The thesis describes steps taken towards using graphic representation and visual modelling support for the knowledge acquisition process in knowledge-based systems – a process commonly regarded as difficult. The performance of the systems depends on the quality of the embedded knowledge, which makes the knowledge acquisition phase particularly significant. During the acquisition phase, a main obstacle to proper extraction of information is the absence of effective modelling techniques. The contributions of the thesis are: introducing a methodology for user-centred knowledge modelling, enhancing transparency to support the modelling of content and of the reasoning strategy, incorporating conceptualisation to simplify the grasp of the contents and to support assimilation of the domain knowledge, and supplying a visual compositional logic programming language for adding and modifying functionality. The user-centred knowledge acquisition model, proposed in this thesis, applies a combination of different approaches to knowledge modelling. The aim is to bridge the gap between the users (i.e., knowledge engineers, domain experts and end users) and the system in transferring knowledge, by supporting the users through graphics and visualisation. Visualisation supports the users by providing several different views of the contents of the system. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is employed as a modelling language. A benefit of utilising UML is that the knowledge base can be modified, and the reasoning strategy and the functionality can be changed directly in the model. To make the knowledge base more comprehensible and expressive, we incorporated visual conceptualisation into UML’s diagrams to describe the contents. Visual conceptualisation of the knowledge can also facilitate assimilation in a hypermedia system through visual libraries. Visualisation of functionality is applied to a programming paradigm, namely relational programming, often employed in artificial intelligence systems. This approach employs Venn-Euler diagrams as a graphic interface to a compositional operator based relational programming language. The concrete result of the research is the development of a graphic representation and visual modelling approach to support the knowledge acquisition process. This approach has been evaluated for two different knowledge bases, one built for hydropower development and river regulation and the other for diagnosing childhood diseases.

The main contributions of this thesis revolve around development of an integrated conversational recommendation system, combining data and information models with community network and interactions to leverage multi-modal information access. We have developed a real time conversational information access community agent that leverages community knowledge by pushing relevant recommendations to users of the community. The recommendations are delivered in the form of web resources, past conversation and people to connect to. The information agent (cobot, for community/ collaborative bot) monitors the community conversations, and is 'aware' of users' preferences by implicitly capturing their short term and long term knowledge models from conversations. The agent leverages from health and medical domain knowledge to extract concepts, associations and relationships between concepts; formulates queries for semantic search and provides socio-semantic recommendations in the conversation after applying various relevance filters to the candidate results. The agent also takes into account users' verbal intentions in conversations while making recommendation decision. One of the goals of this thesis is to develop an innovative approach to delivering relevant information using a combination of social networking, information aggregation, semantic search and recommendation techniques. The idea is to facilitate timely and relevant social information access by mixing past community specific conversational knowledge and web information access to recommend and connect users with relevant information. Language and interaction creates usable memories, useful for making decisions about what actions to take and what information to retain. Cobot leverages these interactions to maintain users' episodic and long term semantic models. The agent analyzes these memory structures to match and recommend users in conversations by matching with the contextual information need. The social feedback on the recommendations is registered in the system for the algorithms to promote community preferred, contextually relevant resources. The nodes of the semantic memory are frequent concepts extracted from user's interactions. The concepts are connected with associations that develop when concepts co-occur frequently. Over a period of time when the user participates in more interactions, new concepts are added to the semantic memory. Different conversational facets are matched with episodic memories and a spreading activation search on the semantic net is performed for generating the top candidate user recommendations for the conversation. The tying themes in this thesis revolve around informational and social aspects of a unified information access architecture that integrates semantic extraction and indexing with user modeling and recommendations.

製造業一直是台灣產業的強者，但隨著全球經濟發展，台灣製造業所獲毛利逐漸縮減以及服務業角色愈加重要之下，或許服務業所發展的「服務創新」，是拯救台灣低價值循環的一道解藥。過往國內外有關服務創新的研究，大都偏向於專案層次的探討，對於組織層級的著墨很少，其中有關「組織方式（Organizing）」的研究又更少。本研究認為組織方式的研究成果，可以使企業於發展服務創新的過程中，更知道如何有效地建構組織創新平台，以達到建立核心優勢與提升績效的目標。本研究以「組織設計」、「創新研發人力資源管理」、「新服務商品開發」與「外部知識取得」等四大構面為主軸，並針對國內在服務創新與服務力上表現優異的兩家企業－全家便利商店與王品集團，進行深入的個案研究。初步得到了以下的結論： (1)發展服務創新的企業，在組織設計上除了具有正式化的組織外，也會強調系統化的非正式組織，前者適合有形服務商品的開發，後者適合無形服務的發展。此外，因為服務的無形性，也會強調跨部門之間的互動與合作。 (2)發展服務創新的企業，在創新人力資源管理上，會特別著重於與接觸第一線顧客的員工之互動。在創新人力績效衡量方面，則會將顧客滿意度納入評核項目。 (3)發展服務創新的企業，在外部連結與知識取得上，會以開放式創新的概念積極向外獲取所需之技術知識與市場知識，並且讓顧客參與新服務的開發過程。 最後，本研究並提出實務上與後續研究上的建議。 / Taiwan's manufacturing industry has always been strong, but its gained profit margin has been gradually decreasing as the globlal competitition becomes fierce. On the other hand, the service industry plays a more important role than before in the economic development, and “service innovations” might become one of the key solutions to enhance the industrial added values and welfares. Most of the past researches related to service innovations are focused on the “project” level and very few studies are conducted at the “corporate” level, particulary concerning the issue of organizing. We believe the research results of organizing for service innovations can help enterprises set up a better organizational innovation platform in order to build core competence and to enhance performance. This study establishes a research framework with four major constructs: organizing, innovative human resources management, new service development process and external sourcing of knowledge and selects two innovative companies: the FamilyMart and WowPrime Group, for the case study in depth. Three major preliminary conclusions obtained from this study are as follows: (1)As far as organizaing for service innovation is concerned, the firm may use both formal and informal organization. The former one fits better for the tangible service products; and the latter one for intangible service products. Furthermore, the firm will emphasize the interdepartmental connection as the service itself is somewhat intangible per se. (2)As far as organizaing for service innovation is concerned, the firm will emphasize the interaction with the employees who have direct contacts with customers. Furthermore, the firm will include the customer satisfaction as one of the key performance indeices (KPI). (3)As far as organizaing for service innovation is concerned, the firm will actively acquire both of technical knowledge and market knowledge and will invite customers to participate in the development process of new services. Finally, this study draws some recommendations for both practititioners and follow-up researchers.

The aim of this study was to conduct a thorough theoretical study on the relevant aspects involved in knowledge management and organizational learning, and thence assess the level of organisational learning within the ferrometallurgical industry. From the outcomes of the assessment, recommendations to improve the state of affairs were to be made. Knowledge can be defined as actionable information. The creation, acquisition, sharing and leveraging of knowledge in today's industries are critical. Knowledge is now termed the fourth productive resource, and some authors claim, with some justification, that the widespread knowledge within a company is the only source of sustainable competitive advantage. With this in mind, it is obvious that companies need to nurture knowledge creation and effective utilisation thereof in order to meet organisational goals. Knowledge can be codified if it is explicit, but needs to be transferred using personalisation if it is tacit. Implicitness of tacit knowledge further confounds the issue. Knowledge management practices underpin the process of organisational learning. The level of organisational learning within the ferrometallurgical industry in South Africa was assessed, using a survey questionnaire obtained from the Harvard Business School. The results show that the industry lags behind the medians in the ten constructs measured, and much work will be required to significantly improve the situation. Key areas of concern are in the areas of psychological safety, time for reflection, education and training, and collection of information. As a consequence, a practical strategy for improving the state of knowledge management and organisational learning in the ferrometallurgical industry was developed. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.

The aim of this study was to conduct a thorough theoretical study on the relevant aspects involved in knowledge management and organizational learning, and thence assess the level of organisational learning within the ferrometallurgical industry. From the outcomes of the assessment, recommendations to improve the state of affairs were to be made. Knowledge can be defined as actionable information. The creation, acquisition, sharing and leveraging of knowledge in today's industries are critical. Knowledge is now termed the fourth productive resource, and some authors claim, with some justification, that the widespread knowledge within a company is the only source of sustainable competitive advantage. With this in mind, it is obvious that companies need to nurture knowledge creation and effective utilisation thereof in order to meet organisational goals. Knowledge can be codified if it is explicit, but needs to be transferred using personalisation if it is tacit. Implicitness of tacit knowledge further confounds the issue. Knowledge management practices underpin the process of organisational learning. The level of organisational learning within the ferrometallurgical industry in South Africa was assessed, using a survey questionnaire obtained from the Harvard Business School. The results show that the industry lags behind the medians in the ten constructs measured, and much work will be required to significantly improve the situation. Key areas of concern are in the areas of psychological safety, time for reflection, education and training, and collection of information. As a consequence, a practical strategy for improving the state of knowledge management and organisational learning in the ferrometallurgical industry was developed. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010.

Aquesta tesi analitza l'aprenentatge de coneixement especialitzat a partir d'una proposta teoricometodològica, de base lingüística i conceptual, centrada en l'àmbit del dret de família català. L'anàlisi empírica se centra en l'estudi de les definicions d'estudiants universitaris sobre nou conceptes concrets al llarg de dos tests amb les mateixes definicions: un test a l'inici del període d'instrucció explícita i un altre al final. L'objectiu principal és determinar si es produeix increment i precisió de coneixement en els tres mesos d'instrucció explícita de l'assignatura. L'anàlisi de les dades confirma que es produeix una estabilització del coneixement més que no pas un increment. Aquesta estabilització s'ha de relacionar directament amb el període considerat i amb el fet que el coneixement previ (no especialitzat) dels conceptes sembla estar fortament arrelat en els estudiants i, per tant, en un període tan breu d'instrucció explícita és difícil d'assolir el canvi conceptual a la manera dels especialistes. / This Doctoral Dissertation deals with specialized knowledge acquisition having a theoretical and methodological orientation of a linguistic and conceptual nature. Empirical analysis is devoted to Catalan Family Law and, more precisely, to the definitions provided by university students regarding 9 concepts throughout two tests with the same definitions. The first test is given at the beginning of the period of explicit instruction and the second at the end.The main goal is to determine whether increase and precision of knowledge is achieved or not after the three months of explicit instruction. Data analysis tells that there is knowledge stabilization rather than knowledge increasing. This stabilization can be put down to the considered period, together with the fact that previous knowledge of concepts seem to be firmly rooted in students, which leads to state that conceptual change (i.e., that of specialists) is difficult to attain within such brief period of instruction.

The knowledge gap between Arabic nations and the developed world is widening. A contributing factor to the slow acquisition and production of knowledge is the use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the language of instruction in schools. To bridge the gap, English is used in tertiary education in most Arab countries. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a useful case study to explore the dynamics of Arabic and English in education. After an overview of the problems imposed by MSA, the dilemmas facing the teaching of English and in English in the UAE are explored. Many of the problems encountered in the teaching and learning of English are the product of specific aspects of an education in MSA. The study assesses whether MSA or English is the most viable instrument for the delivery of high quality education in the Arab world and finds that currently English is essential. / English Studies / M.A. (with specialisation in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of other languages))

The purpose of this study was to investigate how knowledge retention may be enhanced at the University of Zambia (UNZA). A mixed research methodology was employed in the case study design. Data was collected using interviews and questionnaires. Purposive sampling was used to determine participants for the interviews while stratified random sampling was employed for the questionnaire respondents. Out of a population of 435 a sample of 205 was surveyed. The response rate was 60 %. Findings indicate that UNZA lacked a number of knowledge retention practices that can enable it to retain operational relevant knowledge. In view of these findings, the study concluded by recommending guidelines for the adoption of various knowledge retention practices that could be embedded into UNZA's knowledge management policy. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

Ce travail de recherche s'inscrit dans le cadre des méthodes de la linguistique de corpus et procède des besoins d'exploitation formulés dans le domaine du marketing à l'égard des conversations des internautes. Deux pistes sont poursuivies, la première relevant de leur description du point de vue de l'analyse des conversations et de la textométrie, la seconde visant des applications pratiques relatives à la fouille de textes. Une méthode de description systématique et automatisable est proposée, à partir de laquelle un procédé de mesure de l'engagement conversationnel des participants est mis en œuvre. L'étude des diagrammes d'engagement conversationnel (DEC) produits à partir de cette mesure permet d'observer des régularités typologiques dans les postures manifestées par les participants. Ce travail met également en exergue l'apport de la méthode textométrique pour l'acquisition de connaissances utiles à des fins de catégorisation automatique. Plusieurs analyses textométriques sont utilisées (spécificités, segments répétés, inventaires distributionnels) pour élaborer un modèle de connaissance dédié à la détection des intentions d'achat dans des fils de discussion issus d'un forum automobile. Les résultats obtenus, encourageants malgré la rareté des signaux exploitables au sein du corpus étudié, soulignent l'intérêt d'articuler des techniques d'analyse textométrique et de fouille de données textuelles au sein d'un même procédé d'acquisition de connaissances pour l'analyse automatique des conversations des internautes. / This research is part of the methods of corpus linguistics and proceeds from the needs expressed in the field of marketing regarding conversations of internet users. Two lines of research are investigated, the first falling under the perspective of conversation analysis and textometry, the second focuses on practical applications for text mining. A systematic and automated description is provided, from which a method of measuring participants' conversational engagement is implemented. The study of conversational engagement diagrams (CED) produced from this measure allows to observe typological regularities regarding how participants position themselves in conversations. This work also highlights the contribution of the textometric method for acquiring useful knowledge for supervised classification. Several textometric measures are used (specificity, repeated segments, distributional inventories) to develop a knowledge model for the detection of purchase intentions in discussions threads from an automotive forum. The results, encouraging despite the scarcity of usable signals in the corpus, underline the importance of articulating textometric analysis techniques and text mining in the same process of knowledge acquisition for automatic analysis of conversations of internet users.

Orientadores: Osvair Vidal Trevisan, Boris Asrilhant / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecânica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T11:45:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodriguez_MonicaRebelo_D.pdf: 37752110 bytes, checksum: fe86a28596b16f107e45c39acbce7fdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Há 10 anos da quebra do monopólio para a exploração e produção (E&P) de petróleo no Brasil o mercado se mostrou estável, competitivo e gerando resultados positivos que atraem o interesse das companhias nacionais e estrangeiras a investir no setor de "upstream". O processo de cessão de direitos e obrigações sobre as áreas de E&P é conduzido pela Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás Natural e Bio-combustíveis (ANP) por meio de licitação pública, com regras bem definidas, onde o vencedor assina um contrato de concessão com a ANP. Esta pesquisa apresenta e analisa o histórico destas licitações para áreas de exploração e produção e áreas inativas com acumulações marginais, dentro do cenário econômico brasileiro e do potencial exploratório do país, e compara o desempenho das empresas no Brasil e no Golfo do México Americano, segundo os investimentos realizados para aquisição dessas áreas. Apresenta, ainda, um modelo estocástico para estimava do valor dos blocos desenvolvido a partir das ofertas realizadas para áreas da Bacia de Campos em licitações pretéritas. Para analisar o nível de competição esperado para essas áreas, este estudo descreve também o desenvolvimento de um sistema especialista com a ferramenta Exsys Corvid®, baseado no julgamento de 36 especialistas da indústria do petróleo que trabalham em 20 companhias de pequeno, médio e grande porte. A aplicação desta metodologia permite que estas companhias estimem o nível de competição (alto, moderado, ou baixo) para áreas da Bacia de Campos. Conhecendo o valor das áreas e a estimativa do nível de competição, é possível subsidiar o processo decisório na elaboração de estratégias de oferta que permitam uma melhor alocção financeira dos recursos e a gestão ótima do portfólio exploratório pretendido pela companhia / Abstract: After 10 years of the ending of petroleum exploration and production (E&P) monopoly in Brazil, the market for those activities has shown to be stable and competitive, providing positive results which attracted both national and international investment for the upstream oil and gas sector. The regulatory agency promotes public licensing of E&P areas through a competitive sealed bid auction, whose rules are clear and known in advance by the companies. This research describes and evaluates the historical data for these E&P licensing, as well as for tenders of marginal oilfield accumulations, under the Brazilian economic scenario and the geologic potential of the country. It also compares oil companies performance regarding investment made in acquiring areas in Brazil to those in US-Gulf of Mexico. A stochastic model for block-value estimation is presented and applied to previous data from Campos Basin licensed areas. In order to estimate the level of competition expected for those areas, an expert system was built using Exsys Corvid®, based on the knowledge captured from 36 specialists in Brazilian public licensing working for 20 oil companies. The proposed methodology is applied to the case of Campos Basin areas and showed to properly estimate the levels of competition expected (high, moderate or low in the bid. By knowing the block-value and the expected level of competition, decision makers are better prepared for formulating bidding strategies that can result in better resources allocation and yield a better exploration portfolio management / Doutorado / Reservatórios e Gestão / Doutor em Ciências e Engenharia de Petróleo