of information and the ability to incorporate learning in a dynamic development strategy. The new technology is expected to help operators determine the combination of primary and secondary development policies early in the reservoir life that profitably maximize production and minimize the number of uneconomical wells. I anticipate that this methodology will be applicable to other tight and shale gas reservoirs.

Since 1989 the culture activities and the audiences have been gradually growing in Taiwan. The government expenditures in art activities increase with stable path during this period of time. Besides, the government subsidies from Council for Cultural Affairs and from National Culture and Art Foundation are considerable. Furthermore, Wen-Hsin Award, which encourages the corporate to support the art activities, has raised 3.6 billion NTD. Recently, companies are reported like a movie star via the media for sponsoring the art groups. For example, the Lin-Yuan Group and Chinatimes Corp. have supported Cloud Gate Dance Theatre for fourteen outdoor shows within 5 years and TSMC contributes 15 million NTD to Cloud Gate Dance Theatre to promote the dance performing art. The examples above show the art and culture be emphasized in public and private sectors. However, there are still many art groups applying for more money to improve the art activities and development. The main purpose in this study is to discuss the sponsorship of companies to art activities and provide the art groups and the sponsors with the acknowledgement of support relationship and with the way of support. To achieve the goal, researcher goes through literature review and case interview. By choosing five companies that won the Wen-hsin Award and examining their motivation, effects, and decision process, we discuss the influences and the interaction of the support. There are three characteristics of self-interest motivation support: 1. The companies with products that are banned for advertisement have more interest to sponsor and with diversified forms if they supported before. The requirement is that the proposal should point out how the contribution can increase the sale. Generally, the proposal should be filed within the expiry date. However, there could be no time limitation in some special cases . 2. The companies sponsor the art activities because of high-level managers¡¦ preferences. They support the activities only if the CEO, for example, regards the activities are meaningful and valuable. 3. In the decision process of corporate sponsorship, the consistency of sponsor purpose, the accumulation of sponsor knowledge, and the level of systemization are different. It causes that decision process belongs to different decision models. As far as we know, the most sponsors are still in the chaos stage. It reveals that corporate sponsorship of art or culture activities is still in the initial stage. Any successful sponsorship could be the model case in this area.

This study examined the role of the replacement behavior when designing function-based interventions. Three students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ages 12, 5, and 6, who displayed chronic off-task behavior participated in the three-phase study. In Phase 1, a descriptive functional behavioral assessment (FBA) was conducted for each student, and then each student's ability to perform the replacement behavior was assessed using a two-step approach. In Phase 2, two function-based interventions were designed for each student using the Decision Model (Umbreit, Ferro, Liaupsin, & Lane 2007). The first intervention consisted of methods to adjust antecedent and consequent contingencies of reinforcement alone, whereas the second intervention included methods to teach the replacement behavior. In Phase 3, the function-based interventions were implemented during typically occurring classroom activities for five weeks. For students who did not already perform the replacement behavior independently, the interventions that included strategies to teach the replacement behaviors produced more favorable results than the interventions that did not. High levels of treatment integrity and social validity were obtained.

Processing decision information is a vital part of Computer Science fields in which pattern recognition problems arise. Decision information can be generalized as alternative decisions (or classes), attributes and attribute values, which are the basis for classification. Different classification approaches exist, such as decision trees, decision tables and Naïve Bayesian classifiers, which capture and manipulate decision information in order to construct a specific decision model (or classifier). These approaches are often tightly coupled to learning strategies, special data structures and the special characteristics of the decision information captured, etc. The approaches are also connected to the way of how certain problems are addressed, e.g., memory consumption, low accuracy, etc. This situation causes problems for a simple choice, comparison, combination and manipulation of different decision models learned over the same or different samples of decision information. The choice and comparison of decision models are not merely the choice of a model with a higher prediction accuracy and a comparison of prediction accuracies, respectively. We also need to take into account that a decision model, when used in a certain application, often has an impact on the application's performance. Often, the combination and manipulation of different decision models are implementation- or application-specific, thus, lacking the generality that leads to the construction of decision models with combined or modified decision information. They also become difficult to transfer from one application domain to another. In order to unify different approaches, we define Decision Algebra, a theoretical framework that presents decision models as higher order decision functions that abstract from their implementation details. Decision Algebra defines the operations necessary to decide, combine, approximate, and manipulate decision functions along with operation signatures and general algebraic laws. Due to its algebraic completeness (i.e., a complete algebraic semantics of operations and its implementation efficiency), defining and developing decision models is simple as such instances require implementing just one core operation based on which other operations can be derived. Another advantage of Decision Algebra is composability: it allows for combination of decision models constructed using different approaches. The accuracy and learning convergence properties of the combined model can be proven regardless of the actual approach. In addition, the applications that process decision information can be defined using Decision Algebra regardless of the different classification approaches. For example, we use Decision Algebra in a context-aware composition domain, where we showed that context-aware applications improve performance when using Decision Algebra. In addition, we suggest an approach to integrate this context-aware component into legacy applications.

Do ponto de vista financeiro, o objetivo de uma empresa é promover a maximização da riqueza econômica dos seus acionistas. Por essa lógica, uma decisão de investimento só deve ser aceita se o retorno oferecido pelo projeto superar o custo do capital nele empregado. Nas decisões de financiamento, busca-se atingir a estrutura ótima de capital da empresa, que leve a minimização da média ponderada dos custos de capital da companhia e, consequentemente, à maximização da riqueza do acionista. Mas, ao contrário das decisões de investimento e de financiamento, as decisões de dividendos não possuem como princípio norteador um único parâmetro a ser seguido, já que diversos fatores financeiros, legais, fiscais e até mesmo comportamentais afetam essa decisão. A literatura de finanças apresenta um modelo para a decisão de dividendos chamado de Modelo de Dividendos Residuais (MDR). Nele, o percentual de dividendos a ser distribuído é determinado com base no lucro líquido contábil, no índice alvo de capital próprio da empresa e no orçamento de capital. No entanto, além de não priorizar a maximização da riqueza do acionista, entende-se que o MDR deixa de contemplar algumas importantes variáveis que deveriam ser levadas em consideração no momento da definição payout de dividendos, conforme preconizado pela literatura de finanças. Neste trabalho, foi realizada uma pesquisa empírica que verificou se, na prática, os gestores das companhias brasileiras de capital aberto levam em consideração os diversos fatores apresentados pelos estudos acadêmicos como sendo fundamentais para as decisões de dividendos. Em seguida, foi proposto um modelo conceitual de apoio ao processo de tomada de decisão de destinação dos lucros que leva em consideração fatores como a geração de valor econômico ao acionista, as particularidades legais e tributárias brasileiras, o poder de distorção da inflação na formação do lucro contábil, a estrutura ótima de capital da empresa, a existência de projetos futuros com valor presente líquido positivo, o fluxo de caixa livre para o acionista, entre outros. Esse modelo tem como objetivo oferecer um mapa decisorial conceitual mais abrangente do que o MDR e espera-se que forneça um parâmetro mais adequado para as decisões de dividendos por parte dos gestores empresariais brasileiros. / From the financial management point of view, the objective of a company is to promote the maximization of their shareholders economical wealth. So, an investment decision could only be accepted if the return on this investment surpass the capital spend to generate it. In financing decisions, the goal is to achieve the companys optimal capital structure leading to the minimization of the weighted average cost of capital of the company, consequently, the maximization of the shareholder wealth. But, unlike the investment and financing decisions, the dividends decisions do not have as a guiding principle a single parameter to be followed, since several financial, legal, fiscal and even behavioral factors affect this decision. The financial management literature presents a model of dividends decisions called Residual Dividend Model (RDM), a model in which the percentage of dividends to be shared is determined based on accounting net profit, on the equity target measure and on the capital budget. However, besides not to prioritize the maximization of the shareholders wealth, it is understood that the RDM fails to address some important variables that should be taken into account when setting the dividend payout, as showed by the financial management literature. The present study aimed to verify by an empirical research whether the managers of Brazilian public companies take into account the various factors presented by academic studies as being essential for the dividend decisions. And then it was proposed a conceptual model to support the decision making process for the profit destination which takes into consideration factors such as economic value to shareholders, the particularities of Brazilian legal and tax systems, the distortion caused by the inflation in the accounting profit, the optimal capital structure of the company, the existence of future projects with positive net present value, free cash flow to shareholders, among others. This model aims to provide a decision map concept wider than the RDM and it is expected to provide a more appropriate parameter for the dividends decisions by the Brazilian business managers.

This qualitative study utilized the protective action decision model to explore the risk perceptions and hazard adjustments to the earthquake risk of residents in El Reno, Oklahoma.

The aim of this study is to identify teachers’ professional opinion of SchoolSoft, a learning platform that is used in all public schools on Gotland, Sweden. Qualitative group interviews with a total of twelve teachers, together with the results of a questionnaire that the participating teachers filled in provided the data for this study. The participating teachers all worked in Swedish grundskolan(compulsory primary- and lower secondary school). The teachers’ opinions of Schoolsoft were identified by subjecting the data to a content analysis.    The results of this study show that the teachers who participated in the study used only a handful of the many available functions of SchoolSoft. They explained that whilst there are some useful functions of the software there exist a plethora of issues, primarily pertaining to its lacking ease of use. Using the Technology Acceptance model, the relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness can explain the teachers’ overwhelmingly negative opinion of SchoolSoft. Furthermore, it became apparent that only one of the twelve teachers had received any formal training in the usage of SchoolSoft, despite the fact that all teachers on Gotland are required to use it. This fact is likely associated with the teachers critique of the software’s ease of use. An analysis of the teachers’ usage of SchoolSoft through the Innovation-Decision Model shows that the teachers who participated in this study, being long term users of the learning platform and therefore having already progressed through the preceding stages of the model, were all in the conformation phase. The majority of whom indicating that they would neither like to increase their usage of SchoolSoft or continue using it to the same degree.    When questioned if the compulsory usage SchoolSoft affects their freedom to structure their teaching in the way they see fit (Swedish: friutrymme) the teachers responded that it does not. They plan their lessons however they want regardless. They did however indicate that as a result their transparency towards their students’ parents is limited because the teachers are not always able to publish their lesson plans on the learning platform.