Using Knowledge Management to Develop Superior Online Health Decision Support Solutions: The Case of Allergy Care

Author(s):  
Nilmini Wickramasinghe
2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 295-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY HUNTER

Numerous argumentation systems have been proposed in the literature. Yet there often appears to be a shortfall between proposed systems and possible applications. In other words, there seems to be a need for further development of proposals for argumentation systems before they can be used widely in decision-support or knowledge management. I believe that this shortfall can be bridged by taking a hybrid approach. Whilst formal foundations are vital, systems that incorporate some of the practical ideas found in some of the informal approaches may make the resulting hybrid systems more useful. In informal approaches, there is often an emphasis on using graphical notation with symbols that relate more closely to the real-world concepts to be modelled. There may also be the incorporation of an argument ontology oriented to the user domain. Furthermore, in informal approaches there can be greater consideration of how users interact with the models, such as allowing users to edit arguments and to weight influences on graphs representing arguments. In this paper, I discuss some of the features of argumentation, review some key formal argumentation systems, identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of these formal proposals and finally consider some ways to develop formal proposals to give hybrid argumentation systems. To focus my discussions, I will consider some applications, in particular an application in analysing structured news reports.


Author(s):  
Yuanbin Wang ◽  
Robert Blache ◽  
Xun Xu

Additive manufacturing (AM) has experienced a phenomenal expansion in recent years and new technologies and materials rapidly emerge in the market. Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) becomes more and more important to take full advantage of the capabilities provided by AM. However, most people still have limited knowledge to make informed decisions in the design stage. Therefore, an interactive DfAM system in the cloud platform is proposed to enable people sharing the knowledge in this field and guide the designers to utilize AM efficiently. There are two major modules in the system, decision support module and knowledge management module. A case study is presented to illustrate how this system can help the designers understand the capabilities of AM processes and make rational decisions.


Author(s):  
Isabella Castiglioni ◽  
Maria Carla Gilardi ◽  
Francesca Gallivanone

The increase of incidence and prevalence of dementia diseases makes urgent the clinical community to be supported in the difficult diagnostic process of dementia patients. E-health decision support systems, based on innovative algorithms able to extract information from in vivo neuroimaging studies, can make a quite different way to perform neurological diagnosis and enlarge domains and actors involved in the diagnostic process. A number of image-processing methods that extract potential biomarkers from the in vivo neuroimaging studies have been proposed (e.g. volume segmentation, voxel-based statistical mapping). A number of new shape descriptors have also been developed (e.g. texture-based). Other approaches (e.g. machine learning, pattern recognition) have been proven effective, for both structural and functional data, in making automatic diagnoses. The integration of these sophisticated diagnostic tools into secure, efficient, and wide e-infrastructures is the prerequisite for the real implementation of e-health support services to the clinical and industrial communities managing dementia patients.


Author(s):  
Alea Fairchild

IT professionals who want to deploy foundation technologies such as groupware, CRM or decision support tools, but fail to justify them on the basis of their contribution to Knowledge Management, may find it difficult to get funding unless they can frame the benefits within a Knowledge Management context. Determining Knowledge Management’s pervasiveness and impact is analogous to measuring the contribution of marketing, employee development, or any other management or organizational competency. This chapter addresses the problem of developing measurement models for Knowledge Management metrics and discusses what current Knowledge Management metrics are in use, and examines their sustainability and soundness in assessing knowledge utilization and retention of generating revenue. The chapter discusses the use of a Balanced Scorecard approach to determine a business-oriented relationship between strategic Knowledge Management usage and IT strategy and implementation.


Author(s):  
Stephen Burgess ◽  
Don Schauder

How should a small business decide whether and in what ways to use Web technology for interactions with customers? This case describes the creation of a practical decision support tool (using a spreadsheet) for the initiation and development of small business Web sites. Decisions arise from both explicit and tacit knowledge. Using selected literature from a structuration theory, information management and knowledge management, decision support tools are characterized as knowledge documents (communication agents for explicit knowledge). Understanding decision support tools as knowledge documents sheds light on their potentialities and limitations for knowledge transfer, and assists in maximizing their potentialities. The case study deploys three levels of modeling: a high-level structuration model of the interplay between information management and knowledge management, a conceptual model of small-business decision-making, and an applied model the practical decision support tool, itself. An action-research methodology involving experts and stakeholders validated the development of conceptual categories and their instantiation in the practical tool.


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