Edgard Costa Oliveira

ANALISYS OF IT OUTSOURCING CONTRACTS AT THE TCU (FEDERAL COURT OF ACCOUNTS) AND OF THE LEGISLATION THAT GOVERNS THESE CONTRACTS IN THE BRAZILIAN FEDERAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Information technology (IT) outsourcing has for a long time been a major trend in business and government. Accountability of IT outsourcing contracts in the public administration is recognized as an important factor contributing to government transparency and public services quality, given the legislation governing these contracts and the amount of related expenditures. Considering the trend towards open government data publishing, including data on outsourcing contracts, there is an interesting opportunity for citizens to participate in the open auditing of these contracts as a means to assess the good application of public resources. In this study we explore this possibility by analyzing open data published by the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU is its acronym in Portuguese), an interesting case since this agency has a paramount role in auditing the whole Brazilian Federal Public Administration. To this end, we gathered open data from the TCU regarding all outsourced IT services contracts maintained by the agency during the years 2000-2013. This data is analyzed to verify, from an external point of view, the related duration and values, identifying diferences between the predicted and actual amounts spent and evaluating the administration of such contracts regarding legislation. This analysis is based on a detailed survey of the relevant legislation as well as the verification of original contract terms and their addendums. As a result, we observed substantial differences in the amount spent on execution with respect to those predicted in the original contracts. Also, we identified the utilization of special justifications prescribed by law to sustain the extension of some contracts. Given these results, it is possible that IT outsourcing is not necessarily proved to be the best solution for the public sector problems regarding the lack of skilled personnel, which implies the need to assess the cost-benefit of maintaining these contracts. Also, it is possible that the existing legislation needs development in order to provide more flexibility to outsourcing contract management.

Similarities Building a Network between Researchers based on the Curriculum Lattes Platform.

Using inference machines is one resource used to assist the decision-making process in data processing and interpretation, which allows attributing knowledge to a set of information items. In this sense this work implements a similarity algorithm that calculates the percentage of adherence found amongst academic profiles at the University of Brası́lia (UnB). The domain base use to provide the data for the work is that of the Lattes platform. This platform holds data on the scientific production of registered university scholars. The calculation provides a rating of the individuals and the approximations between their academic production. This is achieved by taking into account a base profile which is compared to one or more destination profiles. To run this procedure, the data held in each Curriculum Lattes is extracted, and an ontology of concepts is created that holds the data on the production to supply the information needed by the comparison task. These comparisons are made in each term of the name, for all the bibliographical production for both profiles compared. Each term can have a set of synonyms that are also taken into consideration in the comparison. And at the end the results are compiled and presented in a spreadsheet that holds the summaries for all adherence percentages that were compared. Applying the algorithm determines which people in a set have more or less proximity and a semantic link with the academic output when compared to other individuals. And that produces a similarity percentage.

Proposal of a Brazilian Database Government Open Linked Data: DBgoldbr: Invited Paper

The Brazilian Government has made available on the Web a massive volume of public data. This data may be structured, semi-structured or non-structured in order to turn the administration as transparent as possible. Thus, we notice the great challenge in providing applications capable enough to handle this Big Data environment, and to make information available for decision making. In this environment, data processing is done via new approaches from Information Science and Computer Science areas, by involving Technologies and processes for collecting, representing, storing and disseminating information. This paper presents a conceptual model, the technical architecture and the prototype implementation of a tool DBgoldbr, designed to classify government public information with the help of ontologies, by transforming open data into open linked data. To fulfill the purpose of the solution, we used Soft System Methodology to identify problems, to collect users needs and to design solutions that fit the purpose of specific groups. The DBgoldbr tool was designed to ease up the search for open data made available by many Brazilian Government institutions, so that this data can be reused to support the evaluation and monitoring of social programs, in order to support the design and management of public policies.

Risk Management Maturity Evaluation Artifact to Enhance Enterprise IT Quality.

Information plays a fundamental role throughout an enterprise architecture, figuring as a strategic component to fulfill its business processes. The application of IT Risk Management models is a key success factor to reach organizations goals. However, just by adopting risk management practices is not enough to guarantee the expected benefits. Organizations face a growing need to know how efficient their business processes are, including its risk management processes, so that an efficiency degree can be stated in a determined scale, by knowing existing deficiencies, and to make an improvement plan to raise process quality and to compare its performance with other similar enterprises. Due to the diversity of maturity models and their characteristics, this paper developed a comparative study between the main maturity models of the market, in which it was possible to define, with the help of the decision technique AHP – Analytic Hierarchy Process, the process evaluation model of COBIT 4.1 to measure risk management of IT maturity in modern enterprises.

Ontology-Based CMS News Authoring Environment

This paper describes the specification, modelling and design of an ontology-based news authoring environment for the Semantic Web, that takes into account the construction and use of an ontology of the Zika disease. CMSs are being adapted in order to receive semantic features, such as automatic generations of keywords, semantic annotation and tagging, content reviewing etc. We present here the infrastructure designed to foster research on semantic CMSs as well as semantic web technologies that can be integrated into an ontology-based news authoring environment.

Semantic Framework for Electronic Health Records

Many countries are in the run for implementing their local electronic health strategies, on top of the existing health systems administrative and clinical procedures. There have been international successful initiatives in these cases, however, a substantial effort is necessary in order to adapt the best practices to national realities. In Brazil, the effort of implementing a technological solution, inspired by these international cases, is underway. This paper describes the context where the solution was developed: the implementation of the e-health EHR platform in Brazil. It brings the technical specification of a semantic framework developed and used in a SOA-based infrastructure that enables the EHR solutions for the Brazilian public health system. We present here the creation and use of an Information Model and a Knowledge Model, composed with the use of archetypes and templates, based on the OpenEHR formats. The use of EHR archetype definition languages is also presented here. The semantic framework is based on the setting up of a clinical knowledge model and a terminology server that makes use of Snomed-CT.

Proof of concept think! EHR platform

This document presents a detailed description of the development and results obtained during the Proof of Concept about the Think! EHR platform, which is marketed by the Marand d.o.o (Marand) company.

Technical specifications of a service-oriented architecture for semantic interoperability of EHR — electronic health records

Many countries are in the run for implementing their national electronic health strategies, on top of the existing health systems administrative and clinical procedures. There have been international successful initiatives in these cases, however, a substantial effort is necessary in order to adapt the best practices to national realities. In Brazil, the effort of implementing a technological solution, inspired by these international cases, is under way. This paper describes the technical specification of an implementation architecture for a SOA-based infrastructure that created the Electronic Health Record solutions for the Brazilian public health system. We identified here, the context where it has been implemented and particular need of the National e-health strategy, the information health management standards and patterns used. We described the SOA architecture built and implemented, aiming at specific needs at stake, such as basic care, hospital, medicines and individual patients information. The basic EHR profiles used are also described with an emphasis on specific use cases. The integrated solution implemented was also presented in a general design that brings together, in a simplified manner, the components of a semantically interoperable SOA architecture for electronic health records designed specifically for the Brazilian health context, but we hope can be an asset and success case for other ongoing e-health strategy design initiatives.

Designing an ontology-based Zika virus news authoring environment for the semantic web

This paper describes the experience of researching and teaching the conceptual and practical basis for the specification, modelling and design of an ontology-based news authoring environment for the Semantic Web, that takes into account the construction and use of an ontology of the Zika disease. Some CMSs are being adapted in order to receive semantic features, such as automatic generations of keywords, semantic annotation and tagging, content reviewing etc. We present here the infrastructure designed to foster research on semantic CMSs as well as semantic web technologies that can be integrated into an ontology-based news authoring environment.

Model for implementing the Balanced Scorecard in public institutions: a case study in the hire IT

In the government sector, the IT hiring process is highly complex and involves many public resources. In pursuit of continuous improvement, the analysis of management processes is a critical success factor for ensuring that contracts meet the public interest. The purpose of this paper is to apply an adaptation of the Balanced Scorecard Management Model (BSC) to the process of Planning Hiring Information Technology Solution in the governmental sphere. Therefore, we conducted literature searches in documents and standards, emphasizing the Guide to Best Practices for Hiring IT Solutions Strategy and General IT, then a group of experts proposed the implementation of the BSC.