Business Intelligence And Geographic Information System Lifecycle Architecture Using Cloud Computing For Smart Community

Business Intelligence (BI) is a technique and IT tool that supports business decision making. BI is considered a unique source of competitive advantage in the market place and it can combine data, multimedia, and transactions all in one application to address people\u27s needs. Using BI applications can increase both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. In addition, BI improves planning that provides the foundation for top successful performances in the future. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) deliver productivity tools that are highly beneficial for businesses. These benefits include: visualization, business capacity, analysis, and interpreting data to understand relationships, patterns, and trends. Another benefit is a new feature can report drivers who speed, accelerate hard, and make sudden stops. Nowadays, GIS is responsible for developing standard, strategy, and policy that emphasize coordination and cooperation among organizations and businesses in order to maximize cost effectiveness. Smart card technology is the name that describes plastic cards with an embedded computer chip. Basically, smart cards are usually the most cost-effective solution because it increases the level of processing power, memory, and flexibility. Therefore, implementing a smart card in a driver\u27s license can help to build control in a community. However, the general objective of the study is to investigate the feasibility of integrating Cloud Computing, BI, and GIS to build smart community. The research focuses on enhancing GIS tools and build control in community. The proposed system is a new approach in Information Technology that can lower business cost and build policy in organization. The research is nonexperimental study used qualitative method to answer certain research questions posed for the study. The result obtained from analysis exists GIS showed that enhance GIS can build control in the community. Furthermore, there is a feasibility integrating BI, Cloud and GIS to build smart community. On the bases of these finding, IT synergy will influence the business workflow process and performance of organization. Organizations can achieve many benefits from the integrating Cloud Computing approach, BI and GIS in decision making

The North American Transportation Security Center – SERRI Analysis Update

Executive Summary There are over 800,000 hazardous materials (hazmat) shipments over the nation’s roads each day. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), terrorist activity related to the transportation of hazardous materials represents a significant threat to public safety and the nation’s critical infrastructure. Specifically, the federal government has identified the government’s inability to track hazmat shipments on a real-time basis as a significant security vulnerability. In 2004, the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) completed a study to determine if “smart truck” technology such as GPS tracking, wireless modems, panic buttons, and on-board computers could be used to enhance hazmat shipment security. The FMCSA study concluded that “smart truck” technology will be highly effective in protecting hazmat shipments from terrorists. The FMCSA study also concluded that “smart truck” technology deployment will produce a huge security benefit and an overwhelmingly positive return on investment for hazmat carriers. The FMCSA study led to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Hazmat Truck Security Pilot (HTSP). This congressionally mandated pilot program was undertaken to demonstrate if a hazmat truck tracking center was feasible from a technology and systems perspective. The HTSP project team built a technology prototype of a hazmat truck tracking system to show that “smart truck” technology could be crafted into an effective and efficient system for tracking hazmat shipments. The HTSP project team also built the Universal Communications Interface – the XML gateway for hazmat carriers to use to provide data to a centralized truck tracking center. In August 2007, Congress enacted the 9/11 Act (PL110-53) that directs TSA to develop a program - consistent with the Hazmat Truck Security Pilot - to facilitate the tracking of motor carrier shipments of security-sensitive materials. In June 2008, TSA took a major step forward in establishing a national hazmat security program by issuing guidance for shipments of Tier 1 Highway Security Sensitive Materials (HSSMs), the riskiest shipments from a security perspective. TSA’s Tier 1 HSSM guidance includes Security Action Items which specify security measures – including vehicle tracking – that TSA believes are prudent security measures for shippers and carriers to follow. Compliance with TSA’s Tier 1 HSSM guidance is voluntary but TSA is expected to issue regulations based on the Tier 1 HSSM Security Action Items that will make compliance mandatory. Establishment of a Tier 1 HSSM truck tracking center is critical to implementation of a Tier 1 HSSM regulatory program based on the Security Action items by TSA. The HTSP technology prototype was an excellent first step toward an operational Tier 1 HSSM truck tracking system, however, it falls far short of what TSA needs in an operational system. The Kentucky Transportation Center at the University of Kentucky completed a study December 2008 that examined market drivers that would influence the design and operation of a Tier 1 HSSM truck tracking system. The study was funded by the South East Region Research Initiative (SERRI). The objective of this deliverable is to update the SERRI report with a specific focus on two item: new or enhanced fleet tracking vendor product and service offerings; and programmatic conditions that have changed since December 200

Unilateral Invasions of Privacy

Most people seem to agree that individuals have too little privacy, and most proposals to address that problem focus on ways to give those users more information about, and more control over, how information about them is used. Yet in nearly all cases, information subjects are not the parties who make decisions about how information is collected, used, and disseminated; instead, outsiders make unilateral decisions to collect, use, and disseminate information about others. These potential privacy invaders, acting without input from information subjects, are the parties to whom proposals to protect privacy must be directed. This Article develops a theory of unilateral invasions of privacy rooted in the incentives of potential outside invaders. It first briefly describes the different kinds of information flows that can result in losses of privacy and the private costs and benefits to the participants in these information flows. It argues that in many cases the relevant costs and benefits are those of an outsider deciding whether certain information flows occur. These outside invaders are more likely to act when their own private costs and benefits make particular information flows worthwhile, regardless of the effects on information subjects or on social welfare. And potential privacy invaders are quite sensitive to changes in these costs and benefits, unlike information subjects, for whom transaction costs can overwhelm incentives to make information more or less private. The Article then turns to privacy regulation, arguing that this unilateral-invasion theory sheds light on how effective privacy regulations should be designed. Effective regulations are those that help match the costs and benefits faced by a potential privacy invader with the costs and benefits to society of a given information flow. Law can help do so by raising or lowering the costs or benefits of a privacy invasion, but only after taking account of other costs and benefits faced by the potential privacy invader

Issues Related to the Emergence of the Information Superhighway and California Societal Changes, IISTPS Report 96-4

The Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies (IISTPS) at San José State University (SJSU) conducted this project to review the continuing development of the Internet and the Information Superhighway. Emphasis was placed on an examination of the impact on commuting and working patterns in California, and an analysis of how public transportation agencies, including Caltrans, might take advantage of the new communications technologies. The document reviews the technology underlying the current Internet “structure” and examines anticipated developments. It is important to note that much of the research for this limited-scope project was conducted during 1995, and the topic is so rapidly evolving that some information is almost automatically “dated.” The report also examines how transportation agencies are basically similar in structure and function to other business entities, and how they can continue to utilize the emerging technologies to improve internal and external communications. As part of a detailed discussion of specific transportation agency functions, it is noted that the concept of a “Roundtable Forum,” growing out of developments in Concurrent Engineering, can provide an opportunity for representatives from multiple jurisdictions to utilize the Internet for more coordinated decision-making. The report also included an extensive analysis of demographic trends in California in recent years, such as commute and recreational activities, and identifies how the emerging technologies may impact future changes

A study on RFID adoption for vehicle tracking in container terminal

Purpose: Numerous studies discuss that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology can provide better container handling efficiency; however, relative lack of research concerns the tracking and monitoring the movement of vehicle in the container terminal environment. Thus, this study aims at discussing the feasibility of applying RFID for vehicle tracking purpose in a container terminal. Design/methodology/approach: This study makes use of a series of experiments in a container terminal to discuss the factors that affect the use of RFID in the terminal. The possibility and accuracy of using RFID in such challenging environment is also investigated. These propositions are investigated by a case study. Findings: The experimental results indicate that the RFID communication is good at the containers area which occupies nearly all the area in the container terminal. However, in other area such as sea side and free area, the performance is not good and 100% readability only achieved in 5m and 10m in free area and sea side respectively. Originality/value: The container terminal environment, which consists of different transport vehicles for onward transportation, will affect the performance of RFID readability. Poor setup of the RFID reader and tag will lower the feasibility of RFID adoption as well as increase the cost. In order to address the challenges of implementing RFID in the container terminal environment, this paper provides a series of real site testing experiments to study the RFID performance in the container terminal environment. This represents an original contribution of value to future research and practice in the RFID adoptions in container terminal environmentPeer Reviewe

Remote Shutdown of Heavy Duty Vehicles

Today, vehicles are equipped with advanced electronics and complex alarm systems but still vehicle and cargo theft is a huge problem around the world. After struggling with this issue for several decades, the government in Brazil finally had enough and voted that all new vehicles manufactured or imported to the country are required to be equipped with an electronic device enabling tracking and immobilization of the vehicle if stolen. Remote immobilization could be a possible solution to prevent vehicle theft and also give the authorities a way to reclaim valuable cargo from stolen vehicles. Since Scania was already developing a telematic unit with the purpose of tracking vehicles and analyzing vehicle data, this thesis was started to investigate if it was possible to use the unit and the current system for remote immobilization as well. Security of the system would be the key issue since a flaw in security could give unauthorized access to stop vehicles and this would certainly be a disaster. A prototype system was created to test the reliability and performance of the system

RFID ENABLED FIRE TRUCK NAVIGATION SYSTEM & HYDRANT LOCATOR

Nowadays in the event of fire incident, firefighters use conventional method to locate, tracking and determine the nearest fire hydrant within the location of fire incident by refer to the mapping that available at local fire and rescue department office. This method is not practical anymore since they need to find out the nearest fire hydrant instantaneously and it is not an easy task for such emergency situation. In some cases, whenever they have arrived at the fire incident location, the exact location of fire hydrant cannot be determined immediately due to some problem such as unfamiliar with road around the incident area, unable to find for fire hydrant if it is out of sight and unable to determine whether the fire hydrant is close enough to the incident area. This project will be implementing by using two systems which are Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Global Positioning System (GPS). A chosen active RFID tag will be located at some strategic location so that the reading coverage area will be the most. RFID reader located on the fire engine will send a signal and wait the feedback response from the active tag that has crucial information regarding the available fire hydrant within that area. Once the active tag has responded, the system will alert and the corresponding hydrants information such as their picture, coordinate, their exact location and distance towards fire incident location will be available and being crosslink with the system database. The coordinate for each of fire hydrants need to be initializing first by using GPS device before being update into the system. Then, the exact location between the reader and selected fire hydrant itself can be determined by implementing the location mapping database system

Market Analysis: Wavetrend Technologies, Inc.

Our project team performed a market analysis for Wavetrend Technologies, Inc. Wavetrend is a world leader in the deployment of comprehensive track-and-trace solutions providing real-time visibility of assets, people and modes of transportation. This project recommended implementation of RFID technology in the aviation and healthcare industries because of profit potential and the technology\u27s advantages. These recommendations were supported by a great deal of market research gathered from a variety of primary and secondary sources. Our key primary source was a survey distributed to a number of Wavetrend\u27s customers while our secondary sources consisted of various RFID technology periodicals, several academic publications in the WPI database, Yahoo! Finance, and ABI Research

Information Producers, Information Consumers : Location Data Privacy in Institutional Settings

Peer reviewedPreprin