Draft Project Management Update to the Iowa DOT Project Development Manual, 2016

This work supported drafting project management guidance for the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT). The goal is to incorporate a greater focus on project management in their project development process. A technical advisory committee (TAC) was assembled to accomplish this effort. The TAC took into consideration the current status of project management with the Iowa DOT, their experience during the demonstration workshop held in Iowa as part of the implementation assistance they received, the project management peer exchange hosted by the Iowa DOT, and additional examples of project management that were presented. With this basis, the TAC participated in a number of discussions to develop draft guidance for the foundation of a Project Management Office (PMO) within the Iowa DOT. The final report describes the process that was used in establishing this guidance. The report details the decisions and decision process that the TAC employed in this endeavor and provides additional thoughts and insight into the draft guidance. Appendix A includes the draft guidance in the form of PMO function details and detailed lists of project management roles and responsibilities. Appendix B includes a starter list of project management resources for the PMO.

Systems of exchange values as tools for multi-agent organizations

This paper introduces systems of exchange values as tools for the organization of multi-agent systems. Systems of exchange values are defined on the basis of the theory of social exchanges, developed by Piaget and Homans. A model of social organization is proposed, where social relations are construed as social exchanges and exchange values are put into use in the support of the continuity of the performance of social exchanges. The dynamics of social organizations is formulated in terms of the regulation of exchanges of values, so that social equilibrium is connected to the continuity of the interactions. The concept of supervisor of social equilibrium is introduced as a centralized mechanism for solving the problem of the equilibrium of the organization The equilibrium supervisor solves such problem making use of a qualitative Markov Decision Process that uses numerical intervals for the representation of exchange values.

Contribution à la planification tactique et opérationnelle du transport forestier

Cette thèse est une contribution à la modélisation, la planification et l’optimisation du transport pour l’approvisionnement en bois de forêt des industries de première transformation. Dans ce domaine, les aléas climatiques (mise au sol des bois par les tempêtes), sanitaires (attaques bactériologiques et fongiques des bois) et commerciaux (variabilité et exigence croissante des marchés) poussent les divers acteurs du secteur (entrepreneurs et exploitants forestiers, transporteurs) à revoir l’organisation de la filière logistique d’approvisionnement, afin d’améliorer la qualité de service (adéquation offre-demande) et de diminuer les coûts. L’objectif principal de cette thèse était de proposer un modèle de pilotage améliorant la performance du transport forestier, en respectant les contraintes et les pratiques du secteur. Les résultats établissent une démarche de planification hiérarchique des activités de transport à deux niveaux de décision, tactique et opérationnel. Au niveau tactique, une optimisation multi-périodes permet de répondre aux commandes en minimisant l’activité globale de transport, sous contrainte de capacité agrégée des moyens de transport accessibles. Ce niveau permet de mettre en œuvre des politiques de lissage de charge et d’organisation de sous-traitance ou de partenariats entre acteurs de transport. Au niveau opérationnel, les plans tactiques alloués à chaque transporteur sont désagrégés, pour permettre une optimisation des tournées des flottes, sous contrainte des capacités physiques de ces flottes. Les modèles d’optimisation de chaque niveau sont formalisés en programmation linéaire mixte avec variables binaires. L’applicabilité des modèles a été testée en utilisant un jeu de données industrielles en région Aquitaine et a montré des améliorations significatives d’exploitation des capacités de transport par rapport aux pratiques actuelles. Les modèles de décision ont été conçus pour s’adapter à tout contexte organisationnel, partenarial ou non : la production du plan tactique possède un caractère générique sans présomption de l’organisation, celle-ci étant prise en compte, dans un deuxième temps, au niveau de l’optimisation opérationnelle du plan de transport de chaque acteur.

Exact Solution of Bayes and Minimax Change-Detection Problems

The challenge of detecting a change in the distribution of data is a sequential decision problem that is relevant to many engineering solutions, including quality control and machine and process monitoring. This dissertation develops techniques for exact solution of change-detection problems with discrete time and discrete observations. Change-detection problems are classified as Bayes or minimax based on the availability of information on the change-time distribution. A Bayes optimal solution uses prior information about the distribution of the change time to minimize the expected cost, whereas a minimax optimal solution minimizes the cost under the worst-case change-time distribution. Both types of problems are addressed. The most important result of the dissertation is the development of a polynomial-time algorithm for the solution of important classes of Markov Bayes change-detection problems. Existing techniques for epsilon-exact solution of partially observable Markov decision processes have complexity exponential in the number of observation symbols. A new algorithm, called constellation induction, exploits the concavity and Lipschitz continuity of the value function, and has complexity polynomial in the number of observation symbols. It is shown that change-detection problems with a geometric change-time distribution and identically- and independently-distributed observations before and after the change are solvable in polynomial time. Also, change-detection problems on hidden Markov models with a fixed number of recurrent states are solvable in polynomial time. A detailed implementation and analysis of the constellation-induction algorithm are provided. Exact solution methods are also established for several types of minimax change-detection problems. Finite-horizon problems with arbitrary observation distributions are modeled as extensive-form games and solved using linear programs. Infinite-horizon problems with linear penalty for detection delay and identically- and independently-distributed observations can be solved in polynomial time via epsilon-optimal parameterization of a cumulative-sum procedure. Finally, the properties of policies for change-detection problems are described and analyzed. Simple classes of formal languages are shown to be sufficient for epsilon-exact solution of change-detection problems, and methods for finding minimally sized policy representations are described.

Principais fatores motivacionais na compra de livros de ficção

O presente projeto de Mestrado assenta no estudo dos principais fatores motivacionais na compra de livros de ficção, aprofundando a dicotomia uso próprio versus oferta, englobando duas perspetivas complementares: a sustentação bibliográfica e uma pesquisa quantitativa que foi concretizada através da distribuição de um inquérito por questionário, em formato digital, que permitiu obter 487 respostas válidas e completas. Os dados obtidos foram tratados no SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), utilizando análises descritivas, que foram complementadas com técnicas de inferência estatística. Os resultados permitiram concluir que, apesar de homens e mulheres oferecerem um número idêntico de livros, as mulheres compram e leem mais. Além disso, cerca de um terço dos livros comprados destina-se a oferta. Ficou ainda provado que a interação com os autores nas redes sociais apresenta uma associação positiva com a importância atribuida a esse fator na hora de comprar o(s) livro(s). As mulheres são mais sensíveis às “Políticas de Marketing” (Atendimento Personalizado; Facilidade de Pagamento; Local com Cartão de Fidelização; Preços e Descontos; Elevada quantidade de livros), enquanto critérios de seleção do local de compra. Importa referir que a compra é concretizada de forma menos impulsiva quando o livro é para oferta. Os atributos da capa mais relevantes no processo de decisão de compra são o “Título” e a “Sinopse”. Contudo, os diferentes fatores da capa estudados não apresentam diferenças significativas na compra para uso próprio comparativamente à oferta, no que respeita à sua importância. “Autores com prémios literários” e “Nobel” e “Ser uma novidade” (livro) são outros fatores (não da capa) que apresentam diferenças significativas favoráveis à compra para oferta. Por outro lado, “Recomendação de Amigos e Familiares” e “Presença/Ligação/Interação com o Autor nas redes sociais” são mais favoráveis à compra para uso próprio. As conclusões são relevantes para enquadrar as preferências dos consumidores, possibilitando aos profissionais do marketing algumas referências para definir estratégias que respondam às suas necessidades e ambições. Além disso, ao explorar a dimensão dos submercados (Uso próprio versus Oferta), será possível ir ao encontro das exigências dos compradores, tornando a subjetividade da aquisição/utilização numa ferramenta eficaz da própria idealização e personalização dos livros, permitindo conceber e implementar ideias empreendedoras que visem estimular a compra e, consequentemente, melhorar os hábitos de leitura de todos os portugueses.

Multi-Agent Simulation and Management Practices

Intelligent agents offer a new and exciting way of understanding the world of work. Agent-Based Simulation (ABS), one way of using intelligent agents, carries great potential for progressing our understanding of management practices and how they link to retail performance. We have developed simulation models based on research by a multi-disciplinary team of economists, work psychologists and computer scientists. We will discuss our experiences of implementing these concepts working with a well-known retail department store. There is no doubt that management practices are linked to the performance of an organisation (Reynolds et al., 2005; Wall & Wood, 2005). Best practices have been developed, but when it comes down to the actual application of these guidelines considerable ambiguity remains regarding their effectiveness within particular contexts (Siebers et al., forthcoming a). Most Operational Research (OR) methods can only be used as analysis tools once management practices have been implemented. Often they are not very useful for giving answers to speculative ‘what-if’ questions, particularly when one is interested in the development of the system over time rather than just the state of the system at a certain point in time. Simulation can be used to analyse the operation of dynamic and stochastic systems. ABS is particularly useful when complex interactions between system entities exist, such as autonomous decision making or negotiation. In an ABS model the researcher explicitly describes the decision process of simulated actors at the micro level. Structures emerge at the macro level as a result of the actions of the agents and their interactions with other agents and the environment. We will show how ABS experiments can deal with testing and optimising management practices such as training, empowerment or teamwork. Hence, questions such as “will staff setting their own break times improve performance?” can be investigated.

Data Mining in Promoting Flight Safety

The incredible rapid development to huge volumes of air travel, mainly because of jet airliners that appeared to the sky in the 1950s, created the need for systematic research for aviation safety and collecting data about air traffic. The structured data can be analysed easily using queries from databases and running theseresults through graphic tools. However, in analysing narratives that often give more accurate information about the case, mining tools are needed. The analysis of textual data with computers has not been possible until data mining tools have been developed. Their use, at least among aviation, is still at a moderate level. The research aims at discovering lethal trends in the flight safety reports. The narratives of 1,200 flight safety reports from years 1994 – 1996 in Finnish were processed with three text mining tools. One of them was totally language independent, the other had a specific configuration for Finnish and the third originally created for English, but encouraging results had been achieved with Spanish and that is why a Finnish test was undertaken, too. The global rate of accidents is stabilising and the situation can now be regarded as satisfactory, but because of the growth in air traffic, the absolute number of fatal accidents per year might increase, if the flight safety will not be improved. The collection of data and reporting systems have reached their top level. The focal point in increasing the flight safety is analysis. The air traffic has generally been forecasted to grow 5 – 6 per cent annually over the next two decades. During this period, the global air travel will probably double also with relatively conservative expectations of economic growth. This development makes the airline management confront growing pressure due to increasing competition, signify cant rise in fuel prices and the need to reduce the incident rate due to expected growth in air traffic volumes. All this emphasises the urgent need for new tools and methods. All systems provided encouraging results, as well as proved challenges still to be won. Flight safety can be improved through the development and utilisation of sophisticated analysis tools and methods, like data mining, using its results supporting the decision process of the executives.

Influência dos intermediários de distribuição de produtos turísticos no processo de decisão do meio de hospedagem pelo consumidor

This study examines the complex hotel buyer decision process in front of the tourism distribution channels. Its objective is to describe the influence level of the tourism marketing intermediaries, mainly the travel agents and tour operators, over the hotel decision process by the buyer-tourist. The data collection process was done trough a survey with three hundred brazilian tourists hosted in nineteen hotels of Natal, capital of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The data analysis was done using some multivariate statistic techniques as correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, factor analysis and multiple discriminant analysis. The research characterizes the hotel services consumers profile and his trip, and identifying the distribution channels used by them. Furthermore, the research verifies the intermediaries influence exercised over hotel buyer decision process, looking for identify causality relations between the influence level and the buyer profile. Verifies that information about hotels available on internet reduces the probability that this influence can be practiced; however it was possible identifying those consumers considers this information complementary and non-substitutes than the information from intermediaries. The characteristics of the data do not allow indentifying the factors that constraint the intermediaries influence neither identifying discriminant functions of the specific distribution channel choice by consumers. The study concludes that consumers don t agree in have been influenced by intermediaries or don t know if they have, still considering important to consult them and internet doesn t substitute their function as information source

SEQUENTIAL DECISIONS AND PREDICTIONS IN NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Natural language processing has achieved great success in a wide range of ap- plications, producing both commercial language services and open-source language tools. However, most methods take a static or batch approach, assuming that the model has all information it needs and makes a one-time prediction. In this disser- tation, we study dynamic problems where the input comes in a sequence instead of all at once, and the output must be produced while the input is arriving. In these problems, predictions are often made based only on partial information. We see this dynamic setting in many real-time, interactive applications. These problems usually involve a trade-off between the amount of input received (cost) and the quality of the output prediction (accuracy). Therefore, the evaluation considers both objectives (e.g., plotting a Pareto curve). Our goal is to develop a formal understanding of sequential prediction and decision-making problems in natural language processing and to propose efficient solutions. Toward this end, we present meta-algorithms that take an existent batch model and produce a dynamic model to handle sequential inputs and outputs. Webuild our framework upon theories of Markov Decision Process (MDP), which allows learning to trade off competing objectives in a principled way. The main machine learning techniques we use are from imitation learning and reinforcement learning, and we advance current techniques to tackle problems arising in our settings. We evaluate our algorithm on a variety of applications, including dependency parsing, machine translation, and question answering. We show that our approach achieves a better cost-accuracy trade-off than the batch approach and heuristic-based decision- making approaches. We first propose a general framework for cost-sensitive prediction, where dif- ferent parts of the input come at different costs. We formulate a decision-making process that selects pieces of the input sequentially, and the selection is adaptive to each instance. Our approach is evaluated on both standard classification tasks and a structured prediction task (dependency parsing). We show that it achieves similar prediction quality to methods that use all input, while inducing a much smaller cost. Next, we extend the framework to problems where the input is revealed incremen- tally in a fixed order. We study two applications: simultaneous machine translation and quiz bowl (incremental text classification). We discuss challenges in this set- ting and show that adding domain knowledge eases the decision-making problem. A central theme throughout the chapters is an MDP formulation of a challenging problem with sequential input/output and trade-off decisions, accompanied by a learning algorithm that solves the MDP.

Efeitos dos vídeo-blogs na decisão de compra de produtos cosméticos

Este estudo enquadra-se na área do Marketing Digital, e pretende demonstrar a influência exercida pelos vídeo-blogs no YouTube na decisão de compra de produtos cosméticos em Portugal. Aborda inicialmente conceitos como as redes sociais, mais concretamente os vídeoblogs e a rede social YouTube, o comportamento do consumidor online, o mercado da cosmética em Portugal e o Marketing ligado à industria da beleza. O objetivo deste estudo é o de demonstrar como as marcas de cosmética podem aumentar as suas vendas e notoriedade com a influência exercida pelas beauty vloggers. A fim de perceber a influência na tomada de decisão no que diz respeito a produtos de cosmética, adotámos uma metodologia quantitativa, que assentou na realização de inquéritos online por questionário. Os dados foram organizados e analisados com a ajuda do software de análise quantitativa SPSS. Os principais resultados observados determinam uma influência positiva dos vídeo-blogs na decisão de compra de produtos cosméticos. Esta influência poderá demonstrar que o sucesso das empresas de cosméticos na divulgação, venda e fidelização de clientes deve apontar cada vez mais para a utilização intensiva de video bloggers dedicadas a temas de beleza, e identificadas no estudo como líderes de opinião, para as suas estratégias de comunicação.

Banca Digital

Em plena quarta revolução industrial, todas as industrias se estão a transformar para se ajustar aos novos paradigmas de relação com os clientes, altamente influenciados pelos pioneiros digitais como a Uber, Netflix ou Amazon, porém no setor financeiro há desafios acrescidos, pois os clientes esperam juntar essas expectativas digitais com a manutenção da iteração humana, enquanto, do lados bancos, em simultâneo, necessitam de recuperar da crise da dívida soberana que impôs necessidades de ajustamento dos balanços. O momento de desenvolvimento tecnológico potenciado pelo forte crescimento do acesso à internet em mobilidade traz novos hábitos e expectativas na relação com as entidades, com dispositivos cada vez mais potentes a cada vez menor custo, o que criou a oportunidade perfeita para o surgimento de startups tecnológicas dispostas a transformar os modelos de negócio de intermediação clássica, dando origem, no setor financeiro, às fintechs – empresas de base tecnológica dedicadas à prestação de serviços financeiros - impondo uma disrupção na industria financeira, com destaque para mercados como os EUA e Reino Unido. Olhando aos últimos cinco anos do setor financeiro, será muito difícil antecipar como estará o setor financeiro dentro de cinco anos, mas sabemos que estará seguramente muito diferente do que conhecemos hoje, por esse fato este trabalho é assente essencialmente em referências bibliográficas dos últimos 5 anos, tendo sido feito utilizados estudos de investigação de empresas e documentos académicos para a caracterização do setor neste contexto de inovação permanente e em que medida este processo de “digitalização” do setor financeiro influencia a propensão dos clientes na contratação de mais produtos e serviços, sendo esse um fator central para os bancos em Portugal recuperarem economicamente. É também analisada a dimensão seguida pelas instituições de regulação e supervisão do setor financeiro com vista a potenciar a concorrência e inovação do setor financeiro, enquanto mantém a garantia de segurança, confiança e controlo de risco sistémico. É bastante escassa a literatura disponível para caracterizar a banca em Portugal numa ótica de inovação e transformação, porém este trabalho procura caracterizar o sistema financeiro português face à forma como está a responder aos desafios de transformação tecnológica e digital. Procurou-se estabelecer uma metodologia de investigação que permita caracterizar a perceção de valor acrescentado para os clientes da utilização de serviços digitais e em que medida estes se podem substituir aos balcões e à intervenção humana dos profissionais dos bancos, tendo-se concluído que estes dois elementos são ainda fatores centrais para os clientes.

Gestão de Informação e do Conhecimento

Nos últimos anos, a Gestão de Informação e do Conhecimento (GIC) tem despertado um interesse cada vez maior por parte da comunidade científica e de prestigiadas organizações empresariais e governamentais. A incorporação organizacional desta disciplina possibilitou a correção de lacunas de informação e de conhecimento, contribuindo eficazmente para a superioridade de informação. Desta maneira, este estudo tem por objetivo determinar as opções que permitirão ao Exército Português maximizar a sua eficácia no âmbito da GIC. Posto isto, analisar-se-á primeiramente o impacto da “era da informação” na atual gestão organizacional. Em seguida, proceder-se-á à avaliação do modelo de GIC que melhor servirá uma organização tipo Exército Português, verificando-se, numa fase final, quais os aspetos que caracterizam o atual modelo em vigor no Exército e qual o seu impacto na sua gestão estratégica. Por último, conclui-se com o presente estudo que se encontra em curso uma transformação ao nível de toda a cultura organizacional do Exército, uma vez que a mesma passa a centralizar o seu processo de decisão em rede. Para isso, torna-se essencial a implementação eficaz da GIC, o que é apenas é praticável com a definição de uma estratégia e de um plano de ação para a sua eficaz materialização. Abstract: The Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) is beginning to awaken a growing interest in the academic world as well as in large organizations globally. The implementation of this type of capability allows bridging the information and knowledge gaps contributing to achieve in organizational terms the information superiority. This study focuses on determining the options that will allow the Portuguese Army in order to maximize its effectiveness within the IKM. To achieve this purpose, it begins by analyzing how the "information age" influences the management of organizations. Next, we evaluate which model of IKM that could best serve an organization like the Portuguese Army and finally we analyze which aspects characterizing the current IKM model in the Army and its impact on its Strategic Management. We conclude that the Army is crossing a transformation of the whole organizational culture passing this to centralize its decision process through the network changing the whole paradigm of sharing and obligation to share. For this, it is essential to the implementation of the IKM capacity and this is only possible with the definition of a strategy and action plan for the implementation of this strategy.

Análise tridimensional do Fundo Europeu das pescas em Portugal. A implementação do Eixo 4 do PROMAR

Dissertação de Mestrado, Gestão Empresarial, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Algarve, 2015

Entre critérios, contextos e demandas : a trajetória do Comitê Assessor de Saúde Coletiva do CNPq

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável, 2014.

Análisis de la toma de decisiones a nivel del alto gobierno, durante la crisis del Palacio de Justicia en noviembre de 1985.

El objetivo de este estudio, consiste en el análisis de la toma de decisiones del gabinete ministerial del presidente Belisario Betancur, durante la crisis de la toma del Palacio de Justicia por parte del M-19, durante los días 6 y 7 de noviembre de 1985. Para ello, se utilizará un enfoque histórico sociológico e institucional, realizando una revisión documental para describir los hechos previos a la toma del Palacio de Justicia, examinar el escalamiento de la crisis y explicar el proceso de toma de decisiones a nivel del alto gobierno, durante el desarrollo de la toma militar del Palacio. De esta forma se busca comprobar, utilizando principalmente el modelo de políticas gubernamentales de Graham T. Allison, que durante el proceso de toma de decisiones no se realizó un adecuado análisis del contexto, no se tuvo en cuenta los factores psicológicos de cada actor del conflicto, ni hubo claridad sobre el rol que desempeñó cada uno dentro de la mencionada crisis, creando las condiciones para el desenlace violento que generó el conocido Holocausto del Palacio de Justicia.