Nowadays, with the radical growth of the Internet, worldwide online discussion forums have become a popular social mechanism for people to learn novel information and knowledge. Frequently asked questions (FAQs), which is a collection of questions commonly asked in the newsgroups along with presumably definitive answers, has become an important reference for readers to understand backgrounds of the newsgroup discussions and to locate their desired answers, if any. The construction of FAQs, however, is prone to errors and time-consuming. Approaches to supporting FAQ generation for administrators are desired to develop. In this paper, we propose a four-step approach to supporting the FAQ list generation based on question/answer pairs collected from newsgroup discussions without labor-intensive processes. Texts are processed, and keywords along with synonyms in context are extracted from the answer part. Cluster analysis helps to identify the answer clusters and the corresponding question clusters are formed accordingly. Representative contents of the answer clusters and the question clusters are finally extracted to support administrators to generate FAQs. Our approach is applied in a real-world case where data are collected from the newsgroup in Usenet. FAQ in a primitive form is constructed using our approach. Evaluations are the performed with satisfactory results. The feasibility of our proposed approach is thus justified.

The current research examined the effects of the cost of sharing information and individual levels of agreeableness on participants' willingness to help out-of-the-loop individuals. In this study, 119 students from undergraduate psychology courses played the role of a CEO of a pharmaceutical company with three regional managers under their supervision. The participants were given the opportunity to give any number of facts to both in-the-loop managers and the single out-of-the-loop manager. Participants in the high-cost condition were informed that they would be required to spend an additional 2 minutes in the lab explaining the usefulness of the facts distributed for every fact they gave a general manager. Participants in the low-cost condition were told they would be required to spend an additional 10 seconds for each fact they gave a regional manager. After distributing facts among the three regional managers under their supervision, the participants were asked to complete an agreeableness scale, a conscientiousness scale, a needs assessment, and a demographics questionnaire. The results indicated that only the amount of time it would cost an individual to share facts dictated how many facts they would share. The results also found that neither condition nor individual level of agreeableness significantly influenced the difference between the number of facts individuals gave to out-of-the-loop individuals versus in-the-loop individuals.

Since the business environment of today is characterized to be dynamic and service-driven, corporations are looking for solutions how to cut costs and still keep their competitive advantage in the market, and also how to decrease lead-time and flexibility. In this environment are 3PL-providers operating with an incentive to always please the customer. This study will investigate a 3PL-provider´s information sharing with its customer and how value can be extracted from this type of sharing. The purpose of this thesis is to understand and investigate the value of information sharing between the 3PL-provider and its customer. Two research questions have been dictated; R1: How do the respondents at the 3PL-provider perceive the relationship with their customer? R2: How are information requirements met? For the frame of reference have theories in the area of third-party logistics, information, relation, and value been studied. The carrying out of the study has been performed with a bounded ethnography approach since this study has essences from both the scientific and ethnographic approaches. The research reasoning is mainly inductive but with deductive elements. The research strategy is of qualitative character, where the data collection has been carried out through interviews/discussions within multiple case studies. There were several interviews launched within the target 3PL-relationships. The analysis of the empirical findings has been done through the existing theories in the frame of reference. The investigation showed that improvements of the information requirements and utilization of the communication methods improves the quality of the information sharing, and the conclusion drawn is that the information requirements and communication methods are big contributors for the information sharing as a whole. Since the information sharing is considered a big contributor to the customer value one can use the customer value as reference for how to value the information sharing. A main conclusion is therefore that the value of information sharing is dependent on its contribution for the customer value.

The coordination of all supply chain members has become a crucial issue in ensuring the success of supply chain management. The streamline of the inter-organizational coordination such as material flow/distribution, information flow/exchange, and product planning/development are required to facilitate the efficient operation of supply chain. To further sustain the competitive edge (e.g.,time-to-market) of a supply chain, the coordination mechanism has become an emerging research issue in current supply chain management. This study looks into a cause model of the information sharing of supply chain members.The impact of trust and commitment on information sharing mechanism is then examined. The data from 122 senior managers participating in Supply Chain Management activeities were collected and empirically tested. The results show that the trust is significantly impact on the quality of information sharing in e-business supply chain. The member¡¦s long-term commitment also affects the dedicated partner-based process of supply chain management. Moreover, the dedicated partner-based processes will effectively reduce the supply chain uncertainty and high quality information improves significantly the operation efficiency between supply chain enterprises.

This research proposes a methodology to solve distributed optimization problems where quasi-autonomous decision entities directly interact with each other for partial information sharing. In the distributed system we study the quasi-autonomy arising from the assumption that each decision entity has complete and unique responsibility for a subset of decision variables. However, when solving a decision problem locally, consideration is given to how the local decisions affect overall system performance such that close-to-optimal solutions are obtained among all participating decision entities. Partial information sharing refers to the fact that no entity has the complete information access needed to solve the optimization problem globally. This condition hinders the direct application of traditional optimization solution methods. In this research, it is further assumed that direct interaction among the decision entities is allowed. This compensates for the lack of complete information access with the interactive exchange of non-private information. The methodology is tested in different application contexts: manufacturing capacity allocation, single machine scheduling, and jobshop scheduling. The experimental results show that the proposed method generates close-to optimal solutions in the tested problem settings.

Masters of Commerce / The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to share information is rapidly increasing worldwide. The South African government uses ICT to extend sharing of information and provide services to communities through websites, portals, forums and other online platforms. However, there are still digitally divided communities – without access it these ICTs due to, among others, a lack of necessary computer skills and financial resources. Consequently, these communities miss opportunities to use ICTs to share information with the government. To address the digitally divided communities, the government established an initiative to build community ICT access centres (e-centres). These e-centres have become the intermediaries between government and communities as shared community facilities that provide access to ICTs and connect the digitally divided communities to government services with social and economic benefits. However, there seem to be disparities between the government's roles and the eventual roles played by intermediaries in information sharing between communities and the government. The disparity might lead to intermediaries not providing services expected by communities, which might affect how communities use intermediaries to communicate with the government.

Situation awareness and distributed situation awareness are important concepts in critical care, where large interdisciplinary teams must coordinate their activities through information sharing to provide lifesaving treatment to patients. Little is known, however, about how nurses contribute to distributed situation awareness in different types of intensive care settings. The purpose of this study was to explore information sharing by nurses in two intensive care units, with and without interdisciplinary rounds. The method of rapid qualitative inquiry was used, which emphasizes data triangulation and iterative data analysis. In each of two intensive care units studied, four RNs were observed for eight hours each, and the content and characteristics of information sharing were recorded. This was followed by chart reviews to determine the impact of information sharing by nurses on patient care. The results demonstrated that there was little difference in the type of information shared, the pattern of information sharing by nurses in the two units, and the impact that information sharing had on patient care. An important exception, however, was that nurses in the unit without interdisciplinary rounds contacted physicians twice as often as nurses in the unit with interdisciplinary rounds. The results were integrated into a revised model of distributed situation awareness. / Graduate

The Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age was created to produce recommendations on how to best leverage intelligence and information to improve security without compromising existing civil liberties. Their second report proposed that the government set up an information-sharing network using currently available technology to improve our ability to prevent terrorist attacks, while protecting civil liberties. The Markle recommendations have been incorporated into the recent Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The proposition is that the Markle task force recommendations are sufficient to achieve the required data integration in the United States. To affirm or falsify the proposition, three existing systems will be reviewed: Alabama's Law Enforcement Tactical System Portal (LETS), Florida's Statewide Data Sharing Effort (FINDER), and Orange County, Florida's Integrated Criminal Justice System. This study found that there is no overall model for national intelligence analysis that incorporates the capabilities that law enforcement has for collection and analysis in with the federal capabilities for collection and analysis. This may ultimately limit the regional systems' success. Recommendations for potential initial models are made. In addition, recommendations for improvement in each regional system are provided. Finally, further research is needed to refine a national intelligence analysis model that can be supported by a distributed information sharing network.

<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong><strong><p>Problem discussion:</p></strong><p> </p><p>Information Logistics has with the rising of the new technologies developed into a key is-sue for companies seeking competitive advantage. The birth and expansion of Internet has brought down the boundaries that kept business partners from sharing extensive informa-tion between each other (McClelland, 2003). The increase of information has yielded a bet-ter understanding of your business partners and one could perhaps think that it is only positive outcomes derived from the increased information sharing. However, research show upon an extensive need for structuring the information flows which relates to an or-ganization. Gartner group (2003) presented an investigation present ting that managers spend over 49 minutes every day in their mailbox for reading and sending e-mails and Del-phi Group (2002) presented figures saying that executives spend over two hours a day searching for the right information (cited in Sandkuhl, 2005). Expected outcomes for im-proving the information logistics are however not only related to time savings activities, business partners could also expect enhanced improvement regarding business processes and operational efficiency. The need for structuring the information flow is therefore an in-teresting subject to investigate and will also be the focus of this thesis. For specifying and narrowing the theoretical framework the authors have chosen to focus upon information sharing based on a web-based system. <strong>Purpose: </strong>The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how a company can utilize a web-based system to share information with their first tier suppliers. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Methodology: </strong>In order to fulfil the purpose a case study approach has been chosen whereas semi-structured telephone interviews have been complimented with face-to-face interviews for gathering material. The rationale for the chosen approach was because the information needed to fulfil the purpose was of the character to be found in a qualitative study by going in-depth into the field.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong></p><p>The importance in utilizing a web-based system is for the buyer to facilitate user handiness and provide trustworthy information to suppliers. The shared information has to be cor-rect, easy accessible, and customized for suppliers. Information requested by the suppliers are, updated inventory levels, lead-time from Husqvarna to end customer, back orders, or-der fulfillment, on-time deliveries, complete orders, forecasts, and sell-through information.</p></strong></p><p> </p>

Problem discussion:   Information Logistics has with the rising of the new technologies developed into a key is-sue for companies seeking competitive advantage. The birth and expansion of Internet has brought down the boundaries that kept business partners from sharing extensive informa-tion between each other (McClelland, 2003). The increase of information has yielded a bet-ter understanding of your business partners and one could perhaps think that it is only positive outcomes derived from the increased information sharing. However, research show upon an extensive need for structuring the information flows which relates to an or-ganization. Gartner group (2003) presented an investigation present ting that managers spend over 49 minutes every day in their mailbox for reading and sending e-mails and Del-phi Group (2002) presented figures saying that executives spend over two hours a day searching for the right information (cited in Sandkuhl, 2005). Expected outcomes for im-proving the information logistics are however not only related to time savings activities, business partners could also expect enhanced improvement regarding business processes and operational efficiency. The need for structuring the information flow is therefore an in-teresting subject to investigate and will also be the focus of this thesis. For specifying and narrowing the theoretical framework the authors have chosen to focus upon information sharing based on a web-based system. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how a company can utilize a web-based system to share information with their first tier suppliers. Methodology: In order to fulfil the purpose a case study approach has been chosen whereas semi-structured telephone interviews have been complimented with face-to-face interviews for gathering material. The rationale for the chosen approach was because the information needed to fulfil the purpose was of the character to be found in a qualitative study by going in-depth into the field. Conclusion: The importance in utilizing a web-based system is for the buyer to facilitate user handiness and provide trustworthy information to suppliers. The shared information has to be cor-rect, easy accessible, and customized for suppliers. Information requested by the suppliers are, updated inventory levels, lead-time from Husqvarna to end customer, back orders, or-der fulfillment, on-time deliveries, complete orders, forecasts, and sell-through information.