Information flow in house building organisations

This research describes an investigation into the information flows within the technical and commercial functions of house building organisations. It was initiated because of the evidence of poor data transfer and communications within the construction industry as identified by previous research. Little previous research had addressed the particular problems of the house building industry which accounts for up to a third of total new construction output in the UK. The organisational and information structures of six house building companies were examined and a typical organisational model developed. This model highlighted the importance of the technical and commercial functions of estimating, purchasing, valuations and cost monitoring/comparisons and the need for effective transfer of information between them. The information flows between these functions were studied and modelled using systems analysis techniques of data flow diagrams and entity-relationships models. The requirements for a computer-aided management system to improve and rationalise the information flows were identified and an integrated system, known as DEVELOP, was developed. The system was installed into a collaborating company and its advantages and disadvantages monitored over time. The main outcomes of the research are: (a) an organisational model for a typical house building organisation; (b) data flow and entity-relationship models for the functions of estimating, purchasing, valuations and cost monitoring/comparisons; and (c) an operational integrated management system for house builders that provides: (i) faster throughput of information (for example the time required to aggregated dwelling quantities for a typical development is reduced from three man days to one hour);(ii) greater consistency of information (by the provision of a company data library); and (iii) better communications between the functions (due to the integrated nature of the system and the adoption of a common coding system)

Automated Clinical Coding:What, Why, and Where We Are?

Clinical coding is the task of transforming medical information in a patient's health records into structured codes so that they can be used for statistical analysis. This is a cognitive and time-consuming task that follows a standard process in order to achieve a high level of consistency. Clinical coding could potentially be supported by an automated system to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the process. We introduce the idea of automated clinical coding and summarise its challenges from the perspective of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), based on the literature, our project experience over the past two and half years (late 2019 - early 2022), and discussions with clinical coding experts in Scotland and the UK. Our research reveals the gaps between the current deep learning-based approach applied to clinical coding and the need for explainability and consistency in real-world practice. Knowledge-based methods that represent and reason the standard, explainable process of a task may need to be incorporated into deep learning-based methods for clinical coding. Automated clinical coding is a promising task for AI, despite the technical and organisational challenges. Coders are needed to be involved in the development process. There is much to achieve to develop and deploy an AI-based automated system to support coding in the next five years and beyond.Comment: accepted for npj Digital Medicin

A Method to Study the Organizational Dimension of Regional Programs

Our current research activities at IIASA provide the opportunity to study five cases on the organization of regional development. These cases are TVA, Bratsk-Ilimsk Territorial Production Complex, Scotland, Vistula-Lublin and Guayana in Venezuela. The aim of this paper is to present a research method for this purpose independent of the particular characteristics that each case might have. This method is supported by a model of the organizational structure of any viable system. In this case the "regional system" is postulated to be a viable system. If the program is going to be successful it should be viable. This suggests the need to define the "regional system" with precision. The elucidation of the components of this system is seen as a fundamental research step in this method. A second step focuses on the organizational functions that these parts fulfill, and on the linkages among them. A third step relates to the consistency of the regional organization and its effectiveness. The second step seeks to provide the basic structure to support the search for information. A set of questions, supported by this structure, will be presented for explanatory purposes. This "questionnaire" is by no means comprehensive and it is hoped that improvements will be made on it along this research process

The application of coastal management and Geographical Information System (GIS) initiatives in Selangor from government agencies perspectives

It is well recognised that coastlines are undergoing rapid development and firm management policies have to be made. Nevertheless, for any shore management to be efficacious, the policies need to be founded on informed decision-making. Geographical Information System (GIS) encourages the development and use of standards for coastal data definition, collection and storage, which promotes compatibility of data and processing techniques between projects and departments, as well as ensuring consistency of coastal management approach. Purpose of this research to find a perception from government agencies that has used GIS in managing coastal area in Selangor. Two main divisions of coastal change analysis may be recognized: monitoring and simulation modelling. GIS modelling and simulation of coastal phenomena are extremely valuable techniques for assessing the effectiveness and likely impacts of such intervention. Thus, a well-designed coastal area information system could be a significant decision support tool to aid the development of integrated and sustainable coastal resource management strategies

A study of the judicial approach by the Malaysian courts in dealing with child offender in murder and drugs offences / Adilah Azizan … [et al.]

This research looks at the judicial approaches by the Malaysian Courts in dealing with child offenders on murder and drug cases. The goal is to suggest several recommendations in order to improve the current sentencing practice for child offenders. This has been done by analysing decided cases on murder and drugs involving child offenders in Malaysia and comparing the juvenile justice system in Malaysia with the system in New Zealand. The information was obtained mostly from legal textbooks and online journal articles. Two interviews were also conducted to the first and second respondent. Upon analysing these findings, several recommendations were made which are reforming the administration of Courts for Children and improving the consistency in sentencing practices and restorative justice. Through showing that the judicial approach taken in dealing with child offenders need to be different from the adult offenders, this research highlights the importance for the rights of the child offenders as children are not violated

An Ontological Analysis of Use Case Modeling Grammar

Use case modeling is a popular technique for representing the functional requirements of an information system. The simple graphical notation of use case diagrams, accompanied by well-structured narrative descriptions, makes use case models fairly easy to read and understand. This simplicity, however, belies the challenges associated with creating use case models. There is little, if any, theory underlying use cases, and little more than loose guidelines for creating a complete, consistent, and integrated set of use cases. We argue that there is a need for more rigor and consistency in the grammatical constructs used in use case modeling. Toward this end, we present a theoretically- and practice-based assessment of use case modeling constructs, and make recommendations for future research to improve and strengthen this technique

Blurring the boundaries between an institutional repository and a research information registry: where's the join?

Key motivations for provision of an institutional repository (IR) for research outputs within a higher education institution (HEI) are storage, retention, dissemination and preservation of digital research materials. Increasingly IRs are being considered as tools for research management as part of pan-institutional systems. This might include statutory reporting such as that required for the forthcoming UK REF (Research Excellence Framework). Such functionality generally requires integration with other management systems within the HEI. It is common to find that each research management system has been selected to serve a specific need within an organisational department, any broader aim being out of scope. As a result, data is held in many silos, is duplicated and can even be "locked in" to those systems. This results in problems with data sharing, as well as lacks of efficiency and consistency. Some institutions are addressing this problem by considering CRISs (Current Research Information Systems) or business intelligence systems. The need for easy deposit in the institutional repository at the University of Oxford has prompted the development of a registry and tools to support research information management. Many of the motivations behind the repository are common with those for research information management. Not only do the two areas of focus have many common aims, but there is considerable overlap of design, data, services, and stakeholder requirements. This overlap means that the boundaries between the repository and the resulting tools being implemented for publicly available research activity data are blurred. By considering these two areas together with other related digital repository services, new opportunities and efficiencies can be revealed to the benefit of all stakeholders

Challenges for Model-Driven Development of Strategically Aligned Information Systems

[EN] Model-Driven Development (MDD) has been proposed as an alternative to the traditional development of information systems, given its ability to integrate different stakeholders into the information system engineering process. Currently, longtime researched MDD methods and modern no-code and low-code platforms support the generation of the working code of the information system and services. However, in today's continuously changing environment, organisations need to align the information systems and services with the business structure, strategy, and processes they support. This article shows the design challenges for integrating business strategy information into a model-driven development method. We applied a set of mechanism experiments on an MDD method composed of three modelling frameworks with demonstrated semantic consistency, that covers the organisational, business process, and information system levels to identify information loss and transformation coverage issues that prevent the generation of information systems and services that are strategically aligned. The challenges were discussed with experts, confirming the relevance of avoiding the overlapping between the strategic and business process concepts, providing organisational-level constructs to express strategic ends and means, and considering the organisational structure in the modular design of business process and information systems and services.This work was supported in part by the Spanish State Research Agency and the Generalitat Valenciana under Project MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Project GV/2021/072, and Project INNEST/2021/57 by Agencia Valenciana de Innovacion (AVI); in part by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Union Next Generation, and Plan de Recuperacion, Transformacion y Resiliencia (PRTR); and in part by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID)/Scholarship Program/Doctorado Becas Chile under Grant 2020-72210494.Noel-Lopez, R.; Panach, JI.; Pastor López, O. (2022). Challenges for Model-Driven Development of Strategically Aligned Information Systems. IEEE Access. 10:38237-38253. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.316222538237382531

ANALISIS AKTIVITAS LAPISAN INTEGRASI PADA MIGRASI DATA AKADEMIK DARI OPERASIONAL MENUJU GUDANGDATA STUDI KASUS: SITMPT UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN DUTA WACANA

Application of information systems in the college environment is already a common thing, as well as in UKDW that has developed 31 modules built applications. In many such applications, it requires the same data academic. Therefore, there is a need to integrate data from various sources into one data warehouse. There have been several steps to integrate the various existing applications into an integrated system called the Integrated Management System of Higher Education (abbreviated: SITMPT). But so far less perceived benefits, because many are found invalid data or inconsistent. Based on these problems, it will be an empirical study of the database schema that is used in applications in the academic field operational level and schema data warehouse, so it can be collated in the activity requirement level integration layer. The research method used is to collect and document the structure of the database, inflicting the concept of integration between databases used in each application, validate the results of research, finding rules and regulations that support the data consistency and to maintain, easier for operation coating / level of integration. This study is targeted to produce output in the form of SOP, program scripts, SQL statements, guidelines for database administrators