Information - organization - decision: Some strange loops

Acceptance of the theoretical foundations of Management Information Systems (MIS) has remained surprisingly high in the past twenty years, whereas information processing technologies have been improving at an incredible rate. This stability appears to be because the MIS model is based on the cybernetic model of organizations. We see, however, a conceptual crisis due in the development of more and more complex information systems and increased questioning of the deficiencies of organizational models based on cybernetic theory. This is particularly highlighted by the problems encountered in introducing the “bounded rationality paradigm” of H.A. Simon into the model.In this paper, we propose a new model that should be better adapted to contempory technology. This model allows both order and disorder to be included, while incorporating the concept of “organizational memory,” to improve the representation of a complex organizational information system with an action and process aspect.     

Of Dollars and CASE

Despite the importance of the topic, there are very few books about MIS economics, and most of those that are available are of an academic nature. One book that does offer a practical and unique view of how MIS managers can justify the “worth” of their systems is reviewed in this column. Also reviewed are two books offering strong opinions about two different MIS concerns - implementing CASE and improving productivity with structured walkthroughs.     

A program selection/resource allocation model for control of malaria and related parasitic diseases

Malaria and related parasitic diseases are in the midst of a severe resurgence world-wide. Due to a series of complex factors reflecting shifting economic and physical conditions and life styles, purely technical approaches to control of parasitic diseases are becoming less effective. An emerging theory calling for an integration of disease control efforts with socioeconomic development is now being proposed as essential to future success. This paper seeks to systematically identify and organize the basic tenets of this “integrated approach.” Based on the resulting analysis, a multiobjective planning and resource allocation model is formulated to help identify “most effective” program-based disease/development intervention strategies. Guidelines are offered for the quantification, sensitivity analysis, and solution of the model in real-world problem contexts. The model represents a first attempt to formally interface the major societal dimensions critical to control of parasitic diseases.     

MIS research strategies

Different strategies for conducting empirical research in the Management Information Systems (MIS) field are discussed. Strategies employed in 532 MIS articles published in 15 journals during the 1970–1979 time period are analyzed. The trends are analyzed over the ten year period with respect to the differences between articles authored by practitioners and academic, differences between articles that are cited frequently versus infrequently, and the relationship with the type of research conducted.The analysis points out that more than two thirds of published MIS research by either academicians or practitioners had utilized non-empirical approaches and focused on a single variable. Case studies are the most commonly employed empirical strategy and most studies do not measure the impact of independent variables on the process of using developing, or operating information systems. The analysis suggests that MIS journal articles employing empirical research strategies are cited more frequently than nonempirical ones.     

The Myth of the Sophisticated User

Users now know just enough to be dangerous. How many times have you heard that one? How many times have you said it yourself? After a few years of watching users “take over,” some MIS professionals view users as more of a nuisance than in the days before end-user computing. But is this attitude justified, or is it simply the view of MIS professionals disgruntled by the growing computer expertise of those who haven't paid their dues?     

Managing Information as a Corporate Asset

Abstract

For an MIS department to create successful information systems, MIS management must acknowledge and satisfy the needs of the users. This can be accomplished through implementation and marketing of a strategic plan.     

Programmable Rewriting Strategies in Haskell: — White Paper —

Programmable rewriting strategies provide a valuable tool for implementing traversal functionality in grammar-driven (or schema-driven) tools. The working Haskell programmer has access to programmable rewriting strategies via two similar options: (i) the Strafunski bundle for generic functional programming and language processing, and (ii) the “Scrap Your Boilerplate” approach to generic functional programming. Basic rewrite steps are encoded as monomorphic functions on datatypes. Rewriting strategies are polymorphic functions composed from appropriate basic strategy combinators.We will briefly review programmable rewriting strategies in Haskell. We will address the following questions:

• What are the merits of Haskellish strategies?

• What is the relation between strategic programming and generic programming?

• What are the challenges for future work on functional strategies?

The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: early experiences with Learning Classifier System-based simple agents

Prior research on artificial agents/agencies involves entities using specifically tailored operational strategies (e.g., for information retrieval, purchase negotiation). In some situations, however, an agent must interact with others whose strategies are initially unknown and whose interests may counter its own. In such circumstances, pre-defining effective counter-strategies could become difficult or impractical. One solution, which may be viable in certain contexts, is to create agents that self-evolve increasingly effective strategies from rudimentary beginnings, during actual deployment. Using the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD) problem as a generic agent-interaction setting, we use the Learning Classifier System (LCS) paradigm to construct autonomously adapting “simple” agents. A simple agent attempts to cope by maintaining an evolving but potentially perennially incomplete and imperfect knowledge base. These agents operate against specifically tailored (non-adaptive) agents. We present a preliminary suite of simulation experiments and results. The promise evidenced leads us to articulate several additional areas of interesting investigations that we are pursuing.     

A feedforward–feedback glucose control strategy for type 1 diabetes mellitus

As the “artificial pancreas” becomes closer to reality, automated insulin delivery based on real-time glucose measurements becomes feasible for people with diabetes. This paper is concerned with the development of novel feedforward–feedback control strategies for real-time glucose control and type 1 diabetes. Improved post-meal responses can be achieved by a pre-prandial snack or bolus, or by reducing the glucose setpoint prior to the meal. Several feedforward–feedback control strategies provide attractive alternatives to the standard meal insulin bolus and are evaluated in simulations using a physiological model.     

Fuzzy functions with LSE

“Fuzzy Functions” are proposed to be determined by the least squares estimation (LSE) technique for the development of fuzzy system models. These functions, “Fuzzy Functions with LSE” are proposed as alternate representation and reasoning schemas to the fuzzy rule base approaches. These “Fuzzy Functions” can be more easily obtained and implemented by those who are not familiar with an in-depth knowledge of fuzzy theory. Working knowledge of a fuzzy clustering algorithm such as FCM or its variations would be sufficient to obtain membership values of input vectors. The membership values together with scalar input variables are then used by the LSE technique to determine “Fuzzy Functions” for each cluster identified by FCM. These functions are different from “Fuzzy Rule Base” approaches as well as “Fuzzy Regression” approaches. Various transformations of the membership values are included as new variables in addition to original selected scalar input variables; and at times, a logistic transformation of non-scalar original selected input variables may also be included as a new variable. A comparison of “Fuzzy Functions-LSE” with Ordinary Least Squares Estimation (OLSE)” approach show that “Fuzzy Function-LSE” provide better results in the order of 10% or better with respect to RMSE measure for both training and test cases of data sets.     

Helping Users Help Themselves

By allowing end users in individual departments to prepare their own plans “and budgets” for their own information systems, MIS managers can provide a unique opportunity for users to establish more effective and accurate strategic plans. This column describes the responsibilities of both the MIS department and users to make this new cooperative arrangement successful.     

Steering rules for AGV based on primitive function and elementary movement control

The complete structure of an AGV control system is described in the first part of this paper. The AGV control system is hierarchical and consists of five levels. The structure of one level does not depend on the structures of the other levels. This means that the control system depends on the design of the AGV at the lowest level only, at the actuator servo-control level and its coordination in realizing AGV primitive functions.The second part of the paper describes rules applicable to AGV steering. The structure of these rules depends on two groups of factors. The first group is dependent on information groups fed to the AGV processor by the position sensor. The second group of factors represents aims and conditions and AGV steering such as positioning accuracy, positioning time, allowed room for maneuver, the shape of the given trajectory, etc. The AGV steering rules contain sequences of primitive functions. These primitive functions are of such types as “turn left”, “straighten” (correct), “go straight on”, etc. Trajectory, as one of the basic factors, is defined at the level of controlling an elementary movement. The term “to control an elementary movement” means to select a transport road throughout the transport network and to code it using “elementary movement” such as “go straight” (relating to road section), “turn left” (relating to turning at a crossroad) etc.The results of the AGV steering simulation are presented in the third part of the paper. An exact kinematic AGV model used for stimulating control models is also presented.     

Cooperation without deliberation: A minimal behavior-based approach to multi-robot teams

While terminology and some concepts of behavior-based robotics have become widespread, the central ideas are often lost as researchers try to scale behavior to higher levels of complexity. “Hybrid systems” with model-based strategies that plan in terms of behaviors rather than simple actions have become common for higher-level behavior. We claim that a strict behavior-based approach can scale to higher levels of complexity than many robotics researchers assume, and that the resulting systems are in many cases more efficient and robust than those that rely on “classical AI” deliberative approaches. Our focus is on systems of cooperative autonomous robots in dynamic environments. We will discuss both claims that deliberation and explicit communication are necessary to cooperation and systems that cooperate only through environmental interaction. In this context we introduce three design principles for complex cooperative behavior—minimalism, statelessness and tolerance—and present a RoboCup soccer system that matches the sophistication of many deliberative soccer systems while exceeding their robustness, through the use of strict behavior-based techniques with no explicit communication.     

Strategic Importance of the User

For an MIS department to create successful information systems, MIS management must acknowledge and satisfy the needs of the users. This can be accomplished through implementation and marketing of a strategic plan.     

Critical success factors revisited: success and failure cases of information systems for senior executives

The literature suggests the existence of critical success factors (CSFs) for the development of information systems that support senior executives. Our study of six organizations gives evidence for this notion of CSFs. The study further shows an interesting pattern, namely that companies either “get it right”, and essentially succeed on all CSFs, or “get it completely wrong”, that is, fall short on each of the CSFs. Among the six cases for which data were collected through in-depth interviews with company executives, three organizations seemed to manage all the CSFs properly, while two others managed all CSFs poorly. Only one organization showed a mixed scorecard, managing some factors well and some not so well. At the completion of the study, this organization could neither be judged as a success, nor as a failure. This dichotomy between success and failure cases suggests the existence of an even smaller set of “meta-success” factors. Based on our findings, we speculate that these “meta-success” factors are “championship”, “availability of resources”, and “link to organization objectives”.     

Collaborative environments and task design in the university

This paper is a revision of the field of the so called “Computer supported collaborative learning”, showing its potentialities as well as some of the problems. It also makes an analysis of the types of task that are well designed to be collaborative, in the thread to find “genuine interdependent” tasks and not just subtasks that are only joined. At last, it raises some difficulties encountered when trying to think collaborative learning as a form of group proximal development zone.     

Self-organizing multi-modeling: A different way to design intelligent predictors

Identification of nonlinear systems is an important task for a large number of areas dealing with real-world applications and requirements. Recently, multiple works proposed “multi-model” based approaches to model nonlinear systems. Contrary to the conventional point of view, we propose to deem the multi-modeling as building a modular architecture, inspired from Artificial Neural Networks operation mode, where each neuron (module), represented by one of the local models, realizes some higher level transfer function. This article, deals with generalization of this new multi-modeling concept in the frame of nonlinear system's behavior identification and prediction context. Several multi-model construction strategies and identifiers issued architectures are presented and discussed. Experimental results validating presented multi-model based identifiers have been reported and discussed.     

Marketing Information Systems' Potential to Senior Management

For perhaps most MIS managers, actually completing a systems development project is not nearly as challenging as the task of obtaining senior management's support for the system. This column tells how MIS managers can provide the proper incentive for senior managers to support their systems projects by marketing information systems as necessary products for profit.     

Using the Semantic Web for linking and reusing data across Web 2.0 communities

Large volumes of content (bookmarks, reviews, videos, etc.) are currently being created on the “Social Web”, i.e. on Web 2.0 community sites, and this content is being annotated and commented upon. The ability to view an individual's entire contribution to the Social Web would be an interesting and valuable service, particularly important as social networks are often being formed through created content and things that people have in common (“object-centred sociality”). SIOC is a Semantic Web research project that aims to describe online communities on the Social Web. This paper describes how SIOC and the Semantic Web can enable linking and reuse scenarios of data from Web 2.0 community sites, and introduces a SIOC Types module to further specify the type of content items and act as a “glue” between user posts and the content items created and annotated by users.