http://hdl.handle.net/10468/1124 2017-09-01T09:12:36Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/1121 FuturICT: Participatory computing to understand and manage our complex world in a more sustainable and resilient way Helbing, Dirk; Bishop, Steven; Conte, Rosaria; Lukowicz, Paul; McCarthy, James B. We have built particle accelerators to understand the forces that make up our physical world. Yet, we do not understand the principles underlying our strongly connected, techno-socio-economic systems. We have enabled ubiquitous Internet connectivity and instant, global information access. Yet we do not understand how it impacts our behavior and the evolution of society. To fill the knowledge gaps and keep up with the fast pace at which our world is changing, a Knowledge Accelerator must urgently be created. The financial crisis, international wars, global terror, the spreading of diseases and cyber-crime as well as demographic, technological and environmental change demonstrate that humanity is facing serious challenges. These problems cannot be solved within the traditional paradigms.Moving our attention from a component-oriented view of the world to an interaction-oriented view will allow us to understand the complex systems we have created and the emergent collective phenomena characterising them. This paradigm shift will enable new solutions to long-standing problems, very much as the shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric worldview has facilitated modern physics and the ability to launch satellites.The FuturICT flagship project will develop new science and technology to manage our future in a complex, strongly connected world. For this, it will combine the power of information and communication technology (ICT) with knowledge from the social and complexity sciences.ICT will provide the data to boost the social sciences into a new era. Complexity science will shed new light on the emergent phenomena in socially interactive systems, and the social sciences will provide a better understanding of the opportunities and risks of strongly networked systems, in particular future ICT systems. Hence, the envisaged FuturICT flagship will create new methods and instruments to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.FuturICT could indeed become one of the most important scientific endeavours ever, by revealing the principles that make socially interactive systems work well, by inspiring the creation of new platforms to explore our possible futures, and by initiating an era of social and socio-inspired innovations. 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2912 Cash or non-cash: that is the question - the story of e-payment for social welfare in Ireland part 2 Csáki, Csaba; O'Brien, Leona; Giller, Kieran; Tan, Kay-Ti; McCarthy, James B.; Adam, Frédéric Weerakkody, Vishanth; Ghoneim, Ahmad; Kamal, Muhammad E-Government in its various forms and extensions, notably T-Government, is often presented as the panacea for resolving such complex social problems as social exclusion, lack of governance transparency, poor value for money and other ailments of modern societies. Yet, E-Government has not been adopted up to predicted levels. Many case studies investigating success factors, maturity models, and the application of acceptance models have been presented over the last 15 years, but a deep understanding of the potential impact and consequences of E-Government is still lacking. This is especially true for those initiatives that involve socio-economic and cultural contexts, which makes their evaluation and the prediction of their impact difficult. This paper reports on an on-going E-Government initiative in Ireland aimed at implementing E-payments for G2C, notably in the social welfare area. Three sets of personal surveys have been carried out to understand the perceived impact of governmental plans of moving from an almost fully cash-based payment system to a fully electronic based solution. Early results indicate that perceived pre-requisites for the planned change may be misleading. The impact on recipients’ lives cannot solely be measured in terms of economic gains: the consequences of such implementation may well reach further than expected. 2012-05-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2910 Developing a framework for mobile payments integration Carton, Fergal; Hedman, Jonas; Dennehy, Denis J.; Damsgaard, Jan; Tan, Kay-Ti; McCarthy, James B. This paper derives a theoretical framework for consideration of both the technologically driven dimensions of mobile payment solutions, and the associated value proposition for customers. Banks promote traditional payment instruments whose value proposition is the management of risk for both consumers and merchants. These instruments are centralised, costly and lack decision support functionality. The ubiquity of the mobile phone has provided a decentralised platform for managing payment processes in a new way, but the value proposition for customers has yet to be elaborated clearly. This inertia has stalled the design of sustainable revenue models for a mobile payments ecosystem. Merchants and consumers in the meantime are being seduced by the convenience of on-line and mobile payment solutions. Adopting the purchase and payment process as the unit of analysis, the current mobile payment landscape is reviewed with respect to the creation and consumption of customer value. From this analysis, a framework is derived juxtaposing customer value, related to what is being paid for, with payment integration, related to how payments are being made. The framework provides a theoretical and practical basis for considering the contribution of mobile technologies to the payment industry. The framework is then used to describe the components of a mobile payments pilot project being run on a trial population of 250 students on a campus in Ireland. In this manner, weaknesses in the value proposition for consumers and merchants were highlighted. Limitations of the framework as a research tool are also discussed. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2911 Conflicting expectations in transforming government service processes: the story of e-payment for social welfare in Ireland O'Brien, Leona; Giller, Kieran; Tan, Kay-Ti; McCarthy, James B.; Csáki, Csaba; Adam, Frédéric Ghoneim, Ahmad; Weerakkody, Vishanth; Kamal, Muhammad Despite its clear potential and attractiveness as a solution to a broad range of societal problems, E-Government has not been adopted to levels predicted in early 2000 literature. Whilst case studies of punctual development of E-Government initiatives abound, few countries have progressed to high levels of maturity in the systematic use of ICT in the relationship between government and citizens. At the same time, the current period brings challenges in terms of access to public services and costs of delivering these services which make the large scale use of ICT by governments more attractive than ever, if not even a necessity. This paper presents a detailed case study of a specific E-Government initiative in Ireland in the area of E-payments for G2C, in the social welfare area. Locating the current initiative in its historical context, it analyses the varied motivations and conflicting requirements of the numerous stakeholders and discusses the constraints that bear on the potential scenarios that could be followed at this point in time. 2011-03-01T00:00:00Z