A Cellular Model for Information Systems on the Web : Integrating Local and Global Information

The Web上で、一日に一国の国内総生産(GDP)に匹敵する金融取引が行われるe-businessが盛んになるに至り、The Web上の情報システムについての研究が重要性を増してきている。本報告では、The Web上のsitesの局所情報をネットワークグローバルに活用する「The Web上の情報システム」の特徴を、セル空間理論により端的にモデル化できる事を示す。Cyberworlds are being formed on the web either intentionally or spontaneously, with or without design. Widespread and intensive local activities are melting each other on the web globally to create cyberworlds. What is called e-business including electronic financing has been conducted in cyberworlds and has crossed a national finance level in its scale. Without proper modeling, cyberworlds will continue to grow chaotic and will soon be out of human understanding. A novel information model we named “a cellular model” serves to globally integrate local models. As an information model, it is applicable to the category of irregular data models that capture spatio-temporal aspects as situations. Mathematically it is based on cellular spatial structures in a homotopy theoretical framework and is an extension of graph theory

Modelling human support agent for managers during stress

Patterns of stress at work become a popular topic and have been reported everywhere.Work related performance during stress is a pattern of reactions that occurs when managers are presented with work demands that are not matched with their knowledge, skills, or abilities, and which challenge their ability to cope.Although there are many prior findings pertaining to explain the development of manager performance during stress, less attention has been given to explain the same concept through computational models. In such, a descriptive nature in psychological theories about managers’ performance during stress can be transformed into a causal-mechanistic stage that explains the relationship between a series of observed phenomena.This paper proposed a human support agent model for analyzing managers’ performance during stress. Set of properties and variables are identified through past literatures to construct the model.Differential equations have been used in formalizing the model.Set of equations reflecting relations involved in the proposed model are presented. The developed model has been simulated by applying it to different scenarios.Mathematical analysis has been used for the evaluation of the model.Results showed that the support model is able to show the effects of different levels of stress on managers’ performance.The proposed model is essential and can be encapsulated within an intelligent agent or robots that can be used to support managers during stress

Optimal Acceleration-Velocity-Bounded Trajectory Planning in Dynamic Crowd Simulation

Creating complex and realistic crowd behaviors, such as pedestrian navigation behavior with dynamic obstacles, is a difficult and time consuming task. In this paper, we study one special type of crowd which is composed of urgent individuals, normal individuals, and normal groups. We use three steps to construct the crowd simulation in dynamic environment. The first one is that the urgent individuals move forward along a given path around dynamic obstacles and other crowd members. An optimal acceleration-velocity-bounded trajectory planning method is utilized to model their behaviors, which ensures that the durations of the generated trajectories are minimal and the urgent individuals are collision-free with dynamic obstacles (e.g., dynamic vehicles). In the second step, a pushing model is adopted to simulate the interactions between urgent members and normal ones, which ensures that the computational cost of the optimal trajectory planning is acceptable. The third step is obligated to imitate the interactions among normal members using collision avoidance behavior and flocking behavior. Various simulation results demonstrate that these three steps give realistic crowd phenomenon just like the real world

Conceptual Design Model of Computerized Personal-Decision AID (ComPDA)

To date, the attentions given to the improvement of decision support at organizational level has been enormous. On the contrary, academic research in improving the performance of computerized decision aid (CDA) for personal decision is lacking, in which some are dated. Nowadays, the existence of CDA which handles personal decision is mushrooming and progressively getting attention from users. Despite that, users’ perceptions of the suitable decision strategy and technique for CDA have not been subjected to systematic investigation. Literature reviews also indicate that most users do not go for complex mathematical techniques despite the fact that these techniques are better at handling the risks and uncertainties in decisions. In fact, more often than not, the development process of CDAs does not seem to adhere to any conceptual and theoretical model. In view of that, this study aims to propose a conceptual design model for computerized personal-decision aid (ComPDA). The following objectives are outlined to support the general aim: (i) to identify appropriate decision strategy and technique for ComPDA, (ii) to incorporate identified strategy and technique in the construction of conceptual design model for ComPDA (iii) to validate the conceptual design model in different situations via prototyping method and (iv) to measure the users’ perceived helpfulness of the ComPDA prototypes. Participatory design method was implemented in order to achieve objective i and ii. The findings were incorporated into the construction of the conceptual design model of ComPDA. In achieving objective iii, the conceptual design model was validated in two different case studies via prototyping: A- choosing development methodology in mobile computing course (md-Matrix); and B- purchasing a mobile phone (ep-Matrix). In achieving objective iv, an instrument (named as Q-HELP) was developed to measure the helpfulness (HLP) of the prototypes. This study identified four relevant constructs pertinent to helpfulness; reliability (REL), decision making effort (EFF), confidence (CON), and decision awareness (AWR). Altogether, 122 respondents participated where 63 were from case study A and 59 from case study B. Eight hypotheses were formulated comprising testing for correlation between all the constructs in Q-HELP with helpfulness, testing the average time spent to make a selection with and without the proposed ComPDA and testing if the mean score of helpfulness of the proposed ComPDA is high. Paired Samples t Test, Pearson Correlation analyses and descriptive analyses were utilized to validate the hypotheses. The results show that: REL and HLP are significantly correlated, EFF and HLP are significantly correlated, CON and HLP are significantly correlated, AWR and HLP are significantly correlated, the use of md-Matrix and ep-Matrix significantly reduces the time spent to make selection, mean score of helpfulness of md-Matrix is fairly high and mean score of helpfulness of ep-Matrix is high. However, it is concluded that the overall results exhibit sufficient indication that md-Matrix and ep-Matrix were found helpful to users in terms of reliability, lessening the decision making effort, increasing confidence and also awareness in decision making. This study has produced the following outcomes, along with achieving all of its objectives: (i) a conceptual design model for ComPDA which incorporates suitable decision strategies and techniques identified via systematic investigations; (ii) two functional ComPDA prototypes to validate the conceptual design model and to demonstrate its applicability in different situations, (iii) an instrument for measuring helpfulness which includes dimensions from outcome and process aspects; and (iv) comparative analyses of decision models, strategies and techniques which provide basis for future studies.