Intelligent decision support systems for optimised diabetes

Computers now pervade the field of medicine extensively; one recent innovation is the development of intelligent decision support systems for inexperienced or non-specialist pbysicians, or in some cases for use by patients. In this thesis a critical review of computer systems in medicine, with special reference to decision support systems, is followed by a detailed description of the development and evaluation of two new, interacting, intelligent decision support systems in the domain of diabetes. Since the discovery of insulin in 1922, insulin replacement therapy for the treatment of diabetes mellitus bas evolved into a complex process; there are many different formulations of insulin and much more information about the factors which affect patient management (e.g. diet, exercise and progression of complications) are recognised. Physicians have to decide on the most appropriate anti-diabetic therapy to prescribe to their patients. Insulin-treated patients also have to monitor their blood glucose and decide how much insulin to inject and when to inject it. In order to help patients determine the most appropriate dose of insulin to take, a simple-to-use, hand-held decision support system has been developed. Algorithms for insulin adjustment have been elicited and combined with general rules of therapy to offer advice for every dose. The utility of the system has been evaluated by clinical trials and simulation studies. In order to aid physician management, a clinic-based decision support system has also been developed. The system provides wide-ranging advice on all aspects of diabetes care and advises an appropriate therapy regimen according to individual patient circumstances. Decisions advised by the pbysician-related system have been evaluated by a panel of expert physicians and the system has undergone informal primary evaluation within the clinic setting. An interesting aspect of both systems is their ability to provide advice even in cases where information is lacking or uncertain

Aging between Participation and Simulation

This publication aims to initiate an interdisciplinary discourse on the ethical, legal, and social implications of socially assistive technologies in healthcare. It combines practically relevant insights and examples from current research and development with ethical analysis to uncover moral pitfalls at the intersection between the promotion of social participation and well-being, and risks that may diminish the achievement of these ends

Aging between Participation and Simulation

This publication aims to initiate an interdisciplinary discourse on the ethical, legal, and social implications of socially assistive technologies in healthcare. It combines practically relevant insights and examples from current research and development with ethical analysis to uncover moral pitfalls at the intersection between the promotion of social participation and well-being, and risks that may diminish the achievement of these ends

Understanding trust and confidence in web behaviour

Trust is recognised as the construct that makes societies function; not only this but it is understood to be the element that makes them successful, wealthier, healthier and wiser. A problem of the trust construct is that, despite its perceived importance on facilitating modern life, it remains a subject that lacks consensus on its definition. Within literature, when the construct of trust is applied to the Web context, there is further confusion as the construct being referred to as trust in actual fact referring to the construct of confidence. This confusion led to the research in understanding trust and confidence in Web behaviour. In addition to researching the literature, the diary-study interview method was used to investigate into how the constructs of trust and confidence function on the Web. The diary study was designed to act as an observational research method, and in doing so would identify the what and how participants used the Web, with the follow-up interviews extracting the why.When taking the core-concept understanding of trust (as developed within this thesis), it shows there to be a disparity between trust and its applicability to the Web. The study further supports this view, and from this emerges the key finding that Web interactions are facilitated and driven by confidence – not trust. Confidence is the construct that drives the Web; what impacts and influences the behaviour of its users. Secondly, and more crucially, confidence is a construct that cannot be created on the Web per se. It is shaped by an individuals' worldview (optimistic / pessimistic), their disposition to risk, their cultural tendencies, their personalities, all of which are factors that are influenced by, and built up on, real-world experiences. Put simply, confidence is created through real-world experiences and it is the real-world atti-tude of an individual that is carried over to govern the nature of their Web interactions

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

Understanding science teachers’ use and integration of ICT in a developing country context

Information and communication technology (ICT) has infiltrated society to the point of becoming essential to much of its everyday functioning. People rely on ICT to communicate, access information, and stay connected in an increasing globalised community. In many developed countries, ICT is now strongly featured in education for teaching and learning. In South Africa, as in other developing or partly developed countries, ICT use in education remains limited. This research was conducted to explore and understand how those South African science teachers who have access to ICT use it when they teach science. It was done to explain some of the reasons those teachers use ICT in the ways that they do, and to gain a better insight into the value that using ICT adds to both teaching and learning science. The research was designed as a mixed methods study, using both quantitative data collected from 267 Grade 8 science teachers in South Africa through the SITES 2006 teacher questionnaire, and qualitative data collected from three science teachers, all of whom taught science in a context of limited resources typical of a developing country. The data collected and analysed in this study showed that when science teachers have access to ICT for teaching and learning in classrooms typical of developing country contexts, they are able to use that ICT effectively to add value to teaching and learning. The greatest value is added when the teacher has a high technological pedagogical content knowledge. Secondly, at the level of the teacher, personal entrepreneurship is a key factor in a teacher’s ability to use ICT to add value to teaching and learning and to support the educational objectives based on 21st century learning objectives. Thirdly, teachers use the available ICT resources in a variety of ways but it seems that access to a personal computer, either laptop or desktop, in the classroom is a minimum requirement for ICT use in subject teaching. And lastly, the gap between ICT policy intentions as outlined in the South African e-Education White Paper (DoE, 2004b) and ICT practice remains large. There was no evidence from this study to suggest that the ICT policy intentions influenced practice at classroom level.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010.Education Management and Policy Studiesunrestricte