Web-Based Training: A case study on the development of an Intranet based training course

Multimedia and hypermedia applications have been successfully used for user training. This paper addresses the question whether the World Wide Web can be used to deliver web-based training of similar quality compared to traditional hypermedia learning systems. The development of a web-based training course for a major company is described, and the lessons learned from that project are discussed

An Analysis of Electronic Auctions as a Mechanism for Supply Chain Management

The proliferation of electronic commerce venues on the Web has dramatically expanded the reach of businesses. It is now much easier for a firm to deal directly not only with its customers, but with its entire supply chain. During the past several years, business-to-business transactions have become simpler, faster, and more accurate since the advent of electronic data interchange (EDI) and the explosive growth of information technology. The Internet is introducing yet another way for businesses to electronically conduct transactions in ways that are even more farreaching. Although this has led to some disintermediation at the brick-and-mortar level, new cybermediaries are being created to facilitate and validate the new business relationships. Internet auctions are being touted as one solution for at least some aspects of supply chain management. Attention so far has been primarily focused on the application of the technology. Although the technology facilitates the transactions and interactions of participants by increasing connectivity, other issues are also important in applying electronic auctions to supply chain management. The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore interdisciplinary issues potentially affecting the outcome of electronic business-to-business auctions in order to increase the awareness of Information Systems managers and auction participants so that effective implementation strategies can be developed

A Temporal Expert System for Engineering Design Change Workflow

Workflow management, which is concerned with the coordination and control of business processes using information technology, has grown from its origins in document routing to include the automation of process logic in business process engineering. Workflow also has a strong temporal aspect. Activity sequencing, deadlines, routing conditions,and scheduling all involve the element of time. Temporal expert systems, which use knowledge-based constructs to represent and reason about time, can be used to enhance the capabilities of workflow software. This paper presents a temporal expert system workflow component for tracking engineering design changes. We use Allen\u27s theory of temporal intervals in our model to enhance the decision-making, timing, and routing activities in a workflow application. We test the model using information from a real-world engineering design situation and suggest further research opportunitie

A CLIPS-based expert system for the evaluation and selection of robots

This paper describes the development of a prototype expert system for intelligent selection of robots for manufacturing operations. The paper first develops a comprehensive, three-stage process to model the robot selection problem. The decisions involved in this model easily lend themselves to an expert system application. A rule-based system, based on the selection model, is developed using the CLIPS expert system shell. Data about actual robots is used to test the performance of the prototype system. Further extensions to the rule-based system for data handling and interfacing capabilities are suggested

WIPER: The Integrated Wireless Phone Based Emergency Response System

Abstract. We describe a prototype emergency response system. This dynamic data driven application system (DDDAS) uses wireless call data, including call volume, who calls whom, call duration, services in use, and cell phone location information. Since all cell phones (that are powered on) maintain contact with one or more local cell towers, location data about each phone is updated peri-odically and available throughout the cellular phone network. This permits the cell phones of a city to serve as an ad hoc mobile sensor net, measuring the movement and calling patterns of the population. Social network theory and sta-tistical analysis on normal call activity and call locations establish a baseline. A detection and alert system monitors streaming summary cell phone call data. Abnormal call patterns or population movements trigger a simulation and pre-diction system. Hypotheses about the anomaly are generated by a rule-based system, each initiating an agent-based simulation. Automated dynamic valida-tion of the simulations against incoming streaming data is used to test each hy-pothesis. A validated simulation is used to predict the evolution of the anomaly and made available to an emergency response decision support system.

An online analytical processing multi-dimensional data warehouse for malaria data

Malaria is a vector-borne disease that contributes substantially to the global burden of morbidity and mortality. The management of malaria-related data from heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed data sources poses unique challenges and requirements. Although online data storage systems exist that address specific malaria-related issues, a globally integrated online resource to address different aspects of the disease does not exist. In this article, we describe the design, implementation, and applications of a multidimensional, online analytical processing data warehouse, named the VecNet Data Warehouse (VecNet-DW). It is the first online, globally-integrated platform that provides efficient search, retrieval and visualization of historical, predictive, and static malaria-related data, organized in data marts. Historical and static data are modelled using star schemas, while predictive data are modelled using a snowflake schema. The major goals, characteristics, and components of the DW are described along with its data taxonomy and ontology, the external data storage systems and the logical modelling and physical design phases. Results are presented as screenshots of a Dimensional Data browser, a Lookup Tables browser, and a Results Viewer interface. The power of the DW emerges from integrated querying of the different data marts and structuring those queries to the desired dimensions, enabling users to search, view, analyse, and store large volumes of aggregated data, and responding better to the increasing demands of users