CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Course code & title : GE2313 Global IT Case Studies

Session : Semester B 2018/19

Time allowed : Two hours

This paper has 12 pages (including this cover page).

1. This paper consists of 8 questions.

2. Answer ALL questions.
3. Write your answers in the space provided.

Student Name:

Student ID:

Seat number:

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 Total

This is a closed-book examination.

No materials or aids are allowed during the whole examination. If any

unauthorized materials or aids are found on a candidate during the
examination, the candidate will be subject to disciplinary action.
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Please answer questions using the following given space. Be concise and to
the point.

Problem 1 (11 marks)

(1) What are the 3 key components of a city? (3 marks)

(2) What is the smart city? (2 marks)

(3) List 3 benefits smart city can provide compared with the traditional city? (6 marks)

Benefit 1:

Benefit 2:

Benefit 3:

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Problem 2 (8 marks)
(1) What is artificial intelligence? (2 marks)

(2) Give 3 examples to show how artificial intelligence has changed our daily lives. (6
marks)

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

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Problem 3 (12 marks)
(1) What is E-government? (3 marks)

(2) List 3 examples of G2C (government to citizen) E-government services. (9 marks)

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

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Problem 4 (9 marks)
In the taxi industry, there are usually many complaints about the services, such as high
prices, low availability, failure to take the most direct and practicable route, improper
driving, drivers behaving other than in a civil and orderly manner, overcharging and
refusing hire or refusing to drive to a destination. So the emerging car-hailing services
such as Uber, DiDi, and Lyft were introduced to solve these problems.

Describe what ICT technologies do these car-hailing companies use to address the fol-
lowing problems? Describe your reasons in detail.

(1) Low availability of taxis. The customers cannot find the taxis on the road nearby,
even if there are some taxis not very far from it. (3 marks)

(2) Drivers’ intentional or unintentional failure to take the most direct and practica-
ble route. (3 marks)

(3) Improper behavior of the driver, refusing hire or refusing to drive to a destination,
caused by the lack of other users’ feedback to a driver. (3 marks)

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Problem 5 (13 marks)
(1) In smart grid systems, what is the goal of the demand side management? Describe
how the demand side management works. (5 marks)

(2) List 4 renewable energy sources that you know and describe the situation that each
of them is suitable to be deployed. (8 marks)
Hint: nuclear energy is usually considered to be non-renewable.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Example 4:

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Problem 6 (9 marks)
Suppose you are running a conventional baby clothes shop (see the photo) which is a
brick-and-mortar store (i.e., a physical store). However, the sales are not so good. You
guess maybe because there are not so many people knowing your shop or because the
rental price, labor cost, logistic cost, management cost etc. are too high.
So you want to use ICT techniques to boost the selling of your products by opening an
online store together the physical store and introduce many advanced techniques to
help improve user experience, such as advertising, smart customer-relationship manage-
ment (CRM), etc. Can you propose 3 new ICT techniques to boost your selling
and make your shop smarter? Give details to support your arguments.

Technique 1:

Technique 2:

Technique 3:

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Problem 7 (18 marks)
(1) List 3 examples of advanced ICT based payment methods that are being used on the
CityU campus? Give details to support your arguments. (9 marks)

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

(2) Propose 3 new application scenarios on the CityU campus where advanced ICT based
payment methods can be used. (9 marks)

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

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Problem 8 (20 marks)
Take a glance of the material in a couple of minutes and try to grasp the key points in
the material. Then answer the following questions based on the material.

(1) What smart healthcare applications are mentioned in the material? (Please use
phrases with no more than 20 words to summarize this.) (6 marks)

(2) What are the main barriers of smart healthcare talked in the material? (Please
use phrases with no more than 50 words to summarize this.) (8 marks)

(3) Choose 2 barriers you summarize in (2) to discuss if each one of these 2 barriers
can be removed. Please justify your answer and elaborate your ideas. (6 marks)

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You can detach this page for your own convenience.
Reading material about the Singapore’s smart healthcare

With the help of a smart phone and Internet connection, many big and small inventions
could improve efficiency and quality of care for patients. Today, appointments can easily
be booked via electronic means such as e-mail, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook messages,
apps and Internet platforms. Medical test results are instantly available on the doctors’
mobile phones, which can also receive patients’ parameters, like heartrate and blood
pressure, in real time. Increasingly, WhatsApp chat groups, which allow instant commu-
nication platform among different doctors involved in the care of their common patients,
are used for better discussion on patient care. WhatsApp and Skype are sometimes used
as communication between doctors and their patients. Despite the advances that have
resulted in much convenience and efficiency, implementing smart healthcare nationwide
is also not as simple as pressing a button.

A smart healthcare system works on cloud platform. A seamless and faultless Internet
service is essential. The whole system will be affected if the Internet system is down
or hacked. With the recent incidents in Internet security, like ransomware and hacking,
many doctors have doubts about cybersecurity. Maintaining patients’ privacy and con-
fidentiality is also important. Only the doctors involved in a patient’s care should be
allowed to access the patient’s medical records. Currently, most systems in patient care
only require a login ID and a password to access. Adding a two-factor authentication may
be needed to enhance security. Cost is another issue. Though some technology appear
cheap or even free on installation, many have hidden costs. Some applications are cheap
on purchase, but they require specific hardware, specific maintenance team and annual
updates which could sometimes cost more than the initial purchase. Electronic commu-
nication between doctors and their patients is also a grey area. The Singapore Medical
Council’s ethical guidelines dictate that consultation with patients should preferably be
done in person for proper assessment. As a result, many doctors are still reluctant to
communicate with the patients via electronic means. A 24/7 kind of communication be-
tween patients and doctors, and among doctors, also poses a toll on a doctor’s personal
and social life. Traditionally, a doctor’s working hours are parallel to the clinic’s opening
hours. With electronic communications, there will be no end to a doctor’s working hours
as patients and other medical staff may send information to the doctors involved round
the clock. Data back-up at the local server is a must to ensure our system can continue
to function when the Internet is down (or hacked). Most experts recommend back-up to
a local server or hard disk be done on a daily basis. Before investing into any new tech-
nology or equipment, doctors and administrators ought to do their due diligence to assess

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the full cost involved, and to determine if any new systems or programs are truly cost
effective. We do need more secure yet convenient authentication of identify. If it takes too
many steps or too much time to access a patient’s data, it would negate the improvement
in efficiency. New technology like fingerprint or iris recognition, which is convenient and
accurate, can be used to improve security without compromising speed and efficiency.
Lastly, doctors must learn when to set limits. A doctor does not have to respond to
all queries instantly. Any patient with urgent problems should be advised to proceed to
the clinic or hospital for proper in-person assessment. For non-urgent requests, a doctor
can choose to attend to, and reply to all the requests at a designated and convenient time.

Healthcare has undergone major technological revolution over the last two decades. But
at the end of the day, doctors and medical staff also ought to remember that technology
cannot replace a human touch in medical care.

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