Identification and the strategic role of stakeholders along mining value chain in Pakistan

A research project submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Engineering Johannesburg, 2015Pakistan set up two national mineral policies in 1995 and 2012. The first mineral policy was introduced after the discovery of Thar Coal to address the issues regarding mineral assets. After twenty years, it was observed that the National Mineral Policy of 1995 could not address the core issues faced by the mineral industry of Pakistan and there came a need to address the gaps in the policy. Therefore, a new mineral policy with new aims and objectives was introduced in 2012. Furthermore, it was identified that one of the major gaps of both mineral policies was that they were made without the realization and consultation of stakeholders along the mining value chain. With the identification and assessment of the strategic roles of stakeholders in the mineral industry being vital for the formulation of a mineral policy, the purpose of this research was to identify and analyze the role of stakeholders in the mining value chain in Pakistan. Forthwith, a critical review of the mineral policies in general was carried out in this report to analyze the contributing factors towards the failure of the first mineral policy. The result of the second mineral policy was not analyzed because no major FDI has been injected in mineral sector yet. The results of the absence of stakeholders were also compared with the expected outcomes of the mineral policy and the disparities were identified. Strategic and tactical interactions of stakeholders were analyzed to create value loops and virtuous cycles and the presence of positive and negative boosters were also identified. After analysing Pakistan's business environment, a stable business model was created in order to facilitate the formulation of a stable, transparent and equitable mineral policy

Achieving Coordination Through Dynamic Construction of Open Workflows

Workflow middleware executes tasks orchestrated by rules defined in a carefully handcrafted static graph. Workflow management systems have proved effective for service-oriented business automation in stable, wired infrastructures. We introduce a radically new paradigm for workflow construction and execution called open workflow to support goal-directed coordination among physically mobile people and devices that form a transient community over an ad hoc wireless network. The quintessential feature of the open workflow paradigm is dynamic construction of custom, context-specific workflows in response to unpredictable and evolving circumstances by exploiting the knowledge and services available within a given spatiotemporal context. This paper introduces the open workflow approach, surveys open research challenges in this promising new field, and presents algorithmic, architectural, and evaluation results for the first practical realization of an open workflow management system

FAIRsharing, a cohesive community approach to the growth in standards, repositories and policies

In this modern, data-driven age, governments, funders and publishers expect greater transparency and reuse of research data, as well as greater access to and preservation of the data that supports research findings. Community-developed standards, such as those for the identification and reporting of data, underpin reproducible and reusable research, aid scholarly publishing, and drive both the discovery and evolution of scientific practice. The number of these standardization efforts, driven by large organizations or at the grass root level, has been on the rise since the early 2000s. Thousands of community-developed standards are available (across all disciplines), many of which have been created and/or implemented by several thousand data repositories. Nevertheless, their uptake by the research community, however, has been slow and uneven. This is mainly because investigators lack incentives to follow and adopt standards. The situation is exacerbated if standards are not promptly implemented by databases, repositories and other research tools, or endorsed by infrastructures. Furthermore, the fragmentation of community efforts results in the development of arbitrarily different, incompatible standards. In turn, this leads to standards becoming rapidly obsolete in fast-evolving research areas. As with any other digital object, standards, databases and repositories are dynamic in nature, with a life cycle that encompasses formulation, development and maintenance; their status in this cycle may vary depending on the level of activity of the developing group or community. There is an urgent need for a service that enhances the information available on the evolving constellation of heterogeneous standards, databases and repositories, guides users in the selection of these resources, and that works with developers and maintainers of these resources to foster collaboration and promote harmonization. Such an informative and educational service is vital to reduce the knowledge gap among those involved in producing, managing, serving, curating, preserving, publishing or regulating data. A diverse set of stakeholders-representing academia, industry, funding agencies, standards organizations, infrastructure providers and scholarly publishers, both national and domain-specific as well global and general organizations, have come together as a community, representing the core adopters, advisory board members, and/or key collaborators of the FAIRsharing resource. Here, we introduce its mission and community network. We present an evaluation of the standards landscape, focusing on those for reporting data and metadata - the most diverse and numerous of the standards - and their implementation by databases and repositories. We report on the ongoing challenge to recommend resources, and we discuss the importance of making standards invisible to the end users. We report on the ongoing challenge to recommend resources, and we discuss the importance of making standards invisible to the end users. We present guidelines that highlight the role each stakeholder group must play to maximize the visibility and adoption of standards, databases and repositories

Ocean data product integration through innovation-the next level of data interoperability

In the next decade the pressures on ocean systems and the communities that rely on them will increase along with impacts from the multiple stressors of climate change and human activities. Our ability to manage and sustain our oceans will depend on the data we collect and the information and knowledge derived from it. Much of the uptake of this knowledge will be outside the ocean domain, for example by policy makers, local Governments, custodians, and other organizations, so it is imperative that we democratize or open the access and use of ocean data. This paper looks at how technologies, scoped by standards, best practice and communities of practice, can be deployed to change the way that ocean data is accessed, utilized, augmented and transformed into information and knowledge. The current portal-download model which requires the user to know what data exists, where it is stored, in what format and with what processing, limits the uptake and use of ocean data. Using examples from a range of disciplines, a web services model of data and information flows is presented. A framework is described, including the systems, processes and human components, which delivers a radical rethink about the delivery of knowledge from ocean data. A series of statements describe parts of the future vision along with recommendations about how this may be achieved. The paper recommends the development of virtual test-beds for end-to-end development of new data workflows and knowledge pathways. This supports the continued development, rationalization and uptake of standards, creates a platform around which a community of practice can be developed, promotes cross discipline engagement from ocean science through to ocean policy, allows for the commercial sector, including the informatics sector, to partner in delivering outcomes and provides a focus to leverage long term sustained funding. The next 10 years will be “make or break” for many ocean systems. The decadal challenge is to develop the governance and co-operative mechanisms to harness emerging information technology to deliver on the goal of generating the information and knowledge required to sustain oceans into the future

Auditing Personal Information Management

This paper firstly introduces personal information management using computers. It then describes a suggested approach to auditing the information needs which are personal to a knowledge worker. As part of an overall research programme in personal information management, the paper describes a personal auditing approach which is positioned as part of the experimental research aspect of the overall research. The paper aims to give practical guidance including on the effective classification of an individual’s data

Open Workflows: Context-Dependent Construction and Execution in Mobile Wireless Settings

Existing workflow middleware executes tasks orchestrated by rules defined in a carefully handcrafted static graph. Workflow management systems have proved effective for service-oriented business automation in stable, wired infrastructures. We introduce a radically new paradigm for workflow construction and execution called open workflow to support goal-directed coordination among physically mobile people and devices that form a transient community over an ad hoc wireless network. The quintessential feature of the open workflow paradigm is dynamic construction and execution of custom, context-specific workflows in response to unpredictable and evolving circumstances by exploiting the knowledge and services available within a given spatiotemporal context. This work introduces the open workflow approach, surveys open research challenges in this promising new field, and presents algorithmic, architectural, and evaluation results for the first practical realization of an open workflow management system