98,767 research outputs found

    Senior Managers’ Information Behavior in Current Emerging Ubiquitous and Intelligent Computing Environment

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    Emerging ubiquitous and intelligent information systems, such as the Internet, social computing technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), have facilitated the increasing complexity and dynamism of operational and strategic information in a highly distributed environment. As a result, organizations have been busy seeking approaches and tools to support senior managers in coping with this challenge, from organizational learning to knowledge management, from competitive intelligence to business intelligence, and from management information systems to strategic (executive) information systems. Before embarking on formulating and developing these approaches and tools, senior managers’ informational roles and information behavior should be understood. This paper explores factors influencing and shaping existing senior managers’ information behavior in order to shed light on value-added approaches or technological solutions for supporting and improving informational roles of senior managers. The findings show that information behavior of senior managers is influenced and shaped by a number of factors, mainly the organizational actors and organizational situations, followed by their affective responses and the use of technological tools

    Supporting decision making process with "Ideal" software agents: what do business executives want?

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    According to Simon’s (1977) decision making theory, intelligence is the first and most important phase in the decision making process. With the escalation of information resources available to business executives, it is becoming imperative to explore the potential and challenges of using agent-based systems to support the intelligence phase of decision-making. This research examines UK executives’ perceptions of using agent-based support systems and the criteria for design and development of their “ideal” intelligent software agents. The study adopted an inductive approach using focus groups to generate a preliminary set of design criteria of “ideal” agents. It then followed a deductive approach using semi-structured interviews to validate and enhance the criteria. This qualitative research has generated unique insights into executives’ perceptions of the design and use of agent-based support systems. The systematic content analysis of qualitative data led to the proposal and validation of design criteria at three levels. The findings revealed the most desirable criteria for agent based support systems from the end users’ point view. The design criteria can be used not only to guide intelligent agent system design but also system evaluation

    Revitalising executive information systems for supporting executive intelligence activities

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    A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Univeristy of BedfordshireWith the increasing amount, complexity and dynamism of operational and strategic information in electronic and distributed environment, executives are seeking assistance for continuous, self-reactive and self-adaptive activities or approaches of acquiring, synthesising and interpreting information for intelligence with a view to determining the course of action - executive intelligence activities. Executives Information Systems (EIS) were originally emerged as a computer-based tool to help senior executives to manage the search and process of information. EIS was popularised in 1990's but EIS study have not advanced to a great extent in either research or practice since its prevalence in the mid and late 1990's. Conventional EIS studies have established some views and guidelines for EIS design and development, but the guidelines underpinned by preceding research have failed to develop robust yet rational EIS for handling the current executive's information environment. The most common deficiency of traditional EIS is the static and inflexible function with predetermined information needs and processes designed for static performance monitoring and control. The current emergence of the intelligent software agent, as a concept and a technology, with applications, provides prospects and advanced solutions for supporting executive's information processing activities in a more integrated and distributed environment of the Internet. Although software agents offer the prospective to support information processing activities intelligently, executive's desires and perception of agent-based support must be elucidated in order to develop a system that is considered valuable for executives. This research attempts to identify executive criteria of an agent-based EIS for supporting executive intelligence activities. Firstly, four focus groups were conducted to explore and reveal the current state of executive's information environment and information processing behaviour in the light of Internet era, from which to examine the validity of the conventional views of EIS purpose, functions and design guidelines. Initial executive criteria for agent-based EIS design were also identified in the focus group study. Secondly, 25 senior managers were interviewed for deeper insights on value-added attributes and processes of executive criteria for building agent-based EIS. The findings suggest a "usability-adaptability-intelligence" trichotomy of agent-based EIS design model that comprises executive criteria of value-added attributes and processes for building a usable, adaptable and intelligent EIS

    How conscious experience and working memory interact

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    Active components of classical working memory are conscious, but traditional theory does not account for this fact. Global Workspace theory suggests that consciousness is needed to recruit unconscious specialized networks that carry out detailed working memory functions. The IDA model provides a fine-grained analysis of this process, specifically of two classical workingmemory tasks, verbal rehearsal and the utilization of a visual image. In the process, new light is shed on the interactions between conscious and unconscious\ud aspects of working memory

    Smart Technologies for Environmental Safety and Knowledge Enhancement in Intermodal Transport

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    International concerns about security in transport systems are leading to a new international regulation in this field. This introduces new requirements for operators and authorities as well as it opens new challenges, in particular when referred to seaports and maritime transport in the Mediterranean area, where many seaport terminals and infrastructures are affected by a noteworthy technological divide from North European contexts. In such contexts, the adoption of the new regulations can represent the right chance for upgrading the local operative standards, increasing latu sensu the quality of maritime transport performances, while conferring a greater level to security and safety checks. This paper explores the chances for increasing the level of Mediterranean seaport competitiveness allowed by technological innovations in transport systems, both in operations and organization of these infrastructures. The aim of the work is to study the effects of the adoption of technological solutions such as wireless communications and radiofrequency identification on the competitiveness of Mediterranean seaport infrastructures. Technological solutions designed to identify good items help operators in organizing activities in terminals and make maritime transport faster in delivering goods, by cutting the handling time and costs in seaport terminals. Seaports that adopt this kind of technologies, and the surrounding economic areas connected to seaports, have a greater attractiveness on shipping companies and operators, since they allow faster handling activities and easier checks on goods. Besides, the analysis of direct and indirect effects of the use of such technologies specifically focuses on the contribution that the use of these solutions gives in ensuring higher security levels, by increasing the level of information and knowledge associated to goods. The different types of security provided (e.g. for people, environment and goods) and the extreme flexibility of the technologies involved give the overall worth of the challenge. It seems to be a great chance of growth for the Mediterranean area, more than a mere compliance to the international security regulations.

    Planning and Resource Management in an Intelligent Automated Power Management System

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    Power system management is a process of guiding a power system towards the objective of continuous supply of electrical power to a set of loads. Spacecraft power system management requires planning and scheduling, since electrical power is a scarce resource in space. The automation of power system management for future spacecraft has been recognized as an important R&D goal. Several automation technologies have emerged including the use of expert systems for automating human problem solving capabilities such as rule based expert system for fault diagnosis and load scheduling. It is questionable whether current generation expert system technology is applicable for power system management in space. The objective of the ADEPTS (ADvanced Electrical Power management Techniques for Space systems) is to study new techniques for power management automation. These techniques involve integrating current expert system technology with that of parallel and distributed computing, as well as a distributed, object-oriented approach to software design. The focus of the current study is the integration of new procedures for automatically planning and scheduling loads with procedures for performing fault diagnosis and control. The objective is the concurrent execution of both sets of tasks on separate transputer processors, thus adding parallelism to the overall management process

    Implementation of an intelligent control system

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    A laboratory testbed facility which was constructed at NASA LeRC for the development of an Intelligent Control System (ICS) for reusable rocket engines is described. The framework of the ICS consists of a hierarchy of various control and diagnostic functions. The traditional high speed, closed-loop controller resides at the lowest level of the ICS hierarchy. Above this level resides the diagnostic functions which identify engine faults. The ICS top level consists of the coordination function which manages the interaction between an expert system and a traditional control system. The purpose of the testbed is to demonstrate the feasibility of the OCS concept by implementing the ICS as the primary controller in a simulation of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). The functions of the ICS which are implemented in the testbed are as follows: an SSME dynamic simulation with selected fault mode models, a reconfigurable controller, a neural network for sensor validation, a model-based failure detection algorithm, a rule based failure detection algorithm, a diagnostic expert system, an intelligent coordinator, and a user interface which provides a graphical representation of the event occurring within the testbed. The diverse nature of the ICS has led to the development of a distributed architecture consisting of specialized hardware and software for the implementation of the various functions. This testbed is made up of five different computer systems. These individual computers are discussed along with the schemes used to implement the various ICS components. The communication between computers and the timing and synchronization between components are also addressed

    Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

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    Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes
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