City of London
For over a century, the city of London, England, has had the worst traffic in Europe. Drivers spend
half of their time not moving in their vehicles, and the average speed is 9 mph, down from 12 mph in
1903 when traffic consisted of horses and carriages instead of cars and trucks. To improve traffic,
London’s Mayor has imposed a “Congestion Zone” fee of £5 per day for any vehicle that enters the
eight square miles of central London between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays. Drivers who come
into the zone, but who don’t pay, will be fined any where from $75 to $200.
The Transport for London and the consultants it hired broke the project into several different
steps. First, 688 cameras were used in 203 locations to take accurate pictures of vehicles entering the
congestion zone. At each camera site, a color and a black and white camera were used for each lane
of traffic that was being monitored. In general, the cameras are only 90% accurate in reading the
license plate numbers on the cars. But, with 688 cameras in total, multiple pictures are taken of each
car, and partial pictures of license plates are matched with complete pictures, with the former tossed
and the latter retained.
Next, the pictures from the cameras would be sent via a dedicated fiber-optic cable to an “image
management store.” Fiber-optic cable was needed because they’re the biggest and fastest “pipes”
available for sending data from one place to another. The lines were also dedicated so that the system
was completely closed and secure. If other systems or networks went down, the congestion zone
network would be unaffected. An “image management store” is basically a huge farm of networked,
redundant servers. If one server goes down, you’ve got multiple backup servers running live with the
same data. A “huge farm” of network servers was needed because the city anticipated processing a
million pictures a day (again, remember that multiple pictures are taken of the 250,000 cars entering
the zone each day).
Once the pictures are snapped, transported via fiber-optic cable, and placed in the “image
management store,” the next step is “reading” the license plate in the picture and then turning that
image into readable text that actually matches license plate records already stored in government
databases. Transport of London uses software that scans digitized documents, in this case, digital
pictures, into ASCII text, and then matches and compares multiple pictures of the same license plate.
For example, imagine that a license plate is 12345678, and that the congestion cameras get three
partial pictures, 12345, 34567, and 5678, and one complete picture 12345678. The software had to be
able to know that all four pictures were from the same vehicle, and then it had to know that it should
use the last picture, 12345678, and not the partial pictures, when converting the picture to text.
Finally, once the license plate was converted to text, the license plate number would then be matched
with an existing license plate already recorded in a government database. At that point, congestion
zone charges are linked with whoever owns the vehicles.
115. Refer to City of London. The City of London located 688 cameras in 203 locations to take accurate
pictures of vehicles entering its “Congestion Zone.” Multiple pictures are taken of each car, and
partial pictures of license plates are matched with complete pictures, with the former tossed, and the
latter retained. The cumulative store of all the photographs would be classified as _____. Once the
pictures of individual cars were matched, and the irrelevant photos tossed, _____ was created.
a.
information; raw data
b.
raw data; perceived knowledge
c.
perceived knowledge; raw data
d.
raw data; information
e.
influential knowledge; perceived knowledge
116. Refer to City of London. Because information is not useful unless it is _____, Transport of London
uses ASCII text to assemble license numbers for cars entering the congestion zone each day.
a.
timely
b.
accurate
c.
relevant
d.
complete
e.
all of the choices
117. Refer to City of London. The costs involved in capturing the license plate numbers of vehicles that
enter London’s “Congestion Zone” would be an example of information _____ costs.
a.
acquisition
b.
processing
c.
storage
d.
retrieval
e.
communication
118. Refer to City of London. The investment by Transport of London in the image management store is
an example of which type of cost?
a.
acquisition
b.
processing
c.
storage
d.
retrieval
e.
communication
119. Refer to City of London. What basic method of capturing information does the City of London use to
identify and fine automobile drivers that enter the city’s “Congestion Zone”?
a.
manual
b.
intranet
c.
electronic
d.
virtual
e.
private networks
120. Refer to City of London. What kind of technology is used to turn the license plate number captured by
a photograph into readable text that actually matches license plate records already stored in
government databases?
a.
virtual private networks
b.
SSL encryption
c.
private encryption codes
d.
optical character recognition software
e.
RFID software
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart captures point–of-sale transactions from over 3,400 stores in 6 countries and continuously
transmits these data to its massive 7.5 terabyte data warehouse. Wal-Mart allows its more than 3,500
suppliers to access its data warehouse. These suppliers use this data to identify customer buying
patterns at the store display level. They use this information to manage local store inventory and
identify new merchandising opportunities. In addition, Wal-Mart uses its data to improve the
productivity of individual stores. Employees at Wal-Mart headquarters recently demonstrated
hand-held Telxon computers, which resemble hand scanners but hold a year’s worth of a particular
store’s sales history on every item. The devices help store managers decide what to stock.
When Hurricane Frances was threatening a direct hit on Florida’s Atlantic coast, residents
made for higher ground, but in Bentonville, Ark., executives at Wal-Mart Stores decided that the
situation offered a great opportunity for its data center. Using information based on what had
happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier and backed by the trillions of bytes’
worth of shopper history that are stored in Wal-Mart’s computer network, Wal-Mart experts discovered
that the coastal stores would indeed need certain products—and not just the usual flashlights. They
learned that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a
hurricane. The retailer also learned that the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer.
121. Refer to Wal-Mart. A computer printout of how many bananas, heads of lettuce, and bags of lemons
sold in every Wal-Mart in the United States would be an example of:
a.
a resource allocation table
b.
traditional knowledge
c.
raw data
d.
perceived knowledge
e.
information
122. Refer to Wal-Mart. The hand-held Telxon computers would be most useful in:
a.
pragmatic portals
b.
executive information system
c.
expert system
d.
decision support system (DSS)
e.
creating knowledgeware
123. Refer to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s creation of such a huge data center indicates that it considers _____
information to be very important.
a.
applicable
b.
complete
c.
relevant
d.
timely
e.
accurate
124. Refer to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart allows its suppliers to engage in _____ in its data center.
a.
environmental scanning
b.
prospect collecting
c.
electronic scanning
d.
data mining
e.
prospect monitoring
125. Refer to Wal-Mart. The information that the sales of strawberry Pop-Tarts increases when a hurricane
is coming is an example of a(n) _____ pattern.
a.
sequence
b.
cluster
c.
stratified
d.
association
e.
loyalty
126. Refer to Wal-Mart. _____ would be one method of protecting Wal-Mart’s data while giving its
suppliers access to those data.
a.
Web identification
b.
Dual authorization technology
c.
Two-party access
d.
Personnel encryption
e.
Two-factor authentication
127. Refer to Wal-Mart. How would Wal-Mart use an intranet?
a.
to track products as they move through the supply chain
b.
to maintain good relationships with its suppliers
c.
to replace paper forms with online forms
d.
to secure its Web site from snooping
e.
to authenticate access to its data center
128. Refer to Wal-Mart. A(n) _____ allows suppliers to access the Wal-Mart data center.
a.
extranet
b.
virtual portal
c.
web service
d.
corporate portal
e.
secure logic system (SSL)
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)
The University of Pittsburg Medical Center operates under a $5 billion annual budget with 19
hospitals, 4,500 physicians spread across 400 offices, and 43,000 employees. Each year it handles
167,000 inpatient admissions, 3 million outpatient visits, 400,000 emergency visits, and 130,000
surgeries. All of this has added up to one serious information management problem.
The hospital’s databases use 788 servers and 40 storage systems to contain information on
over 4 million patients. These servers often have trouble communicating with each other, meaning that
doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel often have trouble accessing the information they need in
a timely fashion. When a patient gets an MRI at the downtown UPMC hospital, she might find her
doctor has not received the scan results at her next appointment. Incidents like these are unfortunately
the norm, and a system that big and spread out makes information expensive to store and retrieve.
Departments frequently overspend their budgets as well. At UPMC, purchasing procedures
rely on forms that are hand written and carbon copied, making it difficult to get complete, up–to-date
budget information. In addition to the difficulty of figuring out what’s been ordered, UPMC
employees frequently use the carbon copy forms to bypass UPMC’s purchasing staff, which is
supposed to approve or deny all purchases. Hand written forms have also resulted in a lot of medical
errors, many of which come from illegible prescription orders. Fixing these mistakes can be very
expensive.
Electronic medical records and order forms would greatly improve information access and
accuracy, but getting doctors to change systems could be difficult. Doctors and nurses, however, have
been frustrated with inaccurate and unavailable information, and UPMC’s new eRecords system is
proving a solid improvement. The system allows doctors to complete their paperwork online and
organize notes into a clear concise and legible format. The system also has a prescription writing and
checking system that helps physicians prescribe the right drugs at the right doses and avoid conflicts
between prescriptions.
UPMC has also taken steps to consolidate its servers, signing a deal with IBM to reduce the
number of servers to 305 and the storage systems to 2. It also hired Alcatel to integrate its 31 voice
mail systems, 156 telephone systems, and 26 call centers into a single system for data, voice, and
video. UPMC is also using virtualization, the process of dividing one computer into several
independent systems, to get more performance from fewer computers. By leveraging recent software
and hardware advances, companies can greatly increase processing and storage capacities without
buying new computers. After only a few months, UPMC has increased server capacity by 150 percent
and reduced the amount of space dedicated to computers by 40 percent without increasing its IT staff.
UPMC’s new electronic purchasing system has helped it regain control of employee
purchases. Further, by working with CombineMed, a company that lets hospitals file purchasing
requests with several vendors at once, UPMC with two other hospitals was able to save $32 million in
supplies, as competition drove down purchasing costs.
129. Refer to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. If other hospitals have access to the same
information technology, eRecords will create _____ for the UPMC.
a.
a sustainable advantage
b.
no advantage (competitive parity)
c.
first-mover advantage
d.
long-term strategic advantage
e.
a disadvantage
130. Refer to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. How would you classify the center’s costs associated
with purchasing the computerized medical system?
a.
as retrieval costs
b.
as processing costs
c.
as acquisition costs
d.
as holding costs
e.
as inventory costs
131. Refer to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Which of the following costs associated with
eRecords would be most important in protecting patient privacy?
a.
the cost of maintaining necessary inventory
b.
the costs of maintaining accounts payable records
c.
amortizing costs over the life of the software
d.
the costs involved with protecting information
e.
the costs involved with collecting accurate information
132. Refer to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The medical center would more than likely use
_____ so that multiple physicians, technicians, and bookkeepers working at UPMC and dealing with
the same patient could share information about that person’s medical history and lab results.
a.
intranets
b.
executive information exchanges
c.
data mining systems
d.
decision support systems
e.
extranets
133. Refer to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Physicians are managers of the health of their
patients. Therefore, the information technology that UPMC acquires will serve as _____ for these
physicians as they help individual patients.
a.
UPC systems
b.
decision support systems
c.
executive information systems
d.
RAID systems
e.
trend analysis
SHORT ANSWER
1. Differentiate between raw data and useful information.
2. What is a first-mover advantage?
3. According to the resource-based view of information technology, what are the three critical issues that
companies need to address in order to sustain a competitive advantage through information
technology?
4. Identify and briefly define the five costs associated with obtaining good information.
5. Define data mining. Briefly describe the two general approaches to data mining.
6. What does it mean when someone says that an organization protects its information? Why it is
important? What are the basic steps to properly securing data and data networks?
ANS:
7. Describe the two critical steps that can be used to ensure that an organization’s data can only be
accessed by authorized users. How does biometrics relate to this process?
8. Which type of personal computer security measure would salespeople who are on the road dealing
with customers’ questions want the company to use? Why?
9. What are intranets? List four of the reasons why they so popular.
10. Briefly distinguish between knowledge and information.
11. A master brewer knows the exact ingredients to add to make a dark beer, a lager, or an ale. He
understands the nuances of the fermentation process as well as when a batch reaches perfection. How
can technology capture this specialized knowledge?
ESSAY
1. Assume that as a member of the student governing body at your college or university, you have
unlimited resources to tackle a challenge that has been posed to you by students, some faculty, and the
administration at your school: develop a database that will allow students to identify the quality of
instructors before signing up for their courses. Using this challenge as a running example, differentiate
between raw data and information, and identify and discuss the characteristics and costs of useful
information as they apply to this challenge.
2. Discuss the issues, advantages, and risks associated with using information to gain or maintain
strategic advantage.
3. What are the two basic methods of capturing information? Comment on the advantages and
disadvantages of each.
ANS:
4. What is data mining? Describe the two kinds of data mining. How can data mining be used to
invade the privacy of individuals, given the large amount of data that is collected and stored
electronically on people in their everyday transactions?
5. Compare and contrast executive information systems, decision support systems, and expert systems.
