Positioning the electric utility to build information infrastructure

Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in January of 2007. Joining the EU is expected to promote the candidate country's economic growth, provide access to western technology, increase employment and attract foreign investments, the collective result of which is expected to be social, economic and technological advancement. In a perfect world where all factors contribute favorably those goals can be achieved. However, the detrimental impact of corruption on achieving national goals must also be addressed. This article examines linkages between information infrastructures and social development in Bulgaria and Romania as well as investment needs and financing were addressed with the objective to improve National Information Infrastructures (NII), expected payoffs from NII improvements were identified; the role of corruption in retarding information infrastructure development was also investigated. Using regression analysis the relationship between information infrastructures, social development, corruption, and economic development in Bulgaria and Romania were compared to those of the EU10 countries admitted into the EU in 2004 as well as to those in the original EU15 countries. It is concluded that given present conditions in Romania and Bulgaria development financing will have to come from internal and from World Bank sources rather than from foreign direct investment.

If the observations of unregulated and recently deregulated essential services were to hold for electricity reform, we could expect to see market segmentation of household customers. This is a corporate strategy aimed at the acquisition of attractive customers and the avoidance of unattractive customers. It is a function of market relations and commodification. Some markets already segment and assign unattractive customers to 'residual' markets, 'sub-prime' markets or 'markets of last resort'. Residual markets tend to involve market abuse by suppliers because these customers lack market power. It is possible therefore to suggest that segmented markets are characterised by simultaneous competition and monopoly. The implications for the supply of essential services, such as electricity, are profound. This research sought to identify whether there is evidence of emerging segmentation of the domestic electricity market in Victoria. In practice, few essential services areas are completely deregulated. The history of segmentation in the US insurance and lending industries provides valuable insights into markets, market failure and social protections. Taking this history and the more recent experiences of reforms in the US, the UK and Australia, it has been possible to identify three models of social protection: 'universal service', a 'civil rights' model, and a 'market' model. The Victorian reforms reflect some elements of each of these. The social protections included in the reform package both encourage and present barriers to market segmentation. At the time of the research, some elements of the safety net arrangements and customer inertia (born out of negative attitudes to competition) have acted to inhibit segmentation. Customer inertia in its own right poses questions for the efficacy of competition policy. The key understanding that is gained from this research is that both civil rights and socioeconomic entitlements (social rights) are required to prevent markets in essential services acting upon and exacerbating inequality. This suggests that universal service, as a model of social protection, is most likely to ameliorate the impacts of inequality.

Juggling ecumenical wisdoms and xenophobic institutions: Framing and modelling China's telecommunications universal service and rural digitalization initiatives and policies

In this paper, the possibilities of developing the national information infrastructure by applying the Land Administration Domain Model (LADM) are discussed. Confirmation of the legitimacy of using the LADM within the (Spatial) Information Infrastructure (SII) context is illustrated with the case of Poland. Creating the information infrastructure is an immense challenge because its components are usually dispersed among various institutions responsible for their maintenance and dissemination. Co-existing spatial and non-spatial components of the information infrastructure require their proper integration. Moreover, the interdisciplinary nature of the SII results in combining objects from physical and legal world in one computer environment. The process of standardisation is the first step to refine land administration system and to make it more understandable and transparent for involved parties. The LADM, being officially adopted as an international standard ISO 19152, gives a basis for building national profiles and supports creating the European information infrastructure, enabling communication based on common terminology. This paper provides a brief overview of the current land information system in Poland emphasising the main issues in creating the national information infrastructure. Then, the general concept of the country profile for Poland with the adaptation of the LADM is described. With respect to the users’ expectations and requirements, the conceptual model is extended to information being outside the scope of LADM. As a final point, several technical aspects of implementing the complemented LADM country profile are explored. The results indicate that effective functioning of the information infrastructure requires proper integration of data, proceeded by analysing the contents of existing data sets, indicating key registers and defining a linkage system between them.

The Role of the Government in the Internet and Its Implications for Technology Policy

This study estimates the effects of the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure on rural employment and income. We use a triple‐difference framework and exploit the geographic variation of the recent universal telecommunication service in China. Empirical results reveal increased broadband adoption after the implementation of the program with governmental subsidy. The universal telecommunication service led to an increase in rural residents’ income and their employment in the non‐agricultural sector, especially salaried work. The findings suggest that digital infrastructure promotes the transformation of the rural economy in emerging markets.

: The United States continues to experience a phenomenal growth in the Internet combined with an increased dependence upon the automated systems within its information infrastructure. This tremendous growth is accompanied with a commensurate increase in cyber attack and crime. Both nonstate and state sponsored enemies are becoming more organized and talented and experts view the greatest dangers in cyberspace as villains lying in wait withholding full- fledged cyber attack until the opportunity for sufficient strategic advantage presents itself. The United States current security policies and strategies depend upon voluntary adherence to government recommendations with few regulations standards or financial incentives to gain private sector support. The potential losses associated with failing to secure cyberspace are too high. This paper provides an assessment of national efforts to secure cyberspace and puts forward recommendations to strengthen this critical national infrastructure. The United States must reassess its national strategies and with practical incentives enforce stronger measures to secure its information infrastructures. Otherwise the nation will face unforeseen potentially catastrophic consequences.

Information infrastructure development: International comparison between the United States and Japan

We are witnessing an explosion of digital information, some of it in unstructured repositories, some in still primitive digital libraries. This trend is certain to accelerate as the National Information Infrastructure (NII) and Global Information Infrastructure (GII) become a reality. Several digital library projects in the USA and abroad are in progress, with the goal of developing the enabling technologies for creating a single, integrated and “universal” library, composed of the large numbers of individual heterogeneous repositories. These include materials in personal information collections, collections in conventional libraries, and large data collections shared by scientists, engineers and other researchers. Six US institutions received funding for Digital Library Initiatives in the fall of 1994. In addition, the Library of Congress (LC) has a National Digital Library Project under way that is funded, in part, by private corporations and foundations to make some of its large text and image collections accessible via computer networks. Focuses on projects at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Illinois and the Library of Congress, including how these initiatives will affect the way image and text archives are organized as we enter the next century, and their implications for the international community. Addresses the following issues: how can we encourage global intellectual access and p articipation by our citizenry? How does one locate (“navigate”) information of interest in a very large, distributed and possibly disconnected collection of libraries and archives around the world? And how can we protect the intellectual property of authors and publishers and detect violations in this new information environment?

More than screen deep: toward every-citizen interfaces to the nation's information infrastructure

For every opportunity presented by the information age, there is an opening to invade the privacy and threaten the security of the nation, U.S. businesses, and citizens in their private lives. The more information that is transmitted in computer-readable form, the more vulnerable we become to automated spying. It's been estimated that some 10 billion words of computer-readable data can be searched for as little as $1. Rival companies can glean proprietary secrets ...anti-U.S. terrorists can research targets ...network hackers can do anything from charging purchases on someone else's credit card to accessing military installations. With patience and persistence, numerous pieces of data can be assembled into a revealing mosaic. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society addresses the urgent need for a strong national policy on cryptography that promotes and encourages the widespread use of this powerful tool for protecting of the information interests of individuals, businesses, and the nation as a whole, while respecting legitimate national needs of law enforcement and intelligence for national security and foreign policy purposes. This book presents a comprehensive examination of cryptography--the representation of messages in code--and its transformation from a national security tool to a key component of the global information superhighway. The committee enlarges the scope of policy options and offers specific conclusions and recommendations for decision makers. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society explores how all of us are affected by information security issues: private companies and businesses; law enforcement and other agencies; people in their private lives. This volume takes a realistic look at what cryptography can and cannot do and how its development has been shaped by the forces of supply and demand. How can a business ensure that employees use encryption to protect proprietary data but not to conceal illegal actions? Is encryption of voice traffic a serious threat to legitimate law enforcement wiretaps? What is the systemic threat to the nation's information infrastructure? These and other thought-provoking questions are explored. Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society provides a detailed review of the Escrowed Encryption Standard (known informally as the Clipper chip proposal), a federal cryptography standard for telephony promulgated in 1994 that raised nationwide controversy over its Big Brother implications. The committee examines the strategy of export control over cryptography: although this tool has been used for years in support of national security, it is increasingly criticized by the vendors who are subject to federal export regulation. The book also examines other less well known but nevertheless critical issues in national cryptography policy such as digital telephony and the interplay between international and national issues. The themes of Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society are illustrated throughout with many examples -- some alarming and all instructive -- from the worlds of government and business as well as the international network of hackers. This book will be of critical importance to everyone concerned about electronic security: policymakers, regulators, attorneys, security officials, law enforcement agents, business leaders, information managers, program developers, privacy advocates, and Internet users.

Are ICT and CO2 emissions always a win-win situation? Evidence from universal telecommunication service in China

This book chapter argues that Canadian academic libraries have largely failed to maximize the opportunity to develop a national information infrastructure. As a result, they operate in an environment where information is often under the control of corporate interests and other nations. For instance, Canadian scholarly communication is affected by American legislation (e.g. The USA PATRTIOT Act) and governmental rulings (e.g. rulings of the Office of Foreign Asset Controls). While some discussion has taken place, there is an overall lack of a national dialogue on how to ameliorate this situation. There is also evidence that access to Canadian digital content within Canada is selective.

A global infrastructure is emerging in the 21ST century in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are becoming more and more pervasive. Dynamic innovation processes continue to give rise to the social and technological capabilities that could release the potential of ICT for development. Products produced in this diverse field have a wide application in society. It is a field that developing countries need to harness and develop considerable technical competence. Governments, businesses and other stakeholders in developing countries need to coordinate their actions in order to amplify the social and economic benefits of ICTs and to reduce the risk of exclusion. This paper presents a perspective of the ICT infrastructure in Zimbabwe. The increasing spread of ICT opens new opportunities for Zimbabwe to harness these technologies and services to serve its development goals. By investing in its national information infrastructures, Zimbabwe can experience the predicted social and economic benefits of a global information infrastructure. The paper gives a detailed coverage of recommendations for the case of Zimbabwe.

There are special considerations which are important when developing and teaching a course on information systems for international business, especially when the course is designed for undergraduates. This chapter demonstrates how to position and organize a global information systems course for undergraduates which will 1) be appropriate to the way undergraduates learn, 2) include the skills they need at this stage in their career and 3) create an affective change in their perspective. The primary approach used to produce these results is to demonstrate the importance of alignment between global strategies, organizational structures, the configuration of IS departmental areas, organizational information infrastructures, and national/organizational culture, as well as, alignment between national concerns, national information infrastructures and national information policy.