Since Hadoop or MapReduce are underlying paradigm, it has fulled many devlopers to work upon them and taste the power of parallel programming without having to be bothered about the meticulous steps of managing the process invloved in parallelization.  Thanks to Hadoop, companies are inclining to use smallers PCs, making clusters of them and using their speed collectively. This has huge implication over cost, and Hadoop's success is reflected in users http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/PoweredBy.

A popular application built on Hadoop is Nutch. Nutch is a search engine which was rewritten to incorporate Hadoop. A simple introduction of Nutch can be reached in http://wiki.apache.org/nutch/Nutch_-_The_Java_Search_Engine.

A very easy guide to install Nutch.

Nutch gives the power to search, not just the Internet, but your documents, music, movies... Nutch can be customized to enable searching your whole network in seconds, just like the Yahoo or Google does. Simple Search performed by the windows in our PCs or Macs need to search whole area specified for search (each file, folder, hardisk, computer). But since Nutch utilizes index based searching, only thing you needs to do is to query index to find where documents are and your results come forth in seconds (it's is another thing how to build index, though. But Nutch makes it also  is very easy.)

1. Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Indonesia (FEUI)

Beberapa poin plusnya, metode pembelajaran dilaksanakan dengan:

• Pembahasan latihan soal selama 2 jam setiap sesi. Metode ini memberi kesempatan kepada peserta untuk langsung mempelajari pola dan bentuk latihan soal yang relevan dengan bimbingan langsung oleh pengajar.
• Pre-test di awal pelatihan dan try out di akhir pelatihan. Hasil pre test dan try out dijadikan perbandingan sebagai indikator kesiapan peserta untuk menghadapi ujian CIA yang sesungguhnya.
• Jumlah jam pelatihan mencapai 104 jam, sehingga peserta diharapkan sangat siap menghadapi ujian CIA.

Pengajar CIA Preparation Course FEUI - IIA adalah para ahli, praktisi, akademisi dan pakar dalam bidangnya, antara lain:

• Isnaeni Achdiat, CIA, CISA
• Aidirsyah, CIA, BAP
• Anang Basuki, CIA
• Iman Shofi, CIA
• Candra Kesuma, CIA
• Dedy Koesmana, CIA
• Humbul Kristiawan, CIA
• Agustinus Tobing, MM, CIA
• Dr. Dwi Martani
• Suwandi T., CIA
• Phill Leifermann, CISA, CIA
• Rikki S. Dewangga, Ak., CISA

Keunggulan kursus CIA di FEUI:

• Setiap peserta pelatihan mendapatkan modul, handouts, problem set, dan training kit
• Lokasi pelatihan yang strategis di Kampus FEUI Salemba serta ruangan pelatihan yang nyaman
• Peserta mendapatkan makan siang dan dua kali coffee breakBagi peserta CIA yang ikut ujian CIA, gratis biaya keanggotaan IIA Chapter Indonesia. Keanggotaan ini bermanfaat untuk mendapatkan informasi mengenai program pendidikan profesi berkelanjutan bagi para pemegang gelar CIA dan diskon menarik untuk ujian CIA

Per tanggal posting artikel ini, biaya kursusnya Rp 6.150.000, mencakup 12 kali pertemuan. Waktu pelatihannya setiap Sabtu jam 8.30-17.00 di Kampus FEUI Salemba, Jakarta.

Lebih lanjut bisa ke websitenya atau download aja infonya.

2. Universitas Bina Nusantara

Poin plusnya:

• Akses konsultasi langsung dengan instruktur pemegang gelar CIA
• Sertifikat pelatihan yang ekuivalen dengan 124 CPE (Continuing Professional Education) hours
• Pengajaran dilaksanakan secara intensif dengan jumlah peserta pelatihan yang efektif
• Akses penuh ke fasilitas Binus, termasuk diskon untuk mengikuti pelatihan selanjutnya
• Jadwal pelatihan di luar jam kerja (after-hours)
• Fleksibilitas untuk mengikuti masing-masing sesi pelatihan secara terpisah, atau keseluruhan

Daftar pengajarnya:

• Agus Murdiyatno, CIA, CISA
• Albertus Giartono, CIA
• Alexander Zulkarnain,CIA
• Anang Yudiansyah, CIA
• Antonius Pramana Gunadi, CIA
• Bimantara Widyajala, CIA
• Budi Sumartoyo, CIA, CISA
• Budi TE Tatawijaya, CIA
• Dedy Koesmana, CIA
• Ernest Alto, CIA
• Humbul Kristiawan, CIA
• Ika Bethari, CIA
• Isnaeni Achdiat, CIA, CISA
• Nareswari Wijayaningrum, CIA
• Nengah Rama Gautama, CIA
• Phil Leifermann, CIA, CISA, CPA
• Robert Goni, CIA
• Ronald Tanurahardja, CISA
• Rony Kustendro, CISA
• Satya Rinaldi, CISA
• Scenaider C. H. Siahaan, CIA
• Sonia Salem, CIA, CISA, CPA
• Suwandi Tjia, CIA
• Tato Tunggal, CIA

Berapa biayanya? Seperti udah disinggung tadi, kursus CIA di Binus bisa fleksibel kalo ambil paket lengkap (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, plus latihan ujian 'mock-up exams' untuk 4 parts) biayanya Rp 5.500.000. Sedangkan kalo ngambil satuan per-part biaya kursusnya Rp 1.500.000 dan biaya latihan ujiannya per-part Rp 250.000. O ya, ada diskon 15% buat 'binusian'.

Lengkapnya di sini.

3. Yayasan Pendidikan Internal Audit

Poin plusnya:

• CIA Review Course membahas pula teknik pendekatan dalam memahami dan menjawab pertanyaan, strategi persiapan ujian serta masalah-masalah psikologi, kesehatan dan logistik.
• Review juga mencakup pre-test untuk setiap studi unit dan Mock Exam pada hari terakhir review.
• Semua instruktur telah mendapat master (sebagian doktor) dari universitas ternama di luar negeri.

Course akan diselenggarakan selama 14 hari kerja kerja dimulai dari pukul 08.30 - 16.30, kecuali hari Jum’at pukul 08.00 - 17.00. Biayanya Rp 6.000.000.

Lengkapnya bisa dilihat di sini, download info detailnya di sini.

• You have a million jobs to run.
• You submit them to a system of thousands of CPUs.
• Half of them complete, and half of them fail.

Now what do you do? It's hopeless to debug any single failure, because you don't know if it represents the most important case. It's a thankless job to dig through all of the log files of the system to see where things went wrong. You might try re-submitting all of the jobs, but chances are that half of those will fail, and you will just be wasting more time and resources pushing them to the finish.

Typically, these sorts of errors come arise from an incompatibility of one kind or another. The many versions of Linux present the most outrageous examples. Perhaps your job assumes that the program wget can be found on any old Linux machine. Oops! Perhaps your program is dynamically linked against SSL version 2.3.6.5.8.2.1, but some machines only have version 2.3.6.5.8.1.9. Oops! Perhaps your program crashes on a machine with more than 2GB of physical memory, because it performs improper pointer arithmetic. Oops!

So, to address this problem, David has constructed a nice tool that reads in some log files, and then diagnoses the properties of machines or jobs associated with failures, using techniques from the field of data mining. (We implemented this on log files from Condor, but you could apply the principle to any similar system.) Of course, the tool cannot diagnose the root cause, but it can help to narrow down the source of the problem.

For example, consider the user running several thousand jobs on our 700 CPU Condor pool. Jobs tended to fail within minutes on certain set of eleven machines. Of course, as soon as those jobs failed, the machines were free to run more jobs, which promptly failed. By applying GASP, we discovered a common property among those machines:

(TotalVirtualMemory < 1048576) 

They only had one gigabyte of virtual memory! (Note: The units are KB.) Whenever a program would consume more than that, it was promptly killed by the operating system. This was simply a mistake made in configuration -- our admins fixed the setting, and the problem went away.

Here's another problem we found on the Wisconsin portion of the Open Science Grid. Processing the log data from 100,000 jobs submitted in 2007, we found that most failures were associated with this property:

(FilesystemDomain="hep.wisc.edu")

It turns out that a large number of users submitted jobs assuming that the filesystem they needed would be mounted on all nodes of the grid. Not so! Since this was an historical analysis, we could not repair the system, but it did give us a rapid understanding of an important usability aspect of the system.

If you want to try this out yourself, you can visit our web page for the software.

Yep. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Skiffy Tube drops even lower in their SF Purity Rating.  Any takers on when the SFPR will drop under 20%?

Yawn. I fell asleep during answers to the second debate question last night. I thought the whole 'town hall' format was a waste of space. What ever happened to direct face-to-face debating? 

"We flipped a coin to see who gets to insult whom to their faces first. We also selected two questions for tonight's debate because we know that in this free-form format, we're unlikely to get through more than one.

Senator, you won the toss. Please explain to your rival why you would make the best President and he would make the worst President. You may also use some of your (unscripted) time to explain why the opposition's running mate is a doo-doo head."

I think every politician out there is running scared from a 'sweating on TV' episode, which is why we no longer have real political debates.

***

BoingBoing runs a 'see, we told ya so' piece about the failure of datamining to accomplish its desired goals for Minority Reportesque style of snooping. 

But I think it's a sham, a put up, misdirection of the best kind: if your spy program works and everyone is watching it, the only way you can simultaneously reduce monitoring by commie-pinko-liberals-who-DO-have-something-to-hide-otherwise-why-would-they-care-? types and quell concerns is to discredit it yourself:

'Oh, that old thing we wasted several billions on?  Never worked, totally useless.  BTW - what was your social security number again?'

***

From the 'Get Off My Lawn You Snot-Dribbling Flat-Headed Cretins' department:

Also from BoingBoing, a report on the Esozone Festival, described by one attendee as:

Noah Mickens, who will take part in the festivities, defines it this way: "Esozone is an exhibition of scientists, philosophers, magicians and performance artists, gathered together by a subculture of young radicals who don't recognize the distinction between the four."

Don't recognize the distinction between scientists and magicians?  Philosophers and performance artists?

Here, allow me to demonstrate. I'm going to do a magic trick that will make it appear as if I just kicked you in the testicals.  Don't cringe, it won't hurt. There. Done.  Looked pretty real, huh? Feel anything?  No, of course you didn't.

Now, on the other hand, here's a physics demonstration that illustrates the transfer of energy in a most compelling manner - one swift kick to the nuts. Thwunk!  Feel anything?

No difference between them...

***

Via SF Brewed Fresh Daily to SFSignal to Me, this piece on pulp art - something I know a little bit about.  (Excellent images of some SF pulp covers and interiors).

***

Last, but not least, the Space Writer goes political, an event as rare as certain super novas.

OMG! 3 Million on an planetarium overhead projector:

 OMG - how much did we waste on this autonomous off road vehicle toy car?

We spent how much on a weightless environment human waste processing system toilet?

You took how much in contributions bribes from Keating?

***

Ok, so the previous bit wasn't the last one.  Sue me. 

from the 'Not Nearly As Frustrated Today' vault:

The PayPal foobar is (almost) resolved.  Mentioning this will remaind me to re-visit the issue of internet security issues versus real security.

The (other) website issues are (finally) working themselves out, just in time to be completely fixed (I hope) for the upcoming weekend)

I finished my story; one final go-thru with the pen and paper, perhaps a couple of small re-writes and then off it goes to Ray Gun Revival.

The frustration meter has dropped from red-flecked orange to a warm shade of yellow.

None of the analysis conducted produced any evidence that prison sentences reduce recidivism. Indeed, combining the data from the more vs. less and incarceration vs. community groupings resulted in 4% (f) and 2% (z±) increases in recidivism.

In addition, the results provided no support for three other hypotheses. The prediction that recidivism rates correlate with sentence length in a U-shaped fashion was not supported. The view that only lower risk offenders would be deterred by prison sentences was also not confirmed. The lower risk group who spent more time in prison had higher recidivism rates.

The Gendreau, Goggin and Cullen paper is online here. It doesn't tally with the findings of the study discussed by Ayre (which found no difference).

The one I'm interested in looking at had an intriguing method for working out the effect of harsh sentencing. They assumed that longer sentences would be given to the 'worst' offenders and that therefore simply comparing recidivism rates of longer-term against shorter-term prisoners would be hamstrung by this. Instead, they compared recidivism rates of persons convicted by hanging judges with those convicted by bleeding hearts. They found that longer sentences were not associated with an increased likelihood of reoffending due to their [relatively] long incarceration (so no 'hardening of criminals' effect was seen), but that, equally, longer sentences were not associated with a reduction in rates of recidivism. According to this study, then: length of sentence has no particular effect in terms of reducing rates reoffending nor in terms of 'hardening' criminals.

The study referred to by Ayre was conducted by Joel Waldfogel. A similar study appears here, written by Danton Asher Berube and Donald P. Green. The authors "find little evidence that incarceration reduces the probability of recidivism, as would be expected based on specific deterrence and incapacitation hypotheses".

I have been interested while reading Super Cruncher to see just what people will test. Another point of interest in the same chapter of this book that deals with sentencing and recidivism is a note that Senator Moynihan introduced a change in the law that meant states could experiment with new ideas only if they had a control group. Brilliant - a politician introducing a regulation that only allows trials when they have a control group. I can't imagine anyone from Durham County Council coming up with an idea like that.

Incidentally, the message I took from these studies on longer sentencing was that it seems to be useless in terms of prevention of crimes on release. There are other reasons to lock people up for longer - affording society a longer period of peace (if a menace to society is locked up for 10 years rather than five, I guess the public are protected from them for a longer period of time) or for reasons of punishment. The Canadian study I linked to earlier includes this in the discussion: "the primary justification for use of prisons is incapacitation and retribution, both of which come with a "price", if prisons are used injudiciously". If anyone has any contradictory evidence or (even better) a systematic review of studies into recidivism and length of sentence then please feel free to leave a comment linking to it.

Edit: from the book, re the rationale for choosing to look at hanging judges versus bleeding hearts - "Ten-year inmates might have a higher recidivism rate - not because prison hardened them, but because they were worse guys to begin with. Waldfogel's randomisation insight provided a way around this problem. Why not look at the recidivism rates of criminals sentenced by different judges? Since the judges see the same types of criminals, differences in the judges' recidivism rates must be attributable to disparities in the judges' sentencing". Berube and Green also get a mention and a study by Jeff Kling is referred to. Kling found that post-release earnings of people sentenced by hanging judges were "not statistically different from those sentenced by the judicial bleeding hearts" (a convict's earnings after prison are, apparently, a strong indicator of recidivism). This study is available as a pdf here. There's some abstracts of Waldfogel's papers here: Index.

Comments, corrections and criticism are welcome as always. In fact, if anyone prefers links to open in the same window then tell me now. I'm never sure which is better - same window or new window?

Korupsi adalah:
1. perbuatan melawan hukum
2. dengan maksud memperkaya diri sendiri atau orang lain
3. 'dapat' merugikan keuangan atau perekonomian negara

'Secara melawan hukum' artinya suatu perbuatan dapat dipidana, jika:
1. ada aturannya dalam Undang-undang (hukum formil), atau
2. tidak sesuai dengan rasa keadilan atau norma kehidupan masyarakat (hukum materiil).

Kata 'dapat' merugikan keuangan atau perekonomian negara artinya:
tindak pidana korupsi dianggap ada tidak hanya ketika kerugian negara telah terjadi, tapi juga ketika unsur-unsur perbuatan korupsi telah terpenuhi.

O ya, 'jo' dalam judul tulisan ini adalah istilah hukum yang berarti 'sebagaimana telah diubah oleh'.

The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion: It doesn't really work.

A National Research Council report, years in the making and scheduled to be released Tuesday, concludes that automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts." Inevitable false positives will result in "ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly flagged as suspects.

The whopping 352-page report, called "Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists," amounts to at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department's controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003.

* U.S. government agencies should be required to follow a systematic process to evaluate the effectiveness, lawfulness, and consistency with U.S. values of every information-based program, whether classified or unclassified, for detecting and countering terrorists before it can be deployed, and periodically thereafter.

* Periodically after a program has been operationally deployed, and in particular before a program enters a new phase in its life cycle, policy makers should (carefully review) the program before allowing it to continue operations or to proceed to the next phase.

* To protect the privacy of innocent people, the research and development of any information-based counterterrorism program should be conducted with synthetic population data... At all stages of a phased deployment, data about individuals should be rigorously subjected to the full safeguards of the framework.

* Any information-based counterterrorism program of the U.S. government should be subjected to robust, independent oversight of the operations of that program, a part of which would entail a practice of using the same data mining technologies to "mine the miners and track the trackers."

* Counterterrorism programs should provide meaningful redress to any individuals inappropriately harmed by their operation.

* The U.S. government should periodically review the nation's laws, policies, and procedures that protect individuals' private information for relevance and effectiveness in light of changing technologies and circumstances. In particular, Congress should re-examine existing law to consider how privacy should be protected in the context of information-based programs (e.g., data mining) for counterterrorism.  >>>>>

Dan Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. I recently talked with him about some hidden forces shaping the current financial crisis.

Mac Greer: You have a lot of Americans seeing this as a Wall Street crisis and not so much as a "Main Street" crisis. What do you think it will take for most Americans to reach some sort of a consensus that this crisis really requires immediate action?

Dan Ariely: Well, one thing is we have been telling a lot of people for a long time that whatever they have in the stock market is about long-term strategy and not any short-term things. So the current change in speak, in some sense, doesn't seem to be very effective. We have been telling people for 20 years the money you have in the stock market is about retirement, it is not about anything urgent. Don't look at it. It is all about long-term strategy. It is very hard to convince people that all of a sudden that it is short term. That is one thing.

The second thing is that nothing has changed much in the short term living of people. In some sense, this is smaller than the effect of the increasing gas prices.

Greer: Yeah.

Ariely: What is happening? Basically the thing is we are creatures of habit, if you think about it. The best predictor of what we will do tomorrow is what we did today. That is it. Habits are good and bad. They are good because they help us save energy. We don't have to think about it. We don't have to contemplate every cup of coffee if it is worth it or not. As a consequence, we get into habits.

Read the full post from Motley Fool.

Tone at the Top
1. Kebijakan dan dukungan dari CEO, direksi dan senior management.
2. Secara konsisten mengkomunikasikan kebijakan dan dukungan atas program anti korupsi.
3. Mengintegrasikan program anti korupsi ke dalam struktur organisasi dan proses pengambilan keputusan.
4. Membuat 'whistleblower hotlines, employee help lines dan topical guidance'. Gunanya untuk menerima laporan tentang korupsi dan memberikan panduan atas dilema yang dihadapi karyawan apakah perbuatannya termasuk korupsi atau tidak.
5. Laporan secara berkala tentang program anti korupsi kepada CEO dan direksi.

Risk Assessment
1. Menyusun tim dari berbagai bidang (keuangan, internal audit, hukum, operasional) dalam menyusun evaluasi resiko atau 'risk assessment'. Tujuannya supaya evaluasinya lebih efektif, komprehensif, dan 'down to earth'/implementatif.
2. Mengidentifikasi bagaimana saja pola korupsi yang mungkin terjadi dalam suatu proses bisnis.
3. Mengidentifikasi kecenderungan dan dampak dari pola-pola korupsi yang mungkin terjadi.
4. Melakukan evaluasi kemungkinan adanya insentif, tekanan, peluang dan perilaku yang mendorong terjadinya korupsi (lihat tulisan tentang 'the fraud triangles').
5. Dari hasil evaluasi resiko korupsi, kemudian disusun apa saja resiko korupsi yang perlu diprioritaskan penanganannya.

Programme Design and Control Activities
1. Membuat desain program dan kontrol untuk meminimalisir resiko korupsi dari hasil 'risk assessment'.
2. Beberapa isu yang perlu dipertimbangkan : facilitation payments, gifts, hospitality, entertainment, political and charitable contributions, acquisition due diligence, joint ventures, record keeping requirements, investigation and sanction procedures.
3. Menyesuaikan kontrol yang akan dibuat dengan situasi dan kondisi lokal sebuah organisasi.

Monitoring
1. Merancang sistem pengawasan dan audit atas resiko-resiko korupsi dan indikator terjadinya korupsi 'red flags'.
2. Mengevaluasi program anti korupsi secara berkala melalui internal audit.
3. Melakukan survey apakah seluruh karyawan memahami kebijakan anti korupsi yang ada di perusahaan.
4. Melakukan penyesuaian dalam desain program anti korupsi sesuai dengan hasil pengawasan/evaluasi program anti korupsi.

Response and remediation
1. Menyusun proses untuk mengajukan, melacak, menyelesaikan, dan mendokumentasikan 'allegation' atau dugaan korupsi.
2. Mengidentifikasi dan memperbaiki kelemahan kontrol yang menyebabkan korupsi dapat terjadi.
3. Mengenakan sanksi atas setiap tindakan korupsi secara konsisten.

Diambil dari sini.

Today NASA's space probe MESSENGER made a flyby of the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury.  The probe, whose name is both an acronym for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging and a reference to Mercury's role as the messenger of the Roman gods, took photographs of previously unseen areas of the planet's surface and numerous other readings that scientists are now eagerly studying.  This is the second of three flybys of Mercury, each of them serves to slow down the spacecraft to the point that it can enter orbit in 2011; it also got such gravity assists from Venus and from the Earth itself.  Somewhat counter intuitively to a layman, going to Mercury is a lot harder than going to Mars, due to the very large change in velocity needed to enter orbit (or land on the planet, which no spacecraft has ever done and which is not part of MESSENGER's mission).  For more information on the mission, including many more photos, check out their official site.

The Economist has an excellent series of articles covering all aspects of the American presidential election. They also have a non-scientific online poll of their readers to see who would win the election if the electoral college were global and each country allocated its electors on a winner-take-all basis. Currently, Barack Obama is ahead 8375--15. McCain is ahead only in Georgia (the country, not the state), Macedonia, and Andorra. He is probably glad that this is just a poll of Economist.com visitors and not a real poll of public opinion in those countries, but, given that he'd probably still lose a worldwide popularity contest, he is probably very glad that this has no constitutional standing.

Speaking of the Economist, they have a thought-provoking article on "Data mining and the state."  It discusses how all the information that the government collects about us and processes can be used both to increase security and safety and to decrease our privacy and liberties.  They discuss the future of such data mining and don't pretend to offer clear answers as to when and how such technology should be used.

And speaking of the presidential race, linguists have analyzed the candidates' remarks at the vice presidential debate (which I blogged about at some length here). They found that Palin spoke at the level of a 9.5th grader and Biden at that of a 7.8th grader. Palin, who spoke 5235 words, used the passive voice in 8% of her sentences; Biden spoke 5492 words and used the passive voice only 5% of the time. They both averaged 4.4 letters per word and were statistically tied on the length of their paragraphs; Biden's averaged 2.7 sentences and Palin's each had about 2.6 sentences. In his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln spoke at an 11th grade level, they report---quite interesting, when you consider how much less education people had back then---though the level on which a person speaks doesn't necessarily make what they say any better or clearer.

In wackier news, Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's company that will take paying customers into space, has rejected an offer of $1 million to use their spacecraft for filming two people having sex in space. "That was money we had to refuse, I'm afraid," said company president Will Whitehorn (which, now that I've written it, sounds kind of like a male porn star's name). If not for the fact that the company making the offer was unidentified, I would say that this was simply a publicity stunt. Virgin Galactic will probably begin flights in 2009 or 2010 and their spacecraft will carry six passengers in addition to two pilots. Tickets will cost $200,000. Even assuming that the $1 million was in addition to the $1.2 million that Virgin Galactic would pull in on a full flight it wouldn't be worth the likely bad publicity that they would get. Besides, I'm sure a porn company could make much more than $1 million if they were the first to release a porn film of people having sex in zero gravity. Wait... maybe this is a publicity stunt, for Virgin Galactic. If so, it's worked: I'm blogging about it.

The Russian Supreme Court has declared that Tsar Nicholas II and his family were killed illegally and are entitled to rehabilitation by the state. This involves formally exonerating them and declaring them victims of communist repression; over four million Russians have been rehabilitated since the collapse of the Soviet Union; The Tsar's descendants have been trying for years to have him exonerated and were surprised at the ruling. Hopefully this will help Russia's process of coming to terms with its past. However, I somehow don't think that knowing he would be declared a victim of communist repression 90 years later would have been much comfort to Nicholas as he and his family were gunned down and bayoneted.

A Negative Reinforcer is a stimulus or stimulus set that when removed or terminated increases the probability of that same response in the future.

Richard Fuld claims that ‘we’ made him and the others like him that have tetra dollar salaries and Mega stock and bonuses with parachutes the size of which could fund small nations… Well, he may be right. The contingencies that came together were those things that favored him doing what he did.

We did it or at least reinforced it when it happened. We got them there and we gave them the keys to the kingdom and told them all that we wanted order and profit – if not in that order, we still wanted it. Those that could claim [reliably] to be able to bring it were vetted, signed and installed.

Ugly isn’t it. Guess what…??? Fuld and those like him were the instruments of the body that didn’t want to face the clients, other boards, other nations, regulators and the zealots of legislature on the right, down the middle and the left. Fuld said he’d do it if they, the boards of directors, paid him. They did and he did.

Competition says what the compensation will be. In effect he responded. “You want more, pay me more. You want your assets and reserves and exchanges managed? Get a manager! I bring it to new levels by risking my reputation for the good of the investors and clients. Anything short of that you can get someone from GE to sit at the desk…”

That is what the board wanted to hear…

Now he is doing his job to escape aversive stimuli [career ending sanctions, indictments, loss of pensions, bonuses, and parachutes] which is reinforcing to him and his companies... it is as reinforcing to him as it is to you and I only his scale of success makes it seem more gluttonous. Perhaps you nick the IRS a bit, use the corporate cards for discretionary spending, turn in to corporate gas mileage for the trip to see sick Aunt Gert? Same difference…

We hail those who beat the system [– ironically, we’re the system]. Of course he is going to explain the run around that favors his position, just as we explain our positions favorably when it of value to us to do so…

Reinforcement is just one behavioral property that helps explain what is going on. It even explains the behavior of those tinkering to prevent it from happening again as they figure out how to restructure the economy to get our hats out of our butts.

Don’t think that it is possible to use negative reinforcement this way? Whattabet?

Those that consider this or that to be a result of single causes should bite your tongue and go take a “time out” while you consider how contingencies work; antecedents events, current state, shaped past consequences for similar behavior…

Consider this mornings Google News events from today.

FIND THE ARTICLE THAT IS NOT CONTROLLED BY CONSEQUENCES

10/6/08 Auto-generated 10 minutes ago

German Stocks Fall to Lowest Since 2006; Hypo Real Estate Drops
Bloomberg - 2 hours ago
By Michael Patterson Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- German stocks fell the most in eight months, sending the DAX Index to the lowest since July 2006, as the deepening credit crunch forced the country's financial industry to double a credit line for Hypo Real ...

Barack Obama accuses Republicans of distracting voters from the ...
Los Angeles Times - 2 hours ago
‘TURN THE PAGE’: Obama in Asheville. His poll ratings have risen recently, even in red states such as North Carolina. John McCain wants to 'distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance,' the Democrat says in Asheville, NC, ...

Northern California bus crash leaves 10 dead
The Associated Press - 48 minutes ago
WILLIAMS, Calif. (AP) - A casino-bound charter bus flipped over about 10 miles from its destination, ejecting passengers and crushing others as it rolled into a ditch.

UPDATE 1-RESEARCH ALERT-FBR raises Wells Fargo price target
Reuters - 46 minutes ago
Oct 6 (Reuters) - Friedman Billings Ramsey raised its price target on the stock of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the fifth-largest US bank, by $5 to $25, saying the proposed merger with Wachovia Corp (WB.

ImClone Announces Merger Agreement with Eli Lilly at $70 Per Share
MarketWatch - 48 minutes ago
, , ) , pursuant to which Lilly has agreed to commence a tender offer for no less than a majority of the issued and outstanding shares of ImClone common stock at a net price per share of $70 in cash.

European countries ramp up deposit protection
Washington Post - 39 minutes ago
By MATT MOORE AP STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Nordic countries Denmark and Sweden moved Monday to bolster protection of bank accounts as stock exchanges across Europe opened lower and central banks pumped more money to cash-starved banks.

Sony Expands E-book Reader Range
PC World - 9 hours ago
Sony is introducing a second electronic book reader to its range in the US that comes with upgraded hardware and will go on sale in November.

IBM Expands Cloud Computing Offerings
CRN - 1 hour ago
By Rick Whiting, ChannelWeb IBM expanded its cloud computing efforts Monday, debuting new on-demand services for ISVs and customers the company said would make it easier for businesses to adopt cloud computing practices for improving collaboration, ...

Facebook co-founder Moskovitz leaves to start group collaboration ...
VentureBeat - 5 hours ago
Facebook co-foudner Dustin Moskovitz (left) and colleague Justin Rosenstein (right) said this weekend they are leaving Facebook to start their own company.

McCain, Obama campaigns trade barbs
The Associated Press - 38 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials with the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama are trading fresh accusations of mudslinging a month before voters choose George Bush's successor.

Under Financial Restraints, McCain Drops Michigan
ABC News - 1 hour ago
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN The electoral map shrank for John McCain Thursday as he abandoned his campaign in Michigan, raising the stakes in other battleground states such as Ohio.

‘SNL’ Keeps It Political
New York Times - 7 hours ago
Once again, “Saturday Night Live” led off the weekend’s show with Tina Fey, above, the Emmy Award-winning creator of “30 Rock,” as the Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska.

'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' tops weekend box office
Los Angeles Times - 4 hours ago
A nation of Chihuahua dogs living in the Lost City of Techichi. in the movie "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." The Disney film does better than expected, grossing $29 million and knocking 'Eagle Eye' into second place.

OJ Simpson jury: Tapes did football legend in
New York Daily News - 5 hours ago
BY NANCY DILLON Jurors, including Dora Pettit (with mike), say they set aside personal feelings and based guilty OJ Simpson conviction on facts.

Yes, it is sort of a trick question but it explains all you are seeing in Washington, DC, Wall Street and Main Street...

1. Risk Analysis
Desain kebijakan anti korupsi harus diawali dengan melakukan analisa apa saja pola korupsi yang mungkin terjadi. Kemudian ditindaklanjuti dengan desain progam anti korupsi yang sejalan dengan analisa tersebut.

2. Implementasi
Melakukan sosialisasi kebijakan anti korupsi, pelatihan anti korupsi, dan evaluasi proses bisnis untuk menghindari korupsi.

3. Sanksi
Harus ada sosialisasi kepada seluruh karyawan mengenai sanksi atas korupsi. Sanksi itu dapat berupa pengurangan kompensasi, tidak naik jabatan, atau bahkan pemecatan dan/atau proses hukum.

4. Help lines
Membuat sambungan telepon anonim dimana karyawan dapat mendapatkan saran atas situasi2 yang berpotensi menimbulkan dilema etik (misalnya apakah suatu hadiah yang diterima dari supplier termasuk korupsi atau tidak, dll.)

5. Monitoring
Melakukan evaluasi program anti korupsi secara berkala dan mengambil langkah perbaikan secara terus menerus.

Oleh Jermyn Brooks, diambil dari sini.

Manajemen Resiko Fraud dalam Bisnis

Sebelumnya sudah ditulis dikit di sini. Judul aslinya 'Managing the Business Risk of Fraud : A Practical Guide'. Paper ini disponsori oleh AICPA, IIA, dan ACFE, 3 asosiasi profesi yang leading dalam bidang Accounting, Internal Auditing, dan Fraud.

Dalam definisi paper ini, fraud adalah suatu tindakan yang disengaja (untuk berbuat atau tidak berbuat) bertujuan untuk menipu orang lain. Fraud menyebabkan kerugian bagi orang lain dan pelakunya mendapatkan keuntungan.

Akibat fraud atau korupsi:
1. Bangkrutnya perusahaan
2. Kerugian investasi
3. Biaya penyelesaian hukum
4. Pelakunya dimasukkan tahanan
5. Turunnya kepercayaan terutama di pasar saham
6. Hancurnya brand (merek) perusahaan

Beberapa regulasi atau peraturan terkait dengan fraud misalnya:
1. U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act atau FCPA (1997)
2. Oganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Anti-Bribery Convention (1997)
3. The U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002)
4. The U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines (2005)

Banyaknya skandal korporasi (corporate scandals) membuat publik dan stakeholders menyuarakan tidak adanya toleransi terhadap fraud (no fraud tolerance).

Menurut prinsip tata kelola yang baik (Good Corporate Governance), jajaran direksi (board of directors) bertanggung jawab untuk menjalankan organisasinya dengan penuh tanggung jawab dan etika.

The Committe of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway's Commission (COSO's) di tahun 1999 menganalisa kasus fraud dalam laporan keuangan yang diinvestigasi oleh U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). COSO's menemukan bahwa:

Direksi mempunyai peranan penting dalam manajemen resiko fraud karena mayoritas fraud ternyata dilakukan oleh senior management (seperti CEO, CFO, atau yang selevel) yang berkolusi dengan pegawai lainnya.

Menurut Oversights Systems Report on Corporate Fraud (2007), alasan utama yang menyebabkan terjadinya fraud adalah:
1. Adanya tekanan untuk memenuhi kebutuhan (81%)
2. Untuk mendapatkan keuntungan (72%)
3. Tidak menganggap apa yang dilakukannya adalah termasuk fraud (40%)

Beberapa prinsip utama dalam manajemen resiko fraud yaitu:
1. Perusahaan harus memiliki manajemen resiko fraud (fraud risk management).
2. Perusahaan harus mengevaluasi resiko fraud secara periodik untuk mengidentifikasi apa saja potensi fraud dan apa yang harus dilakukan untuk mengantisipasinya.
3. Perusahaan menerapkan teknik pencegahan fraud atas potensi resiko fraud no. (2) di atas.
4. Menerapkan teknik deteksi fraud untuk mengidentifikasi terjadinya fraud sejak dini.
5. Membuat sistem pelaporan fraud dan melakukan tindak lanjut/investigasi atas fraud yang terjadi.

(Cliquer ici pour accéder au site et télécharger le logiciel)

During this tumultuous 2008 election year here in the States one hears the cry, "Drill, baby, drill!" with increasing frequency. And while this cry is about drilling for oil, there is another type of drilling that is changing everything from how elections are run to how soap is marketed. Let's call it digital drilling.

In the article entitled, "It Worked For Bush", the story is told of how traditional campaigning was turned upside down by what might be called database marketing...but that term seems inadequately quaint within this context. It's more than database marketing, it is more accurately digital drilling because it drills down from a huge data cloud right to your doorstep.

"The pollsters also looked in the wrong places. On election day, every exit poll showed a clear Kerry lead. Yet the polls were wrong, because they were wrong in the weightings they gave to different socioeconomic groups and in the assumptions they made about who would turn out to vote. The Bush team had, in effect, destroyed all the methodology on which polling and electoral analysis had been based for the past 50 years."

Let's take a look at how this was done,
STAGE ONE:
The ability to digitally store and archive massive amounts of raw data.
STAGE TWO:
The growth in the quantity and quality of multi-sourced consumer information.
STAGE THREE:
The ability to link multiple data islands.
STAGE FOUR:
The analytical power to search and discover new, meaningful patterns and relationships of strategic and tactical value.

This begs the question who did this and how did they do it? TargetPoint Consulting was the company that did this work for the Bush campaign and they describe how, what they call MicroTargeting, completely changes the game:

Why Now?
"In a word: technology. Campaigns have always collected data on their voters, and there have always been mounds of census data, polling crosstabs and voter registration files. Unfortunately, that data was in most cases wholly insufficient to get the job done, or too large and complex for anything more than rough approximations, oversimplified target lists, and statistically insignificant intuition. Technological developments have brought desperately needed depth and clarity to our formerly flat and hazy perception of individual voters.

By using hundreds of data points, comprised of voter information, life cycle information, life style information, financial data, consumer behavior, geographic data, and political attitudes and preferences, MicroTargeting can be used to segment each of your voters into one of a number of mutually exclusive groups, each defined by a unique combination of a host of data points."

Irrespective of your political inclinations, the issue of digital drilling is an interesting one. And if you are a marketer, the interest is more than a passing one because in a post-broadcast world there is a difference between shouting to a group and speaking intimately with an individual. And motivating them to action.

Digital drilling may help you do that.

Data mining (also known as pattern recognition) is an anti-terrorist intelligence strategy. Data mining means bringing together different kinds of databases, linking them, and trying to identify suspicious patterns of individual behavior. The purpose is to prevent terrorist attacks. Suspicious behavior may indicate that such an attack is imminent, and data mining has been defended as the most important prevention tool.

If a Muslim chemistry graduate takes an ill-paid job at a farm-supplies store what does it signify? Is he just earning extra cash, or getting closer to a supply of potassium nitrate (used in fertilizer and explosives)? What if apparent strangers with Arabic names have wired him money? What if he has taken air flights with one of those men, with separate reservations and different seats, paid in cash? What if his credit-card records show purchases of gadgets such as timing devices? (source)

Intelligence services are routinely bringing together different data-bases such as

• credit card and payment data
• travel data, flight reservations, hotel reservations
• census data such as race, religion, occupation
• data on internet use, email and phone use
• police information such as convictions, known associates, fines for illegal photography
• CCTV data (e.g. from cameras situated close to extremist mosques)
• etc.

When all these data bases are linked, the value of the information they contain increases significantly. When intelligence services learn that someone travels to Afghanistan or Pakistan, it may not ring a bell. And anyway, there are too many people travelling to these places. But if they filter on those people who also read extremist websites, visit extremist mosques, have extremists associates, travel in the plane as other suspicious persons, have suspicious payments etc., then they may be on to something.

(source)

However, data mining may lose some of its benefits to the extent that terrorists are aware that this is happening and fine-tune their behavior. They know that much of this data mining is, by necessity, automated in computer programs which assign a "suspicion value" to certain activities or combinations of activities (the data bases are too big to do it any other way). So they can lower their suspicion score by regularly visiting very non-Muslim websites such as porn sites, or call telephone numbers of brothels.

Data mining may lose it effectiveness and has also been criticized as an invasion of privacy and a criminalization of behavior that is perfectly legal even if sometimes somewhat strange. Normally, invasions of privacy such as phone-tapping require a prior suspicion. Data mining means spying on people without such as prior suspicion, because suspicion can only be established as a result of mining, not beforehand.

It means spying on people in two different ways:

• The data bases used contain individual data that were not intended for use by intelligence services and that were often handed over by individuals on the assumption that the data would be treated confidentially.
• When a suspicion is established on the basis of data mining, more traditional means of surveillance come into play (phone tapping, observation etc.), which also violate people's right to privacy.

Of course, privacy is not an absolute value and different types of rights need to be balanced – in this case the right to privacy of some and the right to physical integrity and security of others. And an assessment has to be made of the priority of one right compared to another. But it seems to me that treating every citizen as a possible terrorist, and looking at his or her individual and private data as a matter of routine, is way over the top. I would like to see some information of the number of terrorist plots foiled by data mining.

But privacy is not the only victim. If someone is labeled "suspicious" as a result of data mining, he or she may end up on a "watch-list" and may find it difficult to travel or find a job in certain places deemed risky (hospitals, fertilizer producers, government agencies etc.).

"Electronic snooping by the state may safeguard liberty—and also threaten it" Link here.

Most of the information about us is created and maintained not in the Government sector, but in the private sector.  Commercial transactions (grocery store purchases, credit cards, travel bookings, etc.) are collected, mined, and often sold to 3rd parties.  It's a good and healthy exercise to ensure our Gov't is following the rules when collecting information, but shouldn't we hold commercial companies accountable too?

En annan sak som gör programmet speciellt är dess synkronitet, att kunna hålla sig (nästan) konstant uppdaterad med information. Det tror jag kan förändra vårt beteende, genom att gränser rivs ner på så sätt att ännu ett steg mot att integrera "sociala tjänster" i vår verksamhet vid datorn och att på sätt och viss närma sig synkron kommunikation (något som sker nästan samtidigt). Även om något sådant som synkron kommunikation sällan förekommer medierat, över internet, utan är något som är mer förknippat med ansikte-mot-ansikte-möten.  Dock är det väl en fråga om tolkning, då vi eventuellt kan hållas uppdaterade av andra människors beteende i en ganska strid ström (finns nog inga sådana applikationer som övervakar den andra personens datoraktivitet på en sådant sätt, men kommunikation med hjälp av webbkameror existerar). Viktigt att poängtera är att synkroniteten också kan leda till stress, som i så många andra områden där gränser bryts ner (som mellan arbete och fritid) kan detta bli till en del av att människor ska hålla sig uppkopplade och tillgängliga. Det kan gå så långt att det blir en förväntan, att du ska använda programmet och att svara snabbt när du kallas, det vill säga att du fått en notis om att någon har skrivit till dig.

Det handlar inte om att du blir övervakad, utan att du övervakar dig själv. För det är ju så att det är dig det handlar om där ute, hålla koll på vad andra människor gör med dig och att hålla sig á jour om vem du är och blir till.

Toda empresa se transforma y va creciendo. A medida que se va consolidando, ve la necesidad de contar con información de manera  más rápida, pertinente y eficaz. En la actualidad esto es posible gracias al Data Warehouse.

El Data warehouse provee de la información necesaria para analizar la realidad de la empresa y, por tanto, definir políticas de acción tendentes a mejorar su quehacer.

Un Data Warehouse provee el medio de integración en un mundo de sistemas de aplicaciones no integrados, haciendo posible recuperar información, además, proporciona una plataforma sólida de datos históricos e integrados, para posteriormente realizar análisis sobre ellos.

En palabras simples, un Data Warehouse es un almacén de información, que proviene de distintas aplicaciones en la organización.

A continuación, citare uno de los conceptos del Data Warehouse más populares; la minería de datos.

¿Minería de Datos o Data Mining? La minería de datos o Data Mining es un proceso que, a través del descubrimiento y de la cuantificación de relaciones predictivas en los datos, permite transformar la información disponible en conocimiento útil de negocio. La idea es bucear en los datos buscando patrones estadísticos significativos, relaciones entre datos ocultos, segmentaciones, etc.

Esto se debe a que no es suficiente navegar por los datos para resolver los problemas de negocio, sino que se hace necesario seguir una metodología ordenada que permita obtener rendimientos tangibles de este conjunto de herramientas y técnicas de las que dispone el usuario. Constituye por tanto una de las vías clave de explotación del Data Warehouse, dado que es éste su entorno natural de trabajo.

Alguna de las aplicaciones comerciales de Data mining, son las siguientes

SPSS Clementine Data Mining System
Web: http://www.isl.co.uk
Enterprise Miner, de SAS Institute Inc.
Web: http://www.sas.com
GainSmarts, de Urban Science
Web: http://www.urbanscience.com

Pero, me referire esta vez a una aplicación totalmente libre y de código abierto; se trata de Weka 3, que trabaja en base a algoritmos y bajo una plataforma java. Sus mayores potenciales están orientados a proveer de las herramientas necesarias para el procesamiento de datos, clasificación, asociación, entre otras más funciones.

Para utilizar Weka 3, deberemos de tener instalado la consola java en el ordenador. Quizás uno de los inconvenientes de esta aplicación es que se encuentra en idioma inglés, pero las cualidades y resultados que ofrece lo convierten en muy eficaz en las tareas que realiza.

Esta disponible para Windows, MacOs y Linux; y su descarga se puede realizar desde el sitio web oficial de Weka 3.

I often wonder if I'm becoming too paranoid.

I've asked several people that question and haven't really gotten a response. Although when I told my estranged wife I had just purchased 1984, she said I should lay off that type of stuff.

But, after reading the first two chapters of George Orwell's classic novel, it seems apparent that the world of "Big Brother" is fast approaching. Truth is stranger than fiction, but what is stranger is when fiction becomes truth.

A few things that are frightening to me:

Satelite imaging-Anyone in the world can go to Google and view satelite images of your area from as close as a few hundred feet. If anyone can see that, what can "Big Brother" see?

Data mining-Done by corporations to figure out how to market to you...and by the government to figure out if you're a terrorist, thanks to the Patriot Act. Every carded transaction, cell phone call and Internet search becomes a matter of "national security."

Technological Advancements-Now this is the big one. There are several things to fear from technology and the exponential rate of advancement.

Last night, Coast to Coast A.M. featured guest Richard Dooling, whose book Rapture For the Geeks has been recently released. During the interview, Dooling discussed the evoloution of artificial intelligence and the possibility of it, one day, outsmarting humans.

Also, while talking about technology, host George Noory mentioned heat-detecting sensors in place at airports to help pick out potential terrorists. Talk about the "Thought Police." As Noory asked, what if you're just nervous? You could be pulled aside, strip-searched and interrorgated for hours just because your face was flushed.

Another disheartening aspect of technology is that although advancements have made life easier, in turn, things have also become more complicated and we are being dumbed down. 

Cell phones allow us to call from nearly everywhere...yet we no longer remember phone numbers. Video games are becoming even more complex and creating a virtual reality. There may soon come a time when we don't know when virutal reality ends and real reality begins.

We are becoming connected to the network and disconnected from life, friends, family. Although the network does allow us to stay in touch with friends and family. As Dooling mentioned, computers are already making decisions for us. Netflix picks out your movies; Amazon picks out your books; and MySpace places ads on your page, based on your interests, that you should click.

Am I a technophobe? Not entirely.

Am I paranoid? Maybe.

Is an Orwellian future on the horizon?

• Productos  DW / BI, Plataformas y Arquitectura
• BI Operacional y BI estratégica
• BICC, calidad de los datos y el Movimiento de MDM

[link]

Asal kata Korupsi

Korupsi berawal dari bahasa latin corruptio atau corruptus. Corruptio berasal dari kata corrumpere, suatu kata latin yang lebih tua. Dari bahasa latin itulah turun ke banyak bahasa Eropa seperti Inggris yaitu corruption, corrupt; Prancis yaitu corruption; dan Belanda yaitu corruptie, korruptie. Dari Bahasa Belanda inilah kata itu turun ke Bahasa Indonesia yaitu korupsi.
(Andi Hamzah, 2005, Pemberantasan Korupsi)

Arti kata Korupsi

Korup : busuk; palsu; suap
(Kamus Bahasa Indonesia, 1991)

buruk; rusak; suka menerima uang sogok; menyelewengkan uang/barang milik perusahaan atau negara; menerima uang dengan menggunakan jabatannya untuk kepentingan pribadi
(Kamus Hukum, 2002)

Korupsi : kebejatan; ketidakjujuran; tidak bermoral; penyimpangan dari kesucian
(The Lexicon Webster Dictionary, 1978)

penyuapan; pemalsuan
(Kamus Bahasa Indonesia, 1991)

penyelewengan atau penggelapan uang negara atau perusahaan sebagai tempat seseorang bekerja untuk keuntungan pribadi atau orang lain
(Kamus Hukum, 2002)

Diambil dari buku KPK 'Mengenali dan Memberantas Korupsi'