Master of Engineering (Research) / In many multi-objective missions there are situations when actions based on maximum information gain may not be the `best' given the overall mission objectives. In addition to properties such as entropy, information also has value, which is situationally dependent. This thesis examines the concept of information value in a multi-objective mission from an information theory perspective. A derivation of information value is presented that considers both the context of information, via a fused world belief state, and a system mission. The derived information value is used as part of the objective function for control of autonomous platforms within a framework developed for human robot cooperative control. A simulated security operation in a structured environment is implemented to test both the framework, and information value based control. The simulation involves a system of heterogeneous, sensor equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), tasked with gathering information regarding ground vehicles. The UAVs support an e ort to protect a number of important buildings in the area of operation. Thus, the purpose of the information is to aid the security operation by ensuring that security forces can deploy e ciently to counter any threat. A number of di erent local controllers using information based control are implemented and compared to a task based control scheme. The relative performance of each is examined with respect to a number of performance metrics with conclusions drawn regarding the performance and exibility of information value based control.

Master of Engineering (Research) / In many multi-objective missions there are situations when actions based on maximum information gain may not be the `best' given the overall mission objectives. In addition to properties such as entropy, information also has value, which is situationally dependent. This thesis examines the concept of information value in a multi-objective mission from an information theory perspective. A derivation of information value is presented that considers both the context of information, via a fused world belief state, and a system mission. The derived information value is used as part of the objective function for control of autonomous platforms within a framework developed for human robot cooperative control. A simulated security operation in a structured environment is implemented to test both the framework, and information value based control. The simulation involves a system of heterogeneous, sensor equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), tasked with gathering information regarding ground vehicles. The UAVs support an e ort to protect a number of important buildings in the area of operation. Thus, the purpose of the information is to aid the security operation by ensuring that security forces can deploy e ciently to counter any threat. A number of di erent local controllers using information based control are implemented and compared to a task based control scheme. The relative performance of each is examined with respect to a number of performance metrics with conclusions drawn regarding the performance and exibility of information value based control.

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Could the analysts¡¦ forecasting be the important investment decision of the naive investors? This is the significant issue of the study. The study shows the following, in the short run, recommendations have information value; in the long run, forecasting earnings have information value. And electronic industry is the most valuable of all industries in the long run and short run. Although recommendations also have information value in the long run, but the industry returns aren¡¦t consistent. In addition, analysts over predict about the forecasting earnings. Finally, the study also shows the following, forecasting price or recommendation has negative coefficient and statistically significant in large scale company. Because large scale companies are more attentive than small scale companies, and information superiority trader already get the information before analysts¡¦ release. So they can trade the stocks before analysts¡¦ release, naive investors can¡¦t get returns with the analysts¡¦ forecasting.

It has been widely accepted that information is an asset and it needs to be protected. Many types of countermeasures were developed and implemented to ensure continuous protection of information where it is deemed necessary. Unfortunately, in many cases, breaches of security are the result of non-compliance behaviours of users or stakeholders of the system. These non-compliance behaviours increase the vulnerability of such system. Organisations are trying to improve their stakeholders compliance behaviour through different ways for example by providing necessary awareness, education and training and to the extent of providing rewards for healthy behaviours and reprimanding and penalising stakeholders for breaches of security. Despite all these efforts, information security breaches are still on the rise and many types of research have been done to understand this issue. It is postulated that an object is protected if it is appreciated. Appreciation of an object might relate to a value perceived by the owner in association with the object. For the similar reason, this thesis investigates the role of perceptions of information value in the context of its security. It is postulated that perceptions of information value could become an alternative way to understand information security compliance behaviour. Utilising a conceptual framework deduced from current literature to structurally analyse a list of research objectives, empirical evidence of the potential role of information perceived value in promoting better compliance behaviour have indeed been discovered. There is evidence that a perception of information value is developed through a systematic process of value assignment or information value assignment process. These processes are significant to the development of stakeholders intention to behave. The finding of this process has provided a platform for the organisation to understand the casual behind the information security behaviours displayed by stakeholders in the organisation. Further evidence has also suggested that the information value assignment is fuelled or influenced by several factors. These factors have provided a unique opportunity for the organisation to manipulate and nurture to have maximum impact on their information value assignment process, resulting in a possible improved intention to behave, thus, subsequently might affect the actual information security compliance behaviour.

This dissertation has three contributions in the area of path planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Search And Track (SAT) missions. These contributions are: (a) the study of a novel metric, G, used to quantify the value of the target information gained during a search and track mission, (b) an optimal planning horizon that minimizes time-error of a planning horizon when interrupted by Poisson random events, and (c) a modified Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm for search missions that uses the prior target distribution in the generation of paths rather than just in the evaluation of them. UAV route planning is an important topic with many applications. Of these, military applications are the best known. This dissertation focuses on route planning for SAT missions that jointly optimize the conflicting objectives of detecting new targets and monitoring previously detected targets. The information theoretic approach proposed here is different from and is superior to existing approaches. One of the main differences is that G quantifies the value of the target information rather than the information itself. Several examples are provided to highlight G’s desirable properties. Another important component of path planning is the selection of a planning horizon, which specifies the amount of time to include in a plan. Unfortunately, little research is available to aid in the selection of a planning horizon. The proposed planning horizon is derived in the context of plan updates triggered by Poisson random events. To our knowledge, it is the only theoretically derived horizon available making it an important contribution. While the proposed horizon is optimal in minimizing planning time errors, simulation results show that it is also near optimal in minimizing the average time needed to capture an evasive target. The final contribution is the modified PSO. Our modification is based on the idea that PSO should be provided with the target distribution for path generation. This allows the algorithm to create candidate path plans in target rich regions. The modified PSO is studied using a search mission and is used in the study of G.

Websites have a significant impact on the competitiveness of organizations. Therefore it is necessary to deal with aspects that affect their success. At least it is worth to detect weaknesses which can be repaired with minimal effort and which baffle effective use of the site. It is possible to use quite a number of audit methods and tools but the global approach to this issue is missing. The aim of this thesis is to create audit methodology and its implementation into the online tool, to allow automatic audit performance. I first describe aspects of success of a website such as search engine optimization, accessibility, usability, information architecture and information value. Then I analyzed the methods and tools for webpages audit and explored the possibilities of their system integration. This enabled me to design the optimal process of audit and realize the tool which is the main output of the thesis and is enclosed on the CD. The benefit of this tool lies primarily in the comprehensive conception which focuses not only on a certain area, but tries to evaluate all possible facts within a single analysis. The advantage of the tool is its mass utilization. It allows detection of possible errors and solutions proposition with minimal costs and without the need of special knowledge. The tool contains several unique algorithms that check some aspects of sites and eliminate manual verification.

O aumento nos investimentos e crescente avanço da tecnologia da informação (TI) permitiram às organizações armazenar e criar uma vasta quantidade de informações. Porém, essas informações não estão criando valor para as organizações e muitas vezes não têm a qualidade adequada, bem como não estão em conformidade com leis e regulamentações. O objetivo da pesquisa é analisar como as organizações definem o valor, a qualidade e o compliance da informação em seus ambientes informacionais, considerando que a governança da informação é definida como o conjunto de normas e controles de responsabilidade que visam ao valor, à qualidade e ao compliance no ambiente informacional de uma organização. Sendo assim, a governança da informação é um instrumento para reduzir problemas de assimetria da informação, baseando-se em teorias da economia da informação, aliando sua estrutura com a de governança de TI e a governança corporativa. Para atingir o objetivo foi utilizado o método de estudo de casos múltiplos em três organizações brasileiras: um hospital, uma indústria manufatureira e um banco. Esses segmentos econômicos foram escolhidos por realizarem diferentes níveis de investimento em TI e por terem diferentes necessidades de informação para a realização de suas atividades fins, analisando-se similaridades e diferenças na governança da informação dessas organizações. Como contribuições dessa pesquisa estão agregar conhecimento sobre a governança da informação no meio acadêmico, tema recente no Brasil e prover um framework de governança da informação para organizações interessadas. / Increased investments and advances in information technology (IT) have enabled organizations to create and store a vast amount of information. However, this information is not creating value for organizations and often does not have adequate quality as well is not in compliance with laws and regulations. Thus, the aim of this research is to analyze how organizations define value, quality and compliance information in their information environments, considering that information governance is defined as a set of rules and accountability controls that aim for value, quality and compliance in organization information environment. Consequently, information governance is a tool for reducing problems of information asymmetry, based on theories of information economics, along with IT governance and corporate governance. In order to achieve this goal, three cases of Brazilian organizations were used: a hospital, a manufacturing organization and a bank. These economic sectors were chosen because they have different levels of investment in IT and different needs of information, examining similarities and differences in their information governance. Contributions of this research are to add knowledge about information governance, a recent subject in Brazil, and to provide information governance framework for interested organizations.

O aumento nos investimentos e crescente avanço da tecnologia da informação (TI) permitiram às organizações armazenar e criar uma vasta quantidade de informações. Porém, essas informações não estão criando valor para as organizações e muitas vezes não têm a qualidade adequada, bem como não estão em conformidade com leis e regulamentações. O objetivo da pesquisa é analisar como as organizações definem o valor, a qualidade e o compliance da informação em seus ambientes informacionais, considerando que a governança da informação é definida como o conjunto de normas e controles de responsabilidade que visam ao valor, à qualidade e ao compliance no ambiente informacional de uma organização. Sendo assim, a governança da informação é um instrumento para reduzir problemas de assimetria da informação, baseando-se em teorias da economia da informação, aliando sua estrutura com a de governança de TI e a governança corporativa. Para atingir o objetivo foi utilizado o método de estudo de casos múltiplos em três organizações brasileiras: um hospital, uma indústria manufatureira e um banco. Esses segmentos econômicos foram escolhidos por realizarem diferentes níveis de investimento em TI e por terem diferentes necessidades de informação para a realização de suas atividades fins, analisando-se similaridades e diferenças na governança da informação dessas organizações. Como contribuições dessa pesquisa estão agregar conhecimento sobre a governança da informação no meio acadêmico, tema recente no Brasil e prover um framework de governança da informação para organizações interessadas. / Increased investments and advances in information technology (IT) have enabled organizations to create and store a vast amount of information. However, this information is not creating value for organizations and often does not have adequate quality as well is not in compliance with laws and regulations. Thus, the aim of this research is to analyze how organizations define value, quality and compliance information in their information environments, considering that information governance is defined as a set of rules and accountability controls that aim for value, quality and compliance in organization information environment. Consequently, information governance is a tool for reducing problems of information asymmetry, based on theories of information economics, along with IT governance and corporate governance. In order to achieve this goal, three cases of Brazilian organizations were used: a hospital, a manufacturing organization and a bank. These economic sectors were chosen because they have different levels of investment in IT and different needs of information, examining similarities and differences in their information governance. Contributions of this research are to add knowledge about information governance, a recent subject in Brazil, and to provide information governance framework for interested organizations.

O aumento nos investimentos e crescente avanço da tecnologia da informação (TI) permitiram às organizações armazenar e criar uma vasta quantidade de informações. Porém, essas informações não estão criando valor para as organizações e muitas vezes não têm a qualidade adequada, bem como não estão em conformidade com leis e regulamentações. O objetivo da pesquisa é analisar como as organizações definem o valor, a qualidade e o compliance da informação em seus ambientes informacionais, considerando que a governança da informação é definida como o conjunto de normas e controles de responsabilidade que visam ao valor, à qualidade e ao compliance no ambiente informacional de uma organização. Sendo assim, a governança da informação é um instrumento para reduzir problemas de assimetria da informação, baseando-se em teorias da economia da informação, aliando sua estrutura com a de governança de TI e a governança corporativa. Para atingir o objetivo foi utilizado o método de estudo de casos múltiplos em três organizações brasileiras: um hospital, uma indústria manufatureira e um banco. Esses segmentos econômicos foram escolhidos por realizarem diferentes níveis de investimento em TI e por terem diferentes necessidades de informação para a realização de suas atividades fins, analisando-se similaridades e diferenças na governança da informação dessas organizações. Como contribuições dessa pesquisa estão agregar conhecimento sobre a governança da informação no meio acadêmico, tema recente no Brasil e prover um framework de governança da informação para organizações interessadas. / Increased investments and advances in information technology (IT) have enabled organizations to create and store a vast amount of information. However, this information is not creating value for organizations and often does not have adequate quality as well is not in compliance with laws and regulations. Thus, the aim of this research is to analyze how organizations define value, quality and compliance information in their information environments, considering that information governance is defined as a set of rules and accountability controls that aim for value, quality and compliance in organization information environment. Consequently, information governance is a tool for reducing problems of information asymmetry, based on theories of information economics, along with IT governance and corporate governance. In order to achieve this goal, three cases of Brazilian organizations were used: a hospital, a manufacturing organization and a bank. These economic sectors were chosen because they have different levels of investment in IT and different needs of information, examining similarities and differences in their information governance. Contributions of this research are to add knowledge about information governance, a recent subject in Brazil, and to provide information governance framework for interested organizations.