Thesis (M.Sc. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2001. / "A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Science (Honours) - Computing and Information Technology at University of Western Sydney" Bibliography : leaves 93-98.

The domain of molecular biology is complex and vast. Bio-ontologies and information visualisation have arisen in recent years as means to assist biologists in making sense of this information. Ontologies can enable the construction of conceptual queries, but existing systems to do this are too technical for most biologists. OntoDas, the software developed as part of this thesis work, demonstrates how the application of techniques from information visualisation and human computer interaction can result in software which enables biologists to construct conceptual queries. / Thesis (M.Comp.Sc.)-Universty of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

There is almost a universal agreement among scholars in information retrieval (IR) research that knowledge representation needs improvement. As core component of an IR system, improvement of the knowledge representation system has so far involved manipulation of this component based on principles such as vector space, probabilistic approach, inference network, and language modeling, yet the required improvement is still far from fruition. One promising approach that is highly touted to offer a potential solution exists in the cognitive paradigm, where knowledge representation practice should involve, or start from, modeling the human conceptual system. This study based on two related cognitive theories: the theory-based approach to concept representation and the psychological theory of semantic relations, ventured to explore the connection between the human conceptual model and the knowledge representation model (represented by samples of concepts and relations from the unified medical language system, UMLS). Guided by these cognitive theories and based on related and appropriate data-analytic tools, such as nonmetric multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, and content analysis, this study aimed to conduct an exploratory investigation to answer four related questions. Divided into two groups, a total of 89 research participants took part in two sets of cognitive tasks. The first group (49 participants) sorted 60 food names into categories followed by simultaneous description of the derived categories to explain the rationale for category judgment. The second group (40 participants) performed sorting 47 semantic relations (the nonhierarchical associative types) into 5 categories known a priori. Three datasets resulted as a result of the cognitive tasks: food-sorting data, relation-sorting data, and free and unstructured text of category descriptions. Using the data analytic tools mentioned, data analysis was carried out and important results and findings were obtained that offer plausible explanations to the 4 research questions. Major results include the following: (a) through discriminant analysis category members were predicted consistently in 70% of the time; (b) the categorization bases are largely simplified rules, naïve explanations, and feature-based; (c) individuals theoretical explanation remains valid and stays stable across category members; (d) the human conceptual model can be fairly reconstructed in a low-dimensional space where 93% of the variance in the dimensional space is accounted for by the subjects performance; (e) participants consistently classify 29 of the 47 semantic relations; and, (f) individuals perform better in the functional and spatial dimensions of the semantic relations classification task and perform poorly in the conceptual dimension.

Design is hard and needs to be supported by software. One of the ways software can support designers is by providing analogical reasoning. To make analogical reasoning work well, the software makers need to know how to create a knowledge representation that will facilitate the kind of analogies that the designers want. This thesis will inform software makers by experimenting with two kinds of knowledge representations, called device-centric (DC) and environment-centric (EC), and to try to determine the relative benefits of using either one of them for analogical matching. We performed computational experiments, using Structure Mapping Engine for matching, to determine the quantity and quality of analogical matches that are produced when the representation is varied. We conducted a limited human experiment, using questionnaires and repertory grids, to determine if any of the computational results were novel, and to determine if the human similarity ratings between devices correlated with the computer results. We show that design software should use DC representations to produce a few focused matches which have high average weight. It should use EC representations to produce many matches some of high weight and some of low weight. Based on our human experiment, design software can use either DC or EC representations to produce novel matches. Our experiments also show that human matches correlate most strongly with a combined DC and EC representation and that their similarity reasons are more EC than DC. This suggests that designers tend to think more in EC terms than in DC terms.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Purpose/Aim: This essay deals with The Swedish Red Cross Society and their work concerning strategical information and communication about HIV and AIDS in the Swedish context. In a broader sense the relation between the global and the local will be investigated and a discussion about what it means to work in an organization operating on a global arena will be held.</p><p>Material/Method: This essay is based on relevant theories about culture and health communication which I have studied, selected and put together, with purpose to analyse The Swedish Red Cross Society and their informational work with HIV and AIDS- prevention. Furthermore I have interviewed four of the organizations co- workers to collect data about their experiences in working in the Red Cross organization with this specific mission. Moreover I and my colleague Hillevi Good attended at seminars and lectures to observe activities held by the organization and to get inside information about what people working with HIV and AIDS are discussing and considering as critical issues. The study holds a qualitative approach focusing on understanding this typical case rather then generalizing facts in a larger sense.</p><p>Main results: The Swedish National Society of The Red Cross has a difficult mission in their work to inform the public about HIV and AIDS, although it is the perfect organization when it comes to communication due to their well-known profile and a huge geographical spread. Foremost this is due to the fact that the problem in Sweden concerns attitudes rather than medical supplies, access to information and other more practical issues.</p><p>The Swedish citizen is individualistic and the HIV- problem does not exist in his/hers reality in the same way as in a high- endemic country, a fact that complicates information and communication. The organization is well aware of the situation and has a good informational approach with networking and education as examples among others, but this is not enough. Changing behaviour and attitudes takes a long time and a lot of resources that does not exist because of HIV and AIDS low priority in Sweden. Although we have an envied situation when it comes to the number of HIV- positive the situation is critical when it comes to knowledge and empathy among the population.</p><p>Keywords: HIV and AIDS, The Swedish National Society of The Red Cross, Stiftelsen Noaks Ark- Röda Korset, Culture, Structure of Society, Health communication, Behavioural Change, Knowledge and Information</p>

Abstract Purpose/Aim: This essay deals with The Swedish Red Cross Society and their work concerning strategical information and communication about HIV and AIDS in the Swedish context. In a broader sense the relation between the global and the local will be investigated and a discussion about what it means to work in an organization operating on a global arena will be held. Material/Method: This essay is based on relevant theories about culture and health communication which I have studied, selected and put together, with purpose to analyse The Swedish Red Cross Society and their informational work with HIV and AIDS- prevention. Furthermore I have interviewed four of the organizations co- workers to collect data about their experiences in working in the Red Cross organization with this specific mission. Moreover I and my colleague Hillevi Good attended at seminars and lectures to observe activities held by the organization and to get inside information about what people working with HIV and AIDS are discussing and considering as critical issues. The study holds a qualitative approach focusing on understanding this typical case rather then generalizing facts in a larger sense. Main results: The Swedish National Society of The Red Cross has a difficult mission in their work to inform the public about HIV and AIDS, although it is the perfect organization when it comes to communication due to their well-known profile and a huge geographical spread. Foremost this is due to the fact that the problem in Sweden concerns attitudes rather than medical supplies, access to information and other more practical issues. The Swedish citizen is individualistic and the HIV- problem does not exist in his/hers reality in the same way as in a high- endemic country, a fact that complicates information and communication. The organization is well aware of the situation and has a good informational approach with networking and education as examples among others, but this is not enough. Changing behaviour and attitudes takes a long time and a lot of resources that does not exist because of HIV and AIDS low priority in Sweden. Although we have an envied situation when it comes to the number of HIV- positive the situation is critical when it comes to knowledge and empathy among the population. Keywords: HIV and AIDS, The Swedish National Society of The Red Cross, Stiftelsen Noaks Ark- Röda Korset, Culture, Structure of Society, Health communication, Behavioural Change, Knowledge and Information

This study investigated whether age differences in deceit detection are related to impairments in emotion recognition. Key cues to deceit are facial expressions of emotion (Frank and Ekman, 1997). The aging literature has shown an age-related decline in decoding emotions (e.g., Malatesta, Izard, Culver, and Nicolich, 1987). In the present study, 354 participants were presented with 20 interviews and asked to decide whether each man was lying or telling the truth. Ten interviews involved a crime and ten a social opinion. Each participant was in one of three presentation conditions: 1) visual only, 2) audio only, or 3) audio-visual. For crime interviews, age-related impairments in emotion recognition hindered older adults in the visual only condition. In the opinion topic interviews, older adults exhibited a truth bias which rendered them worse at detecting deceit than young adults. Cognitive and dispositional variables did not help to explain the age differences in the ability to detect deceit.

Visual media are of great importance to designers. Understanding a new design, for example, often means understanding a drawing. From the perspective of artificial intelligence, this implies that automated knowledge acquisition in computer-aided design can productively occur using drawings as a knowledge source. However, this requires machines that are able to interpret design drawings. I view the task of interpreting drawings as one of constructing a teleological model of the design depicted in the drawings, where the model enables causal and functional inferences about the depicted design. I have developed a novel analogical method for constructing a teleological model of a mechanical device from an unlabelled 2D line drawing. The source case is organized in a Drawing Shape Structure Behavior Function (DSSBF) abstraction hierarchy. This knowledge organization enables the analogical mapping and transfer to occur at multiple levels of abstraction. Given a target drawing and a relevant source case, my method of compositional analogy first constructs a graphical representation of the lines and the intersections in the target drawing, then uses the mappings at the level of line intersections to transfer the shape representations from the source case to the target. It next uses the mappings at the level of shapes to transfer the structural model of the device from the source to the target. Finally, the mappings from the source to the target structural model enable the transfer of behaviors and the functional specification from source to target, completing the analogy and yielding a complete DSSBF model of the input drawing. The Archytas system implements this method of compositional analogy and evaluates it in the domain of kinematic devices such as piston and crankshaft devices, door latches, and pulley systems.

Adequate access to and appropriate use of medical evidence by clinicians have been posited as influencing the quality of clinical decisions and outcomes of patient care. The broad aim of this case study of a tertiary hospital was to provide understanding of how the information experiences and practices of paediatric physicians in Nigeria influenced their information practices and the potential implications for patient care. To achieve the research aim and objectives, a qualitative exploratory study was conducted using multiple sources of data: interviews, diaries, observation and social network chats. Overall, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted, and seven clinicians provided a week-long information activity self-reports through diaries. Supplementary data were gained via the researcher's personal observation and social media chats with some participants. Paediatricians in the cadre of: Consultants, Senior Registrars, Registrars and Residents provided the data which was analysed using the interpretative method. The results indicate that the paediatricians' information needs were on: managing challenging cases, supporting diagnostic decisions, managing evolving diseases, managing illnesses in the tropical context, drugs and dosage, refreshing the memory, keeping updated, and passing professional examinations. In general: i)there was haphazard approach to information literacy tuition for the clinicians during professional education resulting in varied information capabilities, and inadequacy of knowledge and skills for good information practice; ii) obtaining medical information from colleagues was the predominant feature of paediatricians' information practices; iii) printed textbooks were the paediatricians preferred source for obtaining medical evidence, however, there was a growing popularity in the use of electronic medical information sources, including at the point of care; iv) a perception of inadequacy of the hospital library services resulted in the paediatricians developing rejection behaviour towards the services, labelled in this study as information service rejection behaviour (ISRB); v) there was general perception by the paediatricians that access to, and use of medical information supports patient care and achievement of better treatment outcomes. This perception instilled a sense of value for information use, demonstrated through the clinicians' dedication to the self-provision of information resources; vi) a dearth of medical resources germane to the contextual management of illnesses led to inadequate clinician knowledge in a good number of cases. A new model of information behaviour entitled 'the knowledge production model of the paediatricians' information behaviour has been developed from the findings of this study, thereby extending existing scholarly perspectives on people's information behaviour. The Kpro model enunciates the concept of 'knowledge-based information behaviour' (KIB) which was exhibited by the paediatricians. The study recommends that i) the information literacy skills training (ILST) model developed from the findings, be used as a practical tool for inculcating information literacy to the paediatricians at the level of residency training; ii) the hospital management/librarians prioritise the improvement of information resources, services and infrastructure e.g. reliable internet service, e-library at wards and consulting rooms, and clinical librarian services, to enhance good information practices among the clinicians; iii) retraining of the hospital librarians for increased service delivery effectiveness; iv) increased local research through the establishment of Journal Clubs by the paediatricians to enhance local publishing of medical literature.

The dissertation deals with the position of information and communication technologies in the lifestyle of the Czech society and the changes occurring in relation to these technologies. First of all, the basic conceptions of information and knowledge society are described and identified. In the next part, lifestyle is defined from theoretical and methodological standpoints for the concept to be operationalized for further analysis. In the analytical part, the author uses the results of a series of representative quantitative empirical research, in which she participated, examining, through the typical indicators, the place of information and communication technologies in the entire population, the pace of implementing the technologies, and the differences in various demographic groups using the technologies. The last part of the dissertation includes an empirical construction of lifestyle based on the two factors which are considered fundamental (leisure and values), also presenting an analysis, in the framework of different lifestyles, of specific aspects in making use of the information and communication technologies.