 6th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems |
ICEIS 2004 |
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Call
For Papers |
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Accepted Papers |
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Conference Program |
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Organized by: Co-organized by: |
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Area 2 - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
Area 3 - Information Systems Analysis and Specification
Area 4 - Software Agents and Internet Computing
Area 5 - Human-Computer Interaction
AREA 1 - Databases and Information Systems Integration
| Title: |
A RECONFIGURATION ALGORITHM FOR DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER NETWORKS |
| Author(s): |
Chanan Glezer , Moshe Zviran |
| Abstract: | This article presents an algorithmic reconfiguration model, combining mechanisms of load balancing and fault tolerance in order to increase utilization of computer resources in a distributed multi-server, multi-tasking environment. The model has been empirically tested in a network of computers controlling telecommunication hubs and is compared to previous efforts to address this challenge. |
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| Title: |
BVA+ - A BIT VECTORS ALGORITHM FOR ACCELERATING QUERIES IN MULTILEVEL SECURE DATABASES |
| Author(s): |
Ramzi Haraty , Arda Zeitunlian |
| Abstract: | Much research has been done in the area of multilevel database systems, especially in the security area and accelerating queries. In this paper, we present BVA+, which is based on bit vectors to accelerate queries in multilevel secure database systems. As its predecessor (BVA), the BVA+ algorithm follows the classic Sea View Model, but it recovers query output from single-level relations in a faster and more space-efficient manner than the previous works performed on this subject. In addition, the BVA+ algorithm does not produce spurious or extra tuples, which have always been a major problem in the area of multilevel secure database systems. |
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| Title: |
CONNECTIVITY OF ERP SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Vatcharaporn Esichaikul |
| Abstract: | The study is an attempt to propose the criteria for determining the appropriate connectivity of ERP systems. The result of this study provides a framework assisting ERP adopters in selecting integration approach which are appropriate to their needs. A survey was conducted to obtain information from ERP users to learn about their opinions on factors and criteria affecting connectivity of ERP systems. Findings from the study revealed that data oriented approach and application integration oriented approach are the most preferred integration methodologies. Opinions on criteria for evaluating ERP connectivity are nature of business process of organization, availability of technologies and service supports, nature of information system of organization, system flexibility, degree of integration, transaction volume, implementation cost, ease of maintenance, implementation time, security, and budget. Finally, the study proposes a framework to determine appropriate connectivity of ERP systems. |
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| Title: |
CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR SOFTWARE FAULT LOCALIZATION |
| Author(s): |
Abdallah Tubaishat |
| Abstract: | Existing cognitive science and psychology studies suggest that a bi-level approach to fault localization is needed with both shallow and deep reasoning. This approach form the underpinnings for developing our Conceptual Model for Software Fault Localization (CMSFL) to aid programmers with the problem of software fault localization. Our CMSFL proposes that, during the fault localization process programmers build two mental models: an actual code model (the buggy code), and an expectation model (the correct code). A multi dimensional approach is suggested with both shallow and deep reasoning phases to enhance the probability of localizing many types of faults. |
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| Title: |
ASSESSING EFFORT PREDICTION MODELS FOR CORRECTIVE SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY |
| Author(s): |
Eugenio Pompella , Andrea De Lucia , Silvio Stefanucci |
| Abstract: | We present an assessment of an empirical study aiming at building effort estimation models for corrective maintenance projects. We show results from the application of the prediction models to a new corrective maintenance project within the same enterprise and the same type of software systems used in a previous study. The data available for the new project are finer grained according to the indications devised in the first study. This allowed to improve the confidence in our previous empirical analysis by confirming most of the hypotheses made and to provide other useful indications to better understand the maintenance process of the company in a quantitative way. |
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| Title: |
SUPPORTING KNOWLEDGE REUSE DURING THE SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE PROCESS THROUGH AGENTS |
| Author(s): |
Mario Piattini , Aurora Vizcaino |
| Abstract: | Knowledge management has become an important topic as organisations wish to take advantage of the information that they produce and that can be brought to bear on important decisions. This work describes a system to manage and reuse the information (and knowledge) generated during the software maintenance process, which consumes a large part of the software lifecycle costs. The architecture of the system is formed of a set of agent communities. Each community manages different types of knowledge. The communities’ agents have the goal of encouraging the reuse of good solutions and taking advantage of information obtained from previous experience. In consequence, the software maintenance is made easier and there are less costs and effort. To achieve this goal, agents use several reasoning techniques such as case based reasoning or decision tree based algorithms which allow them to generate new knowledge from the information that they manage. |
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| Title: |
RETRO-DYNAMICS AND E-BUSINESS MODEL APPLICATION FOR DISTRIBUTED DATA MINING USING MOBILE AGENTS |
| Author(s): |
MOHAMED MEDHAT , EZENDU ARIWA |
| Abstract: | Distributed data mining (DDM) is the semi-automatic pattern extraction of distributed data sources. The next generation of the data mining studies will be distributed data mining for many reasons. First of all, most of the current used data mining techniques require all data to be resident in memory, i.e., the mining process must be done at the data source site. This is not feasible for the exponential growth of the data stored in organization(s) databases. Another important reason is that data is inherently distributed for fault tolerance purposes. DDM requires two main decisions about the DDM implementations: A distributed computation paradigm (message passing, RPC, mobile agents), and the used integration techniques (Knowledge probing, CDM) in order to aggregate and integrate the results of the various distributed data miners. Recently, the new distributed computation paradigm, which has been evolved as mobile agent is widely used. Mobile agent is a thread of control that can trigger the transfer of arbitrary code to a remote computer. Mobile agents paradigm has several advantages: Conserving bandwidth and reducing latencies. Also, complex, efficient and robust behaviours can be realized with surprisingly little code. Mobile agents can be used to support weak clients, allow robust remote interaction, and provide scalability. In this paper, we propose a new model that can benefit from the mobile agent paradigm to build an efficient DDM model. Since the size of the data to be migrated in the DDM process is huge, our model will overcome the communication bottleneck by using mobile agents paradigm. Our model divides the DDM process into several stages that can be done in parallel on different data sources: Preparation stage, data mining stage and knowledge integration stage. We also include a special section on how current e-business models can use our model to reinforce the decision support in the organization. A cost analysis in terms of time consumed by each minor process (communication or processing) is given to illustrate the overheads of this model and the other models. |
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| Title: |
IMPORTANT FACTORS IN ERP SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Piotr Soja |
| Abstract: | In the article the problem of success factors in ERP systems implementations has been discussed. The review of the literature concerning success factors has been discussed and the collection of potential ERP implementation success factors was identified. Next, the result of research has been presented, where respondents have been asked about their opinion about the importance of subsequent factors for the implementation success. There were two groups of respondents: the first consisted of people from Polish enterprises implementing ERP systems and the second comprised experts working in ERP systems suppliers. On the basis of the research, the most important and necessary factors in the respondents’ opinions have been identified, as well as the least important ones. |
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| Title: |
IDENTIFYING CLONES IN DYNAMIC WEB SITES USING SIMILARITY THRESHOLDS |
| Author(s): |
Giuseppe Scanniello , Andrea De Lucia , Genny Tortora |
| Abstract: | We propose an approach to automatically detect duplicated pages in dynamic Web sites. Our approach analyzes both the page structure, implemented by specific sequences of HTML tags, and the displayed content. In addition, for each pair of dynamic pages we also consider the similarity degree of their scripting source code. The similarity degree of two pages is computed using different similarity metrics for the different parts of a web page based on the Levenshtein string edit distance. We have implemented a prototype to automate the clone detection process on web applications developed using JSP technology and used it to validate our approach in a case study. |
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| Title: |
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIC PLANNING: ADAPTING FACTS AND BELIEFS TO BUSINESS STRATEGY GENERATION |
| Author(s): |
Julio Bernardo Clempner Kerik , Agustín Francisco Gutiérrez Tornés |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a framework for adpating facts and beliefs to business strategy generation. The adaptation process model is supported by an information technology planning (ITSP) model and methodology. Tha aim of this paper is to validate the model. In the ITSP model, real world is composed by entities realated in terms of goals, beliefs, etc., through interaction they incorporate or refuse facts or beliefs related to the enviornment conditions. The adaptation concept is proposed to generate gusiness strategies. Two different methos are proposed: 1)an inference logic method, that emplys facts related to the enviornment conditions to generate new business strategies; and 2) case-based reasoning, a storred cases recorgind specific prior episodes, that induce the incorporation of business strategies. Both methods are presented. The adaptation process is presented through application examples. |
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| Title: |
ERP BASED BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING IN A HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT: A CASE STUDY APPROACH |
| Author(s): |
THEODORA CHATZIKALLIA , KONSTANTINOS CHERTOURAS |
| Abstract: | Modern organizations are constantly facing new challenges regarding the reengineering of their business departments and processes. By the term Business Process we mean the profile of specific methods that can be employed to perform specific business tasks. In general, each Business Process is uniquely tailored to the organization it applies. Therefore, the resolution of a Business Process related problem is typically carried out with custom methods developed within organizations. In this paper we propose the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as the basis for reengineering a business department and effectively the Business Process that it carries through. We discuss the application of ERP in the reengineering of the Business Process of a real world organization department (a Human Resources Department), which lead to a significant productivity enhancement. |
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| Title: |
ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS BEHAVIOR ALONG THE ERP IMPLEMENTATION PHASES |
| Author(s): |
Jose Esteves , joan pastor |
| Abstract: | During the last years some researchers have studied the topic of critical success factors in ERP implementations. Up to this moment, there is not enough research on the management and operationalization of critical success factors within ERP implementation projects. The identification of factors leading to success or failure of ERP systems is an issue of increasing importance, since the number of organizations choosing the ERP path keeps growing. In this paper, we analyzed the evolution of organizational and technological factors along the ERP implementation phases. Our findings suggest that while both good organizational and technological perspectives are essential for a successful ERP implementation project, their importance shifts as the project moves through its lifecycle. |
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| Title: |
ACME-DB: AN ADAPTIVE CACHING MECHANISM USING MULTIPLE EXPERTS FOR DATABASE BUFFERS |
| Author(s): |
Markus Kirchberg |
| Abstract: | An adaptive caching algorithm, known as Adaptive Caching with Multiple Experts (ACME), has recently been presented in the field of web-caching. We explore the migration of ACME to the database caching environment. By integrating recently proposed database replacement policies into ACME's existing policy pool, an attempt is made to gauge ACME's ability to utilise newer methods of database caching. The results suggest that ACME is indeed well-suited to the database environment and performs as well as the best currently caching policy within its policy pool at any particular moment in its request stream. Although execution time increases by integrating more policies into ACME, the overall processing time improves drastically with erratic patterns of access, when compared to static policies. |
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| Title: |
EVALUATION OF A DOCUMENT DATABASE DESCRIPTION BY DIFFERENT XML SCHEMAS |
| Author(s): |
Pierre Bazex , Madani Kenab , Tayeb Ould Braham |
| Abstract: | Title : Evaluation of a Document Database Description by Different XML Schemas Authors : Madani Kenab (1,2), Tayeb Ould Braham (2), Pierre Bazex (1) (1) IRIT, 118, Route de Narbonne 31062 Toulouse, France { kenab@info.unilim.fr, bazex@irit.fr } (2) MSI, 83, Rue d'isle 87000 Limoges, France { ould@unilim.fr } Address contact: Tayeb Ould Braham Email: ould@unilim.fr Tel : 33 5 55 43 69 71 Fax : 33 5 55 43 69 77 Abstract A document database could be represented by different XML schemas, it depends on the content of the documents that it contains. From a simple conceptual schema of a database containing structured data that we represent in form of a document, we propose and evaluate different XML schemas describing this database in order to deduce the best one. For the building of these XML schemas we propose different descriptions of the key concepts of the relational model (relation, key and reference link) . We also propose the description of different nestings between the elements of the document (total nesting, partial nesting and without nesting) . We conclude that the best-adapted XML schema depends on the use that we wish to do with this database and it is a combination of the representation of different concepts. This work is a preliminary of the integration of a relational database thanks to the best XML schema. Key Words : Entity-Association, Relational Concepts, XML Schema, XML Document, Nesting Elements. |
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| Title: |
TRANSACTION DESIGN FOR DATABASES WITH HIGH PERFORMANCE AND AVAILABILITY |
| Author(s): |
Lars Frank |
| Abstract: | When many concurrent transactions like ERP and E-commerce orders want to update the same stock records, long duration locking may reduce the availability of the locked data. Therefore, transactions are often designed without analyzing the consequences of loosing the traditional ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) properties. In this paper, we will analyze how low isolation levels, optimistic concurrency control, short duration locks, and countermeasures against isolation anomalies can be used to design transactions for databases with high performance and availability. Long duration locks are defined as locks that are held until a transaction has been committed, i.e. the data of a record is locked from the first read to the last update of any data used by the transaction. This will decrease the availability of locked data for concurrent transactions, and, therefore, optimistic concurrency control and low isolation levels are often used. However, in systems with relatively many updates like ERP-systems and E-commerce systems, low isolation levels cannot solve the availability problem as all update locks must be exclusive. In such situations, we will recommend the use of short duration locks. Short duration locks are local locks that are released as soon as possible, i.e. data will for example not be locked across a dialog with the user. Normally, databases where only short duration locks are used do not have the traditional ACID properties as at least the isolation property is missing when locks are not hold across a dialog with the user. The problems caused by the missing ACID properties may be managed by using approximated ACID properties, i.e. from an application point of view the system should function as if all the traditional ACID properties had been implemented. Examples using E-commerce will illustrate how to use the transaction design recommended in this paper. We have cooperated with one of the major ERP software companies in designing our transaction model. |
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| Title: |
INCREMENTAL DATA QUALITY IN THE DATA WAREHOUSE |
| Author(s): |
Karsten Boye Rasmussen |
| Abstract: | The data warehouse is the cornerstone for the production of business knowledge in the organization. The foundation of the quality of the business knowledge is the quality of the data in the data warehouse. Determination of dimensions of data quality in the data warehouse has been obtained through the intuitive, the empirical and the ontological approaches. The first point of this working paper is that data quality is not a static measure and that awareness of the data quality dimensions is a prerequisite to improve the data quality. The second point is that selection is the cornerstone of data quality in the data warehouse in relation to the quality dimensions. Thirdly, that post-load improvement of the data quality is obtainable. Metadata can be added incrementally containing information on the use of data – and thus the users' selections within the data warehouse – and on the users' judgment of the data. |
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| Title: |
A MIDDLEWARE FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE UTILITIES PLANTS |
| Author(s): |
andrea rossettini , salvatore cavalieri , carmelo floridia , fabrizio d'urso |
| Abstract: | The paper presents the main features of the European project Mobicossum IST 1999-57455, still running. The project is a CRAFT one approved inside the Fifth Framework Programme. It aims to define a middleware offering services for the management of large plants, in the field of gas and water distribution and waste water treatment systems. In the paper, the main features of the project will be explained, focusing on the description of the implementation of the core of the middleware, called Generalised Interface. |
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| Title: |
ACQUIRING AND INTEGRATING EXTERNAL DATA INTO DATA WAREHOUSES |
| Author(s): |
Mattias Strand , Benkt Wangler , Carl-Fredrik Laurén |
| Abstract: | Data warehouses (DWs) has become one of the major IT-investments during the last decades and in order to fully exploit the potential of data warehouses, more and more organizations are acquiring and integrating external data into their star-schemas. However, the literature covering external data acquisition and integration is limited. Therefore, in this paper the results of an interview study conducted among banking organizations are presented. The study aimed at identifying different approaches for acquiring and integrating external data into DWs. The results show that there are many different approaches for the acquisition and integration, depending on the purpose and structure of the data being acquired. In addition, the most common external data acquisition and integration process is presented and discussed. |
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| Title: |
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR FORECASTING ERP IMPLEMENTATION SUCCESS - A FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE CREATION OF AN IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT TOOL |
| Author(s): |
Fredrik Carlsson , Andreas Nilsson , Johan Magnusson |
| Abstract: | The continuing soar in popularity when it comes to standardized information systems sold en masse under the labelling of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems is somewhat kept under control by the ever flowing stream of reports from the industry of implementations gone bad. According to some researchers it is possible to assume that as many as 90% of all initiated ERP implementation projects can be regarded as failures as a result of changes in scope, prolongation of the project time or simply budget overruns. With the implementation of an ERP system being a very costly and risky endeavour, organizations considering “getting on the bandwagon” stand much to gain from pre-emptively forecasting the probability of success for an ERP implementation in their enterprise. Given this, the purpose of this paper is to investigate a possible conceptual framework for forecasting ERP implementation success and discuss the role of such a framework in a software based tool. This was achieved through an initial in-depth literary review aimed at finding factors affecting the outcome of the ERP implementation projects. These results were then communicated to an industrial support group comprised of possible ERP implementation stakeholders. After lengthy discussions concerning the usability, validity and reliability of the proposed list of factors, a conceptual framework was agreed upon for forecasting ERP implementation success. The framework was then tested against a number of possible stakeholders outside the industrial support group. As the results show we have been able to create a conceptual framework for forecasting ERP implementation success that is currently in the second wave of testing. The usability, validity and reliability of the framework is discussed and elaborated upon, and this paper concludes that the perceived usability and hence also value of the conceptual framework is substantial, whereas the validity and reliability remain to be tested. |
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| Title: |
VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS AND DATABASE ACCESS - A CASE STUDY |
| Author(s): |
Marko NIINIMAKi , Mikko Pitkanen , John White , Tapio Niemi |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a case study of using virtual organization technologies in database access. A virtual organization (VO) is a collection of people in the same administrative domain. A user can belong to many virtual organizations and have a different role (user, client, administrator,..) in each of them. An authorization of a user to different services within a VO is based on the user's identity and a service called a Virtual Organization Membership Service (VOMS) that maps these identities with roles. The user's identity can be established in two ways. If the user communicates with the service using his web browser, the user's certificate must be included in the browser. Another possibility is to use a proxy certificate. There, in the proxy creation process, the program that writes the proxy adds the user's proxy certificate information about his participation in different VO's and his role in each of them. In order to demonstrate using these VO proxy certificates, we have extended the functionality Spitfire, a relational database front end. This involves assigning the user a database role (read/write/update) based on the VO information in his certificate. There is also a GUI for creating the mappings between VO roles and database access roles. |
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| Title: |
REASONS FOR ERP ACQUISITION |
| Author(s): |
Sami Sarpola , Sanna Laukkanen , Petri Hallikainen |
| Abstract: | Numerous reasons for why organisations acquire Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been proposed in prior research. In this paper we form a synthesis of these different reasons and categorize them into technological and business reasons for acquiring ERP. Further, we test the validity of these reasons with empirical data concerning the acquisition of ERP systems in 41 Finnish companies. |
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| Title: |
DELEGATING AUTHORITY IN A DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Janet Barnett , Barbara Vivier , Kareem Aggour |
| Abstract: | The need to manage large information repositories securely in a distributed environment increases with the growth of the Internet. To address this need, a system capable of managing the contents of an LDAP directory over the Web has been designed and developed. This system allows for the directory’s data to be divided into communities and supports the delegation of administrative authority over those communities to a distributed set of administrators. The communities may be subdivided recursively into subgroups, and rights over those subgroups also may be restricted. Thus, system administrators can dynamically delegate subsets of their permissions over a subset of their managed data, allowing for the effective control of permissions over the data within distributed organizations. The system solves the delegated administration problem for managing the contents of an LDAP directory in a distributed environment. Today, it supports the administration of over 20 production directories by well over 2000 distributed administrators. |
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| Title: |
DISTRIBUTED DATABASE SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE OF UNIVERSITIES IN CHINA |
| Author(s): |
Longyong You , Junjing Yuan , Jiayun Wang , Jian Zhang |
| Abstract: | There are three problems that need to be solved by establishing the Distributed Database System of the information platform of Chinese universities' Agricultural Science and Technology Alliance: distribution of the data resources, decomposition and optimization of the distributed query as well as safety of the data system. In this paper, firstly, through the overall analysis of the contents of Chinese universities' Agricultural Science and Technology Alliance, we establish the mixed data distributed system, make the database system more integrated, consistent and reliable, meanwhile improve efficiency of the local application. Secondly because the member of the alliance adopts different data mode, taking a query decomposition and optimization for overall mode in the way of extended semi-join will be the effective method to improve the system response time. Finally, utilizing the method of combining asymmetry encryption with symmetry encryption, we solve the safety problems of database identity validation, data transmission, visitation control and etc. |
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| Title: |
A DATA WAREHOUSE ARCHITECTURE FOR BRAZILIAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT |
| Author(s): |
Andre Luís Menolli , Maria Madalena Dias |
| Abstract: | Science and technology in Brazil are areas that have few available resources and many times these scarce resources are badly used. The data warehouse is a tool that can make possible a better distribution of these resources. In this article are considered some issues in the development of a data warehouse for Science & Technology management. The paper describes the necessity of a supporting system to the decision taking regarding the distribution of the resources destined to Science & Technology in Brazil, and also shows a data warehouse architecture that is being developed to support this system. Data Modeling characteristics defined for the proposed data warehouse architecture are presented too. |
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| Title: |
SOFTWARE PRODUCT LINE ANALYSIS OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Luiz Fernando Capretz , Faheem Ahmed |
| Abstract: | Now a days geographical and physical constraint that allowed only for fixed and static placements of resources has vanished completely within an enterprise utilizing the concept of information technology to integrate their business needs. The object oriented programming approach has paved a way to reusability of components thus reducing cost and development efforts up to certain extend. Software product line has further strengthened the concept of reusability, and component-based architecture. In this paper we have analyzed the concept of Software Product Line Analysis for an Enterprise Information System which will help to construct a Software Product Line within the organization to produce high quality software product in order to full fill the information technology requirements of the organization. |
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| Title: |
AN APS ARCHITECTURE FOR WEB SERVICES BASED ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION |
| Author(s): |
William Liu , FengYu Wang , Tay Jin Chua |
| Abstract: | Web Services enabling technology is widely used to address enterprise integration within company or cross-organizations due to its language and operating system independency and support of loosely coupled integration. This paper presents an architecture for APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) system by describing an APS request handling engine and web services based functions, attempting to solve integration issues among APS, MES, ERP and other manufacturing systems that could not be handled properly using current approaches. In addition, as manufacturing planning has been extended to cover entire supply chain, this paper also discusses the necessary changes of the proposed architecture to cater for the extension. That would be helpful to figure out capacity issue in a big picture |
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| Title: |
OBTAINING E-R DIAGRAMS SEMI-AUTOMATICALLY FROM NATURAL LANGUAGE SPECIFICATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Farid Meziane |
| Abstract: | Since their inception, entity relationship models have played a central role in systems specification, analysis and development. They have become an important part of several development methodologies and standards such as SSADM. Obtaining entity relationship models, can however, be a lengthy and time consuming task for all but the very smallest of specifications. This paper describes a semi-automatic approach for obtaining entity relationship models from natural language specifications. The approach begins by using natural language analysis techniques to translate sentences to a meaning representation language called logical form language. The logical forms of the sentences are used as a basis for identifying the entities and relationships. Heuristics are then used to suggest suitable degrees for the identified relationships. This paper describes and illustrates the main phases of the approach and presents a summary of the results obtained when it is applied to a case study. |
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| Title: |
TOWARDS CONCEPTUAL MEDIATION |
| Author(s): |
Ismael Navas D. , José F. Aldana M. |
| Abstract: | Mediators are usually developed as monolithic systems which envelope the data source’s semantics as well as its location. Furthermore, its architecture based on wrappers involves a high coupling degree among the mediator’s components. This coupling does not allow sharing services with other organizations or the dynamic integration of new data sources. Therefore, wrappers must be re-designed and manually added for each mediation system. We propose an architecture for conceptual mediation in which the sources’ query capabilities are published as web services. These services can be registered in one or more resource directories (Semantic Directories), which are the core of this architecture because they provide the needed flexibility and scalability for dynamic integration. Finally, we show an application in a bioinformatics context to validate our approach. |
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| Title: |
AN AUTOMATION SYSTEM BASED ON LABVIEW TO CONTROL THE TEST OF MECHANICAL FLOW METERS |
| Author(s): |
Víctor Mejia , Javier Martínez , Victor Silva , Ricardo Alvarez , Petronilo Cortez |
| Abstract: | A mechanical flow meter is a device used mainly to measure and calculates velocity of weater´s flow on rivers and open channels. These devices, as the time of use pass trough, suffer mechanical imperfections, that's why it is important to calibrate them twice a year, depending of its time of use. At the Mexican Institute of Water Technology (IMTA in Spanish) was designed and developed a circular water tank for propose of test of these meters. The present paper shows the automation systems designed to control the tests to calibrate these mechanical meters. The system is based on LabVIEW. LabVIEW is a general purpose programming tool with extensive libraries for data acquisition instrument control, data analysis, and data presentation. With this tool and a special hardware interface, it was possible to automate the process to test these meters. The system is called SCM (System of characterization of mechanical meters). SCM control the test of two mechanical meters simultaneously, and has some user's control features that permit the Operator a easy to use human machine interface. |
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| Title: |
FUZZY MULTIPLE-LEVEL SEQUENTIAL PATTERNS DISCOVERY FROM CUSTOMER TRANSACTION DATABASES |
| Author(s): |
Huilin Ye , An Chen |
| Abstract: | Sequential patterns discovery is a very important research topic in data mining and knowledge discovery, and it has been widely applied in business analysis. Previous works were focused on mining sequential patterns at a single concept level based on definite and accurate concept which may not be concise and meaningful enough for human experts to easily obtain nontrivial knowledge from the rules discovered. In this paper, we introduce concept hierarchies firstly, and then discuss a mining algorithm F-MLSPDA for discovering multiple-level sequential patterns with quantitative attribute based on fuzzy partitions. |
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| Title: |
A METADATA REPOSITORY FOR IMAGE RETRIEVAL ALGORITHMS |
| Author(s): |
Sahudy Montenegro González , Akebo Yamakami |
| Abstract: | Many of the problems involved in image database applications require some form of retrieval based on image content. The explosion in availability of image content, due to recent developments in multimedia technology, demands the formulation of algorithms to facilitate content-based retrieval. Many image retrieval algorithms are implemented according to the needs of specific applications. Yet, there is currently no standard form of manipulation for these algorithms. This fact has a secure impact on the availability of algorithms beyond the bounds of the application for which they were originally designed. This work defines a general purpose repository for the algorithms involved in the process of Image Retrieval. The main goal of the repository is to provide the application developer with an infrastructure to manipulate and query image algorithms, allowing the integration of the image retrieval algorithms, the creation of a stock of algorithms available to multiple users, and to reuse/share algorithms for multiple applications. We define a standard set of metadata, applicable to image retrieval algorithms, providing uniform semantic support to understand these algorithms. This repository acts as a support to the development of image retrieval applications. The repository architecture is centered on providing distributed database functionality. |
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| Title: |
THE CONCEPT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MARKET PLACE E-UTILITIES•COM |
| Author(s): |
Jamil Dimassi , Carine Souveyet , Colette Rolland |
| Abstract: | In order to remain competitive in a deregulated environment, a group of European Utilities developed a prototype of a single Marketplace called e-utilities•com whose mandate is a clear customer centric orientation in the European environment for a successful mid-term multi-utility business via the Web. This paper highlights the concept of e-utilities•com and its implementation in a Web portal. |
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| Title: |
PERFORMANCE INDICATORS: IMPORTANT TOOL FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
María Luisa Sené |
| Abstract: | In this paper is treated the importance of performance indicators in order to have a healthy organization. Also are given elements to understand why standardization is so related to this topic, and the most important thing, how all this contributes to design an information system that will help the organization in the process of decision-making. Are included examples of performance indicators that can be applied in any organization. |
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| Title: |
ACCESS MODEL IN COOPERATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Eric Disson , Danielle Boulanger |
| Abstract: | This research focuses on access security in cooperating information systems. The offered modeling has to treat the interoperation of open and evolutive information systems and, moreover, has to guarantee the respect of various local security policies. The coexistence of heterogeneous information sources within an information systems framework involves homogenization problems between local security policies. We distinguish two types of heterogeneity: heterogeneity of the local access policies and semantic heterogeneity between object or subject instances of the local access schemas. To solve this twofold difficulty, we propose an original role model allowing a unified representation of local access schemas. This model preserves the flow control properties in the three main access policies (discretionary, role based model and multilevel models). The described access schemas are enriched to establish intra-system access authorizations. |
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| Title: |
BUSINESS MODELLING THROUGH ROADMAPS |
| Author(s): |
Judith Barrios Albornoz , Jonás Montilva Calderón |
| Abstract: | Business modelling is a central activity to many different areas, including Business Process Reengineering, Organisational Development, Enterprise Modelling & Integration, Business Process Management and Enterprise Application Integration. It is well known that the business domain is not easy to understand neither to represent even for specialised people. The success of most of the contemporary methods for modelling Business Organisations or Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) is strongly associated with the level of understanding that the modelling team can attain about the specific situation being modelled. This understanding is directly related with the degree of modelling experience that the team has, as well as their ability to work with the techniques and tools prescribed by a specific method. Nowadays, most of the existing business modelling methods are concentrated in what are the business concepts and how to represent them. But, they lack of process guidance, which is needed to help the team through the modelling process. We elaborated the method BMM for modelling business application domains that provides working guidelines for the modelling team. This method, based on method engineering concepts helps teams to, not only, get a comprehensive knowledge about the business domain being modelled, but also, about the process of modelling the domain itself. This paper concerns with the representation of the process of modelling a business by using a decision oriented process model formalism. It is represented at a higher level by a roadmap. The main contribution of our work is a set of roadmaps that contains the knowledge associated with team member’s modelling experience in business modelling and EIS development. This knowledge arises from several case studies. |
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| Title: |
AUTOMATIC DISCOVERY OF SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SCHEMA ELEMENTS |
| Author(s): |
Nikos Rizopoulos |
| Abstract: | The identification of semantic relationships between schema elements, or \schema matching, is the initial step in the integration of data sources. Existing approaches in automatic schema matching have mainly been concerned with discovering equivalence relationships between elements. In this paper, we present an approach to automatically discover richer and more expressive semantic relationships based on a bidirectional comparison of the elements data and metadata. The experiments that we have performed on real-world data sources from several domains show promising results, considering that we do not rely on any user or external knowledge. |
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| Title: |
MANAGING INFORMATION FLOW DYNAMICS WITH AGILE ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURES |
| Author(s): |
Drakoulis Martakos , Panagiotis Kanellis , Nancy Alexopoulou |
| Abstract: | New organization forms and ways of conducting business require architectures for enterprise systems that can support and not hinder entrepreneurial activities. Primarily this means that the information flow between both internal as well as cross-enterprise processes must be managed by underlying systems that offer a high level of automation as well as being highly flexible and integrated. In this respect, we present an agile architecture that offers a coherent and high level conceptualisation of the above properties that enterprise information systems should display, consider a number of technologies as potential implementation candidates and demonstrate how the architecture addresses node density, velocity, viscosity and volatility as parameters for managing and controlling the dynamics of information flows. |
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| Title: |
A TRANSACTIONAL MULTIMODE MODEL TO HANDLE OVERLOAD IN DISTRIBUTED RTDBSS |
| Author(s): |
Samia Saad-Bouzefrane |
| Abstract: | Current applications, such as Web-based services, electronic commerce, mobile telecommunication systems, etc. are distributed in nature and manipulate time-critical databases. In order to enhance the performance and the availability of such applications, the major issue is to develop efficient protocols that cooperate with the scheduler to manage the overload of the distributed system. In order to help real-time database management systems (RTDBS) to maintain data logical consistency while attempting to enhance concurrency execution of transactions, we introduce a transactional multimode model to let the application transactions adapt their behavior to the overload consequences. In this paper, we propose for each transaction several execution modes and we derive an overload controller suitable for the proposed multimode model. |
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| Title: |
A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING DIFFICULTIES IN ERP IMPLEMENTATION |
| Author(s): |
Jorge Marcelo Montagna , Luis Ferrario |
| Abstract: | Various sources point out very high percentages of failures to implement ERP systems. In this work, the main difficulties for this task are analyzed and a systematic classification of fundamental reasons is intended. By considering the reasons that lead to failure, a simple and effective mechanism is generated to evaluate in advance complications the project might present. In this way, the tools to be used can be adjusted to the specific characteristics of the project. Somehow, it is intended to solve the problem presented by general methodologies, which are used for any kind of enterprise, without previously considering its conditions and state to face this type of projects. |
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| Title: |
STUDY OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE INTEGRATION OF SPATIAL XML WEB RESOURCES |
| Author(s): |
Jose Corcoles , Pascual Gonzalez |
| Abstract: | The research community has begun to investigate foundations for the next stage of the Web, called Semantic Web. Current efforts include the Extensible Markup Language XML, the Resource description Framework, Topic Maps and the DARPA Agent Markup Language DAML+OIL. A rich domain that requires special attention is the Geospatial Semantic Web. However, in order to approach the Geospatial Semantic Web, it is necessary to solve the problem of developing an integration system for querying spatial resources stored in different sources. In this paper, we study two different approaches to integrating spatial and non-spatial information represented in the Geographical Markup Language (GML). The approaches studied follow LAV (Local as View) integration. With this study we obtain the best approach to developing a real system for querying GML resources stored in different sources. |
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| Title: |
CAPABILITY-BASED QUERY PLANNING IN MEDIATOR SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Jiu Yang Tang |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the impact of capability description on query planning in heterogeneous data integration system. Query planning covers the selection of data sources related to the query and the determination of subgoals’ execution orders. In the context of capability description, we propose a framework for data sources description towards generating good feasible query plans. Our approach uses information such as the semantic correspondences between local schemas and mediated schemas and the query capability descriptions to investigate factors that provide a good foundation for query planning. Finally, the proposed approach is compared with the other capability description approaches described in the literature. The obtained results demonstrate that our approach will allow data sources to advertise their capabilities in a flexible way and help to efficiently query planning. |
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| Title: |
AN EFFICIENT B+-TREE IMPLEMENTATION IN C++ USING THE STL STYLE |
| Author(s): |
Gregory Butler |
| Abstract: | Database indexes are the search engines for database management systems. The B+-tree is one of the most widely used and studied data structuresand provides an efficient index structure for databases. An efficient implementation is crucial for a B+-tree index. Our B+-tree index is designed to be a container by following the style of the C++ Standard Template Library (STL) and implemented efficiently by using design patterns and generic programming techniques. Therefore, our B+-tree index can adapt to different key types, data types, different queries, and different database application domains, and be easy and convenient for developers to reuse just like other containers in the STL. |
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| Title: |
XRM: AN XML-BASED LANGUAGE FOR RULE MINING SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Dominique Laurent , Tao-Yuan Jen , Ahmed Cheriat , Béatrice Bouchou , Mirian Halfeld-Ferrari |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present XRM, an XML-based language capable of promoting the collaboration among data mining systems. Indeed, KDD systems usually need a platform to integrate and exchange their results with different tools. XRM is a general framework to express any system results and/or data as logic formulas. In this way, XRM offers flexibility to represent data, constraints and patterns, and allows mining systems to present their results in an exchangeable format. In this work, we concentrate on the use of XRM to represent different forms of association rules. Association rule mining has evolved giving rise to sophisticate approaches that require interaction with other tools. XRM is built on XML Schema - in this way we can assure a certain level of correctness of data and mining results. |
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| Title: |
AUDIOVISUAL ARCHIVE WITH MPEG-7 VIDEO DESCRIPTION AND XML DATABASE |
| Author(s): |
Pedro Almeida , Helder Troca Zagalo , Joaquim Sousa Pinto , Joaquin Arnaldo Martins |
| Abstract: | This article presents the work that has been developed in the creation of an audiovisual archive that uses the MPEG-7 standard to describe the video content and a XML database to store the video descriptions. It presents the model adopted to describe the video content, the framework of the audiovisual archive information system, a video indexing tool developed to allow the creation and manipulation of XML documents with the video descriptions and an interface to visualize the videos over the Web. |
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| Title: |
ENHANCING THE SUCCESS RATIO OF DISTRIBUTED REAL-TIME NESTED TRANSACTIONS |
| Author(s): |
Majed Abdouli , Bruno Sadeg , Laurent Amanton |
| Abstract: | The traditional transaction models are not suited to real-time database systems RTDBSs. Indeed, many current applications managed by these systems necessitate a kind of transactions where some of the ACID properties must be ignored or adapted. In this paper, we propose a real-time concurrency control protocol and an adaptation of the Two-Phase Commit Protocol based on the nested transaction model where a nested transaction is viewed as a collection of both essential and non-essential subtransactions: the essential subtransaction has a firm2 deadline, and the non-essential one has a soft3 deadline. We show through simulation results, how our protocol, based on this assumption, allows better concurrency between transactions and between subtransactions of the same transaction, enhancing then the success ration4 and the RTDBS performances, i.e.,more transaction may meet their deadline. |
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| Title: |
USING IUCLID FOR WORLDWIDE EXCHANGE OF CHEMICAL AND TOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION |
| Author(s): |
Stefan Scheer , Remi Allanou |
| Abstract: | A database management tool (IUCLID) has been created in order to provide with administering chemical and toxicological data sent in structured form due to existing EU legislation. This tool also offers – beyond the normal dataset administration functionality – mechanisms for data fusion, data reproduction and data deployment. Thus IUCLID is used not only by who has to receive submissions of that kind but also who has to produce such submissions. Hence this product is used by whoever is involved as stakeholder in the current legislative process, and even beyond that it has been recognized successfully. Consequently it was the worldwide acceptance that helped in promoting this software product ahead of its original purpose and to establish a network of exchange. |
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| Title: |
RAPID XML DATABASE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT |
| Author(s): |
Kjetil Norvag , Albrecht Schmidt |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a rapid prototyping framework for XML database application development. By splitting up the development process into several refinement steps while keeping the application programming interface stable, the framework aims at rapid implementation of a prototype with a well-defined interface and a subsequent implementation of more advanced concepts like business rules in several steps. The refinement process takes the form of incrementally adding domain-specific information to the application. This is achieved by transgressing from general-purpose XML tools that do not support the definition and enforcement of constraints to frameworks that support domain-specific models and constraints such as E/R modeling. We have employed this method in the development of an example application, and we give performance numbers that illustrate the incremental improvements of each step. |
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| Title: |
ONTOLOGY-BASED REQUIREMENT ELICITATION |
| Author(s): |
cong wang |
| Abstract: | The key problem of information system development is how to acquire requirement. It has become the puzzled problem to the system developers for a long time. How to build a communication bridge between the developers and users has become a hot issue in requirement engineering. Ontology defines the common concepts and the relationships among them. A communication bridge can be built between the domain users and the system developers. Therefore, the ontology can direct the users and the developers to construct the requirement model. According to the different views of the system, this paper provides ontologies named business ontology, technique ontology and functionality Ontology for requirement elicitation. Firstly, this paper defines the concept of the ontology. Second, we describe the three ontologies in detail. Finally, through the ontologies, this paper provides the domain requirement model. |
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| Title: |
A TRANSACTION MODEL FOR LONG RUNNING BUSINESS PROCESSES |
| Author(s): |
Jinling Wang , Beihong Jin , Jing Li |
| Abstract: | Many business processes in the enterprise applications are both long running and transactional in nature, but currently no transaction model can provide full transaction support for such long running business processes. In this paper, we proposed a new transaction model — PP/T model. It can provide structural transaction support for the long running business processes, so that application developers can focus on the business logic, with the underlying platform providing the required transactional semantics. Simulation results show that the model has good performance in processing the long running business processes. |
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| Title: |
CACHING STRATEGIES FOR MOBILE DATABASES |
| Author(s): |
Murilo de Camargo |
| Abstract: | Caching remote data in local storage of a mobile client has been considered an effective solution to improve system performance for data management in mobile computing applications. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy for cache management in mobile database systems. The aim is to provide a unifying framework for the problem of caching in mobile computing, then a comparative review of the work done in this area up to now. Such a framework, with the associated analysis of the existing approaches, provides a basis for identifying strengths and weaknesses of individual methodologies, as well as general guidelines for future improvements and extensions. |
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| Title: |
DM-XIDS — AN APPLICATION-LAYER ROUTER OF INCOMING XML STREAMS |
| Author(s): |
HAO GUI |
| Abstract: | With the explosion of the information on the Internet and the widely use of the XML as a data exchange media, more and more information application can communicate with each other and deliver data of large volume in a continuous streaming. This trend has led to the emergence of novel concepts in data acquisition, integration, exchange, management and access. In this paper, we propose middleware architecture on XML streams information dissemination and design a prototype DM-XIDS as an applicable extension to our traditional database management system (named DM). Friendly graphical user interface is developed to efficiently generate and manage the diverse information subscriptions, which are described as queries in XPath. Effective algorithm is adopted to filter and match the ad hoc segment in the whole document. Automata-based query filtering mechanism will successfully implement the selection of data according to the queries in regular path expression that may include both nested path declaration and value predicate. Dedicated architecture is designed to accomplish our goals to dynamically direct the incoming XML data-stream from a static collection of information into a specific physically or logically distributed database environment. As a middleware of our database system, DM-XIDS presents a novel concept of an application-layer information router with additional administrative functions, which builds bridges between the XML stream source and the underlying data storage conforming to the pre-customized strategy. |
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| Title: |
AN APPROACH FOR SCHEMA EVOLUTION IN ODMG DATABASES |
| Author(s): |
Cecilia Delgado Negrete |
| Abstract: | Schema evolution is the process of applying changes to a schema in a consistent way and propagating these changes to the instances while the database is in operation. However, when a database is shared by many users, updates to the database schema are always difficult. To overcome this problem, in this paper we propose a version mechanism for schema evolution in ODMG databases that preserves old schemas for continued support of existing programs running on the shared database when schema changes are produced. Our approach uses external schema definition techniques and is based on the fact that if a schema change is requested on an external schema, rather than modifying the schema, a new schema, which reflects the semantics of the schema change, is defined. |
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| Title: |
COMPARISON OF APPROACHES IN DATA WAREHOUSE DEVELOPMENT IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND HIGHER EDUCATION |
| Author(s): |
Janis Benefelds , Laila Niedrite |
| Abstract: | When a decision to develop a Data Warehouse is made, some sensitive factors should be evaluated to understand the tasks and prioritize them. Of course, priorities and conditions are unique in each Data Warehouse project development. In this paper we assume that there are common characteristics for companies of similar business activities and different for those with opposite activities. This article looks at the interpretation of the same criteria of two Data Warehouse projects in for-profit and not-for-profit areas. As representatives of for-profit and not-for-profit areas we selected financial services (banking) and higher education institutions. We have used the criteria from (List et al. 2002) to compare the results of the two projects. Each section of the paper describes this set of criteria for each of the two areas. The Data Warehouse development methodology used in each case is described too. An evaluation matrix is provided in Conclusion. The results shown there are not very different from Data Warehouse project development in an organization with respectively different behavior. |
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| Title: |
CORRELATING EVENTS FOR MONITORING BUSINESS PROCESSES |
| Author(s): |
Josef Schiefer , Carolyn McGregor |
| Abstract: | With the increasing demand for real-time information on critical performance indicators of business processes, the capturing, transformation and correlation of real-world events with minimal latency are a prerequisite for improving the speed and effectiveness of an organization's business operations. Events often include key business information about their relationship to other events that can be utilized to collect relevant event data for the calculation of business performance indicators. In this paper we introduce an approach for correlating events of business processes that uses correlation sessions to represent correlation knowledge. Correlation sessions facilitate the processing of data across multiple events and thereby enable a calculating of business metrics in near real-time. The benefit over existing approaches is that it is tailored to instrument business processes and business applications that may operate in a heterogeneous software environment. We propose a Java-based, container-managed environment which provides a distributed, scalable, near-real time processing of events and which includes a correlation service that effectively manages correlation sessions. We also show a complete example that illustrates how correlation sessions can be utilized for computing the cycle time of business processes. |
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| Title: |
TRANSFORMATION-ORIENTED MIDDLEWARE FOR LEGACY SYSTEM INTEGRATION |
| Author(s): |
Urs Frei , Guido Menkhaus |
| Abstract: | Most established companies have acquired legacy systems through mergers and acquisitions. The systems were developed independently of each other and very often they do not align with the evolving IT infrastructure. Still, they drive day-to-day business processes. Replacing the legacy application with new solutions might not be feasible, practical or cost a considerable amount of time. However, immediate integration might be a requirement for a strategic project, such as supply chain management or e-business. This article presents a transformation system for legacy system integration that allows flexible and effective transformation of data between heterogeneous systems. Sequences of transformations are described using a grammar based approach. |
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| Title: |
SCHEMA EVOLUTION FOR STARS AND SNOWFLAKES |
| Author(s): |
Christian Kaas , Torben Bach Pedersen , Bjørn Rasmussen |
| Abstract: | The most common implementation platform for multidimensional data warehouses is RDBMSs storing data in relational star and snowflake schemas. DW schemas evolve over time, which may invalidate existing analysis queries used for reporting purposes. However, the evolution properties of star and snowflake schemas have not previously been investigated systematically. This paper systematically investigates the evolution properties of star and snowflake schemas. Eight evolution operations are considered, covering insertion and deletion of dimensions, levels, dimension attributes, and measure attributes. For each operation, the formal semantics of the changes for star and snowflake schemas are given, and instance adaption and impact on existing queries are described. Finally, we compare the evolution properties of star and snowflake schemas, concluding that the star schema is considerably more robust towards schema changes than the snowflake schema. |
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| Title: |
AN EVENT PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR RULE-BASED COMPONENT INTEGRATION |
| Author(s): |
Susan Urban |
| Abstract: | The IJK project has developed an environment in which active rules, known as integration rules, are used together with transactions to provide an event-driven, rule-based approach to the integration of black-box components. This paper presents the event processing system that supports the use of integration rules over components. The event processing system is composed of the language framework for the specification of different types of events, an event generation system for generating event instances, and an event handler for communicating the occurrence of events to the integration rule processor. The language framework supports the enhancement of EJB components with events that are generated before and after the execution of methods on components. Since integration rule support an immediate coupling mode and execute in the context of nested transactions, a synchronization algorithm has been developed to coordinate the execution of immediate integration rules with the execution of methods on components. The synchronization algorithm makes it possible to suspend and resume distributed application transactions to accommodate the nested execution of integration rules with an immediate coupling mode. |
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| Title: |
CONV2XML: RELATIONAL SCHEMA CONVERSION TO XML NESTED-BASED SCHEMA |
| Author(s): |
Angela Duta , Ken Barker |
| Abstract: | Conversion of relational data to XML is a critical topic in the database area. This approach translates the rigid tabular structures of relational databases into hierarchical XML structures. Logical connections between bits of data depicted by relationships are represented more naturally by tree-like structures. Conv2XML and ConvRel are two algorithms for converting relational schema to XML Schema focusing on preserving the source relationships and their structural constraints. ConvRel translates each relationship individually into a nested XML structure. Conv2XML identifies complex nested structures capable of modeling all relationships existent in a relational database. |
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| Title: |
APPLYING CROSS-TOPIC RELATIONSHIPS TO SEARCHING WITH INCREMENTAL RELEVANCE FEEDBACK |
| Author(s): |
Stephen Chan |
| Abstract: | General purpose search engines such as Google and Yahoo define search topic hierarchies for document organization, yet such hierarchical structures cover only a portion of the possible relationships among search topics. It is believed that search effectiveness can be improved significantly by making better use of the semantic relations among search topics. In general, the is-child relation allows starting a search from general concepts, while the is-neighbor relation provides fresh information that can help users identify related search areas. This paper describes a topic network encompassing such relations, based on Bayesian networks techniques, to support searching, Our experiments show that making use of such a topic network can improve search effectiveness in a search engine using incremental feedback |
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| Title: |
INFORMATION INVASION IN ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Stephen Crouch , Peter Henderson , Robert Walters |
| Abstract: | With the proliferation of internet-based technologies within and between organisations, large-scale enterprise systems are becoming more interconnected than ever before. A significant problem facing these organisations is how their information systems will cope with inconsistency being introduced from external data sources. Major problems arise when low quality information enters an authoritative enterprise system from these external sources, and in so doing gains credibility. This problem is compounded by the propagation of this information to other systems and other enterprises, potentially 'invading' an inter-enterprise network. In this paper we will introduce and examine this behaviour, which we term 'information invasion'. Characterisation of systems that are most vulnerable from such an occurrence is provided, and details of an experiment are given which simulates information invasion on an example network topology. |
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| Title: |
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER TO AND AMONG END-USERS IN PRE-PACKAGED ENTERPRISE APPLICATION SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE ROLES OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE |
| Author(s): |
Jimmy Tanamal |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the roles of Communities of Practice (CoPs) in knowledge transfer during the implementation of a particular IT artefact, i.e. the Pre-packaged Enterprise Application Software (PEAS) or also known as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Using an in-depth longitudinal case-study across different stages of a Financial PEAS implementation in a large Australian university, we assess the effectiveness and applicability of the practices of CoPs for transferring the PEAS knowledge to and among end-users. The key finding of this paper is that CoPs can be utilized to enhance knowledge transfer for a better PEAS implementation result. Our findings also indicate that CoPs can be assigned to steward this dynamic PEAS knowledge in its most updated version among the very people who are its owners. |
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| Title: |
AN OBJECT ORIENTED APPROACH FOR DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT |
| Author(s): |
Abdul Adamu , Souheil Khaddaj |
| Abstract: | It is already widely accepted that the use of data abstraction in object oriented modelling enables real world objects to be well represented in information systems. In this work we are particularly interested with the use of object oriented techniques for document management. Object orientation is well suited for such systems, which require the ability to handle multiple types content. However, the matter of how to deal with the reuse and management of existing documents over time remains a major issue. This paper aims to investigate a conceptual model, based on object versioning techniques, that will represent the semantics in order to allow the continuity and pattern of changes of documents to be determined over time. |
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| Title: |
HEALTH CARE PROCESS BASED ON THE ABC MODEL THROUGH A META-STRUCTURED INFORMATION SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Christine VERDIER , Gérard CLUZE |
| Abstract: | We propose in this article to define a system which generates a generic care process based on the ABC method. For this purpose, we adapt dynamically the medical information system with UML packages in order to generate some semantic and syntactic links between the different packages that represent the “business objects” of a hospital. These packages contain all the information related to a specific problem for all the patients. So we are able to extract the particular data concerning a criteria (diagnosis, IP number, etc.) and a patient and, in that manner, to re-build the care process. The ABC method gives the skeleton of the care process and allows the definition of costs on a particular care process (e.g. the care process of the patient “John” concerning the disease “kidney failure” in the hospital H). |
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| Title: |
A DATA WAREHOUSE FOR WEATHER INFORMATION |
| Author(s): |
Jose Torres-Jimenez , José Torres Jímenez |
| Abstract: | Data warehouse related technologies, allows to extract, group and analyze historical data in order to identify information valuable to decision making processes. In this paper the implementation of a weather data warehouse (WDW) to store Mexico’s weather variables is presented. The weather variables data were provided by the Mexican Institute for Water Technologies (IMTA), the IMTA does research, development, adaptation, human resource formation and technology transfer to improve the Mexico’s water management, and in this way contribute to the sustainable development of Mexico. The implemented WDW contains two dimension tables (one time dimension table and, one geographical dimension table) and one fact table (that stores the data values for weather variables). The time dimension table spans over ten years from 1980 to 1990. The geographical dimension table involves many Mexico’s hydrological zones and comes from 5551 measuring stations. The WDW enables (through the dimensions navigation) the identification of weather patterns that would be useful for: a) agriculture politics definition; b) climatic change research; and c) contingency plans over weather extreme conditions. Even it is well known, but it is important to mention, that the data warehouse paradigm (in many cases) is better to derivate knowledge from the data in comparison to the database paradigm, a fact that was confirmed through the WDW exploitation |
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| Title: |
INTEGRATION, FLEXIBILITY AND TRANSVERSALITY: ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ERP SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Louis Raymond , Sylvestre Uwizeyemungu |
| Abstract: | The interest of firms in ERP systems has been echoed in both the scientific and professional literature. It is worth noting however that while this literature has become increasingly abundant, there does not yet exist an operational definition of the ERP concept that is, if not unanimously, at least widely accepted. This constitutes a handicap for both the research and practice communities. The present study outlines what could be considered as an ERP by first determining the essentially required characteristics of such a system : integration, flexibility and transversality. Indicators are then provided in order to operationalise these three characteristics. The study concludes by proposing a research framework on the impact of an ERP’s key characteristics upon the performance of the system in a given organisational setting. |
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| Title: |
SEMANTIC INTEGRATION OF DISPARATE DATA SOURCES IN THE COG PROJECT |
| Author(s): |
Jos de Bruijn |
| Abstract: | We present a novel approach to the integration of structured information sources in enterprises, based on Semantic Web technology. The semantic information integration approach presented in this paper was applies in the COG project. We describe Unicorn's Semantic Information Management along with the Unicorn Workbench tool, which is a component part of the Unicorn System, and how they were applied in the project to solve the information integration problem. We used the Semantic Information Management Methodology and the Unicorn Workbench tool to create an Information Model (an ontology) based on data schemas taken from the automotive industry. We map these data schemas to the Information Model in order to make the meaning of the concepts in the data schemas explicit and relate them to each other, thereby creating an information architecture that provides a unified view of the data sources in the organization. |
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| Title: |
IMPROVING VIEW SELECTION IN QUERY REWRITING USING DOMAIN SEMANTICS |
| Author(s): |
Qingyuan Bai , Michael F. McTear , Jun Hong |
| Abstract: | Query rewriting using views is an important issue in data integration. Several algorithms have been proposed, such as the bucket algorithm, the inverse rules algorithm, the SVB algorithm, and the MiniCon algorithm. These algorithms can be divided into two categories. The algorithms of the first category are based on use of buckets while the ones of the second category are based on use of inverse rules. The bucket-based algorithms have not considered the effects of integrity constraints, such as domain semantics, functional and inclusion dependencies. As a result, they might miss query rewritings or generate redundant query rewritings in the presence of these constraints. A bucket-based algorithm consists of two steps. The first step is called view selection that selects views relevant to a given query and puts the views into the corresponding buckets. The second step is to generate all the possible query rewritings by combining a view from each bucket. In this paper, we consider an improvement of view selection in the bucket-based algorithms using domain semantics. We use the resolution method to generate a pseudo residue for each view given a set of domain semantics. Given a query, the pseudo residue of each view is compared with it and any conflict that exists can be found. As a result, irrelevant views can be removed even before a bucket-based algorithm is used. |
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| Title: |
THE ABORTION RATE OF LAZY REPLICATION PROTOCOLS FOR DISTRIBUTED DATABASES. |
| Author(s): |
Luis Irún-Briz |
| Abstract: | Lazy update protocols have proven to have an undesirable behavior due to their high abortion rate in scenarios with high degree of access conflicts. In this paper, we present the problem of the abortion rate in such protocols from an statistical point of view, in order to provide an expression that predicts the probability of an object to be out of date during the execution of a transaction. It is also suggested a pseudo-optimistic technique that makes use of this expression to reduce the abortion rate caused by accesses to out of date objects. The proposal is validated by means of simulations of the behavior of the expression. Finally, the application of the presented results to improve lazy update protocols is discussed, providing a technique to theoretically determine the boundaries of the improvement. |
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| Title: |
NEW FAST ALGORITHM FOR INCREMENTAL MINING OF ASSOCIATION RULES |
| Author(s): |
yasser El-Sonbaty , Rasha Kashef |
| Abstract: | Mining association rules is a well-studied problem, and several algorithms were presented for finding large itemsets. In this paper we present a new algorithm for incremental discovery of large itemsets in an increasing set of transactions. The proposed algorithm is based on partitioning the database and keeping a summary of local large itemsets for each partition based on the concept of negative border technique. A global summary for the whole database is also created to facilitate the fast updating of overall large itemsets. When adding a new set of transactions to the database, the algorithm uses these summaries instead of scanning the whole database, thus reducing the number of database scans. The results of applying the new algorithm showed that the new technique is quite efficient, and in many respects superior to other incremental algorithms like Fast Update Algorithm (FUP) and Update Large Itemsets (ULI). |
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| Title: |
WISH QUERY COMPOSER |
| Author(s): |
Gregory Butler |
| Abstract: | The WISH (With Intuitive Search Help) Query Composer is a software tool for composing form-based queries and their associated reports for relational databases. It incorporates the SQL and XML industry standards to generate user-friendly customizable queries and reports. It uses the very simple but flexible XML semantics to represent database schemas, SQL queries and result datasets, regardless of in which relational database management system (RDBMS) the data is stored. The tool is developed in the Eclipse development environment using the Java programming language with Swing components, and connects to the database through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). The Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) is used to automate the mapping between XML documents and Java objects. |
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| Title: |
AN EXCHANGE SERVICE FOR FINANCIAL MARKETS |
| Author(s): |
Fethi Rabhi , Feras Dabous , Hairong Yu |
| Abstract: | The critical business requirements and compelling nature of the competitive landscape are pushing Information Technology systems away from the traditional centrally controlled corporate-wide architectures towards dynamic, loosely coupled, self-defining and service-based solutions. Web services are regarded as a key technology for addressing the need for connecting extended applications and providing standards and flexibility for enterprise legacy systems integration. This paper reports our experiences when integrating a financial market trading system. This integration process starts from analysing the trading system’s architecture, then identifying system functionality and finally realising the design and implementation of a Web service. Performance and security and the trade-offs involved are the major focus points throughout this process. Comprehensive benchmarking is conducted with and without Web service and security considerations. |
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| Title: |
DYNAMIC CHANGE OF SERVER ASSIGNMENTS IN DISTRIBUTED WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Manfred Reichert |
| Abstract: | Process-oriented application systems can only be realized -- with reasonable effort and at acceptable costs -- by the use of a workflow management system (WfMS). Central WfMS, with a single server controlling all workflow (WF) instances, however, may become overloaded very soon. In the WF literature, therefore, many approaches suggest using a multi-server WfMS with distributed WF control. In such a distributed WfMS, the concrete WF server for the control of a particular WF activity is usually defined by an associated server assignment. Following such an approach, problems may occur if components (WF servers, subnets, or gateways) become overloaded or break down. As we know from other fields of computer science, a favorable approach to handle such cases may be to dynamically change hardware assignment. This corresponds to the dynamic change of server assignments in WfMS. For the first time, this paper analyses to what extend this approach is reasonable in such situations. |
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| Title: |
A/D CASE: A NEW HEART FOR FD3 |
| Author(s): |
Manuel Enciso |
| Abstract: | In [anonymous] we introduce the Functional Dependencies Data Dictionary (FD3) as an architecture to facilitate the integration of database Systems. We propose the use of logics based on the notion of Functional Dependencies (FD) to allows formal specification of the objects of a data model and to conceive future automated treatment. The existence of a FD logic provides a formal language suitable to carry out integration tasks and eases the design of an automatic integration process based in the axiomatic system of the FD logic. Besides that, FD3, provides a High Level Functional Dependencies (HLFD) Data Model which is used in a similar way as the Entity/Relationship Model. In this paper, we develop a CASE tool named A/D CASE (Attribute/Dependence CASE) that illustrates the practical benefits of the FD3 architecture. In the development of A/D CASE we have taken into account other theoretical results which improve our original FD3 proposal [anonymous]. Particularly: * A new functional dependencies logic named SLfd, for removing redundancy in a database sub-model that we present in [anonymous]. The use of SLfd add formalization to software engineering process. * An efficient preprocessing transformation based on the substitution paradigm that we present in [anonymous]. Unlike A/D CASE is independent from the Relational Model, it can be integrated into different database systems and it is compatible with relational DBMSs. |
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| Title: |
EFFICIENT QUERYING OF TRANSFORMED XML DOCUMENTS |
| Author(s): |
Georg Birkenheuer , Stefan Böttcher , Sven Groppe |
| Abstract: | An application using XML for data representation requires the transformation of XML data if the application accesses XML data of other applications, or of a global database using another XML format. The common approach transforms entire XML documents from one format into another e.g. by using an XSLT stylesheet. The application can then work locally on a copy of the original document transformed in the application-specific format. Different from the common approach, we use an XSLT stylesheet in order to transform a given XPath query such that we retrieve and transform only that part of the XML document which is sufficient to answer the given query. Among other things, our approach avoids problems of replication, saves processing time and in distributed scenarios, transportation costs. Experimental results of a prototype prove that our approach is scalable and efficient. |
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| Title: |
ATTENUATING THE EFFECT OF DATA ABNORMALITIES ON DATA WAREHOUSES |
| Author(s): |
Orlando Belo , Anália Lourenço |
| Abstract: | Today’s informational entanglement makes it crucial to enforce adequate management systems. Data warehousing systems appeared with the specific mission of providing adequate contents for data analysis, ensuring gathering, processing and maintenance of all data elements thought valuable. Data analysis in general, data mining and on-line analytical processing facilities, in particular, can achieve better, sharper results, because data quality is finally taken into account. The available elements must be submitted to an intensive processing before being able to integrate them into the data warehouse. Each data warehousing system embraces extraction, transformation and loading processes which are in charge of all the processing concerning the data preparation towards its integration into the data warehouse. Usually, data is scoped at several stages, inspecting data and schema issues and filtering all those elements that do not comply with the established rules. This paper proposes an agent-based platform, which not only ensures the traditional data flow, but also tries to recover the filtered data when an data error occurs. It is intended to perform the process of error monitoring and control automatically. Bad data is processed and eventually repaired by the agents, integrating it again into the data warehouse’s regular flow. All data processing efforts are registered and afterwards mined in order to establish data error patterns. The obtained results will enrich the wrappers knowledge about abnormal situations’ resolution. Eventually, this evolving will enhance the data warehouse population process, enlarging the integrated volume of data and enriching its actual quality and consistency. |
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| Title: |
A HYBRID APPROACH FOR EFFICIENT STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL DATA |
| Author(s): |
Jagdish K.T. , Srivani T.K. |
| Abstract: | Mapping from multidimensional data to one-dimensional using Hilbert Index has been studied as a way of indexing for storage and retrieval of multidimensional data. There are mainly two approaches towards Storage and Retrieval of Multidimensional data (Jurgens, 2002) one is the Tree Based Approach and other is Bitmap Indexing. One main benefit of the tree-based approach over the bit map indexing is that they have superior storage property and the insert/update operations are efficient on the other hand the bitmap indexing provides for faster retrieval. Our data structure is mainly based on the tree-based approach in which every node of the tree contains a bit array. The presence of a bit array in every node provides for faster retrieval thereby giving the benefit of both the approaches. In this paper, we present a tree (HT-tree) based on Hilbert Curves for efficient data storage and retrieval of Multidimensional data. The HT-tree data search method mainly makes use of the bit representation of the Hilbert Index values to search for the data, instead of using conventional point search methods as used in most of the R-trees. The proposed data structure overcomes the disadvantages of the HG-tree namely, extra computation of minimum bounding rectangle from the range of Hilbert values required for point search, range search and nearest neighbour search and also the problems occurring from the overlap area and redundant searches. |
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| Title: |
RELATIONAL SAMPLING FOR DATA QUALITY AUDITING AND DECISION SUPPORT |
| Author(s): |
José Nuno Oliveira , Bruno Cortes |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a strategy for applying sampling techniques to relational databases, in the context of data quality auditing or decision support processes. Fuzzy cluster sampling is used to survey sets of records for correctness of business rules. Relational algebra estimators are presented as a data quality-auditing tool. |
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| Title: |
TURNING INFORMATION INTO ACTION: FROM DATA TO BUSINESS PROCESSES THROUGH WEB SERVICES |
| Author(s): |
Youcef Baghdadi |
| Abstract: | Sharing Web services across the enterprise and to support business-to-business integration becomes more and more intensive and critical for businesses. This paper proposes a process to generate Web services from the attributes of the business objects and coordination artifacts as described in the highest abstraction level of a business model i.e. the universe of discourse where the elements are unique and not duplicated. Indeed, the elements of the information system, technology-based representation of the universe of discourse, are complex and redundant. The process is based on the concept of factual dependency. The factual dependency is a mechanism that allows aggregations of the attributes that are concerned by the same CRUD operations with respect to the time and the space. Factual dependencies are then validated with respect to the possible business events to keep only the relevant ones. Each distinct and specified operation in terms of input/output parameters generates a lowest level of granularity Web service. These Web services are then registered to be discovered and (re)used at request by any business process. |
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| Title: |
LIFESTREAMS: BRAIN-FRIENDLY DATA ACCESS |
| Author(s): |
Jussi Kangasharju , Tobias Limberger , Gerhard Austaller |
| Abstract: | Modern databases are rapidly growing in size and complexity. However, many users do not have enough domain knowledge to formulate precise queries and are thus unable to use these databases to their full potential. In this paper we present our LifeStreams project which aims at a brain-friendly access to data using associations between documents. Associations in LifeStreams are based on examining similarities between documents in several metadata dimensions such as time, location, and keywords. We present a model for real world and abstract entities and discuss how the relationships between entities and documents can be established. We show how LifeStreams visualizes collections of documents using a 3-dimensional visualization technique. We also discuss real-world application scenarios for LifeStreams in a corporate environment. |
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| Title: |
AN METHOD BASED ON CHAOTIC AND FRACTAL CONTROL FOR SOFTWARE QUALITY - AN EXPERIENCE |
| Author(s): |
ZHANG Kai |
| Abstract: | Despite the fact that great efforts have been made, there still have been major software problems unsolved, such as overtime and low quality. The chaotic and fractal have become a focal research field recent years, but there are only two papers to study the software quality by chaos tool. The purpose of this paper is to explore an approach how to early control software quality by the chaotic and fractal tools. After the analysis for the growing process of the software defects, the authors believe that the software defect growth has chaotic fractal characteristic, and design a method based on the chaotic and fractal control for process management of software quality. Two experiments have testified to the control efficiency. |
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| Title: |
IMPROVING QUERY PERFORMANCE ON OLAP-DATA USING ENHANCED MULTIDIMENSIONAL INDICES |
| Author(s): |
Yaokai Feng , Hiroshi Ryu , Akifumi Makinouchi |
| Abstract: | Multidimensional indices are efficient to improve the query performance on OLAP data. As one multidimensional index structure, R*-tree is popular and successful, which is a member of the famous R-tree family. We enhance the R*-tree to improve the performance of range queries on OLAP data. First, the following observations are presented. (1) The clustering pattern of the tuples (of the OLAP data) among the R*-tree leaf nodes is a decisive factor on range search performance and it is controllable. (2) There often exist many slender nodes when the R*-tree is used to index business data, which causes some problems both with the R*-tree construction and with queries. And then, we propose an approach to control the clustering pattern of tuples and propose an approach to solve the problems of slender nodes, where slender nodes refer to those having a very narrow side (even the side length is zero) in some dimension. Our proposals are examined by experiments using synthetic data and TPC-H benchmark data. |
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| Title: |
MANAGING WEB-BASED INFORMATION |
| Author(s): |
Tullio Vernazza , Giancarlo Succi , Alberto Sillitti , Marco Scotto |
| Abstract: | The heterogeneity and the lack of structure of World Wide Web make automated discovery, organization, and management of Web-based information a non-trivial task. Traditional search and indexing tools provide some comfort to users, but they generally provide neither structured information nor categorize, filter, or interpret documents in an automated way. In recent years, these factors have prompted the need for developing data mining techniques applied to the web, giving rise to the term “Web Mining”. This paper introduces the problem of web data extraction and gives a brief analysis of the various techniques to address it. Then, News Miner, a tool for Web Content Mining applied to the news retrieval is presented. |
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| Title: |
ADVANTAGES OF UML FOR MULTIDIMENSIONAL MODELING |
| Author(s): |
Sergio Luján-Mora , Juan Trujillo , Panos Vassiliadis |
| Abstract: | In the last few years, various approaches for the multidimensional (MD) modeling have been presented. However, none of them has been widely accepted as a standard. In this paper, we summarize the advantages of using object orientation for MD modeling. Furthermore, we use the UML, a standard visual modeling language, for modeling every aspect of MD systems. We show how our approach resolves elegantly some important problems of the MD modeling, such as multistar models, shared hierarchy levels, and heterogeneous dimensions. We believe that our approach, based on the popular UML, can be successfully used for MD modeling and can represent most of frequent MD modeling problems at the conceptual level. |
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| Title: |
SEMI-STRUCTURED INFORMATION WAREHOUSES: AN APPROACH TO A DOCUMENT MODEL TO SUPPORT THEIR CONSTRUCTION |
| Author(s): |
Juan Manuel Pérez Martínez , Rafael Berlanga Llavori , Maria Jose Aramburu Cabo |
| Abstract: | During the last decade, data warehouse and OLAP techniques have helped companies to gather, organize and analyze the structured data they produce. Simultaneously, digital libraries have applied Information Retrieval mechanisms to query their repositories of unstructured documents. In this context, the emergence of XML means the convergence of these two approaches, making possible the development of warehouses for semi-structured information. Although there exist several extensions of traditional data warehouse technology to manage semi-structured information, none of them are based on an underlying document model able to exploit this kind of information. Along this paper we present a set of requirements for semi-structured warehouses, as well as a document model to support their construction. |
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| Title: |
FACILITATING BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT WITH HARMONIZED MESSAGING |
| Author(s): |
Shazia Sadiq , Maria Orlowska , Wasim Sadiq , Karsten Schulz |
| Abstract: | Process communication is characterized by complex interactions between heterogeneous and autonomous systems within the enterprise and often between trading partners. A number of initiatives and proposals are underway to provide solutions for process specification and communication. However, the focus is often on defining APIs and interfaces rather than the semantics of the underlying message exchange. We see a great potential in the enhancement of current messaging infrastructure, in its new role in facilitating complex, long running interactions for dynamic and collaborative processes operating in decentralized environments like the World-Wide Web. In this paper, we primarily present a vision for a technology aimed at providing a level of business logic on the messaging layer, which we denominate as harmonisation of messages.. We will provide the conceptual framework for the harmonized messaging technology and identify fundamental issues for the specification of complex interactions. |
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| Title: |
MINING CLICKSTREAM-BASED DATA CUBES |
| Author(s): |
Orlando Belo , Ronnie Alves |
| Abstract: | Clickstream analysis can reveal usage patterns on company’s web sites giving highly improved understanding of customer behaviour, which can be used to improve customer satisfaction with the website and the company in general, yielding a great business advantage. Such summary information and rules have to be extracted from very large collections of clickstreams in web sites. This is challenging data mining, both in terms of the magnitude of data involved, and the need to incrementally adapt the mined patterns and rules as new data is collected. In this paper, we present some guidelines for implementing on-line analytical mining (OLAM) engines which means an integration of OLAP and mining techniques for exploring multidimensional data cube structures. In addition, we describe a data cube alternative for analyzing clickstreams. Besides, we discussed implementations that we consider efficient approaches on exploring multidimensional data cube structures, such as DBMiner, WebLobMiner, and OLAP-based Web Access Engine. |
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| Title: |
TRANSACTION CONCEPTS FOR SUPPORTING CHANGES IN DATA WAREHOUSES |
| Author(s): |
Zbyszko Krolikowski , Robert Wrembel , Bartosz Bebel |
| Abstract: | A data warehouse (DW) provides an information, from external data sources, for analytical processing, decision making, and data mining tools. External data sources are autonomous, i.e. they change over time, independently of a DW. Therefore, the structure and content of a DW has to be periodically synchronized with its external data sources. This synchronization concerns DW data as well as schema. Concurrent work of synchronizing processes and user queries may result in various anomalies. In order to tackle this problem we propose to apply a multiversion data warehouse and an advanced transaction mechanism to a DW synchronization. |
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| Title: |
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH FOR BUILDING WEB-APPLICATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Oleg Rostanin |
| Abstract: | Nowadays in J2EE-world there is a lot of blueprints, articles and books that propose some recommendations, recipes and patterns for producing web-applications in right way. There are also ready decisions like Jakarta Struts that can be taken as a base of a new project development. While developing the DaMiT e-learning system we tried to collect, analyse and implement many of the architectural features being proposed as well as to invent some new mechanisms such as supporting multiple kinds of client software or introducing XML-based interfaces between application tiers. |
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| Title: |
RJDBC: A SIMPLE DATABASE REPLICATION ENGINE |
| Author(s): |
Javier Esparza Peidro |
| Abstract: | Providing fault tolerant services is a key question among many services manufacturers. Thus, enterprises usually acquire complex and expensive replication engines. This paper offers an interesting choice to organizations which can not afford such costs. RJDBC stands for a simple, easy to install middleware, placed between the application and the database management system, intercepting all database operations and forwarding them among all the replicas of the system. However, from the point of view of the application, the database management system is accessed directly, so that RJDBC is able to supply replication capabilities in a transparent way. Such solution provides acceptable results in clustered configurations. This paper describes the architecture of the solution and some significant results. |
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| Title: |
TOWARDS DESIGN RATIONALES OF SOFTWARE CONFEDERATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Michal Zemlicka |
| Abstract: | The paper discuss reasons why service-oriented architecture is a new software paradigm and the consequences of this fact for the design of enterprise information systems. It is shown that such systems called confederations need not (should not) use web services in the sense of W3C which are more or less a necessity in e-commerce. As business processes supported by enterprise systems must be supervised by businessmen, the same must hold for ccommunication inside confederations. It implies that the interfaces of the services must be user-oriented (user-firendly). It has possitive consequences for the software engineering properties of the confederation. Confederations should sometimes include parts based on a difficult implementation philosophy (e.g. data orientation). Pros and cons of it are discussed. Open issues of service orientation are presented. |
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| Title: |
SOLVING INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEMS ON A FEDERATION OF SOFTWARE PROCESS SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Mohamed-Amine MOSTEFAI , Mohamed AHMED-NACER |
| Abstract: | Software process components that share information and that cooperate for common tasks lead to multiple problems of interoperability for software process support environments based on a federation of heterogeneous and autonomous components. Some based-interoperability approaches have been proposed, especially at the conceptual level. However, more problems remain to be solved to enable the heterogeneous process components interoperability at execution level. This paper presents a process-based approach (architecture) for the federation of software process systems. Based on this federation architecture, we focuss on its implementation problems for the process execution interoperability. We show how we solve these problems and we discuss their implementation through the main development platforms of distributed applications. |
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| Title: |
VERSION MANAGEMENT FOR DATA WAREHOUSE EVOLUTION |
| Author(s): |
Alexandre Schlottgen , Nina Edelweiss |
| Abstract: | Various multidimensional data models were proposed in the last years for Data Warehouse (DW) modeling. However, there is a considerable shortage of models that deal with DW schema evolutions. In order to understand the DW life cycle and guarantee the correct and consistent maintenance of the populated data, it is necessary to control the modifications made at multidimensional schemata. This article studies the DW schema modification operations, presenting an extension to ME/R (Multidimensional Entity Relationship Model) to support the multiple versions management of DW schemata. |
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| Title: |
A RESPONSIBILITY-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE FOR MOBILE ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Qusay Mahmoud |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with wireless applications that get downloaded, over the air, on handheld wireless devices and get executed there. Once running, they may need to interact with applications residing on remote wired servers. The motivation for this work is provided in part by the characteristics of the wireless computing environment. There are several implications of these characteristics that require a software architecture that reduces the load on the wireless link and supports disconnected operations. We present a responsibility-driven architecture that enables mobile thin-clients to interact with enterprise servers. We extend this architecture with mobile agent to reduce the load on the wireless link and support disconnected operations. This architecture is capable of supporting multiple devices with or without a client browser. |
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| Title: |
DESIGN AND REPRESENTATION OF THE TIME DIMENSION IN ENTERPRISE DATA WAREHOUSES - A BUSINESS RELATED PRACTICAL APPROACH |
| Author(s): |
Ahmed Hezzah , A Min Tjoa |
| Abstract: | A data warehouse provides a consistent view of business data over time. In order to do that data is represented in logical dimensions, with time being one of the most important dimensions. Representing time, however, is not always straightforward due to the complex nature of time issues and the strong dependence of the time dimension on the type of business. This paper addresses the specific issues encountered during the design of the time dimension for multidimensional data warehouses. It introduces design and modeling techniques for representing time in the data warehouse by the use of one or multiple time dimensions or database timestamps. It also discusses generic problems linked to the design and implementation of the time dimension which have to be considered for (global) business processes, such as representing holidays and fiscal periods, increasing the granularity of business facts, considering the observation of daylight saving time and handling different time zones. These problems seem to have wide application, and yet, more in-depth investigations need to be conducted in this field for real-world time-based analysis in enterprise-wide data warehouses. |
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| Title: |
A METHOD FOR XML DOCUMENT SCHEMA EVOLUTION |
| Author(s): |
Lina Al-Jadir |
| Abstract: | XML has become an emerging standard for data representation and data exchange on the Web. Although XML data is self-describing, most application domains tend to use document schemas. Over a period of time, these schemas need to be modified to reflect a change in the real-world, a change in the user’s requirements, mistakes or missing information in the initial design. Most of the current XML management systems do not support schema changes. In this paper, we propose a method to manage XML document schema evolution. We consider XML documents associated with DTDs. Our method consists in three steps. First, the DTD and XML documents are stored as a database schema and a database instance respectively. Second, DTD changes are applied as schema changes on the database. Third, the updated DTD and XML documents are retrieved from the database. Our method supports a complete set of DTD changes. The semantics of each DTD change is defined by preconditions and postactions, such that the new DTD is valid, existing XML documents conform to the new DTD, and data is not lost if possible. We implemented our method in an object-oriented database system. |
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| Title: |
PROPOSAL FOR AUTOMATING THE GENERATION PROCESS OF QUESTIONNAIRES TO MEASURE THE SATISFACTION LEVEL OF SOFTWARE USERS |
| Author(s): |
María Inés Lund , Sergio Zapata , Mauro Paparo |
| Abstract: | The most recent concepts on software quality take into account the factors of product quality, process quality and the satisfaction level of users. Therefore, when putting forth a plan for improving a software product, special attention should be paid as to incorporate the level of users’ satisfaction into the development premises. On this latter respect, well-designed surveys have proven to be a valuable tool to obtain and measure satisfaction variables. The survey-based strategies, however, present a drawback on the fact that the tasks involved in questionnaire generation are difficult to automate, which renders the entire approach almost impracticable. This work presents a proposal for automating the various stages defined in questionnaire generation, with the aim at making the measurement method be both applicable and more practical. |
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| Title: |
ONTOEDITOR: A WEB TOOL FOR MANIPULATING ONTOLOGIES STORED IN DATABASE SERVERS |
| Author(s): |
Claudio de Souza Baptista , Karine Freitas Vasconcelos , Ulrich Schiel , Ladjane Silva Arruda , Elvis Rodrigues da Silva |
| Abstract: | The Web is moving to a new generation in which machine-understandable processing is mandatory. In order to achieve this goal it is essential to define ontologies which enable the modeling of application domains and can be shared and understood by different applications in different platforms. These ontologies are complex and so it is necessary to provide software tools which aims to facilitate ontology manipulation. In this paper, we describe a new tool for ontology manipulation known as OntoEditor. OntoEditor is a Web tool, which has a graphical interface for representing an ontology graph. Moreover, OntoEditor uses a database management system for ontology persistency and query manipulation. The ontologies are represented internally as RDF and RDF Schema. |
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| Title: |
REFERENCIAL INTEGRITY MODEL FOR XML DATA INTEGRATED FROM HETEROGENEOUS DATABASES SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Mauri Ferrandin |
| Abstract: | This article presents a proposal for maintenance of the referential integrity in data integrated from relational heterogeneous databases stored in XML materialised views. The core idea is the creation of a rules repository that will have to be observed to if carrying through any operation of update in the mediating layer of a system for integration of heterogeneous relational sources of data to guarantee that the updates carried through in the data stored in this layer can be propagated to the relational databases that are part of the system integrated without causing problem of referential integrity in the same ones. This proposal has as main objective to specify a mechanism capable to guarantee that the data after exported from the relational heterogeneous databases in a mediating layer, continue respecting the same integrity which these were submitted in the origin databases. |
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| Title: |
MODEL BASED MIDDLEWARE INTEGRATION |
| Author(s): |
Frédérick Seyler |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we describe a process and a meta model that we are defining for the reuse of legacy based systems. This aims at filing the gap between design level bridges and the implementation of interoperability. Our proposal is a component based integration process, a metamodel based on welle known component research results and a reuse architecture allowing an operational integration of legacy applications. The metamodel, called Ugatze is composed by a set of UML packages covering multiple Viewpoints of the reuse activity. Ugatze is the Basque name for the Bearded Vulture, it reuses bones of death animals to eat, and its re-integration in Basque Country seems to be difficult, but it is a challenge. |
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| Title: |
REAL-TIME DATABASES FOR SENSOR NETWORKS |
| Author(s): |
Maria Lígia Barbosa Perkusich , Pedro Fernandes Ribeiro Neto , Angelo Perkusich |
| Abstract: | In the last years, the demand of embedded systems has been increased. Also, due to the increasing competition among different kind of companies, such as cellular phone, automobiles and industrial automation, the requirements for such systems are getting more complex. However, the data storage and processing techniques, for these environments, are insufficient for the new requirements. In this paper, we develop a model for the integration of real-time database technology with an embedded sensor network systems, to tackle such deficiencies. |
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| Title: |
MEMORY MANAGEMENT FOR LARGE SCALE DATA STREAM RECORDERS |
| Author(s): |
Zimmermann Roger , Kun Fu |
| Abstract: | Presently, digital continuous media (CM) are well established as an integral part of many applications. In recent years, a considerable amount of research has focused on the efficient retrieval of such media. Scant attention has been paid to servers that can record such streams in real time. However, more and more devices produce direct digital output streams. Hence, the need arises to capture and store these streams with an efficient data stream recorder that can handle both recording and playback of many streams simultaneously and provide a central repository for all data. In this report we investigate memory management in the context of large scale data stream recorders. We are especially interested in finding the minimal buffer space needed that still provides adequate resources with varying workloads. We show that computing the minimal memory is an NP-complete problem and will require further research to find efficient heuristics. |
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| Title: |
CONVERTING LEGACY RELATIONAL DATABASE INTO XML DATABASE THROUGH REVERSE ENGINEERING |
| Author(s): |
Anthony Lo , Reda Alhajj , Ken Barker , Chunyan Wang |
| Abstract: | XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has emerged and is being gradually accepted as the standard for data interchange over the Internet. Since most data is currently stored in relational database systems, the problem of converting relational data into XML assumes special significance. Many researchers have already done some accomplishments in this direction. They mainly focus on finding XML schema (e.g., DTD, XML-Schema, and RELAX) that best describes a given relational database with a corresponding well-defined database catalog that contains all information about tables, keys and constraints. However, not all existing databases can provide the required catalog information. Therefore, these applications do not work well for legacy relational database systems that were developed following the logical relational database design methodology, without being based on any commercial DBMS, and hence do~not provide well-defined metadata files describing the database structure and constraints. In this paper, we address this issue by first applying the reverse engineering approach to extract the ER (Extended Entity Relationship) model from a legacy relational database, then convert the ER to XML Schema. The proposed approach is capable of reflecting the relational schema flexibility into XML schema by considering the mapping of binary and nary relationships. We have implemented a first prototype and the initial experimental results are very encouraging, demonstrating the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed approach. |
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| Title: |
KEYS GRAPH - BASED RELATIONAL TO XML TRANSLATION ALGORITHM |
| Author(s): |
Christine VERDIER , Wilmondes MANZI DE ARANTES |
| Abstract: | The authors propose two algorithms for generating a DTD and an XML document respectively from the metadata and the content of a relational database without any intermediary language or user intervention. Such algorithms always generate semantically correct XML output by respecting database functional dependencies represented in a graph structure they take as input. Finally, different XML representations (or views) meeting expectations of different kind of users can be obtained from the same data according to the database entity chosen as translation pivot |
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| Title: |
DURATIVE EVENTS IN ACTIVE DATABASES |
| Author(s): |
Juan Carlos Augusto , Rodolfo Gomez |
| Abstract: | Active databases are DBMS which are able to detect certain events in the environment and trigger actions in consequence. Event detection has been subject of much research, and a number of different event specification languages is extant. However, this is far from being a trivial or accomplished task. Most of these languages handle just instantaneous events, but it has been noticed that a number of situations arise where it would be interesting or even necessary to handle durative events. We elaborate on a given specification language which combines instantaneous and durative events, revealing some issues which must be taken into account when the semantics of event composition is defined. |
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| Title: |
EMULATIVE SOFTWARE ENGINEERING - AN EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIENCE |
| Author(s): |
Xiong Qianxing , Zhang Zhang Kai |
| Abstract: | Concurrent Engineering is a good method, but the method overstress the communication and cooperation of various departments in an enterprise so that it does not meet the requirement of fast tempo and direct confrontation of modern work. This paper proposes a so-called Emulative Software Engineering and reposes its hope in the method to solve the difficult problems of software quality and schedule control. The authors did a development experiment based on a teaching activity, which three groups joined. The experimental result and data show that the method is feasible or workable. It is reasonably believed that the method has the great and practical value for software development in spite of the fact that it originates from a new idea and software development of teaching activity. In addition, the results of the experiment indicate that Emulative Software Engineering has the weakness in information exchange, which needs to be rectified with the support from the strong points, close exchange, of both Concurrent Engineering and knowledge management. |
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| Title: |
COOPERATIVE LEGACY DATABASES - AN ONTOLOGY BASED CONTEXT MEDIATION |
| Author(s): |
Philippe Thiran , Djamal Benslimane |
| Abstract: | Enterprise information systems contain collections of existing databases that must cooperate to carry out common tasks. Most often, these databases are legacy, autonomous and heterogeneous systems. In this paper, we focus on the semantic and dynamic aspects of legacy database interoperation. We present a context mediation approach to support legacy database interoperability, which is based on a conceptual level of database description and on a dynamic resolution of structural and semantic conflicts. An object oriented data model is described, which provides tools for a conceptually rich description of legacy database, and foundations for resolving semantic heterogeneities among systems. |
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| Title: |
ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION WITH CONTEXTUAL CONSTRAINT LOGIC PROGRAMMING |
| Author(s): |
Salvador Abreu |
| Abstract: | In this article we sustain that Contextual Constraint Logic Programming (CxCLP for short) is a useful paradigm in which to specify and implement Organizational Information Systems, particularly when integrated with the ISCO mediator framework. We briefly introduce the language and its underlying paradigm, appraising it from the angle of both of its ancestries: Logic and Object-Oriented Programming. An initial implementation has been developed and is being actively used in a real-world setting -- Universidade de �vora's Academic Information System. We briefly describe both the prototype implementation and its first large-scale application. We conclude that the risk taken in adopting a developing technology such as the one presented herein for a mission-critical system has paid off, in terms of both development ease and flexibility as well as in maintenance requirements. |
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| Title: |
WEB-BASED TRAINING SYSTEM FOR FOREST FIRE OFFICE STAFF |
| Author(s): |
Juan Garbajosa |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to present an approach for a web-based training system for Forest fire offices. The development of a modelling and simulation technology for systems with a network-like architecture is a growing day by day. Forest fire offices represents an appropriate application to do this development. The approach described is based on an XML languages family defined in a research project and applied to a number of systems that have been modelled and simulated. This paper introduces two different points of views: the first the system architecture; the second the XML-based language and its use for simulation. |
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| Title: |
ARCO: MOVING DIGITAL LIBRARY STORAGE TO GRID COMPUTING |
| Author(s): |
Paulo Trezentos |
| Abstract: | Storage has been extensively studied during the past few decades \cite{Fost97,Trez01}. However, the emerging trends on distributed computing bring new solutions for existent problems. Grid computing proposes a distributed approach for data storing. In this paper, we introduce a Grid-based system (ARCO) developed for multimedia storage of large ammounts of data. The system is being developed for Biblioteca Nacional, the National Library of Portugal. Using Grid informational system and resources management, we propose a transparent system where TeraBytes of data are stored in a beowulf cluster built of commodity components with backup solution and error recover mechanisms.~ |
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| Title: |
DATA EXTRACTION AND TRANSFORMATION WITH FLAT FILE FOR BUSINESS INTEGRATION |
| Author(s): |
Sheng Ye , Wei Sun , Zhong Tian |
| Abstract: | Documents and their exchange play important roles in business operations and transactions. With the development of e-business, the capability of exchanging data in different formats is necessary for integrating heterogeneous enterprise applications. Though XML is becoming the standard communication protocol over the Internet, most enterprise applications today can only process a specific format text data, mostly in a flat file. These diverse data formats will continue to exist until the enterprises’ applications are upgraded to a version supporting XML. So the transformation between XML and flat file is widely demanded in business integration solutions. This paper introduces a round trip transformation technology between flat file and XML, Flat File Adapter. This technology employs a systematic and patent pending data extraction and formatting method to support the processing of complex format flat file. By using Flat File Adapter, developer can design the data transformation rules shortly, and these rules will be captured in a template that make it is easy to update for later requirements’ changes. In this paper, we introduce the system architecture, detailed components, and particular data extraction and transformation method. Finally, a sample application in B2B e-procurement solution is also described. |
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| Title: |
UNDERSTANDING THE ERP POST-IMPLEMENTATION DISCOURSE |
| Author(s): |
Fergal Carton , Frederic Adam , David Sammon |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first stage of a larger research project focusing on understanding the emergence of ERP II. ERP is now being seen for what it really is: ‘a means to an end’, in that, its primary benefit is in the integrated infrastructure that it introduces and its ability to support future IS investments. The paper focuses on the changes that have been observed in the services offered by vendors and consultants in the now renamed ERP II market. Now terms like ‘ERP’ and ‘e-business’ are for the most part avoided by vendors and consultants as they are perceived to be out-of-date. For example, SAP once promoted that fact that they were ‘29 years in the business of e-business’ with ‘the best-run e-businesses run SAP’, but now their message promotes, ‘30 years in the business of helping businesses grow’ with ‘the best-run businesses run SAP’. In this paper, issues of concern with the realities of ERP post-implementation are presented through examining: benefits realisation; informational requirements; and generic to specific solutions. While we would argue that it is difficult to understand the rationale for the introduction of these ‘newer’ ERP extensions, we must acknowledge that a market has been created and that once again the ‘new-look’ ERP vendors are the dominant ERP II players. This leads us to question whether there is anything new in ERP II. |
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| Title: |
A FRAMEWORK FOR ON-DEMAND INTEGRATION OF ENTERPRISE DATA SOURCES |
| Author(s): |
Tapio Niemi |
| Abstract: | Deploying a data warehouse system in a company is usually an expensive and risky investement. Constructing a data warehouse is a large project that can take very long time. However, a company cannot know in advance exactly what benefits a data warehouse will offer, nor is it easy to predict kind of functionality it should be able to support to be usable in an event where company's processes or structures are changed. Due to these reasons, in many cases data warehousing projects have either been abandoned or been shown to be at least partial failures. We propose a new method by providing a platform to implement business intelligence systems on. The basic idea is to construct the analysis database (i.e. an OLAP cube) on demand and only include the data that is needed for the analysis at hand from the operational databases. In this way the data is always up-to-date, suitable for the current analysis, and some of the biggest risks associated with data warehouse systems can be avoided. The computational costs related to the cube construction are likely to remain at acceptable level, since only the relevant part of the data for the current analysis is needed from operational databases. Moreover, business intelligence systems, like OLAP, are traditionally limited to the data stored in the data warehouse of the company. In many cases this is not enough since the phenomenon under analysis can be dependent on something outside the scope of the company. For example, the oil price or the weather can have a remarkable effect on business. If a decision support system can not have access to this kind of external data, the analysis cannot find the right explanation for the problem. The proposed method enables the user performing the analysis to include external data to the OLAP cube. We outline the use of Grid techologies - a research field closely related to Internet computing - in the implementation to offer a cost-effective way to harness enough computing power used on parallel processing and sufficient security infrastructure (GSI). Another aspect of the Grid is that due to its potential to offer large amounts of storage capacity in a way that optimally leverages the advances in price/capacity ratio of new storage devices, it is possible to retrieve also archived transactional data in transparent manner. To deal with heterogenous data sources the XML language with XSL transformations is applied. |
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| Title: |
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS ON BUSINESS OBJECTIVES |
| Author(s): |
Vincent Owhoso , Donald Chand , James Hunton , Sri Vasudevan , George Hachey |
| Abstract: | This is a research-in-progress report on our research project aimed at understanding how to assess the success of ERP systems. Based on an in-depth study of a successful ERP implementation in a multinational manufacturing and service organizations, we have identified sample performance indicators in all four dimensions of Balanced Scorecard. Our study shows that instead of building an ERp scorecard, it is more fruitful to study the impacts of the ERP systems on business goals and strategies. |
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| Title: |
INFOFLEX: FLEXIBLE AND DISTRIBUTED CONTENT MANAGEMENT. USING WEB SERVICES AND SEMANTIC WEB TO MANAGE CONTENT |
| Author(s): |
Antonio Hernández Pérez , Tomás Nogales Flores , David Rodríguez Mateos , Luis Sánchez Fernández , Jesús Arias Fisteus , Norberto Fernández García , Jesús Villamor Lugo |
| Abstract: | The development of information and communication technologies and the expansion of the Internet means that nowadays there are huge amounts of information available via these emergent media. The need to manage such information, which was in the past stored on paper media, has become apparent in different fields. A number of content management systems have appeared which aim to achieve this task. Most of these systems are oriented towards Web publishing on a central site, and they do not support collaboration among several, distributed sources of managed content. In this paper we present a proposal for an architecture for the efficient and flexible management of distributed. |
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| Title: |
INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR SUPPORTING THE INCLUSION OF JOB SEEKERS TO THE LABOUR MARKET. |
| Author(s): |
Theodoros Alevizos , Christos Skourlas , Paraskevas Hadjidiakos |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the interconnection and integration problem of disparate Information sources including multilingual information related to the Unemployed and Business is analyzed. A possible solution based on the use of the European curriculum vitae and the creation of Data Marts is briefly described. The approach is also influenced by well-known Cross-Lingual Information Retrieval (CLIR) techniques. We also focus on the creation of a pilot Information System for the Institute of Labour (INE) of the Greek General Confederation of Labour (GSEE). Eventually, our experience and a first evaluation of the system are discussed. |
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| Title: |
COMPONENT BASED INFORMATION SYSTEM RE-ENGINEERING APPROACH |
| Author(s): |
Abdelaziz KHADRAOUI , Michel Léonard |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a concept called Component Based Information System Re-Engineering (CISRE), which lays down the foundation of a new re-engineering approach. CISRE covers all the facets of an Information System at three levels: system, collaboration and organization. The proposed approach of IS Re-engineering distinguishes two main phases: the comprehension phase and the renovation one which are not disjointed. The cognitive space of the comprehension phase permits the clarification of links between legal texts (general procedures) and the IS. The main goal is to converge into a new IS, within a rapid evolving environment. Therefore, the new IS will be achieved on stable concepts based on invariants. |
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| Title: |
DEPLOYING A SUPPLY CHAIN PORTAL TO TRANSFORM MILITARY OPERATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Robert Sullivan , Sandor Boyson , Robert Stevens |
| Abstract: | This short paper addresses the challenges and anticipated benefits of building and deploying a comprehensive end to end supply chain technology infrastructure for the U.S. Army, layering a portal, middleware, collaborative planning and forecasting applications and integrated ERP software in a rapid deployment process. As noted by Boyson and Corsi a supply chain portal can “harness diverse real time data sources to: -provide a unified format and middleware platform for legacy, enterprise and internet data -personalize views based on user requirements and access classifications -distribute field-based data gathered from scanners, PDA devices and other information appliances to multiple users in real time over the portal Thus, the portal provides a unifying structure allowing a single shared database to coordinate all the transactions within the organization as well as the transactions between the organization and its trading partners in real time” |
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| Title: |
DDING SPATIAL COMPONENTS TO SCIENTIFIC DATA WAREHOUSES |
| Author(s): |
Kevin Deeb |
| Abstract: | For many years universities and government agencies have been collecting a wealth of scientific data. It is now time to transform these data into information and make them readily available in a common format that is easily accessible, fast, and bridges the islands of information that have evolved at each site. The best architecture for this application is the data warehouse that protects the confidentiality of data before it can be published by principal investigators, preserves the privacy of contributors, provides sufficient granularity to enable scientists to variously manipulate data, supports robust metadata services, and contains a standardized spatial component. The benefits of the warehouse can be further enhanced by adding a spatial component so that the data can be brought to life, overlapping layers of information in a format that is easily grasped by management, enabling them to tease out trends in their areas of expertise. |
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| Title: |
DEVELOPING A CORPORATE INFORMATION SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE: THE CASE OF EUROSTAT |
| Author(s): |
François Vernadat , Georges Pongas |
| Abstract: | The paper presents the vision being deployed at the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) about a rationalised IT infrastructure for integrated operations of its various statistical production systems. The new architecture being implemented isolates physical data from applications and users, uses database federation mechanisms, strongly relies on the use of meta-data about storage systems, application systems and data life cycles, emphasises the use of thematic and support servers and will use a message-oriented middleware as its backbone for data exchange. Portal technology will provide the unique gateway both for internal and external users to have public or restricted access to information produced by over 130 statistical production systems working in the back-office. Architectural principles and solutions are discussed. |
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| Title: |
THE DATA FLOW AND DISTRIBUTED CALCULATIONS INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM IN REAL TIME |
| Author(s): |
Michael Okhtilev |
| Abstract: | The aim of this investigation is to develop unified models of complex technological process as controlled object states knowledge presentation; methods, algorithms and system of complex technological process states monitoring (situation assessment) programs automatic synthesis accord-ing to preset target and capability of verification and optimization con-sidered; special software prototype realizing controlled objects automatic monitoring. |
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| Title: |
STRATEGIC DMSS FOR E-BUSINESS PLANNING |
| Author(s): |
Lidan Ha , Guisseppi Forgionne , Fen Wang |
| Abstract: | Strategic business planning is a critical decision problem determining the long-term survival and prosperity of companies especially in this E-era. The complex planning process can be facilitated through management science, economics, statistics, and other technological tools. However, managers are rarely aware of these tools, are not proficient in their use, or are incapable of acquiring the proficiency. Through theoretical exploration in previous phases of an ongoing project, we believed that such proficiency can be delivered through decision making support systems. The current study aims to develop and implement such a DMSS to deliver the specified e-business planning model and statistical methodologies, which can provide integrated and intelligent support for decision makers during the entire decision making process. A SAS-based approach was selected as the desired system development and implementation environment. It is the first time that theoretical implications from management science, marketing strategies and economic rules have been integrated in a strategic DMSS and implemented in a field setting. |
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| Title: |
UNSUPERVISED ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS FOR CLUSTERING OF DOCUMENT COLLECTIONS |
| Author(s): |
Ayad Fekry Ayad , Abdel-Badeeh Salem , Mostafa Syiam |
| Abstract: | The Self-Organizing Map (SOM) has shown to be a stable neural network model for high- dimensional data analysis. However, its applicability is limited by the fact that some knowledge about the data is required to define the size of the network. In this paper the Growing Hierarchical SOM (GHSOM) is proposed. This dynamically growing architecture evolves into a hierarchical structure of self–organizing maps according to the characteristics of input data. Furthermore, each map is expanded until it represents the corresponding subset of the data at specific level. We demonstrate the benefits of this novel model using a real world example from the document-clustering domain. Comparison between both models (SOM & GHSOM) was held to explain the difference and investigate the benefits of using GHSOM. |
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| Title: |
MULTILAYER PERCEPTRONS TECHNIQUE IN CLASSIFYING STOCKS: A CASE STUDY OF EGYPTIAN STOCKS EXCHANGE |
| Author(s): |
Medhat Abdelaal |
| Abstract: | Classification rates on out-of-sample predictions can often be improved through the use of model selection when fitting a model on the training data. In this paper, the multilayer perceptron neural network using the back-propagation algorithm is studies for the classification of financial variables of the Egyptian Stock Exchange. The best network architecture is made up of eleven layers: five input layers, five hidden layers and the output layer. The sensitivity analysis has been investigated. Sensitivity analysis can give important insights into the usefulness of individual variables. It often identifies variables that can be safely ignored in subsequent analysis, and key variables that must always be retained. Also, the receiver operating characteristic curve is used to compare between classifiers, and can be used to select an optimum decision threshold to select the best network which can catch most of the variability of the data. |
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| Title: |
LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION OF PATTERNS FROM MINED IMAGES |
| Author(s): |
Hema Nair |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to propose an approach to describe patterns in remote-sensed images utilising fuzzy logic. The general form of a linguistically quantified proposition is “QY’s are F” where Q is a fuzzy linguistic quantifier, Y is a class of objects and F is a summary that applies to that class. The truth of such a proposition can be determined for each object characterised by a tuple in the database. Fuzzy descriptions of linguistic summaries help to evaluate the degree to which a summary describes an object or pattern in the image. A genetic algorithm technique is used to obtain optimal solutions that describe all the objects or patterns in the database. Image mining is used to extract unusual patterns from multi-dated satellite images of a geographic area. |
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| Title: |
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE REPRESENTATIONS OF MULTI-MODEL BASED CONTROLLERS |
| Author(s): |
Manuel de la Sen , Asier Ibeas |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a representation of multi-model based controllers by using artificial intelligence typical structures. These structures will be neural networks, genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic. The interpretation of multimodel controllers in an artificial intelligence frame will allow the application of each specific technique to the design of multimodel based controllers. A method for synthesizing multimodel based neural network controllers from already designed single model based ones is presented. Some applications of the genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic to multimodel controller design are proposed. |
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| Title: |
COMPREHENSIBLE CREDIT-SCORING KNOWLEDGE VISUALIZATION USING DECISION TABLES AND DIAGRAMS |
| Author(s): |
Jan Vanthienen , Christophe Mues , Bart Baesens |
| Abstract: | One of the key decision activities in financial institutions is to assess the credit-worthiness of an applicant for a loan, and thereupon decide whether or not to grant the loan. Many classification methods have been suggested in the credit-scoring literature to distinguish good payers from bad payers. Especially neural networks have received a lot of attention. However, a major drawback is their lack of transparency. While they can achieve a high predictive accuracy rate, the reasoning behind how they reach their decisions is not readily available, which hinders their acceptance by practitioners. Therefore, we have, in earlier work, proposed a two-step process to open the neural network black box which involves: (1) extracting rules from the network; (2) visualizing this rule set using an intuitive graphical representation. In this paper, we will focus on the second step and further investigate the use of two types of representations: decision tables and diagrams. The former are a well-known representation originally used as a programming technique. The latter are a generalization of decision trees taking on the form of a rooted, acyclic digraph instead of a tree, and have mainly been studied and applied by the hardware design community. We will compare both representations in terms of their ability to compactly represent the decision knowledge extracted from two real-life credit-scoring data sets. |
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| Title: |
A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE PROPORTIONAL KEEN APPROXIMATOR AND THE NEURAL NETWORKS LEARNING METHODS |
| Author(s): |
Peyman Kabiri |
| Abstract: | The Proportional Keen Approximation method is a young learning method using the linear approximation to learn hypothesis. In the paper this methodology will be compared with another well-established learning method i.e. the Artificial Neural Networks. The aim of this comparison is to learn about the strengths and the weaknesses of these learning methods regarding different properties of their learning process. The comparison is made using two different comparison methods. In the first method the algorithm and the known behavioural model of these methods are analysed. Later, using this analysis, these methods are compared. In the second approach, a reference dataset that contains some of the most problematic features in the learning process is selected. Using the selected dataset the differences between two learning methods are numerically analysed and a comparison is made. |
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| Title: |
AN AGENT -BASED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT MODEL FOR ENABLING A STATISTICAL TESTING APPROACH TO DECISION SUPPORT E-COMMERCE |
| Author(s): |
Faiz Al-Shrouf , Walter James |
| Abstract: | This paper integrates decision support e-commerce applications, and the knowledge management domain with software agent technology. First, we give a brief overview of decision support systems. Then we present our terminology for the decision support e-commerce model and its components that utilize e-commerce application, agent-based knowledge management components, and a statistical testing model. We give a scenario for a multi-bidding e-commerce application and formulate a statistical testing model (Likelihood ratio test) based on a bivariate normal distribution. The aforementioned test model uses the power function to simulate results using four main agents namely an Information searching agent, a computing agent, a knowledge agent, and a decision support agent. |
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| Title: |
CONSOLIDATED TREE CONSTRUCTION ALGORITHM: STRUCTURALLY STEADY TREES |
| Author(s): |
Olatz Arbelaitz Gallego , Jesús Maria Pérez de la Fuente , Javier Muguerza Rivero , Ibai Gurrutxaga Goikoetxea |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new methodology for building decision trees or classification trees (Consolidated Trees Construction algorithm) that faces up the problem of unsteadiness appearing in the paradigm when small variations in the training set happen. As a consequence, the understanding of the made classification is not lost, making this technique different from techniques such as bagging and boosting where the explanatory feature of the classification disappears. The presented methodology consists on a new meta-algorithm for building structurally more steady and less complex trees (consolidated trees), so that they maintain the explaining capacity and they are faster, but, without losing the discriminating capacity. The meta-algorithm uses C4.5 as base classifier. Besides the meta-algorithm, we propose a measure of the structural diversity used to analyse the stability of the structural component. This measure gives an estimation of the heterogeneity in a set of trees from the structural point of view. The obtained results have been compared with the ones get with C4.5 in some UCI Repository databases and a real application of customer fidelisation from a company of electrical appliances. |
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| Title: |
PROMAIS: A MULTI-AGENT MODEL FOR PRODUCTION INFORMATION SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Khaled Ghédira , Lobna HSAIRI , Faiez Gargouri |
| Abstract: | In the age of information proliferation and communication advances, Cooperative Information System (CIS) technology becomes a vital factor for production system design in every modern enterprise. In fact, current production system must hold to new strategic, economic and organizational structures in order to face new challenges. Consequently, intelligent software based on agent technology emerges to improve system design on the one hand, and to increase production profitability and enterprise competitive position on the other hand. This paper starts with an analytical description of logical and physical flows dealt with manufacturing, then proposes a Production Multi-Agent Information System (ProMAIS). ProMAIS is a collection of stationary and intelligent agent-agencies with specialized expertises, interacting to carry out the shared objectives: cost-effective production in promised delay and adaptability to the changes. In order to bring ProMAIS’s dynamic aspect out, interaction protocols are specially zoomed out by cooperation, negotiation and Contract Net protocols. |
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| Title: |
COGNITIVE REASONING IN INTELLIGENT MEDICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Marek Ogiela |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new approach for cognitive reasoning in the field of artificial intelligence, used in medical information systems. These systems are applied in various tasks supporting decisions taken in the wide area of Medical Imaging. Such systems, in particular Decision Support Systems can be based on the methods of perceptual cognitive analysis of visual medical data and are directed at offering possibilities of automatic interpretation and semantic understanding of this type of data. The paper shall present a general application method of DSS in selected cases of CR and MRI image meaning interpretation showing the development of disease processes. |
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| Title: |
A HYBRID DECISION SUPPORT TOOL |
| Author(s): |
Panayotis Pintelas , sotiris kotsiantis |
| Abstract: | In decision support systems a classification problem can be easily solved by employing one of several methods such as different types of artificial neural networks, decision trees, bayesian classifiers, etc. Moreover, it may happen that certain parts of instances’ space are better predicting by one method than the others. Thus, the decision of which particular method to choose is a complicated problem. A good alternative to choosing only one method is to create a hybrid forecasting system incorporating a number of possible solution methods as components (an ensemble of classifiers). For this purpose, we have implemented a hybrid decision support system that combines a neural net, a decision tree and a bayesian algorithm using a stacking variant methodology. The presented system can be trained with any data, but in the current implementation is mainly used by tutors of Hellenic Open University to identify drop-out prone students. However, a comparison with other ensembles using the same classifiers as base learner on several standard benchmark data sets, showed that this tool gives better accuracy in most cases. |
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| Title: |
PROBLEMS RESOLUTION IN MATHNET SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Sofiane Labidi , Hélder Borges |
| Abstract: | We proposed and developed an component to problems resolution within MATHNET Project environment. This project is result of the integration of the Computer Assisted Learning and Cooperative Learning paradigms, and that implements a computer model to interective environment of Cooperative Teaching and Learning based on multiple artificial and human agents, placed on a computer net structure, making use of several multimidia resources. The MATHNET nucleus is made of small software packs that effectively implement the Cooperative Learning paradigm. Due to its total integration with the computer, the use of multimidia resource and net technologies offer new oportunities on the educational field, challenging the traditional pedagogical methods to benefit the learning process. On this paper, we present the structure and the architecture of an Resolving Problem Assistant, that have the following objectivies: a) will carry fixation or evaluation problems to the student resolve them, regarding the apprentice profile; b) help the learner when necessary on the problem’s resolution and c) passing on an opinion about a solution found by an apprentice after analysing it. |
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| Title: |
STRUCTURAL INERTIA OF VOTING SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Francesc Carreras |
| Abstract: | Simple games reflect with more or less fidelity the strategic tensions inherent to voting systems. An interesting feature of these systems is their capability to act, i.e. their decisiveness. We introduce in this work a normalized measure of the inertia of any simple game from the strictly structural or normative viewpoint. Mathematical properties of this measure are presented, including axiomatic characterizations. The application to a comparative study of certain actual voting systems evidences striking differences as to the inertia degrees they show. |
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| Title: |
ANALYSIS OF THE ITERATED PROBABILISTIC WEIGHTED K NEAREST NEIGHBOR METHOD, A NEW DISTANCE-BASED ALGORITHM |
| Author(s): |
José María Martínez-Otzeta |
| Abstract: | The k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) classification method assigns to an unclassified point the class of the nearest of a set of previously classified points. A problem that arises when aplying this technique is that each labeled sample is given equal importance in deciding the class membership of the pattern to be classified, regardless of the typicalness of each neighbor. We report on the application of a new hybrid version named Iterated Probabilistic Weighted k Nearest Neighbor algorithm (IPW-k-NN) which classifies new cases based on the probability distribution each case has to belong to each class. These probabilities are computed for each case in the training database according to the k Nearest Neighbors it has in this database; this is a new way to measure the typicalness of a given case with regard to every class. Experiments have been carried out using UCI Machine Learning Repository well-known databases and performing 10-fold cross-validation to validate the results obtained in each of them. Three different distances (Euclidean, Camberra and Chebychev) are used in the comparison done. |
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| Title: |
APPLICATION OF NEURAL NETWORKS FOR PRIOR APPRAISAL OF STRUCTURAL FUNDS PROJECT PROPOSALS |
| Author(s): |
Tadeusz A. Grzeszczyk |
| Abstract: | The subject of present paper is to discuss the layout of conception referred to the use of artificial intelligence methods (neural networks) for prior appraisal of project proposals to be submitted by Polish enterprises to European Union in order to get financial assistance for investments from the EU structural funds and the state budget. The experiments are limited to prior appraisal of the projects submitted only, as their practical execution may begin not earlier than on the 1st May 2004 (enlargement of European Union). Author of the present paper discusses the method referred to appraisal of project proposals submitted by enterprises. The method is related to review and acceptance of expenditures for investments co-financed by European Regional Development Fund. The author formulates conception for implementation of appraisal principles which could be considered as element of review and acceptance of expenditures according to Commission Regulation 1685/2000. |
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| Title: |
OPTIMIZATION OF NEURAL NETWORK’S TRAINING SETS VIA CLUSTERING: APPLICATION IN SOLAR COLLECTOR REPRESENTATION |
| Author(s): |
João Paulo Domingos Silva , Daniel Alencar Soares , Antônia Sônia Cardoso Diniz , Elizabeth Marques Duarte Pereira , Luis Enrique Zárate Gálvez , Renato Vimieiro |
| Abstract: | Due the necessity of new ways of energy producing solar collector systems have been widely used around the world. The efficiency of this kind of systems is calculated through measurement of process parameters. There are mathematical models that represent these systems. However these models involve several parameters that may lead to nonlinear equations of the process. Artificial Neural Networks have been proposed in this work as an alternative of these models. However, a better modeling of the process by means of ANN depends on a representative training set. In order to better define the training set, the clustering technique called k-means has been used in this work. |
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| Title: |
ONTOLOGY-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR DOCUMENT INDEXING |
| Author(s): |
Youssef Amghar , D. Bahloul , P. Maret |
| Abstract: | The work presented in this paper addresses a project for the Computer Center CIRITL1. This company wants to save and capitalize its knowledge and its know-how concerning the production activities in the particular, the technical hitches relating to software applications encountered during the exploitation of these applications. Indeed with a well accessing documents base; actors will be able to better solve problems. Our purpose is to focus on ontology-based framework for indexing relevant documents. The domain ontology (OntoCIRTIL) has a structure which supports a semantic model based on semantic links and inference mechanisms. In this paper, we present a new model called S3 which, permits to model knowledge in upstream and index documents (or formalized knowledge) in downstream. To illustrate partial results, this model is then applied to OntoCIRTIL. |
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| Title: |
AN INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEM FOR DATABASE TRANSACTION PROCESSING |
| Author(s): |
Paul Douglas |
| Abstract: | We describe an intelligent tutoring system that may be used to assist university-level students to learn key aspects of database transaction processing. The tutorial aid is based on a well defined theory of learning, and is implemented using PROLOG and Java. Some results of the evaluation of the learning tool are presented to demonstrate its effectiveness as a tutorial aid in an e-learning environment. |
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| Title: |
A DISTRIBUTED TRANSIENT INTER-PRODUCTION SCHEDULING FOR FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Pascal YIM , Olfa Belkahla , Khaled GHEDIRA , Ouajdi KORBAA |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with the problem of cyclic scheduling for Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) and presents a new Multi-Agent Model, composed of cooperating agents, for computing the Transient states between successive cyclic productions (called transient inter-productions). It aims to minimize the global makespan while reducing temporal complexity. The originality of the model relies on the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques, Multi- Agent Systems and Production management. Indeed, the planning phase allows, in the cyclic context, to determine the cyclic productions to respect the initial demand. These cyclic productions have to be sequenced each one in relation to the others. Once this operation done, the transient state allowing going from a cyclic state to the following one has to be determined and optimized. |
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| Title: |
AN XML-BASED BOOTSTRAPPING METHOD FOR PATTERN ACQUISITION |
| Author(s): |
Zeng Xingjie , Li Fang , Zhang Dongmo |
| Abstract: | Extensible Markup Language (XML) has been widely used as a middleware because of its flexibility. Fixed domain is one of the bottlenecks of Information Extraction (IE) technologies. In this paper we present a XML-based domain-adaptable bootstrapping method of pattern acquisition, which focuses on minimizing the cost of domain migration. The approach starts from a seed corpus with some seed patterns; extends the corpus based on the seed corpus through the Internet and acquires the new patterns from extended corpus. Positive and negative examples been classified from training corpus are used to evaluate the patterns acquired. The result shows our method is a practical way in pattern acquisitions. |
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| Title: |
DYNAMIC MULTI-AGENT BASED VARIETY FORMATION AND STEERING IN MASS CUSTOMIZATION |
| Author(s): |
Nizar Abdelkafi , Gerhard Friedrich , Gerold Kreutler , Thorsten Blecker |
| Abstract: | Large product variety in mass customization involves a high internal complexity level inside a company’s operations, as well as a high external complexity level from a customer’s perspective. To cope with both complexity problems, an information system based on agent technology is able to be identified as a suitable solution approach. The mass customized products are assumed to be based on a modular architecture and each module variant is associated with an autonomous rational agent. Agents have to compete with each other in order to join coalitions representing salable product variants which suit real customers’ requirements. The negotiation process is based on a market mechanism supported by the target costing concept and a Dutch auction. Furthermore, in order to integrate the multi-agent system in the existing information system landscape of the mass customizer, a technical architecture is proposed and a scenario depicting the main communication steps is specified |
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| Title: |
USING MAS TO SOLVE PRODUCER CUSTOMER TRANSPORT PROBLEMS |
| Author(s): |
Baltazar Frankovic , Tung Dang |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with a problem of using multi-agent technology to simulate and resolve the planning problems. Concretely, multi-agent systems (MAS) are used in studying and resolving the optimization problems within the Producer-Customer-Transport (PCT) domain. |
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| Title: |
IMAGE CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO THE DOMINANT COLOUR |
| Author(s): |
Amine Aït Younes , Isis Truck , Herman Akdag , Yannick Remion |
| Abstract: | The aim of this work is to develop a user-friendly software allowing him to classify images according to their dominant colour expressed through linguistic expressions. With this aim in view, images are processed and stored in a database. The processing consists in assigning a profile to each image. To do this, we consider the pixels of the images in the colorimetric space HLS and then a restricted number of colours classes are built. These classes depend on the hue (H). For each colour class a certain number of subclasses depending on the lightness (L) and the Saturation (S) are defined. Finally the profile is drawn using the pixels membership of the classes and subclasses. Thus starting from a linguistic expression of a colour, the user can extract images from the database. |
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| Title: |
AN IMPLEMENTATION ENVIRONMENT OF KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Maria Dias , Roberto Pacheco |
| Abstract: | After an organization having solved its operational problems, the need of systems appears for the support to the decision taking. Data mining is an area that is growing quickly to assist such new needs of the organization. However, the use of data mining techniques is uncommon by the difficult normally found in the development of knowledge discovery systems. This paper presents an environment of knowledge discovery in database, called ADesC. The main objective is to generate relevant information to decision taking, with the application of data mining techniques. This environment is based on agent technology to facilitate the performance of its tasks. |
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| Title: |
MULTI-AGENT APPROACH BASED ON TABU SEARCH FOR THE FLEXIBLE JOB SHOP SCHEDULING PROBLEM |
| Author(s): |
Meriem Ennigrou , Khaled Ghédira |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a Multi-agent approach based on a tabu search method for solving the flexible Job Shop scheduling problem. The characteristic of the latter problem is that one or several machines can process one operation so that its processing time depends on the machine used. Such a generalization of the classical problem makes it more and more difficult to solve. The objective is to minimize the makespan or the total duration of the schedule. The proposed model is composed of three classes of agents: Job agents and Resource agents which are responsible for the satisfaction of the constraints under their jurisdiction, and an Interface agent containing the tabu search core. Different experimentations have been performed on different benchmarks and results have been presented. |
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| Title: |
MONTHLY FLOW ESTIMATION USING ELMAN NEURAL NETWORKS |
| Author(s): |
Luiz Biondi Neto , João Soares de Mello , Maria Fernandes Velloso , Lidia Angulo Meza , Pedro Gouvêa Coelho |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the application of partially recurrent artificial neural networks (ANN) in the flow estimation for São Francisco River that feeds the hydroelectric power plant of Sobradinho. An Elman neural network was used suitably arranged to receive samples of the flow time series data available for São Francisco River shifted by one month. For that, the neural network input had a delay loop that included several sets of inputs separated in periods of five years monthly shifted. The considered neural network had three hidden layers. There is a feedback between the output and the input of the first hidden layer that enables the neural network to present temporal capabilities useful in tracking time variations. The data used in the application concern to the measured São Francisco river flow time series from 1931 to 1996, in a total of 65 years from what 60 were used for training and 5 for testing. The obtained results indicate that the Elman neural network is suitable to estimate the river flow for 5 year periods monthly. The average estimation error was less than 0.2 %. |
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| Title: |
ISYDS - INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR DECISION SUPPORT |
| Author(s): |
Pedro Gouvêa Coelho , Eliane Gonçalves Gomes , João Soares de Mello , Lidia Angulo Meza , Luiz Biondi Neto |
| Abstract: | Data Envelopment Analysis is based on linear programming problems (LPP) to determine the efficiency of Decision Making Units (DMUs). This process can be computationally intense, as a LPP has to be run for each unit. Besides, a typical DEA LPP has a large number of redundant constraints concerning the inefficient DMUs. That results in degenerate LPPs and in some cases multiple efficient solutions. The developed work intends to to fill out a gap in current DEA softwares i.e. the lack of a software capable of producing full results in classic DEA models as well as the capability of using more advanced DEA models. The software interface as well as the models and solution algorithms were implemented in Delphi. Both basic and advanced DEA models are allowed in the software. Besides the main module that includes the DEA models, there is an additional module containing some models for decision support such as the multicriteria model called Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP). The developed software was named as ISYDS – Integrated System for Decision Support. The software has been used in several theoretical and applied papers and has been very useful. |
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| Title: |
FACE PATTERN DETECTION |
| Author(s): |
Adriano Moutinho , Antonio Carlos Thome , Luiz Biondi Neto , Pedro Henrique Golvea Coelho |
| Abstract: | Security systems based on face recognition often have to deal with the problem of finding and segmenting the region of the face, containing nose, mouth and eyes, from the rest of the objects in the image. Finding the right position of a face is a part of any automatic identity recognition system, and it is, by itself, a very complex problem to solve, normally being handled separately. This paper describes an approach, using arti-ficial neural networks (ANN), to find the correct position and separate the face from the background. In order to accomplish this goal, a windowing method was created and combined with several image pre-processing steps, from histogram equalization to illumination correction, as an attempt to improve neural network recognition capability. This paper also proposes methods to segment facial features such as mouth, nose and eyes. Finally, the system is tested using 400 images and the performance of face and facial features segmentation is presented |
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| Title: |
RESULT COMPARISON OF TWO ROUGH SET BASED DISCRETIZATION ALGORITHMS |
| Author(s): |
Shanchan Wu , Wenyuan Wang |
| Abstract: | The area of knowledge discovery and data mining is growing rapidly. A large number of methods are employed to mine knowledge. Many of the methods rely of discrete data. However, most of the datasets used in real application have attributes with continuous values. To make the data mining techniques useful for such datasets, discretization is performed as a preprocessing step of the data mining. In this paper, we discuss rough set based discretization. We do experiments to compare the quality of Local discretization and Global discretization based on rough set. Our experiments show that Global discretization and Local discretization are dataset sensitive. Neither of them is always better than the other, though in some cases Global discretization generates far better results than Local discretization. |
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| Title: |
MANAGING ENGINEERING ASSETS: A KNOWLEDGE BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY THROUGH INFORMATION QUALITY |
| Author(s): |
Abrar Haider |
| Abstract: | As manufacturing organizations are becoming technology intensive, asset management is becoming crucial for profitability and efficiency of the business. Ensuring asset reliability, maintenance and management is profoundly dependent on knowledge based decision support backed by quality information. Multiplicity of data acquisition systems and techniques, together with the operation of assets in often unsettled and variable environments, makes it difficult to obtain quality information that could be used to make informed choices. Asset maintenance and reliability are important activities that can considerably influence an organisation’s ability to compete. This paper discusses the importance of data and information quality within asset management by analysing the intricacies of data quality and information flow within asset management systems and processes; and proposes frameworks for information quality and a model for an information driven, knowledge based asset management. |
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| Title: |
A DSS FOR ASSESSING TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENTS |
| Author(s): |
Giovanni Camponovo , Yves Pigneur , Samuel Bendahan |
| Abstract: | Assessing the external environment is an important component of organizations' survival and success. Unfortunately, a huge amount of information must be collected and processed in order to obtain a thorough and comprehensive representation of the environment. A decision support system can be very useful in helping decision makers to organize and analyze this information efficiently and effectively. This paper outlines a conceptual proposition helping to design such a system by presenting an ontology of the relevant information elements (actors, issues and needs) and a set of tools to analyze them. This paper also illustrates a prototype version of one of these tools which supports the analysis of the actors and issues perspectives. |
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| Title: |
WEB USAGE MINING WITH TIME CONSTRAINED ASSOCIATION RULES |
| Author(s): |
Jan Vanthienen , Johan Huysmans , Bart Baesens |
| Abstract: | Association rules are typically used to describe what items are frequently bought together. One could also use them in web usage mining to describe the pages that are often visited together. In this paper, we propose an extension to association rules by the introduction of timing constraints. Subsequently, the introduced concepts are used in an experiment to pre-process logfiles for web usage mining. We also describe how the method could be useful for market basket analysis and give an overview of related research. The paper is concluded by some suggestions for future research. |
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| Title: |
DOCTUS INTELLIGENT EXECUTIVE PORTAL FOR BUSINESS DECISIONS. USING HARD DATA AND SOFT KNOWLEDGE IN DOCTUS INTELLIGENT PORTAL |
| Author(s): |
Zoltan Baracskai , Zoltan Nagy |
| Abstract: | Business decision makers live in the avalanche of information, and the environment produces all kinds of surprises. However, companies should survive, that is what business decision makers struggle for. DoctuS, our knowledge based system; using case-based reasoning is integrated in an intelligent portal which links the soft knowledge of experts with the help of a company-wide knowledge map and its "zoom-ins". Also hard data can be derived ("mined") from data warehouses or integrated information systems. The portal supports business decision makers to take routine decisions easily, but also enables the contact to the Knowledge Factory, where new knowledge is created. This can assist business decision makers to make original decisions. |
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| Title: |
MODEL P : AN APPROACH OF THE ADAPTABILITY |
| Author(s): |
Claude Petit , Mathilde Billy , François-Xavier Magaud |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes a new approach of the Cased-based Reasoning. The cases are not stored. The problem case solution is built as a puzzle. The puzzle obtained corresponds to the required solution. Each part is carrying information and has an associative behaviour. A piece seeks the piece which can be associated in width and in depth method. This associative behaviour is determined by several mechanisms: engine of expert system to binary rules, model of multicriterion choice of ordinal outclassing, search for close indices. A puzzle can thus have a complex mode of reasoning; each piece has a specific behaviour. The tool was tested on two applications of decision-making aid: identification of malaria facies and assistance to the specification of habitats.) These applications made it possible to check the interest of this original framework. In particular it brings an elegant solution to the phase of adaptation in CBR technique. |
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| Title: |
DATA MINING OF CRM KNOWLEDGE BASES FOR EFFECTIVE MARKET SEGMENTATION: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK |
| Author(s): |
Jounghae Bang , Nikhilesh Dholakia , Lutz Hamel , Ruby Roy Dholakia |
| Abstract: | This paper illustrates the linkages between CRM systems, data mining techniques, and the strategic notions of market segmentation and relationship marketing. Using the hypothetical example of a consumer bank, the data in a relationship based marketing environment are illustrated and guidelines for knowledge discovery, data management and strategic marketing are developed. |
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| Title: |
A QUALITATIVE MODEL OF THE INDEBTEDNESS FOR THE SPANISH AUTONOMOUS REGIONS |
| Author(s): |
Juan Moreno García , Luis Jimenez Linares , José Jesús Castro Sanchez , Victor Raúl López , José Baños |
| Abstract: | This work shows a fuzzy model of the indebtedness for the Spanish autonomous regions that is obtained using approximate reasoning and induction methods. So, the algorithm ADRI is used to induce a linguistic model composed by a set of fuzzy rules. The quality of this linguistic model will be checked and its interpretation will be shown. |
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| Title: |
BDI AGENTS WITH FUZZY ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY FOR VESSEL BERTHING IN CONTAINER PORTS |
| Author(s): |
Damminda Alahakoon , Parakrama Dissanayake , Prasanna Lokuge |
| Abstract: | Vessel scheduling in container terminals has to undergo various vague constraints of different issues and often use uncertain dynamically changing data. Faster turnaround time of the vessels in berths has direct impact on the improvement of terminals productivity. The need for an intelligent system that dynamically adapts to the changing environment is apparent, as there is limited number of berths and resources available in container terminals for delivering services to vessels. BDI (Beliefs, Desires and Intentions) agents are being proposed in a complex collaborative environment in the vessel scheduling assuring better management and control in the terminal. BDI agents to deal with many criteria and different goals with uncertain beliefs, it is proposed that fuzzy associative memory to use in the planning process of the BDI architecture facilitating better decision making in the whole process. In this paper we propose hybrid BDI architecture with fuzzy associative memory in handling uncertainty issues of the vessel berthing in container terminals. Execution of Plans in a collaborative multi agent environment would be strengthened with the introduction of fuzzy associative memory in BDI agents. Plans in the BDI agents are being constructed at different stages in order to achieve current desires. This would facilitate agents to observe dynamic changes in the environment and to be reflected in the next levels of planning. |
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| Title: |
DYNAMIC DIAGNOSIS OF ACTIVE SYSTEMS WITH FRAGMENTED OBSERVATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Gianfranco Lamperti |
| Abstract: | Diagnosis of discrete-event systems (DESs) is a complex and challenging task. Typical application domains include telecommunication networks, power networks, and digital-hardware networks. Recent blackouts in northern America and southern Europe offer evidence for the claim that automated diagnosis of large-scale DESs is a major requirement for the reliability of this sort of critical systems. The paper is meant as a little step toward this direction. A technique for the dynamic diagnosis of active systems with uncertain observations is presented. The essential contribution of the method lies in its ability to cope with uncertainty conditions while monitoring the systems, by generating diagnostic information at the occurrence of each newly-received fragment of observation. Uncertainty stems, on the one hand, from the complexity and distribution of the systems, where noise may affect the communication channels between the system and the control rooms, on the other, from the multiplicity of such channels, which is bound to relax the absolute temporal ordering of the observable events generated by the system during operation. The solution of these diagnostic problems requires nonmonotonic reasoning, where estimates of the system state and the relevant candidate diagnoses may not survive the occurrence of new observation fragments. |
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| Title: |
AN EFFICIENT FRAMEWORK FOR ITERATIVE TIME-SERIES TREND MINING |
| Author(s): |
Ken Barker , Ajumobi Udechukwu |
| Abstract: | Trend analysis has applications in several domains including: stock market predictions, environmental trend analysis, sales analysis, etc. Temporal trend analysis is possible when the source data (either business or scientific) is collected with time stamps, or with time-related ordering. These time stamps (or orderings) are the core data points for time sequences, as they constitute time series or temporal data. Trends in these time series, when properly analyzed, lead to an understanding of the general behavior of the series so it is possible to more thoroughly understand dynamic behaviors found in data. This analysis provides a foundation for discovering pattern associations within the time series through mining. Furthermore, this foundation is necessary for the more insightful analysis that can only be achieved by comparing different time series found in the source data. Previous works on mining temporal trends attempt to efficiently discover patterns by optimizing discovery processes in a single pass over the data. Recent experience with data mining clearly indicates that the process is inherently iterative, with no guarantees that the best results are achieved in the first pass. Current iterative proposals introduce expensive re-computation after tuning the algorithm to address shortcomings discovered in the first heavy weight pass over the data. In fact, the same heavy weight process is then re-run on the data in the hope that new discoveries will be made on subsequent iterations. Unfortunately, this heavy weight re-execution and processing of the data is expensive. In this work we present a framework in which all the frequent trends in the time series are computed in a single pass, thus eliminating expensive re-computations in subsequent iterations. We also demonstrate that trend associations within the time series or with related time series can be found. |
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| Title: |
AUTOMATED PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION BY EMPLOYING CASE-BASED REASONING AGENTS |
| Author(s): |
Reda Alhajj , Ozgur Baykal , Faruk Polat |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a cooperation framework for multiple role-based case-based reasoning (CBR) agents to handle the product recommendation problem for e-commerce applications. Each agent has different case structure with intersecting features and agents exploit all information related to the problem by cooperation, which is accomplished through the merge of distributed cases in order to form cases having better representation of the problem. The presented merge algorithm handles noisy distributed cases by negotiation on the difference values of the intersecting features. The role-based CBR agents merge the distributed cases by introducing a global heuristic function, which is used to evaluate the relevance of merged cases. The heuristic function exploits the relevancy of each merged case within the viewpoint of each agent and the satisfied/unsatisfied problem constraints. The viewpoint of an agent is represented by the value of consistency of distributed components of merged cases and agent’s individual relevance values of the merged cases. Finally, the proposed framework has been tested for elective course recommendation. |
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| Title: |
ASSESSMENT OF SPILLAGE OF LARGE-SCALE HYDROPOWER PLANT UNDERTAKING SPINNING RESERVE |
| Author(s): |
Maihuan Zhao , Qiang Huang , Chenguang Xu |
| Abstract: | Since the large-scale hydropower plant must undertake the spinning reserve of power system, a small amount of out-flow water does not generate electricity. In order to increase water use efficiency, it is necessary to calculate the spillage owing to improper dispatch. Therefore, the optimal operation of hydroelectric systems should be obligated with the undertaking spinning reserve. A calculation method of the spillage owing to improper dispatch for large-scale is discussed. And this method is used to calculate the spillage owing to improper dispatch of Longyangxia hydropower plant in 2001. The spillage owing to improper dispatch is remarkable, which could be saved by proper dispatch. |
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| Title: |
REDUCING REWORK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS THROUGH THE COMPONENTS OF DECISIONS |
| Author(s): |
Bernadette Sharp , Andy Salter , Hanifa Shah |
| Abstract: | The failure of information systems has been partially the result of incorrect or inefficient rework in the development of the systems. If greater transparency can be made in the decision making process then the number of examples of incorrect or inefficient rework could be reduced. Transparency in the process of development can be achieved through identifying and tracking the components of the decisions made during the development of the information system. This paper presents a theoretical framework for facilitating this tracking by comparing the components of the decisions in the development of the information system with those of an organisation and considering how the ‘needs’ of agents and the actions taken to fulfil those needs are related. |
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| Title: |
MINING SEQUENTIAL PATTERNS WITH REGULAR EXPRESSION CONSTRAINTS USING SEQUENTIAL PATTERN TREE |
| Author(s): |
Mohamed Younis |
| Abstract: | The significant growth of sequence database sizes in recent years increase the importance of developing new techniques for data organization and query processing. Discovering sequential patterns is an important problem in data mining with a host of application domains. For effectiveness and efficiency consideration, constraints are essential for many sequential applications. In this paper, we give a brief review of different sequential pattern mining algorithms, and then introduce a new algorithm (termed NewSPIRIT) for mining frequent sequential patterns that satisfy user specified regular expression constraints. The general idea of our algorithm is to use a finite state automata to represent the regular expression constraints and build a sequential pattern tree that represents all sequences of data which satisfy this constraints by scanning the database of sequences only once. Experimental results shows that our NewSPIRIT is much more efficient than existing algorithms. |
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| Title: |
WAREHOUSING AND MINING OF HIGHER EDUCATION DATA: USING EXISTING DATA TO MANAGE QUALITY |
| Author(s): |
Pieter Conradie , Liezl Van Dyk |
| Abstract: | Data warehouses are constructed at higher education institutions (HEI) using data from transactional systems such as the student information system (SIS), the learning management system (LMS), the learning content management system (LCMS) as well as certain enterprise resource planning (ERP) modules. The most common HEI data mining applications are directed towards customer relationship management (CRM) and quality management. When students are viewed as material in manufacturing process, instead of the customer, different meaningful correlations, patterns and trends can be discovered which otherwise would have remained unexploited. As example statistical process control (SPC) – as data mining tool – is applied to student result data. This may eliminate the need to gather student-customer feedback for quality control purposes. |
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| Title: |
PREDICTING WEB REQUESTS EFFICIENTLY USING A PROBABILITY MODEL |
| Author(s): |
Shanchan Wu , Wenyuan Wang |
| Abstract: | As the world-wide-web grows rapidly and a user's browsing experiences are needed to be personalized, the problem of predicting a user's behavior on a web-site has become important. In this paper, we present a probability modal to utilize path profiles of users from web logs to predict the user's future requests. Each of the user's next probable requests is given a conditional probability value, which is calculated according to the function presented by us. Our modal can give several predictions ranked by the values of their probability instead of giving one, thus increasing recommending ability. Based on a compact tree structure, our algorithm is efficient. Our result can potentially be applied to a wide range of applications on the web, including pre-sending, pre-fetching, enhancement of recommendation systems as well as web caching policies. The experiments show that our modal has a good performance. |
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| Title: |
DATA MINING: PATTERN MINING AS A CLIQUE EXTRACTING TASK |
| Author(s): |
Grete Lind , Rein Kuusik , Leo Võhandu |
| Abstract: | One of the important tasks in solving data mining problems is finding frequent patterns in a given dataset. It allows to handle several tasks such as pattern mining, discovering association rules, clustering etc. There are several algorithms to solve this problem. In this paper we describe our task and results: a method for reordering a data matrix to give it a more informative form, problems of large datasets, (frequent) pattern finding task. Finally we show how to treat a data matrix as a graph, a pattern as a clique and pattern mining process as a clique extracting task. We present also a fast diclique extracting algorithm for pattern mining. |
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| Title: |
MULTIPLE ORGAN FAILURE DIAGNOSIS USING ADVERSE EVENTS AND NEURAL NETWORKS |
| Author(s): |
Paulo Cortez |
| Abstract: | In the past years, the Clinical Data Mining arena has suffered a remarkable development, where intelligent data analysis tools, such as Neural Networks, have been successfully applied in the design of medical systems. In this work, Neural Networks are applied to the prediction of organ dysfunction in Intensive Care Units. The novelty of this approach comes from the use of adverse events, which are triggered from four bedside alarms,being achived an overall predictive accuracy of 70%. |
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| Title: |
MINING SCIENTIFIC RESULTS THROUGH THE COMBINED USE OF CLUSTERING AND LINEAR PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES |
| Author(s): |
Sergio Greco , Andrea Tagarelli , Irina Trubitsyna |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes a technique based on a combined approach of data mining algorithms and linear programming methods for classifying organizational units, such as research centers. We exploit clustering algorithms for grouping information concerning the scientific activity of research centers. We also show that the replacement of an expensive efficiency measurement, based on the solution of linear programs, with a simple formula allows to efficiently compute clusters of very good quality. Some initial experimental results, obtained from the analysis of research centers in the agro-food sector, show the effectiveness of our approach, both from an efficiency and a quality-of-results viewpoint. |
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| Title: |
APPLICATION OF UNCERTAIN VARIABLES TO STABILITY ANALYSIS AND STABILIZATION FOR ABR ATM CONGESTION CONTROL SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Magdalena Turowska |
| Abstract: | The paper presents the application of uncertain variables to stability analysis and stabilization of ABR ATM control systems. The unknown parameter is assumed to be a value of uncertain variable described by the certainty distribution given by a expert. The estimation of the certainty index that the congestion control system is stable is presented. A specific stabilization problem is considered. |
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| Title: |
HIERARCHICAL MODEL-BASED CLUSTERING FOR RELATIONAL DATA WITH AGGREGATES |
| Author(s): |
Jianzhong CHEN , Sally McClean , Mary Shapcott , Kenny Adamson |
| Abstract: | Clustering is a widely used technique in data mining to discover patterns in the underlying data. Most traditional clustering methods handle datasets that have single flat formats. Recently, there has been a growing interest in relational data mining, which deals with datasets containing multiple types of objects and richer relationships and are presented in relational formats, e.g. relational databases that have multiple tables. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical model-based method for clustering relational data by introducing frequency aggregates. We first define a relational data model that contains composite objects as an object-relational star schema, and present a method of integrating relational composite objects into flat aggregate objects through aggregation. In order to apply a hierarchical model-based clustering with the data, we define a new type of aggregates -- frequency aggregate, which has a vector data type and can be used to record not only the observed values but also the distribution of the values of a categorical attribute. A hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithm with log-likelihood distance is then applied to cluster the aggregated data tentatively. After stopping at a coarse estimate of the number of clusters, a mixture model-based method with the EM algorithm is developed to perform a further relocation clustering, in which Bayes Information Criterion (BIC) is used to determine the optimal number of clusters. Finally we evaluate our approach on a real-world dataset. |
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| Title: |
BUILDING PROVEN CAUSAL MODEL BASES FOR STRATEGIC DECISION SUPPORT |
| Author(s): |
Christian Hillbrand |
| Abstract: | Since many Decision Support Systems (DSS) in the area of causal strategy planning methods incorporate techniques to draw conclusions from an underlying model but fail to prove the implicitly assumed hypotheses within the latter, this paper focuses on the improvement of the model base quality. Therefore, this approach employs Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to infer the underlying causal functions from empirical time series. As a prerequisite for this, an automated proof of causality for nomothetic cause-and-effect hypotheses has to be developed. |
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| Title: |
A SEMI-AUTOMATIC BAYESIAN ALGORITHM FOR ONTOLOGY LEARNING |
| Author(s): |
Mario Vento , Massimo De Santo , Francesco Colace , Pasquale Foggia |
| Abstract: | The entire world is living a transformation, perhaps the more important of last thirty years. The dissemination of the new technologies of the information is modifying radically the nature of the relationships between countries, markets, persons and culture. The technological revolution has favoured the process of globalization (Internet represents better than every other thing the global village) and the exchange of the information. Today the information can be considered an economic good whose value is closely connected the knowledge that can give. The dynamism of the new society forces the professional man to be abreast of technical progress. It is essential to introduce new didactic methodologies based on continuous long-life learning. A good solution can be E-learning. Although distance education environments are able to provide trainees and instructors with cooperative learning atmosphere, where students can share their experiences and teachers guide them in their learning, some problems must be still solved. One of the most important problem to solve is the correct definition of the domain of knowledge (i.e. ontology) related to the various courses. Often teachers are not able to easily formalize in correct way the reference ontology. On the other hand if we want realize some intelligent tutoring system that can help students and teachers during the learning process starting point is the ontology. In addition, the choice of best contents and information for students is closely connect to the ontology. In this paper, we propose a method for learning ontologies used to model a domain in the field of intelligent e-learning systems. This method is based on the use of the formalism of Bayesian networks for representing ontologies, as well as on the use of a learning algorithm that obtains the corresponding probabilistic model starting from the results of the evaluation tests associated with the didactic contents under examination. Finally, we will present an experimental evaluation of the method using data coming from real courses. |
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| Title: |
BAYESIAN NETWORK STRUCTURAL LEARNING FROM DATA: AN ALGORITHMS COMPARISON |
| Author(s): |
Francesco Colace , Pasquale Foggia , Mario Vento , Massimo De Santo |
| Abstract: | The manual determination of Bayesian Network structure or, more in general, of the probabilistic models, in particular in the case of remarkable dimensions domains, can be complex, time consuming and imprecise. Therefore, in the last years the interest of the scientific community in learning bayesian network structure from data is considerably increased. In fact, many techniques or disciplines, as data mining, text categorization, ontology description, can take advantages from this type of processes. In this paper we will describe some possible approaches to the structural learning of bayesian networks and introduce in detail some algorithms deriving from these ones. We will aim to compare results obtained using the main algorithms on databases normally used in literature. With this aim, we have selected and implemented five algorithms more used in literature. We will estimate the algorithms performances both considering the network topological reconstruction both the correct orientation of the obtained arcs. |
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| Title: |
MINING THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FORM OF THE PREDISPOSING FACTORS AND CO-INCIDENT FACTORS AMONG NUMERICAL DYNAMIC ATTRIBUTES IN TIME SERIES DATA SET BY USING THE COMBINATION OF SOME EXISTING TECHNIQUES |
| Author(s): |
Suwimon Kooptiwoot |
| Abstract: | Temporal mining is a natural extension of data mining with added capabilities of discovering interesting patterns, inferring relationships of contextual and temporal proximity and may also lead to possible cause-effect associations. Temporal mining covers a wide range of paradigms for knowledge modeling and discovery. A common practice is to discover frequent sequences and patterns of a single variable. In this paper we present a new algorithm which is the combination of many existing ideas consists of the reference event as proposed in (Bettini, Wang et al. 1998), the event detection technique proposed in (Guralnik and Srivastava 1999), the large fraction proposed in (Mannila, Toivonen et al. 1997), the causal inference proposed in (Blum 1982) We use all of these ideas to build up our new algorithm for the discovery of multi-variable sequences in the form of the predisposing factor and co-incident factor of the reference event of interest. We define the event as positive direction of data change or negative direction of data change above a threshold value. From these patterns we infer predisposing and co-incident factors with respect to a reference variable. For this purpose we study the Open Source Software data collected from SourceForge website. Out of 240+ attributes we only consider thirteen time dependent attributes such as Page-views, Download, Bugs0, Bugs1, Support0, Support1, Patches0, Patches1, Tracker0, Tracker1, Tasks0, Tasks1 and CVS. These attributes indicate the degree and patterns of activities of projects through the course of their progress. The number of the Download is a good indication of the progress of the projects. So we use the Download as the reference attribute. We also test our algorithm with four synthetic data sets include noise up to 50 %. The results show that our algorithm can work well and tolerate to the noise data. |
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| Title: |
MINING THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FORM OF PREDISPOSING FACTOR AND CO-INCIDENT FACTOR IN TIME SERIES DATA SET BY USING THE COMBINATION OF SOME EXISTING IDEAS WITH A NEW IDEA FROM THE FACT IN THE CHEMICAL REACTION |
| Author(s): |
Suwimon Kooptiwoot |
| Abstract: | In this work we propose new algorithms from the combination of many existing ideas consisting of the reference event as proposed in (Bettini, Wang et al. 1998), the event detection technique proposed in (Guralnik and Srivastava 1999), the causal inference proposed in (Blum 1982; Blum 1982) and the new idea about the character of the catalyst seen in the chemical reaction. We use all of these ideas to build up our algorithms to mine the predisposing factor and co-incident factor of the reference event of interest. We apply our algorithms with OSS (Open Source Software) data set and show the result. We also test our algorithms with four synthetic data sets include noise up to 50 %. The results show that our algorithms can work well and tolerate to noise data. |
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| Title: |
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM FOR ISO 9001 QUALITY MANAGEMENT |
| Author(s): |
Hsun-Cheng HU , Sheng-Tun Li , Li-Yen Shue |
| Abstract: | Many researchers in knowledge management point out that the first step toward knowledge management is the management of documents. However, the complexity imbedded in some documents could present great difficulty for most methodologies to deal with. The knowledge content for building an excellent quality management system that complies with ISO 9001 falls into this category; this knowledge is characterized by multi-dimensionality and knowledge embedment through various procedures and forms. We applied Ontology, which is a new approach in AI for better presenting knowledge structure of a domain, to develop a knowledge-based ISO 9001 quality management system for a Taiwanese chemical company that has to refer to a total of 175 ISO manuals. This system is built with Protégé 2000 as the knowledge platform, and we follow the development process recommended by Ontology Engineering of Toronto Virtual Enterprise. One main feature of the system is its capability of understanding the semantic of documents, which is a vital part of the inference mechanism in answering user’s queries. |
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| Title: |
AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE NEURAL NETWORK FOR AUTO-LANDING SYSTEM OF AN AIRCRAFT |
| Author(s): |
sreenatha anavatti |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Generalization by the Neural Networks is an added advantage that can provide very good robustness and disturbance rejection properties. By providing a sufficient number of training samples (inputs and their corresponding outputs), a network can deal with some inputs it has never seen before. This ability makes them very interesting for control applications because not only they can learn complicated control functions but they are able to respond to changing or unexpected environments. Aircraft landing system provides one such scenario wherein the flight conditions change quite dramatically over the path of descent. The present work discusses the training of a neural network to imitate a robust controller for auto-landing of an aircraft. The comparisons with the robust controller indicate the additional advantages of the neural network. The effects of disturbance and sensitivity analysis are presented to high light the generalization property of the neural network. |
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| Title: |
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ITS APPLICATION TO IMPROVE WORKFLOW |
| Author(s): |
Tung Dang , Baltazar Frankovic |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with one of many problems associated with building and developing a platform, based on the multi-agent technology for assisting office employees in their organization, and that is a problem of classification and identification of the right contacts. In order to assist newly arrived employees, agents search of the contacts used by previous employees and extract the one that is most appropriate for assisting the current activity. This paper presents methods for classification and selection of contacts based on the CBR technique and the forward search principle. The process of searching contacts is guided by user’s personal criteria. At the end, this paper discusses some possible techniques to solve user’s requirements, which cannot be achieved by using traditional search methods. |
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| Title: |
APPLYING DATA MINING TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS: A CASE STUDY |
| Author(s): |
Jacinto Mata Vázquez |
| Abstract: | One of the main challenges that the project managers have during the building process of a software development project (SDP) is to optimise the values of the parameters that measure the viability of the final process. The accomplishment of this task, something that was not easy at the beginning, was helped with the appearance of dynamic models and simulation environments. The application of data mining techniques to the managing of Software Development Projects (SDP) is not an uncommon phenomenon, as in any other productive process that generates information in the way of input data and output variables. In this paper, we present and analyze the results obtained from a tool, developed by the authors, based on a Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) technique. One of the most important contributions of these techniques to the software engineering field is the possibility of improving the management process of an SDP. The purpose is to provide accurate decision rules in order to help the project manager to take decisions during the development. |
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| Title: |
AN ADAPTABLE TIME-DELAY NEURAL NETWORK FOR PREDICT THE SPANISH ECONOMIC INDEBTEDNESS |
| Author(s): |
Waldo Fajardo Contreras , Manuel Pegalar Cuellar , Mª Carmen Pegalajar Jimenez , Mª Angustias Navarro Ruiz , Ramón Pérez Pérez |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study and predict the indebtedness economic for the autonomic of Spain. In turn, we use model of neural network. In this study, we assess the feasibility of the Time-Delay neural network as an alternative to these classical forecasting models. This neural network permits accumulate more values of pass and to predict best the future. We show the assignment MSE to check the good forecasting of indebtedness economic. |
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| Title: |
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS FOR TRAINING OF ELMAN RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORKS TO PREDICT THE AUTONOMOUS INDEBTNESS |
| Author(s): |
M. Carmen Pegalajar , Manuel-Pegalajar Cuéllar |
| Abstract: | In this paper we will show a training model for Elman Recurrent Neural Networks, based on Evolutionay Algorithms. It will be applied to Spanish Autonomous Indebtness Prediction. Applied Evolurionay Algorithms are Classic Genetic Algorithms, Multimodal Clearing algorithm and CHC algorithm. We will make a comparative study, training the net with each evolutionay algorithm to see the affectiveness of each training model to predict the Spanish Autonomous Indebtness. |
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| Title: |
DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT SYSTEM FOR DETECTING INCIPIENT FAULTS IN TRANSFORMER BY USING DISSOLVED GAS ANALYSIS. |
| Author(s): |
Nitin keshao Dhote - |
| Abstract: | Power transformer is a vital component of power system, which has no substitute for its major role. They are quite expensive also. It is therefore, very important to closely monitor it’s in –service behavior to avoid costly outages and loss of production. Many devices have evolved to monitor the serviceability of power transformers. These devices such as Buchholz relay or differential relay respond only to a severe power failure requiring immediate removal of transformer from service, in which case, outages are inevitable. Thus, preventive techniques for early detection of faults to avoid outages would be valuable. A prototype of an expert system based on Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) technique for diagnosis of suspected transformers faults and their maintenance action are developed. The synthetic method is proposed to assist the popular gas ratio methods. This expert system is implemented into PC by using “Turbo Prolog” with rule based knowledge representations. The designed expert system has been tested for N.T.P.C., Talcher (India) transformer’s gas ratio records to show its effectiveness in transformer diagnosis. |
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| Title: |
PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF KDD TECHNIQUES TO AN INDUSTRIAL PROCESS |
| Author(s): |
Victoria Pachón Álvarez |
| Abstract: | In the process of smelting copper mineral a large amount of sulphuric dioxide (SO2) is produced. This compound would be highly pollutant if it was emitted to the atmosphere. By means of an acid plant it is possible to transform it into sulphuric acid, using for this a set of chemical and physical processes. In this way we dispose of a marketable product and, at the same time, the environment is protected. However, there are certain situations in which the gases escape to the atmosphere, creating pollutant situations. This would be avoidable if we exactly knew under which circumstances this problem is produced. In this paper we present a practical application of KDD techniques to the chemical industry. By means of the obtained results we show the viability of using automatic classifiers to improve a productive process, with an increase of the production and a decrease of the environmental pollution |
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| Title: |
DATABASES REDUCTION |
| Author(s): |
Jesús S. Aguilar-Ruiz , Jose C. Riquelme , Roberto Ruiz Sánchez |
| Abstract: | Progress in digital data acquisition and storage technology has resulted in the growth of huge databases. A great quantity of information. Nevertheless, these techniques often have high computational cost. Then, it is advisable to apply a preprocessing phase to reduce the complexity time. These preprocessing techniques are fundamentally oriented to either of the next goals: horizontal reduction of the databases or feature selection; and vertical reduction or editing. In this paper we present a new proposal to reduce databases applying sequentially vertical and horizontal reduction technics. They are based in our original works, and they use a projection concept as a method to choose examples and representative features. Results obtained are very satisfactory, because the reduced database offers the same knowledge with low added computational cost. |
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| Title: |
DATA MINING APPLICATION IN CLINICAL DATA OF PATIENTS WITH NEPHROLITHIASIS |
| Author(s): |
Romero Paoliello , Paulo José Lage Alvarenga , Luis Enrique Zárate , Thiago Ribeiro |
| Abstract: | Nephrolithiasis is a disease that is unknown yet a clinical treatment that determines its cure. In the adult population is esteemed an incidence around 5 to 12%, being a little lesser in the pediatric band. The renal colic, caused by nephrolithiasis, is the main disease symptom in the adults and it is observed in 14% of the pediatric patients. The disease symptoms in the pediatric patient don't follow a pattern, and this difficult the disease diagnosis. The main objective of this work is discovery the patters of the disease symptoms and identifies the apt population to acquire it. With this objective, is applied KDD methodology determining discriminant rules for the patterns of the symptoms, and with this, select the groups of patients with those sets of symptoms. The results and the conclusions of the work are presented in the end of the article. |
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| Title: |
QUALITY CONTROL USING FUZZY RULE BASED CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
Kumar Ujjwal ujjwal , Rajendra Sahu R.sahu , Rajendra Sahu R.sahu |
| Abstract: | In recent years, Total Quality Management (TQM) has captured the worldwide attention and is being adopted in many organization both profit and non-profit. The aim of this paper is to generate those rules from the existing data that affect the quality of the product and use the generated rules to construct a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) which can be used for product classification under the categories of Good, Average and Poor. The rules will incorporate all the important attributes that affect a particular product. This paper uses the concept of Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) which are widely used for process simulation or control. They can be designed either from expert knowledge or from data. For complex systems, FIS based on expert knowledge only may suffer from a loss of accuracy. This is the main incentive for using fuzzy rules inferred from data. In the synthesis of a fuzzy system from data two steps are generally employed: automatic rule generation and system optimization. This paper analyzes the grid partitioning approach of extracting rules from data and then it focuses on how the rules can be optimized and how the developed rules can be used for product classification on the basis of their quality. |
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| Title: |
OBJECTMINER: A NEW APPROACH FOR MINING COMPLEX OBJECTS |
| Author(s): |
Rafael Berlanga , Roxana Danger , José Ruíz-Shulcloper |
| Abstract: | Since their introduction in 1993, association rules have been successfully applied to the description and summarization of discovered relations between attributes in a large collection of objects. However, most of the research works in this area have focused on mining simple objects, usually represented as a set of binary variables. The proposed work presents a framework for mining complex objects, whose attributes can be of any data type (single and multi-valued). The mining process is guided by the semantics associated to each object feature, which is stated by users by providing both a comparison criterion and a similarity function over the object subdescriptions. Experimental results show the usefulness of the proposal. |
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| Title: |
INFORMATION ACCESS VIA TOPIC HIERARCHIES AND THEMATIC ANNOTATIONS FROM DOCUMENT COLLECTIONS |
| Author(s): |
Hermine Njike Fotzo |
| Abstract: | With the development and the availability of large textual corpora, there is a need for enriching and organizing these corpora so as to make easier the research and navigation among the documents. The Semantic Web research focuses on augmenting ordinary Web pages with semantics. Indeed, wealth of information exists today in electronic form, they cannot be easily processed by computers due to lack of external semantics. Furthermore, the semantic addition is an help for user to locate, process information and compare documents contents. For now, Semantic Web research has been focused on the standardization, internal structuring of pages, and sharing of ontologies in a variety of domains. Concerning external structuring, hypertext and information retrieval communities propose to indicate relations between documents via hyperlinks or by organizing documents into concepts hierarchies, both being manually developed. We consider here the problem of automatically structuring and organizing corpora in a way that reflects semantic relations between documents. We propose an algorithm for automatically inferring concepts hierarchies from a corpus. We then show how this method may be used to create specialization/generalization links between documents leading to document hierarchies. As a byproduct, documents are annotated with keywords giving the main concepts present in the documents. We also introduce numerical criteria for measuring the relevance of the automatically generated hierarchies and describe some experiments performed on data from the LookSmart and New Scientist web sites. |
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| Title: |
LEARNING BAYESIAN NETWORKS WITH LARGEST CHAIN GRAPHS |
| Author(s): |
Mohamed BENDOU , Paul MUNTEANU |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new approach for designing learning bayesian network algorithms that explore the structure equivalence classes space. Its main originality consists in the representation of equivalence classes by largest chain graphs, instead of essential graphs which are generally used in the similar task. We show that this approach drastically simplifies the algorithms formulation and has some beneficial aspects on their execution time. |
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| Title: |
MODEL-BASED COLLABORATIVE FILTERING FOR TEAM BUILDING SUPPORT |
| Author(s): |
Alípio Jorge , Miguel Veloso , Paulo Azevedo |
| Abstract: | In this paper we describe an application of recommender systems to team building in a company or organization. The recommender system uses a collaborative filtering model based approach. Recommender models are sets of association rules extracted from the activity log of employees assigned to projects or tasks. Recommendation is performed at two levels: first by recommending a single team element given a partially built team; and second by recommending changes to a complete team. The methodology is applied to a case study with real data. The results are evaluated through experimental tests and a users’ perception survey. |
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| Title: |
NEW ENERGETIC SELECTION PRINCIPLE IN DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION |
| Author(s): |
Vitaliy Feoktistov |
| Abstract: | The Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm goes back to the class of Evolutionary Algorithms and inherits its philosophy and concept. Possessing only three control parameters (size of population, differentiation and recombination constants) DE has promising characteristics of robustness and convergence. In this paper we introduce a new principle of Energetic Selection. It consists in both decreasing the population size and the computation efforts according to an energetic barrier function which depends on the number of generation. The value of this function acts as an energetic filter, through which can pass only individuals with lower fitness. Furthermore, this approach allows us to initialize a population of a sufficient (large) size. This method leads us to an improvement of algorithm convergence. |
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| Title: |
CASE-BASED APPROACH FOR EFFICIENT REDESIGN OF BUSINESS PROCESS |
| Author(s): |
Farhi Marir |
| Abstract: | Business Process Redesign (BPR) addresses the reengineering of one specific process within the firm. It helps rethinking a process in order to enhance its performance. Academics and Business practitioners have been developing methodologies to support the application of BPR principles. However, most methodologies generally lack actual guidance on deriving a process design threatening the success of BPR. In this paper, we suggest the use of a case-based reasoning technique (CBR) to support solving new problems by adapting previously successful solutions to similar problems. We investigate how CBR can support a BPR implementation. An implementation framework for BPR and the CBR’s cyclical process are used as a knowledge management technical support to serve for the effective reuses of redesign methods as a knowledge creation and sharing mechanism. This is developed in an attempt to improve the level of success of BPR implementation by using case stories. |
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| Title: |
TOWARDS HIGH DIMENSIONAL DATA MINING WITH BOOSTING OF PSVM AND VISUALIZATION TOOLS |
| Author(s): |
Thanh-Nghi Do |
| Abstract: | In the recent years support vector machines (SVM) have been successfully applied to a large number of applications. Training a SVM usually needs a quadratic programming, so that the learning task for large data sets requires large memory capacity and a long time. Proximal SVM proposed by Fung and Mangasarian is a new SVM formulation. It is very fast to train because it requires only the solution of a linear system. We have used the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury formula to adapt the PSVM to process data sets with a very large number of attributes. We have extended this idea by applying boosting to PSVM for mining massive data sets with simultaneously very large number of data points and attributes. We have evaluated its performance on UCI, Twonorm, Ringnorm, Reuters-21578 and Ndc data sets. We also propose a new graphical tool for trying to interpret the results of the new algorithm by displaying the separating frontier between classes of the data set. This can help the user to deeply understand how the new algorithm can work. |
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| Title: |
ROBUST, GENERALIZED, QUICK AND EFFICIENT AGGLOMERATIVE CLUSTERING |
| Author(s): |
Manolis Wallace |
| Abstract: | Hierarchical approaches, which are dominated by the generic agglomerative clustering algorithm, are suitable for cases in which the count of distinct clusters in the data is not known a priori; this is not a rare case in real data. On the other hand, important problems are related to their application, such as susceptibility to errors in the initial steps that propagate all the way to the final output and high complexity. Finally, similarly to all other clustering techniques, their efficiency decreases as the dimensionality of their input increases. In this paper we propose a robust, generalized, quick and efficient extension to the generic agglomerative clustering process. Robust refers to the proposed approach's ability to overcome the classic algorithm's susceptibility to errors in the initial steps, generalized to its ability to simultaneously consider multiple distance metrics, quick to its suitability for application to larger datasets via the application of the computationally expensive components to only a subset of the available data samples and efficient to its ability to produce results that are comparable to those of trained classifiers, largely outperforming the generic agglomerative process. |
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| Title: |
TOWARDS VISUAL DATA MINING |
| Author(s): |
Francois Poulet |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present our work in a new data mining approach called Visual Data Mining (VDM). This new approach tries to involve more intensively the user (being the data expert not a data mining or analysis specialist) in the data mining process and to increase the part of the visualisation in this process. The visualisation part can be increased with cooperative tools: the visualisation is used as a pre or post processing step of usual (automatic) data mining algorithms, or the visualisation tools can be used instead of the usual automatic algorithms. All these topics are addressed in this paper with an evaluation of the algorithms presented and a discussion of the interactive algorithms compared with automatic ones. All this work must be improved in order to allow the data specialists to use efficiently these kinds of algorithms to solve their problems. |
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| Title: |
HYBRID EXPERT SYSTEM FOR THE SELECTION OF RAPID PROTOTYPING PROCESSES |
| Author(s): |
Farhi Marir |
| Abstract: | A wide variety of rapid prototyping processes are available, each with different and unique features. Selecting the most suitable process for a given prototype can be difficult and costly if a mistake is made. In this paper, the design of a knowledge-based system to support the selection of a rapid prototyping process is presented. The method utilises a hybrid expert system, which is formulated to interrogate the acquired data streams from a rapid prototyping model simulator for the purpose of comparative studies with the knowledge base. |
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| Title: |
A CONNEXIONIST APPROACH FOR CASE BASED REASONING |
| Author(s): |
José María de la Torre , Miguel Delgado , Eva Gibaja , Antonio B. Bailón |
| Abstract: | Case Based Learning is an approach to automatic learning and reasoning based on the use of the knowledge gained in past experiences to solve new problems. To suggest a solution for a new problem it is necessary to search for similar problems in the base of problems for which we know their solutions. After selecting one or more similar problems their solutions are used to elaborate a suggested solution for the new problem. Associative memories recover patterns based on their similarity with a new input pattern. This behaviour made them useful to store the base of cases of a Case Based Reasoning system. In this paper we analyze the use of a special model of associative memory named CCLAM \cite{bailon2002a} with this objective. To test the potentiality of the tool we will discuss its use in a particular application: the detection of the ``health'' of a company. |
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| Title: |
INTELLIGENT VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS FOR TRAINING IN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS |
| Author(s): |
Pilar Herrero , Gonzalo Mendez , Angelica de Antonio |
| Abstract: | Educational Virtual Environments are gaining popularity as tools to enhance student learning. These environments are often used to allow students to experience situations that would be difficult, costly, or impossible in the physical world. At the Technical University of Madrid we have developed several applications to explore the use of intelligent tutors in VR. In this paper we present two of these applications which have been used for training in radiological protection in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). These applications are inhabited by avatars and/or agents which are continuously monitoring the state of the environment and manipulating it periodically through virtual motor actions. Our applications help students learn to perform physical, procedural tasks in some different risky areas of NPP. |
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| Title: |
BAYESIAN NETWORK CLASSIFIERS VERSUS K-NN CLASSIFIER USING SEQUENTIAL FEATURE SELECTION |
| Author(s): |
Franz Pernkopf , Djamel Bouchaffra |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to compare Bayesian network classifiers to the k-NN classifier based on a subset of features. This subset is established by means of sequential feature selection methods. Experimental results show that Bayesian network classifiers more often achieve a better classification rate on different data sets as selective k-NN classifiers. The $k$-NN classifier performs well in the case where the number of samples for learning the parameters of the Bayesian network is small. Bayesian network classifiers outperform selective k-NN methods in terms of memory requirements and computational demands. This paper demonstrates the strength of Bayesian networks for |
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| Title: |
G.R.E.E.N. AN EXPERT SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY GYMNOSPERMS |
| Author(s): |
Antonio Bailón , Eva Gibaja |
| Abstract: | The application of Artificial Intelligence techniques to the problem of botanical identification is not particularly widespread even less so on Internet. There are several interactive identification systems but they usually deal with raw knowledge so it appears that “research and development of web-based expert systems are still in their early stage” (Li et al., 2002). In this paper we present the G.R.E.E.N. (Gymnosperms Remote Expert Executed Over Networks) System as an Expert System for the identification of Iberian Gymnosperms which allows on-line uncertainty queries to be made. The System is operative and it can be consulted in http://drimys.ugr.es/experto/index.html. |
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| Title: |
ADAPTATIVE TECHNIQUES FOR THE HUMAN FACES DETECTION |
| Author(s): |
João Fernando Marar , Danilo Nogueira Costa |
| Abstract: | This paper presents results from an efficient approach to an automatic detection and extraction of human faces from images with any color, texture or objects in background, that consist in find isosceles triangles formed by the eyes and mouth. |
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| Title: |
OLIMPO SYSTEM WEB-TECNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT AND PACE WORLD |
| Author(s): |
Andre Bortolon , Hugo Cesar Hoeschl , Tania Bueno , Eduardo Mattos , Vania Ferreira |
| Abstract: | The paper describes the Olimpo System, a knowledge-based system that enables the user to access textual files and to retrieve information that is similar to the search context described by the user in natural language. The paper is focused on the innovation recently implemented on the system and its new features. A detailed description is presented about the search level and the similarity metrics used by the system. The methodology applied to the Olimpo system emphasises the use of information retrieval methods combined with the Artificial Intelligence technique named SCS (Structured Contextual Search). |
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| Title: |
DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SCALABLE FUZZY CASE-BASED MATCHING ENGINE |
| Author(s): |
Jonas Van Poucke , Bartel Van de Walle , Rami Hansenne , Veerle Van der Sluys |
| Abstract: | We discuss the design and the implementation of a flexible and scalable fuzzy case-based matching engine. The engine’s flexible design is illustrated for two of its core components: the internal representation of cases by means of a variety of crisp and fuzzy data types, and the fuzzy operations to execute the ensuing case matching process. We investigate the scalability of the matching engine by a series of benchmark tests of increasing complexity, and find that the matching engine can manage an increasingly heavy load. This indicates that the engine can be used for demanding matching processes. We conclude by pointing at several applications in experimental electronic markets for which the matching engine currently is being put to use, and indicate avenues for future research. |
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| Title: |
INFORMED K-MEANS: A CLUSTERING PROCESS BIASED BY PRIOR KNOWLEDGE |
| Author(s): |
Wagner Castilho , Hércules do Prado , Marcelo Ladeira |
| Abstract: | Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) is the process by which unknown and useful knowledge and information are extracted, by automatic or semi-automatic methods, from large amounts of data. Along the evolution of Information Technology and the rapid growth in the number and size of databases, the development of methodologies, techniques, and tools for data mining has become a major concern for researchers, and has led, in turn, to the development of applications in a variety of areas of human activity. About 1997, the processes and techniques associated with cluster analysis had begun to be researched with increasing intensity by the KDD community. Within the context of a model intended to support decisions based on cluster analysis, prior knowledge about the data structure and the application domain can be used as important constraints that lead to better results in the clusters’ configurations. This paper presents an application of cluster analysis in the area of public safety using a schema that takes into account the burden of prior knowledge acquired from statistical analysis on the data. Such an information was used as a bias for the k-means algorithm that was applied to identify the dactyloscopic (fingerprint) profile of criminals in the Brazilian capital, also known as Federal District. These results was then compared with a similar analysis that disregarded the prior knowledge. It is possible to observe that the analysis using prior knowledge generated clusters that are more coherent with the expert knowledge. |
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| Title: |
NEURAL NETWORK AND TIME SERIES AS TOOLS FOR SALES FORECASTING |
| Author(s): |
Maria Emilia Camargo , Walter Priesnitz Filho , Angela Isabel dos Santos |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the use of times series AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) ARIMA model with interventions, and neural network back-propagation model in analyzing the behavior of sales in a medium size enterprise located in Rio Grande do Sul Brazil for the period January 1979 December 2002. The forecasts obtained using the back-propagation model were found to be more accurate than those of ARIMA model with interventions. |
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| Title: |
A SYMBOLIC APPROACH TO LINGUISTIC NEGATION |
| Author(s): |
Daniel PACHOLCZYK , Mazen EL-SAYED |
| Abstract: | Negation processing is a challenging problem studied by a large number of researchers from different communities. This paper focuses on the linguistic negation rather than on the logical one. Our work is based on the main standard forms of linguistic negation interpretations represented as "x is not A". The reference frame associated with a standard form contains all its positive interpretations. The main goal of dealing with negation is the selection of one (or several) positive interpretation(s) associated with a negative sentence from its reference frame. The originality of our approach results from the fact that we do not research directly all affirmative interpretations of a negation, but we approximate its significance. We introduce two operators, one is optimistic and the other is pessimistic. They are defined according to rough set theory. By using the new negation formulation, we propose several generalizations of the Modus Ponens rule dealing with negative information. The new model is proposed within a symbolic many-valued predicate logic. |
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| Title: |
DYNAMIC INTEREST PROFILES: TRACKING USER INTRESTS USING PERSONAL INFORMATION |
| Author(s): |
Joann Ruvolo , Justin Lessler , Vikas Krishna , Stefan Edlund |
| Abstract: | When building applications it is usually the case that developers are forced to focus on “one size fits all” solutions. Customization is often burdensome for the user, or would be so complex that it would be unrealistic to ask an end user to undertake this task. In the areas of personal information management and collaboration there is no reason to accept this limitation, as there is a body of information about the user that reflects their interests: namely their personal documents. The Dynamic Interest Profile (DIP) is a system intended to track user interest to allow for the creation of more intelligent applications. In this paper we discuss our approach to implementing the DIP, challenges that this implementation presents, as well as the security and privacy concerns that the existence of such an application raises. |
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| Title: |
A FAST SCALE AND POSE INVARIANT FACE RECOGNITION METHOD |
| Author(s): |
Dr younus Javed , Almas Anjum , Aamir Nadeem |
| Abstract: | Abstract The high speed computing, database, networking technologies and sophisticated image processing methodologies have increased the topical significance of face recognition. The proposed system is a scale invariant face recognition model which works on reduced size of image to increase the speed and to reduce the complex computation .The approach transforms face images into a small set of characteristic features image matrices which are the principle component of the initial training set of images. On the basis of small sets of features a general matrix and difference matrices of the normalized images are formed which ultimately provide a base for the recognition of face. This model consists of two parts. The first part is conversion of RGB into gray image with averaging of RGB values and preprocessing of image. In the second part, the recognition is performed by projecting a test image to the face space spanned by general matrix, an error matrix is obtained and ultimately compared with difference matrices of all the training images and minimum error gives the recognized image. Recognition under reasonably varying conditions is achieved by training on a limited number of images with different poses and intensity levels. This approach has advantages over other face recognition schemes in its speed, simplicity, learning capacity and relative insensitivity to small or gradual changes of pose and intensity level in the face images and its size. |
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| Title: |
DYNAMIC NEGOTIATION FOR REAL-TIME MANUFACTURING EXECUTION |
| Author(s): |
Li Qun Zhuang , Jing Bing Zhang , Bryan Tsong Jye Ng , Yi Zhi Zhao , Yue Tang |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a dynamic negotiation framework for real-time execution in self-organised manufacturing environments. The negotiation strategies in this framework bridge the gap between distributed negotiation of self-interested agents and cooperative negotiation among agent groups. In particular, the proposed framework is based on the model of Performance and Cost for Manufacturing Execution (PCME). By forming the dynamic organisation called agent consortium, individual agent negotiates over the PCME in order to optimise the resource allocation under time constraints and uncertainty of job execution, and resolves the conflicts to fulfil the goal of the overall system. The ultimate goal of the framework is to reduce the negotiation time, make effective use of resources, adapt to the changes in execution and increase the throughput of the entire system. Experimental work based on PCME has been carried out to demonstrate the high performance of this approach despite unanticipated and dynamic changes in the manufacturing execution environments. |
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| Title: |
VISUALIZING SOFTWARE PROJECT ANALOGIES TO SUPPORT COST ESTIMATION |
| Author(s): |
Martin Auer |
| Abstract: | Software cost estimation is a crucial task in software project portfolio decisions like start scheduling, resource allocation, or bidding. A variety of estimation methods have been proposed to support estimators. Especially the analogy-based approach---based on a project's similarities with past projects---has been reported as both efficient and relatively transparent. However, its performance was typically measured automatically and the effect of human estimators' sanity checks was neglected. Thus, this paper proposes the visualization of high-dimensional software project portfolio data using multidimensional scaling (MDS). We (i) propose data preparation steps for an MDS visualization of software portfolio data, (ii) visualize several real-world industry project portfolio data sets and quantify the achieved approximation quality to assess the feasibility, and (iii) outline the expected benefits referring to the visualized portfolios' properties. This approach offers several promising benefits by enhancing portfolio data understanding and by providing intuitive means for estimators to assess an estimate's plausibility. |
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| Title: |
ORDER PLANNING DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR CUSTOMER DRIVEN MANUFACTURING: OVERVIEW OF MAIN SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS |
| Author(s): |
Américo Azevedo , Henrique Proença |
| Abstract: | An important goal in schedule production orders through a manufacturing facility is to assure that the work is completed as close as possible to its due date. Work that is late creates downstream delays, while early completion can be detrimental if storage space is limited. Production planning and control manufacturing is becoming more difficult as family products increase and quantity decreases. This paper presents an ongoing information system development that aims the production planning of special test tables equipment for automobile components manufacturers. The simulated based information system will be used to support planning and schedule activities; to compare and analyze the impact of planning rescheduling; to forecast the production completion date; to detect bottlenecks and to evaluate machines performance. |
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| Title: |
AN EXPERIENCE IN MANAGEMENT OF IMPRECISE SOIL DATABASES BY MEANS OF FUZZY ASSOCIATION RULES AND FUZZY APPROXIMATE DEPENDENCIES |
| Author(s): |
J.M. Serrano , M. Sánchez-Marañón , Daniel Sánchez , M.A. Vila , G. Delgado , J. Calero |
| Abstract: | In this work, we start from a database built with soil information from heterogeneous scientific sources (Local Soil Databases, LSDB). We call this an Aggregated Soil Database (ASDB). We are interested in determining if knowledge obtained by means of fuzzy association rules or fuzzy approximate dependencies can represent adequately expert knowledge for a soil scientific, familiarized with the study zone. A master relation between two soil attributes was selected and studied by the expert, in both ASDB and LSDB. Obtained results reveal that knowledge extracted by means of fuzzy data mining tools is significatively better than crisp one. Moreover, it is highly satisfactory from the soil scientific expert’s point of view, since it manages with more flexibility imprecision factors (IFASDB) commonly related to this type of information. |
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| Title: |
DECISION FOLLOW-UP SUPPORT MECHANISM BASED ON ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION |
| Author(s): |
Wolfgang Prinz , Carla Valle |
| Abstract: | Decision management and decision support systems are themes under investigation for several decades, and both research areas provided contributions for the quality of decision making processes. However, little work has been done in the area of decision follow-up, especially regarding decisions made during meetings. In this paper we analyse the concepts related to this problem and we propose a solution based on mechanisms supported by computer to assist the formalization of meeting outcomes, and to provide decision follow-up. |
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| Title: |
THE ORM MODEL AS A KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION FOR E-TUTORIAL SYSTEMS |
| Author(s): |
tanaporn leelawattananon , suphamit chittayasothorn |
| Abstract: | At present information technology plays important roles in teaching and learning activities. E-learning systems have the potential to reduce operating costs and train more people. Teachers and students do not have to be in the same place at the same time and the students have the opportunity to perform self-studies and self-evaluation using e-tutorial systems. E-learning systems could be considered expert systems in the sense that they provide expert advice in particular subjects of studies to students. The exploitation of knowledge base and knowledge representation techniques is therefore vital to the development of e-learning systems. This paper presents the development of a knowledge-based e-tutorial system that uses the Object Role Model (ORM) as its knowledge representation. The system provides Physics tutorials. It was implemented in Prolog and the knowledge base is on a relational database server. |
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| Title: |
IMPLEMENTING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES FOR SECURITY PURPOSES |
| Author(s): |
Ioannis Drakopoulos , Petros Belsis , Stefanos Gritzalis , Christos Skourlas |
| Abstract: | Due to its rapid growth, Information Systems Security becomes a new era of expertise, related to a vast quantity of knowledge. Exploiting all this knowledge becomes a difficult task, due to its heterogeneity. Knowledge Management (KM) on the other hand, becomes an expanding and promising discipline that has drawn considerable attention. In this paper we deploy our arguments about the benefits of KM techniques and their possible applications to assist security officers in improving their productivity and effectiveness. To prove this, we exploit possible technological prospects, and we present the architecture of a prototype developed to implement selected innovating KM components, embedding state-of-the-art multimedia java-based applications. |
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| Title: |
MAJORITY VOTING IN STABLE MARRIAGE PROBLEM WITH COUPLES |
| Author(s): |
Tarmo Veskioja |
| Abstract: | Providing centralised matching services can be viewed as a group decision support system (GDSS) for the participants to reach a stable matching solution. In the original stable marriage problem all the participants have to rank all members of the opposite party. Two variations for this problem allow for incomplete preference lists and ties in preferences. If members from one side are allowed to form couples and submit combined preferences, then the set of stable matchings may be empty (Roth et al., 1990). In that case it is necessary to use majority voting between matchings in a tournament. We propose a majority voting tournament method based on monotone systems and a value function for it. The proposed algorithm should minimize transitivity faults in tournament ranking. |
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| Title: |
OUTLIER DETECTION AND VISUALISATION |
| Author(s): |
Lydia BOUDJELOUD , François POULET |
| Abstract: | Abstract: The outlier detection problem has important applications in the field of fraud detection, network robustness analysis, and intrusion detection. Most such applications are high dimensional domains in which the data can contain hundreds of dimensions. However, in high dimensional space, the data is sparse and the notion of proximity fails to retain its meaningfulness. Many recent algorithms use heuristics such as genetic algorithms, the taboo search... in order to palliate these difficulties in high dimensional data. We present in this paper a new hybrid algorithm for outlier detection in high dimensional data. We evaluate the performances of the new algorithm on different high dimensional data sets, and visualise results for some data sets. |
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| Title: |
MULTI-AGENT ORGANISATIONAL MODEL FOR E-CONTACTING |
| Author(s): |
Djamel KHADRAOUI |
| Abstract: | The paper covers the development and analysis tools, software and system architecture engineering, and development methodologies. It introduces the MOISE+ model for organizing agents inside a multi-agent system and it discussed the MOISE Java API. The Model of Organization for multI-agent System is a organizational model for Multi-Agent System seen under three points of view: structural, functional and deontic. In practical, this model is available as a JAVA component. The original contribution of the paper is the extension of the model to take into account the notion of sanctions. These are necessary in order to control the respect of normative specifications (obligation, permission, prohibition) of behaviors. The results of the generalized model is implemented on an eBusiness application dealing with eContracting. |
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| Title: |
MULTI-AGENT PROPOSITIONS TO MANAGE ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE: POSITION PAPER CONCERNING A THREE-DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH PROJECT |
| Author(s): |
Francisco Guimarães , César Rosa , Jorge Louçã , Valmir Meneses |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the work in progress in a three-dimensional project, including the theoretical foundations and main goals of the lines of research incorporating our project: user modeling in a distributed cooperative system, interactive cooperation in a multi-agent structure, and knowledge representation in a cognitive agent architecture. These lines of research are complementary and share a main goal, to make propositions regarding the use of multi-agent systems in organizations, namely in what concerns support to decision making processes and, in a general way, knowledge management within organizations. |
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| Title: |
AN AGENT-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE FOR FACILITATING EVIDENCE-BASED HEALTH CARE |
| Author(s): |
Jennifer Sampson |
| Abstract: | Evidence-based medicine relies heavily on the timely dissemination of ‘best evidence’ to a wide audience of health practitioners (Atkins and Louw, 2000). However, finding, assimilating and using this information resource effectively can be difficult. In this paper we describe an infrastructure for facilitating evidence-based health care using Agora - a multi-agent system. This paper discusses our extensions to AGORA, and also describes issues for disseminating such medical knowledge via an adaptive, intelligent, distributed, mobile information service. We describe how an agent based approach can deliver clinical cases and diagnosis information to clinicians at point of care tailored to her/his needs. This research in progress is particularly important for the facilitating flow of information in health care. |
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| Title: |
AN ALGORITHM FOR LINEAR BILEVEL PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS |
| Author(s): |
Jie Lu , Chenggen Shi |
| Abstract: | For linear bilevel programming problems, the branch and bound algorithm is the most successful algorithm to deal with the complementary constraints arising from Kuhn-Tucker conditions. This paper proposes a new branch and bound algorithm for linear bilevel programming problems. Based on this result, a web-based bilevel decision support system is developed. |
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AREA 3 - Information Systems Analysis and Specification |
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| Title: |
PRIVACY CONCERNS IN INTERNET APPLICATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Seev Neumann , Moshe Zviran |
| Abstract: | The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines privacy as “freedom from unauthorized intrusion”. While privacy has been a sensitive issue long before the advent of computers, the concern has been significantly elevated by the widespread use of large databases that make it easy to compile a dossier about an individual from many data sources. The problem of privacy has been further exacerbated by the fact that the Web makes it easy for new data to be automatically collected and added to databases and analyzed by sophisticated data mining tools and personalized marketing services. This study explores the nature of the privacy concern in detail, especially for the online environment. The objective of this study is to get a better understanding of the factors that can affect online privacy concerns and how this concern could affect the users’ behavior and the future of the Internet and electronic commerce. |
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| Title: |
A NEW VULNERABILITY TAXONOMY BASED ON PRIVILEGE ESCALATION |
| Author(s): |
Yongzheng Zhang , Xiaochun Yun |
| Abstract: | On the basis of analysis of research achievements of typical vulnerability taxonomies in the world, a privilege-escalating based vulnerability taxonomy with multidimensional quantitative attribute is presented in this paper. Then we give examples of three vulnerabilities to illustrate the characteristics of this taxonomy, and present the risk evaluation formula and ranks of the evaluation levels of risk. |
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| Title: |
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ELGAMAL BASED CRYPTOGRAPHIC ALGORITHMS |
| Author(s): |
Ramzi Haraty , Hadi Otrok |
| Abstract: | 038
Cryptography is the art or science of keeping messages secret. People mean different things when they talk about cryptography. Children play with toy ciphers and secret languages. However, these have little to do with real security and strong encryption. Strong encryption is the kind of encryption that can be used to protect information of real value against organized criminals, multinational corporations, and major governments. Strong encryption used to be only in the military domain; however, in the information society it has become one of the central tools for maintaining privacy and confidentiality. 038 As we move further into an information society, the technological means for global surveillance of millions of individual people are becoming available to major governments. Cryptography has become one of the main tools for privacy, trust, access control, electronic payments, corporate security, and countless other fields. 038 Perhaps the most striking development in the history of cryptography came in 1976 when Diffie and Hellman published $New$ $Directions$ $in$ $Cryptography$ [3]. Their work introduced the concept of public-key cryptography and provided a new method for key exchange. This method is based on the intractability of discrete logarithm problems. Although the authors had no practical realization of a public-key encryption scheme at the time, the idea was clear and it generated extensive interests and activities in the world of cryptography. One of the powerful and practical public-key schemes was produced by ElGamal in 1985 [4]. 038 El-Kassar and Awad [1][6] modified the ElGamal public-key encryption schemes from the domain of natural integers, $Z$, to two principal ideal domains, namely the domain of Gaussian integers, $Z[i]$, and the domain of the rings of polynomials over finite fields, $F[x]$, by extending the arithmetic needed for the modifications to these domains. 038 In this paper, we compare and evaluate the classical and modified ElGamal algorithms by implementing and running them on a computer. We investigate the issues of complexity, efficiency and reliability by running the programs with different sets of data. Moreover, comparisons will be done between these different algorithms given the same data as input. In addition, implementation of an attack algorithm will be presented. The attack algorithm consists of subroutines used to crack encrypted messages. This is done by applying certain mathematical concepts to find the private key of the encrypted message. After finding the key, it will be easy to decrypt the message. A study will be done using the results of running the attack algorithm to compare the security of the different classical and modified cryptographic algorithms. |
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| Title: |
ON INFORMATION SECURITY GUIDELINES FOR SMALL/MEDIUM ENTERPRISES |
| Author(s): |
David Chapman , Leonid Smalov |
| Abstract: | The adoption rate of Internet-based technologies by United Kingdom (UK) Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is well-documented. Over several decades information security has evolved from early work such as the Bell La Padula (BLP) model toward widely disseminated Information Security Guidelines containing detailed advice. The overwhelming volume and level-of-detail provided often fails to address the information security requirements of SMEs. SMEs typically fail to implement effective Internet strategies due to lack of information security awareness, lack of technical skills and inadequate financial resources. Awareness of information security issues among SMEs is poor. The European Union supported ISA-EUNET Consortium has developed a set of best practices to support SMEs. We present a mapping of the Computer Security Expert Assist Team (CSEAT) Information Security Review Areas onto the Alliance for Electronic Business (AEB) web security guidelines as an example of a possible roadmap approach for SMEs to gain information security awareness. |
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| Title: |
ANALYSIS AND CONFIGURATION METHODOLOGY FOR VIDEO ON DEMAND SERVICES BASED ON MONITORING INFORMATION AND PREDICTION |
| Author(s): |
Ángel Neira , Xabiel García Pañeda , David Melendi Palacio , David Melendi , Roberto García , Víctor García |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an analysis and configuration methodology for video-on-demand services. Usually, two entities take part in this kind of services: a network operator and a content provider. The former provides an Internet connection and manages servers and proxies, whereas the latter, normally a communication media, generates the provided contents. All their possibilities of configuration must be based on an accurate service behavioural analysis which evaluates the quality and the quantity of resources, contents and subscribers. This analysis can be performed using monitoring information and predictions of a near future behaviour established by managers. To formalize both analysis and configuration, a methodology must be developed in order to help the service managers to attain a good performance and at the same time, make a profit for their companies. |
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| Title: |
DESCRIBING SOFTWARE-INTENSIVE PROCESS ARCHITECTURES USING A UML-BASED ADL |
| Author(s): |
Ilham ALLOUI , Flavio OQUENDO |
| Abstract: | Many Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) have been proposed in the software architecture community, with several competing notations, each of them bringing its own body of specification languages and analysis techniques. The aim of all is to reduce the costs of error detection and repair while providing adequate abstractions for modelling large software-intensive systems and establishing properties of interest. However, there now exists a large consensus to standardise on notations and methods for software analysis and design as standardisation provides an economy of scale that results in various and better tools, better interoperability between tools, more available developers skilled in using the standard notation, and lower training costs. Therefore software-intensive process architectures can be relevantly described using a standard-compliant design notation. Among such notations, the UML modelling language that on one side makes use of visual notations and on the other side, is an emerging standard software design language and a starting point for bringing architectural modelling into industrial use. This paper presents an architecture-centred UML-based notation to describe software process architectures. The architectural concepts have already been formally defined in an Architecture Description textual Language. The notation is illustrated by a business-to-business process application. The main contribution of this work is to show that UML with its large and extensible set of predefined constructs imposes itself as a relevant candidate to be extended with the necessary architectural concepts and customisation to model software-intensive processes. The work presented is being developed and validated within the framework of the X IST 5 ongoing European project. |
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| Title: |
U_VBOOM : UNIFIED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN PROCESS BASED ON THE VIEWPOINT CONCEPT |
| Author(s): |
Hair Abdellatif |
| Abstract: | The introduction of viewpoint in object-oriented design provides several improvements in modeling complex systems. In fact, it enables the users to build a unique model accessible by different users with various points of view, instead of building several sub-models whose management is too hard to complete. Those concepts of view and viewpoint were implemented by VBOOL, the language which propose a new relationship "the visibility". VBOOM, the analyze/design method, integrates those concepts in an object-oriented modeling. The aims of this work are, firstly to propose a new representation of the visibility relationship of VBOOL in UML standard language for modeling and specifying object-oriented systems. Secondly, to complete UML by an oriented viewpoint method to get a complete software engineering process. The definition of this method is based on VBOOM method. This method is called U_VBOOM, which represents an adaptation of VBOOM in UML. The new representation of the visibility relationship encourages the multi-targets code generation and improve the process of development proposed by the VBOOM method. |
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| Title: |
TESTING SOFTWARE SYSTEMS FROM A USER'S PERSPECTIVE |
| Author(s): |
Thomas Thelin |
| Abstract: | An important attribute to whether a software system will be used is the satisfaction of the users during usage. In order to fulfil the users’ requirements during development, software inspection and testing are two important activities that are used. Software inspection is used in the first phases of development and testing is used after the system has been implemented. Several inspection and testing techniques have been developed, and some of these validate the software from the perspective of the users. Statistical usage testing (SUT) is one of these techniques, which is used to test a software product from a user's point of view. In SUT, usage models are designed to anticipate the future usage and then test cases are developed from the models. The development of test cases from the usage model can be made automatically by using a tool. This paper focuses on verification and validation from a usage perspective and presents a novel tool for SUT called MaTeLo. The purpose of the tool is to automatically produce test cases based on usage models, and to calculate important quality metrics like reliability. Furthermore, this paper describes the empirical evaluation of the tool and how SUT relates to inspection and estimation techniques with user focus. |
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| Title: |
WORKFLOW ACCESS CONTROL FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE |
| Author(s): |
Dulce Domingos |
| Abstract: | Workflow management systems are increasingly being used to support business processes. Methodologies have been proposed in order to derive workflow process definitions from business models. However, these methodologies do not comprise access control aspects. In this paper we propose an extension to the Work Analysis Refinement Modelling (WARM) methodology, which also enables to determine workflow access control information from the business process model. This is done by identifying useful information from business process models and showing how it can be refined to derive access control information. Our approach reduces the effort required to define the workflow access control, ensures that authorization rules are directly related to the business and aligns access control with the information system architecture that implements the business process. |
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| Title: |
USING SECURITY ATTACK SCENARIOS TO ANALYSE SECURITY DURING INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGN |
| Author(s): |
Paolo Giorgini , Haralambos Mouratidis , Gordon Manson |
| Abstract: | It has been widely argued in the literature that security concerns should be integrated with software engineering practices. However, only recently work has been initiated towards this direction. Most of this work, however, only considers how security can be analysed during the development lifecycles and not how the security of an information system can be tested during the analysis and design stages. In this paper we present results from the development of a technique, which is based on the use of scenarios, to test the reaction of an information system against potential security attacks. |
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| Title: |
METRICS FOR DYNAMICS: HOW TO IMPROVE THE BEHAVIOUR OF AN OBJECT INFORMATION SYSTEM |
| Author(s): |
Maria Jose Escalona , Jean-Louis Cavarero |
| Abstract: | If we ask about which is the main difference between modelling a system using a traditional model like the entity relationship model or an object oriented model, from our point of view the answer is that, in the first one, the processes are not located somewhere, and, in the second one, the processes (operations or methods) are encapsulated in classes. The choice of the right classes to home every operation is essential for the behaviour of the system. It is totally useless to design a well built system, according to a lot of statics metrics, if the system does not run well after. In other words, dynamic metrics allowing to evaluate the behaviour of a system when it runs are much more useful than any static metrics used to tell if the system is correctly built or not. According to this, we propose in this paper, a new approach to evaluate a priori the behaviour of a system, by taking into account the notion of event cost and the notion of time (which is obviously essential). The final goal of this approach is to deliver information on the way operations have to be placed in classes in order to get better performances when the system is running. However, the proposal of metrics is of no value if their practical use is not demonstrated, either by means of case studies taken from real projects or by controlled experiments. For this reason, an optimisation tool is being under construction in order to provide solutions to this problem. |
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| Title: |
ALIGNING BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING AND SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION IN A COMPONENT-BASED WAY, THE ADVANTAGES OF SDBC |
| Author(s): |
Boris Shishkov , Jan L.G. Dietz |
| Abstract: | One frequent cause of software project failure is the mismatch between the (business) requirements and the actual functionality of the delivered (software) application. In this paper, some popular methods (as well as their strengths and shortcomings) that address the mentioned problem are briefly outlined and an approach is proposed, for design of software, basing consistently this design on prior business process modeling. The alignment between these two tasks is realized in a component-based way, by deriving the software model from identified (generic) business components, thus - taking advantage of the benefits of object-orientation. The paper introduces not only the concepts of the approach but also elaborated views on how it could be implemented using particular software design and business process modeling techniques. A way to implement the approach is through UML - the standard language for designing software. The suggested approach is expected to be a useful contribution to the knowledge on aligning business process modeling and software design. |
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| Title: |
A NEW MODEL TO MANAGE IDS ALERTS |
| Author(s): |
Walter Godoy Junior , Marco Bonato |
| Abstract: | The goal of this paper is to present a new model to reduce the alerts generated by an IDS analyzer. This model allows the administrator to analyze only the messages that really generate risks for an environment or machine. This is very important when you have a complex environment with a lot of machines with many services in them. |
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| Title: |
CONSTRAINT-GUIDED ENTERPRISE PORTALS |
| Author(s): |
Frank Kriwaczek , Christopher Hogger |
| Abstract: | It is shown how an enterprise portal, supporting a community of users discharging roles expressed as combinations of plans and constraints, can be usefully guided by a constraint processor. In particular, constraint logic programming on finite domains provides the users with useful insights regarding their possible work schedules. Constraints assist also in shaping the electronic artefacts created and transmitted by the users. The implementation is supported by mechanisms for assigning and updating roles and for assisting the search for remedies in the case of constraint failure. |
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| Title: |
MODEL CHECKING AN OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN |
| Author(s): |
Simon C Stanton , Vishv Malhotra |
| Abstract: | Object classes are the building blocks in developing object-oriented software. The design methodologies have focused on methods, tools and representations to build classes taking advantages of inheritance and encapsulation properties. The guiding principle being that if all classes are correctly constructed a system consisting of objects in these classes will be correct. Efforts to include object constraints in the object-oriented programs have not attained the role commensurate with the role invariants play in the traditional imperative programs in understanding the programs and in enforcing correctness properties. The paper describes use of a model checker to establish correctness of an object-oriented design. |
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| Title: |
A TECHNIQUE FOR INTRODUCING STEREOTYPES INTO UML TOOLS |
| Author(s): |
Miroslaw Staron , Ludwik Kuzniarz |
| Abstract: | The Unified Modeling Language is a general-purpose, visual object-oriented modeling language, which can be used for a variety of purposes. However, the usage of the language for specific purposes and needs can be done by customization with the help of the built-in extension mechanisms. The customization must be supported by the tools used to produce models in the software development. This paper elaborates on the capabilities of UML tools which results in identification of some problems. The paper proposes an alternative way of introducing stereotypes, which is independent of UML tools used, based on the Extensible Metadata Interchange (XMI) format and related XML technologies. The method is compared with the introduction of stereotypes directly into UML tools by an example design. |
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| Title: |
THE COMPONENT BASED PROGRAMMING MODEL FOR LINUX (CBPM) |
| Author(s): |
Ali Raza , Omer Muhammad , Sikander Hayat , Imran Gondal |
| Abstract: | Contemporary component model development is getting more and more important in software industry. Academic world is spending long time on development and refinement of their component models and rarely do they consider the alternative of not using a bridge. We propose and have implemented the Component based Programming Model (CBPM) for Linux which removes the usage of bridge while conforming to Component Object Model. CBPM aims to lower software development cost by providing sophisticated facilities for Component Object Model (COM) based component reuse on Linux. CBPM also focuses on eliminating the bridging overheads for using COM component. CBPM defines a standard for component interoperability, is not dependent on any particular programming language and is extensible. |
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| Title: |
EFFECTIVE XML REPRESENTATION FOR SPOKEN LANGUAGE IN ORGANISATIONS |
| Author(s): |
Philip Windridge , Dali Dong , Rodney Clarke |
| Abstract: | Spoken Language can be used to provide insights into organisational processes, unfortunately transcription and coding stages are very time consuming and expensive. The concept of partial transcription and coding is proposed in which spoken language is indexed prior to any subsequent processing. The functional linguistic theory of texture is used to describe the effects of partial transcription on observational records. The standard used to encode transcript context and metadata is called CHAT, but a previous XML schema developed to implement it contains design assumptions that make it difficult to support partial transcription for example. This paper describes a more effective XML schema that overcomes many of these problems and is intended for use in applications that support the rapid development of spoken language deliverables. |
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| Title: |
ONTOLOGY MODELING TOOL USING CONCEPT DICTIONARY AND INFERENCE |
| Author(s): |
Yoichi Hiramatsu |
| Abstract: | The usefulness of ontology is strongly dependent on the knowledge representation policy and its maintenance. The subject of knowledge representation and modeling tool has been one of the exciting themes among ontology scientists. Some ontology editing tools were born and grew up in the field of expert system and others designed originally by ontology research groups. Key features of the newly implemented tool are: (a) reference to concept dictionary (EDR and WordNet) to find out quickly the semantics of the words, and (b) use of inference algorithm provided by Schank’s Memory Organization Package. Satisfactory results were obtained in the application of ontology modeled by the present tool. The paper describes the implementation of the modeling tool and its effectiveness in solving some actual problems of enterprise integration. |
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| Title: |
OPEN SOURCE VS. CLOSED SOURCE |
| Author(s): |
Vidyasagar Potdar , Elizabeth Chang , Ljiljana Brankovic |
| Abstract: | Open source software development represents a fundamentally new concept in the field of software engineering. Comparing to traditional software engineering approach, we found this approach is absolutely reversed. Open source development and delivery occurs on Internet time. Developers are not confined to a geographic area. They work voluntarily on a project of their choice; they do not have to join a particular project just because it needs more developers or the project has a high degree of urgency. Developers work for peer-recognition and self-satisfaction. In the open source community, each and every project has an equal priority. Software designed under open source is not released until the project owner thinks that the software has reached a functional stage. One of the success stories is the Linux operating system. Open Source software is always in an evolutionary stage: it never reaches a final stage. As new requirements emerge the software is enhanced by the user/developers. In this paper, we give an introduction to the insights of open source software development. We then elucidate the perceived benefits and point out the differences between open source and closed source software development approaches. At the end we propose a new model for open source software development. |
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| Title: |
USING WORKFLOW TECHNOLOGY: INTEGRATING EXISTING ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS WITH WORKFLOW TECHNOLOGY |
| Author(s): |
Jeanne Stynes , Patrick Rushe |
| Abstract: | Reducing costs and reducing time to market are two major keys to survival in the software market. Workflow reduces costs and time dramatically where applications involve the passage of work between recipients in order to meet certain business objectives. New projects in this area often use workflow technology. However, workflow’s applicability is often overlooked where developers are working on maintaining or upgrading existing systems. This paper discusses the work involved in integrating an existing system with a workflow management system, and examines the benefits of incorporating workflow into existing systems. |
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