Mega construction projects are complex undertakings. The complexity is increased during a construction boom in a city such as Dubai where more than 80% of material and labour resources are imported. The complexities inherent in mega construction projects include uncertainty and interdependencies, which affect project management performance at the operational level where most of the problems occur. Understanding these processes, how they interrelate and how to overcome the complexities is crucial for increasing the chances of project management success. This research contributed to construction project management theory and practice by using a highly inductive exploratory qualitative approach for capturing formal and informal processes in mega construction projects in Dubai. A dynamic model depicting the complementary formal and informal processes is developed showing formal and informal processes and how they interrelate to reduce complexity. Guidelines on how and when to use specific processes are provided as a framework for the model. This framework may be used to help develop communication processes in future complex projects to increase chances of project management success. The research was conducted by exploring two case study projects fitting the characteristics of mega construction projects. Both case study projects were of values above 1.5 Billion US Dollars and were similar in scope with elements including amusement parks, retail areas, hotels, extensive infrastructure and large landscape areas. Both case study projects were of an experimental character, considered an engineering achievement, complex, and thereby, difficult to control. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 83 project staff from both case study projects. Rich picture diagrams of the organization and processes were made from data collected during the interviews and case study project documents. The analysis was performed in three phases where the results from each phase were built upon cumulatively. The first phase examined what the most crucial critical success factors (CSFs) were in the case study projects. These were revealed to be communication, top management support and effective change management. In the second phase each CSF was analyzed where it was found it that the majority of important communication modes were informal and were was most effective in reducing complexity. Furthermore, it was found that the characteristics of the client were crucial in both case study projects. The third phase involved development of the dynamic hybrid model from the rich picture diagrams created showing the interplay between formal and informal processes. It was found that informal processes are ad-hoc and chaotic in nature and controlled by individuals in the project. Development of guidelines for the positive use of informal processes was required. From the analysis it was found that the characteristics of client staff and individuals in the case study projects provided the main guidelines for effective use of the hybrid model. The research provides insights into the formal and informal processes and the reduction and management of complexity inherent in mega construction projects. Current research in managing complexity is from the perspective of the formal process where the informal processes are neglected, despite research and practice indicating their importance in construction projects. The research presents a systemic dynamic model of the processes for mega construction projects revealing that formal and informal processes are required and are complementary. Guidelines for the successful use of the model provide a framework for its application in practice. This shows how it can be used to inform understanding of processes in the context of the research. The model and guidelines were validated via discussions with practitioners experienced in construction of mega projects. Future work should expand the findings to applications of the model in practice for management of complex projects. The model may be used by practitioners to act as a guide in how to manage construction processes to consciously overcome the inherent complexities to achieve project management objectives. This tool may also be used to inform clients of the inherent complexities and the level of informality required to overcome them. IT/IS practitioners may use the model and framework to understand the complexities in construction, and thereby, develop systems that are practically applied in construction projects. Researchers in the field may build upon the model and findings to increase knowledge regarding construction processes, particularly informal processes.

This exploratory research focused on a problem stated years ago by Vannevar Bush: "The problem is how creative men think, and what can be done to help them think." The study explored the scholarly work process and the use of computer tools to augment thinking. Based on a review of several related literatures, a framework of 7 major categories and 28 subcategories of scholarly thinking was proposed. The literature was used to predict problems scholars have in organizing their information, potential solutions, and specific computer tool features to augment scholarly thinking. Info Select, a personal information manager with most of these features (text and outline processing, sophisticated searching and organizing), was chosen as a potential tool for thinking. The study looked at how six scholars (faculty and doctoral students in social science fields at three universities) organized information using Info Select as a personal documentation system for scholarly work. These multiple case studies involved four in-depth, focused interviews, written evaluations, direct observation, and analysis of computer logs and files collected over a 3- to 6-month period. A content analysis of interviews and journals supported the proposed AfFORD-W taxonomy: Scholarly work activities consisted of Adding, Filing, Finding, Organizing, Reminding, and Displaying information to produce a Written product. Very few activities fell outside this framework, and activities were distributed evenly across all categories. Problems, needs, and likes mentioned by scholars, however, clustered mainly in the filing, finding, and organizing categories. All problems were related to human memory. Both predictions and research findings imply a need for tools that support information storage and retrieval in personal documentation systems, for references and notes, with fast and easy input of source material. A computer tool for thinking should support categorizing and organizing, reorganizing and transporting information. It should provide a simple search engine and support rapid scanning. The research implies the need for tools that provide better affordances for scholarly thinking activities.

People generate vast quantities of digital information as a product of their interactions with digital systems and with other people. As this information grows in scale and becomes increasingly distributed through different accounts, identities, and services, researchers have studied how best to develop tools to help people manage and derive meaning from it. Looking forward, these issues acquire new complexity when considered in the context of the information that is generated across one’s life or across generations. The long-term lens of a multigenerational timeframe elicits new questions about how people can engage with these heterogeneous collections of information and how future generations will manage and make sense of the information left behind by their ancestors. My prior work has examined how people perceive the role that systems will play in the long-term availability, management, and interpretation of digital information. This work demonstrates that while people certainly ascribe meaning to aspects of their digital information and believe that there is value held in their largely uncurated digital materials, it is not clear how or if that digital information will be transmitted, interpreted, or maintained by future generations. Furthermore, this work illustrates that there is a tension between the use of digital systems as ways of archiving content and sharing aspects of one’s life, and an uncertainty about the long term availability of the information shared through those services. Finally, this work illustrates the ways in which existing systems do not meet the needs of current users who are developing archives of their own digital information nor of future users who might try and derive meaning from information left behind by other people. Building on that earlier work, my dissertation work investigates how we can develop systems that foster engagement with lifetimes or generations of digital information in ways that are sensitive to how people define and communicate their identity and how they reflect on their life and experiences. For this work, I built a website that uses people’s Facebook data to ask them to reflect on the ways their life has changed over time. Participants’ experiences using this website illustrate the types of information that are and are not captured by digital systems. In addition, this work highlights the ways in which people engage with memories, artifacts, and experiences of people who have passed away and considers how digital systems and information can support those practices. I also interviewed participants about their experiences researching their family history, the ways in which they remember people who’ve passed away, and unresolved questions they have about the past. The findings from this aspect of the work contribute a better understanding of how digital systems, and the digital information people create over the course of their lives, intersect with the processes of death, dying, and remembrance.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / A laboratory information management system (LIMS) is central to the informatics infrastructure that underlies biobanking activities. To date, a wide range of commercial and open source LIMS are available. The decision to opt for one LIMS over another is often influenced by the needs of the biobank clients and researchers, as well as available financial resources. However, to find a LIMS that incorporates all possible requirements of a biobank may often be a complicated endeavour. The need to implement biobank standard operation procedures as well as stimulate the use of standards for biobank data representation motivated the development of Baobab LIMS, an open source LIMS for Biobanking. Baobab LIMS comprises modules for biospecimen kit assembly, shipping of biospecimen kits, storage management, analysis requests, reporting, and invoicing. Baobab LIMS is based on the Plone web-content management framework, a server-client-based system, whereby the end user is able to access the system securely through the internet on a standard web browser, thereby eliminating the need for standalone installations on all machines. The Baobab LIMS components were tested and evaluated in three human biobanks. The testing of the LIMS modules aided in the mapping of the biobanks requirements to the LIMS functionalities, and furthermore, it helped to reveal new user suggestions, such as the enhancement of the online documentation. The user suggestions are demonstrated to be important for both LIMS strengthen and biobank sustainability. Ultimately, the practical LIMS evaluations showed the ability of Boabab LIMS to be used in the management of human biobanks operations of relatively different biobanking workflows.

Infraestruturas de Informação foram inicialmente conceituadas como objetos técnicos por autores que identificaram atributos necessários para a evolução de uma II. Entretanto, além dos seus condicionantes técnicos, infraestruturas de informação, evoluem também como resultado da ação gerencial e como tais, precisam ser vistas no contexto da sua contribuição aos objetivos das organizações ou mercados, dos arranjos organizacionais entre os parceiros-usuários e a governança do processo. No intuito de contribuir para os conceitos de II, este trabalho de pesquisa buscou aplicar os conceitos da Kernel Theory, com outras teorias já consagradas, em uma instituição de alta complexidade inserida no ambiente complexo da Saúde: um hospital. O estudo foi feito no Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (HCFMUSP), centro de excelência e referência no campo de assistência, ensino e pesquisa e considerado um dos pólos brasileiros mais importantes de disseminação de informações técnico-científicas.A metodologia adotada foi a do estudo de caso único longitudinal, com abordagem qualitativa, tendo como base de análise a Kernel Theory, comparando seus critérios de evolução de IIs com critérios da Governança de TI, Teoria de Redes Interorganizacionais, Teoria Institucional e RBV (Resource Based View). Para a coleta de dados foi feita a análise documental e as entrevistas semi-estruturadas. Este estudo, além de oferecer a possibilidade de extensão da Kernel Theory, poderá fornecer orientação para a prática da gestão, oferecendo critérios de natureza organizacional e institucional que favorecem a evolução de IIs em ambientes organizacionais complexos. / Information Infrastructures (II) were initially conceptualized as technical objects by authors that identified attributes required for the evolution of an II. However, beyond its technical limitations information infrastructures may also evolve as a result of managerial actions and as such, must be considered in the context of its contribution to the goals of organizations and markets, the organizational arrangement between partners, users and the governance process. In order to contribute to the concepts of II, this research sought to apply the concepts of Kernel Theory with other already established theories at an institution of high complexity in the health sector: a hospital. The study was conducted at Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (HCFMUSP) , a center of excellence and reference in the field of assistance, education and research and considered one of Brazil´s most important centers for the dissemination of technical-scientific information. Single case longitudinal study was the adopted research methodology, with a qualitative approach, using criteria from Kernel Theory compared to criteria from IT Governance, Theory of Interorganizational Networks, Institutional Theory and RBV (Resource Based View). Data collection was based on document analysis, structured and semi-structured interviews. This study, not only offers the possibility of extending the Kernel Theory, but can also provide guidance for management, providing criteria of organizational and institutional nature that can stimulate the evolution of IIs in complex organizational environments.

Informação e conhecimento têm sido citados por duas décadas como ferramentas de vantagem competitiva. Recentemente, discute-se a utilização destas na promoção da inovação. A premissa indica que a interação de indivíduos, o compartilhamento de informação e a criação do conhecimento são vitais para o sucesso das organizações que precisam aprender e inovar a todo o momento. O estudo tem como propósito apontar contribuições de um ambiente de aquisição, disseminação e utilização da informação para a subseqüente criação do conhecimento, verificando como esses dois processos ocorrem em empresas de base tecnológica. Optou-se pelo emprego do método comparativo de casos e pela pesquisa qualitativa, realizada em nove empresas de base tecnológica, as quais se encontravam incubadas ou que passaram recentemente pela fase de incubação no Parque Tecnológico da cidade de São Carlos. Entre os principais resultados, constatou-se que nas empresas graduadas a gestão da informação e seus procedimentos foi identificada como mais consciente e estruturada. Em contrapartida, percebeu-se que as empresas incubadas possuíam um ambiente com maiores condições de criação de conhecimento. / Information and knowledge have been cited for two decades as competitive advantage tools. Recently, the use of them is discussed in promotion of the innovation. The premise indicates that human interaction, information sharing and knowledge creation are vital for the success of organizations that need to learn and innovate all the time. This study has the intention to point contributions from an environment of acquisition, dissemination and the use of information to the subsequent knowledge creation, verifying how these two processes happen in technology-based companies. The comparative method of cases and qualitative research was used, conducted in nine technology-based companies, which were incubated or which passed recently by the incubating process in Technologic Park of São Carlos. Among the main results, it was found that in graduated companies the information management and its procedures was identified as more conscious and structured. However, it was also noticed that the incubated companies had an environment with better conditions for knowledge creation.

INTRODUÇÃO: Este estudo descreve o processo de implantação de um sistema de gestão de segurança da informação em uma organização de saúde, visando assegurar a confidencialidade, a integridade e a disponibilidade das informações. MÉTODOS: Utilizou-se a norma ISO 27001 para o desenvolvimento do projeto e o seu anexo A, através de uma nova metodologia, para avaliar a organização. Um questionário foi elaborado para avaliar a percepção dos funcionários com a segurança da informação e também para checar itens relacionados ao escopo do projeto. Avaliamos a segurança da informação no início e ao término do estudo. A análise estatística foi realizada com o teste do qui-quadrado com correção de Yates. O resultado foi considerado significante para P < 0,05. RESULTADOS: Houve resultado significativo na pontuação obtida pela organização, no total de controles implementados e no total de controles não implementados. Não houve resultados significativos com o questionário. CONCLUSÃO: O uso do SGSI trouxe benefícios para a organização com melhoras significativas no nível de conformidade com a norma de referência, além da redução dos riscos aos ativos da organização por meio da implementação de controles / INTRODUCTION: This study describes the implementations process of an Information Security Management System in a healthcare organization in order to assure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information. METHODS: We used the ISO 27001 standard for development of the project and its \"Annex A\", through a new methodology, to assess the organization. A questionnaire was designed to estimate the perception of staff with information security and also to check items related to project scope. We evaluated the information security at the beginning and at the end of the study. Statistical analysis was performed with the chi-square test with Yates correction. The result was considered significant for P < 0,05. RESULTS: The organization obtained significant improves on the score, on the number of implemented controls and on the number of not implemented controls, but there were no significant results with the questionnaire. CONCLUSION: The use of ISMS brought benefits to the organization with expressive improvements in the level of compliance with the standard\'s reference, besides the reduction of risks in the organization\'s assets through the implementation of controls

O gerenciamento de informação possui um papel essencial para garantir um bom desempenho do processo de desenvolvimento de produtos, principalmente quando este envolve o trabalho colaborativo e distribuído entre empresas. Este trabalho surgiu dessa observação com o objetivo de caracterizar os processos de gerenciamento de informação de engenharia em ambientes distribuídos de desenvolvimento de produtos. O trabalho de pesquisa consistiu principalmente em uma revisão bibliográfica e um estudo de caso como trabalho de campo. Foram estudadas três empresas: dois fornecedores de primeiro nível do setor automobilístico e uma montadora. No estudo de caso foram levantadas as características dos principais aspectos do gerenciamento de informação enfatizando as relações de colaboração praticadas por cada empresa. / lnformation Management has a key role to assure o good performance of product development process. It is more significant when this is a collaborative and distributed process. This work emerged from these facts intending to characterize the engineering information management processes in a collaborative and distributed product development environment. The research work was developed in two main parts: a literature review and a case study. Three companies were studied: two first level automotive suppliers and an assembler company. ln the field work the characteristics of the main aspects of information management was collected with particular emphasis in the collaborative relationship.

Este trabalho avalia o desempenho do uso de árvores de decisão como função de ordenação para documentos e pessoas em ambientes empresariais. Para tanto, identificouse atributos relevantes das entidades a serem recuperadas a partir da análise de: (i) dinâmica de produção e consumo de informações em um ambiente empresarial; (ii) algoritmos existentes na literatura para a recuperação de documentos e pessoas; e (iii) conceitos utilizados em funções de ordenação para domínios genéricos. Montou-se um ambiente de avaliação, utilizando a coleção de referência CERC, para avaliar a aplicabilidade do algoritmo C4.5 na obtenção de funções de ordenação para o domínio empresarial. O uso do algoritmo C4.5 para a construção de funções de ordenação mostrou-se parcialmente efetivo. Para a tarefa de recuperação de documentos não trouxe resultados bons. Porém, constatou-se que é possível controlar a forma de construção da função de ordenação a fim de otimizar a precisão nas primeiras posições do ranking ou otimizar a média das precisões (MAP). Para a tarefa de recuperação de pessoas o algoritmo C4.5 obteve uma árvore de decisão que consegue resultados melhores que todas as outras funções de ordenação avaliadas. OMAP obtido pela árvore de decisão foi 0, 83, enquanto que a média do MAP das outras funções de ordenação foi de 0, 74. Percebeu-se que a árvore de decisão utilizada para representar a função de ordenação contribui para a compreensão da composição dos diversos atributos utilizados na caracterização dos documentos e pessoas. A partir da análise da árvore de decisão utilizada como função de ordenação para pessoas foi possível entender que uma pessoa é considerada especialista em algum tópico se ela aparecer em muitos documentos, aparecer muitas vezes nos documentos e os documentos onde aparece têm uma relevância alta para a consulta. / This work evaluates the performance of using decision trees as ranking functions for documents and people in enterprises. It was identified relevant attributes of the entities to be retrieved from the analysis of: (i) the production and consumption of information behavior in an enterprise, (ii) algorithms for documents and people retrieval at literature, and (iii) the concepts used in ranking functions for generic domains. It was set up an evaluation environment, using the CERC collection, to evaluate the applicability of the C4.5 algorithm to obtain a ranking function for the enterprise domain. The use of C4.5 algorithm for the construction of ranking function was proved to be partially effective. In the case of documents retrieval the C4.5 has not found good results. However, it was found that is possible to control the way of building the ranking function in order to optimize the precision in the first positions of the ranking or optimize the mean average precision (MAP). For the task of people retrieval the C4.5 algorithm developed a ranking function that obtain better results than all other ranking functions assessed. The value of MAP obtained by decision tree was 0, 83, while the average MAP of other ranking functions was 0, 74. The decision tree used to represent the ranking function contributes to understanding the attributes composition used in the characterization of documents and people. Through the analysis of the decision tree used as ranking function for people, we could realise that a person is considered expert in any topic if he/she appear in many documents, appear many times in same documents and documents where he/she appears have a high relevance to the query.

Este trabalho explora uma solução para tornar mais eficiente a recuperação de sinais estratégicos antecipativos na Internet, na chamada fase de rastreamento ou de captação de informação estratégica antecipativa, segundo diferentes autores, que descrevem ciclos da Inteligência Competitiva. Durante o texto a seguir serão descritos os conceitos de Inteligência Competitiva e de agentes inteligentes de software, considerada a solução ideal para suportar a recuperação de informação neste mundo imenso que é a Internet. Um protótipo será arquitetado para verificar a possibilidade de agentes serem uma boa representação e solução para o rastreamento de informação, com o objetivo de suportar o monitoramento estratégico do ambiente de uma organização. Estas informações, necessariamente, devem ser qualificadas, confiáveis e condizentes com um tema, atores e fontes predeterminados. A forma de obtenção das informações no ambiente Web pode ser feita diretamente e de forma discreta (no tempo) ou contínua, sem que seja acionada uma questão para busca direta, mas em resposta a um evento com características de interesse definidas. / This work explores a solution to making more efficient the recovery of antecipative strategical signals in the Internet, in the so-called tracking phase or antecipative strategical information captation phase, according to different authors describing cycles of Competitive Intelligence. In the text that follows, the concepts of Competitive Intelligence and intelligent agents of software will be described, considering the ideal solution to support the recovery of information in this immense world that is the Internet. A prototype will be set to verify the possibility of agents being good representation and a solution for the tracking of information, with the objective of supporting the strategical monitoring of an organization?s environment. These pieces of information must necessarily be qualified, trustworthy and related to predetermined subject, actors and sources. The attainment of information in the Web environment can be direct and of discrete form (within time constraints) or continuum, without inputting a question for direct search, but in reply to an event with definite characteristics of interest.