An Ontological formalization of the planning task

In this paper we propose a generic task ontology, which formalizes the space of planning problems. Although planning is one of the oldest researched areas in Artificial Intelligence and attempts have been made in the past at developing task ontologies for planning, these formalizations suffer from serious limitations: they do not exhibit the required level of formalization and precision and they usually fail to include some of the key concepts required for specifying planning problems. In con-trast with earlier proposals, our task ontology formalizes the nature of the planning task independently of any planning paradigm, specific domains, or applications and provides a fine-grained, precise and comprehensive characterization of the space of planning problems. Finally, in addition to producing a formal specification we have also operationalized the ontology into a set of executable definitions, which provide a concrete reusable resource for knowledge acquisition and system development in planning applications

Analiza diagnostic a subsitemelor sistemului de management Diagnosis Analysis of the Sub-Sistems of Management System

The management system represents all the elements having an organizational, decisional, informational, and methodological character through the agency of whom the process of management is achieved with a view of attaining a maximum level of performance. The managerial machinery of a modern company has a systemic structure within which the interdependencies among the component elements determine the functioning mechanism of the management at all levels. Irrespective of company’s characteristics (profile, size, market position, etc.) the following components of the management system should be noticed: the decisional sub-system, the organizational sub-system, the methodological and managerial sub-system, and the informational sub-system. The paper deals with a profound diagnosis analysis of these sub-systems considering the case of a company which activates within the Romanian energetic industry. The decisional sub-system gathers all the decisions adopted and implemented within the company according to the established goals and to the managerial hierarchical configuration. Integrated within the methodology of managerial analysis of the company, the diagnosis analysis of the decisional sub-system has as a goal the knowledge of its components, namely of the decisions established by managers during a certain period, of the manner the authority within the company is structured, of the decisional tools employed as well as of the part played by the organisms of participative management. Organizational sub-system represents all organizational elements that provide the frame, the division, the combination, and the functionality of labor processes with a view of achieving envisaged goals. The data displayed by the organizational scheme, the organizational and functioning regulations, jobs responsibilities at the level of a machines building company have emphasized several aspects that represent the starting point of analyzing the two components of this management sub-system, namely formal organization and informal organization. Informational sub-system comprises a series of data, items of information, informational fluxes and circuits, procedures and means of approaching information meant to contribute to the settlement and achievement of the company’s goals. The analysis of the informational sub-system has in view the fact that its part is to provide the company’s inner needs of information and its quality depends on the level of development of the technologies of transmitting information. The methodological sub-system designates the group of systems (complex methods), methods, and techniques employed in conceiving and exerting managerial functions and relations within a company. The important mutations that take place within the internal and external environment of the companies determine the managerial team to employ systems, methods, and techniques characteristic to managerial activity that are continually up-dated.diagnosis analysis; management system; decisional sub-system, organizational sub-system; informational sub-system; methodological sub-system

Discovery and composition of web services using artificial intelligence planning and web service modeling ontology

In today’s Web environment, Web services are the preferred standards-based way to realize Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) computing. A problem that has become one of the recent critical issues is automated discovery and composition of Semantic Web services. A number of approaches have been presented to solve the problem. However, most of these approaches only consider discovery or composition of Web services but not both. In this study, an effective approach called AIMO, based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) planning, Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO), and Semantic Web has been proposed to tackle the problem. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and develop a novel approach for automated Web service discovery and composition. In this case, a comparative evaluation of state-of-the-art approaches for Web service composition approaches has been done and the strengths and weaknesses of those approaches have been discussed. Moreover a translator for interaction between WSMO and AI-planning based on Description Logics has been proposed. In addition, some parts of AIMO architecture have been tested on a practical case study, and the results based on the experimental validation demonstrate that AIMO provides an effective and applicable solution. AIMO continues to support loose coupling paradigm of SOA by separating the discovery from the composition of Web services

Coupling system design and project planning: discussion on a bijective link between system and project structures

This article discuss the architecture of an integrated model able to support the coupling between a system design process and a project planning process. The project planning process is in charge of defining, planning and controlling the system design project. A benchmarking analysis carried out with fifteen companies belonging to the world competitiveness cluster, Aerospace Valley, has highlighted a lack of models, processes and tools for aiding the interactions between the two environments. We define the coupling as the establishment of links between entities of the two domains while preserving their original semantic, thus allowing information to be collected. The proposed coupling is recursive. It enables systems to be decomposed into subsystems when designers consider complexity to be too high, and can also decompose projects into sub-projects. The coupling enables systematically links to be drawn between project entities and system entities. In this paper, we discuss the different possibilities of linking system and project structures during the design and the planning processes. Firstly, after presenting the results of the industrial analysis, the different entities are defined and the various coupling modes are discussed

Nurse and Patient Perceptions of Discharge Readiness in Relation to Postdischarge Utilization

Background: Prevention of hospital readmission and emergency department (ED) utilization will be a crucial strategy in reducing health care costs. There has been limited research on nurse assessment and patient perceptions of discharge readiness in relation to postdischarge outcomes. Objectives: To investigate the association of nurse and patient assessments of discharge readiness with postdischarge readmissions and ED visits. Research Design: Hierarchical regression analysis of readmission or ED utilization using independent nurse and patient assessments of discharge readiness and patient characteristics as explanatory variables, with hospital and unit fixed effects. Subjects: A total of 162 adult medical-surgical patients and their discharging nurses from 13 medical-surgical units of 4 Midwestern hospitals. Measures: Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale completed independently by patients and their discharging nurses within 4 hours before hospital discharge; Postdischarge utilization (unplanned readmission or ED visit within 30 days postdischarge). Results: Correlations between nurse assessment and patient perceptions of discharge readiness were low (r = 0.15- 0.32). Nurses rated patient readiness higher than patients themselves. Controlling for patient characteristics, nurse readiness for hospital discharge scale score (odds ratio = 0.57, P = 0.05) but not patient readiness for hospital discharge scale score was associated with postdischarge utilization. Conclusions: Nurse assessment was more strongly associated with postdischarge utilization than patient self-assessment. Formalizing nurse assessment of discharge readiness could facilitate identification of patients at risk for readmission or ED utilization before discharge when anticipatory interventions could prevent avoidable postdischarge utilization

Beyond rules: The next generation of expert systems

The PARAGON Representation, Management, and Manipulation system is introduced. The concepts of knowledge representation, knowledge management, and knowledge manipulation are combined in a comprehensive system for solving real world problems requiring high levels of expertise in a real time environment. In most applications the complexity of the problem and the representation used to describe the domain knowledge tend to obscure the information from which solutions are derived. This inhibits the acquisition of domain knowledge verification/validation, places severe constraints on the ability to extend and maintain a knowledge base while making generic problem solving strategies difficult to develop. A unique hybrid system was developed to overcome these traditional limitations

Ground data systems resource allocation process

The Ground Data Systems Resource Allocation Process at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides medium- and long-range planning for the use of Deep Space Network and Mission Control and Computing Center resources in support of NASA's deep space missions and Earth-based science. Resources consist of radio antenna complexes and associated data processing and control computer networks. A semi-automated system was developed that allows operations personnel to interactively generate, edit, and revise allocation plans spanning periods of up to ten years (as opposed to only two or three weeks under the manual system) based on the relative merit of mission events. It also enhances scientific data return. A software system known as the Resource Allocation and Planning Helper (RALPH) merges the conventional methods of operations research, rule-based knowledge engineering, and advanced data base structures. RALPH employs a generic, highly modular architecture capable of solving a wide variety of scheduling and resource sequencing problems. The rule-based RALPH system has saved significant labor in resource allocation. Its successful use affirms the importance of establishing and applying event priorities based on scientific merit, and the benefit of continuity in planning provided by knowledge-based engineering. The RALPH system exhibits a strong potential for minimizing development cycles of resource and payload planning systems throughout NASA and the private sector