Article: Conflict Management and Group decision support systems
Marshall Scott Poole, Michael Homes, Gerardine DeSanctis
January 1988 CSCW '88: Proceedings of the 1988 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work
Publisher: ACM
This interesting article discusses how Group decision support systems combine communication, computers and decision support technologies to support problem formulation and solution in conflict management within groups.
It first states that productive conflict management results in consensus on the final solution and amount of change in positions during discussions.
The article then details seven distinct effects, positive and negative, that GDSS may have on conflict management.
Some of the positive effects are GDss’s equalize member participation, GDSS procedures make processes and roles in conflict management clearer and GDSS’s have procedures for brainstorming or defining solutions that could stimulate the group to explore a wide range of alternatives.
The article further explores the research done between manual and computer systems aided conflict resolution and concludes that each has its own positive strengths and suggests the importance of structure and design as a critical tool for GDSS success in conflict management.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Case Study: DSS helping make better Doctors
1 > The case begins with a situation where in a patient being treated for blood clot is being administered medication that could have adverse interaction with his existing medication that is being taken for ulcers.
Management:
The example shows that physicians many a times prescribe medication without considering patient medical history and not considering other medical facts.
The other problems while administering medication is related to human errors such as poor handwriting of prescriptions, memory lapses, fatigue and distractions.
The amount of various drugs available in the market also adds to the vagueness of medical prescriptions.
Physicians seldom ignore prescribing ancillary drugs that would prevent side effects caused by the primary drug used in treatment of diseases.
Physician and nurses lapses also have resulted in dosage errors and incorrect drug substitutes.
Organizational:
Some of the problems on the organizational side are not having access to the patient’s medical history, not knowing patients drug allergies, not keeping up to date information on latest trends in the field of medicine and diseases. The frequent exchange of information between physicians and hospitals further dilute the inputs that may cause errors in diagnosing and treatment of diseases.
Technology:
The use of IT is helpful to build computerized physician order entry system that helps reduce prescription and dosage errors cannot fully substitute for a doctor’s expertise and diagnosis as each patient could have unique medical history patterns and drug allergies.
Many of the doctors are reluctant to use technology and machines to help them with procedures and treatments as they feel it is more of a hindrance to administer effective drugs quickly.
2 > The use of CPOE and DDS systems has limited use and can never fully replace the doctor. The CPOE system can aid a doctor with his decision making capabilities and suggest various options and best practices but ultimately it is for the doctor, based on his experience to administer drugs best suited for his or her patients.
A well designed CPOE systems can be used to help keep the physician up to date with latest trends in treatment of particular diseases , help calculate drug doses based on patients bio statistics, alert the doctor on possible side affects for specific drugs, suggest alternate medications.
A fully intelligent diagnostic decision support (DSS) system can aid doctors quickly diagnose diseases but to fully depend on such systems for treatment would be erroneous as no machine could substitute the human doctor with his experience and years of training.
However such systems can help enhance a physician’s knowledge as he could quickly access specific information related to specific diseases instantaneously there by helping him make better choices for treatment. It would also help save life’s in situations were the diseases are rare and not easily diagnosed by doctors. It could prevent prescription malpractices as these systems would regulate correct medication and the right dosage.
In conclusion intelligent DSS and CPOE systems can never ever replace the human physician who uses his personal warmth and charisma to build the much needed mental confidence in his/er patients to recoup from diseases. The connectedness and human bonding between a patient and a physician cannot be replaced by machines as suggested in the case.
Management:
The example shows that physicians many a times prescribe medication without considering patient medical history and not considering other medical facts.
The other problems while administering medication is related to human errors such as poor handwriting of prescriptions, memory lapses, fatigue and distractions.
The amount of various drugs available in the market also adds to the vagueness of medical prescriptions.
Physicians seldom ignore prescribing ancillary drugs that would prevent side effects caused by the primary drug used in treatment of diseases.
Physician and nurses lapses also have resulted in dosage errors and incorrect drug substitutes.
Organizational:
Some of the problems on the organizational side are not having access to the patient’s medical history, not knowing patients drug allergies, not keeping up to date information on latest trends in the field of medicine and diseases. The frequent exchange of information between physicians and hospitals further dilute the inputs that may cause errors in diagnosing and treatment of diseases.
Technology:
The use of IT is helpful to build computerized physician order entry system that helps reduce prescription and dosage errors cannot fully substitute for a doctor’s expertise and diagnosis as each patient could have unique medical history patterns and drug allergies.
Many of the doctors are reluctant to use technology and machines to help them with procedures and treatments as they feel it is more of a hindrance to administer effective drugs quickly.
2 > The use of CPOE and DDS systems has limited use and can never fully replace the doctor. The CPOE system can aid a doctor with his decision making capabilities and suggest various options and best practices but ultimately it is for the doctor, based on his experience to administer drugs best suited for his or her patients.
A well designed CPOE systems can be used to help keep the physician up to date with latest trends in treatment of particular diseases , help calculate drug doses based on patients bio statistics, alert the doctor on possible side affects for specific drugs, suggest alternate medications.
A fully intelligent diagnostic decision support (DSS) system can aid doctors quickly diagnose diseases but to fully depend on such systems for treatment would be erroneous as no machine could substitute the human doctor with his experience and years of training.
However such systems can help enhance a physician’s knowledge as he could quickly access specific information related to specific diseases instantaneously there by helping him make better choices for treatment. It would also help save life’s in situations were the diseases are rare and not easily diagnosed by doctors. It could prevent prescription malpractices as these systems would regulate correct medication and the right dosage.
In conclusion intelligent DSS and CPOE systems can never ever replace the human physician who uses his personal warmth and charisma to build the much needed mental confidence in his/er patients to recoup from diseases. The connectedness and human bonding between a patient and a physician cannot be replaced by machines as suggested in the case.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Article - Joint digital signatures for M-payments
Article: A new signature Scheme: joint signature
Li-Sha He, Ning Zhang
March 2004 SAC '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM symposium on Applied computing
Publisher: ACM
This article discusses the use of digital signatures and the way its changing electronic business and its importance in M-commerce and mobile payments.
The article presents a novel joint signature scheme that enables mobile user to securely and efficiently instruct their network operator (cellular provider) for m-payment related actions.
The example given in the article is suppose a mobile customer wants to purchase to buy train tickets through his/her mobile phone then they can instruct the network provider to pay for the ticket and they in turn can later bill the end user in their monthly phone bill.
This method of an intermediary 3rd party (network provider) signature authentication would reduce fraudulent M-commerce transactions and offers lighter computational load on end mobile units.
Li-Sha He, Ning Zhang
March 2004 SAC '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM symposium on Applied computing
Publisher: ACM
This article discusses the use of digital signatures and the way its changing electronic business and its importance in M-commerce and mobile payments.
The article presents a novel joint signature scheme that enables mobile user to securely and efficiently instruct their network operator (cellular provider) for m-payment related actions.
The example given in the article is suppose a mobile customer wants to purchase to buy train tickets through his/her mobile phone then they can instruct the network provider to pay for the ticket and they in turn can later bill the end user in their monthly phone bill.
This method of an intermediary 3rd party (network provider) signature authentication would reduce fraudulent M-commerce transactions and offers lighter computational load on end mobile units.
Case Study - eBay
1> eBay offers online auction service with its business model well suited for the World Wide Web. It has a fully automated service that helps buyers and sellers trade high end articles , such as fine art ,automobiles, and jewellery and other regular items like clothing and consumer electronic goods. eBay derives its revenues by charging commission for every article auctioned through their website and also charges fees for posting the articles for sale. Ebay also gets revenues through direct advertising on its website and offer services which enable the exchange of money between the payee and the payor that generates additional transaction based fee revenue.
eBay’s growth strategies focus on expanding to newer territories and continue to innovate and enhance the variety and appeal of products on its sites.
Some of its strategic implementations have been the “Buy It Now” feature that provides sales at a fixed mark up bypassing the auctioning process, eBay motors portal that aids sale of bulky items that are expensive to ship. They also acquired
Shopping.com an online comparison site and Skype Technologies for internet telephony to accelerate trade on its website.
eBay’s business model has been very profitable and has attracted 200 million users with billions of articles listed and billions of dollars being exchanged.
Started in 1995 within a decade eBay has created a billion dollar company with operations in 32 countries and with 8000 full time employees.
2> eBay has encountered several issues while implementing its strategic focus to expand into new geographies and offering newer innovative offerings. It has not yet been able to successfully penetrate into China. The increase in its seller fees has hindered its growth rates in America and Germany.
EBay’s growing international market makes it difficult to monitor compliance and abide by a variety of laws and regulation that apply in different countries.
The bigger threat for eBay has been its limited control on the honesty and integrity of its auctions. Articles could be very highly priced more than its worth or sellers could sell fictitious articles or stolen relics.
Ebay users also have been victim to identity theft scams which have resulted in unauthorized use of user accounts triggering thousands of dollars worth fraudulent sales. Several eBay users believe that the company has not taken sufficient measures to curb online fraud.
Competitors such as Yahoo are establishing similar auction sites to capture the Asian market while Google is offering adSense which runs online advertising based on user search criteria similar to eBay’s Adcontext service.
Finally the case also suggest that with high volumes of transaction on the eBay auction site eBay may not be able to provide good customer support and perhaps compromise on its quality of customer support as they may not be able to justify the varying needs of diverse groups of customers namely online sellers and online buyers.
eBay’s growth strategies focus on expanding to newer territories and continue to innovate and enhance the variety and appeal of products on its sites.
Some of its strategic implementations have been the “Buy It Now” feature that provides sales at a fixed mark up bypassing the auctioning process, eBay motors portal that aids sale of bulky items that are expensive to ship. They also acquired
Shopping.com an online comparison site and Skype Technologies for internet telephony to accelerate trade on its website.
eBay’s business model has been very profitable and has attracted 200 million users with billions of articles listed and billions of dollars being exchanged.
Started in 1995 within a decade eBay has created a billion dollar company with operations in 32 countries and with 8000 full time employees.
2> eBay has encountered several issues while implementing its strategic focus to expand into new geographies and offering newer innovative offerings. It has not yet been able to successfully penetrate into China. The increase in its seller fees has hindered its growth rates in America and Germany.
EBay’s growing international market makes it difficult to monitor compliance and abide by a variety of laws and regulation that apply in different countries.
The bigger threat for eBay has been its limited control on the honesty and integrity of its auctions. Articles could be very highly priced more than its worth or sellers could sell fictitious articles or stolen relics.
Ebay users also have been victim to identity theft scams which have resulted in unauthorized use of user accounts triggering thousands of dollars worth fraudulent sales. Several eBay users believe that the company has not taken sufficient measures to curb online fraud.
Competitors such as Yahoo are establishing similar auction sites to capture the Asian market while Google is offering adSense which runs online advertising based on user search criteria similar to eBay’s Adcontext service.
Finally the case also suggest that with high volumes of transaction on the eBay auction site eBay may not be able to provide good customer support and perhaps compromise on its quality of customer support as they may not be able to justify the varying needs of diverse groups of customers namely online sellers and online buyers.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Week 6 Article: LAPD uses wireless surveillance
By: Roberts, Mary Rose. Mobile Radio Technology, May2007, Vol. 25 Issue 5, p12-12, 1p; (AN 25060908)
This short article interested me as it harnessed wireless technology to effectively monitor crime and aid communities with better law enforcement tools. It talks about video surveillance system installed in key active crime zones in the city downtown that would remotely monitor the areas and transmit data through the municipal wireless network to a centralized location. LAPD’s tactical technology unit teamed up with Motorola to develop and install this mesh network. The system also feeds in vehicle mobile units with real time data.
The key advantages of such a system is that it replaces the number of officers needed to patrol the area and officers can get a true situational awareness of the crime from their vehicle as they enter the scene of crime. Finally it also avoids putting officers in life and death situations and helps build a better trust with the local community to counter gang related violence.
This short article interested me as it harnessed wireless technology to effectively monitor crime and aid communities with better law enforcement tools. It talks about video surveillance system installed in key active crime zones in the city downtown that would remotely monitor the areas and transmit data through the municipal wireless network to a centralized location. LAPD’s tactical technology unit teamed up with Motorola to develop and install this mesh network. The system also feeds in vehicle mobile units with real time data.
The key advantages of such a system is that it replaces the number of officers needed to patrol the area and officers can get a true situational awareness of the crime from their vehicle as they enter the scene of crime. Finally it also avoids putting officers in life and death situations and helps build a better trust with the local community to counter gang related violence.
Chapter 8: Case Study
List and describe the security weakness at the Department of Veterans Affairs
There are a number of factors that constitute a weak security at the Dept of Veterans Affair that makes it vulnerable to threats and risk of misuse of its data
The first and foremost important weakness seen at VA information technology department is that employees could have large amounts of critical data on their laptops. Many firms especially that deal with sensitive data do not permit the storage of company data in laptops and recommend all data be in the central database.
The second issue being that the employees could take laptops home and there was no audit trail or approval necessary to do so from the immediate superiors. This put not only the employee taking the company laptop home at risk of being negligent but also exposed the lack of security to monitor data going in and out of the company.
The department had no mechanism of an audit control of all the company hardware and as a result was not aware of the stolen laptop until 13 days after the incident occurred. Ideally hardware issued to employees is tagged with an electronic ID which helps firms take a real-time stock of the company’s inventory
Usually firms install 2 levels of password control to access laptops first being the login access authentication and a hard disk access authentication. This ensures that even if the laptop is stolen the unauthorized user cannot break into the hard disk to access data.
The third major weakness was that VA had no strict IT security policies and service level agreements in place with its IT vendors who dealt with VA’s critical data. Firms like VA should ensure and perform security audits and mandate secured IT workspace from its vendors and also require background check and security clearance for all its contractors and vendors.
Last but not the least VA did not have a central IT security governance and left it to individual departments to oversee and regulate security issues.
How effectively did the VA deal with these problems?
The theft of the company laptop having sensitive veteran’s data from an employee’s home exposed the poor security policies and its mandates.
In October 2005, VA had a major reorganization in which its IT operations to centralize IT programs and activities. Congress also passed a bill that gave a single executive control over the entire department’s IT spending.
Such centralized IT security governance could ensure proper data access rules and maintain better access controls and monitor fraud efficiently and detect intrusions faster.
There are a number of factors that constitute a weak security at the Dept of Veterans Affair that makes it vulnerable to threats and risk of misuse of its data
The first and foremost important weakness seen at VA information technology department is that employees could have large amounts of critical data on their laptops. Many firms especially that deal with sensitive data do not permit the storage of company data in laptops and recommend all data be in the central database.
The second issue being that the employees could take laptops home and there was no audit trail or approval necessary to do so from the immediate superiors. This put not only the employee taking the company laptop home at risk of being negligent but also exposed the lack of security to monitor data going in and out of the company.
The department had no mechanism of an audit control of all the company hardware and as a result was not aware of the stolen laptop until 13 days after the incident occurred. Ideally hardware issued to employees is tagged with an electronic ID which helps firms take a real-time stock of the company’s inventory
Usually firms install 2 levels of password control to access laptops first being the login access authentication and a hard disk access authentication. This ensures that even if the laptop is stolen the unauthorized user cannot break into the hard disk to access data.
The third major weakness was that VA had no strict IT security policies and service level agreements in place with its IT vendors who dealt with VA’s critical data. Firms like VA should ensure and perform security audits and mandate secured IT workspace from its vendors and also require background check and security clearance for all its contractors and vendors.
Last but not the least VA did not have a central IT security governance and left it to individual departments to oversee and regulate security issues.
How effectively did the VA deal with these problems?
The theft of the company laptop having sensitive veteran’s data from an employee’s home exposed the poor security policies and its mandates.
In October 2005, VA had a major reorganization in which its IT operations to centralize IT programs and activities. Congress also passed a bill that gave a single executive control over the entire department’s IT spending.
Such centralized IT security governance could ensure proper data access rules and maintain better access controls and monitor fraud efficiently and detect intrusions faster.
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