Anthony Afful-Dadzie

Tracking progress of African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a new assessment methodology for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method (FCEM) and the Delphi technique. The proposed approach by its design simplifies the review processes and also quantifies the outcome of the assessment result for easier interpretation and benchmarking among member countries. The proposed hybrid method demonstrates how the subjective APRM thematic areas and their objectives can be efficiently tracked country by country while addressing the key identified challenges. Design/methodology/approach – Using a numerical example, a demonstration of how the APRM assessment could be carried is shown using the FCEM and the Delphi method. The APRMs own thematic areas are used as the evaluation factors and the weights are assigned using Delphi technique. A novel remark set is constructed to linguistically describe the performance of a country against each or all of the thematic areas. Then in line with ...

Open Government Data in Africa: A preference elicitation analysis of media practitioners

Open Government Data (OGD) continues to receive considerable traction around the world. In particular, there have been a growing number of OGD establishments in the developed world, sparking expectations of similar trends in growing democracies. To understand the readiness of OGD stakeholders in Africa especially the media, this paper (1) reviews current infrastructure at OGD web portals in Africa and (2) conducts a preference elicitation analysis among media practitioners in 5 out of the 7 OGD country centers in Africa regarding desired structure of OGD in developing countries. The analysis gives a view of the relative importance media practitioners ascribe to a selected set of OGD attributes in anticipation of a more functional OGD in their respective countries. Using conjoint analysis, the result indicates that media practitioners put premium on ‘metadata’ and ‘data format’ respectively in order of importance. Results from the review also reveal that features of current OGD web portals in Africa are not consistent with the desired preferences of users. Overall, the study provides a general insight into media expectations of OGD in Africa, and also serves as a foundational knowledge for authorities and practitioners to manage expectations of the media in connection with OGD in Africa.

Data-Driven Cyber-Vulnerability Maintenance Policies

The frequencies of cyber attacks and known cyber vulnerabilities continue to increase and there is a need for models to focus limited administrator attention and build cases for additional resources. A related challenge is the scarcity of available data partly because of security concerns. In this paper, we propose a method based on Markov decision processes (MDP) for the generation and graphical evaluation of relevant maintenance policies for cases with limited data availability. The proposed method also provides an estimate of the cost benefit of collecting additional data. Both Bayesian and non-Bayesian formulations of the transition probabilities and cost models are considered. We apply the proposed method to a real-world cyber-vulnerability dataset and generate specific guidance and cost predictions. We also illustrate the relevance of the proposed method to general MDP modeling using a numerical example involving three levels of data scarcity.

A decision making model for selecting start-up businesses in a government venture capital scheme

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an intuitionistic fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision making method for the selection of start-up businesses in a government venture capital (GVC) scheme. Most GVC funded start-ups fail or underperform compared to those funded by private VCs due to a number of reasons including lack of transparency and unfairness in the selection process. By its design, the proposed method is able to increase transparency and reduce the influence of bias in GVC start-up selection processes. The proposed method also models uncertainty in the selection criteria using fuzzy set theory that mirrors the natural human decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first presents a set of criteria relevant to the selection of early stage but high-potential start-ups in a GVC financing scheme. These criteria are then analyzed using the TOPSIS method in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment....

A TOPSIS Extension Framework for Re-Conceptualizing Sustainability Measurement.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability measurement and scoring system for assessing the efforts of organizations at meeting sustainability targets. Using technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) as the basic framework, the proposed method incorporates all three sustainability dimensions – economic, environmental and social – to establish a threshold below which an organization is considered to have failed a sustainability test. In Addition, an introduction of a time-independent threshold enables a clearer comparison of performance of organizations over time. The proposed method includes plots for visualizing the sustainability performance of organizations under review. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first assigns target values to a hypothetical organization. TOPSIS is then used to generate composite scores in which the score of the hypothetical organization is set as the threshold below which organizations are deemed to have fai...

MEASURING PROGRESS OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS: A FUZZY COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION APPROACH

The United Nations’ target date to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations is 2015. As the date approaches, several attempts have been made to evaluate the performance of the set goals, targets, and indicators. Although the methodology used to measure the performance of member countries has been questioned by many, the fiercest criticism so far has been the apparent lack of data with which to measure progress. The subjectivity of the MDGs further increases the complexity of the evaluation systems, but an effective measurability of each MDG is key to the overall success. This study applies a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method (FCEM) in evaluating the performance of individual member countries with regard to the MDGs. The result shows how, in the absence of data, the FCEM can be used to evaluate performance of member countries involved in the MDG project.

Control charting methods for autocorrelated cyber vulnerability data

ABSTRACT Control charting cyber vulnerabilities is challenging because the same vulnerabilities can remain from period to period. Also, hosts (personal computers, servers, printers, etc.) are often scanned infrequently and can be unavailable during scanning. To address these challenges, control charting of the period-to-period demerits per host using a hybrid moving centerline residual-based and adjusted demerit (MCRAD) chart is proposed. The intent is to direct limited administrator resources to unusual cases when automatic patching is insufficient. The proposed chart is shown to offer superior average run length performance compared with three alternative methods from the literature. The methods are illustrated using three datasets.

Liberation of public data: Exploring central themes in open government data and freedom of information research

Abstract This paper conducts a comparative literature survey of Open Government Data (OGD) and Freedom of Information (FOI), with a view to tracking the central themes in the two civil society campaigns. With seeming similarities and a growing popularity in research, the major themes framing research on the two movements have not clearly emerged. Topic modelling, text mining and document analysis methods are used to extract the themes as well as key named entities. The topics are subsequently labeled and with expert guidance, their semantic meaning are provided. The results indicate that the major theme in FOI research borders on issues relating to disclosure, publishing, access and cost of requests . On the other hand, themes in OGD research have largely centered on technology and related concepts. The approach also helped in determining key similarities and differences in the two campaigns as reported in research.

Local Government Open Data (LGOD) Initiatives: Analysis of Trends and Similarities Among Early Adopters

This paper focuses on developments of open government data (OGD) at city, municipal, county, federal state, regional and provincial levels around the world. This is in line with recent OGD trends where local government authorities, especially in developed countries, are launching separate OGD web portals to complement central governments’ efforts at liberating public data. Focusing on early LGOD adopters, an inventory audit of contents and functionalities in use at LGOD web portals was conducted. The data generated was analyzed for trends and (dis)similarities among early LGOD adopters. The results of the study points to a general sense of heterogeneity among LGODs across the world in terms of adherence to OGD web publishing standards. There is also a lack of uniformity in terms of OGD web portal functionalities and contents even among local government authorities within a same country.

Assessing Commercial Viability of Technology Start-up Businesses in a Government Venture Capital under Intuitionistic Fuzzy Environment.

Governments around the world are increasingly showing keen interests in venture capital investments in technology start-up businesses. However, determining the commercial potential of a new Technology start-up business is generally seen as a complex exercise especially in a government-controlled setting where selection of candidates can be clouded by several peripheral considerations. To generate more interests in decision-making models aimed at assessing the commercial viability of candidate start-up businesses in a government-run venture capital, this study (1) provides a modified form of the Strategic Technology Evaluation Program (STEP) called G-STEP as a new selection criteria for a government-controlled venture capital scheme (2) adopts a comprehensive intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS framework with a sensitivity analysis component for the assessment of early stage but high potential tech start-up firms and (3) demonstrates its applicability with a numerical example assessing the commercial potential of start-up businesses in a Government technology venture capital program. The proposed decision-making framework could be useful in the assessment and selection problems in other government priority areas.