Decision trees are one of the most commonly used tools in decision analysis, knowledge representation, machine learning, etc., for its simplicity and interpretability. We consider an extension of dynamic programming approach to process the whole set of decision trees for the given decision table which was previously only attainable by brute-force algorithms. We study decision tables with many-valued decisions (each row may contain multiple decisions) because they are more reasonable models of data in many cases. To address this problem in a broad sense, we consider not only decision trees but also inhibitory trees where terminal nodes are labeled with “̸= decision”. Inhibitory trees can sometimes describe more knowledge from datasets than decision trees. As for cost functions, we consider depth or average depth to minimize time complexity of trees, and the number of nodes or the number of the terminal, or nonterminal nodes to minimize the space complexity of trees. We investigate the multi-stage optimization of trees relative to some cost functions, and also the possibility to describe the whole set of strictly optimal trees. Furthermore, we study the bi-criteria optimization cost vs. cost and cost vs. uncertainty for decision trees, and cost vs. cost and cost vs. completeness for inhibitory trees. The most interesting application of the developed technique is the creation of multi-pruning and restricted multi-pruning approaches which are useful for knowledge representation and prediction. The experimental results show that decision trees constructed by these approaches can often outperform the decision trees constructed by the CART algorithm. Another application includes the comparison of 12 greedy heuristics for single- and bi-criteria optimization (cost vs. cost) of trees. We also study the three approaches (decision tables with many-valued decisions, decision tables with most common decisions, and decision tables with generalized decisions) to handle inconsistency of decision tables. We also analyze the time complexity of decision and inhibitory trees over arbitrary sets of attributes represented by information systems in the frameworks of local (when we can use in trees only attributes from problem description) and global (when we can use in trees arbitrary attributes from the information system) approaches.

With the rapidly development of electronic commerce, the competitions between enterprises have been getting more and more turbulent. In order to win business in such a highly competitive environment, it has to not only implement customized marketing strategy but also have a timely response whenever there is any change in the business environment. Currently, in most companies, whenever the marketing people wants to implement a new sales promotion program, he has to communicate it with the MIS department and ask it to rewrite the Web system and pages. It is quite often a very time-consuming as well as strenuous process. In this research, we have explored all popular and important sales promotion models. Based on these models, an object-oriented Web system has been designed and developed. There is an interface by which the marketing people can set the new sales promotion program and then, the Web system can execute it immediately afterwards. The interface, allows the marketing people easily to select target customers, conditions for getting bonus and contents of bonus to set a new sales promotion program. That is, the marketing people can let the Web system execute a new sales promotion program whenever he wants without the help of system programmers. In addition, the whole design is object-oriented. It lets the system have very high portability.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent worldwide. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Tuberculosis (GTB) Programme issues evidence-informed guidelines with recommendations on TB. In an effort to improve the accessibility and use of these guidelines, we developed a new digitized WHO eTB catalogue of recommendations. Objective: The objective of this thesis was to explore stakeholder engagement with WHO TB recommendations. We sought to compare the accessibility of the WHO eTB catalogue to the conventional method of accessing WHO TB recommendations, and to explore the ways in which stakeholder feedback could be incorporated into quality improvement frameworks. Methods: We conducted a two-arm superiority randomized controlled trial through a survey among stakeholders who were past or planned future users of TB guidelines, recommendations, or policy advice. Using a 1:1 ratio, we randomly assigned participants to complete an activity using WHO eTB or the conventional website. We compared outcomes of accessibility, understanding, satisfaction and preference between groups. We incorporated qualitative feedback from free-text boxes into a quality improvement framework. Results: From February 26 to March 24 , 2021, we received 188 survey responses, 110 participants were randomized, and 102 were included in the interim analysis. On average, participants rated the WHO eTB catalogue as more accessible across four domains when compared to the WHO TB website. There was no difference in participant understanding of recommendation strength and certainty, but the ability to locate evidence to decision tables favored WHO eTB. We also received 75 qualitative responses, 47 of which yielded five themes: purpose, navigation, presentation, organization, and outreach. Conclusions: The WHO eTB catalogue of recommendations improved the accessibility of WHO TB recommendations and supporting evidence for stakeholders of interest. Our findings support the continued use, promotion, and quality improvement of the WHO eTB catalogue in the future. / Thesis / Master of Public Health (MPH) / Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading cause of death worldwide. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global TB (GTB) Programme offers guidelines with recommendations to help decision-makers use evidence on TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care. With the goals of improving the accessibility and use of these recommendations, the WHO and McMaster University have worked together to develop the WHO eTB catalogue of recommendations. This catalogue allows decision-makers to search, filter, and view WHO TB recommendations. This thesis contributed to this work by exploring feedback from decision-makers to identify whether the goals of the WHO eTB catalogue were achieved. The work included creating and leading a randomized controlled trial that compared the WHO eTB catalogue to the earlier way of accessing these recommendations using the WHO publications website. This thesis also explored ways that this feedback could be used to improve the WHO eTB catalogue in the future.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T14:53:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao HAROLDO GOMES BARROSO FILHO.pdf: 1902866 bytes, checksum: 0e8e7d6f4ea0fdfa1df7a548b9ad0c21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-07 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The information retrieval have been shown to be a technique or great efficiency in decision making process and is used from beginning to end of a process of software development, directly impacting their usability and optimization. There is what one might consider paradigms in a information retrieval, the Classical Model and Retrieval by similarity. The Classical Model makes use of features of logical databases and their query languages, matched against the Information Retrieval by similarity, is based on cases where there are similar attributes for a decision, in this paper we used if this paradigm to analyze and evaluate which method of similarity has a better performance in a nutritional recommendation through a Adaptive Decisio / A Recuperação de informação têm se mostrado uma técnica ou processo de grande eficiência em tomadas de decisão, sendo utilizada do início ao fim de um processo de desenvolvimento de software, impactando diretamente em sua usabilidade e otimização. Existe o que se pode considerar paradigmas em uma Recuperação de informação, o Modelo Clássico e a Recuperação por similaridade. O Modelo Clássico utiliza-se de recursos de bancos de dados lógicos e suas respectivas linguagens de consulta, em contra partida a Recuperação de Informação por similaridade, baseia-se em casos em que haja atributos semelhantes para uma tomada de decisão, nesta dissertação utilizou-se deste paradigma para Analisar e Avaliar qual método de similaridade possui um melhor desempenho em um recomendação nutricional através de uma Tabela de Decisão Adaptativa.

Black box testing techniques are important to test the functionality of the system without knowing its inner detail which makes sure correct, consistent, complete and accurate behavior or function of a system. Black box testing strategies are used to test logical, data or behavioral dependencies, to generate test data and quality of test cases which have potential to guess more defects. Black box testing strategies play pivotal role to detect possible defects in system and can help in successful completion of system according to functionality. The studies of five companies regarding important black box testing strategies are presented in this thesis. This study explores the black box testing techniques which are present in literature and practiced in industry as well. Interview studies are conducted in companies of Pakistan providing solutions to finance industry, which is an attempt to find the usage of these techniques. The advantages and disadvantages of identified Black box testing strategies are discussed, along with it; the comparison of different techniques with respect to most defect guessing, dependencies, sophistication, effort, and cost is presented as well.

Com a crescente complexidade das aplicações e sistemas computacionais, atualmente tem se tornado importante o uso de formalismos de várias naturezas na representação e modelagem de problemas complexos, como os sistemas reativos e concorrentes. Este trabalho apresenta uma contribuição na Tecnologia Adaptativa e uma nova técnica no desenvolvimento de uma aplicação para execução de alguns tipos de jogos, (General Game Playing), cuja característica está associada à capacidade de o sistema tomar conhecimento das regras do jogo apenas em tempo de execução. Com esse trabalho, amplia-se a classe de problemas que podem ser estudados e analisados sob a perspectiva da Tecnologia Adaptativa, através dos Dispositivos Adaptativos Cooperantes. A aplicação desenvolvida como exemplo neste trabalho introduz uma nova ótica no desenvolvimento de aplicações para jogos gerais (GGP) e abre novos horizontes para a aplicação da Tecnologia Adaptativa, como a utilização das regras para extração de informação e inferência. / The complexity of computer applications has grown so much that several formalisms of different kinds became important nowadays. Many systems (e.g. reactive and concurrent ones) employ such formalisms to represent and model actual complex problems. This work contributes to the field of Adaptive Technology, and proposes a new approach for developing general game playing system, whose feature is the capability to play a game by acknowledging the game rules only at run time. This work expands the set of problems that can be studied and analyzed under the Adaptive Technology perspective, by means of cooperating adaptive devices. The developed application used a new approach for general game playing development bringing and widens the application field of Adaptive Technology with subjects related to information extraction and inference based in the devices rules.

Este trabalho apresenta a formulação de um sistema híbrido de apoio à decisão que, através de técnicas adaptativas, permite que múltiplos dispositivos sejam utilizados de forma colaborativa para encontrar uma solução para um problema de tomada de decisão. É proposta uma estratégia particular para o trabalho colaborativo que restringe o acesso aos dispositivos mais lentos com base na dificuldade encontrada pelos dispositivos mais rápidos para solucionar um problema específico. As soluções encontradas por cada dispositivo são propagadas aos demais, permitindo que cada um deles agregue estas novas soluções com o auxílio de técnicas adaptativas. É feito um estudo sobre aprendizagem de máquina mediante incertezas para verificar e minimizar os impactos negativos que uma nova solução, possivelmente errônea, possa ter. O sistema híbrido proposto é apresentado numa aplicação particular, utilizando testes padronizados para compará-lo com os dispositivos individuais que o compõem e com sistemas híbridos de mesma finalidade. Através destes testes, é mostrado que dispositivos consolidados, mesmo que de naturezas distintas, podem ser utilizados de maneira colaborativa, permitindo não só calibrar um compromisso entre o tempo de resposta e a taxa de acerto, mas também evoluir de acordo com o histórico de problemas processados. / This work presents a formulation of a hybrid decision-making system that employs adaptive techniques as a way to coordinate multiple devices in order to make a collaborative decision. The strategy proposed here is to restrict the use of slower devices, based on how difficult the specific problem is - easier problems may be solved on faster devices. Each device is able to learn through solutions given by the others, aggregating new knowledge with the aid of adaptive techniques. In order to evaluate and minimize the negative impact those new solutions may have, a study concerning machine learning under uncertainty is carried out. A particular application of this system has been tested and compared, not only to each individual device that is part of the system itself, but to similar hybrid systems as well. It is shown that even devices of distinct natures may be reused in a collaborative manner, making it possible to calibrate the trade-off between hit rate and response time, and to evolve according to the input stimuli received as well.

Com a crescente complexidade das aplicações e sistemas computacionais, atualmente tem se tornado importante o uso de formalismos de várias naturezas na representação e modelagem de problemas complexos, como os sistemas reativos e concorrentes. Este trabalho apresenta uma contribuição na Tecnologia Adaptativa e uma nova técnica no desenvolvimento de uma aplicação para execução de alguns tipos de jogos, (General Game Playing), cuja característica está associada à capacidade de o sistema tomar conhecimento das regras do jogo apenas em tempo de execução. Com esse trabalho, amplia-se a classe de problemas que podem ser estudados e analisados sob a perspectiva da Tecnologia Adaptativa, através dos Dispositivos Adaptativos Cooperantes. A aplicação desenvolvida como exemplo neste trabalho introduz uma nova ótica no desenvolvimento de aplicações para jogos gerais (GGP) e abre novos horizontes para a aplicação da Tecnologia Adaptativa, como a utilização das regras para extração de informação e inferência. / The complexity of computer applications has grown so much that several formalisms of different kinds became important nowadays. Many systems (e.g. reactive and concurrent ones) employ such formalisms to represent and model actual complex problems. This work contributes to the field of Adaptive Technology, and proposes a new approach for developing general game playing system, whose feature is the capability to play a game by acknowledging the game rules only at run time. This work expands the set of problems that can be studied and analyzed under the Adaptive Technology perspective, by means of cooperating adaptive devices. The developed application used a new approach for general game playing development bringing and widens the application field of Adaptive Technology with subjects related to information extraction and inference based in the devices rules.

Este trabalho apresenta a formulação de um sistema híbrido de apoio à decisão que, através de técnicas adaptativas, permite que múltiplos dispositivos sejam utilizados de forma colaborativa para encontrar uma solução para um problema de tomada de decisão. É proposta uma estratégia particular para o trabalho colaborativo que restringe o acesso aos dispositivos mais lentos com base na dificuldade encontrada pelos dispositivos mais rápidos para solucionar um problema específico. As soluções encontradas por cada dispositivo são propagadas aos demais, permitindo que cada um deles agregue estas novas soluções com o auxílio de técnicas adaptativas. É feito um estudo sobre aprendizagem de máquina mediante incertezas para verificar e minimizar os impactos negativos que uma nova solução, possivelmente errônea, possa ter. O sistema híbrido proposto é apresentado numa aplicação particular, utilizando testes padronizados para compará-lo com os dispositivos individuais que o compõem e com sistemas híbridos de mesma finalidade. Através destes testes, é mostrado que dispositivos consolidados, mesmo que de naturezas distintas, podem ser utilizados de maneira colaborativa, permitindo não só calibrar um compromisso entre o tempo de resposta e a taxa de acerto, mas também evoluir de acordo com o histórico de problemas processados. / This work presents a formulation of a hybrid decision-making system that employs adaptive techniques as a way to coordinate multiple devices in order to make a collaborative decision. The strategy proposed here is to restrict the use of slower devices, based on how difficult the specific problem is - easier problems may be solved on faster devices. Each device is able to learn through solutions given by the others, aggregating new knowledge with the aid of adaptive techniques. In order to evaluate and minimize the negative impact those new solutions may have, a study concerning machine learning under uncertainty is carried out. A particular application of this system has been tested and compared, not only to each individual device that is part of the system itself, but to similar hybrid systems as well. It is shown that even devices of distinct natures may be reused in a collaborative manner, making it possible to calibrate the trade-off between hit rate and response time, and to evolve according to the input stimuli received as well.