Knowledge Management (KM) is strongly rooted in the discipline of Knowledge Engineering (KE), which in turn grew partly out of the artificial intelligence field. Despite their close relationship, however, many KM specialists have failed to fully recognize the synergy or acknowledge the power that KE methodologies, techniques, and tools hold for enhancing the state of the art in Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management: Learning from Knowledge Engineering addresses this vacuum. It gives concise, practical information and insights drawn from the author's many years of experience in the fields of expert systems and Knowledge Management. Based upon research, analyses, and illustrative case studies, this is the first book to integrate the theory and practice of artificial intelligence and expert systems with the current organizational and strategic aspects of Knowledge Management. The time has come for Knowledge Management professionals to appreciate the synergy between their work and the work of their counterparts in Knowledge Engineering. Knowledge Management: Learning from Knowledge Engineering is the ideal starting point for those in KM to learn from and exploit advances in that field, and thereby advance their own.

For novices and experienced health and safety professionals alike, the Respiratory Protection Handbook fills a critical gap in the respiratory protection literature. This extensive guide provides all the information you need to dramatically expand your understanding of the concepts and day-to-day operations of respiratory protection. It is a fully self-contained text that expertly accomplishes two goals: first, for the novice, it clearly explains how to establish and implement an effective respiratory protection program; and second, for the experienced professional, it provides in-depth knowledge that goes beyond basics. Respiratory Protection Handbook addresses the development of respiratory protection devices, the capabilities and limitations of specific respirators, the respirator certification system, how to select appropriate filters, how to predict the service life of sorbents, fit testing methods, assigned protection factors, and much more. Nowhere else will you find a single source on this topic containing so much information.

The Workplace Walk-Through is the first volume in a series dedicated to providing physicians with more advanced tools for performing not only the routine tasks involved in occupational medicine, but also the most unusual and challenging assignments.

This book tells how to develop a successful factory information system to manage and control computer integrated manufacturing (CIM)operations. It is directed and dedicated to those people who are involved in the preservation and enhancement of historical manufacturing strength.

Plates are integral parts of most engineering structures and their vibration analysis is required for safe design. Vibration of Plates provides a comprehensive, self-contained introduction to vibration theory and analysis of two-dimensional plates. Reflecting the author's more than 15 years of original research on plate vibration, this book presents new methodologies and demonstrates their effectiveness by providing comprehensive results. The text also offers background information on vibration problems along with a discussion of various plate geometries and boundary conditions, including the new concepts of Boundary Characteristic Orthogonal Polynomials (BCOPs).

There is perhaps no facet of modern society where the influence of computer automation has not been felt. Flight management systems for pilots, diagnostic and surgical aids for physicians, navigational displays for drivers, and decision-aiding systems for air-traffic controllers, represent only a few of the numerous domains in which powerful new automation technologies have been introduced. The benefits that have been reaped from this technological revolution have been many. At the same time, automation has not always worked as planned by designers, and many problems have arisen--from minor inefficiencies of operation to large-scale, catastrophic accidents. Understanding how humans interact with automation is vital for the successful design of new automated systems that are both safe and efficient. The influence of automation technology on human performance has often been investigated in a fragmentary, isolated manner, with investigators conducting disconnected studies in different domains. There has been little contact between these endeavors, although principles gleaned from one domain may have implications for another. Also, with a few exceptions, the research has tended to be empirical and only theory-driven. In recent years, however, various groups of investigators have begun to examine human performance in automated systems in general and to develop theories of human interaction with automation technology. This book presents the current theories and assesses the impact of automation on different aspects of human performance. Both basic and applied research is presented to highlight the general principles of human-computer interaction in several domains where automation technologies are widely implemented. The major premise is that a broad-based, theory-driven approach will have significant implications for the effective design of both current and future automation technologies. This volume will be of considerable value to researchers in human

Nothing has been more prolific over the past century than human/machine interaction. Automobiles, telephones, computers, manufacturing machines, robots, office equipment, machines large and small; all affect the very essence of our daily lives. However, this interaction has not always been efficient or easy and has at times turned fairly hazardous. Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) seeks to improve this situation by the careful study of human/machine interaction as the meaningful behavior of a unified system. Written by pioneers in the development of CSE, Joint Cognitive Systems: Foundations of Cognitive Systems Engineering offers a principled approach to studying human work with complex technology. The authors use a top-down, functional approach and emphasize a proactive (coping) perspective on work that overcomes the limitations of the structural human information processing view. They describe a conceptual framework for analysis with concrete theories and methods for joint system modeling that can be applied across the spectrum of single human/machine systems, social/technical systems, and whole organizations. The book explores both current and potential applications of CSE illustrated by examples. Understanding the complexities and functions of the human/machine interaction is critical to designing safe, highly functional, and efficient technological systems. This is a critical reference for students, designers, and engineers in a wide variety of disciplines.

This book is about how to develop future automotive products by applying the latest methodologies based on a systems engineering approach and by taking into account many issues facing the auto industry such as meeting government safety, emissions and fuel economy regulations, incorporating advances in new technology applications in structural materials, power trains, vehicle lighting systems, displays and telematics, and satisfying the very demanding customer. It is financially disastrous for any automotive company to create a vehicle that very few people want. To design an automotive product that will be successful in the marketplace requires carefully orchestrated teamwork of experts from many disciplines, substantial amount of resources, and application of proven techniques at the right time during the product development process. Automotive Product Development: A Systems Engineering Implementation is intended for company management personnel and graduate students in engineering, business management and other disciplines associated with the development of automotive and other complex products.

This book presents the fundamentals of nonlinear mechanics within a modern computational approach based mainly on finite element methods. Both material and geometric nonlinearities are treated. The topics build up from the mechanics of finite deformation of solid bodies through to nonlinear structural behaviour including buckling, bifurcation and snap-through. The principles are illustrated with a series of solved problems. This book serves as a text book for a second year graduate course and as a reference for practitioners using nonlinear analysis in engineering and design.

Two of the most important yet often overlooked aspects of a medical device are its usability and accessibility. This is important not only for health care providers, but also for older patients and users with disabilities or activity limitations. Medical Instrumentation: Accessibility and Usability Considerations focuses on how lack of usability and accessibility pose problems for designers and users of medical devices, and how to overcome these limitations. Divided into five broad sections, the book first addresses the nature and extent of the problem by identifying access barriers, human factors, and policy issues focused on the existing infrastructure. The subsequent sections examine responses to the problem, beginning with tools for usability and accessibility analysis and principles of design for medical instrumentation. Building on this foundation, the third section focuses on recommendations for design guidelines while the fourth section explores emerging trends and future technologies for improving medical device usability. The final section outlines key challenges, knowledge gaps, and recommendations from accomplished experts in the field presented at the recent Workshop on Accessible Interfaces for Medical Instrumentation. Integrating expert perspectives from a wide array of disciplines, Medical Instrumentation traces a clear roadmap for improving accessibility and usability for a variety of stakeholders and provides the tools necessary to follow it.

Researching Patient Safety and Quality in Health Care: A Nordic Perspective is an anthology based on contributions from leading researchers on quality and safety in healthcare in the Nordic countries together with four internationally renowned patient safety authors. Research on patient safety and quality has been dominated by countries such as the USA, England, Canada, and Australia. This book addresses the current debates in research on patient safety and quality in healthcare from a Nordic perspective. What are the flavours of Nordic research within these topics? What does it add to the international research literature? This book illustrates the unique nature of researching patient safety and quality with the Nordic perspective as well as showcasing representative work. The book presents an overview of the status and evidence of international and Nordic research on quality and safety in healthcare. Four different perspectives are used to present the trends within the research field: a patient perspective, a methodological perspective, a theoretical perspective, and a clinical perspective. The book then presents the status of Nordic research in the field and displays a set of illustrative work and current research topics within the Nordic context, concluding with a discussion of the characteristic features of Nordic research on patient safety and quality in healthcare. The anthology presents an inter-professional perspective and researchers from disciplines such as medical and nursing sciences, humanities, social sciences and engineering. It is written to contribute to the patient safety cause with translational knowledge that will be useful to researchers, policy makers and healthcare managers within Nordic countries and internationally.

Our fascination with new technologies is based on the assumption that more powerful automation will overcome human limitations and make our systems 'faster, better, cheaper,' resulting in simple, easy tasks for people. But how does new technology and more powerful automation change our work? Research in Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) looks at the intersection of people, technology, and work. What it has found is not stories of simplification through more automation, but stories of complexity and adaptation. When work changed through new technology, practitioners had to cope with new complexities and tighter constraints. They adapted their strategies and the artifacts to work around difficulties and accomplish their goals as responsible agents. The surprise was that new powers had transformed work, creating new roles, new decisions, and new vulnerabilities. Ironically, more autonomous machines have created the requirement for more sophisticated forms of coordination across people, and across people and machines, to adapt to new demands and pressures. This book synthesizes these emergent Patterns though stories about coordination and mis-coordination, resilience and brittleness, affordance and clumsiness in a variety of settings, from a hospital intensive care unit, to a nuclear power control room, to a space shuttle control center. The stories reveal how new demands make work difficult, how people at work adapt but get trapped by complexity, and how people at a distance from work oversimplify their perceptions of the complexities, squeezing practitioners. The authors explore how CSE observes at the intersection of people, technology, and work, how CSE abstracts patterns behind the surface details and wide variations, and how CSE discovers promising new directions to help people cope with complexities. The stories of CSE show that one key to well-adapted work is the ability to be prepared to be surprised. Are you ready?

Focuses on applied design research, a relatively new field of research which combines the fields of design and research Offers the experiences of 22 professors and provides a wide range of applications of applied design research Demonstrates how applied design research offers an inspiring and effective approach to combining the unique qualities of research (aimed at studying the present) and design (aimed at developing the future) Shows that the transdisciplinary approach this book includes is applicable across a number of sectors such as product design, architecture healthcare, urban planning, circular economy, as well as the food industry Arranged in five parts, the book is a mosaic of examples, experiences, and interpretations, giving different illustrative examples and describing different methods which makeup the characteristic of a mosaic in that each piece contributes to the whole, but none of the pieces contains all the information. Together they offer an excellent picture of applied design research, how it is implemented and what the reader can expect from it

In spite of the increasing importance of microcavities, device physics or the observable phenomena in optical microcavities such as enhanced or inhibited spontaneous emission and its relation with the laser oscillation has not been systematically well-described-until now. Spontaneous Emission and Laser Oscillation in Microcavities presents the basics of optical microcavities. The volume is divided into ten chapters, each written by respected authorities in their areas. The book surveys several methods describing free space spontaneous emission and discusses changes in the feature due to the presence of a cavity. The effect of dephasing of vacuum fields on spontaneous emission in a microcavity and the effects of atomic broadening on spontaneous emission in an optical microcavity are examined. The book details the splitting in transmission peaks of planar microcavities containing semiconductor quantum wells. A simple but useful way to consider the change in the spontaneous emission rate from the viewpoint of mode density alteration by wavelength-sized cavities is provided. Authors also discuss the spontaneous emission in dielectric planar microcavities. Spontaneous emission in microcavity surface emitting lasers is covered, as are the effects of electron confinement in semiconductor quantum wells, wires, and boxes also given. The volume extends the controlling spontaneous emission phenomenon to laser oscillation. Starting from the Fermi golden rule, the microcavity laser rate equations are derived, and the oscillation characteristics are analyzed. Recent progress in optical microcavity experiments is summarized, and the applicability in massively optical parallel processing systems and demands for the device performance are explored. This volume is extremely useful as a textbook for graduate and postgraduate students and works well as a unique reference for researchers beginning to study in the field.

This volume examines the nature of human error -- its causes and origins, its classifications, and the extent to which it is possible to predict and prevent errors and their impact. One of the first texts to deal with this topic in detail, it draws into a single cohesive account contributions from experts in a range of disciplines including psychology, philosophy, and engineering. Offering an insightful discussion of fundamental and necessary questions about the nature and source of human error, the book draws significant conclusions and identifies areas worthy of further exploration. This volume will be of interest to all who are concerned with the impact human error has on both the individual and society.

Increasing capacity at ports and goods movement in the supply chain in general, while also satisfying environmental, economic, political, labor union, and other constraints is, arguably, the greatest challenge of modern transportation. With space at a premium and costs through the roof, it is increasingly obvious that the traditional solutions are not feasible in the short- or even medium-term. However, advances in information technology, telecommunications, data management, and computation tools, coupled with recent research in systems optimization and control, may provide promising new approaches.

Moving from theory into practical reality, ergonomics has come of age as a useful tool for generating safe, comfortable, and productive working environments. Tackling both the simple and complex aspects of a variety of workplaces, Office Ergonomics: Practical Applications demonstrates how to create offices that accommodate all workers. The book contains practical advice on how to maintain an office environment that promotes a healthy, safe, and efficient workforce. Covering workstation design, selection, layout, and use, the book details the impact of computers on worker well-being, particularly when used under unfavorable conditions, and discusses how ergonomics can accommodate disabled workers. The author emphasizes the need to offer 'protection' to people involved in manual handling in offices, an issue that is frequently overlooked, and offers advice on how to work satisfactorily in non-office environments. She explores the possible negative outcomes, such as back pain, headaches, and upper limb disorders, of a poorly designed workstation. Walking you through all the features of an office, the book provides insight into the potential problem areas that workers often encounter. The book explains how to identify suitable workstation furniture, test it, trial it, and introduce the final selection so the workforce accepts it. The author draws on first-hand experience dealing with difficulties in many types of office situations to provide straightforward, easily applicable advice on how to improve the workplace to reduce the likelihood of workers experiencing discomfort, ill-health, and dissatisfaction.

Covering the prediction of outcomes for engineering decisions through regression analysis, this succinct and practical reference presents statistical reasoning and interpretational techniques to aid in the decision making process when faced with engineering problems. The author emphasizes the use of spreadsheet simulations and decision trees as important tools in the practical application of decision making analyses and models to improve real-world engineering operations. He offers insight into the realities of high-stakes engineering decision making in the investigative and corporate sectors by optimizing engineering decision variables to maximize payoff.

This volume seeks to answer the question: "Can findings from cognitive science enhance the user-computer interaction process?" In so doing, it recognizes that user-computer interfaces (UCIs) are often essential parts of an information or decision support system -- and often critical components of software-intensive systems of all kinds. From the outset, the authors note that the design, prototyping, and evaluation of user-computer interfaces are part of larger systems and are therefore ideally designed, developed, and evaluated as part of a larger design and developmental process or "life cycle." Thus, this book describes the process by which functional, nonfunctional, or display-oriented requirements are converted first into prototypes and then into working systems. While the process may at times seem almost mysterious, there is in fact a methodology that drives the process -- a methodology that is defined in terms of an adaptive life cycle. There are a number of steps or phases that comprise the standard life cycle, as well as methods, tools and techniques that permit each step to be taken. Describing the effort to implement this process to enhance user-computer interaction, this book presents a methodological approach that seeks to identify and apply findings from cognitive science to the design, prototyping, and evaluation of user-computer interfaces.

This pocket handbook is intended as a handy reference guide for engineers, scientists and students on widely used mathematical relationships, statistical formulas and problem-solving methods, including illustrated examples for problem-solving methods.

Since the U.S. Department of Energy (as well as other Federal and International agencies) will stop granting contracts to companies that fail to comply with 14000 standards, the search is on for any book that will make 14000 compliance easier. Tom Welch, with more than 20 years experience in environmental engineering and project management, provides such a book! Moving Beyond Environmental Compliance: A Handbook for Integrating Pollution Prevention with ISO 14000 is the first text to combine the best aspects of Pollution Prevention (P2), Total Quality Management (TQM), and ISO 14000, into a comprehensive "how-to" guidebook for achieving environmental compliance. The ever-increasing cost of environmental compliance as it is passed onto consumers, cuts into the profit margin and reduces an organization's competitive edge. At the very least, compliance cuts into operating budgets, and directs attention away from the primary business of an organization. This handbook demystifies the implementation of effective environmental management systems as described in the ISO 14000, and clarifies the application of effective pollution prevention methodologies that can drastically reduce this compliance burden.

The interest of AI in problems related to understanding sounds has a rich history dating back to the ARPA Speech Understanding Project in the 1970s. While a great deal has been learned from this and subsequent speech understanding research, the goal of building systems that can understand general acoustic signals--continuous speech and/or non-speech sounds--from unconstrained environments is still unrealized. Instead, there are now systems that understand "clean" speech well in relatively noiseless laboratory environments, but that break down in more realistic, noisier environments. As seen in the "cocktail-party effect," humans and other mammals have the ability to selectively attend to sound from a particular source, even when it is mixed with other sounds. Computers also need to be able to decide which parts of a mixed acoustic signal are relevant to a particular purpose--which part should be interpreted as speech, and which should be interpreted as a door closing, an air conditioner humming, or another person interrupting. Observations such as these have led a number of researchers to conclude that research on speech understanding and on nonspeech understanding need to be united within a more general framework. Researchers have also begun trying to understand computational auditory frameworks as parts of larger perception systems whose purpose is to give a computer integrated information about the real world. Inspiration for this work ranges from research on how different sensors can be integrated to models of how humans' auditory apparatus works in concert with vision, proprioception, etc. Representing some of the most advanced work on computers understanding speech, this collection of papers covers the work being done to integrate speech and nonspeech understanding in computer systems.

The Dictionary for Human Factors/Ergonomics is a major compilation of the basic terminology in the field of ergonomics. This unique dictionary contains over 8,000 terms representing all areas of human factors. For many terms, a commentary is provided to help place the term in perspective and elaborate on its use. Applicable acronyms and abbreviations are included. Two appendices are featured in the book as well. The first appendix is an alphabetical listing of abbreviations and acronyms with their respective terms for easy cross-referencing. The second appendix contains a list of national and international organizations involved in human factors/ergonomic research and/or applications. Peer-reviewed for accuracy and comprehensiveness, The Dictionary for Human Factors/Ergonomics is an essential reference for professionals, academics, and students in engineering, psychology, safety, law, and management. It is especially useful for human factors professionals working in government and industry.

This text discusses the emerging trend in product development and research that focuses on the increasingly important relationship between computer systems and social systems. The text emphasizes the significance of building tools to help people work together and the need for the identification of key factors within an organization to create systems more beneficial to users. Also contained are reviews of current research and discussions of both established tools, such as electronic mail and computer conferencing, and those newly developed programs that emphasize "work group" productivity over individual productivity.

This book is a useful reference work for practicing engineers in their evaluation and design of systems for the control of the industrial in-plant environment. It provides design criteria, useful calculations and proven techniques to control the environment in oil refineries and chemical industries.