Summary of a Workshop on Information Technology Research for Federal Statistics


Book Description

Part of an in-depth study of how information technology research and development could more effectively support advances in the use of information technology (IT) in government, Summary of a Workshop on Information Technology Research for Federal Statistics explores IT research opportunities of relevance to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of federal statistics. On February 9 and 10, 1999, participants from a number of communitiesâ€"IT research, IT research management, federal statistics, and academic statisticsâ€"met to identify ways to foster interaction among computing and communications researchers, federal managers, and professionals in specific domains that could lead to collaborative research efforts. By establishing research links between these communities and creating collaborative mechanisms aimed at meeting relevant requirements, this workshop promoted thinking in the computing and communications research community and throughout government about possibilities for advances in technology that will support a variety of digital initiatives by the government.




Summary of a Workshop on Information Technology Research for Crisis Management


Book Description

This workshop summary was produced in the course of a broader study that is exploring how information technology research can foster new and improved government services, operations, and interactions with citizens. This workshop summary examines how this technology can contribute to more-effective response and recovery efforts to crises such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, as well as to mitigation and preparedness in order to reduce the impact of these events.




Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government


Book Description

Governments have done much to leverage information technology to deploy e-government services, but much work remains before the vision of e-government can be fully realized. Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-government examines the emerging visions for e-government, the technologies required to implement them, and approaches that can be taken to accelerate innovation and the transition of innovative information technologies from the laboratory to operational government systems. In many cases, government can follow the private sector in designing and implementing IT-based services. But there are a number of areas where government requirements differ from those in the commercial world, and in these areas government will need to act on its role as a "demand leader." Although researchers and government agencies may appear to by unlikely allies in this endeavor, both groups have a shared interest in innovation and meeting future needs. E-government innovation will require addressing a broad array of issues, including organization and policy as well as engineering practice and technology research and development, and each of these issues is considered in the book.




Summary of a Workshop on Information Technology Research for Federal Statistics


Book Description

Part of an in-depth study of how information technology research and development could more effectively support advances in the use of information technology (IT) in government, Summary of a Workshop on Information Technology Research for Federal Statistics explores IT research opportunities of relevance to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of federal statistics. On February 9 and 10, 1999, participants from a number of communities - IT research, IT research management, federal statistics, and academic statistics - met to identify ways to foster interaction among computing and communications researchers, federal managers, and professionals in specific domains that could lead to collaborative research efforts. By establishing research links between these communities and creating collaborative mechanisms aimed at meeting relevant requirements, this workshop promoted thinking in the computing and communications research community and throughout government about possibilities for advances in technology that will support a variety of digital initiatives by the government.




Sharing Clinical Research Data


Book Description

Pharmaceutical companies, academic researchers, and government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health all possess large quantities of clinical research data. If these data were shared more widely within and across sectors, the resulting research advances derived from data pooling and analysis could improve public health, enhance patient safety, and spur drug development. Data sharing can also increase public trust in clinical trials and conclusions derived from them by lending transparency to the clinical research process. Much of this information, however, is never shared. Retention of clinical research data by investigators and within organizations may represent lost opportunities in biomedical research. Despite the potential benefits that could be accrued from pooling and analysis of shared data, barriers to data sharing faced by researchers in industry include concerns about data mining, erroneous secondary analyses of data, and unwarranted litigation, as well as a desire to protect confidential commercial information. Academic partners face significant cultural barriers to sharing data and participating in longer term collaborative efforts that stem from a desire to protect intellectual autonomy and a career advancement system built on priority of publication and citation requirements. Some barriers, like the need to protect patient privacy, pre- sent challenges for both sectors. Looking ahead, there are also a number of technical challenges to be faced in analyzing potentially large and heterogeneous datasets. This public workshop focused on strategies to facilitate sharing of clinical research data in order to advance scientific knowledge and public health. While the workshop focused on sharing of data from preplanned interventional studies of human subjects, models and projects involving sharing of other clinical data types were considered to the extent that they provided lessons learned and best practices. The workshop objectives were to examine the benefits of sharing of clinical research data from all sectors and among these sectors, including, for example: benefits to the research and development enterprise and benefits to the analysis of safety and efficacy. Sharing Clinical Research Data: Workshop Summary identifies barriers and challenges to sharing clinical research data, explores strategies to address these barriers and challenges, including identifying priority actions and "low-hanging fruit" opportunities, and discusses strategies for using these potentially large datasets to facilitate scientific and public health advances.




Report of a Workshop on the Pedagogical Aspects of Computational Thinking


Book Description

In 2008, the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation asked the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct two workshops to explore the nature of computational thinking and its cognitive and educational implications. The first workshop focused on the scope and nature of computational thinking and on articulating what "computational thinking for everyone" might mean. A report of that workshop was released in January 2010. Drawing in part on the proceedings of that workshop, Report of a Workshop of Pedagogical Aspects of Computational Thinking, summarizes the second workshop, which was held February 4-5, 2010, in Washington, D.C., and focuses on pedagogical considerations for computational thinking. This workshop was structured to gather pedagogical inputs and insights from educators who have addressed computational thinking in their work with K-12 teachers and students. It illuminates different approaches to computational thinking and explores lessons learned and best practices. Individuals with a broad range of perspectives contributed to this report. Since the workshop was not intended to result in a consensus regarding the scope and nature of computational thinking, Report of a Workshop of Pedagogical Aspects of Computational Thinking does not contain findings or recommendations.







Improving Business Statistics Through Interagency Data Sharing


Book Description

U.S. business data are used broadly, providing the building blocks for key national-as well as regional and local-statistics measuring aggregate income and output, employment, investment, prices, and productivity. Beyond aggregate statistics, individual- and firm-level data are used for a wide range of microanalyses by academic researchers and by policy makers. In the United States, data collection and production efforts are conducted by a decentralized system of statistical agencies. This apparatus yields an extensive array of data that, particularly when made available in the form of microdata, provides an unparalleled resource for policy analysis and research on social issues and for the production of economic statistics. However, the decentralized nature of the statistical system also creates challenges to efficient data collection, to containment of respondent burden, and to maintaining consistency of terms and units of measurement. It is these challenges that raise to paramount importance the practice of effective data sharing among the statistical agencies. With this as the backdrop, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies to convene a workshop to discuss interagency business data sharing. The workshop was held October 21, 2005. This report is a summary of the discussions of that workshop. The workshop focused on the benefits of data sharing to two groups of stakeholders: the statistical agencies themselves and downstream data users. Presenters were asked to highlight untapped opportunities for productive data sharing that cannot yet be exploited because of regulatory or legislative constraints. The most prominently discussed example was that of tax data needed to reconcile the two primary business lists use by the statistical agencies.




Research and Development Data Needs


Book Description

This report contains the proceedings of a one-day workshop organized by the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP), in conjunction with a study by a panel of the NRC Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT). This combined activity was commissioned by the Science Resources Statistics Division (SRS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to recommend improvements in the Foundation's portfolio of surveys of research and development spending by the federal government, state governments, private industry, the nation's universities and colleges, and other nonprofit institutions.




Big Data Analytics with Applications in Insider Threat Detection


Book Description

Today's malware mutates randomly to avoid detection, but reactively adaptive malware is more intelligent, learning and adapting to new computer defenses on the fly. Using the same algorithms that antivirus software uses to detect viruses, reactively adaptive malware deploys those algorithms to outwit antivirus defenses and to go undetected. This book provides details of the tools, the types of malware the tools will detect, implementation of the tools in a cloud computing framework and the applications for insider threat detection.