In Ontario, the population of older adults is increasing. While the provincial government is taking action to address increasing demand on health systems, older adults are still suffering the consequences of a health system that is not able to meet their complex care needs. Older adults face barriers to continuity of care including difficulties with memory, reliance on informal caregivers, frailty, and difficulties scheduling appointments. These barriers also exist within the long-term care setting. Long-term care facilities are making efforts to provide more effective care, including designing care approaches aimed to meet the complex care needs of older adults. Aspects of a goal-oriented approach suggest that it has the potential to reduce fragmentation and positively impacting continuity of care. However, the impact of goal-oriented care on continuity of care in a long-term care setting has yet to be explored. This thesis uses an exploratory case study methodology to describe how a goal-oriented care approach influenced continuity of care in a long-term care setting, as perceived by residents, staff, and administrators. The case study setting is the Perley & Rideau Veterans Health Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, where the SeeMe program, a frailty-informed approach with a goal-oriented component, was recently introduced. Factors associated with the SeeMe program and other organizational factors perceived to facilitate and inhibit informational, relational and management continuity were identified. Aspects of the SeeMe program that facilitated informational continuity were: goals-of-care meetings with residents, their care team and family; care conferences that helped residents understand their care options; and, procedures that ensured consistency in where resident’s goal information is stored. Aspects that facilitated relational continuity were: understanding residents’ values and preferences; staff increasing awareness of the program for families; and, integration of the family perspective into a resident’s care. Program aspects that facilitated management continuity were: discussions that led to informed decision-making; use of assessments as a reference tool in the case of an acute health event; discussions that empowered residents to talk to external care providers; and, creation of a structure that facilitated consistencies in care. These factors can be targeted when designing care approaches aimed to improve continuity in long-term care settings.

Orientadores: Sonia Maria Gomes, Philippe Remy B. Devloo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matematica, Estatistica e Computação Cientifica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T16:13:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Farias_AgnaldoMonteiro_M.pdf: 8740364 bytes, checksum: 603f864d40bd5cd37235d0c7e8f5000e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: Em muitas situações na modelagem de problemas aplicados, o que se deseja de uma solução da Equação Diferencial Parcial que descreve o modelo, não é a própria solução e sim alguma quantidade de interesse. De forma geral, estas quantidades de interesse são caracterizadas por funcionais lineares limitados no espaço de funções que contém as soluções. Como exemplo, tem-se: a derivada da solução, o fluxo através de uma região da fronteira, o valor médio da solução sobre uma região do domínio, o valor da solução em um ponto etc. Em tais circunstâncias, nem sempre o refinamento uniforme ou uma estratégia de hp-refinamento, que diz respeito à qualidade global da solução, são as estratégias mais apropriadas para melhorar a aproximação da quantidade, pois podem tornar o custo computacional muito alto. Neste sentido, estratégias direcionadas para o aprimoramento da aproximação de quantidades de interesse são temas que têm recebido grande interesse nas últimas décadas. Um dos objetivos deste trabalho é o estudo de métodos para o pós-processamento da solução por elementos finitos com objetivo de se obter uma precisão desejável na aproximação das quantidades de interesse. Em particular, estudam-se dois métodos: a estratégia de adaptatividade goal-oriented e o método da função de extração. / Abstract: In many situations in the modeling of applied problems, what is wish is not the solution of governing partial differential equation system but rather a quantities of interest. In general, the quantities of interest are characterized by bounded linear functionals on the space of functions to which the solutions belongs. As an example, we have: the derivative of the solution, the flux through part of the bondary of the domain, the average of the solution over a subdomain, the value of the solution in a point etc. In this circumstances, the uniform refinement or a strategy for hp-refinement, which concerns the overall quality of the solution, not always are the most appropriate strategies to improve the approximation of the quantity, because the computational cost may become too high. In this sense, strategies directed to improve the accuracy of quantities of interest are topics that have received considerable interest in recent decades. One of the objectives of this work is the study of post-processing methods of the solution by finite elements in order to achieve a desirable precision in the approximation of quantities of interest. In particular two methods are studied: the strategy goal-oriented adaptivity and the method of the extraction function. / Mestrado / Analise Numerica / Mestre em Matemática Aplicada

Community colleges serve a diverse population of learners including many older students counting on the community college for enhanced skills or personal enrichment. Many of these colleges target this population with programs designed specifically to meet the needs and goals of the older adult but may not consider this population when designing a website. Older users of a community college website have similar needs to the traditional student; however, little was known about the impact of the typical navigational links on the successful completion of tasks and obtaining information for this type of user. It is essential for educational institution website designers to understand which navigational links will provide the best usability for older adults with differing levels of experience. Previous research has found that usage-oriented links and pages that offer both usage and subject-oriented links yield statistically higher performance than subject-oriented links. Other research has found that presenting navigational links in the form of an action enhances usability. For this study, three websites were created utilizing navigational links in the form of usage-oriented links, subject-oriented navigational links, and then a combination of both to conduct a usability study to expand on previous work. This study was designed to determine the impact of such navigation on obtaining the correct answer, time on task, and the user's perception of the navigation. The research question, Does website usability and the user's perception of usability vary for older users based on navigational links, task type, and audience type? was addressed through two hypotheses and data which were obtained during the study. The first hypothesis: Website navigation, task type, and audience type significantly affect usability, was based on performance, and was measured on the two components, correct answer ratio (CAR) and navigation time (NT). The results indicated that the older user's ability to complete tasks faster and more accurately depended on the user's experience level, the difficulty of the task, and the types of navigational links presented, with usage-based navigation being the more effective solution. The second hypothesis: Website navigation, task type, and audience type significantly affect perceptions of usability, was based on perception questions presented after task completion and was measured by a four question post-test questionnaire, which used a 7-point Likert scale. This study found the older user's perception of usability varied based on the navigational links presented, but the experience level of the participant or the task type did not have a significant effect on the perception of usability. Therefore, it is recommended that designers of educational sites present navigational links in a goal-oriented, action-based format to support the end users of all ages and to enhance usability of the institution's website. This research found that if developers emphasize accuracy and the need to navigate quickly as a goal of an educational website for the older user, the website should be designed using a usage-based navigation structure. This research provides the detail to support a better understanding of which navigation type results in higher usability for the older user and enhances the guidelines of website design for this population.

Intelligent robots are rational agents. The rationality of robots working cooperatively is significantly different from robots working independently. Cooperation between intelligent robots requires the high level of reasoning and complex interactions for successful operations. The required reasoning process includes knowledge representation and sharing as well as the ability to understand the context of a situation. The reasoning process heavily influences on the planning of deciding what actions need to be taken. Goal deliberation and planning is the process that deals with those requirements. This dissertation investigates the problem of goal deliberation and planning to enable such cooperation between goal-oriented intelligent robots, working as a team. The dissertation then proposes a multi-robot system model that embraces results of the investigation. The proposed model is realized on the top of the platform ‘robot operating system’ (ROS). The implemented system, named ‘goal-oriented multi agent systems’ (GOMAS), is demonstrated with the computer game, StarCraft II. Units in StarCraft II are individually controlled by the GOMAS robots and work cooperatively to attain a set of goals given from operators. The demonstration with the three different scenarios validates that the GOMAS system successfully and efficiently deliberates and plans the given goals.

Business processes are essential instruments used for the coordination of organisational activities in order to produce value in the form of products and services. Information security is an important non-functional characteristic of business processes due to the involvement of sensitive data exchanged between their participants. Therefore, potential security shortfalls can severely impact organisational reputation, customer trust and cause compliance issues. Nevertheless, despite its importance, security is often considered as a technical concern and treated as an afterthought during the design of information systems and the business processes which they support. The consideration of security during the early design stages of information systems is highly beneficial. Goal-oriented security requirements engineering approaches can contribute to the early elicitation of system requirements at a high level of abstraction and capture the organisational context and rationale behind design choices. Aligning such requirements with process activities at the operational level augments the traceability between system models of different abstraction levels and leads to more robust and context-aware operationalisations of security. Therefore, there needs to be a well-defined and verifiable interconnection between a system’s security requirements and its business process models. This work introduces a framework for the design of secure business process models. It uses security-oriented goal models as its starting point to capture a socio-technical view of the system to-be and its security requirements during its early design stages. Concept mappings and model transformation rules are also introduced as a structured way of extracting business process skeletons from such goal models, in order to facilitate the alignment between the two different levels of abstraction. The extracted business process skeletons, are refined to complete business process models through the use of a set of security patterns, which standardise proven solutions to recurring security problems. Finally, the framework also offers security verification capabilities of the produced process models through the introduction of security-related attributes and model checking algorithms. Evaluation of this work is performed: (i) through individual evaluation of its components via their application in real-life systems, (ii) a workshop-based modelling exercise where participants used and evaluated parts of the framework and (iii) a case study from the public administration domain where the overall framework was applied in cooperation with stakeholders of the studied system. The evaluation indicated that the developed framework provides a structured approach which supports stakeholders in designing and evaluating secure business process models.

There are many mathematical and engineering methods, problems and experiments which make use of the finite element method. For any given use of the finite element method we get an approximate solution and we usually wish to have some indication of the accuracy in the approximation. In the case when the calculation is done to estimate a quantity of interest the indication of the accuracy is concerned with estimating the difference between the unknown exact value and the finite element approximation. With a means of estimating the error, this can sometimes be used to determine how to improve the accuracy by repeating the computation with a finer mesh. A large part of this thesis is concerned with a set-up of this type with the physical problem described in a weak form and with the error in the estimate of the quantity of interest given in terms of a function which solves a related dual problem. We consider this in the case of modelling the large deformation of thin incompressible isotropic hyperelastic sheets under pressure loading. We assume throughout that the thin sheet can be modelled as a membrane, which gives us a two dimensional description of a three dimensional deformation and this simplifies further to a one space dimensional description in the axisymmetric case when we use cylindrical polar coordinates. In the general case we consider the deformation under quasi-static conditions and in the axisymmetric case we consider both quasi-static conditions and dynamic conditions, which involves the full equations of motion, which gives three different problems. In all the three problems we describe how to get the finite element solution, we describe associated dual problems, we describe how to solve these dual problems and we consider using the dual solutions in error estimation. There is hence a common framework. The details however vary considerably and much of the thesis is in describing each case.

The education sector can be seen as a cornerstone of today's society, an organization that is under constant change and evolve as society. The compulsory school system is of significant role in society that places high demands on its management. The following study investigates the requirements for documentation in primary school organization and operations, and how these requirements are perceived and affect the school's organization and activities of the study carried out at different levels of the organization so as to get an overall picture of its impact.   In order to analyze and create understanding of the results, the study applies the theory of New Public Management and various reforms that can be linked to the increased documentation requirements and its influence in the public administration. Study results show that there is a mixed picture of the documentation impact on the school system. Shown are both positive and negative effects of the documentation requirements. It also becomes clear that there is a connection between the theory and the increased documentation requirements.

This thesis aims to develop a knowledge structuring framework to organize knowledge according to means-ends relationships. Means-ends relationships are particularly relevant in technology and goal-oriented domains such as the geo-engineering domain, where technical problems are identified, and solutions proposed. The proposed goal oriented representation in this thesis does not replace current classification methodologies. In this project, a small corpus of research publications from a technology domain is used to help construct the framework. The main means-ends relationships from the articles are manually extracted and represented in a graphical model showing which problems are approached, by which solutions proposed, and in which publications. Proposed solutions can lead to new problems which are in turn addressed by solutions proposed in other publications. A metamodel is derived to capture the important concepts and relationships relevant for this purpose. The metamodel, and the framework have undergone several iterations before finalization.

Goal-Oriented Action Planning (GOAP) är en AI-arkitektur som tillämpar ett måldrivet beteende åt agenter i spel. Mål uppnås genom att planer med åtgärder genereras med hjälp av en sökalgoritm. Syftet med denna rapport är att undersöka hur två sökalgoritmer, A* och IDA*, presterar under planering i GOAP. De experimenten som används är dels en miljö där agenter simuleras, samt ett test där planer genereras för samtliga implementerade mål utan rendering och simulering av agenter. Data som utvärderas är bl.a. planeringstiden, antal besökta noder under sökning och genererade planer. Utvärderingen visar en tydlig fördel till A*, som i snitt är 38 % snabbare än IDA* vid planering av åtgärder i GOAP. Slutsatsen blir att A* är den algoritm att föredra om prestanda är det som eftertraktas men IDA* kan motiveras för dess egenskaper, så som lägre minneskomplexitet. / <p>För tillgång till implementationen, maila f.helmesjo@gmail.com</p>

This thesis aims to develop a knowledge structuring framework to organize knowledge according to means-ends relationships. Means-ends relationships are particularly relevant in technology and goal-oriented domains such as the geo-engineering domain, where technical problems are identified, and solutions proposed. The proposed goal oriented representation in this thesis does not replace current classification methodologies. In this project, a small corpus of research publications from a technology domain is used to help construct the framework. The main means-ends relationships from the articles are manually extracted and represented in a graphical model showing which problems are approached, by which solutions proposed, and in which publications. Proposed solutions can lead to new problems which are in turn addressed by solutions proposed in other publications. A metamodel is derived to capture the important concepts and relationships relevant for this purpose. The metamodel, and the framework have undergone several iterations before finalization.