Factored reasoning for monitoring dynamic team and goal formation

We study the problem of monitoring goals, team structure and state of agents, in dynamic systems where teams and goals change over time. The setting for our study is an asymmetric urban warfare environment in which uncoordinated or loosely coordinated units may attempt to attack an important target. The task is to detect a threat such as an ambush, as early as possible. We attempt to provide decision-makers with early warnings, by simultaneously monitoring the positions of units, the teams to which they belong, and the goals of units. The hope is that we can detect situations in which teams of units simultaneously make movements headed towards a target, and we can detect their goal before they get to the target. By reasoning about teams, we may be able to detect threats sooner than if we reasoned about units individually. We develop a model in which the state space is decomposed into individual units’ positions, team assignments and team goals. When a unit belongs to a team it adopts the team’s goal. An individual unit’s movement depends only on its own goal, but different units interact as they form teams and adopt new goals. We present an algorithm that simultaneously tracks the positions of units, the team structure and team goals. Goals are inferred from two sources: individual units’ behavior, which provides information about their goals, and communications by units, which provides evidence about team formation. Our algorithm reasons globally about interactions between units and team formation, and locally about individual units’ behavior. We show that our algorithm performs well at the task, scaling to twenty units. It performs significantly better than several alternative algorithms: standard particle filtering, standard factored particle filtering, and an algorithm that performs all reasoning locally within the units.     

Do organizational citizenship behaviors lead to information system success?: Testing the mediation effects of integration climate and project management

We adapted a model in organizational theory to determine whether organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) of system implementation teams influenced that organization's integration climate and improved their project management, resulting in successful system implementation. Surveys were elicited from 254 system users in various business organizations that had implemented large-scale IS in the previous year; the analysis of their responses provided support for our model, suggesting that the OCB of the implementation team created a higher level of integration climate and more effective project management, and that these in turn influenced information system success. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed and limitations are identified.     

Overcoming Barriers to Self-Management in Software Teams

The basic work unit in innovative software organizations is the team rather than the individual. Such teams consist of "a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable". Work teams have many advantages, such as increased productivity, innovation, and employee satisfaction. However, their implementation doesn't always result in organizational success. It isn't enough to put individuals together and expect that they'll automatically know how to work effectively as a team. Lack of redundancy and conflict between team and individual autonomy are key issues when transforming from traditional command-and-control management to collaborative self-managing teams.     

浅析企业网络管理员管理

网络管理员是企业中管理和维护网络软硬件环境,保证整个网络应用系统正常运转的工作人员,但在很多企业,网管并没有被重视起来,网管的岗位建设,日常工作和管理上都存在很多问题。文章分析了企业网络管理员的主要工作任务,对网管的重要性做了探讨,指出网管日常工作和管理上中存在的一些问题,并针对这些问题提出解决措施,帮助企业加强网管队伍的建设,规范和管理网管的工作行为,为企业信息化建设提供更好的服务。     

浅析企业网络管理员管理

网络管理员是企业中管理和维护网络软硬件环境,保证整个网络应用系统正常运转的工作人员,但在很多企业,网管并没有被重视起来,网管的岗位建设,日常工作和管理上都存在很多问题。文章分析了企业网络管理员的主要工作任务,对网管的重要性做了探讨,指出网管日常工作和管理上中存在的一些问题,并针对这些问题提出解决措施,帮助企业加强网管队伍的建设,规范和管理网管的工作行为,为企业信息化建设提供更好的服务。     

城市埋地燃气管网风险模糊综合评价——系统设计及应用研究

实施燃气管网风险评价对城市公共安全与防灾减灾具有重大的意义。在建立模糊综合评价模型后,要实现计算机程序化,才能够高效地应用到工程领域中,介绍了模糊综合评价模型的程序化,并且结合计算机辅助设计技术,提出了基于WebGIS的燃气管网风险模糊综合评价系统的总体设计思路和方法,分析了系统的设计特点和技术特色。结合工程应用实例,展示系统设计开发的可行性和实际应用效果,它可成为燃气管网安全管理的一套可视化管理工具,可有效地提供辅助决策支持。     

Detection of firewall configuration errors with updatable tree

The fundamental goals of security policy are to allow uninterrupted access to the network resources for authenticated users and to deny access to unauthenticated users. For this purpose, firewalls are frequently deployed in every size network. However, bad configurations may cause serious security breaches and network vulnerabilities. In particular, conflicted filtering rules lead to block legitimate traffic and to accept unwanted packets. This fact troubles administrators who have to insert and delete filtering rules in a huge configuration file. We propose in this paper a quick method for managing a firewall configuration file. We represent the set of filtering rules by a firewall anomaly tree (FAT). Then, an administrator can update the FAT by inserting and deleting some filtering rules. The FAT modification automatically reveals emerged anomalies and helps the administrator to find the adequate position for a new added filtering rule. All the algorithms presented in the paper have been implemented, and computer experiments show the usefulness of updating the FAT data structure in order to quickly detect anomalies when dealing with a huge firewall configuration file.     

A knowledge-based approach for managing urban infrastructures

This paper presents a knowledge e-based approach dedicated to the efficient management, regulation, interactive and dynamic monitoring of urban infrastructures. This approach identifies the data and related treatments common to several municipal activities and defines the requirements and functionalities of the computer tools developed to improve the delivery and coordination of municipal services to the population. The resulting cooperative system called SIGIU is composed of a set of integrated operating systems (SYDEX) and the global planning and coordination system (SYGEC). The objective is to integrate the set of SYDEX and the SYGEC into a single coherent system for all the SIGIU's users according to their tasks, their roles, and their responsibilities within the municipal administration. SIGIU is provided by different measurement and monitoring instruments installed on some system's elements to be supervised. In this context, the information can be presented in different forms: video, pictures, data and alarms. One of SIGIU's objectives is the real-time management of urban infrastructures' control mechanisms. To carry out this process, the alarm control agent creates a mobile agent associated with the alarm, which is sent to a mobile station and warns an operator. Preliminary implementation results show that SIGIU supports effectively and efficiently the decision making process related to managing urban infrastructures.     

Enterprise system programs: Goal setting and cooperation in the integration team

Fully implemented enterprise systems (ESs) become valuable tools by enabling a variety of business functions critical to an organization. Adopting a program implementation approach improves the chances of delivering an ES in accordance with budget, resource, and scope considerations. The program approach is more likely to succeed in meeting expectations when united by an overarching goal, yet an integration team representing the multiple business functions in an ES implementation must ensure attainment of the overarching goal while still retaining local goals for each project. We know little about the theoretical relationship that considers working toward goals across functional areas simultaneously with an overarching goal for the same system. In particular, the integration team must cooperate effectively under differing goals to deliver the expected product efficiently, which is often difficult to accomplish. We build a research model rooted in goal-setting theory to consider the unique context of an overarching goal for the system as a whole with additional goals set for cross-functional purposes. We indicate achievement of essential cooperation and realization of expected benefits with essential goal commitment. Survey data from key informants in cross-functional integration teams support the model and indicate a direction to enable targeted business functions for an ES program implementation.     

大学生综合素质测评系统管理模块设计与实现

一个信息管理系统的用户可能有多类,其中面向后台管理的管理员模块是系统最重要的基础模块,它在整体上为用户提供基础设置和保障.一个基于asp.net的大学生综合素质测评系统的主要使用对象是学生、辅导员和系统管理员三类用户.文章根据作者所设计的南国商学院大学生综合测评系统,重点介绍了测评系统中的管理员模块设计,并对一些关键技术进行了分析探讨.     

Administrator-users contribute more to online communities

Lack of user participation and contribution has been a long-standing problem for online communities. We proposed and examined new strategies for cultivating opinion leadership and enabling users to post articles outside of the community theme. We used social role theory to propose that online communities should encourage highly committed users to take administrator roles, which will increase their opinion leadership and contributions to both public spaces and their own user-controlled spaces. We collected multiple-wave and multiple-source data from 1,115 users of a large online community. The results indicate that encouraging users to take administrator roles increases their community contributions.     

Group cohesion in organizational innovation: An empirical examination of ERP implementation

Enterprise Resource Planning systems present unique difficulties in implementation in that they typically involve changes to the entire organization and are a novel application for the organization. These characteristics add to the importance of making groups more cohesive in their goals, commitment, and ability to work toward completion of the new system project. Such cohesiveness is built partly through the willingness of the team members to participate and commitment to learning the new system. To determine if these relationships hold, a survey of users and managers in Taiwan was conducted to test a model derived from social capital theory. The data support the positive relationships between group cohesion and both willingness to participate and commitment to learning. Group cohesion is likewise positively related to meeting management goals. Resources within an organization should support the climate of learning and the building of team participation.     

Observational assessment of situation awareness, team differences and training implications

The two goals were to investigate, first, the practicability and reliability of observational assessment of team situation awareness (SA) and, second, the nature of any team differences, their consistency and training implications. Five shift teams tackled three scenarios, each with three probe events concerning SA, and three observers viewed and rated concurrently each shift. This methodology was found to be practicable and achieved satisfactory rater reliability as indicated by intraclass and inter-rater correlations. Team differences in SA emerged although there was no consistent pattern. A retrospective analysis of individual and team behaviours relating to SA was performed using the Critical Incident Technique. A total of 75 incidents and 20 behavioural dimensions relevant to SA were identified and these were subsumed under planning, problem solving, team coordination, attention, communication and knowledge. These findings are discussed with regard to the nature and measurement of SA, and the content of training to improve SA for control room teams.     

Observational assessment of situation awareness,team differences and training implications

The two goals were to investigate, first, the practicability and reliability of observational assessment of team situation awareness (SA) and, second, the nature of any team differences, their consistency and training implications. Five shift teams tackled three scenarios, each with three probe events concerning SA, and three observers viewed and rated concurrently each shift. This methodology was found to be practicable and achieved satisfactory rater reliability as indicated by intraclass and inter-rater correlations. Team differences in SA emerged although there was no consistent pattern. A retrospective analysis of individual and team behaviours relating to SA was performed using the Critical Incident Technique. A total of 75 incidents and 20 behavioural dimensions relevant to SA were identified and these were subsumed under planning, problem solving, team coordination, attention, communication and knowledge. These findings are discussed with regard to the nature and measurement of SA, and the content of training to improve SA for control room teams.     

Intelligent patent recommendation system for innovative design collaboration

Patents' search is increasingly critical for a company's technological advancement and sustainable marketing strategy. When most innovative designs are created collaboratively by a diverse team of researchers and technologists, patent knowledge management becomes time consuming with repeated efforts creating additional task conflicts. This research develops an intelligent recommendation methodology and system to enable timely and effective patent search prior, during, and after design collaboration to prevent potential infringement of existing intellectual property rights (IPR) and to secure new IPR for market advantage. The research develops an algorithm to dynamically search related patents in global patent databases. The system clusters users with similar patent search behaviors and, subsequently, infers new patent recommendations based on inter-cluster group member behaviors and characteristics. First, the methodology evaluates the filtered information obtained from collaborative patent searches. Second, the system clusters existing users and identifies users' neighbors based on the collaborative filtering algorithm. Using the clusters of users and their behaviors, the system recommends related patents. When collaborative design teams are planning R&D policies or searching patents and prior art claims to create new IP and prevent or settles IP legal disputes, the intelligent recommendation system identifies and recommends patents with greater efficiency and accuracy than previous systems and methods described in the literature.     

Exploring university perceptions of IS implementation and attributes of success: a case study of public universities in Thailand

ABSTRACT

This study aims to gain a better understanding of public university implementation of organizational information systems (IS). Mixed methods research was used, including initial exploration, telephone interviews, and a self-administered mail survey. The data were gathered from university personnel at 40 public universities in Thailand, and the research focused on the university student-registration systems (S-R). The study results highlight the different perceptions between two response groups: administrators and system users. The results show different perceptions of IS implementation and attributes that define IS implementation success. The results also serve as important suggestions that need to be recognized by administrators and practitioners for effectively planning the implementation of organizational IS in public universities.     

Physical simulation: The use of scaled-down fully functional components to analyze and design automated production systems

This paper presents and discusses the physical simulation methodology currently employed in the Industrial Automation Laboratory in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University. Physical simulation is the study of complex automated manufacturing and material handling systems through the use of scaled-down system replicas controlled by mini and microcomputers using full-sized software. The physical simulation methodology is the design, construction, operation, and study of such systems in a laboratory environment. The methodology consists of identifying basic automated system components; constructing scaled-down, functionally-equivalent generic models of the components with mechanical breadboarding kits; and then using these generic models to construct fully functional scaled-down systems. Thus, it allows us to evaluate the dynamic physical interactions using the models to confirm design decisions and to develop and test system software in parallel with the construction of the full-sized system. This approach should allow a cost reduction in the design cycle for complex automation because (1) through it we can identify design errors early, and (2) it provides a mechanism for the parallel development of both the computer hardware/software control system and the system's machinery. The methodology is currently under development in the Industrial Automation Laboratory in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University.     

The pursuit of trust in <Emphasis Type="Italic">ad hoc</Emphasis> virtual teams: how much electronic portrayal is too much?

This study develops and tests the concept of electronic portrayal in synchronous computer-mediated communication of ad hoc virtual teams. Electronic portrayal is the extent to which a communication system portrays the true identity of its users. A theoretical model is developed based upon which it is hypothesized that increased information available due to electronic portrayal will impact trust in ad hoc virtual teams. An experiment is conducted to test the model by manipulating the graphical identification of users of a system as well as the rehearsability of the system. Rehearsability is the extent to which users can reread and edit their messages before submitting them to the synchronous communication system. The results show that the combination of both factors – identification and rehearsability – impacts trust among team members. Specifically, partial electronic portrayal (only one form of true-to-life representation) has the most positive impact on trust. This effect is moderated by communication-related variables such as self-disclosure, impressions and virtual co-presence. The implication of these results is that too much true identity information negatively impacts trust. This research provides theoretical and practical contributions for understanding the importance of identification and rehearsability in synchronous group communication.     

基于群签名与属性加密的区块链可监管隐私保护方案

区块链技术的去中心化、数据难篡改等特性使其在溯源问题上体现出明显优势,基于区块链的溯源系统可以解决传统系统中信息孤岛、共享程度低以及数据可篡改等问题,从而保证数据的可追溯性。然而,区块链溯源系统中的数据可追溯性与用户隐私保护之间难以取得平衡。提出一种结合群签名、隐私地址协议、零知识证明以及属性加密的分布式可监管隐私保护方案。对群签名的群管理员机制进行改进,设置多群管理员生成用户私钥片段,用户根据返回的私钥片段计算自身私钥,并根据需要有选择性地对溯源数据进行属性加密,同时为链上数据设置特定的访问结构,以实现数据与用户的“一对多”通信。群管理员利用群公钥对交易双方的身份进行追踪与追责。符合数据特定访问结构的用户通过自身的属性私钥对密文进行解密从而获取数据信息。实验结果表明,该方案能在保证数据可追溯并实现交易双方监管的同时,提高链上数据的隐私保护水平,与现有隐私保护方案相比安全性更高。     

A case study-based investigation of students’ experiences with social software tools

The term “social software” covers a range of tools which allow users to interact and share data with other users, primarily via the web. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking websites are some of the tools that are being used in educational, social and business contexts. We have examined the use of social software in the UK further and higher education to collect evidence of the effective use of social software in student learning and engagement. We applied case study methodology involving educators and students from 26 initiatives. In this paper, we focus on the student experience: educational goals of using social software; benefits to the students; and the challenges they experience. Our investigations have shown that social software supports a variety of ways of learning: sharing of resources; collaborative learning; problem-based and inquiry-based learning; and reflective learning. Students gain transferable skills of team working, negotiation, communication and managing digital identities. Although these tools enhance a student's sense of community, the need to share and collaborate brings in additional responsibility and workload, which some students find inflexible and “forced”. Our findings show that students have concerns about usability, privacy and the public nature of social software tools for academic activities.