Exam 16: Managing Information in a Global World

Once data have been processed and stored,what costs are associated with using the information?

Narrative 16-2 For more than a century,the city of London,England,has had the worst traffic in Europe. Half the time is spent at a standstill,and the average speed is 9 mph,down from 12 mph in 1903 when traffic consisted of horses and carriages. 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 enter the zone but don't pay are fined from £50 to £125. First,688 cameras were used in 203 locations to take accurate pictures of vehicles entering the zone. In general,the cameras are only 90 percent accurate in reading the licence plate numbers on the cars. But with 688 cameras in total,multiple pictures are taken of each car,and partial pictures of licence plates are matched with complete pictures,with the former discarded and the latter retained. Next,the pictures from the cameras are sent via a dedicated fibre-optic cable to an "image management store." An "image management store" is basically a huge farm of networked,redundant servers. If one server goes down,multiple backup servers run live with the same data. Doing this was needed because the city anticipated processing one million pictures a day. Once the pictures are snapped,transported via fibre-optic cable,and placed in the "image management store," the next step is "reading" the licence plate in the picture,converting it to readable text,and matching licence plate records stored in government databases. Transport of London uses software that scans digitized documents into ASCII text and then matches and compares multiple pictures of the same licence plate. For example,imagine that a licence plate is 12345678 and that the congestion cameras get three partial pictures-12345,34567,and 5678-and one complete picture,12345678. The software has to interpret that all four pictures were of the same vehicle;then,it has to select the last picture,12345678,not the partial pictures,when converting the picture to text. Finally,once the licence plate is converted to text,its number is then matched with an existing licence plate in a government database. At that point,"Congestion Zone" charges are linked with whoever owns the vehicle. -Refer to Narrative 16-2. What basic method of capturing information does the City of London use to identify and fine automobile drivers who enter the city's "Congestion Zone"?

Narrative 16-1 Take a look in your purse or wallet-do you see an Air Miles card You and about 10 million Canadians have one. They can be used at stores including Shell,Sobeys,Rexall,and others. They work by recording your purchase history and uniquely linking it to your Air Miles program number. You can redeem the points you acquire for rewards in various forms. -Refer to Narrative 16-1.Air Miles data might show that a shopper regularly purchases grated cheese and tortilla chips at the same time. Which kind of pattern would be identified by these data?

What occurs in data mining when two or more database elements occur together in a significant pattern,with one of the elements preceding the other?

Processing cost is the cost of transmitting information from one place to another.

Financial records prepared 60 days after a period ends are considered timely.

What is the definition of data mining?

Combining internal information with information from sources such as credit brokers yields superior targeted marketing results.

You know that the population of the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)as of 2016 is 4,098,927. However,your planning team prefers to use the number 4.0 million. What characteristic of information would you use to buttress your argument for using the unrounded number?

Information is useful when it is timely,accurate,and relevant.

Why do companies use intranets?

Narrative 16-1 Take a look in your purse or wallet-do you see an Air Miles card You and about 10 million Canadians have one. They can be used at stores including Shell,Sobeys,Rexall,and others. They work by recording your purchase history and uniquely linking it to your Air Miles program number. You can redeem the points you acquire for rewards in various forms. -Refer to Narrative 16-1. Air Miles created the first widespread loyalty program in Canada in 1992. Which of the following were they most likely hoping to gain?

What is the term for the direct electronic transmission of purchase and ordering information from one company's computer system to another company's computer system?

Describe the two critical steps that can be used to ensure that an organization's data can be accessed only by authorized users. How does biometrics relate to this process?

Association patterns are also called sequence patterns.

Firewalls can protect only personal computers and network servers connected to the corporate network.

It is important to understand that DSS programs should not replace managerial decision making.

Ken owns a large financial planning and insurance company. He has records of over 1,000 clients and all of the purchase decisions. Ken wants to determine if a relationship exists between financial planning decisions and insurance purchases made by his customers. What technology will help Ken accomplish this?

Anthony has been hired by Canada's border services to analyze the number of people that have crossed the border from Canada into the United States in 2013. Anthony is given records of all crossings. He takes the records and removes any duplicates so that a person that crosses the border multiple times is counted as just one person. He then runs the records through software to remove any mistakes. Where will all the records be stored once Anthony has finished?

Most expert systems work by using a collection of "if-then" rules to sort through information and recommend a course of action.