Disaster recovery of business critical 3-tiered ERP applications: Disaster Recovery of Nokia Groups SAP R/3

Nykyaikaisessa liiketoimintaympäristössä yritysten kriittisiksi resursseiksi ovat muodostuneet liiketoimintaa tukevat tietojärjestelmät. Mahdollisuus hyödyntää näitä resursseja riippuu ko. liiketoiminnalle kriittisten järjestelmien luotettavuudesta ja hyödynnettävien sovellusten saatavuudesta. Eräs tilanne jossa järjestelmien kyky tukea todellisia liiketoimintaprosesseja vaarantuu on katastrofi. Vaikutukseltaan katastrofi voi olla paikallinen tai kattaa laajojakin alueita. Eri tyyppisiin katastrofeihin on varauduttava niiden edellyttämin tavoin. Eräs kriittisten tietojärjestelmien arkkitehtuuriin vaikuttanut trendi 90-luvulla on ollut client/server lähestymistapa. Client/server paradigman mukaan sovellus jaetaan tasoihin siten että esitys-, sovellus- ja tietokantakerrokset voidaan erottaa fyysisesti toisistaan näiden silti muodostaessa loogisesti yhtenäisen kokonaisuuden. Liiketoiminnan näkökulmasta 90- luvun mullistavia IT-uutuuksia olivat toiminnanohjausjärjestelmät, joiden avulla oli mahdollista hallita koko tuotantoketjua ja muita prosessikokonaisuuksia lähes reaaliajassa. Monikerroksisten toiminnanohjausjärjestelmien luotettavuus on osoittautunut haastavavaksi sillä kaikkien kerrosten suojaaminen kaikilta mahdollisilta katastrofeilta täydellisesti on nykyisellä teknologialla mahdotonta. Kompromissien tekemiseksi on oltava selvillä kunkin menetetyn prosessin aiheuttamista taloudellisista ja liiketoiminnallisista vaikutuksista. Tämän vuoksi juuri toiminnanohjausjärjestelmät ovat mielenkiintoisia, vaikuttavathan ne liiketoimintaprosesseihin läpi koko yrityksen prosessiketjun. Monikerroksisten client/server arkkitehtuuriin pohjautuvien toiminnanohjausjärjestelmien suojaamisessa katastrofeilta onkin sovellettava useita tekniikoita ja teknologioita, ja yhdistettävä kokonaisuus prosessikehykseen. Näin voidaan luoda suunnitelmallinen osa IT strategiaa, joka ottaa kantaa liiketoiminnan jatkuvuuteen katastrofitilanteessa ja mahdollistaa nopean ja täydellisen palautumisen kaikissa olosuhteissa.

Supply Risk Management in Pharmaceutical

Fast development in the operating environment and fierce competition have driven companies to pursue efficiency and success through lean and global supply chains. At the same time overall uncertainty has increased in the business environment and supply chains have become a priority in risk management since their vulnerability may endanger business continuity. Although risk management should start at procurement strategy development phase, proactive contingency planning is also essential because it enables correct reaction and fast changes in process execution in the case of risk realization. This thesis is a case study conducted in the pharmaceutical industry where purchasing and materials management organizations face a number of challenges and limitations that have to be considered in supply risk management. The goal of the study was to discuss the operating environment, and identify and analyze supply risks and potential risk management practices. The study was concluded with suggestions for purchasing strategy development that take risk management considerations into account. This copy is the public version of the thesis.

ICT-varautumisen analyysi ja kehittäminen julkisen sektorin virastossa

Lainsäädäntö velvoittaa valtionhallintoa huolehtimaan riittävästä ICT-varautumisesta, jotta yhteiskunnan kriittiset toiminnot ovat turvattu normaaliolojen lisäksi normaaliolojen häiriötilanteissa ja poikkeusoloissa. ICT-varautumisen vaatimukset on määrätty VAHTI ICT-varautumisen vaatimukset - ohjeessa. ICT-varautuminen on riskienhallintaan perustuvaa toimintaa, joka liittyy keskeisesti organisaation kokonaisturvallisuuteen, tietohallintoon ja yleiseen varautumiseen. Tutkielman teoriakatsauksessa perehdytään riskienhallintaan ja kokonaisturvallisuuteen painottaen ICT-varautumisen kannalta tärkeitä osa-alueita tietoturvallisuutta ja IT-riskienhallintaa. Kohdeorganisaation ICT-varautumisen toimintajärjestelmää varten kartoitetaan ICT-varautumisen viitekehys. Empiirisessä osiossa toteutetaan tapaustutkimuksena kohdeorganisaation ICT-varautumisen nykytilan suppea analyysi ja laaditaan kehittämisehdotelmana toimintamalli ICT-varautumisen organisoimiseksi ja käyttöönottamiseksi. Tutkielman tuotoksena kohdeorganisaatiolla on systemaattinen organisaation eri tasot huomioiva toimintamalli ICT-varautumisen toteuttamiseksi.

Project Management: A Tale of Fact, Failure and Fiction

This is a presentation given to 3rd year Project students on our BSc degree programmes to help them project manage their 3rd year dissertations. It covers three practical methods. Fact: Skills Audits to help make projects realistic. Failure: Risk Assessment to help with contingency planning. Fiction: Gantt Charts to help with managing time and effort.

Modelagem e desenvolvimento de um banco de dados geográficos : aplicação à elaboração de mapas de sensibilidade ambiental ao derramamento de óleo na área costeira entre galinhos e São Bento do Norte-RN

The area between Galinhos and São Bento do Norte beaches, located in the northern coast of the Rio Grande do Norte State is submitted to intense and constant processes of littoral and aeolian transport, causing erosion, alterations in the sediments balance and modifications in the shoreline. Beyond these natural factors, the human interference is huge in the surroundings due to the Guamaré Petroliferous Pole nearby, the greater terrestrial oil producing in Brazil. Before all these characteristics had been organized MAMBMARE and MARPETRO projects with the main objective to execute the geo-environmental monitoring of coastal areas on the northern portion of RN. There is a bulky amount of database from the study area such as geologic and geophysical multitemporal data, hydrodynamic measurements, remote sensing multitemporal images, thematic maps, among others; it is of extreme importance to elaborate a Geographic Database (GD), one of the main components of a Geographic Information System (GIS), to store this amount of information, allowing the access to researchers and users. The first part of this work consisted to elaborate a GD to store the data of the area between Galinhos and São Bento do Norte cities. The main goal was to use the potentiality of the GIS as a tool to support decisions in the environmental monitoring of this region, a valuable target for oil exploration, salt companies and shrimp farms. The collected data was stored as a virtual library to assist men decisions from the results presented as digital thematic maps, tables and reports, useful as source of data in the preventive planning and as guidelines to the future research themes both on regional and local context. The second stage of this work consisted on elaborate the Oil-Spill Environmental Sensitivity Maps. These maps based on the Environmental Sensitivity Index Maps to Oil Spill developed by the Ministry of Environment are cartographic products that supply full information to the decision making, contingency planning and assessment in case of an oil spilling incident in any area. They represent the sensitivity of the areas related to oil spilling, through basic data such as geology, geomorphology, oceanographic, social-economic and biology. Some parameters, as hydrodynamic data, sampling data, coastal type, declivity of the beach face, types of resources in risk (biologic, economic, human or cultural) and the land use of the area are some of the essential information used on the environmental sensitivity maps elaboration. Thus using the available data were possible to develop sensitivity maps of the study area on different dates (June/2000 and December/2000) and to perceive that there was a difference on the sensitivity index generated. The area on December presented more sensible to the oil than the June one because hydrodynamic data (wave and tide energy) allowed a faster natural cleaning on June. The use of the GIS on sensitivity maps showed to be a powerful tool, since it was possible to manipulate geographic data with correctness and to elaborate more accurate maps with a higher level of detail to the study area. This presented an medium index (3 to 4) to the long shore and a high index (10) to the mangrove areas highly vulnerable to oil spill

Mapeamento de sensibilidade ao derrame de óleo dos ambientes costeiros dos municípios de São Vicente, Santos e Guarujá - SP

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Carta de sensibilidade ambiental para derramamentos de óleo em rodovias: proposta aplicada a Estrada dos Tamoios (SP-099)

Pós-graduação em Geociências e Meio Ambiente - IGCE

Avaliação das características geomorfológicas na sensibilidade ambiental a derrames de óleo: estudo de caso no baixo curso do rio Piracicaba

The environmental sensitivity charts to oil constitute an important tools for contingency planning and assessment of damage caused by oil spills. The main objective of this article is to evaluate the sensitivity of river dynamics to oil spills. Through the identification and mapping of fluvial geomorphological features will be assessed the importance of these resources in terms of sensitivity to oil spills. Through satellite images, was obtained the geomorphological mapping and geomorphological parameters were analysed, in order to characterize the environmental sensitivity to oil spills and derivatives. Therefore, the implementation of an environmental sensitivity mapping from geomorphological parameters contributes to the mapping of the environmental sensitivity to oil, which will assist in the containment and cleanup procedures in case of accidents in fluvial and terrestrial environments, that are slightly studied in Brazil

Efficient team actions: Outline of a theory of teams in sport

So far, social psychology in sport has preliminary focused on team cohesion, and many studies and meta analyses tried to demonstrate a relation between cohesiveness of a team and it's performance. How a team really co-operates and how the individual actions are integrated towards a team action is a question that has received relatively little attention in research. This may, at least in part, be due to a lack of a theoretical framework for collective actions, a dearth that has only recently begun to challenge sport psychologists. In this presentation a framework for a comprehensive theory of teams in sport is outlined and its potential to integrate the following presentations is put up for discussion. Based on a model developed by von Cranach, Ochsenbein and Valach (1986), teams are information processing organisms, and team actions need to be investigated on two levels: the individual team member and the group as an entity. Elements to be considered are the task, the social structure, the information processing structure and the execution structure. Obviously, different task require different social structures, communication and co-ordination. From a cognitivist point of view, internal representations (or mental models) guide the behaviour mainly in situations requiring quick reactions and adaptations, were deliberate or contingency planning are difficult. In sport teams, the collective representation contains the elements of the team situation, that is team task and team members, and of the team processes, that is communication and co-operation. Different meta-perspectives may be distinguished and bear a potential to explain the actions of efficient teams. Cranach, M. von, Ochsenbein, G., & Valach, L. (1986).The group as a self-active system: Outline of a theory of group action. European Journal of Social Psychology, 16, 193-229.

Improving the Effectiveness of Sanctions: A Checklist for the EU. CEPS Special Report No. 95, 6 November 2014

The increasingly frequent imposition of sanctions by the EU over the past decade has not been accompanied by a thorough pre-assessment and contingency planning stage, which, argue the authors, has led to the formulation of suboptimal sanctions regimes. This paper proposes a practical pre-assessment and contingency planning of sanctions – a checklist, which departs from the ‘ad hoc-ism’ of current decision-making on sanctions. The checklist includes the identification of resources linked to the objectionable policies; the leverage of the EU; the costs to the EU; the legality of the measures; their unintended effects; the expected contribution towards EU goals; their coherence with overall EU external relations; and the communication of these policies.

Pro-American non-alignment. Sweden and Finland develop closer military co-operation with the United States. OSW COMMENTARY NUMBER 205/31.03.2016

Russia’s increasingly aggressive policy and its enhanced military activity in the Nordic-Baltic region has led to revaluations in Sweden’s and Finland’s security and defence policies and a rethinking of the formats of their military co-operation. While remaining outside NATO, the two states have been developing closer bilateral defence co-operation and working more closely with the United States, while at the same time developing co-operation with NATO. Sweden and Finland perceive the United States as the guarantor of regional and European security. From their point of view, the United States is currently the country that has both the necessary military capabilities and the political will to react in the event of a conflict between Russia and NATO in the Nordic-Baltic region, in which both countries would inevitably become involved despite their non-aligned status. For Sweden and Finland, intensified co-operation with the United States offers an alternative to NATO membership, which is currently out of the question for domestic political reasons. Meanwhile, the US has also become increasingly aware of the strategic importance of the two states, which, for the purposes of contingency planning, are in fact an extension of NATO’s north-eastern flank.

A conceptual framework for enterprise management

This paper reports on the theoretical foundations and the practical reasons for the increasing popularity of the enterprise management perspective. Theoretical foundations are given that discuss vertically integrated, virtual and extended enterprises in terms of endogenous and exogenous factors, and the tensions that these create. An exploratory study in the German automotive industry using inductive grounded theory was conducted, involving data collection via 28 semi-structured interviews with 16 companies and data validation via a questionnaire survey receiving 110 responses from 52 companies. The research delivers a conceptual framework to show how enterprise structures emerge, depending on the prevailing type of core competencies that they use. Furthermore, it proposes contingency-planning recommendations to facilitate managing the change from one structure to another as the demands placed upon the enterprise change.

Policy on the hoof:the handling of the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001

The foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic of 2001 was a disaster for sections of the agricultural industry, a number of businesses and for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), which met its demise as a government department during the crisis, being replaced by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). There were some 2,030 confirmed cases and over four million animals slaughtered. It caused the postponement of local elections and of a general election. From a public policy perspective it raised questions about contingency planning, the adjustment of policy to take account of change and how to manage a crisis. This article focuses on the background to the crisis and how it was handled.

The EU referendum in Northern Ireland: closing borders, re-opening border debates

The UK decision to leave the European Union (EU) following a referendum in June 2016 fundamentally alters the country's relationship with the EU, with its European neighbours, with the rest of the world and potentially with its own constituent units. It is clear that different parts of the UK will be impacted differently by this decision and by the unfolding exit terms and process. In this context, Northern Ireland is considered to be particularly vulnerable. This article examines the referendum campaign in Northern Ireland by detailing input from the Northern Ireland administration, political parties, civil society and external figures. The article suggests that the overall referendum campaign in Northern Ireland was hamstrung by the opposing positions taken by key political protagonists, particularly Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This produced a challenging context for the referendum debate in Northern Ireland. The post-referendum period has also been marked by persistent differences in relation to how best to approach specific Northern Ireland issues and challenges. A continued absence of clear positions and a lack of contingency planning underline a poor level of preparedness for future political developments.

Análisis de las barreras para la unificación de una Historia Clínica Electrónica -HCE- en Colombia

Objetivo: Identificar las barreras para la unificación de una Historia Clínica Electrónica –HCE- en Colombia. Materiales y Métodos: Se realizó un estudio cualitativo. Se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a profesionales y expertos de 22 instituciones del sector salud, de Bogotá y de los departamentos de Cundinamarca, Santander, Antioquia, Caldas, Huila, Valle del Cauca. Resultados: Colombia se encuentra en una estructuración para la implementación de la Historia Clínica Electrónica Unificada -HCEU-. Actualmente, se encuentra en unificación en 42 IPSs públicas en el departamento de Cundinamarca, el desarrollo de la HCEU en el país es privado y de desarrollo propio debido a las necesidades particulares de cada IPS. Conclusiones: Se identificaron barreras humanas, financieras, legales, organizacionales, técnicas y profesionales en los departamentos entrevistados. Se identificó que la unificación de la HCE depende del acuerdo de voluntades entre las IPSs del sector público, privado, EPSs, y el Gobierno Nacional.