User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management

Open and decentralized technologies such as the Internet provide increasing opportunities to create knowledge and deliver computer-based decision support for multiple types of users across scales. However, environmental decision support systems/tools (henceforth EDSS) are often strongly science-driven and assuming single types of decision makers, and hence poorly suited for more decentralized and polycentric decision making contexts. In such contexts, EDSS need to be tailored to meet diverse user requirements to ensure that it provides useful (relevant), usable (intuitive), and exchangeable (institutionally unobstructed) information for decision support for different types of actors. To address these issues, we present a participatory framework for designing EDSS that emphasizes a more complete understanding of the decision making structures and iterative design of the user interface. We illustrate the application of the framework through a case study within the context of water-stressed upstream/downstream communities in Lima, Peru

A Vision for ARES in the Twenty-First Century: The Virtual Community of Real Estate Thought Leaders

In the twenty-first century the American Real Estate Society (ARES) is a virtual community of real estate thought leaders, electronically interconnected and linked through the International Real Estate Society to counterpart organizations on all major continents as well as numerous country-specific societies. ARES growth is attributable to its emphasis on rigorous applied microeconomic decisionmaking and an inclusive, open style. The initiatives of the Strategic Planning Task Force, whose report was enthusiastically endorsed and implemented at the 1996 Lake Tahoe meetings, have led to an expansion of activities and services. Further, the "Great Water" location strategy continues to attract strong meeting participation, which meetings emphasize special tracks for the corporate space user, global portfolio investing, micro property strategies and transactions, property analytic advances, improving cognitive skills to overcome bounded rationality, and learning innovations as well as ethical and aesthetic issues, property rights and quality of life topics. As valuable as the electronic access to critical real estate research resources is, the ARES Annual Meeting continues to be the one must attend gathering for real estate thought leaders throughout the world.

Interventions to facilitate shared decision making to address antibiotic use for acute respiratory infections in primary care

Background: Shared decision making is an important component of patient-centred care. It is a set of communication and evidence-based practice skills that elicits patients' expectations, clarifies any misperceptions and discusses the best available evidence for benefits and harms of treatment. Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are one of the most common reasons for consulting in primary care and obtaining prescriptions for antibiotics. However, antibiotics offer few benefits for ARIs, and their excessive use contributes to antibiotic resistance - an evolving public health crisis. Greater explicit consideration of the benefit-harm trade-off within shared decision making may reduce antibiotic prescribing for ARIs in primary care. Objectives: To assess whether interventions that aim to facilitate shared decision making increase or reduce antibiotic prescribing for ARIs in primary care. Search methods: We searched CENTRAL (2014, Issue 11), MEDLINE (1946 to November week 3, 2014), EMBASE (2010 to December 2014) and Web of Science (1985 to December 2014). We searched for other published, unpublished or ongoing trials by searching bibliographies of published articles, personal communication with key trial authors and content experts, and by searching trial registries at the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization. Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (individual level or cluster-randomised), which evaluated the effectiveness of interventions that promote shared decision making (as the focus or a component of the intervention) about antibiotic prescribing for ARIs in primary care. Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently extracted and collected data. Antibiotic prescribing was the primary outcome, and secondary outcomes included clinically important adverse endpoints (e.g. re-consultations, hospital admissions, mortality) and process measures (e.g. patient satisfaction). We assessed the risk of bias of all included trials and the quality of evidence. We contacted trial authors to obtain missing information where available. Main results: We identified 10 published reports of nine original RCTs (one report was a long-term follow-up of the original trial) in over 1100 primary care doctors and around 492,000 patients. The main risk of bias came from participants in most studies knowing whether they had received the intervention or not, and we downgraded the rating of the quality of evidence because of this. We meta-analysed data using a random-effects model on the primary and key secondary outcomes and formally assessed heterogeneity. Remaining outcomes are presented narratively. There is moderate quality evidence that interventions that aim to facilitate shared decision making reduce antibiotic use for ARIs in primary care (immediately after or within six weeks of the consultation), compared with usual care, from 47% to 29%: risk ratio (RR) 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.55 to 0.68. Reduction in antibiotic prescribing occurred without an increase in patient-initiated re-consultations (RR 0.87, 95% CI 0.74 to 1.03, moderate quality evidence) or a decrease in patient satisfaction with the consultation (OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.30, low quality evidence). There were insufficient data to assess the effects of the intervention on sustained reduction in antibiotic prescribing, adverse clinical outcomes (such as hospital admission, incidence of pneumonia and mortality), or measures of patient and caregiver involvement in shared decision making (such as satisfaction with the consultation; regret or conflict with the decision made; or treatment compliance following the decision). No studies assessed antibiotic resistance in colonising or infective organisms. Authors' conclusions: Interventions that aim to facilitate shared decision making reduce antibiotic prescribing in primary care in the short term. Effects on longer-term rates of prescribing are uncertain and more evidence is needed to determine how any sustained reduction in antibiotic prescribing affects hospital admission, pneumonia and death

Discrete event simulation and virtual reality use in industry: new opportunities and future trends

This paper reviews the area of combined discrete event simulation (DES) and virtual reality (VR) use within industry. While establishing a state of the art for progress in this area, this paper makes the case for VR DES as the vehicle of choice for complex data analysis through interactive simulation models, highlighting both its advantages and current limitations. This paper reviews active research topics such as VR and DES real-time integration, communication protocols, system design considerations, model validation, and applications of VR and DES. While summarizing future research directions for this technology combination, the case is made for smart factory adoption of VR DES as a new platform for scenario testing and decision making. It is put that in order for VR DES to fully meet the visualization requirements of both Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet visions of digital manufacturing, further research is required in the areas of lower latency image processing, DES delivery as a service, gesture recognition for VR DES interaction, and linkage of DES to real-time data streams and Big Data sets

Knowledge Management: A Discovery Process

Getting strategic about how you organize and redistribute knowledge can help just about anyone achieve their goals more efficiently. We at The McKnight Foundation often find ourselves at the center of meaty, data-rich, analytic conversations. This case study summarizes our yearlong exploration and planning to consume, organize, and share knowledge better

E-governance at the Local Government Level in the Philippines: An Assessment of City Government Websites

The application of information and communication technology for improving governance by enhancing government's role in service delivery, public administration, and promotion of participatory democracy has been gaining momentum in many parts of the world. In Philippine local government, this has been witnessed lately in the significant rise in web presence of many cities. To what extent have local governments in the Philippines implemented e-governance using websites as their medium? This study attempted to answer this question by looking into the resources and services that city governments provide to citizens and other groups in society through their websites. An assessment of the content of their websites indicated, however, the minimal adoption of e-governance as well as the underutilization of websites as e-governance tools.local government unit, information and communications technology (ICT), e-governance, government websites

E-governance at the Local Government Level in the Philippines: An Assessment of City Government Websites

The application of information and communication technology for improving governance by enhancing government's role in service delivery, public administration, and promotion of participatory democracy has been gaining momentum in many parts of the world. In Philippine local government, this has been witnessed lately in the significant rise in web presence of many cities. To what extent have local governments in the Philippines implemented e-governance using websites as their medium? This study attempted to answer this question by looking into the resources and services that city governments provide to citizens and other groups in society through their websites. An assessment of the content of their websites indicated, however, the minimal adoption of e-governance as well as the underutilization of websites as e-governance tools.information and communications technology (ICT), e-governance, government websites, Local Government Units (LGUs)