A theoretical and practical approach to a persuasive agent model for change behaviour in oral care and hygiene

There is an increased use of the persuasive agent in behaviour change interventions due to the agent‘s features of sociable, reactive, autonomy, and proactive. However, many interventions have been unsuccessful, particularly in the domain of oral care. The psychological reactance has been identified as one of the major reasons for these unsuccessful behaviour change interventions. This study proposes a formal persuasive agent model that leads to psychological reactance reduction in order to achieve an improved behaviour change intervention in oral care and hygiene. Agent-based simulation methodology is adopted for the development of the proposed model. Evaluation of the model was conducted in two phases that include verification and validation. The verification process involves simulation trace and stability analysis. On the other hand, the validation was carried out using user-centred approach by developing an agent-based application based on belief-desire-intention architecture. This study contributes an agent model which is made up of interrelated cognitive and behavioural factors. Furthermore, the simulation traces provide some insights on the interactions among the identified factors in order to comprehend their roles in behaviour change intervention. The simulation result showed that as time increases, the psychological reactance decreases towards zero. Similarly, the model validation result showed that the percentage of respondents‘ who experienced psychological reactance towards behaviour change in oral care and hygiene was reduced from 100 percent to 3 percent. The contribution made in this thesis would enable agent application and behaviour change intervention designers to make scientific reasoning and predictions. Likewise, it provides a guideline for software designers on the development of agent-based applications that may not have psychological reactance

Designing a BDI agent reactant model of behavioural change intervention

Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model is well suited for describing agent’s mental state. The BDI of an agent represents its motivational stance and are the main determinant of agent’s actions.Therefore, explicit understanding of the representation and modelling of such motivational stance plays a central role in designing BDI agent with successful behavioral change interventions. Nevertheless, existing BDI agent models do not represent agent’s behavioral factors explicitly. This leads to a gap between design and implementation where psychological reactance has being identified as the cause of BDI agent behavioral change interventions failure. Hence, this paper presents a generic representation of BDI agent model based on behavioral change and psychological theories.Also, using mathematical analysis the model was evaluated. The objective of the proposed BDI agent model is to bridge the gap between agent design and implementation for successful agent-based interventions.The model will be realized in an agent based application that motivates children towards oral hygiene. The study explicitly depicts how agent’s behavioral factors interact to enhance behavior change which will assist agent-based intervention designers to be able to design intervention that will be void of reactance

Learning from ERP implementation: A case study of issues and challenges in technology management

Purpose: ERP implementation comes with huge business competitive advantages nevertheless it also has its difficulties and challenges.This paper presents the findings of field work and interview conducted on issues and challenges of ERP implementation on small and medium enterprises (SMEs).It proposes implementation strategies at each of the implementation stages for a successful ERP implementation within SMEs. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed both personal interview and observation methods. Findings: The findings revealed that reengineering (organization and infrastructures), top management commitment, funds, skilled manpower, implementation time and data fill-in were the critical issues and challenges faced by SMEs during ERP implementation.Hence, these factors were identifies as ERP implementation successful factors to be considered by SMEs.Also the study proposed three implementation strategies stages which will enhance successful ERP implementation in the SMEs.Originality/value: This study identified funds, skilled manpower and data fill-in as part of critical factors for successful ERP implementation in SMEs.Therefore, the study was used to generate successful implementation strategies for SMEs

The influence of problem based learning on students’ generic skill

Many countries have embraced formal education to confront illiteracy and unemployment within their society.This is because one major advantage of formal education is the transfer of generic skills which is the cognitive strategies and domain independent knowledge. Generic skills are vital today because life and workplaces are in flux and are getting more complex which requires initiative, emotional mastery, flexibility, creativity, and the ability to take on many different tasks (involve learning by doing and experience).However, many students are found to be deficient of this skill which is making them unfit for the labour market and unattractive to employers.In addition, very few schools teach generic skills which are making students unable to develop them and be employable attractive to employers. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of generic skills using problem-based learning (PBL).This paper represents the first part of the study, which is to investigate the influence of students’ PBL on their generic skills This paper makes used of action research method, while quantitative research approach using both survey and documentation is employed for the study data collection.The study finding show that there is a significant influence on problem-based learning (PBL) and generic skills (GS).Similar significant influence is found on critical thinking (CT) and generic skills (GS).It was further pointed out that there is no disparity on students’ gender and academic background (science and non-science) with their generic skills.This implies that problem-based learning (PBL) and critical thinking (CT) enhances students’ generic skills

Agent support model for behaviour change intervention

Agent applications have been widely used in decision making process and behaviour change interventions nowadays which might be due to the four unique features of agent proactiveness, reactivity, social ability and autonomy.However, psychological reactance has been identified as a limiting cause of agent interventions. Although, many studies have investigated into both psychological reactance and behaviour change nevertheless the mechanism behind factors interaction that generate reactance during behaviour change interventions (BCI) have not be well studied. Also, how reactive intervention can be supported to obtain an improved behaviour change intervention is still lacking in most previous studies. Therefore, this paper explored dynamic system in differential equation analysis to obtained an agent support model for behaviour change intervention which explicitly describes factors interaction leading to reactance and behaviour change. The model depicts how reactive intervention can be supported to obtain an improved behaviour change intervention. Specifically, this model is tailored to computer or software mediated intervention like agent, avatar, and animation. This paper will aid and guide agent intervention designers to fully comprehend the mechanism behind factors that enhance successful and efficient intervention for their design

Designing a BDI agent model for behavioural change process

Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) model is well suited for describing agent’s mental state.The BDI of an agent represents its motivational stance and are the main determinant of agent’s actions. Therefore, explicit understanding of the representation and modelling of such motivational stance plays a central role in designing BDI agent with successful behavioural change interventions.Nevertheless, existing BDI agent models do not represent agent’s behavioural factors explicitly.This leads to a gap between design and implementation where psychological reactance has being identified as the cause of BDI agent behavioural change interventions failure. Hence, this paper presents a generic representation of BDI agent model based on behavioural change and psychological theories.The objective of this proposed BDI agent model is to bridge the gap between agent design and implementation for successful agent-based interventions.The model will be realized in an agent-based application that motivates children towards oral hygiene

Application of artificial neural network to predict annual global solar radiation for PV system’s sizing in UUM area, Malaysia

The knowledge and estimation of global solar radiation are very crucial in application of photovoltaic (PV) solar system at a particular location. Estimation of global solar radiation at University Utara Malaysia (UUM) area, Malaysia, (Latitude 60N and longitude 1000E) was carried out in this study.The artificial neural network model was used to predict the global solar radiation based on the available simple atmospheric parameters of ambient temperature.The statistical analyses were employed to validate the results obtained from the model.It is deduced from the results obtained that the values of the measured global solar radiation and the estimated values from artificial neural network model have a very close agreement and therefore, have been suggested to be utilized very efficiently in the prediction of the performance of global solar radiation for photovoltaic system application in UUM area and its environs.The values of mean bias error, root mean square error and mean percentage error are 0.00062, 0.00812 and -0.813 respectively.This confirmed the strong capacity of using the model to estimate global solar radiation in the study area for photovoltaic system utilization

Verification analysis of an agent based model in behaviour change process

This paper describes the verification analysis for agent formal model of behaviour change process. The verification analysis was based on two widely used approaches in agent formal evaluation namely mathematical and automated analysis. The mathematical analysis made use of stability equilibria point while the automated, made use of Temporal Trace Language (TTL). The results obtained verify the formal model validity

Project management challenges and difficulties: A case study of information system development

The successful development of Information System (IS) is not high even with enormous interest and fund committed by organizations on this new technology.It has been revealed that a combination of insufficient and unsuitable project management issues are responsible for this low rate of IS development.This paper presents the findings of the fieldwork and interview conducted on the challenges and difficulties of system development project.The study employed both personal interview and observation methods. The findings revealed that fund, infrastructures (hardware and software), manpower, management commitment, monitoring and inspection were the critical challenges and difficulties faced by organizations during their system development. Therefore, the study concludes that fund, infrastructures (hardware and software), manpower, management commitment, monitoring and inspection play crucial role for an effective system development.Our study recommends that there should be sufficient budget to procure the right system hardware and software for right requirements.Secondly, training of staff for both IS development and management should be given urgent attention