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DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS LITERATURE REVIEW

NOTE:  Suggest you read - Reading Practices  - by Peter Denning, before you tackle the handouts, and to help you read faster and more effectively. (Needs Adobe Acrobat reader.)


Session One:  DSS Overview

"Don't Point, Just Think: The Brain Wave as Joystick"
New York Times (03/28/02) P. E6; Eisenberg, Anne Experiments have shown progress in the development of a brain-machine interface that could one day allow paralyzed or disabled people to control computers or artificial limbs mentally

 DSS News: Vol. 3, No. 13  Decisions are financial, Active financial planning

 DSS News: Vol. 3, No. 12  Forecasting, Revenue Projections, Hide Rows

  The Concept of Knowledge Creation
It seems everyone is ready to jump onto the knowledge management bandwagon these days in the hope that it will be a successful tool for his or her business. But Professors David Midgley, Timothy Devinney and Christine Soo say it takes careful coordination and awareness to develop know-how in an organisation. Read on as they explain the specifics of the comprehensive knowledge creation “chain”.

Five roles of an information system: a social constructionist approach to analyzing the use of ERP systems
Linda Askenäs, Alf Westelius
Pages: 426 - 434
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(155 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, citings, index terms

Wet thought
Making decisions between artificial and real intelligence -- Where we are and why we shouldn't go there.
Source: Darwin Online
 

New Robotic Gliders Can Soar Under Water
(AP) - A century after the Wright Brothers first took to the skies, the world of flight is pushing to new depths. Researchers are perfecting innovative gliders that can swoop and soar on journeys covering hundreds of miles and lasting for weeks — all deep beneath the ocean waves. The fledgling technology, barely a decade old, has already produced robotic submarine gliders that move slowly, with the nimbleness of a blimp

The BI tool conundrum: The untold reality of BI tools
Columnist advises a full technical and functional review, starting from the basic business assumptions and processes your company uses now, before evaluating business intelligence tools for analysis and plannin. Recommended criteria include: usability, integration, manageability, reliability, functionality, and adaptability. (Aug. 10, 2001)
Source: Intelligent Enterprise

Business intelligence software: Get smart
Comparison and evaluation of four business intelligence packages that are marketed to middle-sized companies: Brio Enterprise 6.2.2; Cognos Business Intelligence Platform; Crystal Enterprise 8.0; and MicroStrategy 7. (August 1, 2001)
Source: PC Magazine

Business intelligence tools are the key to building profits
This article, first in a series of three, details three benefits business intelligence tools bring to B-2-B sales and marketing processes (July 10, 2001).
Source: Tech Republic
 

The strategic benefits of knowledge management
Here's an interesting white paper on the need for knowledge management solutions. It includes a description and evaluation of KM, along with a few case studies about companies who implemented a solution. The paper is geared to promote Serviceware's KM solution, but does provide some neutral insight into the technology.
Source: techguide.com

Get to the root problem
Are new network monitoring tools the key to a well-managed network? Many IT pros say no, these new automated tools just aren't smart enough.
Source: Computerworld

Custom fit
This article goes a long way on the personalization front. Its author approaches the topic from both the business and consumer perspective, giving the reader some often overlooked points of practice. (March 8, 2001)
Source: EAI Magazine

Making sense of business intelligence
Turning away from dropping copious amounts of money into advertising campaigns, businesses are now looking to focus their money more accurately on their customer bases. Business intelligence provides this. Analyzing customers, buying habits, and other actions will become the future as dot-coms seek to turn that ever-illusory profit. (Dec. 1, 2000)
Source: internet.com  

Network Intelligence: The Lifeblood of Business Productivity

ACT: A corporation lives or dies by its employees' ability to access information, and its network is the vital framework that carries that information to the farthest reaches of the company. Corporate networks handle work as simple as e-mailing a file to a colleague, or as complex as connecting mission-critical applications across vast geographic distances to streamline the supply chain. When it's up and running at peak performance, the network is worth untold millions of dollars in new business opportunities and efficiencies

Traditional Decision Support Systems
Published in Sept. 1999, this article written for administrators takes a look at traditional decision support systems (DSSs) and the reasons why they have not provided complete, correct, and timely information to the organization.

The Ins and Outs of Personality
Whether you're reserved or outgoing, here's how to emphasize the positives of your natural style.
January 15, 2003 – CIO

Session Two: Decision Making Process

Overview of Decision Making -Effective decision making is a name for a systematic process of coping with matters of concern to you. Following the process offers the greatest chance of resolving many problems.

How to make good decisions -  Unlike the strategies used in the previous section which tell you what to do, it is possible to learn how to make good decisions. It is possible to learn the process of making good strategic decisions by practiced deciding. This Web site is about practiced deciding, to which you must give enough thought.

Persuasive Computing: Perspectives and Research Directions (PDF)
This CHI '98 paper defines persuasive technology and provides direction for further research.

Elements of Computer Credibility (PDF)
This article discusses how perceived credibility affects a user's experience and how designers can increase perceived credibility. 

Persuasive Technologies (Note: you need to scroll down one page to see the article text.) (PDF)
BJ Fogg defines captology and introduces a series of articles on persuasive technology featured in Communications of the ACM.

The Landscape of Persuasive Technologies (PDF)
This article shows how persuasive technologies can be categorized along four dimensions: domain, target user group, physical manifestation, and persuasive strategy.

Credibility and Computing Technology (PDF)
This article explains why credibility is important in certain technology domains.  Computing systems can gain or lose credibility due to various factors.

Web Credibility Research: A Method for Online Research and Early Study Results (PDF)
This article describes a large-scale study on web credibility and gives results of our preliminary data analysis. (We have a longer paper on this same study--see the next article)

What Makes Web Sites Credible? A Report on a Large Quantitative Study. (PDF)
This article gives a fairly detailed report on one of our large-scale web credibility studies.

Seductive Computing (PDF)
This article describes how software interfaces can be seductive by enticing the user, appealing to emotion, going beyond obvious expectations, and fulfilling promises.

Toward an Ethics of Persuasive Technology (PDF)
This article shows why designing technologies with the intent to persuade has ethical consequences.

Cognitive Decision Making Recognition is an understanding by the "similarity process" of mind in the behavioral and cognitive decision process. Decision-making is the central activity for both leaders and managers. Managing and leading are not the same. The manager's responsibility is "To Do the Things Right",

Consensus Decision Making - Consensus is a decision-making process that fully utilizes the resources of a group. It is more difficult and time consuming to reach than a democratic vote or an autocratic decision. Most issues will involve trade-offs and the various decision alternatives will not satisfy everyone.

What Is An Example Of A Decision Process?- From "Ask Dan" in DSS News, March 31, 2002: Actually describing and explaining an example of a decision process can be difficult depending upon what one defines as a decision process. A decision process refers to t he steps or analyses that lead to a decision and a specific decision process is often described in terms of inputs to the process, transformations during the process, and outputs from it. Also, decision processes are often part of larger business or organization processes and hence can be hard to identify and define.

Leadership Decision Making
How People Avoid Making Serious Decisions; When One Should Not Make Serious Decisions; How to Make Good Decisions; etc.

An Enterprise Decision Management Architecture - An enterprise's decisions control its interactions with customers, partners and employees. They are critical drivers of the enterprise's business processes. However, because decisions are typically embedded deeply within business processes, enterprises often do not clearly understand the shortcomings of their current decision design and deployment processes. The Fair Isaac Enterprise Decision Management suite provides all the technologies you need to implement EDM on top of your existing enterprise architecture.

Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory
One very important result of Kahneman and Tversky work is demonstrating that people's attitudes toward risks concerning gains may be quite different from their attitudes toward risks concerning losses.

Creating a Foundation for Enterprise Decision Management- This white paper examines how to enable and execute smarter and better-coordinated decisions. In essence, the challenge is how to create new Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) solutions that not only tap into existing operational system, workflows and organizational expertise, but also provide a common framework for designing, automating and managing intelligent decisions across the enterprise.

DSS: A Comprehensive Water Resources Management Tool and Decision Process  What are decision support systems?
A decision support system (DSS) is both a process and a tool for solving problems that are too complex for humans alone, but usually too qualitative for only computers.

Reducing Risk and Fraud across the Telecom Customer Lifecycle
Fair Isaac's Telecom Decision Analytics Suite of solutions enables service providers to automate and improve complex decisions across the customer lifecycle. Our solutions help cultivate more valuable customer relationships and enhance profitability through increased revenue, reduced fraud and lower credit losses.


Session Three: DSS Model and Analysis.

Improving Repetitive Manufacturing Systems: Model and Insights
by Scott Webster and Z. Kevin Weng

.
A Generic Representation for Exploiting Model-Based Information S. Bowers and L. Delcambre


How to study ants. Numerical competence using their own communicative means and applying ideas of information theory Zhanna Reznikova and Boris Ryabko.

Using Choice Modeling in Service Management
A framework for gaining a clearer understanding of customer preferences.

Product-development and marketing managers know that customers make purchasing decisions on the basis of many criteria, including service quality, delivery speed and price. But since no company can excel in all aspects of service delivery simultaneously, companies must make trade-offs on the basis of what they do best, what criteria matter most to their customers, and what their competitors are offering.

Origins of Traffic Theory
by Denos C. Gazis

Comments on the Origin and Application of Markov Decision Processes
by Ronald A. Howard

The First Linear Programming Shoppe
by Saul I. Gass

Solving Real-World Linear Programs: A Decade and More of Progress
by Robert E. Bixby

Retailers Explore Price Optimization
Computerworld, January 20, 2003 -  Early adopters see benefit, but some users still wary of new technology

On the Effectiveness of Zero-Inventory-Ordering Policies for the Economic Lot Sizing Model with Piecewise Linear Cost Structures
by Lap Mui Ann Chan, Zuo-Jun Shen, and David Simchi-Levi

Digital Reanimation
Researchers at MIT have created a video system that will allow film and television directors to animate images of people—living or dead—and make them appear to say things they've never actually said.

Ph.D. Dissertation Topic: Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) / Distributed Object Computing (DOC) Modeling and Simulation [420KB]  by D.R. Hild ; March 2000, Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., University of Arizona

Zeigler, B.P., Discrete Event Abstraction: An Emerging Paradigm For Modeling Complex Adaptive Systems [314KB]
Festschrift in honor of John H. Holland. L. Booker.

Fox Rabies Model

A spatially explicit computer model is developed to examine the dynamic spread of fox rabies across the state of Illinois and to evaluate possible disease control strategies. The ultimate concern is that the disease will spread from foxes to humans through the pet population.

The Individual Cowbird Behavior Model (ICBM)

 uses state-of-the-art computer technology to simulate the spatial distribution and movements of cowbirds on Fort Hood. By determining locations where foraging cowbirds aggregate, ICBM can be applied by land managers to help guide decisions regarding the placement of traps on the landscape. By reducing parastism by cowbirds, managers may better protect these endangered species and other songbirds on Fort Hood. A related model, the Fort Hood Avian Simulation Model -- FHASM, simulates the effects of land-use practices and management activities on the population dynamics of both the black-capped vireo and golden-cheeked warbler.

Model modelers in predictive churn

Churn modeling is very much like gourmet cooking. When done well, it has a lot of science, a dash of finesse and even a pinch of intuition. With rates of customer defection reaching epidemic levels in industries like retail, travel, healthcare, and banking, predicting turnover has become significantly more important to business in recent years. Having reviewed material on many churn models across a multitude of industries, we've concluded that perhaps no industries practice more predictive modeling than telecom and financial services. This makes sense because of their high degree of customer risk and defection

  IKAN methodology is explained - Real-time inverse kinematics techniques for anthropomorphic limbs, submitted to the Journal - Graphical Models.  Inverse Kinematics using ANalytical Methods (IKAN) is a complete set of inverse kinematics algorithms suitable for an anthropomorphic arm or leg.

Logical design of a data warehouse to support reporting, ad hoc query, Executive Information Systems, and Decision Support Systems
Dr. Paul Dorsey's paper is straightforward, clearly written, and easily understood for DBA's weighing the factors involved in building a data warehouse for use with ad hoc tools. He presents a compelling argument, supported by real-world examples.
 

PARAMETERIZING THE SET OF MODELS OF A PROPOSITIONAL THEORY

It is often inadequate that a theory be consistent, i.e. have models. It should have enough models. We discuss parameterizing the set of models in the special case of propositional satisfiability.  

Purpose of user modeling  In what way is S's adaptation to U intended to be beneficial to U?

Content of the user model  What sort of information about U is represented in S's user model?

Methods for exploiting the user model  According to what principles or inference techniques does S decide how to adapt its behavior on the basis of the information in its user model?

Input data for user model acquisition  On the basis of what types of evidence does S construct its user model?

Methods for constructing the user model  According to what principles or inference techniques does S arrive at the hypotheses about U that are stored in the user model?

Empirical foundations  What sorts of empirical data give us reason to believe that S's methods are valid and useful?

Attention Data Modeling Shoppers!
A grocery store of entities - at your service
by Janette Simpson
August 1, 2000

Long Distance Medical Call

October 16, 2001 — A working prototype has been around since the mid-1990s. It has been tested on shuttle missions in space and military exercises in the South Pacific. Yet the telemedicine instrumentation pack (or TIP for short)— a variation of the old-fashioned medical black bag — won’t be commercially available for another six months, if then.

ILOG optimization White paper

ILOG supplies the world's most powerful and comprehensive components for developing optimization applications. From long-term planning to tactical operations, ILOG optimization software components provide the tools to dramatically improve decision-making, no matter what the industry.

Program Does Not Equal Program: Constraint Programming and its Relationship to Mathematical Programming

SRI’s Gister-CL Architecture

We have developed both a formal basis and a framework for implementing automated reasoning systems based upon evidential reasoning techniques. Both the formal and practical approach can be divided into four parts:

A model for Web-Based Medical Diagnosis and Prediction

The future for medicine will be better and better (Altman, 1999). The used of computer and communication tools can change the medical practice into a better implementation. Consolidation in health-care provider will happen by focusing on cost and later on quality of services (Chellappa, 1995). Advancement in technology will form a platform for development a better design of telemedicine application. Telephone line and Internet will be the most important tools in medical applications.

 


Session Four Data Mining, Group Decision Making and User Interface

  Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, & Replenishment (CPFR)—White Paper with Case Study - A newly popular phrase in business today is “Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment” (CPFR). The concepts behind this phrase are not new — partnership, trust, sharing of information, cooperation. But what is new is the technology to actually effect such collaboration across enterprise boundaries.

AspenTech's Solution for Enterprise-Wide Decision Support Networks -Increasingly the critical role of information in securing and sustaining competitiveness and productivity is being realized in industry. Access to plant and business data in a timely manner is fundamental to manufacturing competitiveness in process industries. The delivery of business-critical operational and plant information of all types is enabled by an adequate decision support infrastructure. An information management system (IMS), such as AspenTech's InfoPlus

Support for Group Decisions and Negotiations Abstract. This paper discusses methods for the analysis and support of group decisions and negotiations from three perspectives. First, the continuation and outreach strategies are introduced; then methods and models are positioned within the modified process of negotiation proposed by Gulliver; and subsequently methods and systems developed within five areas of study are outlined.

 

CHAOS IN GROUP DECISIONS

 

GROUP DECISIONS CAN BE MATHEMATICALLY UNPREDICTABLE even with total knowledge of everyone's individual choices and the use of completely explicit decision making rules, a new study shows. As it turns out, the order in which the choices are presented to a group can make the course of the decision process impossible to anticipate.

 

 

Meeting Facilitation

Got a meeting at nine, a meeting at eleven and then a meeting at two. It never ends! With the amount of time we spend in meetings these days, facilitation skills should be a required competency of every professional, don't you think?


Best Practices for Managing Cross-Agency E-Government Initiatives
This paper presents a set of skills and activities that – when integrated with strong traditional program management skills and processes – will yield the best results for cross-agency E-Government initiatives.

 

Towards an Ecological Theory of Sustainable Knowledge Networks
Virtual teams of geographically distributed knowledge workers are increasingly common, but they face serious challenges. This proposal has three objectives: to create a empirically-based "ecological" theory of effective, sustainable virtual teamwork; to create a Web-based Handbook to disseminate the theory, and to create a software Collaboration Assistant to coach virtual teams in sustainability practices. By E. Jeffrey Conklin, Clarence Ellis, Lynn Offermann, Steve Poltrock, Albert Selvin, and Jonathan Grudin.

Transforming an Existing Organization into a Learning Organization
Organizations that incorporate growth and change as the fundamental institutions and ideals on which the organization is built will have an advantage in this rapidly changing, post-industrial era. By Douglas Guthrie, PhD.

Visual Issue Mapping System: A Systematic Approach to Wicked Problems
Visual Issue Mapping System (VIMS) is a graphic technique that creates a shared map of a meeting discussion. A facilitator uses the VIMS method to capture the key questions, ideas, and arguments that come up as the discussion unfolds, recording them in a network-like map for everyone in the meeting to see.

Wicked Problems
Finding and solving the source of pain in organizations using innovative approaches. By E. Jeffrey Conklin, PhD, and William Weil.

Blending Cultural Transformation and Groupware to Create a Learning Organization
In a world of accelerating change, neither individuals nor groups can grasp the implications of all the changes, nor can they respond effectively in isolation.

Designing Organizational Memory
Preserving and utilizing the intellectual assets of an organization's members to compete in a knowledge-based economy. By E. Jeffrey Conklin, PhD.

Capturing Organizational Memory
Integrating hypertext language, groupware, and rhetorical method to record the ideas developed within an organization. By E. Jeffrey Conklin, PhD.

The Role of Manager as Facilitator
Southern California Edison's (SCE) experience using the IBIS Method. Reprinted with permission from The Facilitator Newsletter.

Using electronic media for information sharing activities: a replication and extension
D. Sandy Staples, Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa
Pages: 117 - 133
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(187 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms

Information technology, contract completeness, and buyer-supplier relationships
Rajiv D. Banker, Jaokim Kalvenes, Raymond A. Patterson
Pages: 218 - 228
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(219 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms

Supporting shared information systems: boundary objects, communities, and brokering
Suzanne D. Pawlowski, Dan Robey, Arjan Raven
Pages: 329 - 338
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(207 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, citings, index terms

  Suspicious Minds
Collaboration among trading partners can unlock great value. Mistrust is the barrier. Here are six ways to build confidence.
January 15, 2003 - CIO

Street Smarts   June 4, 2002 — Listen to a morning news program and among the first things you’ll hear is a traffic report. Even if it’s the same old, everyday, rush-hour update, you listen. Two Minnesota companies think they’ve got ideas that will change your driving habits, and maybe your appetite for morning traffic updates as well. Intelligent Transportation Corp. and Taxi2000 Corp. are separately developing personal rapid transit systems that aim to reduce rush hour logjams on the highways and also curb fossil fuel consumption

Guerrilla HCI: Using Discount Usability Engineering to Penetrate the Intimidation Barrier

When asking how many usability specialists it takes to change a light bulb, the answer might well be four: Two to conduct a field study and task analysis to determine whether people really need light, one to observe the user who actually screws in the light bulb, and one to control the video camera filming the event. It is certainly true that one should study user needs before implementing supposed solutions to those problems. Even so, the perception that anybody touching usability will come down with a bad case of budget overruns is keeping many software projects from achieving the level of usability their users deserve.  

Business-intelligence service pays off for Nordstrom
Nordstrom uses DigiMine's Web-mining and monitoring solution to personalize its site and keep users coming back.
Source: InformationWeek

Warehouse provides an ounce of prevention for Tufts Health Plan
Learn how New England HMO Tufts Health Plan undertook a daunting data warehousing project that resulted in a 300% ROI!
Source: Intelligent Enterprise

Data warehousing for business intelligence
According to this report, 65-70% of companies worldwide have adopted data warehousing applications. If your company is one of the 30% still chewing over the idea of implementing a DW system, you stand to learn a lot from the successes and mistakes of the companies who've gone before you, and this report can help.
Source: Cutter Information Corp.

Delivering warehouse ROI with business intelligence
Examines the different areas in which companies can receive return on their investments in data warehousing or data marts, with particular emphasis on business intelligence tools used to derive information from them. (free registration required)
Source: ZDNet


Source: Forbes  

Business intelligence progress in jeopardy
Although the promise of formal business intelligence activities may seem obvious to you and your e-business staff, barriers still exist according to new research by Datamonitor. Among the barriers cited: corporate culture towards information sharing; the relative complexity and lack of integration of business technologies such as CRM, data warehousing and SCM; and the uncertainty and market consolidation among purveyors of business software and systems. (March 4, 2002)
Source: Information Week  

Mayo Clinic and IBM team on medical research system
The Mayo Clinic and IBM have teamed up on a new medical research system, that will be located at the clinic's Rochester, Minn. facility. Patient records, demographic data and genomic information are being loaded to give medical researchers support for clinical trials and improved treatment practices. The first phase, which is to be completed in July 2002, will load information on 4 million patients into a DB2 database. (April 1, 2002)
Source: Information Week  

Data warehousing with intelligent agents
"Intelligent agents" can help data processing and data analysis functions that are supplied by your data warehouse. Using artificial intelligence techniques and employing user identity data, inference engines and stored knowledge, the agents can help automate warehouse data gathering or performance monitoring, as well as provide powerful, intuitive, customized user interfaces to the data. (Oct. 28, 2000)
Source: Intelligent Enterprise

Companies see gold in outside data analysis
Internet e-businesses and large CRM applications are causing some corporations to consider outsourcing for their data warehouses, in spite of some lingering concerns about letting someone else manage the 'company jewels'. Users Jewelry.com, Hilton Hotels and NASD describe their own projects to outsource their warehouses, and focus inhouse projects on data analysis and decision support. (March 20, 2000)
Source: Planet IT

New tool matches buyers, sellers
Emptoris' ePass software uses an "optimization engine" to quickly determine buyer and seller requirements and options. The algorithms used allow users to set priorities and create what-if scenarios based on business rules and quality measures. New York-based MoveNet is using the software to service its network of almost 4,000 moving companies in the US. (June 21, 2000)
Source: Planet IT

31 Oct. 2001 IBM puts some meat on eLiza's self-management bones  

Preparing for a Petabyte Future
Tower of Power: IT managers brace for the inevitable -- petabyte-size databasesA petabyte of data -- 1,000 terabytes -- seems unfathomable today. Yet, it wasn't that long ago that a single terabyte of data seemed unfathomable. And in fact, petabyte databases may be a reality in the business sector within the next five years... and a reality in the research sector by next year.

What is a Data Warehouse? – Darwin Magazine

March 21, 2001 — Optimistic miners who dropped everything to go west during the gold rush were looking for those sparkling little nuggets that promised to make them rich. In many respects, using a data warehouse is a lot like those journeys west.

Why Squirrels Manage Storage Better Than You Do Darwin Magazine, April 2002
When you realize how much you spend on storage, you'll want to find out how to manage it better.

  Value Through Visualization

A dilemma has been reached in database marketing and its root cause is a lack of visualization. We're not talking about a lack of vision or creative inspiration, but the inability to capitalize on visually displayed trends emerging from the overwhelming flow of customer information--the result of increased competition, mass customization, lifetime value analysis, contact history development and new, electronic ways of doing business.

  Data Visualization and the Intranet
Available as: HTML

  Revolutionizing the Display of Business Data
Available as: PDF

  Text Mining and the Knowledge Management Space
Available as: HTML

  The Problem with Portals: Envisioning the best technologies for the Enterprise Information Portal
Available as: PDF
 

Microsoft's Black Eye: Finding Excuses for Outages

From approximately 18:30 PST on Tuesday, 23 January, through Friday, 26 January, a number of Microsoft-related Web sites just vanished. These included microsoft.com, slate.com, expedia.com, and msnbc.com — 16:30 on Wednesday, only to go back down. At that time hotmail.com went down as well

  Corporate portals require complete KM strategies
Knowledge management can be defined as content management "woven into business processes" according to this white paper's author. Corporate portals can be used to achieve the information-sharing activities involved, but they should be implemented within the context of your KM initiatives. Here's how to do that, and also some suggestions for your portals' features and processes. (July/August 2001)
Source: KM World  

 DSS News: Vol. 3, No. 14   Information as control mechanism, GDSS vs groupware

Data warehousing with intelligent agents
"Intelligent agents" can help data processing and data analysis functions that are supplied by your data warehouse. Using artificial intelligence techniques and employing user identity data, inference engines and stored knowledge, the agents can help automate warehouse data gathering or performance monitoring, as well as provide powerful, intuitive, customized user interfaces to the data. (Oct. 28, 2000)
Source: Intelligent Enterprise  

Using financial data marts to facilitate true understanding
Tom Phelps' article for DBA's describes the the purpose of a financial data mart (FDM) as being an analytical solution that proactively integrates with the entire enterprise. He insists that success hinges upon having an information strategy already in place to get the most out of your FDM.  

Golden Alfalfa
Alfalfa filtering is a potentially efficient and cost-effective way of retrieving gold nanoparticles.

Ph.D. Dissertation Topic: Space-Based Data Management for High Performance Distributed Simulation [1.1MB]  By S. Lee; May, Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., University of Arizona

M.S. Thesis Topic: Time Management and Interoperability in Distributed Discrete Event Simulation [249KB]  

 


Session Five Implementation and Planning  

The Business Case for Business Rules - Barbara von Halle is a recognized leader in the subject of business rules and is founder and president of Knowledge Partners, Inc. Barbara explains how the business rules approach for rule capture, analysis and design can be integrated with the Rational Unified Process to provide enterprise- scale coordination and structured methodology.

How to Get the Business Value You NeedBEING RESOURCEFUL calls for a set of skills and a mindset that goes beyond just doing more with less. Certainly, doing more with less is a good thing — that's called thriftiness. But thriftiness is only one part of resourcefulness.

The IBIS Manual
A short course in issue-based information system methodology. By E. Jeffrey Conklin, PhD.

Guide for Developing and Using IT Performance Measurements [PDF]
The Chief Information Officer department of the U.S. Navy excels in developing innovative tools to measure IT investments in meeting mission requirements. This handbook is a very practical guide for developing IT performance measures. Co-authored by Kathryn Burns and a DON CIO team.

Metrics Guide for Knowledge Management Initiatives [PDF]
Much has been written about the benefits of knowledge management programs in organizations. How do managers measure how well these activities benefit the organization?

Simple Procedures for Selecting the Best System when the Number of Alternatives is Large
by Barry L. Nelson, Julie Swann, David Goldsman and Wheyming Song

Implementation Is Not for the Meek
The best-laid plans can go awry if no one is responsible for results. In this interview, author C. Davis Fogg argues that holding people accountable is the secret to successful strategic planning. BY ELANA VARON

Visualizing Design Processes: Structures for Representation, Communication and Computation

This thesis proposal explores two questions in the context of landscape architectural design and planning processes;

1. How can characteristics of diagramming be incorporated in computational media to represent processes?

2. Can a computer based method of process diagramming provide the essential elements for communication between participants?

Nanotech Boom Expected To Force Legal Scrambling

Tue Sep 30,10:06 AM ET By Doug Tsuruoka

Imagine a robot that's 80,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The device would be tiny enough to slip into a human egg and alter its genetic code. That would let it design "improved" humans who are smarter and resist disease.

Such a robot is one of the many promises of nanotechnology - the science of very small things. The potential is huge for the emerging field. But the legal and ethical issues stirred by nanotechnology are enormous as well.

 

http://medg.lcs.mit.edu/ftp/psz/k-rep.html

Although knowledge representation is one of the central and in some ways most familiar concepts in AI, the most fundamental question about it--What is it?--has rarely been answered directly. Numerous papers have lobbied for one or another variety of representation, other papers have argued for various properties a representation should have, while still others have focused on properties that are important to the notion of representation in general.

 

Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variation to Chaos


Project managers can't predict the future, but accurately gauging the degree of uncertainty inherent in their projects can help them quickly adapt to it.

Shopping for R&D
A pair of new research studies points to strategies for making the most of technology acquisitions.

With today's economy moving at the speed of light, it's no wonder that companies are increasingly choosing to buy the ability to innovate, rather than to develop it in-house. But technology-grafting acquisitions are risky business. Although some provide a jump-start on the competition, others turn out to be costly mistakes.

Design Pattern Tutorial

The primary purpose of this presentation is to give the reader an introduction to the concept of design patterns in programming. After completing the tutorial you should be able to put to use the patterns that were discussed, and have the ability to go out and find new patterns in publications etc... What this tutorial is not trying to do is explaining in great detail each of the example patterns; this is done very will in the Gamma95 reference.

  Ideas Into Action
Like children putting together new toys without reading the instructions, we often get caught up in the promise of technology and are confused when it fails us. Erik Lounsbury profiles companies that are taking the time to read the directions first.Tue Nov 6 10:20:47 EST 2001

Rules of the Road Open this portion of the document in Word (27.5 KB)   A Guide for Leading Successful Integrated Product Teams
 October 1999 Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics
Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence (C3I)

From Waterfall to Iterative Lifecycle - A tough transition for project manager

Although the Rational Unified Process® (RUP®) advocates an iterative or spiral approach to the software development lifecycle, , do not believe for one second that the many benefits it provides come for free. Iterative development is not a magical wand that when waved solves all possible problems or difficulties in software development. Projects are not easier to set up, to plan, or to control just because they are iterative. The project manager will actually have a more challenging task, especially during his or her first iterative project, and most certainly during the early iterations of that project, when risks are high and early failure possible. In this paper, I describe some of the challenges of iterative development from the perspective of the project manager. I also describe some of the common "traps" or pitfalls that we, at Rational, have seen project managers fall into through our consulting experience, or from reports and war stories from our Rational colleagues  

Best Practices for Software Development Teams

This paper presents an overview of the Rational Unified Process®. The Rational Unified Process is a software engineering process, delivered through a web-enabled, searchable knowledge base. The process enhances team productivity and delivers software best practices via guidelines, templates and tool mentors for all critical software lifecycle activities. The knowledge base allows development teams to gain the full benefits of the industry-standard Unified Modeling Language™ (UML™).

 

Objectifying Information Technology

 

What client/server computing is and is not is still a hotly debated topic. (Not unlike what is and what isn't object oriented.) Client/server computing can perhaps be best defined as:

Whatever you want it to be, in order to explain to your management what you plan to do with all those personal computers that seem to be popping up in every department.

Whatever the vendor currently pitching his/her products to you wants it to be.

What is an Architecture? – Darwin Magazine

November 15, 2000 — The term "architecture" can refer to the design of a single computer. In corporate context, however, it more typically means the layout of a company's computing systems, both physically-the kinds of computers you use and where they're located-and logically, how the processing workload is distributed or divided.

The New IS Paradigm

The business of building systems has changed. A time once existed when computer literacy, technical know-how, and programming skills were all it took to become a successful information systems professional. In many companies, this is still the case. But slowly, yet steadily, a new breed of systems professional is beginning to emerge. Technical skills are no longer enough. Business knowledge, communication ability, and a client centered perspective are becoming more and more important.

FLLL - A Brief Course in Fuzzy Logic A hypertext tutorial in fuzzy logic and fuzzy control by Peter Bauer, Stephan Nouak and Roman Winkler.

Getting Started and Finishing Well
A well-defined process for data warehouse projects brings business value and project success

CBR in Context: The Present and Future

Reasoning is often modeled as a process that draws conclusions by chaining together generalized rules, starting from scratch. Case-based reasoning (CBR) takes a very different view. In CBR, the primary knowledge source is not generalized rules but a memory of stored cases recording specific prior episodes.

 

What is CLIPS

CLIPS is a productive development and delivery expert system tool which provides a complete environment for the construction of rule and/or object based expert systems. Created in 1985, CLIPS is now widely used throughout the government, industry, and academia. Its key features are:


Priority-Driven Constraints used for Scheduling at Universities

 

Constraint-based Gate Allocation for Airports

Solving Check-in Counter Constraints with ILOG Solver

Applications and Experience in the Civil Aviation Sector

Sports League Scheduling  

Several factors slowing adoption of key health care IT systems
Computer-based patient record (CPR) and computer physician order entry (CPOE) are generally seen to not only help make medical provision more efficient, but also safer for patients. So, why aren't these systems being adopted? Physicians don't like change, among other things, say these pundits. (April 22, 2002)
Source: Computerworld  

From ACM Digital Library - subscription required

Toward social constructivist understandings of IS success and failure: introducing a new computerized reservation system
Nathalie Mitev
Pages: 84 - 93
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(177 KB)
Additional Information: full citation, references, citings, index terms
 

The influence of persuasion, training and experience on user perceptions and acceptance of IT innovation
Weidong Xia, Gwanhoo Lee
Pages: 371 - 384
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(142 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, citings, index terms

The politics of IS evaluation: a social shaping perspective
Melanie Wilson, Debra Howcroft
Pages: 94 - 103
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(129 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms
 

Managing Intranet technology in an organizational context: toward a “stages of growth” model for balancing empowerment and control
Aidan Duane, Pat Finnegan
Pages: 242 - 258
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(195 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, citings, index terms

How CEO Characteristics Affect R&D Spending
Education, professional experience, company stock holdings and age may exert an unexpected influence on a CEO’s approach to research and development.

What key factors influence a company’s spending on research and development? Studies conducted during the past 15 years have focused largely on the nature of particular industries, corporate strategy and the level of ownership by institutional shareholders. 

When Too Much IT Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing


Rather than trying to apply an exhaustive IT implementation checklist, executives should focus on identifying the likely pitfalls for the specific project at hand

Beyond the Business Case: New Approaches to IT Investment


As IT becomes more closely tied to business objectives, successful investment must consider two dimensions: technology scope and strategic objectives.

The impact of social responsibility on business performance  In the past couple of years, how many times have you heard the words Enron, accountability and corporate social responsibility in the same sentence? The talk of the management town has been scandal, corruption and, most importantly, how to prevent this from occurring again.

The Power of Optimal Pricing
Business 2.0, September 2002 .  New software calculates precisely how much you should charge to squeeze maximum profit from every product, at any time.

Smart Decisions

Decision support systems have become critical business tools August 15, 2001 – CIO  

Generating a New Wave of Profits
Drug Store News, October 7, 2002 .  By using a relatively new price-optimization software application that gives retailers the ability to set prices based on a mathematically determined consumer demand, one large regional chain actually did adjust its prices upward and downward on about 1,000 of its fastest-moving items.

Risk Management Strategies to Protect Firms Against Catastrophic Events
Wharton professor Howard Kunreuther looks at the bankruptcies of Barings Bank and Arthur Andersen, and the severe losses incurred by Union Carbide and Lloyd’s of London after a series of disasters, and he sees a common thread: How the actions of one division or plant severely damaged the whole company. In a recent paper, he analyzes the challenges organizations face in dealing with low-probability events that have large-scale consequences. He looks specifically at how divisions within firms can be encouraged to invest in protective measures when other divisions don’t.

Food Fight
CIO Magazine, October 15, 2002 .  As they struggle for survival against discounters like Wal-Mart, supermarkets turn to IT to make shopping easier, cheaper and more profitable for them.

Retailers Try Technology for Better Pricing
KPMG Insider's Focus, December 3, 2002 .  Faced with diminishing margins after years of across-the-board discounts, retailers are implementing software-driven pricing strategies that promise to maximize revenues. Some retailers are even hiring executives from outside the industry who will take a more analytical approach to pricing.

In depth: Use nonfinancial measurement for your IT cost-benefit analysis
CIOs and IT managers are constantly seeking the Holy Grail of IT: an easy way to measure the return on their organization's IT investment. Paul Clermont calls it "A clear financial trail—$X spent, $Y returned

The Alchemy of Leadership
Four qualities, when mixed together in proper proportion, produce great leaders BY WARREN G. BENNIS AND ROBERT J. THOMAS

The Amazing Traveling IT Show
Cirque du Soleil is more than aerial acrobatics and and gymnastic symmetry. Behind the scenes, an information technology tour de force keeps the show running smoothly. BY ALICE DRAGOON

The Leader's Playbook
Take a page-no, several pages-from this guide to transforming your team. BY CHRISTOPHER HOENIG

Cruise Control
This freight delivery company's leaders took four years to get a new expert system right. Now they're watching as the benefits roll in.
BY RICHARD PASTORE

Leadership & Management
Helping your department run smoothly is at the core of the CIO's function. Improve your leadership and management skills for the good of your staff and the enterprise as a whole

Nothing But Value
The winners of the 2003 Enterprise Value Awards demonstrate the need for solid business cases when investing in IT.
BY RICHARD PASTORE

Off the Charts
An electronic medical records system at the University of Illinois Medical Center did more than transform communication, it converted the least likely users into technology believers.
BY CHRISTOPHER KOCH

&P's Big I.T. Changes Can't Go Through the Express Lane
A&P started their $250 million IT investment to reinvigorate A&P's supermarkets in 2000. Progress reaching lofty goals has been slow in coming.

Executive Issues
Part of being a successful CIO is the ability to communicate effectively with your executive-level associates. Learn how to collaborate with other officers and how to bring IT to the boardroom

Waste Management Cleans Up Its Act
Turnaround specialists CEO Maury Myers and CIO Tom Smith continue to make progress through updating IT systems.

Ultimate The Financial Implications of Corporate Performance Management
The Aberdeen Group, October 2002.  Decision makers, no matter how brilliant they are, cannot grasp the full impact of their choices without technological assistance. A new technique, corporate performance management (CPM), promises to deliver the perceptiveness and agility managers require to make effective decisions -  Requires registration: 

At What Price?
by Arthur Andersen Consulting .  Even retailers who have established seemingly sophisticated thought process for pricing are re-examining their approach. True profit potential cannot be realized until virtually every item in the store is optimally priced - that is priced to produce the ideal balance between volume and profit. -  Requires registration:  


 

Session Six - 

Enhancing Cooperative Work In Amplified Collaboration Environments

 

authors: Kyoung Shin Park

papers:  Click here pdf
PhD Dissertation 09/01/2003 - 10/10/2003.

Amplified Collaboration Environments (ACEs) are integrated ubiquitous tools and environments that support collaborative scientific investigation using advanced computation and visualization technologies.

 

 

Amplified Collaboration Environments

authors: J. Leigh, Johnson, A., Park, K., Nayak, A., Singh, R., Chowdhry, V., DeFanti, T.

papers: Click here for paper - pdf

VizGrid Symposium, Tokyo, Japan 11/01/2002 - 11/01/2002.

Amplified Collaboration Environments are distributed extensions of traditional warrooms or project-rooms, in which a group of people collect to intensely solve a problem together.

 

 

Virtual Heritage at iGrid 2000

authors: D. Pape, Anstey, J., Carter, B., Leigh, J., Roussou, M., Portlock, T.

papers: Click here for paper - pdf

Proceedings of INET 2001, Stockholm, Sweden 06/05/2001 - 06/08/2001.

As part of the iGrid Research Demonstration at INET 2000, we created two Virtual Cultural Heritage environments-"Virtual Harlem" and "Shared Miletus". The purpose of these applications was to explore possibilities in using the combination of high-speed international networks and virtual reality (VR) displays for cultural heritage education.

CAVE

Rather than having evolved from video games or flight simulation, the CAVE has its motivation rooted in scientific visualization and the SIGGRAPH 92 Showcase effort. The CAVE was designed to be a useful tool for scientific visualization. The Showcase event was an experiment; the Showcase chair, James E. George, and the Showcase committee advocated an environment for computational scientists to interactively present their research at a major professional conference in a one-to-many format on high-end workstations attached to large projections screens.

 


Session Seven:  Artificial Intelligence Review. 

SOME EXPERT SYSTEM NEED COMMON SENSE

An expert system is a computer program intended to embody the knowledge and ability of an expert in a certain domain. The ideas behind them and several examples have been described in other lectures in this symposium. Their performance in their specialized domains are often very impressive. Nevertheless, hardly any of them have certain common sense knowledge and ability possessed by any non-feeble-minded human.

An R2D2 To Call Your Own

June 11, 2002 — Three years ago, SONY introduced us to the AIBO, a robotic dog designed for home entertainment that could do tricks on command. The AIBO was a pioneer of sorts for the personal robotics market. Since then, the AIBO has grown up and can do more dances and take pictures, but it's more about fun than function. Pasadena, Calif.-based Evolution Robotics Inc., a small startup, has taken a step closer to function with its newly released ER1 personal robot system.

Smart Decisions   Decision support systems have become critical business tools August 15, 2001 – CIO

What is AI?

Support for DSS Decisions
Intelligent Enterprise launches a special series of DSS Lab reports to help implementers and vendors make informed decisions
by Erik Thomsen
May 11, 1999

AI Software packages This directory contains AI-related software and other materials of interest to AI researchers, educators, students, and practitioners. The subdirectories are organized by topic or field.

Free Will – Even for Robots   Human free will is a product of evolution and contributes to the success of the human animal. Useful robots will also require free will of a similar kind, and we will have to design it into them.

Program with Common Sense   This paper will discuss programs to manipulate in a suitable formal language (most likely a part of the predicate calculus) common instrumental statements. The basic program will draw immediate conclusions from a list of premises. These conclusions will be either declarative or imperative sentences. When an imperative sentence is deduced the program takes a corresponding action. These actions may include printing sentences, moving sentences on lists, and reinitiating the basic deduction process on these lists.

Making Robots Conscious of their Mental States

Conscious knowledge and other information is distinguished from unconscious information by being observable, and its observation results in conscious knowledge about it. We call this introspective knowledge.

A robot will need to use introspective knowledge in order to operate in the common sense world and accomplish the tasks humans will give it.  

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that studies the computational requirements for tasks such as perception, reasoning, and learning, and develops systems to perform those tasks. AI is a diverse field whose researchers address a wide range of problems, use a variety of methods, and pursue a spectrum of scientific goals.  


Session Eight:  Knowledge Management

Knowledge Representation

Although knowledge representation is one of the central and in some ways most familiar concepts in AI, the most fundamental question about it--What is it?--has rarely been answered directly. Numerous papers have lobbied for one or another variety of representation, other papers have argued for various properties a representation should have, while still others have focused on properties that are important to the notion of representation in general.

 

Networked Knowledge Representation and Exchange using UML and RDF.  This paper proposes the use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a language for modelling ontologies for Web resources and the knowledge contained within them. 

Annotation Inference Techniques    Houdini is a static program checking tool that helps uncover potential run-time errors in Java programs. Among other kinds of errors, it can detect array bound overflows, null dereferences, and division by zero. Houdini is based on an earlier program checker developed at SRC called ESC/Java.  

A primary stage in array genomics is the extraction of intensity values from an image of an array. This image analysis stage, and various data corrections and normalization functions, are handled by primary analysis programs such as our own ArrayVision™.

  What is knowledge representation?    Although knowledge representation is one of the central and in some ways most familiar concepts in AI, the most fundamental question about it--What is it?--has rarely been answered directly. Numerous papers have lobbied for one or another variety of representation, other papers have argued for various properties a representation should have, while still others have focused on properties that are important to the notion of representation in general.

AI, Logic and Formalizing Common Sense

This is a position paper about the relations among artificial intelligence (AI), mathematical logic and the formalization of common-sense knowledge and reasoning. It also treats other problems of concern to both AI and philosophy. I thank the editor for inviting it. The position advocated is that philosophy can contribute to AI if it treats some of its traditional subject matter in more detail and that this will advance the philosophical goals also. Actual formalisms (mostly first order languages) for expressing common-sense facts are described in the references.

Intent Inference techniquesThis paper overviews some research at MERL related to the task of inferring the intentions of people interacting with computers and/or each other.  First, we discuss techniques developed as part of the
Collagen project for inferring the intentions of individuals engaged in one-on-one collaboration.  We then describe two projects, Human-Guided Search and the Personal Digital Historian, which support face-to-face group collaboration.  These two projects currently do not employ, but could benefit from, techniques for inferring the intentions of groups of people engaged in collaborative activities.  Read the full Technical Report (Adobe .pdf file)

Why Study Logic?

In elementary school, you studied such things as reading, writing, and arithmetic. These subjects are correctly regarded as basic to all further education: One cannot study history, botany, or computers without being able to read. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are the basics, the tools that permit one to study further, and also to drive, to shop, and to get a job

Valid Inference

An inference is valid whenever the form of the conclusion is true every time the forms of the premise are. If the form of the conclusion is not true every time the forms of the premise are true, then the inference is invalid. The significance of this definition is the subject of the paragraphs that follow.

A primary stage in array genomics is the extraction of intensity values from an image of an array. This image analysis stage, and various data corrections and normalization functions, are handled by primary analysis programs such as our own ArrayVision™.

  What is knowledge representation?    Although knowledge representation is one of the central and in some ways most familiar concepts in AI, the most fundamental question about it--What is it?--has rarely been answered directly. Numerous papers have lobbied for one or another variety of representation, other papers have argued for various properties a representation should have, while still others have focused on properties that are important to the notion of representation in general.  

Knowledge management key to collaboration
Information Week's 500 for 2001 features many companies who are spending time and money on collaboration and knowledge-sharing; 94%, in fact, report using multiple KM technologies. (Oct. 1, 2001)

A Question of Practical Knowledge
Knowledge is the key element in running an organisation. It’s also the cornerstone for a new economy and, combined with innovation, knowledge enables daily business practices to be reworked. Professor Soumitra Dutta, Professor Luk Van Wassenhove and Beatrix Biren consider how knowledge can be converted into marketplace success for any organisation.  

How Xerox got its engineers to use a knowledge management systemhttp://www.techrepublic.com/index.jhtml?_requestid=244926
Xerox found a way to cut costs and share institutional knowledge with a knowledge management system that gives engineers credit for their contributions. Find out how Xerox moved KM from theory to reality.  

High performance Knowledge Base  

Corporate portals require complete KM strategies
Knowledge management can be defined as content management "woven into business processes" according to this white paper's author. Corporate portals can be used to achieve the information-sharing activities involved, but they should be implemented within the context of your KM initiatives. Here's how to do that, and also some suggestions for your portals' features and processes. (July/August 2001)
Source: KM World  


 

Session Nine: Intelligent Agent Review  

Web repair: How software firms want to make the Web deliver
Putnam Lovell Securities uses a variety of web services to help provide business information and intelligence to its employees. A host of new services promises to integrate a company's critical data for collaboration and intelligent decision-making. Led by efforts from major vendors - .NET, WebSphere and Sun ONE - several smaller vendors are offering web services for business intelligence; read about them here. (Oct. 29, 2001)
Source: Forbes  

FX Agents White Paper

Emerging e-businesses are now creating the new universe of rich data and transactions on Internet over the legacy information systems, as well as new ones. In this new universe, software systems must interact increasingly with one another, while following independent and heterogenous business rules and process

 

Intelligent agents for retrieving chinese Web financial news
Christopher C. Yang, Alan Chung
Pages: 288 - 301
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(449 KB)
Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms

Real Time User Context Modeling  for Information Retrieval Agents

The success of personal information agents depends on their ability to provide task-relevant information. This paper presents WordSieve, a new algorithm that generates context descriptions to guide document indexing and retrieval. WordSieve exploits information about the sequence of accessed documents to identify words which indicate a shift in context.  


Managing Context in a Conversational Agent Claude Sammut.

A Stanford Technical Note introducing T-R programs: A teleo-reactive (T-R) program is a mid-level agent control program that robustly directs an agent toward a goal in a manner that continuously takes into account the agent's changing perceptions of a dynamic environment. T-R programs are written in a production-rule-like language and require a specialized interpreter.

Nilsson, N., Toward Agent Programs with Circuit Semantics, (1.1 MB .pdf File), Technical Report STAN-CS-92-1412, Stanford University Computer Science Department, 1992.

Teleo-Reactive Programs for Agent Control Nilsson, N., "Teleo-Reactive Programs for Agent Control," Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research,  1:139-158, 1994. (All JAIR articles are available in PDF, PostScript, and compressed PostScript from the Journal of Artificial

 Learning Action Models for Reactive Autonomous Agents  Benson, S., Learning Action Models for Reactive Autonomous Agents, PhD Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, 1996, PDF Version (964K). Intelligence Research web site.)

 “Teleo-Reactive Programs and the Triple-Tower Architecture,” Nilsson, N. J. “Teleo-Reactive Programs and the Triple-Tower Architecture,” Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 5 (2001), Section B, pp. 99-110.

Katz, E. P., “Extending the Teleo-Reactive Paradigm for Robotic Agent Task Control Using Zadehan (Fuzzy) Logic,”Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation (CIRA '97) , 1997. (Abstract: http://www.computer.org/proceedings/cira/8138/81380282abs.htm; paper: katz-fuzzy.pdf)

Katz, E. P., “A Simplifying Diagrammatic Representation Of Crisp And Fuzzy Teleo-Reactive Semantic Circuitry For Application In Robotic Agent Task Control,” 1998 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC '98), San Diego, California, October 1998. (Paper: katz-trdiagram.pdf)

Luger, G., et al., T-R programs for accelerator beam tuning: http://www.cs.unm.edu/research/ai/projects/ic.html

Malcolm Ryan uses a combination of planning and hierarchical reinforcement learning to decide which RLTOPs (reinforcement learning teleo-operators) are applicable to solve a high-level goal. The planner produces an extended TR-tree with all possible paths to the goal. He uses reinforcement learning to decide which behavior to execute.  You can access some of his papers through:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~malcolmr

Negotiation and Coordination
Sophisticated Negotiation
Cooperative Negotiation
Self-Interested Negotiation
GPGP
General Coordination
Cooperation among Heterogenous Agents

Agent Control
Design To Criteria
Design To Time
Decision Making in Real-Time
Meta-Level Control
DRESUN
Interpretation Decision Problem
Control in Parallel Knowledge-Based Systems

Multi-Agent Organizations
Organizational Design
Learning Organizational Roles

Reliability and Survivability
Diagnosis
Survivability Project

Architectures and Testbeds
Multi-Agent System Simulator
Java Agent Framework
Farm

Problem Solving
TAEMS
Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving

Research Environments
Autonomous Negotiating Teams
Information Gathering
Producer Consumer Transporter
Intelligent Home
Distributed Vehicle Monitoring Testbed
Knowledge-Based Signal Processing

Learning
Learning Among Self-interested Agents
Cooperative Learning
Distributed Case-based Learning
Learning Coordination Strategies

 


Session Ten:   Machine Learning

Neural Networks That Autonomously Create and Discover

When the internal architecture of a trained artificial neural network is gradually relaxed or destroyed, that network tends to spontaneously produce a succession of "impressions" from it's learned knowledge domain. I refer to this state as "dreaming."

Live Intrusion Tracking via Multiple Unsupervised STANNOs* 

Abstract – The detection of network intrusion is traditionally achieved by capturing the characteristics of confirmed attacks within rule-based algorithms. Subsequently, these software routines serve as a filters for similar future mischief (see for instance Northcutt, 1999).

The Warhead Design Creativity Machine

Weapon Systems Technology Information Analysis Center (WSTIAC), Volume 3, Number 1, December, 2001)

DataBotsTM

ABSTRACT - The ability to form extensive cell reference networks within typical spreadsheet applications lends itself well to emulating the central nervous systems of simple organisms. Exploiting this capability, we have successfully created artificial neurons, neural networks, and neural network cascades within Microsoft Excel worksheets.

A Quantitative Model of Seminal Cognition: The Creativity Machine Paradigm

A synaptically perturbed neural network forms an efficient search engine within and around any conceptual space upon which it has been trained. By monitoring the temporal distribution of concepts emerging from such a system, we discover a quantitative agreement with the measured rhythm of human cognition, creative or otherwise

Fuzzy Logic Inference Techniques in CubiCalc V2

Motivation    Humans are very good at disambiguation; natural language users quickly discard ridiculous readings of a given sentence by taking into account the context and situation of the utterance. In fact, humans typically are unaware of the alternative readings of an utterance. Only in special circumstances (for instance in jokes) the ambiguity property of natural language becomes obvious

Statistical Inference

Fuzzy Logic - A Tutorial James F. Brule's introduction to fuzzy logic, written in 1985.    

Opening the neural network black box: an algorithm for extracting rules from function approximating artificial neural networks
Rudy Setiono, Wee Kheng Leow, James Y. L. Thong
Pages: 176 - 186
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(206 KB)
Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms

The effects of parallel processing on update response time in distributed database design
Jesper M. Johansson, Salvatore T. March, J. David Naumann
Pages: 187 - 196
Full text available: pdf formatPdf(110 KB)

Additional Information: full citation, references, index terms

Share....and share alike
What are you supposed to fix when a can of Dr. Pepper leaks down through a copy machine? Artificial Intelligence wouldn't predict it for Xerox, but if you could read some notes about a precarious situation involving a can of Mountain Dew, you'll be sure to know what to look for. It was this type of experience that spawned knowledge management for legions of Xerox repairmen. (Feb. 1, 2001)
Source: Darwin Magazine

Using Humans as a Computer Model

THINK of it as computing's crisis of complexity, revisited.

For more than three decades, the big advances in computing have soon brought new headaches. The initial steps ahead are typically in hardware — processors, storage and networks — and the headaches are manifested in software.

Reports on Richard Wallace, his work on artificial intelligence and his estrangement from academia: "Thousands of people flock to his Web site every day from all over the world to talk to his creation, a robot called Alice. It is the best artificial-intelligence program on the planet, a program so eerily human that some mistake it for a real person... It is a strange kind of success: Wallace has created an artificial life form that gets along with people better than he does."

"When Will AI Get Down to Business?" NewsFactor Network 02/25/02:

Artificial intelligence (AI) research is being applied to the business world, but in subtle ways, experts contend. "AI has been eclipsed as a source of hype--a good thing--but the state of the science and the practice, including application to business, has never been healthier," insists Michael Wellman of the University of Michigan's Artificial

Undercover agents
Intelligent software agents employ AI technology to assist online users; think of the Microsoft paper clip fellow. Current projects and research are reviewed. (June 5, 2000)
Source: Computerworld

How artificial intelligence decodes customer behavior - CRM Daily Posted Tuesday, June 4, 2002
New artificial intelligence technology that simulates the neural networks of the human brain can improve the robustness of current CRM analytics packages. Currently, the AI technology has been predominantly used in areas such as genetics and pharmaceutical research. According to business intelligence software company SAS Institute, though, artificial intelligence ''represents the cutting edge in data mining.'' Moreover, artificial intelligence may ''prove useful for cross-selling, targeted promotions and personalized marketing.''

Knowledge management key to collaboration
Information Week's 500 for 2001 features many companies who are spending time and money on collaboration and knowledge-sharing; 94%, in fact, report using multiple KM technologies. (Oct. 1, 2001)
Source: Information Week
 

Knowledge management technology and tools listing
The folks at Hoyt Consulting's KM News offer this matrix of companies and products which can be employed for knowledge management - click for reviews, and access to the companies' websites.
Source: KM News

Artificial Neural Networks A neural network is, in essence, an attempt to simulate the brain. Neural network theory revolves around the idea that certain key properties of biological neurons can be extracted and applied to simulations, thus creating a simulated (and very much simplified) brain.


Session Eleven Impact and Future of MSS    

 

Security – an inside job

Google Search Reveals Credit-Card Numbers
(NewsFactor) - Consumer fear of identity- and credit-card theft over the Internet continues to escalate. Yet analysts and retailers continue to assert that the risk is minimal. The bigger fear, say analysts, should be of an inside job. Many of the recent thefts "have been crimes committed by employees of companies that have legitimate access to personal data, that decide to use it for their own gains," Christian Byrnes, senior vice president of technology research services at Meta Group, told NewsFactor. More...

Technology Gets in Its Own Way

Radio signals from myriad devices such as cellphones and garage door openers clash in an annoying and, at times, hazardous competition

 

House Passes Bill That Will Limit Spam

Sat Nov 22, 1:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Congress moved significantly closer to the first-ever federal protections against unwanted commercial e-mails with the House passing a bill Saturday that would impose new limits on sending irritating offers on the Internet. Final approval by lawmakers could come before Thanksgiving.

The Limits of Formal Security Models,  National Computer Systems Security Award Acceptance Speech, October 1999.

Hiding Crimes in Cyberspace (Word 97 without figures) - Denning and Baugh, Information, Communication and Society,  Vol. 2, No. 3, 1999, pp. 251-276.  Also published in Cybercrime, D. Thomas and B. D. Loader, eds., Routledge, 2000.  Use of encryption, steganography, anonymity services, and other technologies for hiding crimes.   An HTML version  is on John Young's Cryptome.

TriStrata: Breakthrough in Enterprise Security, December 1999.

TriStrata Integrates PKI Authentication, December 2000.

Who's Stealing Your Information? - Information Security, April 1999.

Easy Guide to Encryption Export Controls - Denning and Baugh, September 1999, describes regulations prior to September 16, 1999 announcement.

Cases Involving Encryption in Crime and Terrorism - last updated October 7, 1997.

Encryption and Evolving Technologies as Tools of Organized Crime and Terrorism - Denning and Baugh, excert from the introduction to paper published by the National Strategy Information Center's US Working Group on Organized Crime - May 15, 1997 - full paper.

Encryption Policy and Market Trends - Revised May 17, 1997.

Export Controls, Encryption Software, and Speech - Statement at RSA Data Security Conference, January 28, 1997.

Encrypting the Global Information Infrastructure - July 1996 paper in Computer Fraud & Abuse.

A Taxonomy for Key Key Recovery Encryption Systems - May 1997 paper on key recovery terminology and approaches - revised from A Taxonomy for Key Escrow Encryption Systems - March 1996 CACM - coauthored with Dennis Branstad.

Descriptions of over 30 Key Escrow Systems - descriptions of key recovery systems and approaches.

Decoding Encryption Policy - Denning and Baugh Feb. 1996 Security Management article.

Key Escrow Encryption Available - article in Lathe Gambit News Briefs.

Protection and Defense of Intrusion, Presented at Conf. on National Security in the Information Age, US Air Force Academy, Feb. 1996.

Location-Based Authentication: Grounding Cyberspace for Better Security, Computer Fraud & Security, Feb. 1996. Use of Global Positioning System for authentication.

The Future of Cryptography - revised Jan. 1996 but does not reflect my current thinking. See November 1999 afterword.

Crime and Crypto on the Information Superhighway - 1995 JCJE paper.

MIT Technology Review article on Clipper - July 1995.

Is Encryption Speech? A Cryptographer's Perspective - Feb. 1995.

Key Escrowing Today - Denning & Smid Sept. 1994 article on Clipper chip and its key escrow system.

Codes, Keys, and Conflicts: Issues in U.S. Crypto Policy - ACM study report, 1994.

The SKIPJACK Review: Interim Report and LaTeX Appendix - July 1993. Skipjack specs, declassified in June 1998.

To Tap or Not to Tap - March 1994 CACM debate on encryption and wiretapping.

Wiretap Laws and Procedures - with Don Delaney, John Kaye, and Alan McDonald - Sept. 1993.

A New Paradigm for Trusted Systems, New Security Paradigms Workshop, 1992.

Concerning Hackers Who Break Into Computer Systems - National Computer Security Conf., 1990; Postscript - 1995.

The Unites States v. Craig Neidorf - A Viewpoint on Electronic Publishing, Constistutional Rights, and Hacking, Comm. of the ACM, March 1991 (opening article in debate); my final rebuttal

An Intrusion-Detection Model, IEEE Trans. on Software Eng., February 1987 (also presented at the 1986 Symp. on Security and Privacy)  - RTF format.

A Lattice Model of Secure Information Flow, Comm. of the ACM, Vol. 19, No. 5, May 1976.

How to beat corporate Alzheimer's
Overview of current knowledge management software includes search engines with available features for KM and business intelligence, as well as a look at Deloitte Consulting's $2 million KM system. (October 2001)
Source: Business 2.0  

The Declaration of Integration
No one's facing a greater integration challenge than the two men planning the IT for the United States' proposed new Department of Homeland Security.

Integrating America
The federal government's homeland security efforts promise to be the biggest change management challenge of all time. BY TODD DATZ

"Don't Point, Just Think: The Brain Wave as Joystick"
New York Times (03/28/02) P. E6; Eisenberg, Anne

Experiments have shown progress in the development of a brain-machine interface that could one day allow paralyzed or disabled people to control computers or artificial limbs mentally

FrontRange Solutions Adds Voice Rec Capability To GoldMine

FrontRange Solutions announced that it will provide GoldMine 5.5  customer management users the ability for mobile telephone voice  access through the Sound Advantage Natural Dialog Interface  (SANDi) by Sound Advantage. FrontRange has agreed to sell  GoldMine PLUS Voice powered by SANDi CRM to its network of  Solutions Partners for placement in their customer sites.  

WEB –usability Report

This reports summarizes results of a usability study of several Web sites I conducted in the beginning of December 1994. Users were observed as they browsed the Web sites of Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Time Warner. The report has only been very lightly edited and thus represents my thinking about Web usability in 1994.

Charting the Virtual World Darwin Magazine, April 2002
Cyberspace is the latest frontier to attract the attention of mapmakers. Why is it so important for us to know what the Web looks like?

Power dressing  NewScientist.com news service April, 2001

Your sweater could one day provide all the power you need to run your MP3 player, mobile phone or palmtop computer - as long as you're not standing in a darkened room.

The idea comes from scientists in Germany, who have developed synthetic fibres that generate electricity when exposed to light. The researchers say the fibres could be woven into machine-washable clothes to make the ultimate in portable solar cells.

Wearable computer provides virtual signposts NewScientist.com news service October, 2001

A new wearable computer system could prevent people becoming lost inside an unfamiliar building.

Posted Wednesday, June 5, 2002 An interview with Richard Florida and his exhortation to be creative or die: "My argument is that in order to harness creativity for economic ends, you need to harness creativity in all its forms. You can't just generate a tech economy or information economy or knowledge economy; you have to harness the multidimensional aspects of creativity."

Exploring Virtual Contact Centers: A Treasure Trove Of Efficiencies
Call centers are embracing virtual technologies, which offer nearly limitless potential for unifying multi-location operations into one seamless contact center. Bryant Downy explains why.Tue Oct 23 12:33:38 EDT 2001

An Integrated Interface for Proactive, Experience-Based Design Support.  (|pdf ) David B. Leake, Larry Birnbaum, Cameron Marlow, and Hao Yang. Proceedings of the 2001 Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI-2001).

A Useful Investment
Usability testing costs—but it pays for itself in the long run  

 


Session Twelve

New Robotic Gliders Can Soar Under Water
(AP) - A century after the Wright Brothers first took to the skies, the world of flight is pushing to new depths. Researchers are perfecting innovative gliders that can swoop and soar on journeys covering hundreds of miles and lasting for weeks — all deep beneath the ocean waves. The fledgling technology, barely a decade old, has already produced robotic submarine gliders that move slowly, with the nimbleness of a blimp

GIS Holds Promise of Launching Next Big Information Revolution
The term “geographic information systems,” or GIS, might not mean much to the uninitiated, but Wharton professor Susan Wachter describes GIS as launching a new information revolution.

Perspectives on the Evolution of Simulation
by Richard E. Nance and Robert G. Sargent

Corporate knowledge best when served fresh
Stop thinking about knowledge management in broad, conceptual terms; that adds no value to your organization. Real KM means keeping the data that makes up your knowledge base clean and using applications such as corporate portals to deliver it before it goes stale, experts say.

M.S. Thesis Topic: Social Science Applications of Discrete Event Simulation: A DEVS Artificial Society [2.5MB]  by G. Zaft; Fall 2001, Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., University of Arizona

 


   

 

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