Statistical Audit via Gaussian Mixture Models in Business Intelligence Systems

A Business Intelligence (BI) System employs tools from several areas of knowledge for the collection, integration and analysis of data to improve business decision making. The Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (MP) uses a BI System designed with the University of Bras´ılia to ascertain irregularities on the payroll of the Brazilian federal government, performing audit trails on selected items and fields of the payroll database. This current auditing approach is entirely deterministic, since the audit trails look for previously known signatures of irregularities which are composed by means of an ontological method used to represent auditors concept maps. In this work, we propose to incorporate a statistical filter in this existing BI system in order to increase its performance in terms of processing speed and overall system responsiveness. The proposed statistical filter is based on a generative Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) whose goal is to provide a complete stochastic model of the process, specially the latent probability density function of the generative mixture, and use that model to filter the most probable payrolls. Inserting this statistical filter as a pre-processing stage preceding the deterministic auditing showed to be effective in reducing the amount of data to be analyzed by the audit trails, despite the penalty fee intrinsically associated with stochastic models due to the false negative outcomes that are not further processed. In our approach, gains obtained with the proposed pre-processing stage overcome impacts from false negative outcomes

Farmers and farmers’ associations in developing countries and their use of modern financial instruments

This paper starts with an overview of the current literature on the cost of price risk exposure to developing country farmers. It then discusses market-based price risk management instruments (such as futures and options) that can be used by farmers, as well as various mechanisms through which farmers' associations can facilitate farmers' access to price risk management tools as well as lower-cost financing (using warehouse receipt finance, repos and other structured financings). The experiences with use of such modern financial tools by farmers in several developing countries (Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Uganda) are described. The report concludes with a discussion of the practicalities of farmers' associations starting to use such financial instruments, including the potential of new technologies such as smart cards.farmers structured finance warehouse receipts price risk management

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

TCAPP and CTIP business plans

노트 : National Renewable Energy Laboratory interagency agreementProject title: Technology cooperation agreement pilot (TCAPP

Managing Intellectual Property to Foster Agricultural Development

Over the past decades, consideration of IPRs has become increasingly important in many areas of agricultural development, including foreign direct investment, technology transfer, trade, investment in innovation, access to genetic resources, and the protection of traditional knowledge. The widening role of IPRs in governing the ownership of—and access to—innovation, information, and knowledge makes them particularly critical in ensuring that developing countries benefit from the introduction of new technologies that could radically alter the welfare of the poor. Failing to improve IPR policies and practices to support the needs of developing countries will eliminate significant development opportunities. The discussion in this note moves away from policy prescriptions to focus on investments to improve how IPRs are used in practice in agricultural development. These investments must be seen as complementary to other investments in agricultural development. IPRs are woven into the context of innovation and R&D. They can enable entrepreneurship and allow the leveraging of private resources for resolving the problems of poverty. Conversely, IPRs issues can delay important scientific advancements, deter investment in products for the poor, and impose crippling transaction costs on organizations if the wrong tools are used or tools are badly applied. The central benefit of pursuing the investments outlined in this note is to build into the system a more robust capacity for strategic and flexible use of IPRs tailored to development goals

Medical Informatics

Information technology has been revolutionizing the everyday life of the common man, while medical science has been making rapid strides in understanding disease mechanisms, developing diagnostic techniques and effecting successful treatment regimen, even for those cases which would have been classified as a poor prognosis a decade earlier. The confluence of information technology and biomedicine has brought into its ambit additional dimensions of computerized databases for patient conditions, revolutionizing the way health care and patient information is recorded, processed, interpreted and utilized for improving the quality of life. This book consists of seven chapters dealing with the three primary issues of medical information acquisition from a patient's and health care professional's perspective, translational approaches from a researcher's point of view, and finally the application potential as required by the clinicians/physician. The book covers modern issues in Information Technology, Bioinformatics Methods and Clinical Applications. The chapters describe the basic process of acquisition of information in a health system, recent technological developments in biomedicine and the realistic evaluation of medical informatics

Social, Technological and Health Innovation: Opportunities and Limitations for Social Policy, Health Policy, and Environmental Policy

This Research Topic focuses on both strengths and weaknesses of social innovation, technological innovation, and health innovation that are increasingly recognized as crucial concepts related to the formulation of responses to the social, health, and environmental challenges. Goals of this Research Topic: (1) to identify and share the best recent practices and innovations related to social, environmental and health policies; (2) to debate on relevant governance modes, management tools as well as evaluation and impact assessment techniques; (3) to discuss dilemmas in the fields of management, financing, designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining the sustainability of innovative models of delivering social, health and care services; and (4) to recognize and analyze social, technological and health innovation that has emerged or has been scaled-up to respond to crisis situations, for example, a pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease

Healthcare Access

Adequate healthcare access not only requires the availability of comprehensive healthcare facilities but also affordability and knowledge of the availability of these services. As an extended responsibility, healthcare providers can create mechanisms to facilitate subjective decision-making in accessing the right kind of healthcare services as well various options to support financial needs to bear healthcare-related expenses while seeking health and fulfilling the healthcare needs of the population. This volume brings together experiences and opinions from global leaders to develop affordable, sustainable, and uniformly available options to access healthcare services

Transplanting EU waste law:The European waste electrical and electronic equipment directives as a source of inspiration to Brazilian law and policy

What are the legal instruments and policy choices producing improvements in e-waste management strategies worldwide? Could they be used from one legal system to another? The EU’s tradition of focusing on waste management and setting goals and responsibilities for all stakeholders involved in products life-cycle is remarkable. Its progress in policy and legal instruments on the field throughout the years represent a source of inspiration to other jurisdictions outside the European Union. At the same time, there have been developments in Brazilian law on the topic of waste management through the National Policy on Solid Waste (NPSW), Brazil’s most recent Act, the NPSW is a mark of progress, specifying priority waste streams and demanding well-structured and implemented take-back systems. Nonetheless, there have been considerable difficulties with moving further. This book studies and analyses the process of drafting and implementing the WEEE Directives in the European member states (MS) with the aim of identifying key policy and legal instruments that have contributed to fully working national WEEE systems. Supported by the Legal Transplants Theory it verifies the possibility for a jurisdiction to inspire others and, points out which lessons could be learned from the European experience that could contribute to the development of the corresponding laws in Brazil