Information systems to support decision-making in *construction owner organizations: A data warehousing approach

Construction organizations typically deal with large volumes of project data containing valuable information. It is found that these organizations do not use these data effectively for planning and decision-making. There are two reasons. First, the information systems in construction organizations are designed to support day-to-day construction operations. The data stored in these systems are often non-validated, non-integrated and are available in a format that makes it difficult for decision makers to use in order to make timely decisions. Second, the organizational structure and the IT infrastructure are often not compatible with the information systems thereby resulting in higher operational costs and lower productivity. These two issues have been investigated in this research with the objective of developing systems that are structured for effective decision-making. ^ A framework was developed to guide storage and retrieval of validated and integrated data for timely decision-making and to enable construction organizations to redesign their organizational structure and IT infrastructure matched with information system capabilities. The research was focused on construction owner organizations that were continuously involved in multiple construction projects. Action research and Data warehousing techniques were used to develop the framework. ^ One hundred and sixty-three construction owner organizations were surveyed in order to assess their data needs, data management practices and extent of use of information systems in planning and decision-making. For in-depth analysis, Miami-Dade Transit (MDT) was selected which is in-charge of all transportation-related construction projects in the Miami-Dade county. A functional model and a prototype system were developed to test the framework. The results revealed significant improvements in data management and decision-support operations that were examined through various qualitative (ease in data access, data quality, response time, productivity improvement, etc.) and quantitative (time savings and operational cost savings) measures. The research results were first validated by MDT and then by a representative group of twenty construction owner organizations involved in various types of construction projects. ^

SLA-Driven Simulation of Multi-Tenant Scalable Cloud-Distributed Enterprise Information Systems

Cloud Computing is an enabler for delivering large-scale, distributed enterprise applications with strict requirements in terms of performance. It is often the case that such applications have complex scaling and Service Level Agreement (SLA) management requirements. In this paper we present a simulation approach for validating and comparing SLA-aware scaling policies using the CloudSim simulator, using data from an actual Distributed Enterprise Information System (dEIS). We extend CloudSim with concurrent and multi-tenant task simulation capabilities. We then show how different scaling policies can be used for simulating multiple dEIS applications. We present multiple experiments depicting the impact of VM scaling on both datacenter energy consumption and dEIS performance indicators.

The Emergence of Formal Control Specificity in Information Systems Outsourcing: A Process-View

Information systems (IS) outsourcing projects often fail to achieve initial goals. To avoid project failure, managers need to design formal controls that meet the specific contextual demands of the project. However, the dynamic and uncertain nature of IS outsourcing projects makes it difficult to design such specific formal controls at the outset of a project. It is hence crucial to translate high-level project goals into specific formal controls during the course of a project. This study seeks to understand the underlying patterns of such translation processes. Based on a comparative case study of four outsourced software development projects, we inductively develop a process model that consists of three unique patterns. The process model shows that the performance implications of emergent controls with higher specificity depend on differences in the translation process. Specific formal controls have positive implications for goal achievement if only the stakeholder context is adapted, while they are negative for goal achievement if in the translation process tasks are unintendedly adapted. In the latter case projects incrementally drift away from their initial direction. Our findings help to better understand control dynamics in IS outsourcing projects. We contribute to a process theoretic understanding of IS outsourcing governance and we derive implications for control theory and the IS project escalation literature.

Information Systems Outsourcing: Towards Sustainable Business Value

This book attempts to synthesize research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reach sustainable business value through information systems (IS) outsourcing. Important topics in this realm are how IS outsourcing can contribute to innovation, how it can be dynamically governed, how to cope with its increasing complexity through multi-vendor arrangements, how service quality standards can be met, how corporate social responsibility can be upheld and how to cope with increasing demands of internationalization and new sourcing models, such as crowdsourcing and platform-based cooperation. These issues are viewed from either the client or vendor perspective, or both. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the fields of Information Systems, Management and Organization as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing.

Producing computer-generated tailored written information for stroke patients and their carers: System development and preliminary evaluation

Purpose: The aim of this project was to design and evaluate a system that would produce tailored information for stroke patients and their carers, customised according to their informational needs, and facilitate communication between the patient and, health professional. Method: A human factors development approach was used to develop a computer system, which dynamically compiles stroke education booklets for patients and carers. Patients and carers are able to select the topics about which they wish to receive information, the amount of information they want, and the font size of the printed booklet. The system is designed so that the health professional interacts with it, thereby providing opportunities for communication between the health professional and patient/carer at a number of points in time. Results: Preliminary evaluation of the system by health professionals, patients and carers was positive. A randomised controlled trial that examines the effect of the system on patient and carer outcomes is underway. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Formal validation of automated policy refinement in the management of network security systems

Policy hierarchies and automated policy refinement are powerful approaches to simplify administration of security services in complex network environments. A crucial issue for the practical use of these approaches is to ensure the validity of the policy hierarchy, i.e. since the policy sets for the lower levels are automatically derived from the abstract policies (defined by the modeller), we must be sure that the derived policies uphold the high-level ones. This paper builds upon previous work on Model-based Management, particularly on the Diagram of Abstract Subsystems approach, and goes further to propose a formal validation approach for the policy hierarchies yielded by the automated policy refinement process. We establish general validation conditions for a multi-layered policy model, i.e. necessary and sufficient conditions that a policy hierarchy must satisfy so that the lower-level policy sets are valid refinements of the higher-level policies according to the criteria of consistency and completeness. Relying upon the validation conditions and upon axioms about the model representativeness, two theorems are proved to ensure compliance between the resulting system behaviour and the abstract policies that are modelled.

Defining fraud: issues for organizations from an information systems perspective

Fraud is one of the besetting evils of our time. While less dramatic than crimes of violence like murder or rape, fraud can inflict significant damage at organizational or individual level.

Fraud is a concept that seems to have an obvious meaning until we try to define it. As fraud exists in many different guises, and it is necessary to carefully define what it is and to tailor policies and initiatives accordingly.

Developing a definition of fraud is an early step of a prevention program. In order to be involved in the protection function, people at all levels of an organization must be knowledgeable about fraud. In this paper, we discuss the risk of fraud from an information systems perspective, explain what fraud is and present a range of definitions of fraud and computer fraud. We argue that without clearly defining fraud, organizations will not be able to share information that has the same meaning to everyone, to agree on how to measure the problem, and to know the extent of the problem, in order to decide how much and where to deploy resources to effectively solve it.

Are the popular users always important for information dissemination in online social networks?

This article verifies the importance of popular users in OSNs. The results are counter-intuitive. First, for dissemination speed, a large amount of users can swiftly distribute information to the masses, but they are not highly-connected users. Second, for dissemination scale, many powerful forwarders in OSNs cannot be identified by the degree measure. Furthermore, to control dissemination, popular users cannot capture most bridges of social communities.

Computer hacking and cyber terrorism: The real threats in the new millennium?

As the new millennium approaches, we are living in a society that is increasingly dependent upon information technology. However, whilst technology can deliver a number of benefits, it also introduces new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by persons with the necessary technical skills. Hackers represent a well-known threat in this respect and are responsible for a significant degree of disruption and damage to information systems. However, they are not the only criminal element that has to be taken into consideration. Evidence suggests that technology is increasingly seen as potential tool for terrorist organizations. This is leading to the emergence of a new threat in the form of 'cyber terrorists', who attack technological infrastructures such as the Internet in order to help further their cause. The paper discusses the problems posed by these groups and considers the nature of the responses necessary to preserve the future security of our society.

Application of extended multivariate modeling for information flow analysis of event related responses

Event related potential (ERP) analysis is one of the most widely used methods in cognitive neuroscience research to study the physiological correlates of sensory, perceptual and cognitive activity associated with processing information. To this end information flow or dynamic effective connectivity analysis is a vital technique to understand the higher cognitive processing under different events. In this paper we present a Granger causality (GC)-based connectivity estimation applied to ERP data analysis. In contrast to the generally used strictly causal multivariate autoregressive model, we use an extended multivariate autoregressive model (eMVAR) which also accounts for any instantaneous interaction among variables under consideration. The experimental data used in the paper is based on a single subject data set for erroneous button press response from a two-back with feedback continuous performance task (CPT). In order to demonstrate the feasibility of application of eMVAR models in source space connectivity studies, we use cortical source time series data estimated using blind source separation or independent component analysis (ICA) for this data set.

Turning math attractive to computer science students: an application-to-model approach

This paper describes an innovative approach to develop the understanding about the relevance of mathematics to computer science. The mathematical subjects are introduced through an application-to-model scheme that lead computer science students to a better understanding of why they have to learn math and learn it effectively. Our approach consists of a single one semester course, taught at the first semester of the program, where the students are initially exposed to some typical computer applications. When they recognize the applications' complexity, the instructor gives the mathematical models supporting such applications, even before a formal introduction to the model in a math course. We applied this approach at Unesp (Brazil) and the results include a large reduction in the rate of students that abandon the college and better students in the final years of our program.

Design of a Comb Generator for High Capacity Coherent-WDM Systems

This paper presents a theoretical model developed for estimating the power, the optical signal to noise ratio and the number of generated carriers in a comb generator, having as a reference the minimum optical signal do noise ratio at the receiver input, for a given fiber link. Based on the recirculating frequency shifting technique, the generator relies on the use of coherent and orthogonal multi-carriers (Coherent-WDM) that makes use of a single laser source (seed) for feeding high capacity (above 100 Gb/s) systems. The theoretical model has been validated by an experimental demonstration, where 23 comb lines with an optical signal to noise ratio ranging from 25 to 33 dB, in a spectral window of similar to 3.5 nm, are obtained.