ICEIS 2005 Abstracts

Area 1 - Databases and Information Systems Integration

Full Papers

Paper Nr:	116
Title:	DWG2XML: GENERATING XML NESTED TREE STRUCTURE FROM DIRECTED WEIGHTED GRAPH
Authors:	Kate Y. Yang, Anthony Lo, Tansel Özyer and Reda Alhajj
Abstract:	The overall XML file length is one of the critical factors when we need to transfer a large amount of data from relational database into XML. Especially in the nested tree structure of XML file, redundant data in the XML file can add more cost on database access, network traffic and XML query processing. Most previous automated relational to XML conversion research efforts use directed graphs to present relations in the database and nested trees in the XML structure. However, they all ignore that different combinations of tree structures in a graph can have a big impact on the XML data file size. This paper addresses this nested structure data file size problem. It proposes a module that can find the most convenient tree structure for the automated relational to XML conversion process. It provides a plan generator algorithm to list all the possible tree structures in a given directed weighted graph. Also it analyzes the data size of each plan and shows the convenient tree structure to the user. It can finally create the targeted XML documents for the user.
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Paper Nr:	157
Title:	SCENARIO-BASED EVALUATION OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE - A top-down approach for chief information officer decision making
Authors:	Mårten Simonsson, Åsa Lindström, Pontus Johnson, Lars Nordström, John Grundbäck and Olof Wijnbladh
Abstract:	As the primary stakeholder for the Enterprise Architecture, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for the evolution of the enterprise IT system. An important part of the CIO role is therefore to make decisions about strategic and complex IT matters. This paper presents a cost effective and scenario-based approach for providing the CIO with an accurate basis for decision making. Scenarios are analyzed and compared against each other by using a number of problem-specific easily measured system properties identified in literature. In order to test the usefulness of the approach, a case study has been carried out. A CIO needed guidance on how to assign functionality and data within four overlapping systems. The results are quantifiable and can be presented graphically, thus providing a cost-efficient and easily understood basis for decision making. The study shows that the scenario-based approach can make complex Enterprise Architecture decisions understandable for CIOs and other business-orientated stakeholders
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Paper Nr:	160
Title:	NONPARAMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SOFTWARE RELIABILITY Revealing the Nature of Software Failure Dataseries
Authors:	Andreas Andreou and Constantinos Leonidou
Abstract:	Software reliability is directly related to the number and time of occurrence of software failures. Thus, if we were able to reveal and characterize the behavior of the evolution of actual software failures over time then we could possibly build more accurate models for estimating and predicting software reliability. This paper focuses on the study of the nature of empirical software failure data via a nonparametric statistical framework. Six different time-series data expressing times between successive software failures were investigated and a random behavior was detected with evidences favoring a pink noise explanation.
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Paper Nr:	169
Title:	THE HYBRID DIGITAL TREE: A NEW INDEXING TECHNIQUE FOR LARGE STRING DATABASES
Authors:	Qiang Xue, Sakti Pramanik, Gang Qian and Qiang Zhu
Abstract:	There is an increasing demand for efficient indexing techniques to support queries on large string databases. In this paper, a hybrid RAM/disk-based index structure, called the Hybrid Digital tree (HD-tree), is proposed. The HD-tree keeps internal nodes in the RAM to minimize the number of disk I/Os, while maintaining leaf nodes on the disk to maximize the capability of the tree for indexing large databases. Experimental results using real data have shown that the HD-tree outperformed the Prefix B-tree for prefix and substring searches. In particular, for distinctive random queries in the experiments, the average number of disk I/Os was reduced by a factor of two to three, while the running time was reduced in an order of magnitude.
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Paper Nr:	393
Title:	AN EFFICIENT APPROACH FOR WEB-SITE ADAPTATION
Authors:	Seema Jani, Kami Makki and Xiaohua Jia
Abstract:	This paper implements a novel approach defined as the Preference-function Algorithm (PFA) for web-site adaptation. The algorithm extracts future preferences from the users’ past web navigational activities. Server web logs are used to identify users’ navigation behaviours by examining the traverses of various web pages. In this approach, the sessions are modeled as a finite state graph, where each visited web page is defined as a state. Then, traversing among various states provides the framework for determining the interest of the users.
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Paper Nr:	409
Title:	CHOOSING GROUPWARE TOOLS AND ELICITATION TECHNIQUES ACCORDING TO STAKEHOLDERS’ FEATURES
Authors:	Gabriela Noemí Aranda, Aurora Vizcaino, Alejandra Cechich and Mario Piattini
Abstract:	The set of groupware tools used during a distributed development process is usually chosen by taking into account predetermined business politics, managers’ personal preferences, or people in charge of the project. However, perhaps the chosen groupware tools are not the most appropriate for all the group members and it is possible that some of them would not be completely comfortable with them. To avoid this situation we have built a model and its supporting prototype tool which, based on techniques from psychology, suggests an appropriate set of groupware tools and elicitation techniques according to stakeholders’ preferences.
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Paper Nr:	413
Title:	CWM-BASED INTEGRATION OF XML DOCUMENTS AND OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATA
Authors:	Iryna Kozlova, Martin Husemann, Norbert Ritter, Stefan Witt and Natalia Haenikel
Abstract:	In today’s networked world, a plenitude of data is spread across a variety of data sources with different data models and structures. In order to leverage the potential of distributed data, effective methods for the integrated utilization of heterogeneous data sources are required. In this paper, we propose a model for the integration of the two predominant types of data sources, (object-)relational and XML databases. It employs the Object Management Group’s Common Warehouse Metamodel to resolve structural heterogeneity and aims at an extensively automatic integration process. Users are presented with an SQL view and an XML view on the global schema and can thus access the integrated data sources via both native query languages, SQL and XQuery.
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Paper Nr:	478
Title:	THE INDEX UPDATE PROBLEM FOR XML DATA IN XDBMS
Authors:	Beda Christoph Hammerschmidt, Martin Kempa and Volker Linnemann
Abstract:	Database Management Systems are a major component of almost every information system. In relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) indexes are well known and essential for the performant execution of frequent queries. For XML Database Management Systems (XDBMS) no index standards are established yet; although they are required not less. An inevitable side effect of any index is that modifications of the indexed data have to be reflected by the index structure itself. This leads to two problems: first it has to be determined whether a modifying operation affects an index or not. Second, if an index is affected, the index has to be updated efficiently - best without rebuilding the whole index. In recent years a lot of approaches were introduced for indexing XML data in an XDBMS. All approaches lack more or less in the field of updates. In this paper we give an algorithm that is based on finite automaton theory and determines whether an XPath based database operation affects an index that is defined universally upon keys, qualifiers and a return value of an XPath expression. In addition, we give algorithms how we update our KeyX indexes efficiently if they are affected by a modification. The Index Update Problem is relevant for all applications that use a secondary XML data representation (e.g. indexes, caches, XML replication/synchronization services) where updates must be identified and realized.
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Paper Nr:	499
Title:	ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF STREAM-BASED JOIN
Authors:	Henry Kostowski and Kajal Claypool
Abstract:	Continuous queries over data streams have gained popularity as the breadth of possible applications, ranging from network monitoring to online pattern discovery, have increased. Joining of streams is a fundamental issue that must be resolved to enable complex queries over multiple streams. However, as streams can represent potentially infinite data, it is infeasible to have full join evaluations as is the case with traditional databases. Joins in a stream environment are thus evaluated not over entire streams, but on specific windows defined on the streams. In this paper, we present windowed implementations of the traditional nested loops and hash join algorithms. In our work we analytically and experimentally evaluate the performance of these algorithms for different parameters. We find that, in general, a hash join provides better performance. We also investigate invalidation strategies to remove stale data from the window buffers, and propose an optimal strategy that balances processing time versus buffer size.
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Paper Nr:	504
Title:	WRAPPING AND INTEGRATING HETEROGENEOUS RELATIONAL DATA WITH OWL
Authors:	Seksun Suwanmanee, Djamal Benslimane, Pierre-antoine Champin and Philippe Thiran
Abstract:	The Web-based information systems have been much developed since the Internet is known as a global accessible open network. The Semantic Web vision aims at providing supplementary meaningful information (meta-data) about Web resources in order to facilitate automatic processing by machines and interoperability between different systems. In this paper, we present an approach for the integration of heterogeneous databases in the Semantic Web context using semantic mediation approach based on ontology. The standard OWL language is used here as the ontology description language to formalize ontologies of local data resources and to describe their semantic correspondences in order to construct an integrated information system. We propose an architecture adopting mediator-wrapper approach for a mediation based on OWL. Some illustrations of database wrapping and semantic mediation using OWL are also presented in the paper.
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Paper Nr:	511
Title:	A PROTOTYPE FOR INTEGRATION OF WEB SERVICES INTO THE IRULES APPROACH TO COMPONENT INTEGRATION
Authors:	Susan Urban, Vikram V. Kumar and Suzanne Dietrich
Abstract:	The Integration Rules (IRules) environment provides a framework for using events and rules in the integration of EJB components. This research has investigated the extensions required to integrate Web Services into the IRules architecture and execution environment. The IRules language framework and metadata have been extended for Web Services, with enhancements to Web Service interfaces for describing services that represent object manipulation operations as well as component enhancements such as event generation, stored attributes, and externalized relationships between distributed components. Web service wrappers provide the additional IRules functionality for the enhanced Web Service interfaces, with a state management facility in the IRules environment providing persistent storage of stored attributes and externalized relationships. The IRules Web service wrappers are client-side, component-independent wrappers for Web Services, thus providing a more dynamic approach to the modification of service interfaces as well as the dynamic entry and exit of participants in the integration process.
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Paper Nr:	515
Title:	REAL-TIME SALES & OPERATIONS PLANNING WITH CORBA - Linking Demand Management with Production Planning
Authors:	Elias Kirche, Janusz Zalewski and Teresa Tharp
Abstract:	Several existing mechanisms for order processing, such as Available-to-Promise (ATP), Materials Requirements Planning (MRP), or Capable-to-Promise (CTP), do not really include simultaneous capacity and profitability considerations. One of the major issues in the incorporation of profitability analysis into the order management system is the determination of relevant costs in the order cycle, and the real-time access to production parameters (i.e., target quantities based on current cycle time) to be included in the computation of planning and profitability. Our study attempts to provide insights into this novel area by developing a Decision Support System (DSS) for demand management that integrates real-time information generated by process control and monitoring systems into an optimization system for profitability analysis in a distributed environment via CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). The model can be incorporated into current enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and dynamic use of real-time data from various functional support technologies.
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Paper Nr:	519
Title:	DYNAMIC PRE-FETCHING OF VIEWS BASED ON USER-ACCESS PATTERNS IN AN OLAP SYSTEM
Authors:	Karthik Ramachandran, Biren Shah and Vijay Raghavan
Abstract:	Materialized view selection plays an important role in improving the efficiency of an OLAP system. To meet the changing user needs, many dynamic approaches have been proposed for solving the view selection problem. Most of these approaches use some form of caching to store frequently accessed views and a replacement policy to replace the infrequent ones. While some of these approaches use on-demand fetching, where the view is computed only when it is asked, a few others have used a pre-fetching strategy, where certain additional information is used to pre-fetch views that are likely to be accessed in the near future. In this paper, we propose a global pre-fetching scheme that uses user access pattern information to pre-fetch certain candidate views that could be used for efficient query processing within the specified user context. For specific kinds of query patterns, called drill-down analysis, which is typical of an OLAP system, our approach significantly improves the query performance by pre-fetching drill-down candidates that otherwise would have to be computed from the base fact table. We compare our approach against dynamat; a well-known on-demand fetching based dynamic view management system that is already known to outperform optimal static view selection. The comparison is based on the detailed cost savings ratio, used for quantifying the benefits of view selection against incoming queries. The experimental results show that our approach outperforms dynamat and thus, also the optimal static view selection.
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Paper Nr:	534
Title:	CONDITIONS FOR INTEROPERABILITY
Authors:	Nick Rossiter and Michael Heather
Abstract:	Interoperability for information systems remains a challenge both at the semantic and organisational levels. The original three-level architecture for local databases needs to be replaced by a categorical four-level one based on concepts, constructions, schema types and data together with the mappings between them. Such an architecture provides natural closure as further levels are superfluous even in a global environment. The architecture is traversed by means of the Godement calculus: arrows may be composed at any level as well as across levles. The necessary and sufficient conditions for interoperability are satisfied by composable (formal) diagrams both for intension and extension in categories that are cartesian closed and locally cartesian closed. Methods like partial categories and sketches in schema design can benefit from Freyd’s punctured diagrams to identify precisely type-forcing natural transformations. Closure is better achieved in standard full categories. Global interoperability of extension can be achieved through semantic annotation but only if applied at run time.
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Paper Nr:	538
Title:	SECURING THE ENTERPRISE DATABASE
Authors:	Radha Vedala, V. P. Gulati and Hemanth Kumar Nakkina
Abstract:	Security is gaining importance once computers became indispensable in every organization. As the new concepts like E-Governance in Government and E-Commerce in business circles etc are heading towards reality, security issues penetrated even into the legal framework of every country. Database security acts as the last line of defence to withstand insider attacks and attacks from outside even if all the security controls like perimeter, OS controls have been compromised. Data protection laws such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, Data protection Act, Sarbanes Oxleys Act are demanding for the privacy and integrity of the data to an extent that the critical information should be seen only by the authorized users which means the integrity of the database must be properly accommodated. Hence, we aim at providing an interface service in between enterprise applications and enterprise database that ensures the integrity of the data. This service acts as a security wrapper around any enterprise database.
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Paper Nr:	570
Title:	ARCO: A LONG-TERM DIGITAL LIBRARY STORAGE SYSTEM BASED ON GRID COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Authors:	Han Fei,, Paulo Trezentos, Nuno Almeida, Miguel Lourenço, José Borbinha and João Neves
Abstract:	Over the past several years the large scale digital library service has undergone enormous popularity. Arco project is a digital library storage project in Portuguese National library. To a digital library storage system like ARCO system, there are several challenges, such as the availability of peta-scale storage, seamless spanning of storage cluster, administration and utilization of distributed storage and computing resources, safety and stability of data transfer, scalability of the whole system, automatic discovery and monitoring of metadata, etc. Grid computing appears as an effective technology coupling geographically distributed resources for solving large scale problems in the wide area or local area network. The ARCO system has been developed on the Grid computational infrastructure, and on the basis of various other toolkits, such as PostgreSQL, LDAP, and the Apache HTTP server. Main developing languages are C, PHP, and Perl. In this paper, we discuss the logical structure sketch of the digital library ARCO system, resources organization, metadata discovering and usage, the system's operation details and some operations examples, as also the solution of large file transfer problem in Globus grid toolkit
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Paper Nr:	672
Title:	CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN ERP PROJECTS Case studies in two industrial organizations in the Netherlands
Authors:	Joseph Trienekens, Wouter Kuijpers and Ruud Hendriks
Abstract:	Over the past decade many organizations are increasingly concerned with the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Implementation can be considered to be a process of organizational change influenced by different factors of type organizational, technological and human. This paper reports on critical success factors (CSFs) in two actual ERP implementation projects in industry. Critical success factors are being recognized and used in these projects and serve as a reference base for monitoring and controling the implementation projects. The paper identifies both (dis)advantages of CSFs and shortcomings of ERP implementation project management.
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Paper Nr:	690
Title:	MUSICAL RETRIEVAL IN P2P NETWORKS UNDER THE WARPING DISTANCE
Authors:	Ioannis Karydis, Alexandros Nanopoulos, Apostolos Papadopoulos and Yannis Manolopoulos
Abstract:	Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks present the advantages of increased size of the overall database offered by a the network nodes, fault-tolerance support to peer failure, and workload distribution. Music file storage and exchange has long abandoned the traditional centralised server-client approach for the advantages of P2P networks. In this paper, we examine the problem of searching for similar acoustic data over unstructured decentralised P2P networks. As distance measure, we utilise the time warping. We propose a novel algorithm, which efficiently retrieves similar audio data. The proposed algorithm takes advantage of the absence of overhead in unstructured P2P networks and minimises the required traffic for all operations with the use of an intelligent sampling scheme. Detailed experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm compared to an existing baseline algorithm.
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Paper Nr:	690
Title:	MUSICAL RETRIEVAL IN P2P NETWORKS UNDER THE WARPING DISTANCE
Authors:	Ioannis Karydis, Alexandros Nanopoulos, Apostolos Papadopoulos and Yannis Manolopoulos
Abstract:	Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks present the advantages of increased size of the overall database offered by a the network nodes, fault-tolerance support to peer failure, and workload distribution. Music file storage and exchange has long abandoned the traditional centralised server-client approach for the advantages of P2P networks. In this paper, we examine the problem of searching for similar acoustic data over unstructured decentralised P2P networks. As distance measure, we utilise the time warping. We propose a novel algorithm, which efficiently retrieves similar audio data. The proposed algorithm takes advantage of the absence of overhead in unstructured P2P networks and minimises the required traffic for all operations with the use of an intelligent sampling scheme. Detailed experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm compared to an existing baseline algorithm.
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Paper Nr:	763
Title:	CHANGE DETECTION AND MAINTENANCE OF AN XML WEB WAREHOUSE
Authors:	Ching-ming Chao
Abstract:	The World Wide Web is a popular broadcast medium that contains a huge amount of information. The web warehouse is an efficient and effective means to facilitate utilization of information on the Web. XML has become the new standard for semi-structured data exchange over the Web. In this paper, therefore, we study the XML web warehouse and propose an approach to the problems of change detection and warehouse maintenance in an XML web warehouse system. This paper has three major contributions. First, we propose an object-oriented data model for XML web pages in the web warehouse as well as system architecture for change detection and warehouse maintenance. Second, we propose a change detection method based on mobile agent technology to actively detect changes of data sources of the web warehouse. Third, we propose an incremental and deferred maintenance method to maintain XML web pages in the web warehouse. We compared our approach with a rewriting approach to storage and maintenance of the XML web warehouse by experiments. Performance evaluation shows that our approach is more efficient than the rewriting approach in terms of the response time and storage space of the web warehouse.
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Short Papers

Paper Nr:	9
Title:	USING CORRESPONDENCE ASSERTIONS TO SPECIFY THE SEMANTICS OF VIEWS IN AN OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATA WAREHOUSE
Authors:	Valéria Magalhães Pequeno and Joaquim Aparício
Abstract:	An information integration system provides a uniform query interface for collecting of distributed and heterogeneous, possibly autonomous, information sources, giving users the illusion that they interrogate a centralized and homogeneous information system. One approach that has been used for integrating data from multiple databases consists in creating integrated views, which allows for queries to be made against them. Here, we propose the use of Correspondence Assertions (CAs) to formally specify the relationship between the integrated view schema and the source database schemas. In this way, CAs are used to assert that the semantic of some schema’s components are related to the semantic of some components of another schema. Our formalism has the advantages of proving a better understanding of the semantic of integrated view, and of helping to automate some aspects of data integration.
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Paper Nr:	92
Title:	UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEMS OF ENTERPRISE SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATIONS - Beyond Critical Success Factors
Authors:	Sue Newell, Gary David, Traci Logan, Linda Edelman and Jay Cooprider
Abstract:	Many companies continue to implement Enterprise Systems (ES) in order to take advantage of the integrating potential of having a single common system across the organization that can replace a multitude of independent legacy systems. While increasingly popular, research continues to show that such systems are difficult to implement successfully. A number of studies have identified the critical success factors for such implementations. However, in practice, it is often difficult to ensure that these critical factors are in place and are maintained in place across the lifespan of the implementation project. In this paper we identify the socio-political and cultural issues that explain why this is difficult and suggest some meta-level processes (induction, informality and improvisation) that can help to offset the problems with maintaining the critical success factors.1
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Paper Nr:	97
Title:	A FORMAL DEFINITION FOR OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATABASE METRICS
Authors:	Aline Baroni, Coral Calero, Mario Piattini and Fernando Brito e Abreu
Abstract:	Relational databases are the most important in the database world and are evolving to object-relational databases in order to allow the possibility of working with new and complex data and applications. One widely accepted mechanism for assuring the quality of an object-relational database is the use of metrics formally and empirically validated. Also it is important to formalize the metrics for having a better understanding of their definitions. Metrics formalization assures the reliable repetition of their computation and facilitates the automation of metrics collection. In this paper we present the formalization of a set of metrics defined for object-relational databases described using SQL:2003. For doing the formalization we have produced the ontology of the SQL:2003 as a framework for representing the SQL schema definitions. The ontology has been represented using UML and the definition of the metrics has been done using OCL (Object-Constraint Language) which is part of the UML 2.0 standard.
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Paper Nr:	97
Title:	A FORMAL DEFINITION FOR OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATABASE METRICS
Authors:	Aline Baroni, Coral Calero, Mario Piattini and Fernando Brito e Abreu
Abstract:	Relational databases are the most important in the database world and are evolving to object-relational databases in order to allow the possibility of working with new and complex data and applications. One widely accepted mechanism for assuring the quality of an object-relational database is the use of metrics formally and empirically validated. Also it is important to formalize the metrics for having a better understanding of their definitions. Metrics formalization assures the reliable repetition of their computation and facilitates the automation of metrics collection. In this paper we present the formalization of a set of metrics defined for object-relational databases described using SQL:2003. For doing the formalization we have produced the ontology of the SQL:2003 as a framework for representing the SQL schema definitions. The ontology has been represented using UML and the definition of the metrics has been done using OCL (Object-Constraint Language) which is part of the UML 2.0 standard.
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Paper Nr:	143
Title:	SIMULTANEOUS QUERYING OF XML AND RELATIONAL CONTEXTS
Authors:	Madani Kenab and Tayeb Ould Braham
Abstract:	The presentation of the results of relational queries is flat. The prime objective of this work is to query an XML view of relational data in order to have nesting results of data implemented in the form of flat data. The second objective is to combine, in query results, structured data of a relational database and semi-structured data of an XML database. A FLWR expression (For Let Where Return) of the XQuery language can be nested at various levels in another FLWR expression. In our work, we especially are interested in the nesting of a FLWR expression in the Return clause of another FLWR expression in order to imbricate data in the result. In this paper, we will describe all necessary stages in order to carry out these two objectives.
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Paper Nr:	147
Title:	SECURE CONCURRENCY CONTROL ALGORITHM FOR MULTILEVEL SECURE DISTRIBUTED DATABASE SYSTEMS
Authors:	Rajwinder Singh, Navdeep Kaur and Hardeep Kaur Sidhu
Abstract:	Majority of the research in multilevel secure database management systems (MLS/DBMS) focuses primarily on centralized database systems. However, with the demand for higher performance and higher availability, database systems have moved from centralized to distributed architectures, and the research in multilevel secure distributed database management systems (MLS/DDBMS) is gaining more and more prominence. Concurrency control is an integral part of database systems. Secure concurrency control algorithms proposed in literature achieve correctness and security at the cost of declined performance of high security level transactions. These algorithms infringe the fairness in processing transactions at different security levels. Though the performance of different concurrency control algorithms have been explored extensively for centralized multilevel secure database management systems but to the best of author’s knowledge the relative performance of transactions at different security levels using secure concurrency control algorithm for MLS/DDBMS has not been reported yet. To fill this gap, this paper presents a detailed simulation model of a distributed database system and investigates the performance price paid for maintaining security with concurrency control in a distributed database system. The paper investigates the relative performance of transactions at different security levels.
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Paper Nr:	156
Title:	ON THE TREE INCLUSION AND QUERY EVALUATION IN DOCUMENT DATABASES
Authors:	Yangjun Chen and Yibin Chen
Abstract:	In this paper, a method to evaluate queries in document databases is proposed. The main idea of this method is a new top-down algorithm for tree-inclusion. In fact, a path-oriented query can be considered as a pattern tree while an XML document can be considered as a target tree. To evaluate a query S against a document T, we will check whether S is included in T. For a query S, our algorithm needs O(\|T\|xheight(S)) time and no extra space to check the containment of S in document T, where \|T\| stands for the number of nodes in T and height(S) for the height of S. Especially, the signature technique can be integrated into a top-down tree inclusion to cut off useless subtree checkings as early as possible.
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Paper Nr:	161
Title:	BENCHMARKING AN XML MEDIATOR
Authors:	Florin Dragan and Georges Gardarin
Abstract:	In the recent years, XML has become the universal interchange format. Many investigations have been made on storing, querying and integrating XML with existing applications. Many XML-based commercial DBMSs have appeared lately. This paper reports on the analysis of an XML mediator federating several existing XML DBMSs. We measure their storage and querying capabilities directly through their Java API and indirectly through the XLive mediation tool. For this purpose we have created a simple benchmark consisting in a set of queries and a variable test database. The main scope is to reveal the weaknesses and the strengths of the implemented indexing and federating techniques. We analyze two commercial native XML DBMS and an open-source relational to XML mapping middleware. We first pass directly the queries to the DBMSs and second we go through the XLive XML mediator. Results suggest that text XML is not the best format to exchange data between a mediator and a wrapper, and also shows some possible improvements of XQuery support in mediation architectures.
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Paper Nr:	364
Title:	TOWARDS AN AUTOMATIC DATA MART DESIGN
Authors:	Ahlem Nabli, Ahlem Soussi, Jamel Feki, Hanêne Ben-abdallah and Faiez Gargouri
Abstract:	The Data Warehouse design involves the definition of structures that enable an efficient access to information. The designer builds a multidimensional structure taking into account the users requirements. In fact, it is a highly complex engineering task that calls for a methodological support. This paper lays the grounds for an automatic, stepwise approach for the generation of data warehouse and data mart schemes. For this, it first proposes a standard format for OLAP requirement acquisition. Secondly, it defines an algorithm that transforms automatically the OLAP requirements into data marts modelled either as star or constellation schemes. Thirdly, it overviews our mapping rules between the data sources and the data marts schemes.
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Paper Nr:	366
Title:	XML-BASED SEMANTIC DATABASE DEFINITION LANGUAGE
Authors:	Naphtali Rishe, Malek Adjouadi, Maxim Chekmasov, Dmitry Vasilevsky, Scott Graham, Dayanara Hernandez and Ouri Wolfson
Abstract:	This paper analyzes different options for semantic database schema definition and describes a presentation format XSDL. Presentation of semantic database in a certain format implies that the format fully preserves the database content. If the database is exported to this format and then imported back to the database engine, the resulting database should be equivalent (Rishe, 1992) to the one that was exported. XSDL is used for information exchange, reviewing data from databases, debugging database applications and for recovery purposes. Among other requirements that XSDL meets are support of both schema and data, readability by the user (XSDL is a text format), full preservation of database content, support for simple and fast export/import algorithms, portability across platforms, and facilitation of data exchange.
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Paper Nr:	396
Title:	A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK FOR APPLICATION INTEGRATION - An Ontology-Driven Service-Oriented Approach
Authors:	Said Izza, Lucien Vincent and Patrick Burlat
Abstract:	The crucial problem of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is the semantic integration problem. This latter is not correctly addressed by today's EAI solutions that focus mainly on the technical and syntactical integration. Addressing the semantic aspect will promote EAI by providing it more consistency and robustness. Some efforts are suggested to solve the semantic problem, but they are still not mature. This article will propose an approach that combines both ontologies and web services in order to overcome some issues related to the semantic integration problem.
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Paper Nr:	406
Title:	INTEGRATING WORKFLOW EXTENSIONS INTO A PROCESS-INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENT FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Authors:	Michalis Miatidis and Matthias Jarke
Abstract:	Design is one of the most complex and creative tasks undertaken by chemical engineers. The early production stages of chemical design require an adequate support because of their critical impact on the competitiveness of the final products, as well as their environmental impact. In cooperation with researchers and industries from the chemical engineering domain, we have created an integrated flowsheet-centered environment for the support of the early stages of design. In order to address the global need for enterprise integration observed in today’s highly competitive global economy, we had to make our system more aware of further organizational aspects of the executed processes. As a solution to this challenge, we integrated a number of workflow extensions into our environment. These extensions enabled it to provide its method guidance further across the inter- and intra-enterprise environment of our enacted processes, with the future goal of seamless inter-operating with other external systems of the overall enterprise environment. In this paper, after capturing the rationale behind the need for this integration, we successively describe the integrated environment and detail the extensions employed. Finally, we illustrate our approach on a small case study from our experience.
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Paper Nr:	407
Title:	AN INTEGRATED DECISION SUPPORT TOOL FOR EU POLICIES ON HEALTH, TRANSPORT AND ARTISTIC HERITAGE RECOVERY
Authors:	Kanana Ezekiel and Farhi Marir
Abstract:	In this paper, we describe an ongoing EU funded project (ISHTAR) that develops an advance integrated decision support tool (ISHTAR suite) for the analysis of the effects of long-term and short-term policies to improve the quality of the environment, citizen’s health and preservation of heritage monuments. From the background of the project, this paper goes on to explain the integration of information of a large number of tools aimed at semantic approach integration to allow European cities to make balanced decisions on a wide range of issues such as health, noise, pollution, transport, and historical monument. We also present and suggest solutions to the information integration problem resulted when attempting to represent and share information.
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Paper Nr:	481
Title:	AN ARCHITECTURE FOR LOCATION-DEPENDENT SEMANTIC CACHE MANAGEMENT
Authors:	Heloise Manica, Mario Antonio Ribeiro Dantas and Murilo S. de Camargo
Abstract:	Location-Dependent Information Services is an emerging class of application that allows new types of queries such as location-dependent queries and continuous queries. In these systems, data caching plays an important role in data management due to its ability to improve system performance and availability in case of disconnection. In mobile environment, cache management requires more than traditional solutions. This paper presents a new semantic cache scheme for location dependent systems based on spatial property. The proposed architecture is called as Location Dependent Semantic Cache Management – LDSCM. In addition, we examine location-dependent query processing issues and segment reorganization.
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Paper Nr:	487
Title:	COCO: COMPOSITION MODEL AND COMPOSITION MODEL IMPLEMENTATION
Authors:	Naiyana Tansalarak and Kajal Claypool
Abstract:	The success of component-based development has been impeded by interoperability concerns, including component model, semantic, syntactic, design and platform incompatibilities, that often come into play when composing two or more independently developed components. In this paper we propose a CoCo composition model that elevates compositions to first class citizenship status. The model defines a standard for describing the composition of components transparent to any underlying incompatibilities between the collaborating components. We also present a CoCo composition model implementation that provides the required support to describe and subsequently execute the composition to produce an executable application. We advocate the use of XML Schemas as a mechanism to support this composition model. To support the composition model implementation we provide (1) a taxonomy of primitive composition operators to describe the connection between components; (2) XML documents as a description language for the compositions; and (3) the development of a set of deployment plugins that address any incompatibilities and enable the generation of the model-specific and platform-specific applications.
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Paper Nr:	489
Title:	SEFAGI: SIMPLE ENVIRONMENT FOR ADAPTABLE GRAPHICAL INTERFACES - Generating user interfaces for different kinds of terminals
Authors:	Tarak Chaari and Frederique Laforest
Abstract:	The SEFAGI project takes place in domains where many different user interfaces are needed in the same application. Instead of manually developing all the required windows, we propose a platform that automatically generates the needed code from high level descriptions of these windows. Code generation is done for standard screens and for small screens on mobile terminals. New windows are automatically taken in charge by an execution layer on the terminal. Data adaptation to the different terminals is also provided. A platform-independent window description language has been defined.
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Paper Nr:	516
Title:	A TREE BASED ALGEBRA FRAMEWORK FOR XML DATA SYSTEMS
Authors:	Ali El Bekai and Nick Rossiter
Abstract:	This paper introduces a framework in algebra for processing XML data. We develop a simple algebra, called TA (Tree Algebra), for processing storing and manipulating XML data, modelled as trees. We present assumptions of the framework, describe the input and the output of the algebraic operators, and define the syntax of these operators and their semantics in terms of algorithms. Furthermore we define the relational operators and their semantics in terms of algorithms. Examples show that this framework is flexible to capture queries expressed in the domain specific XML query language. As can be seen the input and output of our algebra is a tree that is the input and output are XML document and the XML documents are defined as trees. We also present algorithms for many of the algebra operators; these algorithms show how the algebra operators such as join, union, complement, project, select, expose and vertex work on nodes of the XML tree or element and attributes of an XML document. Detailed examples are given.
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Paper Nr:	520
Title:	SEMANTIC QUERY TRANSFORMATION FOR INTEGRATING WEB INFORMATION SOURCES
Authors:	Mao Chen, Rakesh Mohan and Richard Goodwin
Abstract:	The heterogeneousness and dynamics of web information sources are the major challenges to Internet-scale information integration. The information sources are different in contents and query interfaces. In addition, the sources can be highly dynamic in the sense that they can be added, removed, or updated with time. This paper introduces a novel information integration framework that leverages the industry standards on web services (WSDL/SOAP) and ontology description language (RDF/OWL), and a commercial database (IBM DB2 Information Integrator - DB2 II (DB2 II)). Taking advantage of the data integration and query optimization capability of DB2 II, this paper focuses on the methodologies to transform a user query to the queries on different sources and to combine the transformation results into a query to DB2 II. By wrapping information sources using web services and annotating them with regard to their contents, query capabilities and the logical relations between concepts, our query transformation engine is rooted in ontology-based reasoning. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first framework that uses web services as the interface of information sources and combines ontology-based reasoning, web services, semantic annotation on web services, as well as DB2 II to support Internet-scale information integration.
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Paper Nr:	558
Title:	EXTENDING OBJECT ORIENTED DATABASES TO SUPPORT THE VIEWPOINT MECHANISM
Authors:	Fouzia Benchikha and Mahmoud Boufaida
Abstract:	An important dimension in the database technology evolution is the development of advanced/sophisticated database models. In particular, the viewpoint concept receives a widespread attention. Its integration to a data model gives a flexibility for the conventional object-oriented data model and allows one to improve the modeling power of objects. On the other hand, the viewpoint concept can be used as a means to master the complexity of the current systems permitting a distributed manner to develop them. In this paper we propose a data model MVDB (Multi-Viewpoint DataBase model) that extends the object database model with the viewpoint mechanism. The viewpoint notion is used as an approach for a distributed development of a database schema, as a means for object multiple description and as a mechanism for dealing with the integrity constraint problems commonly met in distributed environment.
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Paper Nr:	559
Title:	DATA INTEGRATION AND USER MODELLING: An approach based on Topic Maps and Description Logics
Authors:	Mourad Ouziri, Christine Verdier and André Flory
Abstract:	In the framework of intelligent information systems design, we present an intelligent data integration and user profile modelling. Our approach uses jointly Topic Maps and Description Logics. Topic Maps are used to represent semantic of distributed data. Using the formalized semantic, the distributed data is merged into one repository. Then, Description Logics are used over this repository to compute implicit semantic relations using logic reasoning such as subsumption. We present then a new user profile management which uses qualifying attributes rather than identifying attributes. Description Logics are used to formalize profiles in order to maintain consistency of right attribution to profiles.
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Paper Nr:	569
Title:	ADAPTING ERP SYSTEMS FOR SUPPORTING DEFENSE MAINTENANCE PROCESSES - Case study of a repair and overhaul organization
Authors:	Robert Pellerin
Abstract:	The defense sector represents one of the largest potential areas for new ERP sales. Many defense organizations have already implemented ERP solutions to manage and integrate the acquisition, maintenance, and support processes.This paper addresses specifically the defense maintenance management functions that need to be integrated into an ERP solution by adopting the view of a defense repair and overhaul facility. We first discuss the specific nature of the defense maintenance activities, and then we present the difficulties of integrating a maintenance strategy into an ERP solution. We finally conclude by proposing a coherent and integrated ERP structure model for the management of the defense repair and overhaul processes. The model has been partly applied in a Canadian repair and overhaul facility and adapted into the SAP R/3 software.
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Paper Nr:	586
Title:	OBJECT ID DISTRIBUTION AND ENCODING IN THE SEMANTIC BINARY ENGINE
Authors:	Naphtali Rishe, Armando Barreto, Maxim Chekmasov, Dmitry Vasilevsky, Scott Graham, Sonal Sood and Ouri Wolfson
Abstract:	The semantic binary engine is a database management system built on the principles of the Semantic Binary Data Model (Rishe, 1992). A semantic binary database is a set of facts about objects. Objects belong to categories, are connected by relations, and may have attributes. The concept of an object is at the core of the data model and it is crucial to have efficient algorithms that allow the semantic binary engine to store, retrieve, modify and delete information about objects in the semantic database. In this paper, we discuss the concept of object IDs for object identification and methods for object ID distribution and encoding in the database. Several encoding schemes and their respective efficiencies are discussed: Truncated Identical encoding, End Flag encoding, and Length First encoding.
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Paper Nr:	642
Title:	METADATA PARADIGM FOR EFFECTIVE GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE MNCS
Authors:	Longy O. Anyanwu, Gladys A. , Arome and Jared Keengwe
Abstract:	Multinational business expansion and competition have escalated in the recent years, particularly in Eastern Europe and the third world. Tremendous opportunities, therefore, have been created for many companies and formidable hindrances have been amassed against others.Business failure rates among these multinational enterprises have alarmingly increased beyond expectation. So has their IT implementation. The increasing popularity and use of the Internet which businesses have little control of, are an added complication. This study identifies a matrix of mitigating factors, as well as information-base distribution mechanism, critical to successful GIT implementation in today’s multinational enterprises. The relevance and impact of these factors on the multinational businesses are discussed. Consequently, appropriate solutions for each problem are suggested.
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Paper Nr:	642
Title:	METADATA PARADIGM FOR EFFECTIVE GLOBAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE MNCS
Authors:	Longy O. Anyanwu, Gladys A. , Arome and Jared Keengwe
Abstract:	Multinational business expansion and competition have escalated in the recent years, particularly in Eastern Europe and the third world. Tremendous opportunities, therefore, have been created for many companies and formidable hindrances have been amassed against others.Business failure rates among these multinational enterprises have alarmingly increased beyond expectation. So has their IT implementation. The increasing popularity and use of the Internet which businesses have little control of, are an added complication. This study identifies a matrix of mitigating factors, as well as information-base distribution mechanism, critical to successful GIT implementation in today’s multinational enterprises. The relevance and impact of these factors on the multinational businesses are discussed. Consequently, appropriate solutions for each problem are suggested.
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Paper Nr:	683
Title:	USING CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR ASSESSING CRITICAL ACTIVITIES IN ERP IMPLEMENTATION WITHIN SMES
Authors:	Paolo Faverio, Donatella Sciuto and Giacomo Buonanno
Abstract:	Aim of this research is the investigation and analysis of the critical success factors (CSF) in the implementation of ERP systems within SMEs. Papers in the ERP research field have focused on successes and failures of implementing systems into large organizations. Within the highly differentiated set of computer based systems available, the ERP systems represent the most common solution adopted by large companies to pursue their strategies. On the contrary, until now small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have shown little interest in ERP systems due to the lack of internal competence and resources that characterize those companies. Nevertheless, now that ERP vendors’ offer shows a noteworthy adjustment to SMEs organizational and business characteristics it seems of a certain interest to study and deeply analyze the reasons that can inhibit or foster ERP adoption within SMEs. This approach cannot leave out of consideration the analysis of the CSFs in ERP implementation: despite their wide outline in the most qualified literature, very seldom these research efforts have been addressed to SMEs. This paper aims at proposing a methodology to support the small medium entrepreneur in identifying the critical factors to be monitored along the whole ERP adoption process.
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Paper Nr:	728
Title:	DYNAMIC DATABASE INTEGRATION IN A JDBC DRIVER
Authors:	Terrence Mason and Ramon Lawrence
Abstract:	Current integration techniques are unsuitable for large-scale integrations involving numerous heterogeneous data sources. Existing methods either require the user to know the semantics of all data sources or they impose a static global view that is not tolerant of schema evolution. These assumptions are not valid in many environments. We present a different approach to integration based on annotation. The contribution is the elimination of the bottleneck of global view construction by moving the complicated task of identifying semantics to local annotators instead of global integrators. This allows the integration to be more automated, scaleable, and rapidly deployable. The algorithms are packaged in an embedded database engine contained in a JDBC driver capable of dynamically integrating data sources. Experimental results demonstrate that the Unity JDBC driver efficiently integrates data located in separate data sources with minimal overhead.
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Paper Nr:	734
Title:	A HYBRID CLUSTERING CRITERION FOR R*-TREE ON BUSINESS DATA
Authors:	Yaokai Feng, Zhibin Wang and Akifumi Makinouchi
Abstract:	It is well-known that multidimensional indices are efficient to improve the query performance on relational data. As one successful multi-dimensional index structure, R-tree, a famous member of the R-tree family, is very popular. The clustering pattern of the objects (i.e., tuples in relational tables) among R-tree leaf nodes is one of the deceive factors on performance of range queries, a popular kind of queries on business data. Then, how is the clustering pattern formed? In this paper, we point out that the insert algorithm of R-tree, especially, its clustering criterion of choosing subtrees for new coming objects, determines the clustering pattern of the tuples among the leaf nodes. According to our discussion and observations, it becomes clear that the present clustering criterion of R-tree can not lead to a good clustering pattern of tuples when R-tree is applied to business data, which greatly degrades query performance. After that, a hybrid clustering criterion for the insert algorithm of R-tree is introduced. Our discussion and experiments indicate that query performance of R*-tree on business data is improved clearly by the hybrid criterion.
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Paper Nr:	744
Title:	ESTIMATING PATTERNS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN OF E-BUSINESS APPLICATIONS
Authors:	Feras Dabous, Fethi Rabhi, Hairong Yu and Tariq Al-Naeem
Abstract:	Quality attributes estimations at early stages of the design process play an important role in the success of e-business applications that support the automation of essential Business Processes (BPs). In many domains, these applications may utilise functionalities that are embedded in a number of monolithic and heterogeneous legacy systems. In previous work, we have identified a range of patterns that capture best practices for the architectural design of such applications with the presence of legacy functionality. In this paper, we present and discuss quantitative patterns’ consequences models to systematically estimate two quality attributes that are the development and maintenance efforts. A real life case study in the domain of e-finance and in particular capital markets trading is used in this paper to validate these models.
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Paper Nr:	758
Title:	A FRAMEWORK FOR PARALLEL QUERY PROCESSING ON GRID-BASED ARCHITECTURE
Authors:	Khin Mar, Aye Aye Nwe, Aye Aye Nwe, Thinn Thu Naing and Nilar Thein
Abstract:	With relations growing larger, distributed, and queries becoming more complex, parallel query processing is an increasingly attractive option for improving the performance of database systems. Distributed and parallel query processing has been widely used in data intensive applications where data of relevance to users are stored at multiple locations. In this paper, we propose a three-tier middleware system for optimizing and processing of distributed queries in parallel on Cluster Grid architecture. The main contribution of this paper is providing transparent and integrated access to distributed heterogeneous data resources, getting performance improvements of implicit parallelism by extending technologies from parallel databases. We also proposed the dynamic programming algorithm for query optimization and site selection algorithm for resource balancing. An example query for employee databases is used throughout the paper to show the benefits of the system.
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Paper Nr:	760
Title:	AN APPLICATION TO INTEGRATE RELATIONAL AND XML DATA SOURCES
Authors:	Ana María Fermoso García, Roberto Berjón Gallinas and María Jose Gil Larrea
Abstract:	Nowadays, special with the Internet explosion, enterprises have to work with data from heterogeneous sources, such as data from conventional databases, or from new sources of Internet world like XML or HTML documents. Organizations have to work with these different data sources at the same time, so, it’s necessary to find some way to integrate this heterogeneous information.In this paper we are going to centre in two main types of data, conventional data from relational databases, and the new web data format XML. Traditional relational database continues being the main data store and XML has become the main format to exchange and representation data on the web. At the end our purpose would be that the necessary data in each moment were in the same and common format, in XML, because this is the most used format on the web.This paper proposes an efficient environment for accessing relational databases from a web perspective using XML. Our environment defines a query system based on XML for relational databases, called XBD. XBD has a full XML appearance, query language and query results are in XML format. For the end user it is similar to query a XML document. This system includes a model to adapt any relational database in order it could be queried in two new query languages, derived from XSL and XQuery languages, and a software tool to implement the functionality of the XBD environment.
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Paper Nr:	31
Title:	DESIGN AND IMPLEMEMTATION OF DATABASE INTERFACE FOR LOGIC LANGUAGE BASED MOBILE AGENT SYSTEM
Authors:	Jingbo Ni, Xining Li and Lei Song
Abstract:	Mobile Agent system creates a new way for sharing distributed resources and providing multi-located services. With the idea of moving calculations towards resources, it occupies less network traffics than the traditional Client/Server model and achieves more flexibilities than the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) architecture. In order to endow agents with the ability of accessing remote data resources, in this paper we present the design strategies of the Database Interface between a logic programming language based Mobile Agent system and a remote DBMS.
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Paper Nr:	101
Title:	MAPPING TEMPORAL DATA WAREHOUSE CONCEPTS TO SAP BW COMPONENTS
Authors:	Ahmed Hezzah and A. Min Tjoa
Abstract:	SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) today is a suitable and viable option for enterprise data warehousing and one of the few data warehouse products that offer an integrated user interface for administering and monitoring data. In previous works we introduced design and modeling techniques for representing time and temporal information in enterprise data warehouses and discussed generic problems linked to the design and implementation of the Time dimension, which have to be considered for global business processes, such as handling different time zones and representing holidays and daylight saving time (DST). This paper investigates supporting the global exchange of time-dependent business information by mapping those temporal data warehouse concepts to SAP BW components, such as InfoCubes and master data tables.
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Paper Nr:	109
Title:	QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURAL PATTERNS
Authors:	Tariq Al-Naeem, Feras Dabous, Fethi Rabhi and Boualem Benatallah
Abstract:	The implementation of enterprise and e-business applications is becoming a widespread practice among modern organizations. A cornerstone activity in implementing such applications is the architectural design task, which embodies many architectural design decisions. What makes this task quite complex is the presence of several design approaches that vary considerably in their consequences on various quality attributes. In addition, the presence of more than one stakeholder with different, often conflicting, quality goals makes the design process even more complex. To aid in the design process, this paper discusses a number of alternative architectural patterns that can be reused during the enterprise architectural design stage. It also proposes leveraging Multiple-Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods, particularly the AHP method, to quantitatively evaluate and select among these patterns.
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Paper Nr:	173
Title:	JDSI: A SOFTWARE INTEGRATION STYLE FOR INTEGRATING MS-WINDOWS SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS IN A JAVA-BASED DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM
Authors:	Jim-Min Lin, Zeng-Wei Hong and Guo-Ming Fang
Abstract:	Developing software systems by integrating the existing applications/systems over the network is becoming mature and practical. Microsoft Windows operating systems today support a huge number of software applications. It may accelerate the construction of components, if these commercial software applications could be transformed to software components. This paper proposes an architectural style to support a 3-phases process for migrating MS-Windows applications towards a distributed system using Java technologies. This style is aimed to provide a solution with clear documentation and sufficient information that is helpful to a software developer for rapidly integration of MS-windows applications. In final, an example parking lot management system that assembles two MS-Windows applications was developed in this work to demonstrate the usage of this style.
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Paper Nr:	195
Title:	A FRAMEWORK FOR ERP INTEGRATION
Authors:	Delvin Grant and Qiang Tu
Abstract:	Companies try to seamlessly integrate all areas of their business by adopting technologies such as business process reengineering, supply chain management, ERP and customer relationship management in an attempt to address increasing global competition. ERP is still the most used technology for enterprise integration. This paper presents a six-level framework of ERP enterprise integration and defines the prerequisite requirements for effective integration at each level. The proposed framework should provide ground for some interesting future research directions in ERP integration.
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Paper Nr:	328
Title:	TOWARDS DATA WAREHOUSES FOR NATURAL HAZARDS
Authors:	Hicham Hajji, Mohand Saïd Hacid and Hassan Badir
Abstract:	Data warehousing has emerged as an effective technique for converting data into useful information. It is an improved approach to integrate data from multiple, often very large, distributed, heterogeneous databases and other information sources. This paper examines the possibility of using data warehousing techniques in the natural hazards management framework to integrate various functional and operational data which are usually scattered across multiple, dispersed and fragmented systems. We present a conceptual data model for the data warehouse in the presence of various data formats such as geographic and multimedia data. We propose OLAP operations for browsing information in the data warehouse.
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Paper Nr:	476
Title:	QL-RTDB: QUERY LANGUAGE FOR REAL-TIME DATABASES
Authors:	Cicília R. M. Leite, Yáskara Y. M. P. Fernandes, Angelo Perkusich, Pedro Fernandes Ribeiro Neto and Maria L. B. Perkusich
Abstract:	In the last years, many research directed for concurrency control mechanism, scheduling policy and query language in real-time database are being done. This paper presents an extensions of standard query language (SQL), called SQL-99. SQL-99 includes oriented-object functionalities. The query language for real-time database (QL-RTDB) to provide support the real-time requirements imposed the both data and transactions. A prototype implementation of the QL-RTDB is also shown.
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Paper Nr:	492
Title:	TABLE-DRIVEN PROGRAMMING IN SQL FOR ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Authors:	Hung-Chih Yang and D. Stott Parker
Abstract:	In database systems, business logic is usually implemented in the forms of external processes, stored procedures, user-defined functions, components, objects, constraints, triggers, etc. In this paper, we advocate the idea of storing business logic – in the form of functions – as data in tables. This idea gives a basis for applying the software-engineering methodology of table-driven programming in SQL. The query evaluation process then needs only to be extended with mechanical evaluation of “joined” data and functions. This approach can make understanding and maintenance of stored business logic transparent as relational data. In short, data and functions are integrated in a relational manner. Using a common enterprise application as an example, we demonstrate this methodology with an existing ORDBMS capable of storing polymorphic objects. We also discuss this approach’s shortcomings and alternatives.
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Paper Nr:	496
Title:	ASPECT-ORIENTED DOMAIN SPECIFIC LANGUAGES FOR ADVANCED TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT
Authors:	Johan Fabry and Thomas Cleenewerck
Abstract:	Transaction management has some known drawbacks, which have been researched in the past, and many solutions in the form of advanced transaction models have been proposed. However, these models are too difficult to be used by the application programmer because of their complexity and their lack of separation of concerns. In this paper we address this by letting the application programmer specify advanced transactions at a much higher abstraction level. To achieve this, we use the software engineering techniques of Aspect Oriented Programming and Domain-Specific Languages. This allows the programmer to declare advanced transactions separately in a concise specification which is much more straightforward.
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Paper Nr:	514
Title:	VALUE ADDED WEB SERVICES FOR INDUSTRIAL OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE
Authors:	Mika Viinikkala, Veli-Pekka Jaakkola and Seppo Kuikka
Abstract:	Efficient information management is needed at industrial manufacturing plants that compete in the present demanding business environment. Requirements to enhance operation and maintenance (O&M) information management emerge from problems within internal information flows of a plant, supporting the networked organization of O&M, and accomplishing the new demand-driven business model. O&M information management of an industrial process plant is here proposed to be enhanced by value added web services. A service framework will work as a supporting architectural context for the value added services. Information from existing systems, such as automation, maintenance, production control, and condition monitoring systems, is analyzed, refined and used in control activities by the services.
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Paper Nr:	587
Title:	STORAGE TYPES IN THE SEMANTIC BINARY DATABASE ENGINE
Authors:	Naphtali Rishe, Malek Adjouadi, Maxim Chekmasov, Dmitry Vasilevsky, Scott Graham, Dayanara Hernandez and Ouri Wolfson
Abstract:	Modern database engines support a wide variety of data types. Native support for all of the types is desirable and convenient for the database application developer, as it allows application data to be stored in the database without further conversion. However, support for each data type adds complexity to the database engine code. To achieve a compromise between convenience and complexity, the semantic binary database engine is designed to support only the binary data type in its kernel. Other data types are supported in the user-level environment by add-on modules. This solution allows us to keep the database kernel small and ensures the stability and robustness of the database engine as a whole. By providing extra database tools, it also allows application designers to get database-wide support for additional data types.
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Paper Nr:	606
Title:	MODELING AND EXECUTING SOFTWARE PROCESSES BASED ON INTELLIGENT AGENTS
Authors:	Fadila Aoussat and Mohamed Ahmed-nacer
Abstract:	This paper presents a new approach for modeling and executing software processes based on the concept of multi-agent systems. We introduce the modeling process as one of the most important goal of the agent, and we use the concept of “intelligent agent” to give more flexibility when adapting software processes to unexpected changes. This is possible thanks to the multiple capacities of the agent like autonomy and reactivity.
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Paper Nr:	611
Title:	DATA INTEGRATION ISSUES FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE INTEGRATED ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Authors:	Pierre Tiako
Abstract:	AbstractBusiness Intelligence (BI) provides the ability to access any type of data inside or across enterprises and to analyze and present them as usable information. To work on business intelligence, an enterprise has to deal with important problems relating to both (1) Data integration and (2) Analysis and presentation of data for strategic decision-making. No matter what the application, the need for business intelligence applies universally. This position paper focuses on data integration issues for business intelligence integrated Enterprise Information Systems (EIS).
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Paper Nr:	613
Title:	AN ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORK FOR COMPLEX DATA WAREHOUSES
Authors:	Jerome Darmont, Omar Boussaïd, Jean-Christian Ralaivao and Kamel Aouiche
Abstract:	Nowadays, many decision support applications need to exploit data that are not only numerical or symbolic, but also multimedia, multistructure, multisource, multimodal, and/or multiversion. We term such data complex data. Managing and analyzing complex data involves a lot of different issues regarding their structure, storage and processing, and metadata are a key element in all these processes. Such problems have been addressed by classical data warehousing (i.e., applied to “simple” data). However, data warehousing approaches need to be adapted for complex data. In this paper, we first propose a precise, though open, definition of complex data. Then we present a general architecture framework for warehousing complex data. This architecture heavily relies on metadata and domain-related knowledge, and rests on the XML language, which helps storing data, metadata and domain-specific knowledge altogether, and facilitates communication between the various warehousing processes.
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Paper Nr:	630
Title:	CONTEXT ANALYSIS FOR SEMANTIC MAPPING OF DATA SOURCES USING A MULTI-STRATEGY MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH
Authors:	Youssef Bououlid Idrissi and Julie Vachon
Abstract:	Be it on a webwide or inter-entreprise scale, data integration has become a major necessity urged by the expansion of the Internet and of its widespread use for communication between business actors. However, since data sources are often heterogeneous, their integration remains an expensive procedure. Indeed, this task requires prior semantic alignment of all the data sources concepts. Doing this alignment manually is quite laborious especially if there is a large number of concepts to be matched. Various solutions have been proposed attempting to automatize this step. This paper introduces a new framework for data sources alignment which integrates context analysis to multi-strategy machine learning. Although their adaptability and extensibility are appreciated, actual machine learning systems often suffer from the low quality and the lack of diversity of training data sets. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a new notion called “informational context” of data sources. We therefore briefly explain the architecture of a context analyser to be integrated into a learning system combining multiple strategies to achieve data source mapping.
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Paper Nr:	657
Title:	TOWARDS PROCESS-AWARE ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS A Framework
Authors:	Bela Mutschler, Johannes Bumiller and Manfred Reichert
Abstract:	To stay competitive at the market companies must tightly interlink their software systems in a process-oriented manner. While the business process paradigm has been widely accepted in practice, the majority of current software applications are still not yet implemented in a process-oriented way. But even if, process logic is hard-wired in the application code leading to inflexible and rigid software systems that do not reflect business needs. In such a scenario the quick adaptation of the software systems to changed business processes is almost impossible. Therefore, many software systems are already out of date at the time they are introduced into practice, and they generate high maintenance costs in the following. Due to this unsatisfactory business process support a software system’s return on investment is often low. By contrast technologies which enable the realization of process-aware enterprise software environments will significantly contribute to improve the added value of IT to a company’s business. In this paper we characterize process-aware enterprise software environments, describe benefits and present a conceptual framework outlining our theses.
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Paper Nr:	697
Title:	A VIDEO DELIVERY METHOD USING AVAILABLE BANDWIDTH OF LINKS WITH BUFFERS AND DISKS
Authors:	Hideaki Ito and Teruo Fukumura
Abstract:	Scheduling policies and methods are required to deliver videos through network structure since the videos are key contents, and they are continuous media, in order to design the networked multimedia systems. These systems allocate resources before video clips leave their servers for guaranteeing continuous play of the videos. The policies for achieving video delivery play an important role in sense of effective delivery. The method for utilizing the links is a momentous problem, since their capabilities are restricted, and extensions of their capabilities are a difficult issue. The policy shown in this paper is that available network bandwidth is used for delivering one video clip at once. The bandwidth of a link is exclusively used to deliver only one video clip. On the other hand, buffers and disks are established easier than the links. Moreover, some simulating results are shown. Then, the amount of buffer space is restricted, and disks are used for storing the video in temporal.
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Paper Nr:	742
Title:	AN INTERNET ACCOUNTING SYSTEM - A large scale software system development using model driven architecture
Authors:	Kenji Ohmori
Abstract:	Software development should be changed from a handcraft industry to industrialization like manufacturing to obtain high productivity. In knowledge creating industry of software development, engineers have to concentrate on core works. Peripheral works should be avoided as much as possible. Model driven architecture helps programmers work mainly in analysis and design without considering much about implementation. Internet Accounting System, which is a standard model of enterprise systems have been developed with model driven architecture with high productivity.
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Paper Nr:	757
Title:	BUILDING APPLICATIONS ABLE TO COPE WITH PROBLEMATIC DATA USING A DATAWARP APPROACH
Authors:	Peter Henderson, Stephen Crouch and Robert Walters
Abstract:	As the amount of data systems have to work with increases, it becomes practically impossible to ensure it is consistent, no matter how tough we make our data collection procedures. Currently systems logic is based on the implicit assumption that the data they use is essentially correct and they struggle when this is not the case.To deal with this situation, we need to build applications which are better able to handle inconsistencies. In a series of experiments, we have shown that an application using our “DataWarp” approach to data enjoys a real advantage in one specific environment. Here we describe applying the approach more widely.
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Paper Nr:	761
Title:	ONTOLOGY BASED EXTRACTION AND INTEGRATION OF INFORMATION FROM UNSTRUCTURED DOCUMENTS
Authors:	Naychi Lai Lai Thein, Khin Haymar Saw Hla and Nilar Thein
Abstract:	The Semantic Web is an extension of the current Web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. One of the basic problems in the development of Semantic Web is information integration. Indeed, the web is composed of a variety of information sources, and in order to integrate information from such sources, their semantic integration and reconciliation is required. Also, web pages are formatted with HTML which is only a human readable format and the agents cannot understand their meaning. In this paper, we present an approach to extract information from unstructured documents (e.g. HTML) and are converted to standard format (XML) by using source ontology. Then, we translate XML output to local ontology. This paper also describes a key technology for mapping between ontologies to compute similarity measures to express complex relationships among concepts. In order to address this problem, we apply machine learning approach for semantic interoperability in the real, commercial and governmental world.
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Paper Nr:	762
Title:	CHANGE IMPACT ANALYSIS APPROACH IN A CLASS HIERARCHY
Authors:	Aye Aye Nwe
Abstract:	Change impact analysis is a technique for determining the potential effects of changes on a software system. As software system evolves, changes made to those systems can have unintended impacts elsewhere. Although, object-oriented features such as encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and dynamic binding contribute to the reusability and extensibility of systems. However, we have to face the more difficult to identify the effected components due to changes because there exits complex dependencies between classes and attributes. In this paper, we propose change impact analysis approach for a class hierarchy. Our approach is based on the program slicing techniques to extract the impact program fragment with respect to the slicing criterion of change information but aim to minimize unexpected side effects of change. We believe that our impact analysis approach provides the software developer in their maintaining process as well as debugging and testing processes.
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Area 2 - Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems

Full Papers

Paper Nr:	90
Title:	CONSTRUCTION OF DECISION TREES USING DATA CUBE
Authors:	Lixin Fu
Abstract:	Data classification is an important problem in data mining. The traditional classification algorithms based on decision trees have been widely used due to their fast model construction and good model understandability. However, the existing decision tree algorithms need to recursively partition dataset into subsets according to some splitting criteria i.e. they still have to repeatedly compute the records belonging to a node (called F-sets) and then compute the splits for the node. For large data sets, this requires multiple passes of original dataset and therefore is often infeasible in many applications. In this paper we present a new approach to constructing decision trees using pre-computed data cube. We use statistics trees to compute the data cube and then build a decision tree on top of it. Mining on aggregated data stored in data cube will be much more efficient than directly mining on flat data files or relational databases. Since data cube server is usually a required component in an analytical system for answering OLAP queries, we essentially provide “free” classification by eliminating the dominant I/O overhead of scanning the massive original data set. Our new algorithm generates trees of the same prediction accuracy as existing decision tree algorithms such as SPRINT and RainForest but improves performance significantly. In this paper we also give a system architecture that integrates DBMS, OLAP, and data mining seamlessly.
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Paper Nr:	115
Title:	AN INFORMATION SYSTEM TO PERFORM SERVICES REMOTELY FROM A WEB BROWSER
Authors:	Manuel P. Cuellar, M. Delgado, Waldo Fajardo Contreras and Ramón Pérez Pérez
Abstract:	This paper presents the development of BioMen (Biological Management Executed over Network), an Internet-managed system. By using service ontologies, the user is able to perform services remotely from a web browser. In addition, artificial intelligence techniques have been incorporated so that the necessary information may be obtained for the study of biodiversity. We have built a tool which will be of particular use to botanists and which can by accessed from anywhere in the world thanks to Internet technology. In this paper, we shall present the results and how we developed the tool.
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Paper Nr:	131
Title:	A RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORK RECOGNISER FOR ONLINE RECOGNITION OF HANDWRITTEN SYMBOLS
Authors:	Bing Quan Huang and Mohand-Tahar Kechadi
Abstract:	This paper presents an innovative hybrid approach for online recognition of handwritten symbols. This approach is composed of two main techniques. The first technique, based on fuzzy logic, deals with feature extraction from a handwritten stroke and the second technique, a recurrent neural network, uses the features as an input to recognise the symbol. In this paper we mainly focuss our study on the second technique. We proposed a new recurrent neural network architecture associated with an efficient learning algorithm. We describe the network and explain the relationship between the network and the Markov chains. Finally, we implemented the approach and tested it using benchmark datasets extracted from the Unipen database.
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Paper Nr:	145
Title:	AN APPLICATION OF NON-LINEAR PROGRAMMING TO TRAIN RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORKS IN TIME SERIES PREDICTION PROBLEMS
Authors:	Manuel P. Cuellar, Miguel Delgado and M. Carmen Pegalajar
Abstract:	Artificial Neural Networks are bioinspired mathematical models that have been widely used to solve many complex problems. However, the training of a Neural Network is a difficult task since the traditional training algorithms may get trapped into local solutions easily. This problem is greater in Recurrent Neural Networks, where the traditional training algorithms sometimes provide unsuitable solutions. Some evolutionary techniques have also been used to improve the training stage, and to overcome such local solutions, but they have the disadvantage that the time taken to train the network is high. The objective of this work is to show that the use of some non-linear programming techniques is a good choice to train a Neural Network, since they may provide suitable solutions quickly. In the experimental section, we apply the models proposed to train an Elman Recurrent Neural Network in real-life Time Series Prediction problems.
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Paper Nr:	170
Title:	HANDLING MULTIPLE EVENTS IN HYBRID BDI AGENTS WITH REINFORCEMENT LEARNING: A CONTAINER APPLICATION
Authors:	Prasanna Lokuge and Damminda Alahakoon
Abstract:	Vessel berthing in a container port is considered as one of the most important application systems in the shipping industry. The objective of the vessel planning application system is to determine a suitable berth guaranteeing high vessel productivity. This is regarded as a very complex dynamic application, which can vastly benefited from autonomous decision making capabilities. On the other hand, BDI agent systems have been implemented in many business applications and found to have some limitations in observing environmental changes, adaptation and learning. We propose new hybrid BDI architecture with learning capabilities to overcome some of the limitations in the generic BDI model. A new “Knowledge Acquisition Module” (KAM) is proposed to improve the learning ability of the generic BDI model. Further, the generic BDI execution cycle has been extended to capture multiple events for a committed intention in achieving the set desires. This would essentially improve the autonomous behavior of the BDI agents, especially, in the intention reconsideration process. Changes in the environment are captured as events and the reinforcement learning techniques have been used to evaluate the effect of the environmental changes to the committed intentions in the proposed system. Finally, the Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference (ANFIS) system is used to determine the validity of the committed intentions with the environmental changes.
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Paper Nr:	471
Title:	INTELLIGENT SOLUTION EVALUATION BASED ON ALTERNATIVE USER PROFILES
Authors:	Georgios Bardis, Georgios Miaoulis and Dimitri Plemenos
Abstract:	The MultiCAD platform is a system that accepts the declarative description of a scene (e.g. a building) as input and generates the geometric descriptions that comply with the specific description. Its goal is to facilitate the transition from the intuitive hierarchical decomposition of the scene to its concrete geometric representation. The aim of the present work is to provide the existing system with an intelligent module that will capture, store and apply user preferences in order to eventually automate the task of solution selection. A combination of two components based on decision support and artificial intelligence methodologies respectively are currently being implemented. A method is also proposed for the fair and efficient comparison of the results.
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Paper Nr:	477
Title:	A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM BASED ON NEURO-FUZZY SYSTEM FOR RAILROAD MAINTENANCE PLANNING
Authors:	Michele Ottomanelli, Mauro Dell'orco and Domenico Sassanelli
Abstract:	Optimization of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) in railroad maintenance, is one of the main goals of the railways managers. In order to achieve the best balance between safety and operating costs, “on condition” maintenance is more and more used; that is, a maintenance intervention is planned only when and where necessary. Nowadays, the conditions of railways are monitored by means of special diagnostic trains: these trains, such as Archimede, the diagnostic train of the Italian National Railways, allow to observe every 50 cm dozens of rail track characteristic attributes simultaneously. Therefore, in order to plan an effective on condition maintenance, managers have a large amount of data to be analyzed through an appropriate Decision Support System (DSS). However, even the most up-to-date DSSs have some drawbacks: first of all, they are based on a binary logic with rigid thresholds, restricting their flexibility in use; additionally, they adopt considerable simplifications in the rail track deterioration model. In this paper, we present a DSS able to overcome these drawbacks. It is based on fuzzy logic and it is able to handle thresholds expressed as a range, an approximate number or even a verbal value. Moreover, through artificial neural networks it is possible to obtain more likely the rail track deterioration models. The proposed model can analyze the data available for a given portion of rail-track and then it plans the maintenance, optimizing the available resources.
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Paper Nr:	477
Title:	A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM BASED ON NEURO-FUZZY SYSTEM FOR RAILROAD MAINTENANCE PLANNING
Authors:	Michele Ottomanelli, Mauro Dell'orco and Domenico Sassanelli
Abstract:	Optimization of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) in railroad maintenance, is one of the main goals of the railways managers. In order to achieve the best balance between safety and operating costs, “on condition” maintenance is more and more used; that is, a maintenance intervention is planned only when and where necessary. Nowadays, the conditions of railways are monitored by means of special diagnostic trains: these trains, such as Archimede, the diagnostic train of the Italian National Railways, allow to observe every 50 cm dozens of rail track characteristic attributes simultaneously. Therefore, in order to plan an effective on condition maintenance, managers have a large amount of data to be analyzed through an appropriate Decision Support System (DSS). However, even the most up-to-date DSSs have some drawbacks: first of all, they are based on a binary logic with rigid thresholds, restricting their flexibility in use; additionally, they adopt considerable simplifications in the rail track deterioration model. In this paper, we present a DSS able to overcome these drawbacks. It is based on fuzzy logic and it is able to handle thresholds expressed as a range, an approximate number or even a verbal value. Moreover, through artificial neural networks it is possible to obtain more likely the rail track deterioration models. The proposed model can analyze the data available for a given portion of rail-track and then it plans the maintenance, optimizing the available resources.
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Paper Nr:	488
Title:	SCENARIO MANAGEMENT: PROCESS AND SUPPORT
Authors:	M. Daud Ahmed and David Sundaram
Abstract:	Scenario planning is a widely accepted management tool for decision support activities. Scenario planning, development, organisation, analysis, and evaluation are generally quite complex processes. Systems that purport to support these processes are complex and difficult to use and do not fully support all phases of scenario management. Though traditional Decision Support Systems (DSS) provide strong database, modelling and visualisation capabilities for the decision maker they do not explicitly support scenario management well. This paper presents an integrated life cycle approach for scenario driven flexible decision support. The proposed processes help the decision maker with idea generation, scenario planning, development, organisation, analysis, and execution. We also propose a generalised scenario evaluation process that allows homogeneous and heterogeneous scenario comparisons. This research develops a domain independent, component-based, modular framework and architecture that support the proposed scenario management process. The framework and architecture have been validated through a concrete prototype.
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Paper Nr:	493
Title:	TRANSFERRING PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES FROM THE EXPERT TO THE END USERS - Supporting understanding
Authors:	Anne Håkansson
Abstract:	If knowledge sharing between people in an organisation is to be encouraged, new types of systems are needed to transfer domain knowledge and problem-solving strategies from an expert to the end users and, thereby, make the knowledge available and applicable in a specific domain. If it is to be possible to apply the knowledge in the organisation, the systems will need a means of illustrating the reasoning strategies involved in interpreting the knowledge to arrive at the conclusions drawn. One solution is to incorporate different diagrams in knowledge management systems to assist the user to comprehend the reasoning strategies and to better understand the knowledge required and gained. This paper describes the manners by which knowledge management systems can facilitate transfer of problem-solving strategies from a domain expert to different kinds of end users. With this objective in mind, we suggest using visualization, graphical diagrams and simulation in conjunction to support the transfer of problem-solving strategies from a domain expert to the end users. Visualization can support end users, enabling them to follow the reasoning strategy of the system more easily. The visualization discussed here includes static and dynamic presentation of the rules and facts in the knowledge base that are used during execution of the system. The static presentation illustrates how different rules are related statically in a sequence diagram in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The dynamic presentation, in contrast, visualizes rules used and facts relevant to a specific consultation, i.e., this presentation depends on the input inserted by the users and is illustrated in a collaboration diagram in the UML. Utilising these diagrams can support the sharing and reuse of the knowledge and strategies used for handling routine tasks and problems more efficiently and profitably whilst minimizing potential for loss of knowledge. This is important when experts are not available on the spot. These diagrams can also be used for the organisation and the disseminating of knowledge by locating experts in an organisation, which is important when these are to be relocated in large organisations or geographically distributed.
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Paper Nr:	498
Title:	SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE EXPERT SYSTEM (SMxpert) - A Decision Support Instrument
Authors:	Alain April and Jean-Marc Desharnais
Abstract:	Maintaining and supporting the software of an organization is not an easy task, and software maintainers do not currently have access to tools to evaluate strategies for improving the specific activities of software maintenance. This article presents a knowledge-based system which helps in locating best practices in a software maintenance capability maturity model (SMmm). The contributions of this paper are: 1) to instrument the maturity model with a support tool to aid software maintenance practitioners in locating specific best practices; and 2) to describe the knowledge-based approach and system overview used by the research team.
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Paper Nr:	500
Title:	USING dmFSQL FOR FINANCIAL CLUSTERING
Authors:	Ramon Carrasco, M. A. Vila and José Galindo
Abstract:	At present, we have a dmFSQL server available for Oracle© Databases, programmed in PL/SQL. This server allows us to query a Fuzzy or Classical Database with the dmFSQL (data mining Fuzzy SQL) language for any data type. The dmFSQL language is an extension of the SQL language, which permits us to write flexible (or fuzzy) conditions in our queries to a fuzzy or traditional database. In this paper, we propose the use of the dmFSQL language for fuzzy queries as one of the techniques of Data Mining, which can be used to obtain the clustering results in real time. This enables us to evaluate the process of extraction of information (Data Mining) at both a practical and a theoretical level. We present a new version of the prototype, called DAPHNE, for clustering witch use dmFSQL. We consider that this model satisfies the requirements of Data Mining systems (handling of different types of data, high-level language, efficiency, certainty, interactivity, etc) and this new level of personal configuration makes the system very useful and flexible.
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Paper Nr:	509
Title:	STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS ALIGNMENT - A Decision Support Application for the Internet Era
Authors:	David Lanc and Lachlan Mackinnon
Abstract:	Strategic information systems planning, SISP, methods have proven organisationally complex to utilise, despite 40 years of research and evolution of Information Systems, IS, in the organisational context. The diverse nature of organisational strategy and environmental factors have been mooted as primary causes. On one hand, confusion exists in the literature due to divergent, deficient definitions of SISP. On the other, a lack of distinction exists between SISP as a planning process, and the broader alignment of organisational direction with the IS capability that provides the context for sustainable IS intellectual and cultural integration. Consequently, no methods or models for alignment of IS and organisational activities exist that have both validity in the literature and sustainability in practice. HISSOM (Holistic Information Systems Strategy for Organisational Management) is a practical, holistic model that co-ordinates and facilitates cohesive alignment of organisational needs and the IS capability required to meet those needs, at (1) stakeholder; (2) feedback metrics; (3) strategy and change management; and (4) organisational culture and capability levels. HISSOM was initially developed as a logical extension of the IS-alignment literature, and has been validated by action research in several significant studies in different industries, markets and organisational settings. The HISSOM model has been revised in the light of these studies, and a practical, Web-based decision support application, the HISSOM Decision Support Advisor, HDSA, is now under development, to promote wider use of the model and obtain evolutionary feedback from the user community. A synthesis of the development of HISSOM and work on designing the HDSA architecture is described, together with the impact of this research on extending the field of SISP and IS-alignment.
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Paper Nr:	562
Title:	A METHODOLOGY FOR INTELLIGENT E-MAIL MANAGEMENT
Authors:	Francisco P. Romero, Jose Angel Olivas and Pablo Garcés
Abstract:	We present, in the context of the intelligent Information Retrieval, a soft-computing based methodology that enables the efficient e-mail management. We use fuzzy logic technologies and a data mining process for automatic classification of large amounts of e-mails in a folder organization. It is also presented a process to deal with the incoming messages to keep the achieved structure. The aim is to make possible an optimum exploitation of the information contained in these messages. Therefore, we apply Fuzzy Deformable Prototypes for the knowledge representation. The effectiveness of the method has been proved by applying these techniques in an IR system. The documents considered are composed by a set of e-mail messages produced by some distribution lists with different subjects and languages.
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Paper Nr:	607
Title:	KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS - A Partnership for the Future
Authors:	José Ângelo Braga de Vasconcelos, Paulo Castro Seixas, Paulo Lemos and Chris Kimble
Abstract:	This paper explores Knowledge Management (KM) practices for use with portal technologies in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The aim is to help NGOs become true Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). In order to deal with more donors (at the top) and more beneficiaries (at the bottom), NGOs working in Humanitarian Aid and Social Development increasingly need systems to manage the creation, accessing and deployment information: within the NGOs themselves, between different NGOs that work together and, ultimately, between NGOs and Society as a whole. Put simply, NGOs are organizations that need an effective KM solution to tackle the problems that arise from both their local-global nature and from the difficulties of effective communication between and within NGOs and Civil Society. To address these problems, the underlying objectives, entities, activities, workflow and processes of the NGO will be considered from a KM framework. This paper presents the needs of a responsible, cooperative and participative NGO from a KM perspective, in order to promote the growth of Communities of Practice in local as well as in global network.
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Paper Nr:	628
Title:	TOWARDS A CHANGE-BASED CHANCE DISCOVERY
Authors:	Zhiwen Wu and Ahmed Tawfik
Abstract:	This paper argues that chances (risks or opportunities) can be discovered from our daily observations and background knowledge. A person can easily identify chances in a news article. In doing so, the person combines the new information in the article with some background knowledge. Hence, we develop a deductive system to discover relative chances of particular chance seekers. This paper proposes a chance discovery system that uses a general purpose knowledge base and specialised reasoning algorithms.
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Paper Nr:	638
Title:	REDUCING RISK IN THE ENTERPRISE - Proposal for a Hybrid Audit Expert System
Authors:	Susan Clemmons and Kenneth Henry
Abstract:	This paper theorizes the use of a hybrid expert system to support a complete audit of financial statements for an enterprise. The expert system proposed would support the audit process by using two types of artificial intelligence technologies: case-based reasoning and fuzzy logic technologies. The case base and automated reasoning recommendations would give the auditing firm another insight on the audit. Unlike previous audit expert systems, this system is intended to focus broadly on an enterprise’s entire financial statement audit process; it combines a case based knowledge representation with fuzzy logic processing. The attempt at capturing a wide domain is necessary to support organizational decision-making. Focusing on narrow decision points within an audit process limits the users and usefulness of the system.
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Paper Nr:	638
Title:	REDUCING RISK IN THE ENTERPRISE - Proposal for a Hybrid Audit Expert System
Authors:	Susan Clemmons and Kenneth Henry
Abstract:	This paper theorizes the use of a hybrid expert system to support a complete audit of financial statements for an enterprise. The expert system proposed would support the audit process by using two types of artificial intelligence technologies: case-based reasoning and fuzzy logic technologies. The case base and automated reasoning recommendations would give the auditing firm another insight on the audit. Unlike previous audit expert systems, this system is intended to focus broadly on an enterprise’s entire financial statement audit process; it combines a case based knowledge representation with fuzzy logic processing. The attempt at capturing a wide domain is necessary to support organizational decision-making. Focusing on narrow decision points within an audit process limits the users and usefulness of the system.
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Paper Nr:	647
Title:	DEFEDNING AGAINST BUSINESS CRISES WITH THE HELP OF INTELLIGENT AGENT BASED EARLY WARNING SOLUTIONS
Authors:	Shuhua Liu
Abstract:	In the practice of business management, there is a pressing need for good information management instruments that can constantly acquire, monitor and analyze the early warning signals of business crises, thus effectively support decision makers in the early detection of crisis situations. With the development of advanced computing methods and information technology, there bring new opportunities for the construction of such instruments. In this paper, we proposed the use of business life cycle model as a larger framework of guidance for an early warning system of business crises. We also developed a framework for an intelligent agent based early warning system.
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Paper Nr:	694
Title:	MINING VERY LARGE DATASETS WITH SVM AND VISUALIZATION
Authors:	Thanh-nghi Do and Francois Poulet
Abstract:	We present a new support vector machine (SVM) algorithm and graphical methods for mining very large datasets. We develop the active selection of training data points that can significantly reduce the training set in the SVM classification. We summarize the massive datasets into interval data. We adapt the RBF kernel used by the SVM algorithm to deal with this interval data. We only keep the data points corresponding to support vectors and the representative data points of non support vectors. Thus the SVM algorithm uses this subset to construct the non-linear model. We also use interactive graphical methods for trying to explain the SVM results. The graphical representation of IF-THEN rules extracted from the SVM models can be easily interpreted by humans. The user deeply understands the SVM models’ behaviour towards data. The numerical test results are obtained on real and artificial datasets.
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Paper Nr:	738
Title:	IMPROVED OFF-LINE INTRUSION DETECTION USING A GENETIC ALGORITHM
Authors:	Pedro Diaz-Gomez and Dean Hougen
Abstract:	One of the primary approaches to the increasingly important problem of computer security is the Intrusion Detection System. Various architectures and approaches have been proposed including: Statistical, rule-based approaches; Neural Networks; Immune Systems; Genetic Algorithms; and Genetic Programming. This paper focuses on the development of an off-line Intrusion Detection System to analyze a Sun audit trail file. Off-line intrusion detection can be accomplished by searching audit trail logs of user activities for matches to patterns of events required for known attacks. Because such search is NP-complete, heuristic methods will need to be employed as databases of events and attacks grow. Genetic Algorithms can provide appropriate heuristic search methods. However, balancing the need to detect all possible attacks found in an audit trail with the need to avoid false positives (warnings of attacks that do not exist) is a challenge, given the scalar fitness values required by Genetic Algorithms. This study discusses a fitness function independent of variable parameters to overcome this problem. This fitness function allows the IDS to significantly reduce both its false positive and false negative rate. This paper also describes extending the system to account for the possibility that intrusions are either mutually exclusive or not mutually exclusive.
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Short Papers

Paper Nr:	30
Title:	CLUSTERING INTERESTINGNESS MEASURES WITH POSITIVE CORRELATION
Authors:	Xuan-hiep Huynh, Fabrice Guillet and Henri Briand
Abstract:	Selecting interestingness measures has been an important problem in knowledge discovery in database. A lot of measures have been proposed to extract the knowledge from large databases and many authors have introduced the interestingness properties for selecting a suitable measure for a given application. Some measures are adequate for some applications but the others are not, and it is difficult to capture what the best measures for a given data set are. In this paper, we present a new approach implemented in a tool to select the groups or clusters of objective interestingness measures that are highly correlated in an application. The final goal relies on helping the user to select the subset of measures that is the best adapted to discover the best rules according to his/her preferences.
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Paper Nr:	91
Title:	A SYSTEM TO INTERPRET AND SUMMARISE SOME PATTERNS IN IMAGES
Authors:	Hema Nair and Ian Chai
Abstract:	In this paper, a system that is designed and implemented for automatic interpretation of some patterns in satellite images is described. Some natural patterns such as land, island, water body, river, fire in remote-sensed images are extracted and summarised in linguistic terms using fuzzy sets. A new graphical tool (Multimedia University’s RSIMANA-Remote-Sensing Image Analyser) developed for image analysis, which is part of the system is also described in this paper.
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Paper Nr:	94
Title:	SYNTHESISE WEB QUERIES - Search the Web by Examples
Authors:	Vishv Malhotra, Sunanada Patro and David Johnson
Abstract:	An algorithm to synthesise a web search query from example documents is described. A user searching for information on the Web can use a rudimentary query to locate a set of potentially relevant documents. The user classifies the retrieved documents as being relevant or irrelevant to his or her needs. A query can be synthesised from these categorised documents to perform a definitive search with good recall and precision characteristics.
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Paper Nr:	106
Title:	IMPROVEMENT ON THE INDIVIDUAL RECOGNITION SYSTEM WITH WRITING PRESSURE BASED ON RBF
Authors:	Lina Mi and Fumiaki Takeda
Abstract:	In our previous research work, an individual recognition system with writing pressure employing neuro-template of multiplayer feedforward network with sigmoid function has been developed. Although this system was effective on recognition for known registrant, its rejection capability for counterfeit signature was not good enough for commercial application. In this paper, a new activation function was proposed to improve the rejection performance of the system for counterfeit signature on the premise of ensuring the recognition performance for known signature. The experiment results showed that compared with original system the proposed activation function was seemed to be effective to improve the rejection capability of the system for counterfeit signature with keeping the recognition capability for known signature satisfied.
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Paper Nr:	111
Title:	KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION MODELING THROUGH DIALOGUE BETWEEN COGNITIVE AGENTS
Authors:	Mehdi Yousfi-monod and Violaine Prince
Abstract:	The work described in this paper tackles learning and communication between cognitive artificial agents. Focus is on dialogue as the only way for agents to acquire knowledge, as it often happens in natural situations. Since this restriction has scarcely been studied as such in artificial intelligence (AI), until now, this research aims at providing a dialogue model devoted to knowledge acquisition. It allows two agents, in a ’teacher’ - ’student’ relationship, to exchange information with a learning incentive (on behalf of the ’student’). The article first defines the nature of the addressed agents, the types of relation they maintain, and the structure and contents of their knowledge base. It continues by describing the different aims of learning, their realization and the solutions provided for problems encountered by agents. A general architecture is then established and a comment on an a part of the theory implementation is given. Conclusion is about the achievements carried out and the potential improvement of this work.
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Paper Nr:	118
Title:	COMBINING NEURAL NETWORK AND SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE INTO INTEGRATED APPROACH FOR BIODATA MINING
Authors:	Keivan Kianmehr, Hongchao Zhang, Konstantin Nikolov, Tansel Özyer and Reda Alhajj
Abstract:	Bioinformatics is the science of managing, mining, and interpreting information from biological sequences and structures. In this paper, we discuss two data mining techniques that can be applied in bioinformatics: namely, Neural Networks (NN) and Support Vector Machines (SVM), and their application in gene expression classification. First, we provide description of the two techniques. Then we propose a new method that combines both SVM and NN. Finally, we present the results obtained from our method and the results obtained from SVM alone on a sample dataset.
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Paper Nr:	150
Title:	AGENT-BASED INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATION
Authors:	Jian Ping Zeng and Dong Hui Guo
Abstract:	More and more application services are provided and distributed over the Internet for public access. However, the security of distributed application severs is becoming a serious problem due to many possible attacks, such as deny of service, illegal intrusion, etc. Because of weakness of the firewall systems in ensuring security, intrusion detection system (IDS) becomes popular. Now, many kinds of IDS systems are available for serving in the Internet distributed system, but these systems mainly concentrate on network-based and host-based detection. It is inconvenience to integrate these systems to distributed application servers for application-based intrusion detection. An agent-based IDS that can be smoothly integrated into applications of enterprise information systems is proposed in this paper. We will introduce its system architecture, agent structure, integration mechanism, and etc. In such an IDS system, there are three kinds of agents, i.e. client agent, server agent and communication agent. This paper is also to explain how to integrate agents with access control model for getting better security performance. By introducing standard protocol such as KQML, IDMEF into the design of agent, our agent-based IDS shows much more flexible for built in different kinds of software application system.
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Paper Nr:	151
Title:	A PROPERTY SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE FOR WORKFLOW DIAGNOSTICS
Authors:	Ella Roubtsova
Abstract:	The paper presents a declarative language for workflow property specification. The language has been developed to help analysts in formulating workflow-log properties in such a way that the properties can be checked automatically. The language is based on the Propositional Linear Temporal Logics and the structure of logs. The standard structure of logs is used when building algorithms for property checks. Our tool for property driven workflow mining combines a tool-wizard for property construction, property parsers for syntax checks and a verifier for property verification. The tool is implemented as an independent component that can extend any process management system or any process mining tool.
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Paper Nr:	367
Title:	VISUAL SVM
Authors:	Francois Poulet
Abstract:	We present a cooperative approach using both Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms and visualization methods. SVM are widely used today and often give high quality results, but they are used as "black-box", (it is very difficult to explain the obtained results) and cannot treat easily very large datasets. We have developed graphical methods to help the user to evaluate and explain the SVM results. The first method is a graphical representation of the separating frontier quality (it is presented for the SVM case, but can be used for any other boundary like decision tree cuts, regression lines, etc). Then it is linked with other graphical methods to help the user explaining SVM results. The information provided by these graphical methods can also be used in the SVM parameter tuning stage. These graphical methods are then used together with automatic algorithms to deal with very large datasets on standard personal computers. We present an evaluation of our approach with the UCI and the Kent Ridge Bio-medical data sets.
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Paper Nr:	368
Title:	SYMBOLIC KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION IN TRANSCRIPT BASED TAXONOMIES
Authors:	Philip Windridge, Bernadette Sharp and Geoff Thompson
Abstract:	This paper introduces a design for the taxonomical representation of participants’ instantial meaning-making, as the basis for providing a measure of ambiguity and contestation. We use hyponymy and meronymy as the basis for our taxonomies and adopt the System Network formalism as the basis for their representation. We achieve an integration of transcript and taxonomy using an XML based ‘satellite’ system of data storage. Content data forms a ‘Root’ document which can then ‘mapped’ to by an arbitrary number of ‘Descriptor’ documents. This system represents instantial meanings by mapping Descriptor document elements to elements in the Root. Part of this mapping also includes the sequence of Root elements, accommodating the diachronic representation of meaning-making. This diachronic representation provides the basis for measuring ambiguity and contestation.
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Paper Nr:	392
Title:	A BAYESIAN NETWORKS STRUCTURAL LEARNING ALGORITHM BASED ON A MULTIEXPERT APPROACH
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	The determination of Bayesian network structure, especially in the case of large 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 increasing. This interest is motivated by the fact that many techniques or disciplines, as data mining, text categorization, ontology building, can take advantage from structural learning. In literature we can find many structural learning algorithms but none of them provides good results in every case or dataset. In this paper we introduce a method for structural learning of Bayesian networks based on a multiexpert approach. Our method combines the outputs of five structural learning algorithms according to a majority vote combining rule. The combined approach shows a performance that is better than any single algorithm. We present an experimental validation of our algorithm on a set of “de facto” standard networks, measuring performance both in terms of the network topological reconstruction and of the correct orientation of the obtained arcs.
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Paper Nr:	392
Title:	A BAYESIAN NETWORKS STRUCTURAL LEARNING ALGORITHM BASED ON A MULTIEXPERT APPROACH
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	The determination of Bayesian network structure, especially in the case of large 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 increasing. This interest is motivated by the fact that many techniques or disciplines, as data mining, text categorization, ontology building, can take advantage from structural learning. In literature we can find many structural learning algorithms but none of them provides good results in every case or dataset. In this paper we introduce a method for structural learning of Bayesian networks based on a multiexpert approach. Our method combines the outputs of five structural learning algorithms according to a majority vote combining rule. The combined approach shows a performance that is better than any single algorithm. We present an experimental validation of our algorithm on a set of “de facto” standard networks, measuring performance both in terms of the network topological reconstruction and of the correct orientation of the obtained arcs.
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Paper Nr:	392
Title:	A BAYESIAN NETWORKS STRUCTURAL LEARNING ALGORITHM BASED ON A MULTIEXPERT APPROACH
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	The determination of Bayesian network structure, especially in the case of large 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 increasing. This interest is motivated by the fact that many techniques or disciplines, as data mining, text categorization, ontology building, can take advantage from structural learning. In literature we can find many structural learning algorithms but none of them provides good results in every case or dataset. In this paper we introduce a method for structural learning of Bayesian networks based on a multiexpert approach. Our method combines the outputs of five structural learning algorithms according to a majority vote combining rule. The combined approach shows a performance that is better than any single algorithm. We present an experimental validation of our algorithm on a set of “de facto” standard networks, measuring performance both in terms of the network topological reconstruction and of the correct orientation of the obtained arcs.
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Paper Nr:	398
Title:	ENTERPRISE ANTI-SPAM SOLUTION BASED ON MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH
Authors:	Igor Mashechkin, Mikhail Petrovskiy and Andrey Rozinkin
Abstract:	Spam-detection systems based on traditional methods have several obvious disadvantages like low detection rate, necessity of regular knowledge bases’ updates, impersonal filtering rules. New intelligent methods for spam detection, which use statistical and machine learning algorithms, solve these problems successfully. But these methods are not widespread in spam filtering for enterprise-level mail servers, because of their high resources consumption and insufficient accuracy regarding false-positive errors. The developed solution offers precise and fast algorithm. Its classification quality is better than the quality of Naïve-Bayes method that is the most widespread machine learning method now. The problem of time efficiency that is typical for all learning based methods for spam filtering is solved using multi-agent architecture. It allows easy system scaling and building unified corporate spam detection system based on heterogeneous enterprise mail systems. Pilot program implementation and its experimental evaluation for standard data sets and for real mail flows have demonstrated that our approach outperforms existing learning and traditional spam filtering methods. That allows considering it as a promising platform for constructing enterprise spam filtering systems.
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Paper Nr:	416
Title:	A CLUSTER FRAMEWORK FOR DATA MINING MODELS - An Application to Intensive Medicine
Authors:	Manuel Filipe Santos, João Pereira and Álvaro Silva
Abstract:	Clustering is a technique widely applied in Data Mining problems due to the granularity, accuracy and adjustment of the models induced. Although the referred results, this approach generates a considerable large set of models, which difficult the comprehension, the visualization and the application to new cases. This paper presents a framework to deal with the enounced problem supported by a three-dimensional matrix structure. The usability and benefits of this instrument are demonstrated trough a case study in the area of intensive medicine.
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Paper Nr:	494
Title:	CLINICAL DECISION SUPPORT BY TIME SERIES CLASSIFICATION USING WAVELETS
Authors:	Markus Nilsson, Peter Funk and Ning Xiong
Abstract:	Clinicians do sometimes need help with diagnoses, or simply need reinsurance that they make the right decision. This could be provided to the clinician in the form of a decision support system. We have designed and implemented a decision support system for the classification of time series. The system is called HR3Modul and is designed to assist clinicians in the diagnosis of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Two parallel streams of physiological time series are analysed for the classification task. Patterns are retrieved from one of the time series by the support of the other time series. These patterns are transformed with wavelets and matched for similarity by Case-Based Reasoning. Pre-classified patterns are stored and are used as knowledge in the system. The amount of patterns that have to be matched for similarity is reduced by a clustering technique. In this paper, we show that classification of physiological time series by wavelets is a viable option for clinical decision support.
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Paper Nr:	521
Title:	EXECUTION OF IMPERATIVE NATURAL LANGUAGE REQUISITIONS BASED ON UNL INTERLINGUA AND SOFTWARE COMPONENTS
Authors:	Flávia Linhalis and Dilvan De Abreu Moreira
Abstract:	This paper describes the use of an Interlingua as a new approach to the execution of imperative natural language (NL) requisitions. Our goal is to embed a natural language interface into applications to allow the execution of users requisitions, described in natural language, through the activation of specific software components. The advantage of our approach is that natural language requisitions are first converted to an interlingua, UNL (Universal Networking Language), before the suitable components, methods and arguments are retrieved to execute each requisition. The interlingua allows the use of different human languages in the requisition (other systems are restricted to English). The NL-UNL conversion is preformed by the HERMETO system. In this paper, we also describe SeMaComp (Semantic Mapping between UNL relations and Components), a module that extracts semantic relevant information from UNL sentences and uses this information to retrieve the appropriated software components.
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Paper Nr:	568
Title:	ANATOMY OF A SECURE AND SCALABLE MULTIAGENT SYSTEM FOR EVENT CAPTURE AND CORRELATION
Authors:	Timothy Nix, Kenneth Fritzsche and Fernando Maymi
Abstract:	Event monitoring and correlation across a large network is inherently difficult given limitations in processing with regards to the huge quantity of generated data. Multiple agent systems allow local processing of events, with certain events or aggregate statistics being reported to centralized data stores for further processing and correlation by other agents. This paper presents a framework for a secure and scalable multiagent system for distributed event capture and correlation. We will look at what requirements are necessary to implement a generic multiagent system from the abstract view of the framework itself. We will propose an architecture that meets these requirements. Then, we provide some possible applications of the multiagent network within the described framework.
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Paper Nr:	590
Title:	PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL IN LOGISTICS SERVICE PROVIDING
Authors:	Elfriede Krauth, Hans Moonen, Viara Popova and Martijn Schut
Abstract:	Output of a planning process is a set of assigned individual tasks to resources at a certain point in time. Initially a manual job, however, in the past decades information systems have largely overtaken this role, especially in industries such as (road-) logistics. This paper focuses on the performance parameters and objectives that play a role in the planning process. In order to gain insight in the factors which play a role in designing new software systems for Logistical Service Providers (LSPs). Therefore we study the area of Key Performance Indicators (KPI). Typically, KPIs are used in a post-ante context: to evaluate a company’s past performance. We reason that KPIs should be utilized in the planning phase as well; thus ex-ante. The paper describes the extended literature survey that we performed, and introduces a novel framework that captures the dynamics of competing KPIs, by positioning them in the practical context of an LSP. This framework could be valuable input in the design of a future generation of information systems, capable of incorporating the business dynamics of today’s LSPs.
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Paper Nr:	627
Title:	USING A GAME THEORETICAL APPROACH FOR EXPERIMENTAL SIMULATION OF BROOD REDUCTION - Conflict and co-operation, effect on brood size with limited resources
Authors:	Fredrik Åhman and Lars Hillström
Abstract:	A number of hypothesis have been presented to explain the complex interactions occurring during brood reduction, but few simulation models successfully combines hypothesis together necessary to describe evolutionary stable strategies. In our solution we present a simple experimental simulation for brood reduction for which each sibling act as an autonomous agent that has the ability to initiate actions for co-operation and competition against others chicks within the same brood. Agents have a limited set of actions that can be activated during the onset of some environmental condition. Parameters for food distribution are determined on a basis of a former known theory for maximizing inclusive fitness. During the experimental simulations we have studied size and fitness measures with varying degree of asynchrony and prey density for siblings within the artificial brood. Results from the experimental simulation shows interesting similarities with brood reduction in a real world setting. Agents within the artificial brood respond with competitiveness whenever resources are limited. Simulated later hatching also showed a lower rate of survival because of natural size hierarchy to co-siblings within the simulated brood.
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Paper Nr:	679
Title:	KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY FROM THE WEB
Authors:	Maryam Hazman, Samhaa R. El-Beltagy, Ahmed Rafea and Salwa El-Gamal
Abstract:	The World Wide Web is a rich resource of information and knowledge. Within this resource, finding relevant answers to some given question is often a time consuming activity for a user. In the presented work we construct a web mining technique that can extract information from the web and create knowledge from it. The extracted knowledge can be used to respond more intelligently to user requests within the diagnosis domain. Our system has three main phases namely: a categorization phase, an indexing phase, and search a phase. The categorization phase is concerned with extracting important words/phrases from web pages then generating the categories included in them. The indexing phase is concerned with indexing web page sections. While the search phase interacts with the user in order to find relevant answers to their questions. The system was tested using a training web pages set for the categorization phase. Work in the indexing and search phase is still in going.
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Paper Nr:	687
Title:	MULTIDIMENSIONAL SELECTION MODEL FOR CLASSIFICATION
Authors:	Dymitr Ruta
Abstract:	Recent research efforts dedicated to classifier fusion have made it clear that combining performance strongly depends on careful selection of classifiers. Classifier performance depends, in turn, on careful selection of features, which on top of that could be applied to different subsets of the data. On the other hand, there is already a number of classifier fusion techniques available and the choice of the most suitable method relates back to the selection in the classifier, feature and data spaces. Despite this apparent selection multidimensionality, typical classification systems either ignore the selection altogether or perform selection along only single dimension, usually choosing the optimal subset of classifiers. The presented multidimensional selection sketches the general framework for the optimised selection carried out simultaneously on many dimensions of the classification model. The selection process is controlled by the specifically designed genetic algorithm, guided directly by the final recognition rate of the composite classifier. The prototype of the 3-dimensional fusion-classifier-feature selection model is developed and tested on some typical benchmark datasets.
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Paper Nr:	696
Title:	FREE SOFTWARE FOR DECISION ANALYSIS - A Software Package for Data Envelopment Models
Authors:	Lidia Angulo Meza, Luiz Biondi Neto, João Carlos Correia Baptista Soares De Mello, Eliane Gonçalves Gomes and Pedro Henrique Gouvêa Coelho
Abstract:	Data Envelopment Analysis is based on linear programming problems (LPP) in order to find 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 software packages i.e. the lack of a piece of software capable of producing full results in classic DEA models as well as the capability of using more advanced DEA models. The software package interface as well as the models and solution algorithms were implemented in Delphi. Both basic and advanced DEA models are allowed in the package. 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 piece of software was coined as FSDA – Free Software for Decision Analysis.
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Paper Nr:	737
Title:	WEB USAGE MINING USING ROUGH AGGLOMERATIVE CLUSTERING
Authors:	Pradeep Kumar, Pisipati Radha Krishna, Supriya Kumar De and Bapi Raju Samurpadi
Abstract:	Tremendous growth of the web world incorporates application of data mining techniques to the web logs. Data Mining and World Wide Web encompasses an important and active area of research. Web log mining is analysis of web log files with web pages sequences. Web mining is broadly classified as web content mining, web usage mining and web structure mining. Web usage mining is a techniques to discover usage patterns from Web data, in order to understand and better serve the needs of Web-based applications. This paper demonstrates a rough set based upper similarity approximation method to cluster the web usage pattern. Results were presented using clickstream data to illustrate our technique.
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Paper Nr:	754
Title:	AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCH IN ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Authors:	Sabrina S. S. Fu and Matthew K. O. Lee
Abstract:	Knowledge is an important key asset to many organizations. Organizations which can manage knowledge effectively are expected to gain competitive advantage. Information technologies have been widely employed to facilitate Knowledge Management (KM). This paper reviews and synthesise the main prior conceptual and empirical literature, resulting in a comprehensive framework for research in IT-enabled KM at the organizational level. The framework aids the generation of potential hypotheses for future research and the understanding and classification of existing KM related research.
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Paper Nr:	767
Title:	A CRYPTOGRAPHIC APPROACH TO LANGUAGE IDENTIFICATION: PPM
Authors:	Ebru Celikel
Abstract:	The problem of language discrimination may arise in situations when many texts belonging to different source languages are at hand but we are not sure to which language each belongs to. This might usually be the case during information retrieval via Internet. We propose a cryptographic solution to the language identification problem: Employing the Prediction by Partial Matching (PPM) model, we generate a language model and then use this model to discriminate languages. PPM is a cryptographic tool based on an adaptive statistical model. It yields compression rates (measured in bits per character –bpc) to far better levels than that of many other conventional lossless compression tools. Language identification experiment results obtained on sample texts from five different languages as English, French, Turkish, German and Spanish Corpora are given. The rate of success yielded that the performance of the system is highly dependent on the diversity, as well as the target text and training text file sizes. The results also indicate that the PPM model is highly sensitive to input language. In cryptographic aspect, if the training text itself is kept secret, our language identification system would provide security to promising degrees.
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Paper Nr:	96
Title:	FUZZY PATTERN RECOGNITION BASED FAULT DIAGNOSIS
Authors:	Rafik and Bensaadi, Hayet Mouss and Nadia Mouss
Abstract:	In order to avoid catastrophic situations when the dynamics of a physical system (entity in a M.A.S architecture) are evolving toward an undesirable operating mode, particular and quick safety actions have to be programmed in the control design. Classic control (PID and even state model based methods) becomes powerless for complex plants (nonlinear, MIMO and ill-defined systems). A more efficient diagnosis requires an artificial intelligence approach. We propose in this paper the design of a Fuzzy Pattern Recognition System (FPRS) that solves, in real time, the main following problems:  Identification of an actual state,  Identification of an eventual evolution towards a failure state,  Diagnosis and decision-making.
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Paper Nr:	114
Title:	HOW TO VALUE AND TRANSMIT NUCLEAR INDUSTRY LONG TERM KNOWLEDGE
Authors:	Anne Dourgnon-Hanoune, Eunika Mercier-Laurent and Christophe Roche
Abstract:	The French nuclear industry deals with technologies which will soon be thirty years old. If such technologies are not renewed they must last for another ten years- or more if the decision is taken to keep them working. There is a risk of technological obsolescence- something which is allowed for in other national and international projects. There is also the question of constant commercial demand- something also considered elsewhere in establishing contracts. Another problem is now beginning to emerge; the continuity and transmission of knowledge and experience concerning these plants. Personnel in the energy sector are being renewed. Most current employees are due to retire in the course of this decade. How is knowledge (both of maintenance and planning) to be transmitted to the new generations ? This knowledge includes written information but also know-how and implicit working assumptions; expertise, experience, self-learning. In the United States the EPRI produced a technical dossier [EPRI 1]. The problem of knowledge of old technologies is therefore recent, but almost universal. As far as EDF knows, nobody is considering this subject in its entirety. Instead, each technology puts the emphasis on operation (and thus safety) according to a fixed timetable (ten-year visits, end of use). In this perspective the initial knowledge can be lost. It can happen, for example, that the need for renewal can oblige the agency to carry out a costly or difficult retro-engineering project so as to recover the original knowledge and technology. If we look ahead, the policy of long term development (notably extending the life of plants) requires us to consider the life-span of the different skills and knowledge required by each environment. So it is necessary to take into account the entire life cycle of a nuclear installation. We are working on organizing all this knowledge and building an innovating solution for easy acquisition, access and sharing knowledge and experiences. First we are creating an ontology-based common language for all involved and defining some applications on Intranet. Ontology, understood as an agreed vocabulary of common terms and meanings shared by a group of people, is a means for representing craft concepts upon which knowledge can be organised and classified. We shall present one of the first applications based on the Logic Diagrams Designer's ontology whose main goals are to keep in memory the craft knowledge about relay circuits schemas and to allow accessing and retrieval information. This choice of ontology as a basis provides an easy and relevant navigation, indexing and search of documents...
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Paper Nr:	154
Title:	A WEB-BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR INDUCTIVE LOGIC PROGRAMMING IN BIOLOGY
Authors:	Andrei Doncescu, Katsumi Inoue, Muhammad Farmer and Gilles Richard
Abstract:	In this paper, we present a current cooperative work involving different institutes around the world. Our aim is to provide an online Inductive Logic Programming tool. This is the first step in a more complete structure for enabling e-technology for machine learning and bio-informatics. We describe the main architecture of the project and how the data will be formatted for being sent to the ILP machinery. We focus on a biological application (yeast fermentation process) due to its importance for high added value end products.
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Paper Nr:	159
Title:	MULTI-AGENT SYSTEM FORMAL MODEL BASED ON NEGOTIATION AXIOM SYSTEM OF TEMPORAL LOGIC
Authors:	Xia Youming, Yin Hongli and Zhao Lihong
Abstract:	In this paper we describe the formal semantic frame and introduce the formal language LTN to express the time and the ability and right of an agent on selecting action and negotiation process in a Multi-Agent System, the change of the right over time, the free action of an agent and the time need by a agent to complete an action. Based on the above, the independent negotiation system has been further complete. In this paper, it is also addressed that the axiom system is rational, validate and negotiation reasoning logic is soundness, completeness and consistent.
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Paper Nr:	346
Title:	SYSTEMATIC GENERATION IN DCR EVALUATION PARADIGM - Application to the Prototype CLIPS system
Authors:	Mohamed Ahafhaf
Abstract:	In this paper we present an extension of DCR evaluation method tested on a spoken language understanding and dialog system. It should allow a deep evaluation of spoken language understanding and dialog systems. The key point of our method is the use of a linguistic typology in order to generate an evaluation corpus that covers a significant number of the linguistic phenomena we want to evaluate our system on. This allows having a more objective and deep evaluation of spoken language understanding and dialog systems.
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Paper Nr:	365
Title:	KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SUPPORT FOR SYSTEM ENGINEERING COMMUNITY
Authors:	Olfa Chourabi, Mohamed Ben Ahmed and Yann Pollet
Abstract:	Knowledge is recognized as a crucial resource in today’s Knowledge Intensive Organizations. Creating effective Knowledge Management systems is one of the key success factors in Process Improvement initiatives like the CMMI, SPICE etc. This contribution aims to provide a starting point for discussion on how to design a Knowledge Management System to support System Engineering activities. After motivating the problem domain, we introduce a conceptual model supporting continuous learning and reuse of all kinds of experiences from the System Engineering domain and we present the underlying methodology.
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Paper Nr:	400
Title:	A SURVEY OF CASE-BASED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS FOR MACHINES
Authors:	Erik Olsson
Abstract:	Electrical and mechanical equipment such as gearboxes in an industrial robots or electronic circuits in an industrial printer sometimes fail to operate as intended. The faulty component can be hard to locate and replace and it might take a long time to get an enough experienced technician to the spot. In the meantime thousands of dollars may be lost due to a delayed production. Systems based on case-based reasoning are well suited to prevent this kind of hold in the production. Their ability to reason from past cases and to learn from new ones is a powerful method to use when a failure in a machine occurs. This enables a less experienced technician to use the proposed solution from the system and quickly repair the machine.
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Paper Nr:	410
Title:	A BAYESIAN APPROACH FOR AUTOMATIC BUILDING LIGHTWEIGHT ONTOLOGIES FOR E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	In the last decade the term “Ontology” has become a fashionable word inside the Knowledge Engineering Community. Although there are several methodologies and methods for building ontologies they are not fully mature if we compare them with software and knowledge engineering techniques. In this paper we propose a novel approach for building university curricula ontology through analysis of real data: answers of students to final course tests. In fact teachers design these tests keeping in mind the main topics of course knowledge domain and their semantic relation. The ontology building is accomplished by means of Bayesian Networks.
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Paper Nr:	410
Title:	A BAYESIAN APPROACH FOR AUTOMATIC BUILDING LIGHTWEIGHT ONTOLOGIES FOR E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	In the last decade the term “Ontology” has become a fashionable word inside the Knowledge Engineering Community. Although there are several methodologies and methods for building ontologies they are not fully mature if we compare them with software and knowledge engineering techniques. In this paper we propose a novel approach for building university curricula ontology through analysis of real data: answers of students to final course tests. In fact teachers design these tests keeping in mind the main topics of course knowledge domain and their semantic relation. The ontology building is accomplished by means of Bayesian Networks.
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Paper Nr:	410
Title:	A BAYESIAN APPROACH FOR AUTOMATIC BUILDING LIGHTWEIGHT ONTOLOGIES FOR E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Authors:	Francesco Colace, Massimo De Santo, Mario Vento and Pasquale Foggia
Abstract:	In the last decade the term “Ontology” has become a fashionable word inside the Knowledge Engineering Community. Although there are several methodologies and methods for building ontologies they are not fully mature if we compare them with software and knowledge engineering techniques. In this paper we propose a novel approach for building university curricula ontology through analysis of real data: answers of students to final course tests. In fact teachers design these tests keeping in mind the main topics of course knowledge domain and their semantic relation. The ontology building is accomplished by means of Bayesian Networks.
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Paper Nr:	472
Title:	QUALITY CONTENT MANAGEMENT FOR E-LEARNING - General issues for a decision support system
Authors:	Erla Mariela Morales Morgado and Francisco García Peñalvo
Abstract:	In today’s world, reusable learning object concepts and standards for their treatment represent an advantage for knowledge management systems to whatever kind of business that supports an on-line system. Users are able to manage and reuse content according to their needs without interoperability problems. The possibility of importing learning objects for e-learning aim to increase their information repository but the learning object quality is not guaranteed. This work proposes a system to manage quality learning objects to support teachers to select the best content to structure their course. To achieve this we suggest two subsystems: First, an importation, normalization and evaluation subsystem; and second, a selection, delivery and post evaluation subsystem.
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Paper Nr:	474
Title:	IMPLEMENTATION OF A HYBRID INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM USING FUZZYJESS
Authors:	Aly El–Semary, Janica Edmonds, Jesús González and Mauricio Papa
Abstract:	This paper describes an implementation of a fuzzy inference engine that is part of a Hybrid Fuzzy Logic Intrusion Detection System. A data-mining algorithm is used offline to capture features of interest in network traffic and produce fuzzy-logic rules. Using an inference engine, the intrusion detection system evaluates these rules and gives network administrators indications of the firing strength of the ruleset. The inference engine implementation is based on the Java Expert System Shell (Jess) from Sandia National Laboratories and FuzzyJess available from the National Research Council of Canada. Examples and experimental results using data sets from MIT Lincoln Laboratory demonstrate the potential of the approach.
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Paper Nr:	555
Title:	A LINGUISTIC FUZZY METHOD TO STUDY ELECTRICITY MARKET AGENTS
Authors:	Santiago Garcia-Talegon and Juan Moreno García
Abstract:	The aim of this paper is to study the behavior of the agents that participate in the Spanish electricity market, for this purpose, the data that the Market Operator provides us after the period of confidentiality are analyzed. The objective is to know the operation to simulate the offerings of blocks the some of them. Market participants are companies authorized to participate in the electricity production market as electricity buyers and sellers. The economic management of the electricity market is entrusted to Iberico Market Operator of Energy (MO) (OMEL, ). A fuzzy (Zadeh, 1965) method has been created. It is based on the hour and in the matches obtained of the previous day at this hour, and it is capable of model the behavior that is going to have an agent of the electric market in each hour. We try with this method to deal as the agents realize the offer of production, for it we take the information of three of them in June, 2004, the result of this work is understands better the standard that they are still and the logic of the offers of blocks that fulfil the pool.
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Paper Nr:	608
Title:	DISTRIBUTED COMMUNITY COOPERATION IN MULTI AGENT FILTERING FRAMEWORK
Authors:	Sahin Albayrak and Dragan Milosevic
Abstract:	In nowadays easy to produce and publish information society, filtering services have to be able to simultaneously search in many potentially relevant distributed sources, and to autonomously combine only the best found results. Ignoring a necessity to address information retrieval tasks in a distributed manner is a major drawback for many existed search engines which try to survive the ongoing information explosion. The essence of a proposed solution for performing distributed filtering is in both installing filtering communities around information sources and setting a comprehensive cooperation mechanism, which both takes care about how promising is each particular source and tries to improve itself during a runtime. The applicability of the presented cooperation among communities is illustrated in a system serving as intelligent personal information assistant (PIA). Experimental results show that integrated cooperation mechanisms successfully eliminate long lasting filtering jobs with duration over 1000 seconds, and they do that within an acceptable decrease in feedback and precision values of only 3% and 6%, respectively.
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Paper Nr:	621
Title:	SITUATION ASSESSMENT WITH OBJECT ORIENTED PROBABILISTIC RELATIONAL MODELS
Authors:	Catherine Howard and Markus Stumptner
Abstract:	This paper presents a new Object Oriented Probabilistic Relational language which is built upon the Bangsø Object Oriented Bayesian Network framework. We are currently studying the application of this language for situation assessment in complex military and business domains.
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Paper Nr:	626
Title:	FACIAL POLYGONAL PROJECTION - A new feature extracting method to help in neural face detection
Authors:	Adriano Moutinho, Antonio Carlos Gay Thomé and Pedro Henrique Gouvêa Coelho
Abstract:	Locating the position of a human face in a photograph is likely to be a very complex task, requiring several image and signal processing techniques. This paper proposes a new approach called polygonal facial projection that is able, by measuring specific distances on the image, to extract relevant features and improve efficiency of neural face identification systems (Rowley, 1999) (Moutinho and Thomé, 2004), facilitating the separation of facial patterns from other objects present in the image.
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Paper Nr:	668
Title:	USER MODELLING FOR DIARY MANAGEMENT BASED ON INDUCTIVE LOGIC PROGRAMMING
Authors:	Behrad Assadian and Heather Maclaren
Abstract:	Software agents are being produced in many different forms to carry out different tasks, with personal assistants designed to reduce the amount of effort it takes for the user to go about their daily tasks. Most personal assistants work with user preferences when working out what actions to perform on behalf of their user. This paper describes a novel approach for modelling user behaviour in the application area of Diary Management with the use of Inductive Logic Programming.
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Paper Nr:	678
Title:	A CONCEPTION OF NEURAL NETWORKS IMPLEMENTATION IN THE MODEL OF A SELF-LEARNING VIRTUAL POWER PLANT
Authors:	Robert Kuceba and Leszek Kieltyka
Abstract:	The present article focuses on learning methods of self-learning organization (on the example of the virtual power plant), using artificial intelligence. There was multi-module structure of the virtual power plant model presented, in which there were automated chosen learning processes of the organization as well as decision making processes.
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Paper Nr:	695
Title:	USING FUZZY LOGIC FOR PRICING
Authors:	Acácio Magno Ribeiro, Luiz Biondi Neto, Pedro Henrique Gouvêa Coelho, João Soares De Mello and Lidia Angulo Meza
Abstract:	This paper deals with traditional pricing models under uncertainties. A fuzzy model is applied to the classical economical approach in order to calculate the possibilities of economical indices such as profits and losses. A realistic case study is included to illustrate a typical application of the fuzzy model to the pricing issue.
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Paper Nr:	724
Title:	KNOWLEDGE NEEDS ANALYSIS FOR E-COMMERCE IMPLEMENTATION: People-centred knowledge management in an automotive case study
Authors:	John Perkins, Sharon Cox and Ann-karin Jorgensen
Abstract:	A UK car manufacturer case study provides a focus upon the problem of aligning transactional information systems used in e-commerce with the necessary human skills and knowledge to make them work effectively. Conventional systematic approaches to analysing learning needs are identified in the case study, which identifies some shortcomings when these are applied to electronically mediated business processes. A programme of evaluation and review undertaken in the case study is used to propose alternative ways of implementing processes of developing and sharing knowledge and skills as part of the facilitation of networks of knowledge workers working with intra and inter-organisational systems. The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of these local outcomes alongside some relevant literature in the area of knowledge management systems. This suggests that the cultural context constitutes a significant determinant of initiatives to manage, or at least influence, knowledge based skills in e-commerce applications.
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Paper Nr:	726
Title:	EXTRACTING MOST FREQUENT CROATIAN ROOT WORDS USING DIGRAM COMPARISON AND LATENT SEMANTIC ANALYSIS
Authors:	Zvonimir Radoš, Franjo Jović and Josip Job
Abstract:	A method for extracting root words from Croatian language text is presented. The described method is knowledge-free and can be applied to any language. Morphological and semantic aspects of the language were used. The algorithm creates morph-semantic groups of words and extract common root for every group. For morphological grouping we use digram comparison to group words depending on their morphological similarity. Latent semantic analysis is applied to split morphological groups into semantic subgroups of words. Root words are extracted from every morpho-semantic group. When applied to Croatian language text, among hundred most frequent root words, produced by this algorithm, there were 60 grammatically correct ones and 25 FAP (for all practical purposes) correct root words.
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Rejecteds

Paper Nr:	733
Title:	EXPERIMENTATION MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM
Authors:	R. William Maule
Abstract:	A current major focus in the DoD involves the integration of information across the different military branchesfor operations. Network-centric information methods will enable efficiencies through the integration of best-of-breed software and hardware from each branch of the military, together with the latest advances fromgovernment laboratories and the private sector. Information merging will promote synergy and expand effec-tive use of the enterprise infrastructure to realize improved operational and organizational processes. Re-search to date has focused on core network and infrastructure capabilities but has not fully addressed strategicorganizational objectives in the context of systems integration. A model is advanced that establishes variablesfor enterprise analysis to assess strategic technical objectives enabled or hindered through new network-cen-tric capabilities. Examples are derived from operational experimentation in network-centric warfare but pre-sented generically to apply to any organization seeking to assess the effectiveness of organizational strategy asenabled or hindered through network-based communications and enterprise-level systems integration.

Area 3 - Information Systems Analysis and Specification

Full Papers

Paper Nr:	10
Title:	EARLY DETECTION OF COTS FUNCTIONAL SUITABILITY FOR AN E-PAYMENT CASE STUDY
Authors:	Alejandra Cechich and Mario Piattini
Abstract:	The adoption of COTS-based development brings with it many challenges about the identification and finding of candidate components for reuse. Particularly, the first stage in the identification of COTS candidates is currently carried out dealing with unstructured information on the Web, which makes the evaluation process highly costing when applying complex evaluation criteria. To facilitate the process, in this paper we introduce an early measurement procedure for functional suitability of COTS candidates, and we illustrate the proposal by evaluating components for an e-payment case study.
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Paper Nr:	125
Title:	PRESERVING THE CONTEXT OF INTERRUPTED BUSINESS PROCESS ACTIVITIES
Authors:	Sarita Bassil, Stefanie Rinderle-Ma, Rudolf Keller, Peter Kropf and Manfred Reichert
Abstract:	The capability to safely interrupt business process activities is an important requirement for advanced process-aware information systems. Indeed, exceptions stemming from the application environment often appear while one or more application-related process activities are running. Safely interrupting an activity consists of preserving its context, i.e., saving the data associated with this activity. This is important since possible solutions for an exceptional situation are often based on the current data context of the interrupted activity. In this paper, a data classification scheme based on data relevance and on data update frequency is proposed and discussed with respect to two different real-world applications. Taking into account this classification, a correctness criterion for interrupting running activities while preserving their context is proposed and analyzed.
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Paper Nr:	133
Title:	A SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FOR INTER- ORGANIZATIONAL WORKFLOWS - Putting Security Standards for Web Services together
Authors:	Michael Hafner, Ruth Breu and Michael Breu
Abstract:	Modern eBusiness processes are spanning over a set of public authorities and private corporations. Those processes require high security principles, rooted on open standards. The SECTINO project follows the paradigm of model driven security architecture: High level business-oriented security requirements for inter-organizational workflows are translated into a configuration for a standards based target architecture. The target architecture encapsulates a set of core web services, links them via a workflow engine, and guards them by imposing specified security policies.
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Paper Nr:	144
Title:	THE “RIGHT TO BE LET ALONE” AND PRIVATE INFORMATION
Authors:	Sabah Al-fedaghi
Abstract:	The definition of privacy given by Warren and Brandeis as the “right to be let alone” is described as the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. Nevertheless, the formulation of privacy as the right to be let alone has been criticized as “broad” and “vague” conception of privacy. In this paper we show that the concept of “right to let alone” is an extraordinary, multifaceted notion that coalesces practical and idealistic features of privacy. It embeds three types of privacy depending on their associated: active, passive and active/passive activities. Active privacy is “freedom-to” claim where the individual is an active agent when dealing with private affairs claiming he/she has the right to control the “extendibility of others’ involvement” in these affairs without interference. This is a right/contractual-based notion of privacy. Accordingly, Justice Rehnquist declaration of no privacy interest in a political rally refers to active privacy. Passive privacy is “freedom-from” notion where the individual is a passive agent when dealing with his/her private affairs and he/she has privacy not due control –as in active privacy– but through others being letting him/her alone. This privacy has duty/moral implications. In this sense Warren and Brandeis advocated that even truthful reporting leads to “a lowering of social standards and morality.” Active/passive privacy is when the individual is the actor and the one acted on. These three-netted interpretations of the “right to be alone” encompass most –if not all- definitions of privacy and give the concept narrowness and precision.
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Paper Nr:	391
Title:	AN MDA-EDOC BASED DEVELOPMENT PROCESS FOR DISTRIBUTED APPLICATIONS
Authors:	Rita Suzana Pitangueira Maciel, Bruno Carreiro Da Silva, Nelson Rosa and Carlos André Guimarães Ferraz
Abstract:	With the proposal of MDA by OMG, the modelling of systems, in development process of distributed applications, has become a central point, therefore software models go beyond system documentation. EDOC - MDA profile for modelling distributed application - uses as conceptual framework the RM-ODP. These elements, although very useful, are insufficient for a software development process; therefore they are not followed by development methodologies. In this article is presented a MDA-based development process for distributed applications that utilize EDOC and the RM-ODP. The process is described as a sequence of steps and a set of diagrams that should be specified to provide a MDA-based system description.
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Paper Nr:	412
Title:	BRINGING SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS TO THE INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: Contributions of Organisational Semiotics
Authors:	Carlos Alberto Cocozza Simoni, M. Cecilia C. Baranauskas and Rodrigo Bonacin
Abstract:	Literature has shown the influence of the social, cultural and organisational aspects involved in the process of developing information systems. The Unified Process (UP) has been widely used in the software industry, but literature has shown its drawbacks when applied to the modelling of human actions in the social and organisational contexts. Our research investigates the use of Organisational Semiotics (OS) methods combined with the UP to compose a complete cycle of system development, aiming at bringing social constructs to the development process of information systems.
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Paper Nr:	470
Title:	TRANSFORMING SA/RT GRAPHICAL SPECIFICATIONS INTO CSP+T FORMALISM - Obtaining a formal specification from semi-formal SA/RT essential models
Authors:	Manuel I. Capel-tuñón and Juan Antonio Holgado Terriza
Abstract:	A correct system specification is systematically obtained from the essential user requirements model by applying a set of rules, which give a formal semantics to the graphical analysis entities of SA/RT. The aim of the systematic procedure is to establish the methodological infrastructure necessary for deriving a complete system specification of a given real-time system in terms of CSP+T processes. A detailed complete solution to the Production Cell problem is discussed, showing how the method can be applied to solve a real-world industrial problem.
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Paper Nr:	501
Title:	QUALITY OF SERVICE IN FLEXIBLE WORKFLOWS THROUGH PROCESS CONSTRAINTS
Authors:	Shazia Sadiq, Maria Orlowska, Joe Lin and Wasim Sadiq
Abstract:	Workflow technology has delivered effectively for a large class of business processes, providing the requisite control and monitoring functions. At the same time, this technology has been the target of much criticism due to its limited ability to cope with dynamically changing business conditions which require business processes to be adapted frequently, and/or its limited ability to model business processes which cannot be entirely predefined. Requirements indicate the need for generic solutions where a balance between process control and flexibility may be achieved. In this paper we present a framework that allows the workflow to execute on the basis of a partially specified model where the full specification of the model is made at runtime, and may be unique to each instance. This framework is based on the notion of process constraints. Where as process constraints may be specified for any aspect of the workflow, such as structural, temporal, etc. our focus in this paper is on a constraint which allows dynamic selection of activities for inclusion in a given instance. We call these cardinality constraints, and this paper will discuss their specification and validation requirements.
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Paper Nr:	505
Title:	PROCESS ORIENTED DISCOVERY OF BUSINESS PARTNERS
Authors:	Axel Martens
Abstract:	Emerging technologies and industrial standards in the field of Web services enable a much faster and easier cooperation of distributed partners. With the increasing number of enterprises that offer specific functionality in terms of Web services, discovery of matching partners becomes a serious issue. At the moment, discovery of Web services generally is based on meta-information (e. g. name, business category) and some technical aspects (e. g. interface, protocols). But, this selection might be to coarse grained for dynamic application integration, and there is much more information available. This paper describes a method to discover business partners based on the comparison of their behavior – specified in terms of their published Web service process models.
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Paper Nr:	574
Title:	XML VIEWS, PART III - An UML Based Design Methodology for XML Views
Authors:	Rajugan R., Tharam Dillon, Elizabeth Chang and Ling Feng
Abstract:	Object-Oriented (OO) conceptual models have the power in describing and modelling real-world data semantics and their inter-relationships in a form that is precise and comprehensible to users. Today UML has established itself as the language of choice for modelling complex enterprises information systems (EIS) using OO techniques. Conversely, the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is fast emerging as the dominant standard for storing, describing and interchanging data among various enterprises systems and databases. With the introduction of XML Schema, which provides rich facilities for constraining and defining XML content, XML provides the ideal platform and the flexibility for capturing and representing complex enterprise data formats. Yet, UML provides insufficient modelling constructs for utilising XML schema based data description and constraints, while XML Schema lacks the ability to provide higher levels of abstraction (such as conceptual models) that are easily understood by humans. Therefore to enable efficient business application development of large-scale enterprise systems, we need UML like models with rich XML schema like semantics. To address such issue, in this paper, we proposed a generic, semantically rich view mechanism to conceptually model and design (using UML) XML domains to support data modelling of complex domains such as data warehousing and e-commerce systems. Our approach is based on UML and UML stereotypes to design and transform XML views.
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Paper Nr:	579
Title:	ACCESS CONTROL MODEL FOR GRID VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS
Authors:	Bassem Nasser, A. Benzekri, R. Laborde, F. Grasset and F. Barrère
Abstract:	The problems encountered in the scientific, industrial and engineering fields entail sophisticated processes across widely distributed communities. The Grid emerged as a platform that has a goal enabling coordinated resources sharing and problem resolving in dynamic multi-institutional Virtual Organizations (VO). Though the multi-institutional aspect is considered in the grid definition, there is no recipe that indicates how to fabricate a VO in such environment where mutual distrust is a constraint. Excluding a central management authority, the different partners should cooperate to put in place a multi-administrated environment. The role of each partner in the VO should be clear and unambiguous (permissions, interdictions, users and resources to manage…). Organizing a large scale environment is error prone where not well formalized models lead to unexpected security breaches. Within the access control models RBAC has proved to be flexible but is not adapted to model the multi-institutional aspect. In this context, we propose a formal access control model, OrBAC (Organization Based Access Control model), that encompass concepts required to express a security policy in complex distributed organizations. Its generality and formal foundation makes this model the best candidate to serve as a common framework for setting up Virtual Organizations.
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Paper Nr:	591
Title:	DIALOGUE ACT MODELLING FOR ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION OF WEB-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Authors:	Ying Liang
Abstract:	Web-based information systems aim to enable people to live and do things in society with help of computer systems on internet. User interfaces and navigation structures of these systems become more important and critical than the ones of traditional information systems to the user because of the nature and specific characteristics of these systems. The experiences on requirements analysis and specification of these systems have shown the need of gathering and specifying communicational requirements for these systems in the analysis model as a basis for designing user interfaces and navigation structures. This paper addressed this issue and proposes a dialogue act modelling approach that has focus on communicational requirements with pragmatic and descriptive views in terms of the Speech Theory in social science and the object modelling techniques in Software Engineering.
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Paper Nr:	595
Title:	REAL TIME DETECTION OF NOVEL ATTACKS BY MEANS OF DATA MINING TECHNIQUES
Authors:	Marcello Esposito, Claudio Mazzariello, Francesco Oliviero, Simon Pietro Romano and Carlo Sansone
Abstract:	Rule-based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) rely on a set of rules to discover attacks in network traffic. Such rules are usually hand-coded by a security administrator and statically detect one or few attack types: minor modifications of an attack may result in detection failures. For that reason, signature based classification is not the best technique to detect novel or slightly modified attacks. In this paper we approach this problem by extracting a set of features from network traffic and computing rules which are able to classify such traffic. Such techniques are usually employed in off line analysis, as they are very slow and resource-consuming. We want to assess the feasibility of a detection technique which combines the use of a common signature-based intrusion detection system and the deployment of a data mining technique. We will introduce the problem, describe the developed architecture and show some experimental results to demonstrate the usability of such a system.
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Paper Nr:	605
Title:	A THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS METHOD FOR BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL
Authors:	Liping Yang, Ying Liu and Xin Zhou
Abstract:	During designing a business process model, to predict its performance is very important. The performance of business operational process is heavily influenced by its bottlenecks. In order to improve the performance, finding the bottlenecks is critical. This paper proposes a theoretical analysis method for bottleneck detection. An abstract computational model is designed to capture the main elements of a business operational process model. Based on the computational model, a balance equation system is set up. The bottlenecks can be detected by solving the balance equation system. Compared with traditional bottleneck detection methods, this theoretical analysis method has two obvious advantages: the cost of detecting bottlenecks is very low because they can be predicted in design time with no need for system simulation; and it can not only correctly predict the bottlenecks but also give the solutions for improving the bottleneck by solving the balance equation system.
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Paper Nr:	650
Title:	PERSPECTIVES ON PROCESS DOCUMENTATION - A Case Study
Authors:	Jörg Becker, Christian Janiesch, Patrick Delfmann and Wolfgang Fuhr
Abstract:	The documentation of IT projects is of paramount importance for the lasting benefit of a project’s outcome. However, different forms of documentation are needed to comply with the diverse needs of users. In order to avoid the maintenance of numerous versions of the same documentation, an integrated method from the field of reference modeling creating perspectives on configurable models is presented and evaluated against a case in the field of health care. The proposal of a holistic to-be model for process documentation provides useful hints towards the need of presenting a model that relates to a specific user’s perspective. Moreover, it helps to evaluate the applicability of configurable, company-specific models concerning the relative operating efficiency.
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Paper Nr:	702
Title:	MODEL SHARING IN THE SIMULATION AND CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED DISCRETE-EVENT SYSTEMS
Authors:	Fernando Gonzalez
Abstract:	Today, sophisticated discrete-event systems are being designed whose complexity necessitates the employment of distributed planning and control. While using a distributed control architecture results in the overall system model consisting of a collection of independent models, today's commercially available simulation languages can only accommodate a single model. As a result, in order to use these simulation languages one must create a new system model that consists of a single model but yet models a collection of models. Typically the communication among the distributed models is ignored causing inaccurate results. In this paper we use our simulation concept, also presented in this paper, to create a simulation tool that enables the simulation of distributed systems by using a collection of models rather than a single model. With our concept we create a methodology that accomplishes this by simulating the communications among the distributed models. Besides the benefit of not having to create a new model for simulation, this methodology produces an increase in accuracy since the communication among the models is taken into consideration. Furthermore this tool has the capability to control the system using the same collection of models.
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Paper Nr:	703
Title:	THREAT-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN OF SECURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Authors:	Joshua Pauli and Dianxiang Xu
Abstract:	To deal with software security issues in the early stages of system development, this paper presents a threat-driven approach to the architectural design and analysis of secure information systems. In this approach, we model security threats to systems with misuse cases and mitigation requirements with mitigation use cases at the requirements analysis phase. Then we drive system architecture design (including the identification of architectural components and their connections) by use cases, misuse cases, and mitigation use cases. According to the misuse case-based threat model, we analyze whether or not a candidate architecture is resistant to the identified security threats and what constraints must be imposed on the choices of system implementation. This provides a smooth transition from requirements specification to high-level design and greatly improves the traceability of security concerns in high assurance information systems. We demonstrate our approach through a case study on a security-intensive payroll information system.
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Paper Nr:	717
Title:	SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES - A Socio-Economic Analysis
Authors:	Manuel Pereira, Luís Tavares and Raquel Soares
Abstract:	The output of investments in Information Systems and Technologies (IST) has been a topic of debate among the IST research community. The “Productivity Paradox of IST Investments” sustains that the investment in IST does not increase productivity. Some researchers showed that developed countries have been having a rather stable and sometimes declining economic growth despite their efforts in Research and Development (R&D). Other researchers argue that there is sound evidence that investments in IST are having impacts on the productivity and competitiveness of countries. This paper analyses the relationship between IST and R&D investments and the global development of countries (not only productivity of countries) using economic, demographic and literacy independent variables that explain global development. The objective is to research whether R&D and IST investments are critical to the productivity and to global development of the countries. Working at a country level, the research used sixteen socio-economic variables during a period of five years (1995-1999). The research methodology included causal forecast, cluster analysis, factor analysis, discriminant analysis and regression analysis. The conclusion confirms the correlation between the Gross National Product (GNP) and R&D and IST investments. The variables illiteracy rate, life expectancy at birth, Software investment as percentage of GNP and number of patents per 1000 inhabitants can explain the development of a country.
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Short Papers

Paper Nr:	132
Title:	ASPECT IPM: TOWARDS AN INCREMENTAL PROCESS MODEL BASED ON AOP FOR COMPONENT-BASED SYSTEMS
Authors:	Alexandre Alvaro, Eduardo Santana De Almeida, Silvio Romero De Lemos Meira, Daniel Lucredio, Vinicius Cardoso Garcia and Antonio Francisco Do Prado
Abstract:	In spite of recent and constant researches in the Component-Based Development area, there is still a lack for patterns, processes and methodologies that effectively support either the development “for reuse” and “with reuse”. This paper presents Aspect IPM, a process model that integrates the concepts of component-based software engineering, frameworks, patterns, non-functional requirements and aspect-oriented programming. This process model is divided in two activities: Domain Engineering and Component-Based Development. An aspect-oriented non-functional requirements framework was built to give support in these two activities.
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Paper Nr:	329
Title:	ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING - Modelling and Simulation Using the Problem Articulation Method
Authors:	Simon Tan and Kecheng Liu
Abstract:	Current systems development costs rise almost exponentially as development time increases, underlining the importance of effective project management and enterprise planning. Enterprise infrastructure planning offers an avenue to efficiently improve and shorten design time; and to develop a system of high quality and with considerably lower operating and development costs. The Problem Articulation Method (PAM) is a method for articulating business and technical requirements in an organisation. It is capable of assimilating the internal systems changes in response to the dynamics and uncertainties of the business environment. The requirements and specifications from this analysis constitute as a baseline for managing changes, and provide the mechanism by which the reality of the enterprise and its systems can be aligned with planned enterprise objectives. An illustration of planning and development of a procurement system will be used to demonstrate the enterprise infrastructure requirements using a discrete-event enterprise simulation package “Enterprise Dynamic”. This paper will examine the capability of PAM in the articulation and simulation of complex enterprise requirements.
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Paper Nr:	330
Title:	METRIC SUITE FOR DIRECTING THE FAILURE MODE ANALYSIS OF EMBEDDED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS
Authors:	Guido Menkhaus and Brigitte Andrich
Abstract:	Studies have found that reworking defective requirements, design, and code typically consumes up to 50 percent of the total cost of software development. A defect has a high impact when it has been inserted in the design and is only detected in a later phase of a project. This increases project cost, time and may even jeopardize the success of a project. More time needs to be spent on analysis of the design of the project. When analysis techniques are applied on the design of a software system, the primary objective is to anticipate potential scenarios of failure in the system. The detection of defects that may cause failures and the correction is more cost effective in the early phases of the software lifecycle, whereas testing starts late and defects found during testing may require massive rework. In this article, we present a metric suite that guides the analysis during the risk assessment of failure modes. The computation of the metric suite bases on Simulink models. We provide tool support for this activity.
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Paper Nr:	331
Title:	TYPE AND SCOPE OF TRUST RELATIONSHIPS IN COLLABORATIVE INTERACTIONS IN DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENTS
Authors:	Weiliang Zhao, Vijay Varadharajan and George Bryan
Abstract:	In this paper, we consider the modelling of trust relationships in distributed systems based on a formal mathematical structure. We discuss different forms of trust. In particular, we address the base level authentication trust at the lower layer with a hierarchy of trust relationships at a higher level. Then we define and discuss trust direction and symmetric characteristics of trust for collaborative interactions in distributed environments. We define the trust scope label in order to describe the scope and diversity of trust relationship under our taxonomy framework. We illustrate the proposed definitions and properties of the trust relationships using example scenarios. The discussed trust types and properties will form part of an overall trust taxonomy framework and they can be used in the overall methodology of life cycle of trust relationships in distributed information systems that is currently in the process of development.
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Paper Nr:	338
Title:	TOWARDS AN APPROACH FOR ASPECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE REENGINEERING
Authors:	Vinicius Cardoso Garcia, Daniel Lucredio, Antonio Francisco Do Prado, Eduardo Santana De Almeida, Alexandre Alvaro and Silvio Romero de Lemos Meira
Abstract:	This paper presents a reengineering approach to help in migrating pure object-oriented codes to a mixture of objects and aspects. The approach focuses on aspect-mining to identify potential crosscutting concerns to be modeled and implemented as aspects, and on refactoring techniques to reorganize the code according to aspect-oriented paradigm by using code transformations it is possible to recover the aspect-oriented design using a transformational system. With the recovered design it is possible to add or modify the system requirements in a CASE tool, and to generate the codes in an executable language, in this case AspectJ.
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Paper Nr:	473
Title:	DECOUPLING MVC: J2EE DESIGN PATTERN INTEGRATION
Authors:	Francisco Maciá-pérez, Virgilio Gilart-Iglesias, Diego Marcos-jorquera, Juan Manuel García-Chamizo and Antonio Hernández-sáez
Abstract:	In this paper we propose a model based on the Model-View-Controller design paradigm and built over the integration of open source frameworks, which are widely supported by the software architect community. The main contribution of this model lies in that it provides a true decoupling of the MVC paradigm’s model, view and controller elements. This approach eases the horizontal development and maintenance of large-scale distributed network applications. In order to concretize our model, we have based our prototype application in the following three frameworks. First, the Struts framework in which the controller element resides. Second, the Cocoon framework which serves as the basis for the view. And, finally, the J2EE business components that constitute the model. This led us to integrate these three frameworks so as to decouple the referred MVC elements, through the use of the Cocoon-Plugin (as the View-Controller tie) and Struts-EJB (which links the Model and the Controller elements).
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Paper Nr:	479
Title:	EVALUATION AND COMPARISON OF ADL BASED APPROACHES FOR THE DESCRIPTION OF DYNAMIC OF SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURES
Authors:	Mohamed Hadj Kacem, Mohamed Jmaiel, Ahmed Hadj Kacem and Khalil Drira
Abstract:	This paper presents an evaluation study of Architecture Description Languages (ADL) which allows to compare the expressive power of these languages for specifying the dynamicity of software architectures. Our investigation enabled us to release two categories of ADLs: configuration languages and description languages. Here, we address both categories, and we focus on two aspects: the behaviour of software components and the evolution of the architecture during execution. In addition, we explain how each ADL handles these aspects and demonstrate that they are generally not or not enough dealt with by most of the ADLs. This motivates future extensions to be undertaken in this domain. Throughout this paper, we illustrate the comparison of these two aspects by describing an example of a distributed application for collaborative authoring support.
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Paper Nr:	506
Title:	SYSTEM ENGINEERING PROCESSES ACTIVITIES FOR AGENT SYSTEM DESIGN - Component based development for rapid prototyping
Authors:	Jaesuk Ahn, Dung Lam, Thomas Graser and K. Suzanne Barber
Abstract:	System designers of agent-based system are challenged by the lack of mature agent software development methodologies, the diversity of agent technologies, and the lack of a common framework for describing these technologies challenges architects attempting to evaluate, compare, select, and potentially reuse agent technology. Leveraging existing work to (1) categorize and compare agent technologies under a common ontology, (2) build a repository of agent technologies to assist system designer in browsing and comparing agent technologies, this paper proposes an architecting process and toolkit support to rapidly prototype an agent-based system by selecting agent technology components in the context of a given high level reference architecture and associated requirements.
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Paper Nr:	541
Title:	REVEALING THE REAL BUSINESS FLOWS FROM ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS TRANSACTIONS
Authors:	Jon Espen Ingvaldsen, Jon Atle Gulla, Ole Andreas Hegle and Atle Prange
Abstract:	Understanding the dynamic behavior of business flows is crucial when improving or reengineering organizations. In this paper we present an approach and a tool to business flow analysis that helps us reveal the real business flows and get an exact understanding of the current situation. By analyzing logs of large enterprise systems, the tool reconstructs models of how people work and detects important performance indicators. The tool is used as part of change projects and replaces much of the traditional manual work that is involved.
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Paper Nr:	550
Title:	ICT BASED ASSET MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
Authors:	Abrar Haider and Andy Koronios
Abstract:	Manufacturing and production environment is subjected to radical change. Impetus to this change has been fuelled by intensely competitive liberalised markets; with technological advances promising enhanced services and improved asset infrastructure and plant performance. This emergent re-organisation has a direct influence on economic incentives associated with the design and management of asset equipment and infrastructures, for continuous availability of these assets is crucial to profitability and efficiency of the business. As a consequence, engineering enterprises are faced with new challenges of safeguarding the technical integrity of these assets, and the coordination of support mechanisms required to keep these assets in running condition. At present, there is insufficient understanding of optimised technology exploitation for realisation of these processes; and theory and model development is required to gain understanding that is a prerequisite to influencing and controlling asset operation to the best advantage of the business. This paper aims to make a fundamental contribution to the development and application of ICTs for asset management, by investigating the interrelations between changing asset design, production demand and supply management, maintenance demands, asset operation and process control structures, technological innovations, and the support processes governing asset operation in manufacturing, production and service industries. It takes lifecycle perspective of asset management by addressing economic and performance tradeoffs, decision support, information flows, and process re-engineering needs of superior asset design, operation, maintenance, decommissioning, and renewal.
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Paper Nr:

572