Due to the rapid development of information technologies, especially the network technologies, business activities have never been as integrated as they are now. Business decision making often requires gathering information from different sources. This dissertation focuses on the problem of entity matching, associating corresponding information elements within or across information systems. It is devoted to providing complete and accurate information for business decision making. Three challenges have been identified that may affect entity matching performance: feature selection for entity representative, matching techniques, and searching strategy. This dissertation first provides a theoretical foundation for entity matching by connecting entity matching to the similarity and categorization theories developed in the field of cognitive science. The theories provide guidance for tackling the three challenges identified. First, based on the feature contrast similarity model, we propose a case-study-based methodology that identifies key features that uniquely identify an entity. Second, we propose a record comparison technique and a multi-layer naïve Bayes model that correspond respectively to the deterministic and the probability response selection models defined in the categorization theory. Experiments show that both techniques are effective in linking deceptive criminal identities. However, the probabilistic matching technique is preferable because it uses a semi-supervised learning method, which requires less human intervention during training. Third, based on the prototype access assumption proposed in the categorization theory, we apply an adaptive detection algorithm to entity matching so that efficiency can be greatly improved by the reduced search space. Experiments show that this technique significantly improves matching efficiency without significant accuracy loss. Based on the above findings we developed the Arizona IDMatcher, an identity matching system based on the multi-layer naïve Bayes model and the adaptive detection method. We compare the proposed system against the IBM Identity Resolution tool, a leading commercial product developed using heuristic decision rules. Experiments do not suggest a clear winner, but provide the pros and cons of each system. The Arizona IDMatcher is able to capture more true matches than IBM Identity Resolution (i.e., high recall). On the other hand, the matches identified by IBM Identity Resolution are mostly true matches (i.e., high precision).

Recognizing that two sounds are the same is a part of accurate vocal imitation, and the teaching of vocal imitation is an important part of language training for persons with developmental disabilities (DD) and children with autism. Researchers have developed an Auditory-Auditory Identity Matching Prototype Task (AAIM PT) to assess whether persons with DD can identify whether two sounds are the same (Harapiak, Martin, & Yu, 1999). Thus far, the one study (Sewell, 2005) that attempted to teach AAIM tasks to persons with DD who failed the AAIM PT had little success in doing so. The purpose of this research was to evaluate several procedures for teaching AAIM tasks to persons with DD and children with autism. In Experiment 1, the trainer said a word, a matching word was played out of one computer speaker, and a non-matching word was played out of another. The participant was required to point to the speaker that played the matching word. In a single-subject alternating-treatments design, volume fading of the non-matching word (from zero to full volume) was compared to the fading out of a pointing prompt to the speaker that played the matching word. Only one of five participants learned an AAIM task, and that participant did not pass the AAIM PT. Three pilot studies were then conducted to explore various prompting and fading strategies for teaching AAIM tasks, and all were unsuccessful. In Experiment 2, I examined a procedure for teaching AAIM in which the participant was actively involved in producing the sample sound and the matching and non-matching comparison sounds. This procedure also incorporated visual cues and sounds from the operation of a toy airplane as a possible natural, built-in reinforcer. In a single-subject AB design with replication within and across three participants (one person with DD and two children with autism), all three participants learned two AAIM tasks, two participants generalized to a third AAIM task, and one participant passed the AAIM PT. The encouraging results from Experiment 2 provide a promising starting point for future research on teaching AAIM tasks to persons with DD and children with autism.

Recognizing that two sounds are the same is a part of accurate vocal imitation, and the teaching of vocal imitation is an important part of language training for persons with developmental disabilities (DD) and children with autism. Researchers have developed an Auditory-Auditory Identity Matching Prototype Task (AAIM PT) to assess whether persons with DD can identify whether two sounds are the same (Harapiak, Martin, & Yu, 1999). Thus far, the one study (Sewell, 2005) that attempted to teach AAIM tasks to persons with DD who failed the AAIM PT had little success in doing so. The purpose of this research was to evaluate several procedures for teaching AAIM tasks to persons with DD and children with autism. In Experiment 1, the trainer said a word, a matching word was played out of one computer speaker, and a non-matching word was played out of another. The participant was required to point to the speaker that played the matching word. In a single-subject alternating-treatments design, volume fading of the non-matching word (from zero to full volume) was compared to the fading out of a pointing prompt to the speaker that played the matching word. Only one of five participants learned an AAIM task, and that participant did not pass the AAIM PT. Three pilot studies were then conducted to explore various prompting and fading strategies for teaching AAIM tasks, and all were unsuccessful. In Experiment 2, I examined a procedure for teaching AAIM in which the participant was actively involved in producing the sample sound and the matching and non-matching comparison sounds. This procedure also incorporated visual cues and sounds from the operation of a toy airplane as a possible natural, built-in reinforcer. In a single-subject AB design with replication within and across three participants (one person with DD and two children with autism), all three participants learned two AAIM tasks, two participants generalized to a third AAIM task, and one participant passed the AAIM PT. The encouraging results from Experiment 2 provide a promising starting point for future research on teaching AAIM tasks to persons with DD and children with autism.

Governments and healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to streamline their processes to reduce operational costs while improving service delivery and quality of care. Systematic performance management of healthcare processes is important to ensure that quality of care goals are being met at all levels of the healthcare ecosystem. The challenge is that measuring these goals requires the aggregation and analysis of large amounts of data from various stakeholders in the healthcare industry. With the lack of interoperability between stakeholders in current healthcare compute and storage infrastructure, as well as the volume of data involved, our ability to measure quality of care across the healthcare system is limited. Cloud computing is an emerging technology that can help provide the needed interoperability and management of large volumes of data across the entire healthcare system. Cloud computing could be leveraged to integrate heterogeneous healthcare data silos if a regional health authority provided data hosting with appropriate patient identity management and privacy compliance. This thesis proposes a cloud-based architecture for surveillance and performance management of community healthcare. Our contributions address five critical roadblocks to interoperability in a cloud computing context: infrastructure for surveillance and performance management services, a common data model, a patient identity matching service, an anonymization service, and a privacy compliance model. Our results are validated through a pilot project, and two experimental case studies done in collaboration with a regional health authority for community care.

Four experimentally naïve white Carneau pigeons learned to match three colors to each other in a variant of an Identity matching-to-sample procedure with an FR20 on samples and a response-initiated FI8-s on comparisons. In Experiment 1, the extent to which subjects were matching on the basis of identity was assessed by presenting, in extinction, test trials comprising novel stimuli serving as the sample (and matching comparison) or as the nonmatching comparison. The results from Experiment 1 suggested intermediate or little to no transfer on the basis of identity. Experiment 2 reassessed transfer on the basis of identity with differential reinforcement on the test trials. Under these conditions, two of the four birds demonstrated substantially better than chance levels of performance. These data imply that while the extended response requirements may be necessary, other procedural aspects may be responsible for generalized identity matching in the pigeon.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3189.pdf: 1746240 bytes, checksum: dc2fe90f99f924dedd0fb25b667670dc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-28 / Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais / Studies on learning by exclusion and stimuli equivalence are usually conducted by means of conditional discriminations teaching procedures. Some recent studies have investigated important variables in procedures for teaching conditional discriminations to babies, both for the maintenance of the subjects in the task and for the establishment of conditional responding in babies. Considering the recent advances in the literature and seeking to develop procedures for investigating relational repertoires in infants, two studies were performed. The first study was divided into two parts whose objectives was: 1A) replicating and adapting to the child care center context a study about conditional discrimination teaching by exclusion for a baby of 17 months, in which photographs were used as stimuli and; 1B ) to evaluate the generality of the procedure employed in the previous study. The second study aimed to investigate the effect of using abstract stimuli and toys stimuli on an identity matching teaching procedure. In Study 1A, the three participants were trained a baseline auditory-visual conditional discriminations with familiar photographs. After that subjects were presented to exclusion and learning evaluation trials. The three participants (between 17 and 19 months) learned the baseline conditional discriminations and chose correctly in all exclusion trials, although they have not demonstrated learning by exclusion. In Study 1B the same procedure was used and only two of three children, aged between 15 and 18 months, learned the baseline relations, although all of them chose the correct stimulus in the exclusion trials. There was evidence of learning by exclusion for some children, however, the performance of infants in the novelty control trials suggested that children could be choosing based on such bias. The results suggest that the presented procedure is a useful tool for the study of exclusion responding in babies and thus enables further investigations on the process. In Study 2, two babies of 17 and 20 months were submitted to an identity matching training with abstract shapes or toys used as discriminative stimuli. The stimuli presentation was made by a mechanical apparatus that allowed the exposure of stimuli in closed and open windows. The programmed consequences varied according to the stimuli training condition. Babies have not learned the identity conditional discriminations in any stimuli conditions, although there was a greater number of corrects choices when the stimuli used were abstract shapes. Nevertheless, it was not possible to obtain conclusive evidence about the effectiveness of the use of those different stimuli conditions on the infant s conditional discrimination learning. / Estudos sobre aprendizagem por exclusão e equivalência de estímulos são geralmente realizados por meio de procedimentos de ensino de discriminações condicionais. Alguns trabalhos recentes têm investigado variáveis de procedimentos de ensino de discriminações condicionais para bebês, importantes tanto para a manutenção dos pequenos na tarefa quanto para o estabelecimento do responder condicional nos bebês. Considerando os avanços recentes na literatura e visando o desenvolvimento de procedimentos para a investigação de repertórios relacionais em bebês, foram realizados dois estudos. O primeiro foi dividido em duas partes que tiveram como objetivo: 1A) replicar e adaptar para o contexto da creche um estudo sobre ensino de discriminações condicionais por exclusão para um bebê de 17 meses, no qual foram utilizadas fotografias como estímulos e; 1B) avaliar a generalidade do procedimento empregado no estudo anterior. O segundo estudo objetivou investigar o efeito da utilização de estímulos abstratos e estímulos brinquedos sobre o ensino de emparelhamento de identidade para bebês. No estudo 1A, os três bebês foram submetidos a um treino de discriminações condicionais auditivo-visuais de linha de base com estímulos fotografias familiares. Após o treino, foram realizadas tentativas de exclusão e de verificação aprendizagem. Os três participantes, entre 17 e 19 meses, aprenderam as discriminações condicionais de linha de base e escolheram corretamente nas tentativas de exclusão, embora não tenham demonstrado aprendizagem por exclusão. No Estudo 1B, com o mesmo procedimento, apenas duas de três crianças, com idades entre 15 e 18 meses, aprenderam as relações de linha de base, embora todos tenham escolhido corretamente o estímulo novo nas tentativas de exclusão. Houve evidência de aprendizagem para algumas crianças, no entanto, o desempenho dos bebês nas sondas de controle da novidade sugeriu que a escolha correta poderia estar baseada neste viés. Os resultados apresentados sugerem que o procedimento utilizado é uma ferramenta útil para o estudo do responder por exclusão e, dessa forma, possibilita investigações futuras sobre processo. No Estudo 2, dois bebês, de 17 e 20 meses, foram submetidos a um treino de emparelhamento de identidade no qual formas abstratas ou brinquedos era utilizados como estímulos discriminativos. Os estímulos eram apresentados em um aparato mecânico que permitia a exposição dos estímulos em janelas fechadas e abertas. As consequências programadas variaram de acordo com a condição de estímulo utilizada. Os bebês não aprenderam as relações condicionais em qualquer das condições de estímulos, embora tenha ocorrido um maior número de acertos quando os estímulos eram arbitrários. No entanto, não foram observadas evidências conclusivas sobre a efetividade das diferentes condições de estímulos utilizadas sobre a aprendizagem de discriminações condicionais.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:18:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Daniel Carvalho.pdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-04-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present research had two goals: (a) to test the efficacy of a delayed prompt procedure to develop errorless discrimination between letters and their rotations, and (b) to test the effects of the discrimination training when MTS trials with the trained letters, theirs rotations, and similar letters were presented. Participated in the study 9 children (aged 3 to 6) who did not have a perfect performance when discrimination between pairs of graphically similar letters and their rotations (b, d, n, u, p, q, and their 270o rotations, and the letter B, D, N, U, P, Q and their 180o rotations). A test with identity-matching-to-sample trials involving the S+ letters as sample stimuli and the same letters, their rotations and similar letters as comparison stimuli was first conducted. A discrimination training of each testes letter (S+) and its rotation (S_) was then conducted: During training, colors (previously established as S+ and S-) were superimposed on the new S+ (letter) and S- (letter-rotation) with longer delays after each successful trial, until the child systematically responded choosing S+ before the color was presented. After training the initial identity MTS test was replicated, followed by a test of arbitrary MTS: trials involving letters and colors were presented, to test the emergency of conditional discrimination. Results suggested that 4 children developed conditional discriminations indicating the emergency of arbitrary stimulus classes. Results also indicated that although the discrimination training was effective in producing simple discrimination, it was not sufficient to guarantee good performance when identity-matching-to-sample trials were presented / No presente trabalho um procedimento de discriminação simples simultânea sem erro - dica atrasada - entre pares de letras graficamente semelhantes e suas inversões. Testou-se também os possíveis efeitos do treino discriminativo em tentativas de emparelhamento de acordo com o modelo (matching to sample) de identidade e arbitrário em que as letras que participaram do treino discriminativo eram estímulos comparação. Nove crianças (de 3 a 6 anos) com dificuldades nas discriminações entre pares de letras graficamente semelhantes e suas inversões (b-d, n-u, p-q e inversões em 270o e B-D, N-U, P-Q e inversões em 180 o) participaram da pesquisa. Depois de um pré-teste de MTS de identidade em que eram estímulos modelo letras e estímulos comparação as mesmas letras, letras semelhantes e suas inversões, as crianças selecionadas passaram por treinos discriminativos simples simultâneos, envolvendo letras (S+) e inversões (S-). No treino, cores foram estabelecidas como estímulos discriminativos (S+) ou como S-. A partir daí tais estímulos foram sobrepostos a novos estímulos e tal sobreposição foi atrasada a cada tentativa bem sucedida até que o participante escolhesse o sistematicamente o novo S+ (letra) antes da sobreposição de cores entre letras e suas entre cores (previamente após o treino, foi feito um pós- teste semelhante ao pré teste (MTS) de identidade) e um teste de matching arbitrário envolvendo as letras treinadas, suas inversões e as cores como estímulos modelo e comparação, para verificar a possível emergência de discriminações condicionais entre letras e cores, o que seria indicativo da formação de classes de estímulos equivalentes. Todos os participantes tiveram desempenhos bem sucedidos no treino discriminativo - quase sem erros. Quatro participantes tiveram desempenhos nos testes de MTS arbitrário que atestariam a emergência de discriminações condicionais que indicariam a possibilidade de formação de classes de estímulos. Os resultados dos pós-testes de MTS de identidade indicaram que para vários participantes o treino de discriminação simples não foi suficiente para garantir um bom desempenho na situação de MTS. Finalmente, em geral o desempenho dos participantes foi melhor quando os estímulos foram as letras maiúsculas