Information Management Challenges Research Articles

Agent-based model for managing composite product information

The importance of product information management during the whole lifetime of the product has increased due to the technical sophistication of products as well as stricter governmental regulations for lifecycle management. Just sending the relevant product information downstream in the supply chain does not solve the challenges of product information management of complex products due to difficulties in updating the information and a risk of information overflow in the supply chain. This article describes an agent-based information management model that can be used for managing the information of complex products at a component level in a distributed manner. Further the paper presents an information management platform that can achieve information management requirements by using seven distinct messages.

Library subject guides: a content management case study at the Open University, UK

PurposeTo share the experiences and challenges faced by the Open University Library (OUL) in developing a content management (CM) system for its subject guides.Design/methodology/approachA summary of multi‐format subject guide production at the OUL is provided to justify the decision to develop a new system for their production using a commercial CM system. A detailed consideration of the design and implementation stages is given before a critical review of the project outcome.FindingsHighlights the complex design and implementation aspects to the project, in part due to the nature of subject guide content itself, and examines the reasons for the CM system delivered not being adopted. Emphasises the importance of CM to future OU applications.Practical implicationsOf interest not only to other academic libraries but to any organisation seeking to organise and publish original material for different audiences in a variety of formats from a single data source.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to document a systematic approach to library subject guide production using a CM system and the associated information management challenges and realities of multi‐format publishing in an academic publishing context.

Research and development challenges of CARS for industry

As the amount of information available to a physician has increased, the complexity of physician tasks has increased. The information management challenge faced by the clinicians translates to an opportunity for the industry to build solutions, not just products, that help improve the overall quality of clinical care processes, while reducing their costs. These apparently conflicting goals can be achieved only by viewing healthcare as a whole from the objective of benefiting the ultimate customer, the patient. The process of building clinically relevant solutions requires a clear understanding of clinical tasks (problem definition), and developing and deploying solutions such that they will have a quantifiable impact on patient care. In this paper, I will present a framework for development of clinically useful solutions, and present R&D challenges and new developments in selected areas of computer-assisted radiology and surgery.

On design and implementation of an object-relational spatial database for activity/travel behaviour research

The development of micro level models of urban processes has partially been facilitated by increased availability of detailed activity/travel survey data. Managing and exploring these data can be resource intensive and time consuming. Researchers and municipal planning organizations increasingly face information management challenges. This paper reviews an experiment in design and implementation of an object-relational geographic database using the principles of object-orientation. A data model is specified using the Unified Modeling Language notation and a visual modeling tool, and then implemented as an object-relational spatial database. The resulting database acts as an information foundation capable of supporting empirical research and application development. The experience suggests that a formal approach to information management can enhance our understanding of complex activity/travel data contributing to informed application of these data to transportation research questions.

Secure sensor information management and mining

This article describes issues and challenges for secure sensor information management. In particular, we discuss data management for sensor information systems including stream data management, distributed data management for sensor data, sensor information management including mining sensor data, security for sensor databases, and dependable sensor information management such as tradeoffs between security, real-time processing, and fault tolerance. Finally we discuss object-based infrastructures for sensor systems as well as directions for sensor information management.

Dare to share your information!

We all create and use science and technology (S&T) data. Unfortunately, information that is tied up within organizations is perceived to not exist. Information management and knowledge management activities help make information more accessible and useable. This article highlights forest sector challenges in information management, demonstrates the importance of addressing these challenges and presents some initiatives that will help ensure forest sector organizations are also knowledge-based organizations Key words: information management, knowledge management, science and technology, information systems

Toward Better Communications Co-operation for Central and South Eastern Europe: Trends and Prospects

This article deals with trends and prospects concerning co-operation for European integration. It examines historical and conceptual issues and implications of a post-Cold War communications revolution with the challenges of information management and propaganda. It discusses East‐West co-operation amidst a digital divide and globalization, suggesting the need for more critical thinking with public, academic, and multilateral dialogue about such issues as how not to marginalize diverse views. If the author's suggestions were accepted, the result might be a more authentic European integration that diminishes marginalization tendencies. Wider dialogue can also support alternative media, better information flow, knowledge production, education, and science. The article closes with policy and programme recommendations.

Acquiring New Technology

Increasing competition for scarce resources and new demands for accountability create information management challenges for human service agencies. A survey of managers of human service agencies is used to identify obstacles to acquisition of new information technology in both public and nonprofit agencies. Agencies with donors committed to new technology, managers with discretion to choose among technology alternatives, and a workforce with few volunteers are likely to acquire technology. The results are consistent with theoretical approaches to the nonprofit sector that emphasize similarities between nonprofit and public agencies. Both types of agencies are dependent on external sponsors.

E-BioSci and the challenge of biological information management after the genomics revolution.

ゲノミックスという新しい分野が主たるけん引力となって，ライフサイエンス関係の情報量は急増している。膨大なゲノム塩基配列と配列関連のデータベースに収録され，文献に掲載された何千もの論文中に散在する大量な生物学データを整理・統合するという問題に直面している。この仕事を遂行するうえでのあまたの問題について論ずる。この問題へのひとつの対処として，EMBO（欧州分子生物学機構）はE-BioSciネットワークの創出を先導してきた。E-BioSciは，ゲノムやその他のファクトデータとライフサイエンスの研究文献を相互にリンクする次世代の科学情報サービスである。このサービスは科学者や研究者に，ますます複雑化し，しばしば混乱している情報の世界をナビゲートするための新しい形の手段を提供する。このサービスの開発は欧州の選ばれた種々の研究機関との協力によって行われており，今後3年間，欧州委員会から資金援助を受けることになっている。

Strategic implication of environmental reporting

As the level of environmental disclosure and stakeholder demands for environmental information increases it is becoming more evident that a company's environmental performance as well as its environmental reporting activities should be considered as a strategic issue in order to ensure consistency and balance between the business strategy, the environmental strategy, and the reporting activities. Through a discussion of image and environmental disclosure, challenges in environmental information management, and a short case study, this article explores some of the strategic implications of environmental reporting. The author also provides useful practitioner advice on how environmental reporting should be addressed at a strategic level * .

An Organizational Memory Approach to Information Management

We extend and adapt a model of group memory to organizations. Using this extended model, they identify information management challenges of the next century and suggest that organizations can address these challenges by locating a large portion of their information-processing activities outside their formal boundaries, by adopting novel socialization tactics, and by focusing on the management of soft knowledge forms (e.g., tacit knowledge, judgment, and intuitive abilities). Whereas current theories increasingly equate information management with the management of information technology, we argue that information technology needs to be complemented by organization-level processes related to organizational memory.

Scientific information model for deepsea mapping and sampling

The Vents Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research initiative that brings together scientists from a wide range of disciplines, including geophysics, geology, physical oceanography, chemistry, and biology. Each discipline collects a variety of data types of varying structures and requiring intercomparison. The challenge of scientific information management is thus approached with a view of supporting data from multiple survey, mapping, and sampling tools and subject to multiple levels of interpretation. The ultimate objective is a system that integrates the functions of data storage, selective retrieval, display, and archiving. The results of our ongoing efforts in scientific information modeling and management have produced a relational database in which marine geological, geophysical, chemical, and biological observations can be accessed by any investigator.

Informatics Applications in Blood Banking

The dynamic nature of blood banking presents significant challenges in information acquisition, processing, and management. Blood banks have turned increasingly to computer technology for assistance with information handling. Novel applications of computer-based technology in blood banking and transfusion medicine have been developed and reported in the medical literature. This article reviews computer-based donor interviewing, expert system determination of donor eligibility based on viral marker testing results, inventory management through computer simulation analysis, prospective screening of blood orders by experts systems, and computer-based blood compatibility assessment.

The model-assisted global query system for multiple databases in distributed enterprises

Today's enterprises typically employ multiple information systems, which are independently developed, locally administered, and different in logical or physical designs. Therefore, a fundamental challenge in enterprise information management is the sharing of information for enterprise users across organizational boundaries; this requires a global query system capable of providing on-line intelligent assistance to users. Conventional technologies, such as schema-based query languages and hard-coded schema integration, are not sufficient to solve this problem. This article develops a new approach, a “model-assisted global query system,” that utilizes an on-line repository of enterprise metadata—the Metadatabase—to facilitate global query formulation and processing with certain desirable properties such as adaptiveness and open-systems architecture. A definitional model characterizing the various classes and roles of the required metadata as knowledge for the system is presented. The significance of possessing this knowledge (via a Metadatabase) toward improving the global query capabilities available previously is analyzed. On this basis, a direct method using model traversal and a query language using global model constructs are developed along with other new methods required for this approach. It is then tested through a prototype system in a computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) setting.

The Global Network Organization of the Future: Information Management Opportunities and Challenges

The key information processing building blocks for yesterday's organizations were typewriters, carbon paper, filing cabinets, and a government mail service. The constraints of these crude information processing technologies often required workers to be located under one roof and organizations to arrange themselves as efficient, but relatively change-resistant, management hierarchies. Those legacy organization designs have persisted despite fundamental changes in information processing technology. Tomorrow's successful organizations will be designed around the building blocks of advanced computer and communications technology. The success of these organizations will come from the ability to couple to, and decouple from, the networks of knowledge nodes. These networked organizations will link, on an as-needed basis, teams of empowered employees, consultants, suppliers, and customers. These ad hoc teams will solve one-time problems, provide personalized customer service, and then, as lubricant for subsequent interactions, evaluate one another's performance. In the network organization, structure will dominate strategy, credentials will give way to performance and knowledge, and human resources will be the only sustainable advantage. Despite the promise, networked organizations present difficult information management challenges. Among these are developing a flexible and efficient information architecture, establishing new values, attitudes, and behaviors concerning information sharing, building databases that can provide integrated customer support on a worldwide basis, and protecting personal freedoms and privacy. Here, we explore the opportunities and challenges that networked organizations will present for information technology management.

Joint Typhoon Warning Center and the Challenges of Multibasin Tropical Cyclone Forecasting

Abstract The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), a specialized component of the Naval Oceanography Command Center, Guam, is the busiest tropical cyclone warning center in the world. Its area of responsibility encompasses four broad oceanic areas of tropical cyclone activity stretching from the international date line to the east coast of Africa, in both hemispheres. Our paper discusses the challenges imposed on the center as a result of its vast multibasin area of responsibility, the products the center produces, its warning philosophy, observational networks, analysis and forecast schemes, and the military aspects of the operation. Because of the multibasin, dual-hemisphere responsibility, there is no off-season. The challenges of information and time management, analysis and forecast improvement, expansion of meteorological understanding, and enhancement of the warning process are discussed. Current methods used to meet these challenges are presented. In addition, the paper gives a brief overview of JT...

The establishment of the South African Development Partnership Agency: Institutional complexities and political exigencies

Since 2007 there has been discussion to formalise, rationalise, coordinate and provide structure to South Africa's development cooperation through the establishment of a centralised South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA). Progress in rolling out the new institution, however, has been extremely slow, owing to the political and technical complexities of South Africa's institutional environment. This paper elaborates on the rationale and driving forces which have led to the establishment of SADPA and the steps which have been taken to gradually operationalise the new agency and the partnership fund dedicated to providing development support on the continent. As plans move forward, will SADPA be expected to manage all of South Africa's development cooperation — bilateral, multilateral, regional, trilateral — as well as concessional loans, humanitarian aid and development financing, public and private? Clarity of roles and coordination is critical. The paper will examine the different mechanisms for the financing, implementation and oversight that need to be in place to take forward Pretoria's development cooperation, and the challenges of leadership, coordination, accountability and information management that face the new agency.