Developing An IT Risk Assessment Framework

In today’s business environment, almost all information is captured and stored in electronic form. This digital storage of data in a networked environment provides far greater access to information than ever before. But unfortunately, this also exposes the organization to a variety of new threats that can have impact on the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information. Organizations need a way to understand their information risks and to create new strategies for addressing those risks. A systematic approach to assessing information security risks and developing an appropriate protection strategy is a major component of an effective information security and risk management program. This paper outlines an Analytic Hierarchy Process based approach for analyzing risk factors and sub factors and ascertaining the major areas of security elements where an organization should focus on

Risk Management For Health Information Security And Privacy

The challenge of securing large amounts of electronic medical records stored in a variety of forms and in many locations, while still making it available to authorized users, is huge. Pressure to maintain privacy and protection of personal information is a strong motivating force in the development of security policies. It is essential for health care organizations to analyze, assess and ensure security policies to meet these challenges and to develop the necessary policies to ensure the security of medical information

A decision support model for management of fuzziness in global risk assessment

Solving decision-making problems requires efficient handling of uncertainties. This task has been usually performed by means of expert systems which are based on classical logic and, therefore, need special methods such as heuristic approaches, probability theory, possibility theory, and fuzzy theory. The later approach, fuzzy reasoning and logic, offers a more natural way of handling uncertainty since it is similar to human logical reasoning. In this paper, we develop a fuzzy logic model for assessment and prediction of country risk. This fuzzy method provides a systematic approach to analyzing a target country. By its nature, the decision making for global market involves various uncertain criteria; therefore, the fuzzy approach is suitable for this kind of analysis. The advantages of the approach are inclusion of economic data, consideration of political/social factors, and the ability to handle exact and fuzzy data

Knowledge-based Simulation System for Reliability and Performance Analysis of Computer Networks

Modeling and analysis of performance of computer networks is essential for ensuring smooth operation of an organization’s networks and preventing major failures. Mathematical analysis and simulation modeling are the common procedures for network system performance analysis. In this paper, a knowledge-based simulation system is developed that can be used for assessment and prediction of network performance and reliability

Approaches To Electronic Health Record Implementation

During last few years, healthcare organizations have been increasingly focused on implementation and use of electronic health records. This article identifies the benefits and challenges in implementing electronic health records utilizing service-oriented architecture. The paper also explores the potential of service-oriented architecture in the development of interoperable electronic health records

A neural network driven fuzzy system approach to decision making

It is necessary to model and manage uncertainties efficiently and effectively in solving decision-making problems. Fuzzy reasoning and logic offers a natural means of handling uncertainty. This paper discus.\u27ses the development of an architecture that utilizes the advantages of fuzzy logic and neural networks that can be used in decision-making. The present paper outlines the reasons that motivate development of models that integrate fuzzy logic and neural networks. This discussion is followed by a brief overview of fuzzy logic and its concepts that are essential in understanding the application presented in the paper. The paper then describes the classification procedure used by the model, which is followed by its application to the decision making problem in construction modularization

Technologies To Improve The Decision-Making Process Of Real Estate Appraisers: XML, Intelligent Agents, Avms, And Web Services

Pressure to expedite mortgage originations has prompted the need to accelerate the appraisal process for residential real estate.  The appraisal aspect of a mortgage origination is one area where decision support can play a major role in redefining the process. This study presents propositions that incorporate new technologies into the decision-making process of a residential real estate appraiser.  The four propositions deal with intelligent agents, XML, automated valuation models (AVMs), and web services. Intelligent agents have the ability to redefine how appraisal firms create, maintain, and update their databases.  XML offers enhanced data handling capabilities, while automated valuation models offer the ability to drastically reduce the time required to render an estimate of value. These two technologies can be combined with web services to make the real estate appraisal application available anywhere and anytime of the day

A neural network model for decision making With application in construction management

In this paper, an innovative approach is presented to decision making using self-organizing multi-layered neural networks. The model helps make a decision whether to use a conventional stick-built method or to use some degree of modularization when building an industrial process plant - a problem considered very important in construction management because of its economic impact. The objective of this paper is to show that both expert system and neural network approaches can be useful for decision making problems. However, in some situations a neural network approach can outperform the expert system approach. A brief overview of prior approach to modular construction decision making is provided in this paper and the reasons for using a neural network approach are also discussed. The architecture, knowledge representation, and training procedure for the neural network paradigms used are described. The performance of the trained neural network system and its comparison with the recommendations provided by human experts and the expert system are also presented

Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process Model For Determination of Service Quality in Telecom Networks

One of the commonly used methods for multi attribute decision making is analytic hierarchy process (AHP). During last two decades, the analytic hierarchy process has been successfully applied to numerous decision areas. The essence of AHP is in permitting the decision-maker to perform pair-wise comparisons of each of the factors or criteria -- one-on-one -- to derive overall priorities. These pair-wise comparisons may be stated verbally as in Criterion A is equally, moderately more, or strongly more important than criterion B. The adjectives likely or preferable may be substituted for important. These are converted to numerical values (generally in pre-specified range like 1 to 9) in the traditional, non-fuzzy AHP approach. The AHP method may be used for such decisions as selecting a single course of action from several, for priority setting, and for resource allocation. For the single decision-event, AHP\u27s use is based on the following assumptions, that for a significant decision, there are several courses of action (alternatives) available, from which one will be selected based on governing criteria, not all of which will be of equal weight

Enhancing Knowledge Management With XML

Knowledge Management involves gathering, categorizing, storing and sharing of knowledge. There are several available tools that can be used to build a knowledge management infrastruc-ture to achieve its goals. This paper discusses issues involved in designing an information Portal using XML-based tools. As compared to traditional HTML-based portals, use of XML offers several benefits - it provides a great way of efficiently aggregating, classifying, and presenting both structured and unstructured content over the Internet or similar networks