This paper develops an approach to data modelling for the design of hypermedia databases. First, the use of data modelling for the design of hypermedia database systems is investigated. A specific example, that of a car parts database, is used as a means of illustrating a generic problem, namely the difficulty associated with interrogating a large database when the exact data element being sought is unknown. The use of hypermedia as a basis for data retrieval in such situations is then discussed. The data contained within hypermedia database systems is typically unstructured, which has led to systems being developed using ad hoc design approaches with little regard for formal data modelling techniques. Hence, the main contribution of the paper is the illustration of a hybrid data modelling approach of suitable semantic richness to capture the complexities of hypermedia databases.
In September 1994, the government of New Zealand published a document entitled Education for the 21st Century. The document sets out targets and challenges for the education system in New Zealand to meet by 2001. One of the targets, and the associated fiscal challenge, is to improve the access of New Zealand students to information technology, so that by 2001 there is at least one computer for every five students at all levels of school education.
This bold policy statement follows a chain of reports and government initiatives extending over approximately 15 years.
This paper describes government policy initiatives, the reports which gave rise to them, and the changes in curriculum, teacher, and classroom practice which have taken place since computers were first used in New Zealand classrooms in the 1970s.
The short history of educational computing in New Zealand has spanned a period of massive political and economic reform, and enormous structural change in the education system. The authors have been observers of, and contributors to, aspects of the development of New Zealand’s use of information technology in education over the whole of this period.
It is increasingly recognised that the manner in which information required by a decision maker is portrayed is as important as providing appropriate information. In dynamic intentional process environments such as emergency dispatch control, where the problems are non-trivial and time is tightly constrained, it is important to portray information that is used together, close to one another or appropriately integrated. This is important in speeding up the decision maker’s interpretation of the information and assessment of the state of the situation.
But how should information be portrayed so that the information may be assimilated quickly in such situations? To answer this question, a framework for analysis was developed to guide the investigation. This framework brings together the decisions made, the information used, the source and accessibility of the source, and how the information is used in each decision, thereby identifying the information portrayal requirements. This framework will be presented in this paper.
However, before discussing the framework, it is necessary to introduce the concept of decision making in naturalistic environments as it is within this context of dynamic decision making that the problem of information portrayal is studied. The paper will examine the characteristics of dynamic intentional processes, and then briefly describe the environment of one example of an intentional process environment, an emergency control center, that formed the basis of the study. The cognitive task analysis techniques use to elicit the decision processes and the information portrayal requirements will also be described, and then finally, the initial results of the study will be presented.
The design of spatial information systems has traditionally been carried out independently of mainstream database developments. It is contended that the adoption of mainstream database design techniques is important to progress in the spatial information systems development field. An accepted approach to the development of information systems is through an integrated development environment with a design repository at its core. This paper proposes a skeleton model for the design of a repository to store spatial metadata. An object oriented modelling approach is adopted in preference to an entity relationship approach because of its ability to model functional and dynamic aspects of the repository.
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Advances in software process technology have rendered many existing methods of size assessment and effort estimation inapplicable. The use of automation in the software process, however, provides an opportunity for the development of more appropriate software size-based effort estimation models. A specification-based size assessment method has therefore been developed and tested in relation to process effort on a preliminary set of systems. The results of the analysis confirm the assertion that, within the automated environment class, specification size indicators (that may be automatically and objectively derived) are strongly related to process effort requirements.
Keywords: CASE, process effort, software metrics
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This paper reports on preliminary findings of a cognitive task analysis conducted at an ambulance despatch control center. The intense and dynamic nature of the decision making environment is first described, and the decision process modelled in an attempt to identify decision strategies used by the Communications Officers. Some information portrayal requirements stemming from one of the decision processes are then discussed, and these requirements are then translated into a proposed display solution.
Keywords: information portrayal, information display design, decision support design, decision modelling, naturalistic decision making, critical decision method, ambulance service
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The concept of an intelligent software agent has emerged from its origins in artificial intelligence laboratories to become an important basis for the development of distributed systems in the mainstream computer science community. This paper provides a review of some of the ideas behind the intelligent agent approach and addresses the question “what is an agent?” Some principal application areas for agent-based computing are outlined and related research programmes at the University of Otago are discussed.
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With the increasing size, complexity and interconnectedness of systems and organisations, there is a growing need for high level modelling approaches that span the range of application domains. Causal agent modelling offers an intuitive and powerful approach for the development of dynamic models for any application area. This paper outlines some of the basic ideas behind the nature of causal agent models, why they are fundamental to the modelling enterprise, and compares developments in this area to those in the related field of coordination theory. It also describes some research activities using causal agent models at the University of Otago.
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This paper brings emphasis to the plausible concept of case-based reasoning being integrated with spatial information systems, and the adaptation of artificial intelligence techniques to improve the analytical strength in spatial information systems. This adaptation of artificial intelligence techniques may include examples of expert systems, fuzzy logic, hybrid connectionist systems and neural networks, all integrated with spatial information systems. The unique process of case-based reasoning is described. The research into the possible integration of case-based reasoning and spatial information systems is outlined. The benefits of a case-based reasoning spatial information hybrid system are discussed.
A single piece of legislation, the Resource Management Act, governs the management of environmental resources in New Zealand. It establishes procedural requirements and time constraints for all decision-making activities related to governmental environmental management. The present paper describes a model, based on coloured Petri nets, that is under development to facilitate understanding of the Act and to examine performance characteristics of legal processes defined in the Act.
Fuzzy concepts might have potential for protecting and preserving land which has special cultural or spiritual significance for indigenous peoples, because it might support any tangata whenua (indigenous peoples) desires for secrecy and confidentiality. These issues are examined in terms of New Zealand and from the technical perspective of Information Science. The various meanings of fuzzy are discussed. Some pertinent questions are: Is a fuzzy concept a useful tool to apply? Do the tangata whenua wich to make use of this tool?
Resource management in New Zealand is fraught with debate and controversy. Regional Councils often seem stuck in the middle of two opposing groups, the farmers and the environmentalists. There are areas, however, where the Regional Councils could be seen to be hindering progress towards resolution of problems. By avoiding policy formulations of certain issues eg: vegetation burning, Councils are creating difficulties for their own staff, landholders and environmental groups. This paper examines one debate that could be greatly simplified by a few policy direction decisions.
This paper draws together existing data with recent survey results and compares the development of local government GIS with the evolution of Information Systems (IS). These comparisons are made using the philosophy that organisational GIS can be modelled. Using this model, various stages of GIS maturity are evaluated.
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In New Zealand the management of the environment is now largely embodied in the Resource Management Act. Within this context there is a clear need to support regionally significant decisions. Furthermore it is important that such decisions are scale invariant, that is, they are appropriately implementable at the micro and macro levels. This demands that decision makers at these diametrically opposed levels are cognisant of the influence of their domain on other domains. A difficult concept. It also implies that there is consensus on what are the significant regional decisions and also how decisions and consequences interact across all scales and, possibly, even regions. As a region is a scale dependent term it is important that the different views can be perceived and conveyed to the different proponents and opponents. This paper develops the case that it is important to make appropriate use of technology when attempting to make decisions at the regional level. This is particularly so in the fragile environments of the high country of southern New Zealand. Furthermore, this paper embodies a concept of the Six Thinking Hats of E. de Bono in developing a simulation modelling tool which presents interactive management scenarios of agricultural areas of the high country. The modelling concept is presented along with the reasons for adopting the de Bono concept.
Agent-Based Software Integration (ABSI) entails the development of intelligent software agents and knowledge-sharing protocols that enhance interoperability of multiple software packages. Although some past ABSI projects reported in the literature have been concerned with the integration of relatively large software frameworks from separate engineering disciplines, the discussion in this paper concerns the integration of general-purpose software utilities and hand-crafted tools. With such smaller-scale ABSI projects, it may be difficult to justify the expense of constructing an overall ontology for the application. There are cases, however, when the project involves general-purpose tools that manipulate the same general entity types (such as files) but at different levels of abstraction. In such cases it is appropriate to have ontologies appropriate for the general usage of each tool and constraint descriptions that enable the ontological specifications to be mapped across the various levels of abstraction. This paper discusses issues associated with this type of ABSI project and describes an example information management application associated with university course administration. For the information management application presented the key issues are the provision of standard agent wrappers for standard desktop information management tools and the design of standard ontologies describing information stored in relational databases as well as in structured text files. Examples of a conceptual model describing such a database ontology are presented in connection with the example application. It is also suggested that a general planning agent, distinct from the notion of a facilitator agent, be employed in this context to assist in the use of various agents to manipulate information and move items from one data format to another.
This paper outlines a unique approach applying artificial intelligence techniques to the solving of environmental problems. The approach combines case-based reasoning with spatial information systems, enabling technologies and techniques from each domain to be applied to environmental problems. This paper defines a possible case-based reasoning/spatial information system hybrid that would allow spatial cases to be defined and analysed by both technologies. The example used in this paper involves soil series classification which, using case-based reasoning, is performed according to spatial criteria. Evaluations and spatial criteria are then used to predict properties of new cases based on similar previous spatial cases.