Integrating social media with existing knowledge and information for crisis response

Existing studies on social media in the context of crisis have studied the content of items and their patterns of transmission. However, social media content generated during a crisis will generally be unstructured and only reflect the immediate experiences of the authors, while the volumes of data created can make rapid interpretation very challenging. Crisis situations can be characterized with various expected attributes. In many situations there will be large amounts of information relevant to the situation already available. We argue that existing natural language engineering technologies can be integrated with emerging social media content utilization techniques for more powerful exploitation of social media content in crisis response

Ontology Merging as Social Choice

The problem of merging several ontologies has important applications in the Semantic Web, medical ontology engineering and other domains where information from several distinct sources needs to be integrated in a coherent manner.We propose to view ontology merging as a problem of social choice, i.e. as a problem of aggregating the input of a set of individuals into an adequate collective decision. That is, we propose to view ontology merging as ontology aggregation. As a first step in this direction, we formulate several desirable properties for ontology aggregators, we identify the incompatibility of some of these properties, and we define and analyse several simple aggregation procedures. Our approach is closely related to work in judgment aggregation, but with the crucial difference that we adopt an open world assumption, by distinguishing between facts not included in an agent’s ontology and facts explicitly negated in an agent’s ontology

Practical Application of Sociology in Systems Engineering

Systems engineering involves both the integration of the system and the integration of the disciplines which develop and operate the system. Integrating the disciplines is a sociological effort to bring together different groups, who often have different terminology, to achieve a common goal, the system. The focus for the systems engineer is information flow through the organization, between the disciplines, to ensure the system is developed and operated will all relevant information informing system decisions. The practical application of the sociology in systems engineering brings in various organizational development concepts including the principles of planned renegotiation and the application of principles to address information barriers created by organizational culture. Concepts such as specification of ignorance, consistent terminology, opportunity structures, role-sets, and the reclama (reconsideration) process are all important sociological approaches that help address the organizational social structure (culture). In bringing the disciplines together, the systems engineer must also be wary of social ambivalence, social anomie, social dysfunction, and insider-outsider behavior. Unintended consequences can result when these social issues are present. These issues can occur when localized subcultures shift from the overarching organizational culture, or when the organizational culture prevents achievement of system goals. These sociological principles provide the systems engineer with key approaches to manage the information flow through the organization as the disciplines are integrated and share their information and provides key sociological barriers to information flow through the organization. This paper will discuss the practical application of sociological principles to systems engineering

Principles of Sociology in Systems Engineering

Systems engineering involves both the integration of the system and the integration of the disciplines which develop and operate the system. Integrating the disciplines is a sociological effort to bring together different groups, often with different terminology, to achieve a common goal, the system. The focus for the systems engineer is information flow through the organization, between the disciplines, to ensure the system is developed and operated with all relevant information informing system decisions. Robert K. Merton studied the sociological principles of the sciences and the sociological principles he developed apply to systems engineering. Concepts such as specification of ignorance, common terminology, opportunity structures, role-sets, and the reclama (reconsideration) process are all important sociological approaches that should be employed by the systems engineer. In bringing the disciplines together, the systems engineer must also be wary of social ambivalence, social anomie, social dysfunction, insider-outsider behavior, unintended consequences, and the self-fulfilling prophecy. These sociological principles provide the systems engineer with key approaches to manage the information flow through the organization as the disciplines are integrated and share their information. This also helps identify key sociological barriers to information flow through the organization. This paper will discuss this theoretical basis for the application of sociological principles to systems engineering

Information Systems as Strategic Advisors and Strategic Translators – Proposing Information Centred Performance Management

Information technologies, in general, and information systems, in particular, are fast becoming the prime enablers of success and survival in business organisations. These technologies, on one hand, enrich economic, social, and cultural environment of organisations, and on the other hand enhance their competitiveness. For asset managing engineering enterprise, information systems not only help in capturing, storing, and exchanging information, but also enable an integrated view of asset lifecycle management through integration and interoperability of lifecycle information. The variety of systems and the range of objectives associated with these systems demand that organisations need to take stock of their capabilities, resources, and aspirations to enable informed choices regarding Information systems investments. This paper tackles the issue of performance management of information systems utilised in asset lifecycle management, by providing a performance evaluation framework. The framework institutes a generative learning based continuous improvement regime for asset lifecycle management. It provides a cyclical approach to performance measurement such that it assesses and informs the role of Information systems in translating and informing the asset management strategy in a single cycle, thereby enhancing competitiveness of asset managing engineering enterprises

Model of Social Influence in Analysis of Socio-engineering Attacks

The purpose of this study is to study the modernization of the model of an attacker’s social engineering attack on a user, taking into account a wider range of factors influencing the success of a social engineering attack associated with the principles of social influence. Methods. To achieve this goal, the approaches to social influence and the components of social influence were analyzed. An integrated circuit of social influence is built, grounding in the context of socio-engineering attacks. Results. A model of social influence is proposed, built in the context of an attacker’s social engineering attack on a user. A new interpretation of the term user vulnerability in the context of information security has been proposed. Conclusion. The result obtained forms the potential of filling the user and attacker models with specific vulnerabilities and competencies, which will lead to a more accurate assessment of the success of the attacker’s social engineering attack on the user, due to the aggregation of information from incidents that have occurred

Modelling an agent-based integrated health and social care information system for older people

This paper argues the potential of agent technology to support delivery of integrated information systems for the health and social care sector. In doing so, it points out the similarities and the mutual characteristics (such as distribution of expertise) of integrated health and social care information systems and agent technology. On the other hand, it identifies the need to develop a mature and complete agent-oriented software engineering methodology tailored to the analysis and design of agent-based medical systems. The electronic Single Assessment Process (eSAP), an electronic system to deliver the integrated assessment of health and social care needs of older people, is modelled using the Tropos methodology

REGIONAL DATA AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR THE DESIGN OF NEW E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

The paper introduces an innovative approach related to the sustainable regional strategy design and implementation, suggesting the process re-engineering according to the new knowledge management and citizen-oriented governance paradigm. The solutions proposed rely on the potential of the information and communication technologies (ICT) for knowledge management, inclusion, democracy and development, and represent the results of a Romanian research project: “Knowledge management architecture in environmental, social and economic areas, designed to support the sustainable regional development strategy”, financed under the national research budget (Research and Development National Program – Ideas, National Council for Research and Higher Education). The research was structured in three main steps: the first step was oriented to the identification of the main characteristics of the regional strategy design process, the second step focused on the critical analysis of the existing procedures in order to identify the strengths and the weakness of the process and to propose improved solutions, and the third one consists in the ICT-led process re-engineering. The first phase of the project involves desk research, direct observations, carrying out specific surveys in the framework of the strategy development in the Bucharest-Ilfov region. The SWOT analysis of the actual strategy design process emphasized the specific needed improvements of the process, especially a deeper analysis using various sustainable development models and benchmarking. Other important issue is represented by the lack of the citizens’ involvement in the consultative and decision making processes. The proposed solution of the process re-engineering involves the use of specific ICT tools integrated in a virtual regional platform aiming at offering a complete and realistic picture of the region and collecting the regional stakeholders’ opinions concerning the strategic regional development priorities.regional knowledge management, e-Government, e-Consultation, e-Participation, sustainable regional strategy

How Should We Prioritise Incident Management Deployment?

With perpetual strains on resources and traffic increasing at a steady rate, transport agencies need to evaluate the road network and make informed decisions to determine which roads have the greatest risk of adverse impacts and therefore identify the roads that have the greatest case for intervention. This is especially the case for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and in particular incident management services where decision-making techniques are immature relative to conventional road engineering. This problem is compounded by the fact that common evaluation tools are insufficient for ITS applications. Historical information for ITS impacts is not always readily available, impacts are not transferable and impacts are incremental to the individual user. For these reasons, a new network evaluation framework is presented in this paper for incident management deployment. The framework aims to analyse the road network and prioritise roads with respect to two factors: the historical risk associated with incidents; and the cost effectiveness of implementation. To assess the historical risk, the framework initially converts social, economic and environmental impacts to a common monetary base, enabling the addition of the incident impacts. The economic impact values must be treated as relative values of measurement, not absolute costs. The second part of the framework assesses the historical risk, taking into account both the consequence of an event, measured in economic terms described above, and the probability of an event occurring based on historical information. The third uses a cost-effective ratio comparing the reduced impacts with the project costs. The economic risk analysis presented in Figure 1 below integrates safety, reliability and environmental impacts, providing an integrated decision-making tool for proactive ITS deployment decision-making