ICEIS 2001 Abstracts

 

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Co-organized by:

École Supérieure d' Électronique de l' Ouest
École Supérieure
d' Électronique de
l' Ouest

and
Escola Superior de Tecnologia
Departamento de Sistemas 
e Informática
da
EST-Setúbal/IPS 
Escola Superior de 
Tecnologia de Setúbal 

 Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal

 

ICEIS 2003 Sites
www.est.ips.pt/iceis/

www.iceis.org

DBLP bibliography

 

Area 1 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Area 2 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Area 3 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION
Area 4 - INTERNET COMPUTING AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Area 1 - DATABASES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

Title:

INTEGRATING ENTERPRISE MODELS FOR BANKS

Author(s):

Khaled Naboulsi

Abstract: The demand for change in the banking industry has been continuous. During the past decade alone, the banking industry has encountered events that have forced banking to an enterprise level never before seen. These events include increased competition both among banks and non-banks competitors, an increased awareness in customer preferences, and technological advances in distributed systems. Banking institutions need to adopt new system approaches to compete, or face their own demise. Traditional integration models focus on application logic to solve compatibility issues. We examined the Application Development Model (AD) and the Workflow Management System that uses CORBA-Event Services as two alternative approaches to resolving the banking industry’s problems. However, due to the volatility of banking as an industry, it would appear more appropriate for developers to seek out alternatives that offer more flexibility, especially in light of the problems related to legacy systems. Utilizing a middleware such as CORBA provides an industry such as banking with solutions that address the issues of scalability, performance, and flexibility.

Title:

DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE AS CORPORATE RESOURCE OF FINANCIAL FIRMS

Author(s):

Michael S. H. Heng and Steve C.A. Peters

Abstract: It is almost a cliché to say that we live in a knowledge society and that knowledge is an important resource of firms in their production of goods and provision of services to their clients. However it is not so easy to find many examples showing the use of domain knowledge in financial companies. This paper reports the case of how a vehicle lease company in the Netherlands combines the use of domain knowledge and information technology into an expert system to automate the control of vehicle maintenance activity. The results benefit all parties concerned. The lease company can control the vehicle repair and maintenance works more efficiently. For the customers, it is higher rate of vehicle utilisation, greater safety and lower costs. The dealers who carry out the repairs and maintenance can do their work faster, and are paid immediately and automatically via the banks, resulting in lower administrative costs. The case story suggests that domain knowledge can be perceived as a corporate resource and its utilisation can produce values for the stakeholders. We propose that financial firms (1) see themselves as knowledge system, as a network of knowledge nodes serving their customers, (2) consider knowledge intensive firms as their role models. We draw on an idea of Friedrich Hayek who perceives the economic problem of society as a problem of the utilisation of knowledge not given to anyone in its totality. The paper concludes by discussing some organizational obstacles on the road to re-invent banks into knowledge systems.

Title:

EVALUATION OF A VISUALISATION DESIGN FOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND INFORMATION DISCOVERY

Author(s):

Luis Borges Gouveia and Feliz Ribeiro Gouveia

Abstract: This paper presents a tool using a 3D interactive visualisation system that allows knowledge sharing and information discovery. The tool proposes a visualisation design using direct manipulation techniques to convey information about a structure for knowledge sharing. The structure describes a knowledge theme described as a set of concepts. The set of concepts provides a particular context description about the knowledge being shared. The application tested and presented in this paper uses the set of concepts to direct searches in the World Wide Web. The visualisation design is briefly presented and preliminary evaluation results are reported. These results show that the system tends to be better supporting people with some knowledge expertise about the knowledge being shared even if they have little World Wide Web expertise. These results seem to show some potential for the visualisation design as an interface for both knowledge sharing and information discovery for people that have already some knowledge expertise about a given theme, but usually suffer from information overload or lack of knowledge about the structure of large information spaces, such as the World Wide Web.

Title:

A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM MODEL FOR SUBJECTIVE DECISIONS

Author(s):

Vishv Malhotra

Abstract: . Modern government and business units routinely collect and store structured data of general interest to them. In the course of their operations, these organisations often need to take decisions that do not directly follow from the available data. Specialised managerial skills are needed to interpret the data and derive useful conclusions. Subjective assumptions and judgments are made by the mangers to interpret the data. Where the data volume is large, it may be difficult to sift the data, as the managerial skills may not be available for the repeated evaluation of every entity in the database. A decision support system is needed that can be easily reprogrammed to cater for the subjective judgments and biases of the decision-makers. In this paper, we develop a model for a decision support system to identify promising entities based on the subjective preferences. The model can easily be integrated with a relational database system/tool such as Microsoft Access to examine entities in the database and to highlight those that have superior potential based on the decision-makers subjective judgments.

Title:

XML INTERFACE FOR OBJECT ORIENTED DATABASES

Author(s):

Frank Van Lingen

Abstract: Within CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) there are different data sources (different in format, type and structure). Several of these sources will be flat files or data sources other than databases. To create a common interface to these sources, we decided to use XML (eXtended Markup Language). XML is becoming the de facto standard for data (exchange). Because of this there is a large number of developers of tools. This document describes a mechanism to access object-oriented databases as an XML document by using serialization on demand. Furthermore it discusses an extension of XML to achieve this.

Title:

METADATA FOR THE SEMI-STRUCTURED MONO-MEDIA DOCUMENTS

Author(s):

Ikram Amous and Anis Jedidi

Abstract: One of the main information retrieval problems on the Web is related to the poverty of describing and cataloguing any information type. One proposal to cope with this lack consists in introducing the metadata concept to enrich and structure information description and improve searching relevance. We propose here a contribution to extend the existing metadata by a set of metadata describing documents resulting from various media (text, image, audio and video). These metadata, structured with XML, makes it possible to model document indexing by their content and/or structure and to process them by query languages.

Title:

NOVEL DATA VISUALISATION AND EXPLORATION IN MULTIDIMENSIONAL DATASETS

Author(s):

Nikolaos Kotsis, George R S Weir, John D Ferguson and Douglas R MacGregor

Abstract: Commonly, decision support systems require large-scale data analysis facilities for efficient decision-making. While OLAP tools provide multidimensional analysis, traditional visualisations prove inadequate as means of viewing and exploring complex relationships across multiple dimensions. Commercial databases often support a variety of two or three dimensional visualisation facilities, including bar charts, scatter diagrams, data plots, and cross tabulations. In this context, the present paper describes a novel approach to the problem of access and visualisation for data in complex hierarchical datasets. The approach integrates a novel browsing technique, which affords user navigation in several levels of summary information, with a modified scatter projection of the measure of interest. A prototype implementation of the proposed approach has been developed. This is described and advocated as a multidimensional interface for OLAP that addresses several significant issues in visualisation and exploration of multidimensional datasets.

Title:

AN INSIGHT INTO THE AUSTRALIAN THE ERP MARKET

Author(s):

Paul Hawking and Andrew Stein

Abstract: The global ERP industry blossomed in the 1990’s automating back office operations. Research up to date has been limited especially in the relation to market penetration of these products around the world. This paper presents an analysis of the Australasian ERP market place. It looks at the market movement and demographics of companies that have implemented SAP software, the dominant ERP vendor within the Australasian marketplace. The 387 SAP customers are classified by industry sector, size, and software implemented to establish metrics for ERP implementation pertaining to the region.

Title:

OBJECT MODELS FOR MODEL BASED APPLICATIONS

Author(s):

Giorgio Bruno and Marco Torchiano

Abstract: Web based systems in general, and e-commerce applications in particular, are required to face a very high pace of change. The evolution of such systems is caused both by adaptation to the customer needs and enterprise continuous improvement strategies. Such rapid change can be achieved adopting a model-based approach in which the application is customized according to a model. The concept of model proposed in this paper is more wide that the one adopted in most modeling languages such as UML. We propose an object model that allows an application access the model according to different perspectives and abstraction levels.

Title:

ARCHITECTURE FOR REENGINEERING LEGACY DATABASES

Author(s):

Prasad N. Sivalanka, S. V. Subrahmanya and Rakesh Agarwal

Abstract: There exist different methods to facilitate database design recovery under the framework of software engineering and reengineering. These tools and methods are usually limited to a particular scenario and requirement, and thus, not generic. In most cases, new tools and methods need to be redeveloped to suit these scenarios. This can result in a significant waste of effort and increased costs. In this paper we describe a generic architecture for reengineering legacy databases, which is an outcome of working on a real software project for one of our customers 1 . The goal of this research is to formalize a process that is applicable to different database reengineering scenarios and requirements. We elaborate the steps that were actually done for implementing the project.

Title:

REDUCING INCONSISTENCY IN DATA WAREHOUSES

Author(s):

Sergio Luján-Mora and Enrique Montenegro

Abstract: One of the main problems in integrating databases into a common repository is the possible inconsistency of the values stored in them, i.e., the very same term may have different values, due to misspelling, a permuted word order, spelling variants and so on. In this paper, we present an automatic method for reducing inconsistency found in existing databases, and thus, improving data quality. All the values that refer to a same term are clustered by measuring their degree of similarity. The clustered values can be assigned to a common value that, in principle, could substitute the original values. We evaluate different similarity measures for clustering. The method we propose gives good results with a considerably low error rate.

Title:

A STRATEGY TO DEVELOPMENT ADAPTIVE WORKERS INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Irene Luque Ruiz, Enrique López Espinosa, Gonzalo Cerruela García and Miguel Ángel Gómez-Nieto

Abstract: Difficulties arising in the management of the information corresponding to the workers (Curriculum Vitae) are created on one hand by the heterogeneity (multimedia data), lack of structure and sheer volume of this information, and on the other by the need to analyze and make best use of these data through complex queries whose results must comply with predetermined standards or preferences ---delicate processes indeed, given the nature of the information under scrutiny. A system for the management of this information must thus combine a multitude of features to permit the manipulation of highly-structured data (classical business management systems), immense volumes of information (electronic libraries) and multimedia (image databases, sound, etc.). The present study is centered on an analysis of the characteristics of this information and presents a model which, by focusing on the nature of basic information units and taking into account the independence between structure and information, strives to afford adaptability to the requirements and standards of the organizational environment, while remaining highly adaptable to subsequent changes.

Title:

ESTABLISHING THE IMPORTANCE OF ERP IMPLEMENTATION CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS ALONG ASAP METHODOLOGY PROCESSES

Author(s):

José Esteves and Joan Pastor

Abstract: This research in progress paper seeks to establish the relationship between critical success factors of ERP implementations and the ASAP methodology processes. Applying the process quality management method and the grounded theory method we derived a matrix of critical success factors versus ASAP processes. This relationship will help managers to develop better strategies for supervising and controlling SAP implementation projects.

Title:

KNOWLEDGE-POWERED EXECUTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM DESIGN

Author(s):

Sander Nijbakker and Bob Wielinga

Abstract: Why do we want an Enterprise Ontology (Architecture)? If we want to design an World Wide / Global Enterprise Information system, we need a rigid (ordered) structure at the top and adaptability at the bottom. Most ontologies stop at the level of best-practices or activities. To find the root structure we have to abstract a little further to the most abstract (atomic) ontology. This generic ontology is filled with the elementary business concepts comprising the atomic intelligent enterprise architecture. Ideas, methodology and application thereof.

Title:

MySDI: A GENERIC ARCHITECTURE TO DEVELOP SDI PERSONALISED SERVICES

Author(s):

João Ferreira and Alberto Silva

Abstract: We introduce in this paper a generic architecture to deal with the general problem: “How to Deliver the Right Information to the Right User?”. We discuss this issue through the proposal of our SDI (Selective Dissemination of Information) Personalised Architecture, called MySDI, which is based on the software agent paradigm as well as on information retrieval techniques. In order to clarify and validate this proposal we also introduce in this paper a prototype service, called MyGlobalNews, which should be a public service to provide personalised news.

Title:

DATA WAREHOUSE STRIPING: IMPROVED QUERY RESPONSE TIME

Author(s):

Jorge Bernardino and Henrique Madeira

Abstract: The increasing use of decision support systems led to an explosion in the amount of business information that must be managed by the data warehouses. Therefore, data warehouses must have efficient Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) that provides tools to satisfy the information needs of business managers, helping them to make faster and more effective decisions. Different techniques are used to improve query response time in data warehouses, ranging from classical database indexes and query optimization strategies to typical data warehouse materialized views and partitioning. But until now most of the works concentrate on centralized data warehouses where a single computer contains all the data. However, a large centralized data warehouse is very expensive because of the great setup costs and does not take advantage of the distributed nature of actual organizations operating worldwide. In this paper, we propose a data partitioning approach specially designed for distributed data warehouse environments called data warehouse striping (DWS). This technique takes advantage of the specific characteristics of star schemas and typical OLAP query profile guaranteeing optimal load balance of query execution and assuring high scalability. The proposed schema is evaluated experimentally for most typical OLAP operations using different types of queries and it is shown that an optimal speedup can be obtained.

Title:

IODBCON: A INTEGRTED OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE SYSTEM FOR INTEGRATING INFORMATION ABOUT ARCHITECTURE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES

Author(s):

Farhi Marir and Yau Jim Yip

Abstract: This paper presents IODBCON (Integrated Object Database for Construction), an interactive system for integrating CAD and construction related applications to address the problems of design fragmentation and the gap that exists between construction and design processes. It provides a vehicle for storing architectural design information in an integrated construction object-oriented database that can be shared by a range of computer applications. The IODBCON model is characterised by several new features. It uses the object-oriented modelling approach to establish standard models for architectural design that comply with Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) for common interpretation of construction design objects and with CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) for distribution of the objects amongst the construction applications. It aims to achieve independence from the display environment by providing a set of Abstract Factory and Abstract Design Classes, which provide abstractions that the design model classes can use to draw and render themselves in any display environments. More importantly, graphical and textual information about the building design components is directly saved as instances in an object-oriented database without passing through the existing CAD databases. To demonstrate the independence from the display environment, two applications using IODBCON models are implemented. The first is an interactive AutoCAD application, which creates instances of the IODBCON design model and stores them directly in the distributed object database. The second A web-based application using VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) for remotely interrogating information stored within the integrated database, visualising and manipulating the design components in 3D environment. Also, to demonstrate the feasibility and practicability of the OSCON (Open Systems for Construction) object-oriented product model, three OSCON construction applications that access and share the IODBCON building design instances are presented.

Title:

THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATIONAL ECOLOGY

Author(s):

Luigi Lancieri

Abstract: Through the metaphor of informational ecology this document gives a report on the various information re-use strategies in the company. We propose a segmentation model of these strategies and an evaluation method of its benefit. We insist on the re-use of the information contained in intermediate spaces of storages which are the proxy-caches, the news servers or other types of shared memories available in the company. We show, with examples, that informational ecology can be advantageous in more than one way and in particular to optimize the information management in the company.

Title:

MODELLING DATA INTEGRATION IN AN OBJECT BASED GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

Author(s):

Maria Luisa Damiani

Abstract: The integration of geographical data from multiple and heterogeneous sources is a complex process generally performed in an incremental way. Current Gis systems provide a wide range of services to support at least physical data integration. A critical point in the development of a Gis application is the design of the integration process. Such a design is necessary to plan out the integration operations which are to be performed to achieve an effective database. Integration process modeling can simplify both the analysis and the documentation of the database construction. In the paper a possible and general approach to the problem is discussed. A case study of spatial data integration in the nautical field is finally presented.

Title:

INTEGRATING ASSOCIATION RULE MINING ALGORITHMS WITH RELATIONAL DATABASE SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Jochen Hipp, Ulrich Güntzer and Udo Grimmer

Abstract: Mining for association rules is one of the fundamental data mining methods. In this paper we describe how to eÆciently integrate association rule mining al- gorithms with relational database systems. From our point of view direct access of the algorithms to the database system is a basic requirement when transferring data mining technology into daily operation. This is especially true in the context of large data warehouses, where exporting the mining data and preparing it outside the database system becomes annoying or even infeasible. The development of our own approach is mainly motivated by shortcomings of current solutions. We inves- tigate the most challenging problems by contrasting the prototypical but somewhat academic association mining scenario from basket analysis with a real-world appli- cation. We thoroughly compile the requirements arising from mining an operative data warehouse at DaimlerChrysler. We generalize the requirements and address them by developing our own approach. We explain its basic design and give the details behind our implementation. Based on the warehouse, we evaluate our own approach together with commercial mining solutions. It turns out that regarding runtime and scalability we clearly outperform the commercial tools accessible to us. More important, our new approach supports mining tasks that are not directly addressable by commercial mining solutions.

Title:

A UNIVERSAL TECHNIQUE FOR RELATING HETEROGENEOUS DATA MODELS

Author(s):

David Nelson, Michael Heather and Brian Nicholas Rossiter

Abstract: Interoperability is considered in the context of the ISO standards for the Information Resource Dictionary System (IRDS) which provide a complete definition of an information system from real-world abstractions through constructs employed for data and function descriptions to the physical data values held on disk. The IRDS gives a four-level architecture which is considered 1) informally in terms of an interpretation of the levels and the level-pairs between them, 2) in terms of mappings between the levels and 3) formally in terms of a composition of functors and adjoints across the various levels. An example is given of the application of IRDS in a categorical context comparing the mappings from abstractions to values in relational and object-based systems. Such comparisons provide a route for interoperability between heterogeneous systems.

Title:

EXPLOITING TEMPORAL GIS AND SPATIO-TEMPORAL DATA TO ENHANCE TELECOM NETWORK PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Author(s):

Dragan Stojanovic, Slobodanka Djordjevic-Kajan and Zoran Stojanovic

Abstract: In this paper, modeling and management of spatio-temporal-thematic data within an object-oriented GIS application framework, are presented. The object-oriented modeling concepts have been applied in integration of spatial, thematic and temporal geographic information in spatio-temporal object model. Based on model implementation and development of appropriate components for temporal GIS application functionality, a temporal GIS application framework has been developed. Description of its architecture and functional components dedicated to management of temporal aspect of geographic information is given. Planning and development of telecommunication networks using temporal GIS application, developed around application framework are presented. Great performance and qualitative improvements and benefits enabled by such GIS developments are described.

Title:

STRATEGIC IS PLANNING PRACTICES

Author(s):

Mario Spremic and Ivan Strugar

Abstract: The role of information technology in recent years grows in its importance. Thus the strategic IS planning becomes a part of company strategic business plans. This paper presents the results of survey on the strategic IS planning practices of Croatian companies. The result of the survey are compared with similar surveys in Slovenia and Singapore. In large Croatian companies IT is still concerned just as a tool for automatization of present business processes, completely neglecting challenging role of IT as competitive resource on market. It is obvious that source of this problems comes from lack of knowledge and interest from top management structures of large corporations. Thus the significant efforts must be done on management side, and solution lays maybe in necessity to develop completely new hybrid manager profile. Evidently that this type of manager must get additional knowledge in strategic business planning and IT management.

Title:

PRESENTATION OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE MODEL FOR PUBLIC SECTOR

Author(s):

Tania Fatima Calvi Tait and Roberto C. S. Pacheco

Abstract: This paper presents an information systems architecture (ISA) model that comprises the integration of information systems, technology, business processes and users in public sector environment. The ISA model presented considers specific aspects of the public sector as well characteristics of information systems development and use in this sector found in the literature and in the studies realized in informatic services Brazilian State public enterprises. The model proposed is based in the business, information technology (IT) and information systems integration and it was structured with five components: (a) Government structure (mission and organizational culture, Planning and government platform); (b) Public services (considered the “ business” of public structure, with the information for citizens, for top level and government administrative technical); (c) Information systems (by including the legacy systems and executives systems information); (d) Information technology (centered in investment policies and the government computational platforms – as micro-computer and mainframe relationship) and (e) Users (centered in the necessities for public – training, adaptation and use of the SI). The model proposed was submitted to validation from informatic services Brazilian State public enterprises. The results point out the relevance of the integrated vision of their components and they permit to establish strategies for implantation of ISA model, in order to observing public sector specificity.

Title:

SUPPORTING QUERY PROCESSING ACROSS APPLICATION SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Klaudia Hergula, Gunnar Beck and Theo Härder

Abstract: With the emergence of so-called application systems which encapsulate data-bases and related application components, pure data integration using, for example, a fed-erated database system is not possible anymore. Instead, access via predefined functions is the only way to get data from an application system. As a result, the combination of generic query as well as predefined function access is needed in order to integrate heterogeneous data sources. In this paper, we present a middleware approach supporting this novel and extended kind of integration. Starting with the overall architecture, we explain the function-ality and cooperation of its core components: a federated database system (FDBS) and a workflow management system (WfMS) connected via a wrapper. Afterwards, we concen-trate on essential aspects of query processing across these heterogeneous components. Motivated by optimization demands for such query processing, we describe the native func-tionality provided by the WfMS. Moreover, we discuss how this functionality can be extended within the wrapper in order to obtain salient features for query optimization.

Title:

OBJECT EVOLUTION MECHANISMS IN OBJECT DATABASES

Author(s):

Slimane Hammoudi

Abstract: Nowadays, most Object Oriented Database Systems (OODBs) display serious shortcoming in their ability to model the evolving and multifaceted nature of common real world entities. While researcher in knowledge representation systems have been aware of this problem for some time, database systems represent an environment in which this problem is particularly severe. OODBs store objects over longer periods, during which the represented entities evolve. The intimate and permanent binding of an object to a single type (class) inhibits the tracking of real-world entities over time. In recent years, various mechanisms for supporting many-faceted and evolving objects in the context of object oriented data models have been proposed in the literature. This paper examines in a first part the semantics associated with object evolution and explores the implications of these semantics on object oriented concepts. In a second part, we discusses features regarding the functionality’s of various object evolution mechanisms proposed in the literature in the context of OODBs and finally compares four representatives and more recent works in this area.

Title:

INTEGRATION OF DIFFERENT DATA SOURCES AND MESSAGE QUEUING SYSTEM IN POSTNET-CASE STUDIES

Author(s):

Dejan Damnjanovic, Zoran Ristic, Miodrag Stanic, Petar Opacic, Boban Peric and Maja Radovanovic

Abstract: In the last 3 years the Post of Serbia has built a large enterprise network called Postnet. It is organized like an intranet, connecting all parts of the postal system nationwide. Besides connecting internal users, the goal of Postnet was to connect various external systems such as banks, the Telecom of Serbia, Internet providers, tourist agencies etc. Many of them require on-line real time transactions to different data sources like Oracle, IBM DB2 or MS SQL Server DBMS. Since each post-office is using local SQL Server database with its copy of necessary data, it was needed to ensure that each transaction should occur across two, most likely different, databases. To solve this problem we discussed several different technologies like Microsoft DNA, Sun’s EJB and OMG CORBA. We decided to use multitired architecture based on Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) where each involved system is wrapped into one or more MTS components. Each component exposes corporate data and business logic through well-defined interfaces. The most interesting applications are those that integrate Postnet as infrastructure for the PostBank in its participation in new national payment system. These applications use MTS as transaction integrator of IBM DB2, SQL Server and Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) transactions.

Title:

INFORMATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

Author(s):

Fredrik Ericsson

Abstract: In this paper we address organizational and technological issues on information systems integration and architectures when it comes to self-developed relational database management systems, and how these issues can be identified. Organizational and technological issues have been identified using a three level of analysis that incorporates organizational context, application, and data source. We introduce the concept of data source interface and application interface in order to analyze the relation between data sources and conformity in how systems appear and behave on user’s command. The empirical research represented in this paper has been conducted through a case study. The unit of analysis is a Swedish small to medium-sized manufacturing company. The organizational and technological issues outlined in this paper are valid in a context where developers primary activity does not reside in the field of information systems development and where the organization does not have an IT function responsible for the organization’s use of IT.

Title:

MIDEA: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL DATA WAREHOUSE METHODOLOGY

Author(s):

José María Cavero, Mario Piattini and Esperanza Marcos

Abstract: Developing a Data Warehouse has become a critical factor for many companies. Specific issues, such as conceptual modeling, schemes translation from operational systems, physical design, etc... have been widely treated. Unfortunately, there is not a general accepted complete methodology for data warehouse design. In this work we present MIDEA, a multidimensional data warehouse development methodology based on a multidimensional data model. The methodology is integrated within a general software development methodology.

Title:

INSERTING DATA WAREHOUSE IN CORPORATIONS

Author(s):

Walter Adel Leite Pereira and Karin Becker

Abstract: A particular interest has been observed in the Data Warehouse (DW) technology by corporations aiming to improve their decision processes. A large number of corporations that have no tradition on the use of computer systems for decision support, has to rely on a team qualified in the development of traditional operational systems and database technology, but inexperienced on DW development issues. Moreover, for a number of reasons (e.g. availability, costs, privacy), it is not always possible to count on external development teams or consultants. This work presents a methodology targeted at the development of DW pilot projects, which aims at the smooth adoption of DW technology by corporations. The methodology has been successfully tested in a military DW pilot project, and the results obtained so far confirm its adequacy and consistency towards the established goals. The paper describes the striking features of methodology and analyses its application in a real case study.

Title:

FRONT-END TOOLS IN DATA WAREHOUSING: INFORMIX METACUBE (ROLAP) VS. COGNOS POWERPLAY (MOLAP)

Author(s):

Enrique Medina and Juan C. Trujillo

Abstract: A Data Warehouse (DW) is a subject oriented, integrated, nonvolatile, time variant collection of data in support of management decisions. On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools based on the Multidimensional (MD) model are the predominant front-end tools to analyze data in DW. Current OLAP servers can be either relational systems (ROLAP) or proprietary multidimensional systems (MOLAP). This paper presents the underlying semantics to the MD model and compares how current ROLAP and MOLAP front-end tools provide these semantics.

Title:

AUTOMATION QUERY PROCESSING SELECTION ALGORITHMS

Author(s):

Ying Wah Teh, Abu Bakar Zaitun and Sai Peck Lee

Abstract: In manufacturing environment, most of processing data is stored in the commercial databases and the design of database depends on the database designer. Given a query, the database management system picks up one of query processing strategies to full the user requirement. A user is given impression is hard to optimize the response time of a query. In this paper, we introduce the readers to current research activities pertaining to query processing in the manufacturing environment. We list out the possible query result, and recommend the appropriate query processing techniques for respective query result. And then we deduce an automation query processing selection algorithms to propose the appropriate query processing technique for users to improve the response time.

Title:

DESIGN OF TEXTUAL DATAWEB

Author(s):

Kais Khrouf

Abstract: The development of the Internet generated the increase in the volume of information available on this network. These information are used more and more by the companies for economic, strategic, scientific or technical development. The most common way for a user to search these information across the web, is to use the "search robots". However, results on this kind of tools don’t often satisfy the users. It is the reason why, the dataweb constitutes today a need for the companies in order to take maximum advantages of the web and information it contains. The proposed warehouse allows us to store and analyze any type of information extracted from the web.

Title:

AN ARCHITECTURE FOR INCORPORATING BUSINESS RULES IN AN OBJECT-ORIENTED SYSTEM

Author(s):

Permanand Mohan and Sheik Yussuff

Abstract: This paper discusses the design of an object-oriented system with business rules where the rules are treated as objects in their own right. The paper argues that an architecture-centric approach is essential in developing any software system and puts forward a multi-tiered architecture for incorporating business rules in an object-oriented environment. In the architecture, rule objects are completely separate from the domain objects, promoting rule maintenance. No assumption is made about other layers such as the persistence layer, allowing domain objects to be stored in any manner such as in an object database, a relational database, a flat file, or some other format. The architecture also lends itself to object distribution of both domain and rule objects using standards such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture.

Title:

TOWARD MEASURING THE SCALABILITY OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Ronald E. Giachetti, Chin-Shen Chen and Oscar A. Saenz

Abstract: Scalability describes a desirable characteristic of a system that has come to the forefront with the emergence of the Internet as a platform for business systems. Scalability broadly defined as the ability of a system to adapt to change while maintaining an acceptable level of performance is a critical characteristic any system dealing with the Internet must possess. Most all software vendors, system architectures, and system designers claim to have a scalable system. This article develops a mathematical foundation on which scalability measurement of enterprise information systems can be based. The mathematical foundation is based on measurement theory and this paper shows how this can be applied to measure scalability of enterprise systems in the context of business-to-business commerce in supply chains.

Title:

SPINO: A DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE FOR MASSIVE TEXT STORAGE

Author(s):

José Guimarães and Paulo Trezentos

Abstract: In this paper we introduce a framework for text data storage and retrieval. As an alternative for proprietary solutions is used a distributed architecture based on a Linux Beowulf Cluster and open source tools. In order to validate the proposed solution an prototype (Spino -Serviço de Pesquisa INteligente ou Orientada) had been builded. The prototype is oriented for retrieving USENET articles through a Web interface. Most of the points described can be applied for scenarios not related with Internet. The framework proposed is within Databases and Information Systems Integration area and describes simultaneously the conceptual and pratical aspects of its implementation. Suggested solution is presented in three different perspectives: web serving, off-line processing and database querying.

Title:

INTERACTIVE SEARCH IN WEB CATALOGUES

Author(s):

G. Ciocca, I. Gagliardi, R. Schettini and S. Zuffi

Abstract: E-commerce is one of the most challenging fields of application of the new Internet technologies. It is clear that the larger the number of items available to be presented, the more difficult it is to guide the user towards the product he is looking for. In this article we present a prototype for the interactive search of images in high-quality electronic catalogues. The system is based on a visual information search engine, and integrates a Color Management System for the faithful display of images.

Title:

SPECIALIZING AGENTS ON DATA INTEGRATION IN A DATA WAREHOUSING SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT

Author(s):

Joaquim Gonçalves, Anália Lourenço and Orlando Belo

Abstract: Data selection, extraction and processing are frequent tasks in enterprise information systems. Their relevance emerged from the information requirements of enterprise managers to have permanently available all the possible information about their working area. They try to reach important pieces of data that will allow them to extract useful and valuable knowledge in order to correct past misleads, to improve their performance inside the organization, or even to foresee market opportunities. Nowadays competitiveness between enterprises makes such process crucial. It is necessary, and convenient, to surround the decision-makers with all possible elements that might help them in their daily activities. In fact, most of the enterprises' decision-making processes need to be global and effective, as the enterprises’ success depends on it. However, the data maintained in their operational systems is not commonly arranged according to their analytical needs and management perspectives, which do not contributes significantly to decision-makers effectiveness. Usually, the data is structured and treated aiming to support operational tasks and backup daily activities. Obviously, some problems rise when it is intended to orient such data to analytical purposes. Many times its structure has to be rebuilt and its quality needs to be improved. With today’s data growth, more and more, selecting, gathering and treating data are very complex and time-consuming tasks. In order to make these tasks easier, more reliable and faster, it was conceived and developed a specialized agent-based tool that provides a distributed computational platform especially designed and conceived to support such kind of tasks and provide a set of special means of bridging to integrate operational data into specific data warehousing systems. This paper describes it, presenting its main functional architecture and components, and emphasizing the aspects related to its development and implementation.

Title:

SUPPORTING DECENTRALISED SOFTWARE-INTENSIVE PROCESSES USING ZETA COMPONENT-BASED ARCHITECTURE DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE

Author(s):

Ilham Alloui and Flavio Oquendo

Abstract: In order to provide a large variety of software products and to reduce time to market, software engineering is nowadays moving towards an architecture-based development where systems are built by composing or assembling existing components that are often developed independently. In this paper we advocate that a similar approach can be adopted to build software-intensive processes that are characterised by their complexity, heterogeneity and decentralisation. Indeed considering a software-intensive process as monolithic is no longer true since parts of it may exist and run separately from the others. Therefore those parts referred to as processlets must be considered as the building blocks for larger software processes. The paper presents ZETA, an interaction-based architecture description language for building software-intensive processes starting from existing processlets. ZETA is intended to be used by process engineers in order to design the “software glue” that connects processlets so that their interactions can be managed and/or controlled at runtime. ZETA addresses the contents of interactions through an intentional approach where interactions are guided by intentions that are revoked/maintained given some defined conditions. The underlying theory of the proposed approach is logic-based. The industrial relevance of the proposed approach, in a decentralised and heterogeneous context, is currently being demonstrated based on case studies from the automotive industry within the framework of an ESPRIT IV LTR Project.

Title:

A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK TO INCORPORATE SOFT QUERY INTO IMAGE RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Cyrus Shahabi and Yi-Shin Chen

Abstract: We explore the use of soft computing and user de ned classi cations in multimedia database systems for content- based queries. With multimedia databases, due to subjectivity of human perception, an object may belong to di erent classes with di erent probabilities (\soft" membership), as opposed to \hard" membership supported by conventional database systems. Therefore, we propose a uni ed model that captures both hard and soft memberships. In practice, however, our model signi cantly increases the computation complexity (both online and o -line) and the storage complexity of content-based queries. Previously, we introduced a novel fuzzy-logic based aggregation technique to address the online computation complexity. In this paper, we propose novel techniques to cluster sparse user profiles (i.e., items with missing data) to reduce both the o -line computation complexity and the storage complexity.

Title:

THE DECOR TOOLBOX FOR WORKFLOW-EMBEDDED ORGANIZATIONAL MEMORY ACCESS

Author(s):

Andreas Abecker, Ansgar Bernardi, Spyridon Ntioudis, Gregory Mentzas, Rudi Herterich, Christian Houy, Stephan Müller and Maria Legal

Abstract: We shortly motivate the idea of business-process oriented knowledge management (BPOKM) and sketch the basic approaches to achieve this goal. Then we describe the DECOR (Delivery of context-sensitive organisational knowledge) project which develops, tests, and consolidates new methods and tools for BPOKM. DECOR builds upon the KnowMore framework [34,35] for organizational memories (OM), but tries to overcome some limitations of this approach. In the DECOR project, three end-user environments serve as test-beds for validation and iterative improvement of innovative approaches to build: - knowledge archives organised around formal representations of business processes to facilitate navigation and access, - active information delivery services which - in collaboration with a workflow tool to support weakly-structured knowledge-intensive work - offer the user in a context-sensitive manner helpful information from the knowledge archive, and - methods for an organisation analysis from the knowledge perspective, required as supporting methods to design and introduce the former two systems In this paper, we present the basic modules of the DECOR toolkit and elaborate on their current status of development.

Title:

IINTEGRATING LEGACY APPLICATIONS WITHIN A JAVA/CORBA ENVIRONMENT

Author(s):

Rod Fatoohi and Lance Smith

Abstract: This paper examines the design and implementation process of applying a Java/CORBA solution to legacy code support environments. A support environment is defined as a collection of programs and scripts that support a monolithic application. The goal in developing an object oriented support environment is to allow monolithic legacy codes to accept inputs from and provide outputs to highly distributed applications and databases. The monolithic codes for this research are Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications. Batches of CFD jobs are currently run via a collection of C shell scripts. As production demands have grown, the scripts have become more complex. A Java/CORBA solution has been developed in order to replace the scripting system with a flexible, extensible production system. The implementation of four technologies is explored here: Java, CORBA, UML, and software design patterns. The architecture, implementation and design issues are presented. Finally, concluding remarks are provided.

Title:

CONCEPTUAL MODELING OF FUZZY OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE SYSTEMS

Author(s):

A. Goswami and Prabin Kumar Panigrahi

Abstract: In this paper we propose a new approach for the development of Fuzzy Object Oriented Database model. Real world database application requires users to specify their need to represent, store and manipulate imprecise, uncertain, vague information in a natural language like English. The development of a model in a Relational Database Management System starts with user requirement specifications, normalization and then conversion to tables. Our aim is to develop an equivalent methodology for Fuzzy Object Oriented Database System.

Title:

THE MOMIS APPROACH TO INFORMATION INTEGRATION

Author(s):

D. Beneventano, S. Bergamaschi, F. Guerra and M. Vincini

Abstract: The web explosion, both at internet and intranet level, has transformed the electronic information system from single isolated node to an entry points into a worldwide network of information exchange and business transactions.

Area 2 - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Title:

MOVING CODE (SERVLET STRATEGY) VS. INVITING CODE (APPLET STRATEGY)

Author(s):

Zakaria Maamar

Abstract:

In this position paper, we aim at describing two strategies that could enhance the functioning of software agents. Servlet and applet denote respectively these strategies. In the servlet strategy, the flow takes place from the client to the server. The applet strategy performs differently; the flow takes place from the server to the client. Applying both strategies to workflows, as a potential application domain, is also discussed.


Title:

A LAYERED ARCHITECTURE FOR MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS TO SUPPORT A WATER MAIN REHABILITATION STRATEGY 299

Author(s):

Bernadette Sharp, E. Robert. Edwards and Angela Dean

Abstract:

In complex applications like the water utilities the expertise that we are trying to integrate into our system consists of the various kinds of knowledge, skills and strategies possessed by different groups who collaborate to develop an efficient and pro-active water main rehabilitation strategy. A single knowledge based system would fail to integrate this diversity of knowledge and strategy. A multi agent system is an ideal set up to represent this diversity. This paper describes how a layered architecture can bring the local expertise and strategies of various groups together to meet the business objectives of an organisation and produce a coherent and pro-active rehabilitation strategy.


Title:

AGENT-BASED APPLICATION ENGINEERING

Author(s):

Rosario Girardi

Abstract:

Main difficulties in the practice of reuse techniques are due to the lack of reusable software abstractions for the development of specific applications in various and rapidly changing domains. Therefore, current research has been centered on problems related to building reusable software artifacts in a high level of abstraction - like language and domain languages, reusable software architectures and software patterns. Application Engineering is the main discipline addressing solutions to these problems. This work proposes a model for developing reusable software using the agent paradigm. Reusable software abstractions generated through Agent-based Application Engineering are analyzed considering both their abstraction level and domain dependence.


Title:

A MULTIAGENT SYSTEM APPLIED TO THE DESIGN OF PETROLEUM OFF-SHORE PLATFORMS

Author(s):

José Avelino Placca and Ana Cristina Bicharra Garcia

Abstract:

This paper presents a model for cooperative multi-agents that interact in a closed environment, i.e., an environment where the rules are well known by the agents and do not change dynamically. In a computational environment where several different software agents share resources to reach their goals, the occurrence of conflicts is inevitable. Therefore it is of highest importance to have an efficient mechanism to solve such conflicts. While other models in the literature present solutions for conflict resolution based on centralized and distributed algorithms, our proposal is to solve the conflicts in a hierarchical manner. The proposed model is based on the application of Social Laws and it was inspired by the theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract, being denominated Tri-Coord Model, that is, of Triple Coordination. We implemented a prototype based on the Tri-Coord Model, and applied to the task of oil and gas process floorplan design in a petroleum off-shore platform. In that domain the project is divided in several subsystems, with an agent being responsible for each sub-system. Our experiments indicate that the Tri-Coord Model can indeed yield a better performance in the development of a project. First, because it decreases the interruptions for accomplishment of meetings to solve conflicts related to customization of sub-system’s parameters. Second, because it removes the bottleneck associated to a centralized model for conflict resolution. Third, because through the regulator environment of Tri-Coord the agents behavior can be controlled implicitly by the environment. In that way the agents learn how to interact correctly and the independence between the environment and the agents turns the system more flexible.


Title:

MULTI-AGENT DYNAMIC SCHEDULING AND RE-SCHEDULING WITH GLOBAL TEMPORAL CONSTRAINTS

Author(s):

Joaquim Reis and Nuno Mamede

Abstract:

A co-ordination mechanism is proposed for multi-agent production-distribution co-operative scheduling problems, based on a purely temporal perspective. This mechanism is based on communication among pairs of client-supplier agents involved in the problem, and allows agents to locally perceive hard global temporal constraints. By exchanging limited specific information, the agents are able to recognise non over-constrained problems and, in that case, rule out non temporally-feasible solutions and establish an initial solution. The information is then used to guide re-scheduling and repair the initial solution and converge to a final one.


Title:

AN INTELLIGENT AGENT-BASED ORDER PLANNING FOR DYNAMIC NETWORKED ENTERPRISES

Author(s):

Américo L. Azevedo, César Toscano and João Bastos

Abstract:

There is currently an increasing interest in exploring the opportunities for competitive advantage that can be gained by reinforcing core competencies and innovative capabilities through networks of industrial and business partners.

This paper firstly identifies some of the gaps that exist within current information systems that claim to support eBusiness and eWork in networked enterprises and describes some of the general requirements of distributed and decentralised information systems for companies operating in networks. It goes on to cover some principles for the design of a distributed IS providing an advanced infrastructure to support general co-operation, particular methodologies for co-operative and collaborative planning and guidelines for network set-up and support.

The present work is one of the areas currently being delivered as part of the European IST consortium called Co-OPERATE. A distributed and decentralised information system, based on an architecture of agents and extensively using the internet, is being designed and implemented as a means to provide new and more powerful decision support tools for networked enterprises.


Title:

MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES FOR IMAGE ANALYSIS: RECOGNITION OF HAND ORDERS BY A MOBILE ROBOT

Author(s):

Basilio Sierra, Iñaki Rañó, Elena Lazkano and Unai Gisasola

Abstract:

The work described in this paper is part of a project in which the aim is to deliver hand signals to a mobile B21 robot equipped with a color digital camera that captures these signals in order to be interpreted as robotic instructions. To carry out this objective, we first need to distinguish the hand and its position in order to achieve the semantics of the order given to the robot. To identify the hand from the background, we search for the skin colored pixels in the picture. In this paper the task is presented as a machine learning classification problem in which the goal is to determine, given a general picture, which of the pixels corresponds to the hand and which of them compose the background. Results of the classification algorithms used are converted to black and white images, where the white pixels indicate the hand and the black pixels indicate the background. We have used different Machine Learning algorithms and compared the accuracy of different approaches used by the Machine Learning community.


Title:

A KNOWLEDGE-ACQUISITION METHODOLOGY FOR A BLAST FURNACE EXPERT SYSTEM USING MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

Author(s):

Eugenia Díaz, Javier Tuya and Faustino Obeso

Abstract:

This paper describes a methodology for obtaining the knowledge that an expert system needs for controlling a blast furnace as if it were an expert operator. The methodology separates useful knowledge from erroneous knowledge and refines the resulting rules so as to achieve a manageable and effective rules system.


Title:

USING VIRTUAL REALITY DATA MINING FOR NETWORK MANAGEMENT

Author(s):

K.E. Thornton and C. Radix

Abstract:

In this paper a Virtual Reality Data Mining (VRDM) tool is described which has been developed over the past two years in order to provide network management of ATM networks. The tool enables network data capture, and visualization of this data. A demonstration of the tool may be found at :- http://www.durham.ac.uk/CompSci/research/dmg. In our work we have reduced the time costs of the use of VR environments by combining approaches taken in Functional Programming and Data Mining. This has led to the production of a VRDM tool which enables rapid, focused analysis of network information at a required layer, and element, of a network. The tool we describe is the first application of Virtual Reality for network management via the use of embedded, distributed (parallelized), Data Mining algorithms.


Title:

ONTOLOGY-DRIVE VIRTUAL PRODUCTION NETWORK CONFIGURATION: A CONCEPT AND CONSTRAINT-OBJECT-ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Author(s):

Alexander V. Smirnov

Abstract:

Interest in global businesses and such a new form of co-operation as Virtual Production Network (VPNet) is growing along with increasing use of Internet-based engineering and management technologies, and the trend towards VPNet data & knowledge management. Ontology-drive approach for VPNet configuration is a new approach to configuration of global production network in order to improve knowledge efficiency for decision making over total VPNet facility life-time. A kernel of this approach is a distributed multi-level constraint satisfaction technology based on a shared constraint-object-oriented knowledge domain model "product – process - resources". This paper discusses a generic methodology of VPNet configuration management and ontology-drive information support based on Knowledge Management Technology for distributed decision making.


Title:

CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION AMONG INTENTIONAL AGENTS

Author(s):

Fernando Lopes, Nuno Mamede, A. Q. Novais and Helder Coelho

Abstract:

Negotiation has been extensively discussed in management science, economic, and social psychology. Recent growing interest in artificial agents and their potential application in areas such as electronic commerce has given increased importance to automated negotiation. This paper defines the social concept of conflict of interests, presents a formal prenegotiation model that acknowledges the role of conflict as a driving force for negotiation, and introduces a generic negotiation mechanism that handles multi-party, multi-issue and single or repeated rounds.


Title:

QUANTIFICATION OF THE EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT OF THE INTELLIGENCE USING THE CLASSIC AND FUZZY LOGIC

Author(s):

Lucimar F. de Carvalho, Roberto Rabello, Rosane R. de Morais, Sílvia M. Nassar and Cristiane Koehler

Abstract:

The objective of this paper is to integrate and compare the results of several tests of Intelligence Quotient (IQ). To Integrate through the use of a software that works the classic logic in the identification of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) and compare the tests of IQ, after the identification of EI through the quantification of three scales: Wechsler of Adult Intelligence Scale (Wais), Stanford Binet and Progressive Matrices using the modeling of the fuzzy logic. The software can be used to quantify the people's emotional capacity – an important factor in the development of IQ, howener it should not be used for the definitive diagnosis, but for aid to the taking of decision.


Title:

IMPLEMENTATION AND APPLICATION OF FUZZY CASE-BASED EXPERT SYSTEM

Author(s):

Du Jianfeng and Song Junde

Abstract:

Simulating the thought and inference of human being is an important methodology to develop the knowledge-based intelligent system. This paper researches on the implementation techniques of fuzzy casebased expert system (FC-ES). The emphasis is put on the design and implementation of fuzzy case inference engine (FC-IE). This paper creates the structure of frame-based classified fuzzy case representation, gives the definition of one case searching principle, puts forward two kinds practical fuzzy case matching algorithm. Taking the mobile communication network optimization as one application of FC-ES, one example is presented to prove the feasibility and efficiency of FC-IE.


Title:

WINWIN DECISION SUPPORT FRAMEWORK: A CASE STUDY ON STUDENTS’ IN-COURSE-ASSESSMENT IN A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING MODULE

Author(s):

Peter K Oriogun and R Mikusauskas

Abstract:

This paper investigated how a particular group of students implemented the WinWin decision support framework in the resolution of conflicts through negotiation after the stakeholders have had the opportunity to raise issues, select options and finally arriving at a negotiated agreements satisfying all the parties involved. A statistical analysis of students' In-course-Assessment (ICA) for the module Software Engineering for Computer Science (IM283) is presented, and, the paper is proposing the studens’ Negotiated Incremental Model (NIM) as a software process model for developing software in a semester framework.


Title:

MODEL MANAGEMENT FACILITIES FOR CYBERDSS

Author(s):

Jamilin Jais, H. Selamat, M. Azim A. Ghani ,A. Mamat, Zarina A. Rahman and H. Hussein

Abstract:

Model management in cyber decision support systems (Cyber DSS) is a new approach to problem-solving. This is because professional judgement and insight are critical in decision-making. DSS is designed to support a manager's skill at all stages of decision-making such as problem identification, choosing relevant data to work with, picking an appropriate approach to be used in making the decision and evaluating the alternative course of action. In complex decision situations, it will often be necessary to coordinate the application of multiple decision models for solving a problem. DSS need a model management component that handles the tasks of identifying appropriate models from a problem description, sequencing their application, and in substantiating them with the necessary data.


Title:

SARPlan: A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR CANADIAN SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS

Author(s):

Irène Abi-Zeid

Abstract:

We present SARPlan, a decision support system designed to assist search mission coordinators (SMC) of the Canadian Forces in the optimal planning of search and rescue (SAR) missions. SARPlan is a geographic information system that provides an optimal allocation of the available search effort. The optimization modules are based on search theory and on Constraint Satisfaction Programming. Statistical models for determining the search object location distributions are also included. The anticipated benefits of SARPlan include speeding up search and rescue operations hence increasing the chances of finding lost aircraft and survivors, resulting in saved lives. In addition to being a new tool for the SMC, SARPlan introduces new elements to the current working procedures.


Title:

THE FIRST TAX RETURN ASSESSMENT EXPERT SYSTEM IN SWITZERLAND

Author(s):

Marco Bettoni and Georges Fuhrer

Abstract:

In realising the first Tax Return Assessment Expert System in Switzerland we had first to make a convincing business case for an AI innovation in a traditional governmental environment, secondly to show in the daily business environment that what can be demonstrated to be viable in theory does also work in practice, thirdly to minimize the gap between the tacit knowledge in the head of assessment experts and the explicit model of expertise that specifies the domain knowledge and finally to minimize the gap between the specified expert knowledge and the system knowledge formalized in the knowledge base. We present the project, our approach to meeting these challenges, the current state of the productive system and a sketch of the final system under development.


Title:

A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF A NEW CLASSIFICATION TO BUILD HOMOGENEOUS PATIENT’S GROUPS IN HOME-BASED CARE

Author(s):

Céline Robardet and Christine Verdier

Abstract:

In the context of home based care evaluation, we propose a new methodology for creating homogeneous groups of patients. This tool has the particularity of providing two related partitions, one that gathers patients with similar descriptors, and the other that groups together the descriptors, which characterized similar patients. The two partitions are linked by the fact that at each set of descriptors fits a set of patients. These groups can be used for any types of evaluation in health care: cost, quality of care and so on.


Title:

THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT FEATURE SETS ON THE WEB PAGE CATEGORIZATION PROBLEM USING THE ITERATIVE CROSS-TRAINING ALGORITHM

Author(s):

Nuanwan Soonthornphisaj and Boonserm Kijsirikul

Abstract:

The paper presents the effects of different feature sets on the Web page categorization problem. These features are words appearing in the content of a Web page, words appearing on the hyperlinks, which link to the page and words appearing on every headings in the page. The experiments are conducted using a new algorithm called the Iterative Cross-Training algorithm (ICT) which was successfully applied to Thai Web page identification. The main concept of ICT is to iteratively train two sub-classifiers by using unlabeled examples in crossing manner. We compare ICT against supervised naï ve Bayes classifier and Co-Training classifier. The experimental results show that ICT obtains the highest performance and the heading feature is considerably succeed in helping classifiers to build the correct model used in the Web page categorization task.


Title:

COMPUTER AUGMENTED COMMUNICATION IN COOPERATIVE GROUPS

Author(s):

Jean-Philippe Kotowicz

Abstract:

Companies are plunged into an unstable and internationalised environment. This environment evolves very fast technologically and the companies have to adapt themselves to it. The methods and tools of work organization can benefit from new technologies of communication to return these more effective adaptations. We think that information and cooperation mechanisms are going to move massively from a structured information system towards a communication system without any a priori structure. A new type of software will be then necessary to disambiguate, to facilitate, to structure and to allow complex searches in the exchanges arising  among the actors (human beings and software agents) of a cooperative sociotechnical system. We thus propose a system of communication mediation and of memories companies management, based on a multi-agent architecture. This architecture allows a use adapted to the "professional" activities of tool users associated to the various levels of language treatment.


Title:

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM SUBSPECIALTIES AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Author(s):

Sean Eom

Abstract:

This is a comprehensive study, that, by means of an empirical assessment of the DSS literature, systematically identifies the DSS reference disciplines and traces how concepts and findings by researchers in the contributing disciplines have been picked up by DSS researchers to be applied, extended, and refined in the development of DSS research subspecialties. Cluster analysis was employed to an author cocitation frequency matrix derived from a comprehensive database of the DSS literature over the period of 1970

through 1993. Twelve clusters were uncovered consisting of six major areas of DSS research (group DSS, foundations, model management, user interfaces, implementation, and multiple criteria DSS) and six contributing disciplines (multiple criteria decision making, cognitive science, organization science, artificial intelligence, group decision making, and systems science). This study concludes that artificial intelligence has made important contributions to the development of foundational concepts, model management, and multiple criteria decision support systems.


Title:

CASE-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Abdel-Badeeh M. Salem and Nadia Baeshen

Abstract:

Information systems (IS) development methodologies are aimed at improving the management and control of development process, structuring it, reducing its complexity, and standardising both the process and resulting product. Many of IS development methodologies have been developed over the years, some from practice and some from theory. Recently artificial intelligence researchers have begun to investigate the usage of the case-based reasoning (CBR) methodology in improving human decision making. CBR means reasoning from experiences or "old cases" in an effort to solve problems, critique solutions, and explain anomalous situations. This paper will explore what CBR methodology involves and examine its processes and knowledge sources. These issues concerned with representing, indexing, organizing past cases, retrieving and modifying old cases, and assimilating new ones. Moreover, the paper discusses the potential role of the CBR methodology in the organizational knowledge management approach, and in the lessons learned information systems.


Title:

IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DECISION MAKING IN SOFTWARE PROJECTS

Author(s):

I. Ramos Román, J. Riquelme Santos and J. Aroba Páez

Abstract:

The Simulators of Software Development Projects based on dynamic models have supposed a significant advance in front of the traditional techniques of estimate. These simulators enable to know the evolution of a project before, during and after the execution of the same one. But its use in the estimate of the project before beginning the execution, has been braked by the great number of attributes of the project that it is necessary to know previously. In this paper are presented the improvements that have been added to the simulator developed in our department to facilitate the use of them, and a new improvement obtained when using machine learning and fuzzy logic techniques with the databases generated by the simulator. In this last case, the project manager can know, in function of the decisions that he takes, the level of execution of the project objectives.


Title:

DEVELOPING THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR KNOWLEDGE BASED ENTERPRISES

Author(s):

Igor T. Hawryszkiewycz

Abstract:

Knowledge management is now emerging as an important area of interest in most business systems. It is particularly important in distributed organizations where knowledge must be shared across distance.

Knowledge management goes beyond simply keeping explicit documents and providing data mining and search facilities. It must also provide the infrastructure where people can readily collaborate and combine explicit knowledge with their tacit knowledge to create new knowledge or to carry out their work more effectively. Furthermore such collaboration must be an intrinsic part of any business process rather than a process on its own. This paper defines the general environment of knowledge management within distributed business processes and the kinds of computer systems to support it. It then describes a way of analyzing knowledge needs followed by an implementation.


Title:

DATA REDUCTION TO IMPROVE KNOWLEDGE EXTRACTION

Author(s):

Maria de Fátima Rodrigues and Pedro R. Henriques

Abstract:

Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) is a challenging machine learning application, because it must be a very efficient process with yet high understandability and reliability requirements. First, the learning task shall find all valid and non-redundant rules (rule learning). Second, the datasets for learning are very large.

When learning from very large databases, the reduction of complexity is of highest importance. We highlight the advantages of combining attribute value discretization with rough set theory to find a subset of attributes that lets the KDD process discover more useful patterns. We present the evaluation of such approach by providing results from the application of a classification algorithm to various public domain datasets.


Title:

DESIGNING INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEMS: A BAYESIAN APPROACH

Author(s):

Hugo Gamboa and Ana Fred

Abstract:

This paper proposes a model and an architecture for designing intelligent tutoring system using Bayesian Networks. The design model of an intelligent tutoring system is directed towards the separation between the domain knowledge and the tutor shell. The architecture is composed by a user model, a knowledge base, an adaptation module, a pedagogical module and a presentation module. Bayesian Networks are used to assess user’s state of knowledge and preferences, in order to suggest pedagogical options and recommend future steps in the tutor. The proposed architecture is implemented in the Internet, enabling its use as an e-learning tool. An example of an intelligent tutoring system is shown for illustration purposes.


Title:

OPTIMIZING USER PREFERENCES WHILE SCHEDULING MEETINGS

Author(s):

Rebecca Y. M. Wong and Hon Wai Chun

Abstract:

Meeting scheduling is a routine office task, which is highly time-consuming and tedious. During the scheduling process, we need to consider timing and the participant preferences (such as preference on meeting time, date or day of the week). Being able to model and make use of individual user preferences during scheduling is probably one of the key decisive factors in the acceptance of these automated systems. This paper describes the user preference model we have created and the results of simulating our meeting scheduling algorithms in a set of experiments. Based on software agent architecture, the meeting scheduling is performed through negotiation among a set of software agents. From our experiments, we found that higher quality schedules were generated when knowledge of user preferences are passed to a coordinator and used during the negotiation. The results had higher average preference levels, less deviation from expected schedule and a more even distribution of these deviations among participants.


Title:

AFFECT-SENSITIVE MULTI-MODAL MONITORING IN UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING: ADVANCES AND CHALLENGES

Author(s):

Maja Pantic and Leon J. M. Rothkrantz

Abstract:

The topic of automatic interpretation of human communicative behaviour, that is, giving machines the ability to detect, identify, and understand human interactive cues, has become a central topic in machine vision research, natural language processing research and in AI research in general. The catalyst behind this recent ‘human-centred computing hoopla’ is the fact that automating monitoring and interpretation of human communicative behaviour is essential for the design of future smart environments, next generation perceptual user interfaces, and ubiquitous computing in general. The key technical goals concern determining of the context in which the user acts, that is, disclosing in an automatic way where is the user, what is he doing, and how is he feeling, so that the computer can act appropriately. This paper is pertained with the last of these issues, that is, with providing machines with the ability to detect and interpret user’s affective states. It surveys the past work done in tackling this problem, provides taxonomy of the problem domain, and discusses the research challenges and opportunities.


Title:

EXPERT SYSTEMS FOR DISORDERS PREDICTION

Author(s):

Soliman A. Edrees

Abstract:

This paper presents an expert system that uses the climatic changes such as temperature, frost, hail, storms, wind, downpour and other hazardous conditions to predict infestation severity and populations of plant disorders. In addition to prediction process the expert systems gives a set of advice (i.e. chemical and/or agricultural operations) to the growers. The system advice should be applied during current season to control the predicted disorders or applied next season to avoid disorders infestation.


Title:

QUALITATIVE REASONIG FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT BY CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

Author(s):

Antonio J. Suárez, Pedro J. Abad, Rafael M. Gasca and J. A. Ortega

Abstract:

This paper presents a new approach on the problem of the estimation and planning in the software development projects (SDP). Therefore, a qualitative simulation of a part of the dynamic system of Abdel- Hamid, (subsystem of human resources) will be carried out. We will model this subsystem like a CSP (Constrains satisfaction problem), that is, it will be modelled as a set of restrictions that should be full satisfied. Next, the associated program will be generated under the constraint-programming paradigm. This will simulate the dynamic subsystem and will give as result all its possible behaviours. This way we achieve to improve and to concrete the qualitative information that we can get to obtain of such a subsystem.


Title:

OPTIMISING THE GROUPING OF EMAIL USERS TO SERVERS USING INTELLIGENT DATA ANALYSIS

Author(s):

Steve Counsell, Xiaohui Liu, Stephen Swift, Allan Tucker and Janet McFall

Abstract:

For a large commercial business employing as many as twelve thousand staff, an efficient email service is of paramount importance. This is particularly true when large volumes of data are being sent by users to other users located on different servers in the same site, or between users located on servers in different sites. Choice of how to allocate users to servers is equally important. A rule-of-thumb approach used to allocate users to servers, based on the likelihood of one user (or group of users) emailing other users (or groups), will rarely produce an optimal solution in terms of minimising internal network traffic. In this paper, intelligent data analysis is used to optimise the configuration of users to servers in order to minimise internal traffic flow across the network. A hill-climbing algorithm is used to identify the optimal arrangement of users to servers within one site of a large accountancy organisation, based on data from the log files of all emails sent between users in the same site over a two month period. A metric is introduced by which each potential configuration provided by the hill-climbing algorithm can be measured for its fitness. Results show that for a single site with over two thousand employees, a forty-two percent reduction in interserver traffic between users within that site was achievable over that two month period; this represented approximately seventeen percent of all messages sent between users in that period.


Title:

TOWARDS SCALABLE MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Ralph Deters

Abstract:

The multi-agent research community is currently faced with a paradox. While promoting the use of agents as the silver bullet for various software engineering problems, it faces difficulties in presenting successful deployments. Despite the countless multi-agent prototypes that have been developed, the number of actually deployed and in use MAS is at best very small [9]. And as long as multi-agent frameworks continue to encounter difficulties in scaling up, it seems unlikely that this will change. This paper has two aims. First, it is an attempt to relate the scalability problem of multi-agent systems with that of executing large numbers of concurrent threads. Second, it evaluates a CORBA/Java middle-ware layer for transparent access to distributed resources. Using such a layer, it is possible, to build multi-agent systems that require large numbers of concurrent threads and significant memory resources.


Title:

A GDSS FOR SUPPORTING MANAGEMENT DECISIONS

Author(s):

Alberto Carneiro

Abstract:

This article is concerned with the decision process and examines the relationships among strategic alternatives’ evaluation, groupware technology, and group decision support systems (GDSS). The whole evaluation and comparison process includes two phases: the establishment and selection of basic strategic evaluation criteria and the appreciation of the ranking of the strategic alternatives. A GDSS model has been developed and used to support the evaluation of strategic alternatives. The experimental results show that the proposed model produces better results in evaluating strategic alternatives with multicriteria methods. The major findings are discussed and directions for future research are suggested.


Title:

AN AGENT-BASED ARCHITECTURE OF FUTURE INTEGRATED OPERATIONAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Blaga N. Iordanova

Abstract:

Conflict-free planning for air traffic is a new Integrated Operational Decision Support (IODS) policy for airlines and air traffic control and management both in Oceanic Airspace and in Domestic Airspace. It can be accomplished by an agent-based architecture of a global network of new generation IODS Systems for air traffic management. It puts forward an advanced air space-time management supported by an agentbased monitoring of flights and planning of their conflict-resolutions off-line. It aims at securing the efficiency of airspace use and of air traffic control operations supported by an IODS for pilots and controllers through satellite communications.


Title:

A LOGIC PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO NEGOTIATION FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN BDI AGENTS SYSTEM

Author(s):

Myung-Jin Lee and Jin-Sang Kim

Abstract:

In most Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), each agent needs to be designed to negotiate with other agents and to reach a mutual acceptable state where agents can avoid any goal conflicts due to theirs interdependencies upon others such as some price conflicts in electronic commerce systems. Many problematic situations, however, may arise such that an agent can meet goal conflicts among agents and cannot possess a complete set of knowledge about others. Negotiation provides a solution to these problems even though agents’ knowledge is not complete, and it is also used to allocate tasks or resources in goal inconsistency states. We present a logic programming framework for negotiation in which agents are represented on the basis of three major components: Belief, Desire, and Intention (BDI). Further, we suggest a negotiation mechanism to resolve goal conflicts accompanied with each agent’s problem solving activities in cooperative MAS. We implement the proposed negotiation mechanism and test it using a simple example in InterProlog, a Java front-end and functional enhancement for Prolog, based on a variant of FIPA Agent Communication Language (ACL) specification and its interaction protocols.


Title:

MULTIVARIATE DISTRIBUTION GENERATION

Author(s):

Symon Podvalny, Alexander Kalinin and Irina Chernikova

Abstract:

There is wide variety of the classification methods in decision support systems. Multivariate testdistributions with given correlation matrix allows to determine a quality of the classification algorithms by their exactness, speed, noise-rigidity and other appears. In order to generate such distributions we need to generate the initial random vector with independent components and given distribution law, to define covariance matrix for desired distribution and to find the matrix of linear transformation from initial vector to desired. The first problem is wide known in literature and the solutions are presented in various mathematical libraries. But the last (creation matrix of linear transformation) is more complex. In order to solve it we need to implement the Cholesky decomposition for initial correlation matrix. These theoretical calculations are verifying by experiments of comparative calculations 2D/3D distribution. For the task of generation one-dimension distributions and execution of Cholesky decomposition we use Java language and “Colt” scientific library.


Title:

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AS ENTERPRISE PERPETUM MOBILE?

Author(s):

Andrea Kõ and András Gábor

Abstract:

Many companies agree that their success in a micro and macro level is depending on how fast they can response for the challenges of the knowledge society. One interesting area is the levereging human capital, efficient compensation of knowledge workers. The paper introduces a knowledge based model of compensation system. Building the knowledge base the enterprise ontology creation was followed. The applied methodology is the CommonKADS. The paper discusses the maintenance conditions of a cafeteria benefit system.


Title:

USER MODEL ISSUES IN WIDE SCOPE I.T.S.

Author(s):

António Silva, Zita A. Vale and Carlos Ramos

Abstract:

Typically, the user models used in systems like Intelligent Tutors tend to be exclusively controlled by the system itself, due to the constraints posed by the specific nature of the tutoring process. Therefore, it’s not common for the trainee to be allowed to inspect and control his/her model's contents. In order to make the evaluation of the tutoring process a cooperative task between user and system, adequate techniques should be devised. This paper describes early attempts to build a user model module for an Intelligent Tutor to be used in the training of electrical network Control Center operators. Furthermore, this user model component tries to address the different demands of two distinct phases of this tutoring environment: the conceptual/procedural knowledge acquisition phase and the drill and practice phase.


Title:

AN ALGORITHM FOR DETERMINING SUBSPACES CONTAINING CLUSTERS WITH MULTIPLE MINIMUM DENSITY THRESHOLDS FOR NUMERICAL DATA

Author(s):

P. R. Rao

Abstract:

Clustering algorithms are used in database mining for finding interesting patterns in high dimensional data. These are useful in many applications of knowledge discovery in databases. Recently, there have been attempts to find clusters embedded in the subspaces of high dimensional data. CLIQUE is one such algorithm. In this algorithm, each attribute is partitioned into user-given number of intervals. Each interval is called a unit. A unit is called dense if it contains a user-given fraction of total data points. Thus, the denseness of a unit is determined by a single user-given number, for all the attributes. A single denseness criterion for all the attributes implicitly means that all the attributes in the data set have similar frequencies. This is not the case in some real-life applications. In this paper the user is allowed to specify multiple denseness ,one for each attribute, to reflect the nature of their varied frequencies. An algorithm is designed for identification of subspaces that contain clusters, given the user-specified denseness value for each attribute.


Title:

FUZZY REASONING IN JESS: THE FUZZYJ TOOLKIT AND FUZZYJESS

Author(s):

Robert Orchard

Abstract:

Jess, the Java™ Expert System Shell, provides a rich and flexible environment for creating rule-based systems. Since it is written in Java it provides platform portability, extensibility and easy integration with other Java code or applications. The rules of Jess allow one to build systems that reason about knowledge that is expressed as facts. However, these facts and rules cannot capture any uncertainty or imprecision that may be present in the domain that is being modelled. This paper describes an extension to Jess that allows some forms of uncertainty to be captured and represented using fuzzy sets and fuzzy reasoning. We describe the NRC FuzzyJ Toolkit, a Java API that allows one to express fuzzy concepts using fuzzy variables, fuzzy values and fuzzy rules. Next, we describe a Java API called FuzzyJess that integrates the FuzzyJ Toolkit and Jess. Finally, we show the modifications that were made to the Jess code to allow this extension (and others with similar requirements) to be added with modest effort and with minimal or no impact as new releases of Jess are delivered.


Title:

MODELLING THE GENERATION OF CUSTOMISED POETRY IN JESS

Author(s):

Pablo Gervás and Raúl Murciano

Abstract:

The present paper presents an application that composes formal poetry in Spanish in a semiautomatic interactive fashion. JASPER is a forward reasoning rule-based system that obtains from the user an intended message, the desired metric, a choice of vocabulary, and a corpus of verses; and, by intelligent adaptation of selected examples from this corpus using the given words, carries out a prose-to-poetry translation of the given message. In the composition process, JASPER combines natural language generation and a set of construction heuristics obtained from formal literature on Spanish poetry.


Title:

IMPLEMENTING BUSINESS RULES IN AN OBJECT-ORIENTED SYSTEM USING JESS

Author(s):

Permanand Mohan and Sheik Yussuff

Abstract:

This paper describes how the Jess expert system shell can be used to implement business rules in an objectoriented system. It presents a simple taxonomy of business rules and provides implementation details for the rules in this taxonomy. The paper shows that compared to other approaches, the Jess-based implementation is an attractive alternative since it supports the separation of domain objects from the business rules. Jess also allows rules to be specified in a declarative fashion, which is regarded as the best way to incorporate business rules in an information system.


Title:

ONTOLOGY NEGOTIATION USING JESS

Author(s):

Sidney C. Bailin and Walt Truszkowski

Abstract:

This paper describes a framework for ontology negotiation between information agents. Ontologies are declarative (data driven) expressions of an agent’s “world”: the objects, operations, facts, and rules that constitute the logical space within which an agent performs. Ontology negotiation enables agents to cooperate in performing a task, even if they are based on different ontologies. We have developed an Ontology Negotiation Protocol (ONP) and implemented it in the Java Expert System Shell (Jess). In this paper we describe the ONP and some of the issues that arise in its implementation in Jess.


Area 3 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

Title:

USING XML AND FRAMEWORKS TO DEVELOP INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Toacy C. de Oliveira, Ivan Mathias Filho and Carlos J. P. de Lucena

Abstract: To accomplish the software development time and cost constraints this development should take place in an environment that helps the designer to deal with the large amount of concepts obtained during the domain analysis phase and the semantic gap between those concepts and the object oriented design model due to their different levels of abstraction. This paper describes the main features of an environment designed to support the development of IS software based on framework reuse and XML specifications.

Title:

DEFINING PATTERN CLASS STEREOTYPES IN UML

Author(s):

Ludwik Kuzniarz and Maciej Piasecki

Abstract: Stereotype in UML was introduced as a mean to allow its extension by defining specific semantics for a chosen modelling element. Possible usage of stereotype is constrained by the type of model element to which it can be applied and usually also by the context defined by configuration of other model elements. The paper examines some basic proper-ties that characterize stereotypes. Three categories of stereotypes are examined and elaborated in more detail. These include their characteristics, the way of defining them formally within the UML, and finally their usage as a mean for presentation of models in more compact form and as a set of ‘reusable’ elements for modelling.

Title:

AN OBJECT-ORIENTED FRAMEWORK FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISTRIBUTED INDUSTRIAL PROCESS MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Kleanthis Thramboulidis, Chris Tranoris and Chris Koulamas

Abstract: Software industry increasingly faces today the challenge of creating complex custom-made Industrial Process Measurement and Control System (IPMCS) applications within time and budget, while high competition forces prices down. A lot of proprietary solutions address the engineering process, and evolving standards exploit the function block construct as the main building block for the development of IPMCSs. However existing approaches are procedural-like and they do not exploit the maximum benefits introduced by the object technology. In the context of this paper, new technologies in Software Engineering that assist in improving the efficiency of software development process are considered. An Object-oriented framework is defined, to improve the engineering process of IPMCSs in terms of reliability, development time and degree of automation. This framework embodies an abstract design capable to provide solutions for the family of distributed IPMCSs. It will attempt to increase reusability in both architecture and functionality by addressing issues such as interoperability and integrated development of distributed IPMCSs.

Title:

FLOW COMPOSITION MODELING WITH MOF

Author(s):

Marin Litoiu, Mike Starkey and Marc-Thomas Schmidt

Abstract: With the current unprecedented e-business explosion, business analysts and enterprise software architects alike are faced with developing increasingly complex business processes or applications, while time to market gets shorter and shorter. Separating the application domain concerns (such as the flow of data and control) from implementation issues reduces the complexity and allows different roles to coexist in the life cycle of a software system. This paper describes a meta-model that allows the problem domain architect to define flows of data and control at any granularity level. To allow easier interchangeability among the tools or run times, flows are based on OMG’s Meta Object Facility and use XMI as an interchange format.

Title:

DOMAIN ORIENTED FRAMEWORK CONSTRUCTION

Author(s):

Ivan Mathias Filho, Toacy Cavalcante de Oliveira and Carlos J. P. de Lucena

Abstract: Object-oriented Application Frameworks is a powerful reuse technique that allows the sharing of requirements, design and code among a set of application systems instantiated from an original framework. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to the role of an explicit Domain Analysis phase in the framework construction process. This paper describes an approach where the requirements capture for an entire application family takes a central role in the framework development, thus facilitating verification processes and providing reliable documentation that will assist the instantiation step.

Title:

MANAGING PROCESSES THROUGH A BASE OF REUSABLE COMPONENTS

Author(s):

Bernard Coulette, Xavier Cregut, Dong Thi Bich Thuy and Tran Dan Thu

Abstract: RHODES is a Process centred Software Engineering Environment (PSEE) that allows to describe software development processes and to control their enactment. To make process reuse efficient in such PSEE, we think that it is necessary to go towards an engineering of reusable process components. To efficiently store and retrieve such components, we have defined a Process Component Base offering classical database functionalities, especially consistency properties. In this paper, we first describe the RHODES PSEE principle, then we define reusable process components (patterns), and we focus on the definition of component consistency, particularly the topological consistency based on relationships among constituents of a component. The Process Component Base is implemented over the Jasmine object-oriented database.

Title:

ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS: SPECIFYING THE LINKS AMONG PROJECT DATA MODELS USING CATEGORY THEORY

Author(s):

Michael Johnson and C. N. G. Dampney

Abstract: Major enterprise information systems are frequently specified by integrating information models which have been developed in separate divisions of the enterprise. These models, often called project data models, embody the information that needs to be modelled in the enterprise, but they can be difficult to link because when common information is stored in different divisions it is frequently stored in significantly different forms. This paper describes a new technique, based on category theory, that uses the specification of logically data independent views to link project data models. The link mechanism is powerful because the use of views permits data in radically different forms to be linked, and a new solution to the view update problem allows the linking mechanism to be embodied as code, thus allowing the linked data models to be implemented as interoperating information systems. The paper is somewhat theoretical since it describes the foundation for a new technique, but the methods described here are being tested in large consultancies including the enterprise models for a government department, an oil company, and a telecommunications carrier.

Title:

COORDINATES: A LANGUAGE FOR ENTERPRISE MODELING

Author(s):

G. Mannarino, H. Leone and G. Henning

Abstract: Information requirements identification and specification are among the most important phases of the software development process. Both, the context in which the information system will be implemented and the impact it will have on the domain have to be evaluated, if the right system is to be constructed. Models are common tools for abstracting a domain. In particular, the complexity of production organizations turns enterprise models a prerequisite for deriving the organization information requirements. This paper presents a language for enterprise modeling. The language integrates the Task, Domain and Dynamic views of an organization. The Task view abstracts business and production processes in terms of a set of tasks that transform different resources in order to achieve their goals. The Domain view describes the static relationships among the organization entities and the Dynamic view puts emphasis on the interaction and evolution of resources when they participate in different tasks, assuming specific roles.

Title:

A KNOWLEDGE CREATION STRATEGY TO ENRICH ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS WITH ENTERPRISE-SPECIFIC TACIT KNOWLEDGE

Author(s):

Syed Sibte Raza Abidi and Yu-N Cheah

Abstract: Enterprise information systems need to leverage enterprise knowledge management methodologies and tools to formally manage and capitalize on enterprise-wide knowledge resources. In this paper, we propose a novel knowledge creation strategy, together with its computational implementation, to (a) capture tacit knowledge possessed by domain experts in an enterprise; and (b) crystallize the captured tacit knowledge so that it can be added to the enterprise’s existing knowledge info-structures for usage by front-end enterprise information or knowledge systems. The formulation of the strategy purports a synergy between artificial intelligence techniques for representation, reasoning and learning purposes, with existing concepts and practices in knowledge management.

Title:

CEM: COLLABORATIVE ENTERPRISES MODELING

Author(s):

Kayo Iizuka and M. J. Matsumoto

Abstract: Collaborative enterprises modeling (CEM) is defined as enterprise modeling for multiple and collaborative enterprises. In this paper, we propose a framework for collaborative business process modeling. The model emphasis the supply chain relationship connection among firms. This framework will suggest analyzing an effective method of information exchange between enterprises in a supply chain, because this method must be different for inter enterprise relationships under the given conditions. To develop the model, we will discuss already conducted survey studies about enterprise relationships in Japan. The trends shown in the main findings of the survey are that trust and accountability affect the quality and precision of the information. That means that those factors will affect supply chain performance. CEM with supply chain relationship connection will result in the ability to build effective supply chain business processes and information systems in the real world.

Title:

A CONTRACT-BASED THEORY OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Claudine Toffolon and Salem Dakhli

Abstract: Heavy investments in IT made by organizations have to be questioned regarding their effectiveness notably in terms of productivity growth. In that way, the term “software crisis” has been frequently coined since the 60’s to allude to a set of problems encountered in IS development activities. Since the hardware aspects of computers and networks are well mastered within almost all organizations, the problems with IT are in great part related to information systems (IS) and in particular to their computerized part called software systems. Well-known models of IS present some weaknesses related on the one hand, to the gap separating theories and frameworks of IS and their computerization process and on the other hand, to the development tools and languages which generally do not rely on theoretical foundations. In this paper, we propose a framework which analyze IS as contracts linking organizational actors involved in operational and decision-making processes. Such contracts are related to goods and services and information flows exchanged. This framework provides instruments which may be used to define a software development process which eliminate at least partly many important causes of the “software crisis”.

Title:

DESIGNING USABLE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS

Author(s):

Nuno Jardim Nunes and João Falcão e Cunha

Abstract: This paper describes an UML-based lightweight software development method that provides integration between usability engineering and conventional object-oriented development. Here we briefly introduce the Wisdom method and the different techniques used to improve the usability of software products developed by small software companies (SSDs). We present two UML based architectural models to leverage the usability aspects of software products and discuss the importance of participatory techniques to improve requirements gathering, taking advantage of the increased communication and access to end-users that we observed in SSDs. Finally, we provide several Wisdom artifacts based on a real-world web-application, illustrating the different UML notational extensions to support interactive system design.

Title:

HANDLING MUTUAL EXCLUSION IN UML CLASS DIAGRAMS

Author(s):

João Araújo and Ana Moreira

Abstract: UML is a standard modelling language that is able to specify a wide range of object-oriented concepts. However, there are some aspects that UML does not fully discuss. For example, UML has no mechanism to prevent the specification, for semantic reasons, of undesirable relationships. With the fast evolution of the requirements of our nowadays applications we cannot simply rely on omitting what we do not want to happen. We explicitly have to specify unwanted concepts. We are referring to the concept of mutually excluding classes. Moreover, the lack of formalisation compromises the precision of the specification of the concepts. By using formal description techniques, such as Object-Z, we can reason about the requirements and identify ambiguities and inconsistencies earlier in the development process. Particularly, the formal specification can be used through the software evolution. In general, we can say that formalising helps obtaining a more reliable system. Our aim is to specify precisely mutually excluding classes.

Title:

AN INTEGRATED COMPONENT-BASED APPROACH TO ENTERPRISE SYSTEM SPECIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Author(s):

Zoran Stojanovic, Ajantha Dahanayake and Henk Sol

Abstract: Component-Based Development (CBD) represents an advanced system development approach, capable for managing complexity and ever-changing demands in the business and IT environment. While many of the component technology solutions have been already settled in practice, of equal importance to their success are the methods and techniques closely aligned with CBD principles. Current methods do not offer a systematic and complete support for component-based way of thinking. This paper presents a new approach to CBD, integrating the component concept consistently into all phases and aspects of the enterprise system development. The approach combines the CBD paradigm and ISO Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP), providing a comprehensive component-based specification and development framework for building enterprise systems of nowadays.

Title:

BUSINESS PROCESSES EXTENSIONS TO UML PROFILE FOR BUSINESS MODELING

Author(s):

Pedro Sinogas, André Vasconcelos, Artur Caetano, João Neves, Ricardo Mendes and José Tribolet

Abstract: In today’s highly competitive global economy, the demand for high quality products manufactured at low costs with shorter cycle times has forced various industries to consider new product design, manufacturing and management strategies. To fulfill these requirements organizations have to become process-centered so they can maximize the efficiency of their value chain. The concept of business process is a key issue in the process-centered paradigm. In order to take the most out of the reengineering efforts and from the information technology, business processes must be documented, understood and managed. One way to do that is by efficiently modeling business processes. This paper proposes an extension to UML Profile for Business Modeling to include the concepts of business process.

Title:

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING WITH UML

Author(s):

Nuno Castela, José Tribolet, Alberto Silva and Arminda Guerra

Abstract: This paper focuses the reasons and advantages of the application of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in organizational architecture modeling. A presentation and description of the methodology to apply business modeling is made, namely, the organization of the modeling in views and the application of those views. A case study is presented, as an illustration.

Title:

RSHP: A SCHEME TO CLASSIFY INFORMATION IN A DOMAIN ANALYSIS ENVIRONMENT

Author(s):

Juan Llorens, José Miguel Fuentes and Irene Diaz

Abstract: This work presents the theoretic aspects of a new domain analysis technique. That technique tries to improve the fundamental aspects in domain analysis; it joins knowledge acquisition and knowledge classification in only one automatic step. Also this acquisition-organization knowledge process is made automatically. This property is so important in two aspects: First, the process was semi-automatic until now, with human help in key steps. Secondly, most domain analysis methods are manual, implying huge costs. The repository used in this technique is adapted to Unified Modeling Language (UML). That characteristic allows reusing all the information used in previous coding steps in an easily way.

Title:

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH OF MODELLING, TRANSFORMATION AND MEASUREMENT TO EVALUATE BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING

Author(s):

Geert Poels and Guido Dedene

Abstract: We present an approach that combines systems modelling with complexity measurement to evaluate business process complexity changes that are caused by Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Reduced business process complexity is one of the criteria typically used to evaluate the effectiveness of BPR. In our approach conceptual schemata are used to model the current and the envisioned business process. The complexity properties of the AS-IS and TO-BE schemata are measured using a suite of conceptual schema measures presented in the paper. The complexity changes caused by generic patterns of BPR, modelled as schema transformations, are also measured. As a 'proof of concept' the approach is applied to a reference framework for business transformation that is used in the context of a high-level, strategic approach to BPR.

Title:

A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING WIS DESIGN METHODOLOGIES

Author(s):

Cernuzzi Luca and González Magalí

Abstract: Actually, a waste range of methodologies is available for Web-based Information Systems (WIS) designers. So, may be very interesting for WIS designers to analyze or evaluate the existing methodology looking for the appropriate to use in each case. This study presents a proposal of a framework for the evaluation process of WIS design methodologies. The proposal, based on previous works, takes into consideration qualitative evaluation criteria employing quantitative methods. In order to clarify the proposal, this framework is also applied to a case study and some interesting aspects are analyzed from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective.

Title:

AN INFORMATION SYSTEM VIEW OF CONSISTENCY AND INTEGRITY IN ENTERPRISE OPERATIONS

Author(s):

Yoshiyuki Shinkawa and Masao J. Matsumoto

Abstract: Mining for association rules is one of the fundamental data mining methods. In this paper we describe how to efficiently integrate association rule mining algorithms with relational database systems. From our point of view direct access of the algorithms to the database system is a basic requirement when transferring data mining technology into daily operation. This is especially true in the context of large data warehouses, where exporting the mining data and preparing it outside the database system becomes annoying or even infeasible. The development of our own approach is mainly motivated by shortcomings of current solutions. We investigate the most challenging problems by contrasting the prototypical but somewhat academic association mining scenario from basket analysis with a real-world application. We thoroughly compile the requirements arising from mining an operative data warehouse at DaimlerChrysler. We generalize the requirements and address them by developing our own approach. We explain its basic design and give the details behind our implementation. Based on the warehouse, we evaluate our own approach together with commercial mining solutions. It turns out that regarding runtime and scalability we clearly outperform the commercial tools accessible to us. More important, our new approach supports mining tasks that are not directly addressable by commercial mining solutions.

Title:

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING BASED ON THE ONTOLOGY AND FIRST-ORDER LOGIC

Author(s):

Toshiya Hikita and Masao J. Matsumoto

Abstract: The current social, economic, and technical environments surrounding enterprises are undergoing a period of rapid change. Such changes produce permanent alterations to the information systems within enterprises. This paper proposes a framework for developing an adaptable system that anyone can change immediately when a new requirement arises from those changes. The adaptable system consists of a business process model, a requirement navigator, and a systems synthesizer. The business process model is constructed for clear and rigorous specifications of business processes in an enterprise. The model is structured by the Ontology, which is a framework to define concepts clearly, and formalized by First-Order Logic (FOL) to give rigorous syntax and semantics on the model. One of the important reasons to select FOL for expression of the model is that FOL has equivalency between provability and validity. This equivalency allowed verifying consistency of the model with theorem proving, which is a syntactic operation.

Title:

GEODA: A GEOGRAPHICAL OBJECT DIGITISING APPLICATION

Author(s):

Jesús D. Garcia-Consuegra, Luis Orozco, Guillermo Cisneros, Angel Martínez and Antonio Castillo

Abstract: In recent years, software developers have focused their efforts in adapting, or designing, novel applications able to take full advantage of the wide range facilities offered by the World Wide Web. Geographical Information System (GIS) applications are not exception to this trend. By using the World-Wide Web as underlying communications infrastructure, GIS applications can gain access to the large number of facilities provided by distributed heterogeneous GIS. In this paper we describe GEODA (GEographical Object Digitising Application) a prototype system to be deployed over the Internet. The design of GEODA follows a groupware approach allowing multiple users to jointly participate in the visualisation and processing of geographical data distributed across the Internet. The structure of GEODA has been based on the Object Oriented Programming paradigm. The use of Java technology ensures portability across platforms. The paper also summarizes related concepts of CSCW and Geographic Information Science, in order to understand similar experiences and justify the design criteria adopted in GEODA.

Title:

THE PATTCAR APPROACH TO CAPTURING PATTERNS FOR BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT

Author(s):

Isabel Seruca and Pericles Loucopoulos

Abstract: Patterns as a technology is in its infancy with few theoretical underpinnings. Most work published about patterns is based on practice. Indeed, the whole trust of patterns capturing and writing derives from experience. Realizing the difficulty associated with pattern development due to its empirical and knowledge-intensive nature, we propose a method to aid in the process of capturing and reusing patterns in a business domain. In this paper, we describe the first stage of the method dedicated to the capture of patterns. Our approach to pattern development is based on domain analysis principles and is processoriented, so as to ensure a progressive and increasing understanding of the business domain and the awareness of new opportunities for improving business. We report our experiences in applying the pattern development approach within the Clothing Manufacturing domain in the context of a business process improvement project.

Title:

RELYING ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TO MODEL WORKFLOW PROCESSES

Author(s):

Cirano Iochpe and Lucinéia Heloisa Thom

Abstract: According to the business literature, one can classify a social organization relying on a set of well-known structural features. Depending on the values taken by each of these features, one can conclude whether the type of a specific organization is functional, divisional, hybrid, matrix-like, or process-oriented. The organization type has strong influence upon the way business processes are executed. The workflow technology, on the other hand, aims at supporting the automation of the organization processes. However, most of today’s workflow modeling techniques does not consider those structural features in order to assist designers during the modeling process. The present paper discusses the possibility of using the knowledge of the organizational structure to support the workflow modeling process.

Title:

INTEGRATING ORGANIZATIONAL SEMIOTIC APPROACH WITH THE TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF PETRI NETS FOR BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING

Author(s):

Joseph Barjis and Samuel Chong

Abstract: This issue of business process modeling has been debated in numerous papers. Despite the widely available source of information, this area of study is still a poorly understood issue. In this paper a methodology is proposed for business process modeling. The methodology introduced in this paper aims to create a more clearer, formalized and comprehensible approach to business process modeling. In this methodology we combine two different methods and modeling techniques in order to propose a more complete approach. These two methods are the well-tested semiotic approach and Petri net modeling method and technique. The aim is to bridge the gap between the precision of capturing business requirements using the semiotic approach with the graphical time sequence of the Petri net method. In order to demonstrate applicability and appropriateness of the proposed approach, the paper considers a real life example. The example case was conducted in the Electro-Medics International b.v. (EMI).

Title:

THE USE OF FORMAL AND INFORMAL MODELS IN OBJECT-ORIENTED REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING

Author(s):

Linda Dawson

Abstract: Little is understood, or reported on the basis of research, of the use of object-oriented models and methods by practising professionals in the production of requirements specifications for commercial or industrial sized projects. This paper describes a research project and the findings from a set of six case studies that have been undertaken which examine the use of object-oriented models in professional requirements engineering practice. In these studies, it was found that the more formal models of object-orientation were rarely used to validate, or even clarify, the specification with clients or users. Rather, analysts tended to use informal models such as use cases or ad hoc diagrams, to communicate the specification to users. Formal models are more often used internally within the analysis team and for communicating the specification to the design team.

Title:

A CASE TOOL APPROACH FOR SOFTWARE PROCESS EVOLUTION

Author(s):

Mohamed. Ahmed-Nacer

Abstract: Software processes not only have a very long life, but they are incomplete and no deterministic. This explains that, all along a project, one is brought to modify the process during execution to redefine it or to complete it. This paper discusses evolution, an important feature in software processes. We present an evolution model that allows adapting software process dynamically to the new needs in order to correct inconsistencies found during execution, to modify some constraints or to act directly on the process execution. This approach is complementary to the modification of software process models that we have developed and which supports different evolution strategies.

Title:

ORGANIZATION OF ANALYSIS PATTERNS FOR EFFECTIVE REUSE

Author(s):

Maria João Ferreira and Pericles Loucopoulos

Abstract: Since the introduction of patterns in Computer Science, a large number of libraries of patterns for different domains have been identified. In most cases these patterns are represented in a ‘flat’ fashion making their use difficult especially when there is a large number of patterns to consider in a particular application. In this paper we propose both an analysis pattern classification scheme and an analysis pattern representation - usage perspective - for enhancing the reuse of analysis patterns. The proposed classification scheme associates a problem (embodied in an analysis pattern), to a set of pre-defined terms whereas the representation scheme -pattern template- provides the necessary information for a designer to evaluate and revise a solution embodied in an analysis pattern.

Title:

FROM SYSTEM TO TEXT

Author(s):

Rodney J. Clarke

Abstract: Using a semiotic model of language called Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper identifies and describes the function, structure and features of two text patterns or genres, the Taxonomic Report and the Instructional Procedure, that are commonly employed in computer application and tool documentation. A familiarity with these and other relevant genres constitutes a significant aspect of computer literacy for documentation users and producers. These specific genres can be used in isolation to organise the overall structure of small texts, or they can be used in combination to form a composite structure called a macrogenre. The structure of the so-called Computer Training or CT macrogenre is identified, described and exemplified. Genre theory suggests that readers who are familiar with particular kinds of texts expect the specific staging of the appropriate genre or set of genres. Conforming to an appropriate genre or combinations of genres increases the likelihood of the computer documentation being judged as useful by the community for which it is written. The identification of specific genres can be useful for writers as well who would then have templates that could assist then in the process of creating useful documentation.

Title:

METHOD FOR OBTAINING CORRECT METRICS

Author(s):

Coral Calero, Mario Piattini and Marcela Genero

Abstract: Metrics can be used as a mechanism for assuring product quality. However, metrics will have this application only if they are well-defined. To obtain correct metrics a number of steps must be followed. In this paper we present the method we have designed for obtaining correct metrics. This method is composed of the metrics definition, formal validation and empirical validation of the metrics. After these steps we can know if a metric is or not correct. However, this information is not sufficient and we must be able to make some kind of interpretation regarding the value that a metric takes. For this reason, we have added the psychological explanation step to the method.

Title:

ENTERPRISE MODELLING FOR AN EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Author(s):

Ing Widya, Cees Volman, Stanislav Pokraev, Italo De Diana and Eddie Michiels

Abstract: This paper reports the modelling exercise of an educational information infrastructure that aims to support the organisation of teaching and learning activities suitable for a wide range of didactic policies. The modelling trajectory focuses on capturing invariant structures of relations between entities in educational organisation into Enterprise object models. An Educational Model Space has been introduced to define the problem domain context for the modelling. In this space, educational requirements have been elaborated towards the Open Distributed Processing Enterprise Viewpoint object models expressed in terms of the Unified Modelling Language. Recursive structures, which are uniform for the planning, performance and evaluation activities of education, have been used to capture the dynamic needs of education.

Title:

SUPPORTING HUMAN ACTIVITIES

Author(s):

Grégory Bourguin and Xavier Le Pallec

Abstract: Because we have been involved for many years in both the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and the Computer Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL) research domains, we take particular interests in the results coming both from the human and the computer sciences. Thanks to this crossdisciplinary culture, we have understood that computer systems aim at supporting human activities and that these activities need systems better supporting their emergence. In other words, the systems we traditionally design lack in supporting the inevitable users emerging needs. This paper presents our new approach founded on the human science framework called the Activity Theory and some advanced software design techniques. It shows the results and promises we have found in intensively using the meta-level of the systems we design, thus better taking into account of the expansiveness property of the human activities we want to support.

Title:

MANAGING RISK IN EXTENDED ENTERPRISES

Author(s):

B. Vassiliadis, A. Tsakalidis, K.Giotopoulos, S. Likothanassis, N. Bogonikolos, P. Gatomatis and K. Platikostas

Abstract: Because we have been involved for many years in both the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and the Computer Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL) research domains, we take particular interests in the results coming both from the human and the computer sciences. Thanks to this crossdisciplinary culture, we have understood that computer systems aim at supporting human activities and that these activities need systems better supporting their emergence. In other words, the systems we traditionally design lack in supporting the inevitable users emerging needs. This paper presents our new approach founded on the human science framework called the Activity Theory and some advanced software design techniques. It shows the results and promises we have found in intensively using the meta-level of the systems we design, thus better taking into account of the expansiveness property of the human activities we want to support.

Title:

TOWARDS E-MANAGEMENT AS ENABLER FOR ACCELERATED CHANGE

Author(s):

Hugo Lérias, João Luz, Pedro Moura, Ana Mendes, Isabel Teixeira and J Paulo Teixeira

Abstract: The new economy is the result of the information revolution that promotes the emergence of efficient, ubiquitous and virtual-based business models. It is a common belief that the Extended Enterprise (EE) model has the potential to be a competitive advantage, particularly nowadays when the globalisation of trade has increased the number of competitors. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider the EE as another business model, which has not yet overcome classic problems, such as the management of risk. In this paper we examine the notion of risk, its impact on EE functions and propose a framework for its control.

Title:

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING AND E-COMMERCE: CROATIAN PERSPECTIVE

Author(s):

Vesna Bosilj Vuksic

Abstract: The Internet is altering the ways in which businesses operate and interact with customers, suppliers and partners. According to recognized trends, business process reengineering should influence not only internal, but also interorganizational processes in order to support the demands of e-commerce. The paper stresses the necessity for organizational restructuring in the context of global information connectivity (ecommerce). The characteristics and perspectives of business process reengineering efforts in Croatia are presented. The research is based on a questionnaire about Business Process Reengineering (BPR) projects implemented in Croatian companies. The main goal of the paper was to identify whether the managers of country in the transition have recognized the importance of business process reengineering and e-commerce for their companies.

Title:

THE MEETING REPORT PROCESS: BRIDGING EMS WITH PDA

Author(s):

Carlos J. Costa, Pedro Antunes and João Ferreira Dias

Abstract: Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) are important tools to support personal processes. However, their contribution to co-operative processes, like meetings, is reduced. On the other hand, the link between meetings and other processes existent in organizations is also a problem. This paper discusses the integration of results produced during meeting sessions supported by Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) with other processes, especially the ones supported by scheduling tools implemented by PDA. The paper develops a framework linking “personal data” and “meeting data.” The framework originated a combined PDA-EMS system. The system was experimented by an organisation in order to evaluate the concept.

Title:

MODELING EXTENSIONS FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED WEB APPLICATION DESIGN

Author(s):

Ronald E.Giachetti, Mayankkumar Patel and Maneli Rodriguez-Medina

Abstract: The incorporation of greater functionality into web applications requires use of technologies beyond HTML that integrate interfaces, application servers, database servers, and increasingly back-office applications. Design of these web applications has more in common with software engineering than with what has evolved as a highly graphical web site design approach. This paper describes the extension of the unified modeling language (UML) for modeling web applications during the analysis and design phases of a project. The target implementation of the design is done with a new framework called CFObjects, which combines the benefits of object orientation, Cold Fusion which a tag-based language, and the utilization of a rapid application development environment. The UML modeling extensions, web application design methodology, and application of CFObjects is illustrated through a case study of building a commercial web application. The modeling extensions provide a sorely needed tool for web application designers to communicate, design, and reuse objects to rapidly develop enterprise web applications.

Title:

FROM CLIENT’S DREAMS TO ACHIEVABLE PROJECTS

Author(s):

Juan José Escribano, Raúl Murciano and Pablo Gervás

Abstract: This paper presents a web based expert system application that carries out an initial assessment of the feasibility of a web project. The system allows detection of inconsistency problems before design starts, and suggests correcting actions to solve them. The developed system presents important advantages not only for determining the feasibility of a web project but also by acting as a means of communication between the client company and the web development team, making the requirements specification clearer.

Title:

BUSINESS RENOVATION PROJECTS IN SLOVENIA

Author(s):

Ales Groznik, Andrej Kovacic, Jurij Jaklic and Mojca Indihar Stemberger

Abstract: The main goal of the paper is to present the characteristics of business renovation efforts in Slovenia. The research is based on the questionnaire about BPR projects and strategic IS planning, methods and tools implemented in Slovenian organizations. The results of the research are analysed. The paper focuses on using business renovation concept, as well as on the necessity of strategic IS planning for developing an information system that will be able to successfully support renovated processes. It stresses necessity for changes in organizations. Organizations become more reactive and self-adaptive, faster to respond and capable to deal with the changing environment.

Title:

EXPERIENCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN AN INDUSTRIAL INNOVATION CONTEXT

Author(s):

António Lucas Soares, Waldemar Gaida and Christian Schmidt

Abstract: This paper describes the methods and experiences of developing of an information system in an industrial innovation context. The case analysed respects to a system supporting quality management tasks of working teams in industrial companies, developed within a research & development EU funded project. The initial concept of the system is described first, followed by the way how requirements where elicited and structured and the system specified. Next, design and prototyping are analysed , detailing the end-users evaluation approach. Conclusions are drawn on the opportunities and difficulties od R&D involving industrial enterprises.

Title:

ANALYSIS OF SUITABILITY, APPROPRIATENESS AND ADEQUACY OF USE CASES COMBINED WITH ACTIVITY DIAGRAM FOR BUSINESS SYSTEMS MODELING

Author(s):

Boris Shishkov and Jan L.G. Dietz

Abstract: This paper considers the potentials for application of use cases in business process analysis and modeling. In particular, it investigates suitability and appropriateness of use cases as tools for elicitation of processes, and the applicability of the use case diagram for visualizing the models of the business processes under study. It is shown that use cases represent a promising tool for business process modeling at the essential level. It is also studied that use cases could be combined with activity diagram, for building consistent and more complete models of a system, representing different system-actor interactions

Title:

INTRODUCING COMMON SYSTEMS IN INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL FIRMS

Author(s):

Steve C.A. Peters and Michael S.H. Heng

Abstract: In international financial firms the Information Systems (IS) developments are normally centralized where the commercial activities are decentralized. This has specific effects on the use of information systems in these organizations. There is a strong movement towards a centralized development of systems because of expected higher efficiency in development and maintenance.Ignoring or being unaware of the differences in the system requirements for the foreign branches by assuming that all processes should be equal at a nondetailed level leads often to the proposal of a common system for the foreign branches. We investigated three cases, where common systems were introduced and failed over time because of similar reasons although all normal project conditions were established. The cases are with three global financial service companies where the holding resides in the Netherlands. In fact in all three cases the management had all the right arguments to start introducing common systems and made all the right actions to make the projects a success. Despite all, the projects did not give the wanted results. In all three cases the management could not foresee the failure because all measurements according to the current know how about global projects were taken. We did our research over a period of 10 years starting around 1990. The research is based on open discussions with central and local management including the members of the project. The results of the research show that the influence of local evolution of the organization has major impact on the introduction of common systems. This result can be used for the current projects introducing e-commerce activities for the global financial service companies.

Title:

TEMPLATE-BASED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION: A CASE STUDY

Author(s):

Linda Dawson

Abstract: A requirements specification describes the system which will be built in a software development project independently of design or implementation detail. In this paper the process of developing a requirements specification as a stand-alone activity is illustrated by describing the requirements specification process undertaken for a government department by a small software development organisation. This case used a commercial requirements-only semi object-oriented template method which involved producing a set of requirements cards on which the specification document was based. A major consideration for the consulting organisation was convincing the client that completing the requirements engineering process is vital to a successful working product. The case study illustrates the process from the individual system developer/consultant's point of view based on transcripts of semi-structured interviews.

Title:

PROMOTING COMPONENT?BASED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH DESIGN REUSE

Author(s):

Peter Hornsby and Ian Newman

Abstract: Although component-based development holds great promise, very little support is available to manage the complexity inherent in an effective development process based around the reuse of components. One area that is currently being explored is the use of design materials as a stimulus for reusing components within the design process. This approach uses the design materials to provide a rich source of descriptive information about the components used. As components are used in different contexts, more information about their range of uses is built up, enabling components to be reused based on the problem areas to which they may be applied, as well as the solution they are initially created to provide. This approach has been implemented in the DesignMatcher tool, which operates as a background process during development, notifying the developer of opportunities for reuse based on the changing state of the design.

Title:

INFORMATION SYSTEMS PLANNING: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

Author(s):

Jorge Luis Nicolas Audy, João Luiz Becker and Henrique Freitas

Abstract: A new outlook on the process of information systems planning is required with the emergence and consolidation of new perceptions and concepts of organizational learning. The field of organizational learning offers viable opportunities for gains in the planning processes of organizations. Several authors point to processing of information as a relevant source of increased productivity and competitive advantage in our society. However, within the field of Information Systems (IS), several problems pertaining to planning and effective use of new Information Technologies (IT) have challenged researchers to find ways of minimizing the problems pertaining to IS planning, and implementation. This paper analyses the impact of Organizational Learning, and the opportunities generated by Organizational Learning on IS planning, as responses to the difficulties of implementation of technology-based plans and the resulting organizational changes.

Title:

AN APPROACH FOR COORDINATION PROBLEM SOLVING

Author(s):

Patrick Etcheverry, Philippe Lopistéguy and Pantxika Dagorret

Abstract: This paper focuses on the problem of coordination specification. Two principles rule our work: On the one hand, coordination problems are recurrent problems and on the other hand, tested forms of coordination exist. We define a typology of coordination problems that can be solved by the enforcement of well known coordination forms. We present a catalogue of coordination patterns that makes an inventory of a set of coordination problems, and a set of solutions that describe how these problems can be solved. After describing an example of coordination pattern, we finally present an approach that uses the catalogue in a process modelling context.

Title:

REPRESENTING BUSINESS STRATEGY THROUGH GOAL MODELING

Author(s):

Ricardo Mendes, André Vasconcelos, Artur Caetano, João Neves, Pedro Sinogas and José Tribolet

Abstract: This paper focuses on the representation of business strategy through goal modeling. Traditional approaches to goal modeling focus on capturing the business goals into an accurate representation. Business goals originate from the vision and strategy of the company being modeled. By restraining to model the business goals, traditional approached often fail to capture the meaning of goals and the managers’ vision of business. By capturing some of the concepts underlying management theories such as the Balanced Scorecard, a new approach to goal modeling is presented. This approach aims at providing a modeling language that is closer to the manager’s and business needs.

Title:

O.C.: A NEW CONCEPT FOR MODELLING AND INFORMATION INTEGRATION

Author(s):

Claude Petit and Claude Dussart

Abstract: This paper describes an object-oriented language. A new concept object, the cellular objects, is associated with the concept of class of objects. The other types of representation of the knowledge can be also associated easily. Basic object is a matrix of cells objects. It is not a spreadsheet. Each cell object is located by its Cartesian coordinates in its matrix object. The cell object is composed of a data and a method. The data of a matrix object are private data. There are not public data. Some matrices are specialized: matrix algebra, data acquisition, decision table, interface data bases,...Each developer can create its tools objects. This language has original orders of navigation inside a matrix object or between matrices. The problems of heritage are simplified. A new capacity of heritage is proposed: reflexive heritage and conditional heritage. The integration of the treatments is simplified. The modeling of complex systems multiformalisms is intuitive. The developer sees its application in three dimensions. A variable in-depth reasoning is easy to set up. Thirty applications validated this tool.

Title:

SUPPORTING DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS APPLICATIONS BASED ON ONTOLOGIES

Author(s):

Noriaki Izumi and Takahira Yamaguchi

Abstract: This report proposes an integrated support methodology for constructing business models including employing new business models, transplanting existing business activities to computers, and decision making support in employing new environment of computers. In order to model enterprises and business activities and to implement them as software applications, two business repository in different granularities are devised based on ontologies: Business specification repository and Business software repository. By developing a framework, which transforms descriptions in Business specification repository into ones in Business software repository, our framework achieves the reuse of existing repositories of business activities and software libraries. We have implemented the prototype system by JAVA and confirmed that it supports us in various phases of business application development including business model manifestation, detailed business model definition and an implementation of business software applications.

Title:

UNIFIED RESOURCE MODELLING

Author(s):

João Neves, André Vasconcelos, Artur Caetano, Pedro Sinogas, Ricardo Mendes and José Tribolet

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the state of the art of resource modelling used by either information systems specialists and human resources professionals. A generic framework for resource modelling is used for comparing these two approaches in terms of the context and description of the work the resource does and is able to do. This is a base work to the development of a new tool for human resources management that makes explicit the connection between human resources and business processes.

Area 4 - INTERNET COMPUTING AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Title:

PRIVACY AUDITS AND TRUST: THE INTERNET DILEMMA

Author(s):

John E. Gochenouer and Michael L. Tyler

Abstract: This paper reviews the current efforts at self-regulation on the Internet. It examines audit procedures used by Web companies to protect personal privacy and compares them with those used by Brick and Mortar companies. A series of focus groups valued consumer insurance and security technologies of highest priority to instil trust. The conclusion is that insuring Web users against the damages of lost privacy would be the most powerful method to gain consumer trust. Surprisingly, there are no major Web vendors carrying such an insurance policy.

Title:

VOYEURISM, EXHIBITIONISM, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

Author(s):

John E. Gochenouer and Michael L. Tyler

Abstract: This paper contrasts the natural, genetically based tendency of people to display voyeuristic and exhibitionistic behaviors with issues pertaining to privacy on the Internet. Results of a survey provide evidence that suggests personal control of information, not personal privacy, is the issue and that a trusted Internet-based organization would be the ideal repository of a person’s authorized and authenticated information.

Title:

PLANNING SECURITY POLICY ON E-COMMERCE

Author(s):

María Martín, Alejandro Carrasco, Joaquín Luque and Rosa Gonzalo

Abstract: This article intends to reflect the need for taking steps to ensure the right operation of any e-commerce platform. The final aim consists not only on describing the different technical options available to build up a secure commerce, but also, on transmitting the importance of giving a sense of security and confidence to our clients. We describe the different options we should take into account in order to implement the appropriate security policy. All this is based on the experience obtained on electronic bank and on a University’s site.

Title:

C-ISCAP : CONTROLLED-INTERNET SECURE CONNECTIVITY ASSURANCE PLATFORM

Author(s):

Ji-Hoon Jeong, Jae-Hoon Nah, Sung-Won Sohn and Jong-Tai Lee

Abstract: IPsec is a standard protocol to offer Internet information security service. Recently IPsec is implemented through out the world on the base of various operating systems. Through the inter-operability test among multiple independent implemented devices, it is now the mandatory function of Internet equipment. IPsec adds two headers (i.e.,AH and ESP) and protocol to the legacy IP packet so therefore, IPsec offers not only internet security service such as internet secure communication, and authentication service but also the safe key exchange and anti-replay attack mechanism. In this paper, we propose the design and implementation of C-ISCAP, which is IPsec based Internet information security system and also we will show the data of performance measurement.

Title:

A CORBA/XML-BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR DISTRIBUTED NETWORK PLANNING TOOLS

Author(s):

Anton Riedl

Abstract: This paper presents a novel architecture for network planning tools where functionality of the tools is distributed over the network and algorithms can be contributed by various providers. The concept is based on a client/server architecture with CORBA as the middleware and XML as common information exchange language. The framework breaks up the functionalities, which are commonly implemented in one tool, into several independent modules, which then can run on different machines in an IP network. This type of realization allows for easy extendibility and administration of the tool and offers possibilities to implement features like load sharing, accounting, or authentication. Furthermore, the platform could be used to provide planning services and algorithm implementations over the Internet. We describe a first prototype, which implements the concept of this distributed architecture and discuss implementation issues. In this context a very generic and versatile Java client is introduced, which establishes the front end of the network planning platform. To allow this client to adapt to the dynamic environment and to integrate different algorithms within one graphical user interface, we specify a data exchange format, which is based on XML.

Title:

AN XML-BASED MULTIMEDIA MIDDLEWARE FOR MOBILE ONLINE AUCTIONS

Author(s):

Matthias Wagner, Wolf-Tilo Balke and Werner Kießling

Abstract: Pervasive Internet services today promise to provide users with a quick and convenient access to a variety of commercial applications. However, due to unsuitable architectures and poor performance user acceptance is still low. To be a major success mobile services have to provide device-adapted content and advanced value-added Web services. Innovative enabling technologies like XML and wireless communication may for the first time provide a facility to interact with online applications anytime anywhere. We present a prototype implementing an efficient multimedia middleware approach towards ubiquitous value-added services using an auction house as a sample application. Advanced multi-feature retrieval technologies are combined with enhanced content delivery to show the impact of modern enterprise information systems on today’s e-commerce applications.

Title:

AN ANALYSIS OF B2B CATALOGUE INTEGRATION PROBLEMS

Author(s):

Borys Omelayenko and Dieter Fensel

Abstract: Content Management becomes a cornerstone of successful B2B electronic commerce. The B2B players use different document standards to represent their business documents, and different content standards to specify the products. Thousands of the players meet together at B2B marketplaces, and the marketplaces must be able to integrate numerous document and content standards. The large number of the standards and their significant complexity make the integration problems non-trivial and require development of special integration architecture. In the present paper we discuss the tasks and the problems which occur during the content and document integration, and survey possible solutions and available techniques.

Title:

A CORBA AND WEB TECHNOLOGY BASED FRAMEWORK FOR THE ANALYSIS AND OPTIMAL DESIGN OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS IN THE OIL INDUSTRY

Author(s):

Carlos Arévalo, Juan Colmenares, Nestor Queipo, Nelson Arapé and Jorge Villalobos

Abstract: This paper discusses the design and implementation of a CORBA and WEB technology-based framework for the analysis and optimal design of complex engineering systems. The framework provides an environment for the coupled execution over a network of data analysis, modeling and optimization heterogeneous software using a WEB browser. A framework application is illustrated solving a reservoir characterization problem, critical for devising an optimal strategy for the development of oil and gas fields. The results suggest that the framework can be effectively and efficiently used for solving reservoir characterization problems and holds promise to be useful not only in other areas of petroleum engineering (e.g. hydraulic fracturing design, enhanced oil recovery processes) but also in the solution of complex system design problems found in industries such as electronics, automotive and aerospace.

Title:

THE WEB SERVER USING DYNAMIC HISTOGRAMS

Author(s):

Ying Wah Teh and Abu Bakar Zaitun

Abstract: In a large computer networked system, and load balancing among these machines is usually done by a trial and error method which gives unsatisfied results when much data is fed into these machines. The increased data traffic volume can badly affect the networked system. To overcome this, we present a Web Server technique using dynamic histograms for load balancing. The classification of techniques is divided into static and dynamic histograms. Static histograms are usually defined by the users, and are plotted by dividing the useful data into different classes subjectively. However, dynamic histograms are done using improving query processing techniques. It is like an adaptive system that learns the patterns of the existing data input. The basic idea is that a client machine of the system will query data from the server machine. The server will produce dynamic histograms to optimize the performance of these machines. Based on these histograms, a load-balancing pattern can be predicted and then further study to improve the load distribution; that means we can make the loads to be evenly distributed among the machines in the network.

Title:

WEBMASTER - AN INTERNET INFORMATION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR ACADEMIC SERVICES USING ASP TECHNOLOGY

Author(s):

Carlos Ferreira, Leonor Teixeira and Rui Santiago

Abstract: Nowadays the management and publication of academic and administrative information should not ignore the new information technologies. This paper describes the WebMaster application, a Web Information System for computerizing the academic information concerning a Master degree within an academic department. It performs, as well, the automation of all administrative jobs and the inherent procedures for the distribution of this information, increasing its accessibility, reliability, up-to-dateness and decreasing the bureaucratic burden. With this application it is possible to speed up some routine activities, decreasing the need for manual, exhaustive and repetitive tasks. The general goal of this work is to determine how and to what extent different groups of users within an academic department can interchange information using the Web; in order to attain this goal, we have developed a framework with three essential aspects, that will be briefly presented: contents, design and implementation.

Title:

AN APPROACH FOR TOTALLY DYNAMIC FORMS PROCESSING IN WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS

Author(s):

Daniel J. Helm and Bruce W. Thompson

Abstract: This paper presents an approach for dynamically generating and processing user input form variants from metadata stored in a database. Many web-based applications utilize a series of similar looking input forms as a basis for capturing information from users, such as for surveys, cataloging, etc. Typical approaches for form generation utilize static HTML pages or dynamic pages generated programmatically via scripts. Our approach generates totally dynamic forms (including page controls, presentation layout, etc.) using only metadata that has been previously defined in relational tables. This significantly reduces the amount of custom software that typically needs to be developed to generate and process form variants.

Title:

AN INTEGRATED ARCHITECTURE FOR WEB-BASED ENTERPRISE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Weidong Zhang and Atta Badii

Abstract: The critical challenge facing information technologists today is to develop integrated computer systems capable of effective and efficient management of the increasing amount of information and knowledge that is available to our Information Society. This paper explores system solutions for enterprise document management systems within distributed and heterogeneous computing environments. An integrated framework is presented, which makes use of various emerging technologies of object-orientation, internet, databases, and expert systems, to incorporate different components of document management functions, such as document retrieval and workflow automation.

Title:

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE BUSINESS MODEL IN THE KOREAN INTERNET STOCK TRADING MARKET

Author(s):

Kun Chang Lee, Jinsung Kim, Namho Chung and Soonjae Kwon

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to empirically test the validity of the prevailing business model of the Korean Internet stock trading market, and search for the possibility of updating it to incorporate the changes in market needs. Since 1998, the Internet stock trading companies in Korea have been adopting the commission discount strategy as their major business model so as to attract more customers to their web site. However, customer needs as well as the Internet technology have changed drastically in the meantime, which means that their current business model should be adapted accordingly. Nevertheless, literature tackling this issue has seldom been reported. In this sense, this paper is aimed at empirically testing the validity of the current business model and seeking the possibility to revise it for the purpose of incorporating the changes in market trend. For this purpose, we collected 83 valid questionnaires and performed empirical analysis. Results showed that the commission discount policy, a currently prevailing business model in the Korean Internet stock trading market should be modified to incorporate several additional factors such as Easy to use, Reliability, Relative Advantage, and Need to Improve Speed.

Title:

CODING STANDARDS BENEFITING PRODUCT AND SERVICE INFORMATION IN E-COMMERCE

Author(s):

Alea M. Fairchild and Bruno de Vuyst

Abstract: E-Commerce can be streamlined as products and services are unambiguously identified with industry-agreed XML tags through the coding of products and services according to standard classification conventions, such as the Universal Standards Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC). Standardized coding allows for more effective electronic purchasing management, assists marketing and sales functions and provides better customer and distribution channel services. With its hierarchical taxonomy and open standards, the UNSPSC is considered superior to existing product coding schemes. However, care should be taken to further bind up such systems with taxation harmonization efforts such as those pursuant to the revised Kyoto International Convention on the simplification and harmonization of customs procedures under the auspices of the Customs Co-operation Council (World Customs Organization).

Title:

INTERNET PROGRAMMING: TEACHING BY EXAMPLES

Author(s):

Nikola B. Serbedzija

Abstract: The last few years have seen fundamental changes taking place in teaching Web-based technology. As the World Wide Web develops rapidly, it is very hard to stay up-to-date, while focusing on sound concepts and avoiding short-term trendy approaches. Furthermore, teaching such a pragmatic subject has to be accompanied by practical demonstrations. Here, an approach to teach Internet programming is presented with a major emphasis on teaching by examples. In this way, students can learn Web techniques and experience their application in practice, by following Web-enabled on-line material. The introduction of a Web browser as a universal front-end to both learning and teaching process has prompted a re-evaluation of what is taught and how the lecture material is presented. The course starts with an introduction to the client/server programming model. All other techniques are presented in accordance to this basic principle, from client-side html to server-side Java programming.

Title:

THE USE OF INFORMATION ON THE WEB TO ENHANCE TEACHING

Author(s):

Nouhad J. Rizk

Abstract: For well over a century, the higher education system has set the world standard for academic excellence and equitable access for all people. Today, the higher education sector--by which we mean both public and private institutions of post-secondary education and training such as colleges and universities-- should pursue greater mission differentiation to streamline their services and better respond to the changing needs of their constituencies. Individual institutions and parts of statewide systems should focus on their points of comparative advantage rather than all striving to become full-service campuses. Community colleges, undergraduate universities, and research universities, for example, should embrace different missions, give priority to activities central to those missions, and reduce or eliminate more- marginal activities. Colleges and universities should also develop sharing arrangements to improve productivity. A greater sharing of resources--requirements, classes, services, infrastructure, and libraries--could lead to significant savings and even improve services. In the twenty first century, all people should be encouraged to pursue some form of post-secondary education or training, not only by searching using the Internet but also by taking advantages of all services of the World Wide Web. Designing one's web site is now, sharing one's lectures, laboratories, textbooks and handouts with the entire world. In this research, we will focus on the positive influence of technology in teaching and learning. Both teacher and student can replace the traditional methods of teaching and learning by technological tools starting with the small calculator up to the fastest and the most efficient way of information retrieval with the latest newcomer of the Internet: the Web.

Title:

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A VISUAL ONLINE PRODUCT CATALOG INTERFACE

Author(s):

Juhnyoung Lee, Ho Soo Lee and Priscilla Wang

Abstract: One of the key elements of e-commerce systems is the online product catalog. It provides sellers with a content management system that assembles, aggregates, normalizes, and distributes product information. It also provides potential buyers with an interactive interface that offers a multimedia representation of the product information as well as retrieval, classification and ordering services. In this paper, we discuss the interface of online product catalogs, focusing on its ability to help shoppers navigate and analyze product information. Specifically, we present a new interactive interface for online product catalogs that is effective in navigating through the product information space and analytically selecting suitable products. It uses a multi-dimensional visualization mechanism based on parallel coordinates and augmented by a number of visual facilities for filtering, tagging, color-coding, and dynamic querying. To demonstrate the capabilities of the product catalog interface for online retail stores and marketplaces, we implemented a prototype displaying a set of automobile data. We explain how the prototype visualizes the entire product information space in a single page and supports intuitive exploratory analysis with the visual facilities.

Title:

THE USE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS MODELLING TO IDENTIFY AND EVALUATE E-BUSINESS STRATEGIES FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMES)

Author(s):

José Miguel Baptista Nunes and David Patterson

Abstract: This paper seeks to illustrate the difficulties faced by SMEs in identifying a suitable process to develop an E-Business strategy. An evaluation of the present literature on E-Business is conducted. While it is possible to identify numerous options for E-Business,(and indeed build a compelling case for its adoption), the principle strategies offered are for the execution of an already chosen business model, not for the choice of the components to build an E-Business model. The motives for use of E-Business by SMEs are considered, and a model to meet their needs in developing an E-Business strategy is adapted from the world of information systems. The model was utilised working with a SME and its effectiveness analysed. The models utility was tested principally on an Extranet as a model for E-Business development. Both the models utility in its use of techniques such as ‘value chain analysis’ and ‘critical success factors’ was considered in its evaluation of the impact that an Extranet would have on the organisation. It was possible to conclude that Extranets will be both a threat and an opportunity to organisations, and the issue of trust is the key determinant. The models failings (or some of its component parts) were firstly its inability to deal fully with a ‘knowledge based’ organisation, and secondly its inability to represent the importance of the human inter-relationships to the business concerned.

Title:

E-BUSINESS CHANGE AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Author(s):

Colin Ash

Abstract: Many ERP enabled organisations have undertaken significant e-business initiatives over the past two years. Initially these were concerned with cost savings but now the trend is towards revenue generation. Also, the earlier thinking on this topic indicated a significant role for information technology in these initiatives. We depart from this by emphasising the importance of managing the change of e-business projects. The paper examines a research model that proposes various antecedents to successful e-business change management in ERP environments. A case study of the first B2B e-business integration with Dell Computer Corporation and its largest corporate customer is examined in the context of this model. The study demonstrates the integration of ERP and non-ERP systems, using Web-based technologies, to provide to optimise an overall B2B value chain. The specific goal is to determine facilitators that lead to success of an e-business project. Finally the study is used to emphasise the role of change management and cultural readiness when adopting e-business solutions.

Title:

INTEGRATING NETWORK SERVICES FOR VIRTUAL TEAMS

Author(s):

Pascal Molli, Hala Skaf-Molli, Claude Godart, Pardeep Ray, Rajan Shankaran and Vijay Varadharajan

Abstract: Virtual team provider is an emerging business on the Internet. It allows people to work together distributed across space, time and organization. Tools like BSCW or SourceForge allow an organization to host virtual teams. Although, these tools deliver functionalities, they lack required features (e.g. security, dependability and quality of service) to make them commercially acceptable. In this paper, we describe underlying effort needed at the network services level to make virtual team software commercially viable.

Title:

A NEW MECHANISM FOR DISTRIBUTED MANAGERS PERSISTENCE

Author(s):

Rui Pedro Lopes and José Luis Oliveira

Abstract: SNMP is currently a worldwide used network management framework. This primacy is based on simple characteristics - it limits itself to describe the structure of management information and the procedures to access data, i.e. low-level operations. Recent work inside IETF propose a management distribution architecture (DISMAN), which allows to build agents that can cope with rather complex information structures. The model still lacks to define persistence mechanisms for the management delegates. In this paper we present an XML-based data model that can provide persistence for distributed managers configuration. Moreover, several application scenarios will be discussed such as, the definition of high-level macros to group together elementary SNMP operations, and the specification of mobile agent policies for SNMP agent interaction.

Title:

PORTUGUESE PARLIAMENTARY RECORDS DIGITAL LIBRARY

Author(s):

Joaquim Sousa Pinto, Joaquim Arnaldo Martins, Helder Troca Zagalo and Rui José Pereira Costa

Abstract: The first phase of the digitalisation of the Portuguese Parliament proceedings will cover the historical period between 1935-2000 and will sum up to around 200.000 pages. In this stage we intend to develop the mechanisms as well as the tools for the entire project of the Parliament Digital Library, which we predict will have up to one million pages. The process involves the microfilming of all the available material, the scanning of the material so as to obtain the image of the page as well as the use of an OCR - Optical Character Recognition - that recovers the original text, allowing to search in the original documents. The project concerns printed material only, manuscripts will be handled separately in a later stage. This project was initially aimed at the disposal of the Parliament Intranet, however it seems likely that most of its information will be accessible on the Internet. At this stage, the material is organized in small brochures with an average of 40-50 pages each and contains the speeches of members of Parliament. Each one of the pages is treated individually, so when the user is looking for specific information, he is drawn to the page or pages in which the expression is used. The visualization of the pages can be either in text mode or in the original text through digitalized image. Despite the granularity of the system being “page”, which means that each page is treated as a complete element, it is possible to print the entire document, in text or image, obtaining therefore a copy of the original document, because each page is wrapped with metadata.

Title:

JINI TECHNOLOGY IN E-COMMERCE

Author(s):

Luminita Vasiu

Abstract: Jini technology represents a significant step in the evolution of distributed computing, as a simple yet remarkably reliable and flexible infrastructure that enable all types of devices to simply connect into impromptu networks, making access to and delivery of new network services as simple as plugging in a telephone. Built on a top of Java software infrastructure, Jini technology enables all types of digital devices to work together in a community organised together without extensive planning, installation or human intervention. In Jini distributed systems, Java programs interact spontaneously, enabling services to join or leave the network with ease and allowing clients to view and access available services with confidence. It is expected that Jini technology will make a big impact on embedded devices market by providing a highlevel, object-based protocol instead of low-level data exchange protocols. The paper presents some funding on the suitability of Jini technology for E-commerce applications. It also debates some security issues associated with Jini technology.

Title:

ELECTRONIC VOTING VIA THE INTERNET

Author(s):

Alexander Prosser and Robert Müller-Török

Abstract: Electronic Transactions over the Internet, particularly using the World Wide Web, have become an integral part of economic life. Recently, also the public sector has started to use the new medium for its administrative processes. This paper analyses whether the Internet could also be used to support voting and other democratic processes. It advances the hypothesis that voting via the Internet can meet generally accepted election standards and proposes a protocol for implementing the voting process. It also analyses the co-existence of conventional and electronic voting.

Title:

QOS NEGOTIATION BASED ON MANAGEMENT DELEGATES

Author(s):

José Luís Oliveira and Rui L. Aguiar

Abstract: The introduction of Quality of Service in the Internet will bring increased needs for efficient service management in the network. Current approaches to this problem rely on distributed management protocols with centralized service control points. This paper proposes the usage of software agents for this task, developed in a two-stage approach due to its implementation complexity. The usage of agents, supported by appropriate platforms, would naturally provide delegation and control mechanisms, improve management flexibility and even transparently support the existence of multiple management paradigms across network operators.

Title:

INTENTIONS VALUE NETWORK

Author(s):

Ulrike Baumöl and Robert Winter

Abstract: By using the Web, service companies gain direct access to consumers world-wide, and consumers gain direct access to service companies world-wide. Simplifying distribution and communication of services, aggregators emerge as an innovative layer of business models. While traditional service industries are focused on products and economies of scale, aggregators focus on customer processes. In this paper, business models in a “Intentions Value Network” are analyzed, and pioneering intentions value networks are described.

Title:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO AGENCY REQUIREMENTS IN E-BUSINESS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Author(s):

Pascal van Eck and Roel Wieringa

Abstract: In digital marketplaces, companies are present in the form of their software, which engages in business interactions with other companies. Each organisation that is active in the marketplace is trying to reach its own business goals, which may be in conflict with the goals of other organisations. The software by which an organisation is present in a digital marketplace must act on behalf of this organisation to reach these goals. Thus, there is a relation of agency between the software and the organisation that the software represents. This relation gives rise to a number of agency requirements on the software, which are identified and compared with functional requirements. Results in the area of Multi-Agent Systems may be applicable in the design of information systems for which agency requirements hold. A number of such results are briefly described, and further research issues are identified.

Title:

DICE SHOPPING MODEL

Author(s):

R. Badri Narayan

Abstract: The ubiquity and flexibility that the Internet lends to any enterprise is making the electronic marketplace highly competitive and largely independent of conventional management systems. With the online presence of more and more electronic shops, the efficiency and success of any such commercial venture depends largely on it’s credibility, reliability, customer relations and kind of shopping experience it offers. The kind of interactivity and interface presented to customers is instrumental in achieving increased sales and traffic. We therefore now investigate the design of DICE (Dynamism and Interactivity Coupled Environment), a shopping model which is designed to provide an enhanced and rewarding shopping experience, utilizing increased interactivity, ease of navigation and dynamic content. DICE aims to be modeled on real-world shops and lays emphasizes on inter-consumer interaction as against conventional e-shops and incorporates features such as real time processing and the use of intelligent agents to provide for a more “lively” and “stimulating” shopping environment. Factors known to drive sales and traffic are also highlighted in the design and their effect on the economics of the e-shop is also presented.

Title:

AGENT BASED WORKFLOWS FOR SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Author(s):

Botond Virginas

Abstract: This paper examines the development of technologies that will enable small enterprises to set up and manage intra-enterprise and cross-enterprise workflow processes to access the next generation of market places. It summarises results of recent research in agent based business process management and virtual electronic markets. A proposed agent based distributed market and contracting environment is presented. Such an environment could have a number of benefits including the effective participation of SMEs into electronic contracting markets. A proposed architecture for a prototype market is described. Possible services offered by such a market are presented. Finally the paper predicts that today’s experimental agent based market places will become significant technology in the future. Efficient, Just-In-Time Enterprises will become significant players in future markets.

Title:

THE DIALECTICS OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET-BASED TEAMS

Author(s):

Miguel Pina e Cunha, João Vieira da Cunha and Ângela Lacerda Nobre

Abstract: Drawing on a grounded theory research we present a grounded model of improvisation in cross-cultural contexts, whose major contribution lies in advancing the concept of the dialectical team, where a minimal structure and a compatible perception of reality foster improvisational action, with diverse members responding to a turbulent environment using simple resources. This arrangement creates the conditions that allow a team to improvise successfully, and remain both efficient and effective. The model strengthens the argument for a dialectical perspective of organizations, unearths the presence of curvilinear relationships in cross-cultural phenomena where linear ones were thought to prevail, and provides alternative answers to some of the problems found in cross-cultural research.

Title:

MAY YOUR INFORMATION SERVICE LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES…

Author(s):

Steven Willmott and Bernard Burg

Abstract: Information systems are undergoing a transformation - they are becoming faster, richer, more intelligent, personalised and mobile. Furthermore, some of the greatest advances may yet be to come with the creation of networked environments supporting complex direct interaction between heterogeneous information systems: enabling services to act autonomously, discover one another, provide services to each other and dynamically form composite information services. This paper paints a vision of such future “Dynamic Service Environments”, outlines the technologies which may play a role in creating them and discusses some of the challenges that lie ahead.

Title:

AGENT-BASED PERSONALIZED SERVICES FOR MOBILE USERS OVER A VPN

Author(s):

Hamid Harroud, Mohamed Ahmed, Ahmed Karmouch

Abstract: This paper proposes an agent-based service provisioning system for mobile users. It features a set of cooperative agents distributed over different sites that work together to provide personalized services for nomadic users within a Virtual Private Network (VPN). For instance, when a user moves outside of his office, he would like to have a similar office environment while he is at home, in a meeting at another company, on a business trip or at a temporary location such as a hotel. Agents representing the end-users and the system agents may engage into a negotiation process to help the user access personalized services at particular site. Such access is performed in accordance with the user’s home policies as well as his current location policies. Adaptive Service Presentation agent is used to adapt the service presentation to the capabilities of the user’s device (e.g. Workstation, Laptop, Phone, PDA). This work is part of the Mobile Agent Alliance project involving University of Ottawa, National Research Council and Mitel Corporation in Canada.

Title:

AN AGENT-BASED KNOWLEDGE SHARING MODEL FOR INFORMATION RETRIEVAL ON THE INTERNET

Author(s):

Bin Ling, Colin Allison and Kecheng Liu

Abstract: With the proliferation of electronically available information, and its diverse nature, a critical problem has arisen which is how to locate, retrieve and process relevant information effectively. It is impractical to build either a unified peer-to-peer system or a centralised architecture that combines all of these information resources. A more promising approach is to program specialised informative agents within an organisational structure that provide public access to information resources on the Internet. These agents can co-operate with other agents to share their knowledge when appropriate. This paper describes an integrated approach to developing this type of agent-based information retrieval system model, which employs a user-modelling strategy, co-operation methods and matchmaking middle-agents. The feasibility of the resultant knowledgesharing environment is demonstrated by experimental results from a simulation based on requirements from the UK National Health Service.

Title:

ADOPTION OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB BY TRADITIONAL AUSTRALIAN MEDIA ORGANISATIONS

Author(s):

Darren Burden, Philip Joyce and Jamie Mustard

Abstract: The aim of this paper is it to identify whether Australian media companies moved online with a clear business model in mind or in an ad-hoc manner. In-depth interviews were conducted with four Internet media managers from two large Australian media organisations. All four had been involved in Web publishing from its early stages and had extensive knowledge of the development of Web publishing in the industry. The interviews focused on the period around the mid 1990’s when the early development of the organisations’ websites took place.

Title:

ACTIVE PROXIES FOR STREAMING MEDIA TO MOBILE DEVICES

Author(s):

Kevin Curran and Gerard Parr

Abstract: The Internet at present with its multiple standards and the interconnection of components such as decoders, middleware, synchronisation scripts, databases, QoS modules requires more than a plug, try and play mentality. This is especially problematic when mobility is introduced due to the proliferation in possible actions. Adaptable systems provide a means of coping with change in a computing system as it allows the reconfiguration of the system to achieve optimal quality. The communicating objects can be represented as a graph of objects that together realise the required behaviour. This paper describes the role of active service proxies within the Chameleon framework for constructing mobile applications. Active Service Proxies can be dynamically loaded and activated within the network to provide for individual services within a heterogeneous multicast group. Innovative steps are the design of adaptable protocol machinery within each active intermediate system that allows for efficient and flexible service translations. This paper discusses this flexible execution environment.

Title:

SOFTWARE AGENTS FOR DIGITAL TELEVISION

Author(s):

João Ascenso and Alberto Silva

Abstract: Nowadays more and more audiovisual information is available, from many sources around the world. Computer and data technologies are continuing to develop at a rapid rate, providing higher performance while reducing the cost and size of the system components. Users require assistance to avoid being overwhelmed by this amount of information and the information providers require assistance in authoring and managing it. This large volume of highly dynamic and distributed audiovisual information is an ideal candidate to systems that make use of agent technology. This paper focuses on a specific problem that the audiovisual broadcasting and entertainment industry faces today and how the agent technology will aid in solving it. Intelligent agents, personalization and standards of communication and representation of audiovisual information are discussed. A generic reference model that illustrates the principal concepts and components is presented and some conclusions drawn.

Title:

DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF SCALABLE VIDEO DELIVERY SERVICES OVER INTRANETS

Author(s):

Luis Orozco-Barbosa and Mohamed Toukourou

Abstract: Packet switched networks, especially IP-based networks, continue to grow world wide at a formidable pace. This is in part due to their efficiency at carrying all the traffic generated by popular applications such as the WWW and the electronic mail. However, quality of service (QoS) sensitive applications such as multimedia communication applications are not as widely spread in the Internet because of the discrepancies between their specific requirements and the inherent characteristics of IP networks. Indeed the effective transmission of video or voice for real-time decoding requires QoS guarantees from the underlying transport mechanisms. This paper proposes a framework for the efficient transmission of video traffic through IP-based networks. The IETF’s Integrated Services is used as a QoS architecture to provide specific QoS guarantees to the video flow. Specifically, the Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) allows the end user to request deterministic QoS guarantees from the network. In the evaluation phase of the experimental work, we evaluate the performance of an RSVP-aware switching point for video transmission under different load conditions. In particular, the QoS provided is evaluated in terms of the video frame inter-arrival times and the packet forwarding delay at the router node. Our experimental results show that RSVP is able to protect the real-time traffic during times of congestion. Also, under light load conditions, the traffic control mechanism exhibits some slight overhead. Finally, the use scalable video fits pretty well with the use of a wide diversity of resources, an inherent characteristic of the Internet.

Title:

COLLABORATIVE SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE TO REDUCE TRANSACTION COSTS IN E-BUSINESS

Author(s):

John Perkins and Sharon Dingley

Abstract: Collaborative systems are a reality for major manufacturers and retailers in the UK. This paper reports the current developments in an action research programme being undertaken in an international e-business trading network. The paper briefly reviews a typical manufacturer’s experience of using collaborative systems to trade with supermarkets. Proposals to extend the inter-firm network to reduce the transaction costs incurred between manufacturers and small independent retailers are then presented. The paper concludes by considering the potential changes to the balance of power in the trading network by engaging in e-business.

Title:

AUTOMATIC ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AND INQUIRIES

Author(s):

Ulrich Bohnacker, Lars Dehning, Jürgen Franke and Ingrid Renz

Abstract: Several business to customer (b2c) applications, i.e. analysis of customer feedback and inquiries, can be improved by text mining (TM). TM gives new insights in the customer's needs and desires by automatically processing their messages. Previously unknown facts and relations can be detected and organisations as well as employees profit by these knowledge management tools. The used techniques are rather simple but robust: they are derived from basic distance calculation between feature vectors in the vector space model.

Title:

MODERN TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN OF VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS

Author(s):

Remigiusz J. Rak

Abstract: Virtual instrument is a natural evolution of the first DSP based system. Their main feature consists of the exploiting of the ever –increasing computational power of the modern DSP processors to simplify the development of the measurement algorithms, the man-machine interface (GUI), and the system interconnection. Everyone can build an infinite number of instruments using his single personal computer. The computer becomes a powerful, multipurpose, laboratory tool that can replace expensive, outdated, easily-broken equipment. The cost of instrumentation goes down and the productivity increases. Distributed measurement systems are easy to do on the basis of local computer networks and the Internet. The DataSocket control is a flexible, easy to use programming interface for accessing, sharing and saving data. With that software tool you can load data stored in files or on remote Web and FTP sites on the Internet. In addition you can exchange data with other applications anywhere in the world. You can even load this control on your Web site to build interactive Web pages that Web users can use to remotely view and analyze your data. DataSocket provides a simple consistent programming interface for a variety of data handling tasks, replacing more complex programming methodologies such as TCP/IP and DDE.

Title:

MULTIUSER 3D LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS IN THE WEB

Author(s):

Christmas Meire Bressan, Simone de Abreu, Regina Borges de Araujo and Celso Goyos

Abstract: Multiuser 3D environments are characterized by a common virtual environment which is shared among multiple users. These environments are important because they will allow a whole new range of applications, from entertainment to education, to be offered in a ubiquitous web interface. Learning virtual environments are particularly interesting as a way to consolidate knowledge acquired from (virtual) classes. This paper describes two such learning virtual environments which use the MPEG-4 standard as their supporting tool through a proposed extension to the current APIs of MPEG-J.

Title:

AGILE: INTELLIGENT AGENTS TO ASSIST ELECTRONIC AUCTION

Author(s):

Ana Cristina Bicharra Garcia, Anderson Lopes and Cristiana Seidel

Abstract: The overwhelming options conveyed by Internet exaggerated growth bring new issues for users engaged in buying and/or selling goods using the net as the business medium. Goods and services can be exchanged, directly sold or negotiated in auctions. In any of these situations, finding the required product by the right price is the big challenge for Internet users. Especially in e-auction, timing and strategic actions are vital to a successful deal. In this paper, we propose a model for e-auction based on intelligent agents technology. The use of agents make possible to reflect better what happens in real auctions. Agents act together with buyers, sellers and auctioneers to assist them obtaining the best deal or at least finding Nash equilibrium point.

Title:

A TRUSTED BROKERING SERVICE FOR PKI INTEROPERABILITY AND THIN-CLIENTS INTEGRATION

Author(s):

Carlos M. A. Costa, José Luís Oliveira and Augusto Silva

Abstract: E-commerce seems to be one of most promising business areas for the upcoming years. However, for its plain fulfillment, security issues have to be judiciously managed. Information protection and digital signatures are essential features for documents that represent commitments. While several solutions already exist on the market, current problems are mainly related with the lack of interoperability. On this paper we present a security broker that uses XML to provide the end-user with a set of security services and tools that are independent of the client hardware, operating system, PKI solutions and network infrastructure.

Title:

JUSTIFYING THE BENEFITS OF WEB BASED ELECTRONIC COMMERCE APPLICATIONS: AN AUSTRALIAN PRESPECTIVE

Author(s):

Jasmina Drinjak, Phil Joyce and Graeme Altmann

Abstract: This paper explores why organizations invest in eCommerce applications and highlights the benefits they wish to achieve. It outlines a Delphi study was used to determine the underlying benefits of investing in Web applications and discusses issues pertaining to the benefits derived.

Title:

NOTIFICATION AND ROUTING OF ELECTRONIC MAIL TO MOBILE PHONE DEVICES

Author(s):

Hans Weghorn

Abstract: Today the desire to link digital mobile telephony to Internet services is growing considerably. Besides specialized services, like e.g. the WAP protocol, a traditional approach is to directly route the information from regular Internet services to mobile terminals, for instance GSM hand-held phones. The latter devices are not only capable of performing digital voice connections, but these operate also a package message service – the so-called small message system (SMS) – for directly interchanging text data. Here, a method is described for routing headers and selected contents of electronic Internet mails to mobile phones by using this SMS datagram service. Since the content of each SMS is limited to a length of 160 bytes, a system concept is described employing packaging and compression for a convenient data forwarding to the mobile phone terminal. This system is realized by introducing additional software subsystems on both ends of this communication expansion, which are the regular e-mail client running on a host connected to the Internet, and the mobile phone acting as synchronized e-mail display terminal.

 
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