Rui Pedro Marques

Seismic vulnerability and risk analysis of the old building stock at urban scale: application to a neighbourhood in Lisbon

The old buildings represent an important fraction of the urban fabric of the cities, which have implicit societal issues, like safety. This work deals with the seismic vulnerability assessment and risk analysis of the old building stock, with application to a neighbourhood in Lisbon. The studied neighbourhood includes three frequent building typologies in Portugal, i.e. stone masonry, “Placa” and RC buildings. Reference buildings for each typology were numerically modelled using the equivalent frame method. Pushover analysis was then performed to derive the vulnerability characteristics of the reference buildings and more general building classes, i.e. capacity and fragility curves, in order to assess the seismic vulnerability of the buildings and perform a seismic risk analysis. This last analysis was performed to estimate the building damages and the economic and life losses for different earthquake scenarios. Most of the studied buildings are found to be unsafe to the considered seismic actions and will suffer severe damages with associated large losses.

Monitoring Organizational Transactions in Enterprise Information Systems with Continuous Assurance Requirements

This work focuses on issues typically encountered in organizations whose core business largely depends on ICT: continuous monitoring, continuous auditing, controlling and assessment of transactions risk. Organizations have been making efforts to implement methods and systems which enable them to increase reliability of their business and, simultaneously, to be in accordance with their organizational objectives and compliant with external regulations. Thus, this work presents and validates an innovative solution to implement Continuous Assurance services in information systems applicable to any organizational transaction, regardless of its type, dimension, business area or even its information system support technology. This last objective is pursued having as support an ontological model at an abstraction level that guarantees that independence. This research culminated with the development of a prototype and consequent results analysis, using data collected from the near-real implementation, allowing us to ensure the feasibility and the effective use of the proposal.

Organizational transactions with real time monitoring and auditing

Purpose – The paper aims to present a solution which makes it possible to control and audit organizational transactions in real time, helping to determine the degree of reliability with which they are carried out, mitigating the organizational risk. This auditing is made at a very low level of organizational transactions executed and supported exclusively in a digital format, contrary to what happens in most monitoring of transactions, which occurs at a high level. Moreover, it describes the conceptual architecture of the solution, its components and functionalities as well as the development and technical issues which should be taken into consideration on the deployment and evaluation of the solution. Design/methodology/approach – The work follows the design science methodology. It presents the problem and motivation of the investigation, the solution design and how it is being deployed. Furthermore, it presents the expected results based on the proposed architecture and on the results which are currentl...

An Enterprise Ontology-Based Database for Continuous Monitoring Application

Sometimes information systems fail or have operational and communication problems because designers may not have knowledge of the domain which is intended to be modeled. The same happens with systems for monitoring. Thus, an ontological model is needed to represent the organizational domain, which is intended to be monitored in order to develop an effective monitoring system. In this way, the purpose of the paper is to present a database based on Enterprise Ontology, which represents and specifies organizational transactions, aiming to be a repository of references or models of organizational transaction executions. Therefore, this database intends to be a generic risk profiles repository of organizational transactions for monitoring applications. Moreover, the Risk Profiles Repository presented in this paper is an innovative vision about continuous monitoring and has demonstrated to be a powerful tool for technological representations of organizational transactions and processes in compliance with the formalisms of a business ontological model.

Efficiency and Cost-Benefit Analysis of Seismic Strengthening Techniques for Old Residential Buildings in Lisbon

ABSTRACT This paper presents a study on the techno-economic efficiency of seismic strengthening techniques for old residential buildings, with application to construction typologies in Lisbon (stone masonry and “Placa” buildings). A comprehensive review on strengthening techniques and implications for the seismic behavior is made. Different strengthening schemes are implicitly simulated within equivalent frame models of the representative buildings. Then, pushover analysis is applied in order to compare the seismic performance of the buildings, before and after strengthening. A cost-benefit analysis of the strengthening solutions is finally performed, comparing the economic benefit gained by reducing the seismic damage, against the intervention cost.

Continuous Assurance on Organizational Transactions

Nowadays there is a new awareness of the importance of continuous monitoring and controlling of organizational transactions, because their auditing in real time allows to determine the degree of reliability with which transactions are carried out, mitigating the organizational risk. This paper aims to contribute to a new vision of organizational auditing focused on assurance services in transactions executed and supported exclusively in a digital format according to an ontological model of organizational transactions. Furthermore, this paper presents a proposal for a solution which allows to monitor an auditing in real time and at a very low level, at the essence, of organizational transactions executed and supported exclusively in a digital format, contrary to what happens in most monitoring of transactions that occurs at a high level (for example, compare whether a completed transaction followed a set of established procedures).

Evaluating Information Systems with Continuous Assurance Services

Nowadays there is a need for real-time awareness to assure conformity of organizational transactions to increase their reliability and to mitigate organizational risk. In this context, Continuous Assurance has assumed an important role as a management goal and in ensuring improved effectiveness of organizations. Some information systems already support Continuous Assurance services, but disposable data require extra effort to make them useful for management purposes. Hence, this paper presents a model constituted of three dimensions and one requirement aiming to evaluate an information system with Continuous Assurance services. The Delphi method was used to validate this model, assuring the relevance of inclusion of these dimensions and requirement. This method also validated a set of metrics to be included in each dimension and requirement which were also proposed for the model. Thus, this paper presents the results and conclusions of this study and contributes to disseminate a valid instrument to effectively evaluate information systems with Continuous Assurance Services.

Management of internal control mechanisms in ERP for continuous monitoring purposes

This paper aims to present a repository which has as main objective to store and manage data derived from internal control mechanisms. The proposed repository receives information about the execution of organizational transactions which were collected by internal control mechanisms in an ERP database, thereby constituting an important tool for continuous monitoring of organizational transactions. Thus, this paper presents the repository, a possible continuous monitoring application and the necessary results to assess its effectiveness in continuous monitoring.

Research on continuous auditing: A bibliometric analysis

This paper presents the results of a bibliometric study about the evolution of research on Continuous Auditing. This study has as main motivation to find reasons for the very slow evolvement of research on this topic. In addition, Continuous Auditing is one of the features of the emerging concept of Continuous Assurance. Thus, considering that Continuous Assurance represents numerous advantages for the organizational performance, this study also intends to understand if there is a relation between the evolution of research on Continuous Auditing and the still very low maturity levels of continuous assurance solutions. This study shows that the number of publications is considerably reduced and that the slow growth of research on Continuous Auditing may be contributing to the lack of maturity of Continuous Assurance.

Global Perspectives on Risk Management and Accounting in the Public Sector

In the context of New Public Management, Public Administration must be alert to the efficient management systems in order to rationalize the financial resources and disseminate transparent, accurate and consistent economic and financial information to further assess the performance of managers and organizations. The technological advances have influenced the way financial information is disseminated, including the use of the Internet, allowing it to be quickly accessed. This work is based on the assumptions of agency, public choice and signaling theories, and aims to assess the level of disclosure of financial information on the websites of local authorities in Portugal and to identify factors that may influence it. Given the results, not all local authorities disseminate all the financial information required by law on the websites. Among the factors tested, the size and political competition are the ones that seem to influence the level of disclosure of financial information on the websites. Local Authorities and the Disclosure of Financial Information via the Internet: The Portuguese Case