Generating citizen trust in e-government using a trust verification agent: A research note

Generating Citizen Trust in e-Government using a Trust Verification AgentThis is an eGISE network paper. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool – a trust verification agent (TVA) - that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Further, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-UK (grant GR/T27020/01

A value oriented conceptual model for innovation in local government

The political rhetoric that accompanied the introduction of eGovernment expected it to produce innovation in the way government agencies conducted themselves with citizen and business alike. It was assumed that innovation was both "good" and inevitable. This paper challenges these assumptions and presents a more realistic model of how innovation might occurs in UK local government. The model is supported by anecdotal evidence, literature and a recent study of eGoverment achievement in the UK - VIEGO. A key element in the model is the notion of innovation value

Understanding the Corpus of E-Government Research: An analysis of the literature using co-citation analysis and social network analysis

YesThe growing body of published e-government literature highlights the importance of e-government in society and the need to make sense of e-government by academia. In order to understand the future of e-government, it is important to understand the research that has been conducted and highlight the issues and themes that have been identified as important by empirical study. This paper analyses the corpus of e-government research published from 2000 to 2013 using Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods to develop an intellectual structure of e-government research. Factor analysis, multidimensional scaling and centrality measurement are also applied to the e-government dataset using UCINET to identify the core influential articles in the field. This study identifies three core clusters of e-government research that centre around (i) e-government development models (ii) adoption and acceptance of e-government, and (iii) e-government using social media and highlights areas for future research in the field. Discover the world's researc

Procurement practices in project based manufacturing environments

Procurement is one of the processes that cannot be separated in a business. To be able to run a business, it certainly needs to go through procurement stage that involves purchasing raw materials and services. There are many procurement practices in different kinds of business environment such as manufacturing business and construction business. Competitive strategies application within procurement in this manufacturing is very important in order to win a tender for material procurement required in projects. The paper examines how competitive strategies are applied within procurement practice in project-based manufacturing environment. This research studies in the literature of management in engineering, competitive strategy, procurement integration, and case study that takes a sample from the examples of procurement practice application in large organisation such as that of McDermott. The research aims to conduct a qualitative research method based on the discussion and analysis of literature reviews and case study to build conclusions. The findings suggest business players should have core competencies and develop factors such as superior quality, price advantage, on-time delivery, flexibility, and innovation through technology in order to win the competition

Cellular and clinical impact of Haploinsufficiency for genes involved in ATR signaling

Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) protein, a kinase that regulates a DNA damage-response pathway, is mutated in ATR-Seckel syndrome (ATR-SS), a disorder characterized by severe microcephaly and growth delay. Impaired ATR signaling is also observed in cell lines from additional disorders characterized by microcephaly and growth delay, including non-ATR-SS, Nijmegen breakage syndrome, and MCPH1 (microcephaly, primary autosomal recessive, 1)-dependent primary microcephaly. Here, we examined ATR-pathway function in cell lines from three haploinsufficient contiguous gene-deletion disorders--a subset of blepharophimosis-ptosis-epicanthus inversus syndrome, Miller-Dieker lissencephaly syndrome, and Williams-Beuren syndrome--in which the deleted region encompasses ATR, RPA1, and RFC2, respectively. These three genes function in ATR signaling. Cell lines from these disorders displayed an impaired ATR-dependent DNA damage response. Thus, we describe ATR signaling as a pathway unusually sensitive to haploinsufficiency and identify three further human disorders displaying a defective ATR-dependent DNA damage response. The striking correlation of ATR-pathway dysfunction with the presence of microcephaly and growth delay strongly suggests a causal relationship

GTF2IRD1 regulates transcription by binding an evolutionarily conserved DNA motif ‘GUCE’

AbstractGTF2IRD1 is a member of a family of transcription factors whose defining characteristic is varying numbers of a helix–loop–helix like motif, the I-repeat. Here, we present functional analysis of human GTF2IRD1 in regulation of three genes (HOXC8, GOOSECOID and TROPONIN ISLOW). We define a regulatory motif (GUCE–GTF2IRD1 Upstream Control Element) common to all three genes. GUCE is bound in vitro by domain I-4 of GTF2IRD1 and mediates transcriptional regulation by GTF2IRD1 in vivo. Definition of this site will assist in identification of other downstream targets of GTF2IRD1 and elucidation of its role in the human developmental disorder Williams–Beuren syndrome

Evaluating Digital Public Services: a contingency value approach within three exemplar developing countries

This paper considers recent field evidence to analyse what online public services citizens need, explores potential citizen subsidy of these specific services and investigates where resources should be invested in terms of media accessibility. We explore these from a citizen-centric affordability perspective within three ‘exemplar’ developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank and United Nations in particular promote initiatives under the ‘Information and Communication Technologies for Development’ (ICT4D) to stress the relevance of e-Government as a way to ensure development and reduce poverty. We adopt a ‘Contingency Value’ method to conceptually outline reported citizens willingness to pay for digital public services. Hence, our focus is mainly upon an empirical investigation through extensive fieldwork in the context of sub-Sahara Africa. A substantive survey was conducted in the respective cities of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Lagos (Nigeria) and Johannesburg (South Africa). The sample of citizens was drawn from each respective Chamber of Commerce database for Ethiopia and South Africa, and for Nigeria a purchased database of businesses, based on stratified random sampling. These were randomly identified from both sectors ensuring all locations were covered with a total sample size of 1,297 respondents. It was found, in particular, that citizens were willing to pay to be able to access digital public services and that amounts of fees they were willing to pay varied depending on what services they wish to access and what devices they use (PCs or mobile phones)