Campus Telecommunications Systems: Managing Change

The purpose of this book is to provide a broadbased understanding of the rapidly changing environment of campus telecommunications. The anticipated audience for this material is the non-technical university administrator who may not have direct responsibility for telecommunications, but has a need to understand the general environment in which his telecommunications manager functions and the basic concepts of the technology. Five topic areas were selected that best cover the preponderance of issues. No attempt has been made to associate or closely coordinate materials from one chapter\u27s subject to that of any other. Each chapter generally stands alone. In total, however, the five chapters address the topics and issues that most often generate inquiries from university administrators outside the telecommunications department. Introduction 1 The Changing Telecommunications Environment 2 Telecommunications Technology and the Campus 3 Student Services 4 Financing a New Telecommunications System . 5 Selecting a Consultant Glossary Inde

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Workshop on Automating Software Design. Theme: Domain Specific Software Design

The goal of this workshop is to identify different architectural approaches to building domain-specific software design systems and to explore issues unique to domain-specific (vs. general-purpose) software design. Some general issues that cut across the particular software design domain include: (1) knowledge representation, acquisition, and maintenance; (2) specialized software design techniques; and (3) user interaction and user interface

Public officials and their institutional environment - an analytical model for assessing the impact of institutional change on public sector performance

To perform well, public officials must be confident enough about the future, to be able to see a relationship between their efforts, and an eventual outcome. Their expectations are shaped by their institutional environment. If the rules are not credible, or are unlikely to be enforced, of if they expect policies to be contradicted, or resources to flow unpredictably, results will be uncertain, so there is little point in working purposefully. The authors present an analytical framework, used to design a series of surveys of public officials'views of their institutional environment, and to analyze the information generated in fifteen countries. They describe how survey results help map public sector's strengths, and weaknesses, and offer an approach to identifying potential payoffs from reforms. The framework emphasizes how heterogeneous incentives, and institutional arrangements are within he public sector. It emphasizes how important it is for policymakers to base decisions on information (not generalizations) that suggests what is most likely to work, and where. In building on the premise that public officials'actions - and hence their organization's performance - depend on the institutional environment in which they find themselves, this framework avoids simplistic anti-government positions, bur doesn't defend poor performance. Some public officials perform poorly, and engage in rent seeking, but some selfless, and determined public officials, work hard under extremely difficult conditions. This framework offers an approach for understanding both bad performance, and good, and for presenting the results to policymakers in a format that leadsto more informed choices, about public sector reform. Types of reforms discussed include strengthening the credibility of rules for evaluation, for record management, for training, and for recruitment; ensuring that staff support government policy; preventing political interference, or micro-management; assuring staff that they will be treated fairly; and, making government policies consistent.Public Health Promotion,Decentralization,Educational Sciences,Enterprise Development&Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Educational Sciences,National Governance,Governance Indicators,Poverty Assessment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Privatisation of public enterprises in COMESA: An exploration of approaches and strategies: the case of the privatization of Telkom Kenya

This thesis investigates Kenya's approach to the privatization process through an exploration of Telkom Kenya's (TKL) unfolding privatization. The thesis research identifies outlines and documents the developments in Kenya's approach to the privatization programs in a developing economy of the COMESA region. In the process, the analysis contributes to an approach of privatizing and restructuring in Kenya. It has also helped explain new phenomena in privatizing in an environment with no institutional infrastructure and in the process has generated and contributed to new knowledge whose detail is discussed in chapter five. The research took an exploratory approach because there are few or no earlier studies in which a secondary data analysis solely was to be analyzed. The empirical data was based on observing and experiencing the real world with a focus to gain insights and familiarity on approaches to the privatization process. Although there is a variety of privatization literature and studies, these have tended to focus on developed and emerging economies and lately specific sectors of their interest. The analysis uses field primary and secondary data sources and an extensive literature review on privatization focusing on specific elements of approaches and developments in the less developing countries (LDCs) and in Kenya. The data collection and analysis focused on outlining Kenya’s actual process of choosing and implementing sectors, objectives, methods, techniques and strategies of transacting Telkom Kenya as a strategic enterprise under the GOK's privatization program. In attempting to respond to the central research question raised in chapter one (page 9) the thesis undertakes an in-depth mixed method analysis (majorly qualitative) of approaches to the privatization process. The research is driven by the central research question (s): "What are (why and how) the approaches and strategies of Kenya's privatization program in a developing economy?” The research outcome identifies and outlines a 'sketch approach' to Kenya's privatization program and process. The research analysis concludes that efforts to institutionalize (i.e. regulatory framework) the process, in order to make Kenya's approach more tangible, effective, efficient, and accountable need further attention. Evidence further shows that privatisation of Kenya’s strategic state enterprises (SSE, s) raises concerns of the socio-political dynamics of the management of the selected approaches, methods, processes, and objectives of privatization by GOK. Indeed 80 % of the respondents argued that privatization is crucial in enabling the government divest from business. However, the political control remains an impediment to independent and fair strengthening and building of privatization institutions. In this regard, this thesis' major contribution of identifying Kenya's approach provides a first attempt at a 'guide’ to the privatization process that is clear, accountable and open to checks and balances

E-health experiences in Spain: mapping and analysis

E-health is form of health created to improve the health status of patients through Internet and other related technologies. It is an expanding concept being applied in lots of countries because of its benefits. With it, telemedicine is evolving. Telemedicine uses IT‟s to improve patient‟s outcomes with services such as diagnosis, treatments, prevention disease and so on. The objective of this document is to compare different projects being realised in Spain, and in particular, in the Catalonia Region. To do so, it introduces e-health, telemedicine and other related terms. It also describes the actual situation in Spain regarding these subjects. It provides a description of different telemedicine projects dealt in Catalonia and Spain, as well as a detailed and structured description of the project PALANTE and its pilots, specially the Spanish ones. It defines a taxonomy model to classify all the projects and the Spanish pilots so that they can be compared to view the differences between them, and the tendency that the telemedicine sector is heading to. The different resulting ideas that have been extracted are: There are projects that full monitor the patients with oximeters, sensors, spirometers…. This full monitoring is closed related to a service that tries to prevent a relapse from patients, which causes a reduction on the readmission of them. Several projects offer patients a virtual platform or portal to manage their health. This one should include (some ones already do) a drug intake schedule and an educational service. The latest projects developed are trying to give access to electronic health records (EHR) to their patients. The projects are trying to use ICT‟s to get a synchronous link between patients and health professionals.Outgoin

The 1990 progress report and future plans

This document describes the progress and plans of the Artificial Intelligence Research Branch (RIA) at ARC in 1990. Activities span a range from basic scientific research to engineering development and to fielded NASA applications, particularly those applications that are enabled by basic research carried out at RIA. Work is conducted in-house and through collaborative partners in academia and industry. Our major focus is on a limited number of research themes with a dual commitment to technical excellence and proven applicability to NASA short, medium, and long-term problems. RIA acts as the Agency's lead organization for research aspects of artificial intelligence, working closely with a second research laboratory at JPL and AI applications groups at all NASA centers