Efficient Information System Research Articles

CAPACITY BUILDING IN LAND MANAGEMENT - IMPLEMENTING LAND POLICY REFORMS IN MALAWI

There is a significant need for capacity building in the interdisciplinary area of land management, especially in developing countries and countries in transition, to deal with the complex issues of building efficient land information systems and sustainable institutional infrastructures.Capacity building in land management is not only a question of establishing a sufficient technological level or sufficient economic resources. It is mainly a question of understanding the interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral nature of land administration systems, and understanding the need for human resource development in this area. Furthermore, capacity building should ensure that the focus is on building sound institutions and good governance rather than just high-level IT-infrastructures.This overall approach to capacity building in land management is used for implementing a new land policy reform in Malawi. The paper presents the new decentralized land policy developed as a response to the current land related problems in Malawi. The deficit in terms of qualified personnel is remarkable and calls for immediate action. An integrated curriculum is developed to provide the necessary skilled technicians and professionals for implementing the new land policy. The curriculum combines the diploma and the bachelor level and it combines the key areas of land surveying, land management and physical planning.

CAPACITY BUILDING IN LAND MANAGEMENT - IMPLEMENTING LAND POLICY REFORMS IN MALAWI

AbstractThere is a significant need for capacity building in the interdisciplinary area of land management, especially in developing countries and countries in transition, to deal with the complex issues of building efficient land information systems and sustainable institutional infrastructures.Capacity building in land management is not only a question of establishing a sufficient technological level or sufficient economic resources. It is mainly a question of understanding the interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral nature of land administration systems, and understanding the need for human resource development in this area. Furthermore, capacity building should ensure that the focus is on building sound institutions and good governance rather than just high-level IT-infrastructures.This overall approach to capacity building in land management is used for implementing a new land policy reform in Malawi. The paper presents the new decentralized land policy developed as a response to the current land relate...

Measuring outcomes with tools of proven feasibility and utility: the example of a patient-focused asthma measure.

Best quality care is clearly desirable and instituting quality assurance should be logical and simple. However, the practicality of setting standards for a product or service, and designing systems to measure against the standards, is more difficult. In the health service it is only likely to be feasible if data can be generated from efficient and reliable information systems. The ideal measure of quality is an outcome measure that evaluates whether or not the quality of care has achieved the desired standard of outcome. Direct measures of outcome are not easy to construct and the information systems required to provide data are not widely available. The National Centre for Health Outcomes Development (NCHOD) has produced a series of indicators in 10 areas of health care, where an indicator is a pointer to, rather than a direct measure of, a desired outcome. Feasibility studies measuring their sensitivity and reliability have drawn attention to their possible utility within different health care settings. This paper reports on an investigation into a patient-focused outcome indicator for asthma. There is broad agreement about the need to measure the outcome of disease. However, when outcome indicators are defined there are major obstacles to their successful uptake. A key challenge for outcomes measurement is to ensure that the cost of collecting the data and ensuring completeness, accuracy and standardization are justified by the benefits derived. Health outcome indicators should not be treated as a panacea, but as a part of the clinical and health care tool kit.

Disease control in the information era.

As a result of advances in information technology, there is now a new capacity to manage, interpret and apply data for the benefit not only of individual patients but of the population as a whole. Population health information systems are currently inadequate to meet the needs of disease control. In a rapidly changing world, effective public health action requires timely and efficient data about what is happening in the whole population. As the national effort to harness information technology to the needs of individual patient care begins, it is desirable that the electronic patient record also becomes the building block for public health research and monitoring. Individual healthcare and population healthcare should be two sides of the one coin. Ownership, privacy and access to the contents of the electronic health record should now be addressed in the context that disease control in the whole population will increasingly depend upon an efficient "real time" information system.

A computer‐based information system for architectural design offices

Obtaining, handling and distributing information among participants in the building design process has become more difficult with increasing project complexity. In individual areas such as scheduling, estimating and drafting, it is possible to have access to computerized tools but it is clear that there is a gap in architects’ offices regarding the integration of these tools into a unified system. Architects work closely with engineers, clients, suppliers, and public authorities. Managing the information flow among these participants may not be much of a problem in small offices. But the larger architectural offices face serious management‐related problems in the design process because of the lack of an efficient information system. This paper presents a computer‐based information system called ASAP that was developed to respond to the stated problem of large architectural offices. The conceptual framework as well as a description of the prototype are presented in this paper.

Digital Name: A New Access Entity for Organizing Fast Citizen Information System

The information regarding health, literacy rate, economic conditions, unemployment, population growth, law & order, criminal activities etc, about population of different parts of a country is needed by government, non-government and social welfare organizations. This information helps them to plan their socio-economic programs for the needed sections of the society. The compilation of this information is needed periodically so that feedback about the effectiveness of the programs launched for the socio-economic development can be examined and accordingly the programs can be modified and redirected. This requires a fast and reliable distributed population information database system, which can handle more number of queries per unit time. This paper introduces a new concept of Digital Name, which can be useful for organizing fast, reliable, economic and efficient nation wide distributed citizen information system.

Initiatives taken by the Commission to establish a European geographic information infrastructure

In its Green Paper entitled Public sector information: a key resource for Europe, published in January 1999, the Commission expresses concern about the low level of dissemination of public sector information by EU countries. The report states that “the ready availability of public information is an absolute prerequisite for the competitiveness of European industry. In this respect, EU companies are at a serious competitive disadvantage compared to their American counterparts, which benefit from a highly developed, efficient public information system at all levels of the administration”. Geographical information is no exception to this rule. European diversity in data policy and its interpretation, in data specification, in pricing and access rules, in private/public sector relationships, is holding back the development of a single market and the growth of the European economy. In the near future, in Europe, the governments should freely access and exploit GI in decision making and solving the pressing political bottlenecks in society, such as a social exclusion, security and health. The public sector should work in full partnership with, and encouraging, the private sector to provide information via electronic systems. European citizens should use GI for participation in the public decision making processes, and use many services. GI usage should be far more embedded in education programs. The research community should build up a knowledge infrastructure to be exploited through many knowledge centres. A way to achieve all these objectives is to create a European Geographic Information Infrastructure. The paper prepared by Eurostat describes the initiatives already taken by the Commission in this direction: GI2000, the creation of EUROGI, the RD projects, the drafting of a first document on a vision for the EGII and the creation of an interservice group to discuss the use of GI and GIS inside the Commission.

Application Of Data Collecting System AndEvaluation As A Contribution To The Solution OfEnvironmental Management Problems In TheCzech Republic

The methodology for data collecting and evaluation within the analysis phase of the cleaner production assessment as being used by the Czech Cleaner Production Centre is described. The main aspects of the efficient information system needed for optimisation of material and energy flows are mentioned. Results of a practical application of this methodology for increasing the production efficiency and decreasing the environmental burden at the same time is presented on the case study of a middle-size Czech poultry company focusing mainly on poultry slaughter and processing. The case study was focused on a poultry-processing line having an output of 6,000 chickens per hour.

A comparative analysis of generics markets in five European countries

A generic medicine is a faithful copy of a mature drug — no longer under patent — marketed with the chemical name of the active ingredient. This article analyses generics markets in five European countries: France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK. The study investigated all the main issues — patent, approval to market, pricing and reimbursement, prescription and distribution — which affect the life cycle of a pharmaceutical product. The situation in the five countries varied widely. Because of European harmonisation, patent legislation and approval procedures no longer affect much the development of generics. Only national legislation on patent protection approved before the EU directive came into force still plays a role. Approval differences seem to be due mainly to common practice, rather than to the regulations themselves. None of the countries have an efficient public information system on patent expiry. Generics have had more success in countries with more flexible pricing policies. Reimbursement has not yet been used widely to discriminate between generics and proprietary drugs. Financial incentives are based more on physicians’ prescribing behaviour than on pharmacists. The freedom of pharmacy ownership and the consequent possibility of dispensing pharmaceuticals through different channels affects dramatically the structure of generics markets. A free market of wholesalers and retailers can enhance a competitive market, through horizontal and vertical integration all along the distribution chain. Such an environment has stimulated the success of unbranded generics by delegating strong purchasing power to distributors.

A study on the influence to the route choice behaviors by the uncertainty of travel time information

It is required to understand the driver's behavior accurately for construction of efficient traffic information systems. The route choice behavior models are constructed in this research focused on uncertainty of travel time information. The perceptive travel time of drivers and the traffic information can be regarded as the stochastic variables. On the basis of the Bayesian theorem, the perceptive travel time is changed by the offered travel time information. The model parameters are estimated by using SP survey data. The influences of uncertainty of travel time information to the driver's route choice behavior are studied.

An efficient fault-tolerant order entry management information system based on special distributed client/server architecture.

An automatic order entry system is very important for the processing of out-patient information, not only helping doctors to enter their orders directly but also reducing errors of communication. Many hospitals are anxious to set up a direct order entry system but are concerned about possible system failures. In this paper we report on an effective and efficient fault-tolerant order entry management system which satisfies the requirements for out-patient order entry. From the results of experiments on a prototype we found that the system was user friendly and reduced the time taken. Doctors are able to enter their orders more easily, accurately and quickly by selecting from the standardized and personalized menus to be found in the system.

Trends of elephant poaching in Kenya: the elephant mortality database.

In 1992 KWS established an Elephant Mortality Database for monitoring all incidents of elephant mortality, to enable the relevant departments to respond appropriately to each particular circumstance. The database contains information on poaching, illegal trafficking of ivory, patrols, surveillance, problem animal control etc. This paper intends to share information on monitoring of elephant poaching in Kenya with other Range States and examine ways of improving the overall elephant security network by establishing collaboration and other relevant mechanisms with other countries, and to demonstrate the importance of establishing a wide and efficient information system within countries, regions and Range States as a whole.

Cryptography, data retention, and the panopticon society (abstract)

As we move our social institutions from paper and ink based operations to the electronic medium, we invisibly create a type of surveillance society, a panopticon society. It is not the traditional surveillance society in which government officials follow citizens around because they are concerned about threats to the political order. Instead it is piecemeal surveillance by public and private organizations. Piecemeal though it is, It creates the potential for the old kind of surveillance on an even grander scale. The panopticon is the prison environment described by Foucault in which prison cells are arranged in a large circle with the side facing the inside of the circle open to view. The guard tower is placed in the middle of the circle so that guards can see everything that goes on in every cell. When we contemplate all the electronic data that is now gathered about each of us as we move through our everyday lives --- intelligent highway systems, consumer transactions, traffic patterns on the internet, medical records, financial records, and so on --- there seems little doubt that we are moving into a panopticon. The social issues that arise from this are too numerous to detail here, but data retention is an important part of it. In the paper-and-ink world, documents are filed, files are boxed, boxes are put away or thrown away. The capacity for data retrieval and manipulation is, thereby, limited by the sheer difficulty and cost of storing, finding, searching, and manipulating large numbers of paper files. This inconvenience functions as a mechanism whereby the system forgets past information, not unlike the way we ourselves forget. However, the story is very different in the digital world; digital information is easy to store, easy to search and manipulate, and inexpensive to keep over extensive periods of time. Digitalized information systems tend, therefore, to collect extensive ancillary information and to retain this information indefinitely. Such lack of forgetfulness is likely to hamper the ability of individuals to shed their past, and start over with a clean slate. Concerns about data retention were expressed in the early literature on the social impact of computing (Westin and Baker, 1972), but for the most part the issue has dropped from sight. Rarely, has the social good of discarding accumulated personal data been addressed. In this paper, we want to make the case by examining diverse cases in which retention of information by either business or governmental institutions hinders the ability of individuals to start over or to act autonomously. We hope our argument for the good of forgetfulness will challenge the standard framework in which such issues have traditionally been debated. The privacy debate exemplifies the traditional framework insofar as it has been characterized as involving an inherent tension between, on the one hand, the needs of organizations and institutions for more accurate and efficient information systems so as to further their goals (law enforcement, employee efficiency, etc.) and, on the other hand, the desire of individuals to have information about them kept private. Regan (1995) argues against this framing of the privacy issue in favor of one that recognizes the social importance of personal privacy. We will examine the non-forgetfulness of information systems as a problem threatening not just individual interests but social good as well. Cryptography is often cited as the technology that will give us privacy and mediate against surveillance. One of the uses of cryptography, encryption, will allow us, some hope, to create confidentiality and relationships of trust that will facilitate many of the social arrangements we now have and perhaps make them even more secure than they are now. Electronic cash, for example, could be created in such a form that it would have the anonymity associated now with hard cash (and perhaps even more.) Others are less optimistic of the potential for cryptography to re-create relationships of trust in the new medium. One important point that already seems clear is that even if encryption technology will protect the confidentiality and integrity of electronic transactions and data, it will NOT stop the observation of traffic patterns on networks. This seems an important distinction to put on the table. Our patterns of communication will continue to be available, no matter what is encrypted, and an amazing amount of information can be gleaned from this data. In a sense, it means content integrity but no anonymity. This will indubitably impact how we interact and with whom we interact.

Modeling the Users of Information Systems

Summary Understanding user needs and the ways in which users utilize information systems is important since it can help us in developing and designing more effective and efficient information systems. This paper examines some of the theories that have evolved to explain what kind of mental processes are required for the use of information systems. Research on users of information systems is categorized into two basic groups (system-oriented vs. user-oriented studies), and reviewed. A sample of methodologies used for examining users and their information seeking behavior is then introduced and described. Finally, implications of these theories and methods for librarians and information specialists are discussed.

Marine geographic information system for the exclusive economic zone

This article investigates the feasibility of creating an efficient marine geographic information system (CIS) model for various types of marine data (bathymetry, gravity, magnetic) collected by numerous national and international institutions over the past several decades in the Hawaiian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEL). The system has been developed with the objective of providing tools to perform tasks such as processing, integrating, archiving, managing, and analyzing different spatial marine data and displaying and generating thematic maps. The techniques involved in building the GIS, spatial marine data processing, data integration, 3D data structures, and animation, are also discussed. For the development of our marine GIS, various hardware systems, including PCs. workstations, plotters, scanners, and printers, as well as softwares such as Geologic Information Visualization (GIV). ARC/INFO Version 7 and its various modules, and image processing software tools such as Imagetool, XV, and Corel Draw were used. The data used for this project include bathymetric, gravity, and magnetic data collected in the part of the EEZ around the island of Kaho'olawe. This GIS model can be used as a prototype to develop a global marine GIS which will help in managing the oceans.

Building the electronic health sciences library for the twenty-first century: the Galter Library experience.

Constructing home pages for World-Wide Web access has become a major activity in academic health sciences libraries. At the Northwestern University, Galter Health Sciences Library staff are creating the library's new health information system using Web resources and integrating them with existing library systems-NUmed (OVID MEDLINE) and LUIS/NUcat (NOTIS). Development of Web pages, including selection and organization of electronic information, has become the building process for the electronic library. Selection, organization, design, and construction are important factors in the creation of an efficient and useful information system. Using resources like the World-Wide Web and tools like Netscape, library staff are designing an interface, defining policies and guidelines, and creating the tools that will give users easy access to local and international electronic, scholarly information resources. In this paper, the process used at Northwestern is shown as a model of an electronic health sciences library for the twenty-first century.

Marine systems analysis and modeling

Oceanography and marine ecology have a considerable history in the use of computers for modeling both physical and ecological processes. With increasing stress on the marine environment due to human activities such as fisheries and numerous forms of pollution, the analysis of marine problems must increasingly and jointly consider physical, ecological and socio-economic aspects in a broader systems framework that transcends more traditional disciplinary boundaries. This often introduces difficult-to-quantify, “soft” elements, such as values and perceptions, into formal analysis. Thus, the problem domain combines a solid foundation in the physical sciences, with strong elements of ecological, socio-economic and political considerations. At the same time, the domain is also characterized by both a very large volume of some data, and an extremely datapoor situation for other variables, as well as a very high degree of uncertainty, partly due to the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the marine environment. Consequently, marine systems analysis and management require tools that can integrate these diverse aspects into efficient information systems that can support research as well as planning and also policy- and decisionmaking processes. Supporting scientific research, as well as decision-making processes and the diverse groups and actors involved, requires better access and direct understanding of the information basis as well as easy-to-use, but powerful tools for analysis. Advanced information technology provides the tools to design and implement smart software where, in a broad sense, the emphasis is on the man-machine interface. Symbolic and analogous, graphical interaction, visual representation of problems, integrated data sources, and built-in domain knowledge can effectively support users of complex and complicated software systems. Integration, interaction, visualization and intelligence are key concepts that are discussed in detail, using an operational software example of a coastal water quality model. The model comprises components of a geographical information and mapping system, data bases, dynamic simulation models, and an integrated expert system. An interactive graphical user interface, dynamic visualization of model results, and a hyper-text-based help-and-explain system illustrate some of the features of new and powerful software tools for marine systems analysis and modeling.

Managing information systems in the school

This paper describes the issues surrounding information systems (IS) in the school, in particular the concerns which need to be considered when generating a comprehensive strategy for the implementation of an educational integrated IS. The paper reviews both IS strategy research and innovations in educational technology, and reports on two studies of the problems in IS strategy of educational professionals. In the major study, survey responses from 432 high schools were analyzed to examine the relative use of microcomputer school IS for efficiency of routine functions versus effective decision making defined as greater use of information by school personnel. Schools showed significantly greater use of the systems for more efficient processing of routine tasks. However, operational factors related to the use of the systems as informing tools for more effective decision making were able to be singled out, and relationships among measures of efficiency, effectiveness, decision making and operational factors were identified. The article concludes with implications for institutional practice, related research and professional preparation of educational administrators.

Information systems: Basic notions

This paper deals with the basic structure of computers (hardware and software) and some of the software applications now offered by technology; these applications can make medical work easier. Some features of advanced software applications are presented here, such as expert systems, case-based reasoning technics, image management, and also call tracking systems and user interface systems. The aim of this paper is to offer an overall view of the opportunity of setting up an efficient information system inside a health structure.

TraPhyC-BV: A hydrologic information system

Digital Elevation Models are used to automatically map the drainage network, the stream channel and divide networks of a watershed. This has been done with the TraPhyC-BV software package. Construction of a code describing the network may form the basis for an efficient hydrologic information system. This form of discretization of a watershed produces natural units for problems involving surface or subsurface water flow. This methodology is designed to aid in the parametrization of a distributed components approach to watershed simulation in the fields of hydrology, sedimentology and geomorphology.