Informatica Economica Vol. 16 No. 1/2012

Issue Topic: Web and Software Metrics

Issue Editor: Floarea NASTASE, PhD

CONTENTS

Evaluating Software Complexity Based on Decision Coverage
Mustafa AL-HAJJAJI, Izzat ALSMADI, Samer SAMARAH 5
It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the complexity of software products. Software metrics are proposed to help show indications for quality, size, complexity, etc. of software products. In this paper, software metrics related to complexity are developed and evaluated. A dataset of many open source projects is built to assess the value of the developed metrics. Comparisons and correlations are conducted among the different tested projects. A classifica-tion is proposed to classify software code into different levels of complexity. The results showed that measuring the complexity of software products based on decision coverage gives a significant indicator of degree of complexity of those software products. However, such in-dicator is not exclusive as there are many other complexity indicators that can be measured in software products. In addition, we conducted a comparison among several available metric tools that can collect software complexity metrics. Results among those different tools were not consistent. Such comparison shows the need to have a unified standard for measuring and collecting complexity attributes.
Keywords: Complexity, Software Metrics, Decision Coverage, Software Quality, Testing

Contributions to Logical Database Design
Vitalie COTELEA 14
This paper treats the problems arising at the stage of logical database design. It comprises a synthesis of the most common inference models of functional dependencies, deals with the problems of building covers for sets of functional dependencies, makes a synthesizes of normal forms, presents trends regarding normalization algorithms and provides a temporal complexity of those. In addition, it presents a summary of the most known keys’ search algorithms, deals with issues of analysis and testing of relational schemes. It also summarizes and compares the different features of recognition of acyclic database schemas.
Keywords: Logical Database Design, Functional Dependencies, Normal Forms, Acyclic Database Schema

Web Accessibility in Romania: The Conformance of Municipal Web Sites to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Costin PRIBEANU, Ruxandra-Dora MARINESCU, Paul FOGARASSY-NESZLY, Maria Gheorghe-MOISII 28
The accessibility of public administration web sites is a key quality attribute for the successful implementation of the Information Society. The purpose of this paper is to present a second review of municipal web sites in Romania that is based on automated accessibility checking. A number of 60 web sites were evaluated against WCAG 2.0 recommendations. The analysis of results reveals a relatively low web accessibility of municipal web sites and highlights several aspects. Firstly, a slight progress in web accessibility was noticed as regarded the sample evaluated in 2010. Secondly, the number of specific accessibility errors is varying across the web sites and the accessibility is not preserved in time. Thirdly, these variations suggest that an accessibility check before launching a new release for a web page is not a common practice.
Keywords: Accessibility, Computer-Aided Evaluation, Municipal Web Sites

Mathematics behind a Class of Image Restoration Algorithms
Luminiţa STATE, Cătălina-Lucia COCIANU 37

The restoration techniques are usually oriented toward modeling the type of degradation in order to infer the inverse process for recovering the given image. This approach usually involves the option for a criterion to numerically evaluate the quality of the resulted image and consequently the restoration process can be expressed in terms of an optimization problem. Most of the approaches are essentially based on additional hypothesis concerning the statistical properties of images. However, in real life applications, there is no enough information to support a certain particular image model, and consequently model- free developments have to be used instead. In our approaches the problem of image denoising/restoration is viewed as an information transmission/processing system, where the signal representing a certain clean image is transmitted through a noisy channel and only a noise-corrupted version is available. The aim is to recover the available signal as much as possible by using different noise removal techniques that is to build an accurate approximation of the initial image. Unfortunately, a series of image qualities, as for instance clarity, brightness, contrast, are affected by the noise removal techniques and consequently there is a need to partially restore them on the basis of information extracted exclusively from data. Following a brief description of the image restoration framework provided in the introductory part, a PCA-based methodology is presented in the second section of the paper. The basics of a new informational-based development for image restoration purposes and scatter matrix-based methods are given in the next two sections. The final section contains concluding remarks and suggestions for further work.
Keywords: Principal Component Analysis, Scatter Matrix, Bhattacharyya Upper Margin, Optimal Linear Compression/Decompression, Image Restoration

Using Distributed Applications in Personal Recruitment Management
Marian Pompiliu CRISTESCU, Liviu CIOVICA, Laurentiu CIOVICA, Florin MARTIN 50
In any company, no matter the dimensions, a very important aspect is the selection of human resources and establishing a constant correspondence between the particularities of the job opened and candidate’s profile. Especially in big companies, engaged in big projects, and which must be performed in a fast rhythm, the recruitment process is in a continuum progress, due to the demand rhythm, the work force mobility and to assuring a diversify knowledge data base. Experience has shown that a selection made in advance in the candidates CV’s who apply for a scientific position, before programming the technical interview with them, is a real time saving for both the employers and the candidates
Keywords: Distributed Application, Personal Recruitment, Management, Human Resources

SOA and Web Technology for Building BSE Market Map
Claudiu VINŢE, Alexandru JURUBIŢĂ 60
Visual representation as a map of the stock market data can offer access, in a quick and rele-vant manner for human participants, to the overall state of the market at a given point in time. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of our academic research upon building the market map for Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE). We will focus on the algorithm for generat-ing the market map, the system architecture, and web technology employed for capturing the required data and making the map publicly available through the portal www.bursa.ase.ro. Mathematics Subject Classification: 68M14 (Distributed Systems)
Keywords: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM), Java Message Service (JMS), Tree-Maps, Stock Market Map, Recursive Algorithms, Divide-and-Conquer Strategy

Creativity’s Kernel Development for Conscience Society
Dumitru TODOROI 70
Creativity is man’s (in our opinion not only man’s (Natural Intelligence) but an exclusive important computer’s, that is, Artificial Intelligence’s) capacity to produce insights, new ideas, inventions or artistic objects, which are accepted of being of social, spiritual, esthetic, or technological value. Creativity is a mental process [1]. The Piirto’s Six Steps of Creativity development (acquire Knowledge, develop Curiosity, become Interested, Passion, Dedication, and Professionalism) interference and interaction with Piirto’s 7i features (Inspiration, Imagery, Imagination, Intuition, Insights, Improvisation, and Incubation) which characterize highly creative people represents the Base Creativity’s Kernel to be developed in Conscience Society. Tools for Base Creativity’s Kernel’s development are represented by both [2] it’s information (adaptable environment) and its operational (adaptable system) parts
Keywords: Creativity, Conscience, Adaptable Tools, Conscience Society, Intelligence

The PQUAL Open System Quality Model
Cristian IONIŢĂ 87
Quality assessment of open business enterprise systems is very important because those plat-forms play a central role in the organizations that implement them. The current paper proposes a new easily applicable software quality model called PQUAL that evaluates the quality of such systems. The quality characteristics are identified and analyzed using the ISO/IEC 9126 international standard as a starting point. The paper develops metrics to measure the quality level for the characteristics. The PQUAL model is applied to compare the quality of the DocuMentor and YAWL platforms.
Keywords: Quality, Model, Metric, BWL, BWS, Evaluation, Open Business Enterprise System

Cloud-based Virtual Organization Engineering
Liviu-Gabriel CREŢU 98
Nowadays we may notice that SOA arrived to its maturity stage and Cloud Computing brings the next paradigm-shift regarding the software delivery business model. In such a context, we consider that there is a need for frameworks to guide the creation, execution and management of virtual organizations (VO) based on services from different Clouds. This paper will introduce the main components of such a framework that will innovatively combine the principles of event-driven SOA, REST and ISO/IEC 42010:2007 multiple views and viewpoints in order to provide the required methodology for Cloud-based virtual organization (Cloud-VO) engi-neering. The framework will consider the resource concept found in software architectures like REST or RDF as the basic building block of Cloud-VO. and will make use of resources’ URIs to create the Cloud-VO’s resource allocation matrix. While the matrix is used to declare activity-resources relationships, the resource catalogue concept will be introduced as a way to describe the resource in one place, using as many viewpoints as needed, and then to reuse that description for the creation or simulation of different VOs.
Keywords: Virtual Organizations, Enterprise Engineering Framework, Cloud Computing, REST

Survey of Clustering based Financial Fraud Detection Research
Andrei Sorin SABAU 110
Given the current global economic context, increasing efforts are being made to both prevent and detect fraud. This is a natural response to the ascendant trend in fraud activities recorded in the last couple of years, with a 13% increase only in 2011. Due to ever increasing volumes of data needed to be analyzed, data mining methods and techniques are being used more and more often. One domain data mining can excel at, suspicious transaction monitoring, has emerged for the first time as the most effective fraud detection method in 2011. Out of the available data mining techniques, clustering has proven itself a constant applied solution for detecting fraud. This paper surveys clustering techniques used in fraud detection over the last ten years, shortly reviewing each one.
Keywords: Fraud Detection, Data Mining, Clustering

Compared Analysis of Representative Learning and Content Management Systems used in Education
Alina-Mihaela ION 123
Online learning management systems used in universities do not fulfill entirely user requests. In order to optimize the activity of students and professors, an educational platform should provide both features of content learning management and features of content management. In this paper, we selected for analysis the most representative learning management systems (LMS) and content management systems (CMS) on the market. We analyzed both products that require paid license and free products in order to identify the essential features of a LMS and a CMS. Based on the results, we identified a series of features that such systems should provide and we conclude if the ideal system for an educational platform dedicated to superior learning may be represented by an existing product or by a hybrid system.
Keywords: CMS, LMS, compared analysis, instruction systems, educational platform

Building Database-Powered Mobile Applications
Paul POCATILU 132
Almost all mobile applications use persistency for their data. A common way for complex mobile applications is to store data in local relational databases. Almost all major mobile platforms include a relational database engine. These databases engines expose specific API (Application Programming Interface) to be used by mobile applications developers for data definition and manipulation. This paper focus on database-based application models for several mobile platforms (Android, Symbian, Windows CE/Mobile and Windows Phone). For each selected platform the API and specific database operations are presented.
Keywords: Mobile Application, Data Persistence, Embedded Database, SQL, Mobile Platform

Collaborative Virtual Organizations in Knowledge-based Economy
Ion IVAN, Cristian CIUREA, Mihai DOINEA 143
The paper establishes the content of the virtual organizations concept, insisting on their collaborative nature. Types of virtual organizations architectures are developed and there are analyzed their characteristics compared to classical organizations existing in the pre-informational economy. There are presented virtual organizations for education, production and banking, focusing on their collaborative side. Metrics are built to evaluate the performance of collaborative virtual organizations.
Keywords: Collaborative System, Virtual Organization, Banking, Production, Metrics

Evaluation of E-learning Platforms: a Case Study
Cristina POP 155
In the recent past, a great number of e-learning platforms have been introduced on the market showing different characteristics and services. These platforms can be evaluated using multiple criteria and methods. This paper proposes a list of selected quality criteria for describing, characterizing and selecting e-learning platform. These criteria were designed based on e-learning standards. I also propose a mathematical model to determine the probability that a student uses an e-learning platform based on the factors (criteria) that determine the quality of the platform and the socio-demographic variables of the student. The case study presented is an application of the model and the input data, intermediate calculations and final results were processed using SAS (Statistical Analysis Software).
Keywords: E-Learning Platform, E-Learning Standards, Learning Object, Logistic Regression, Quality Criteria List, Univariate Analysis

Book Review: Databases Volume I: Organizing, Designing and Implementing
Ion SMEUREANU 168

The Eleventh International Conference on Informatics in Economy, IE 2012
The 5th International Conference on Security for Information Technology and Communications, SECITC’12
Call for Papers 170

Publishing Guide for Authors 172

Inforec Association 174