Informatica Economica Vol. 18 No. 1/2014

Issue Topic: Business Process Management

Issue Editor: Razvan PETRUSEL, PhD

CONTENTS

Grigore C. Moisil Award 2013 5

Total Factor Productivity, Demographic Traits and ICT: Empirical Analysis for Asia
Bilal MEHMOOD, Parvez AZIM 8
This paper advances a model to explain the total factor productivity in Asian countries, most of which are labor surplus and are endowed with substantial human capital. Such promising demographic potentials are considered as complementary factors to use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Population with such favorable demographic traits and access to ICT results in higher Total factor productivity (TFP). We call this as Demo-Tech-TFP Model and is tested by using data for 2000-2010 of 24 Asian countries. Econometric concerns like presence of endogenous and/or predetermined covariates and small time-series and cross-sectional dimensions of panel dataset are tackled by using System Generalized Method of Moments (SYS-GMM). Results show considerable support for the Demo-Tech-TFP hypothesis. Need is to design such models that suit the local demography and patterns of technological diffusion currently taking place in developing countries.
Keywords: Information and communication technology (ICT), Total Factor Productivity (TFP), Demographic features, Generalized Method of Moments

Implementation of Minutiae Based Fingerprint Identification System Using Crossing Number Concept
Atul S. CHAUDHARI, Girish K. PATNAIK, Sandip S. PATIL 17
Biometric system is essentially a pattern recognition system which recognizes a person by de-termining the authenticity of a specific physiological (e.g., fingerprints, face, retina, iris) or behavioral (e.g., gait, signature) characteristic possessed by that person. Among all the pres-ently employed biometric techniques, fingerprint identification systems have received the most attention due to the long history of fingerprints and its extensive use in forensics. Fingerprint is reliable biometric characteristic as it is unique and persistence. Fingerprint is the pattern of ridges and valleys on the surface of fingertip. However, recognizing fingerprints in poor quality images is still a very complex job, so the fingerprint image must be preprocessed before matching. It is very difficult to extract fingerprint features directly from gray scale fingerprint image. In this paper we have proposed the system which uses minutiae based matching algorithm for fingerprint identification. There are three main phases in proposed algorithm. First phase enhance the input fingerprint image by preprocessing it. The enhanced fingerprint image is converted into thinned binary image and then minutiae are extracted by using Crossing Number Concept in second phase. Third stage compares input fingerprint image (after preprocessing and minutiae extraction) with fingerprint images enrolled in database and makes decision whether the input fingerprint is matched with the fingerprint stored in database or not.
Keywords: Fingerprint Identification, Minutiae Extraction, Crossing Number Concept

Competition and Innovation in Telecom Sector: Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries
Sheikh Taher ABU 27
The paper aims to analyze the effect of competition and innovation in OECD next-generation mobile phones (as a proxy for telecom sector) by examining factors affecting the diffusion pattern. A rigorous econometric model is estimated using the mobile telecommunications panel dataset comprised with the 19 OECD countries where at least 80% data are covered. The econometric model categorizes the variables as: (1) GDP per capita income and mobile user cost, (2) competition policies (3) telecom infrastructure (4) technological innovations (5) others such as role of MVNO (mobile virtual network operators), multiple standards for 3G as for the appropriateness of the outcome. The study represents country specific influence in terms of mobile contents and technological innovations. A new and important empirical finding is that there are still many opportunities available for mobile network operators (MNO) in this region by providing better telecom infrastructure to support technological innovations and to upheaval decreasing trend of average revenue per user (ARPU). Besides, the most important factors are identified as high speeds and necessary time require for porting mobile number.
Keywords: Next-Generation Mobiles; Technological Innovations; Competition Policy, Panel Data Analysis; Standardization

Web 2.0 Tools in the Innovation Process. A Systematic Literature Review
Loay ALTAMIMI 40
There is a wide recognition that, innovation is a key and strategic process, that is, essential for the survival and growth of individual firms, and also, for sustainable national and regional economic growth. Meanwhile, on the one hand, collaboration is a necessary approach for the innovation process in today’s environment, and, on the other hand, information technology (IT) tools are indispensable means for collaboration across different boundaries. Web 2.0 is a new generation of web tools that are providing new ways for work and new opportunities for interaction and collaboration. These new tools are increasingly being used by various or-ganizations to enhance collaboration, to the end of, supporting and improving the innovation process. This review aims to assess the extent and scope to which the literature has examined web 2.0 tools in the context of the innovation process. For this purpose, schol-arly articles, published from 2002 to 2012, on each of the topics of innovation and web 2.0, were collected by the literature search. The study here adopted the systematic approach of lexical analysis for extracting relevant articles from the corpus and for the analysis of those articles.
Keywords: Innovation, Collaboration, Web 2.0, Lexical Analysis, Literature Review

Integrating Click-Through and Eye-Tracking Logs for Decision-Making Process Mining
Răzvan PETRUŞEL 56
In current software every click of the users is logged, therefore a wealth of click-through information exists. Besides, recent technologies have made eye-tracking affordable and an alternative to other human-computer interaction means (e.g. mouse, touchscreens). A big challenge is to make sense of all this data and convert it into useful information. This paper introduces a possible solution placed in the context of decision-making processes. We show how the decision maker’s activity can be traced using two means: mouse tracing (i.e. clicks) and eye-tracking (i.e. eye fixations). Then, we discuss a mining approach, based on the log, which extracts a Decision Data Model (DDM). We use the DDM to determine, post-hoc, which decision strategy was employed. The paper concludes with a validation based on a controlled experiment.
Keywords: Decision-Making Process Model, Data-Flow Model, Decision Process Mining

Mining Product Data Models: A Case Study
Cristina-Claudia DOLEAN 69
This paper presents two case studies used to prove the validity of some data-flow mining algorithms. We proposed the data-flow mining algorithms because most part of mining algorithms focuses on the control-flow perspective. First case study uses event logs generated by an ERP system (Navision) after we set several trackers on the data elements needed in the process analyzed; while the second case study uses the event logs generated by YAWL system.
We offered a general solution of data-flow model extraction from different data sources. In order to apply the data-flow mining algorithms the event logs must comply a certain format (using InputOutput extension). But to respect this format, a set of conversion tools is needed. We depicted the conversion tools used and how we got the data-flow models. Moreover, the data-flow model is compared to the control-flow model.
Keywords: Product Data Model, Process Mining, Data-Flow

Extending and Refining Usability Heuristics to Better Address User Centered Design Issues in the Development and Evaluation of MunicipalWebsites
Costin PRIBEANU 83
Usability of public administration websites is a key issue in the information society. Unfortu-nately, the web content is still difficult to use if not unusable in many websites. Developers seem to neglect basic principles of user centered design. Usability heuristics are valuable resources for both developers and evaluators during and after the development process. The purpose of this work is to extend and refine an existing set of heuristics in order to better address some user centered design issues. Previous studies revealed specific usability problems of municipal websites as well as some evaluation issues. Two heuristics were added that refer to user guidance and task support. The revised heuristics could better help evaluators to explain and developers to understand usability problems in municipal websites.
Keywords: Evaluation Process, Usability, Heuristics, Information Architecture, Task Guid-ance, Municipal Websites, E-Government

Aspects of Orthogonality in the Development of the National Digital Wealth (NDW)
Ion IVAN, Daniel MILODIN, Sergiu CAPISIZU 92
There are presented aspects of orthogonality in the development of the national digital wealth. There is presented the concept of NDW. Are identified quality characteristics. Are built orthogonality metrics for software development applications which are parts of NDW.
Keywords: National Digital Wealth, Metrics, Orthogonality


Creating Virtual Exhibitions for Educational and Cultural Development
Gabriela DUMITRESCU, Cornel LEPADATU, Cristian CIUREA 102
The paper presents different tools and mechanisms to implement a virtual exhibition in different cultural areas, such as museums and libraries. Quality characteristics of virtual exhibitions are identified and described. The possibility to create native mobile applications for virtual exhibitions presentation is analyzed. The functional flow of creating a virtual exhibition is presented and discussed. The Seals - History Treasure exhibition is presented and significant historical documents are revealed.
Keywords: Virtual, Digital, Exhibition, Mobile, Cultural, Educational

Detecting Malicious Code by Binary File Checking
Marius POPA 111
The object, library and executable code is stored in binary files. Functionality of a binary file is altered when its content or program source code is changed, causing undesired effects. A direct content change is possible when the intruder knows the structural information of the binary file. The paper describes the structural properties of the binary object files, how the content can be controlled by a possible intruder and what the ways to identify malicious code in such kind of files. Because the object files are inputs in linking processes, early detection of the malicious content is crucial to avoid infection of the binary executable files.
Keywords: Malicious Code, Binary File, Malware Detection

Integrating Data Mining Techniques into Telemedicine Systems
Mihaela GHEORGHE, Ruxandra PETRE 120
The medical system is facing a wide range of challenges nowadays due to changes that are taking place in the global healthcare systems. These challenges are represented mostly by economic constraints (spiraling costs, financial issues), but also, by the increased emphasis on accountability and transparency, changes that were made in the education field, the fact that the biomedical research keeps growing in what concerns the complexities of the specific studies etc. Also the new partnerships that were made in medical care systems and the great advances in IT industry suggest that a predominant paradigm shift is occurring. This needs a focus on interaction, collaboration and increased sharing of information and knowledge, all of these may is in turn be leading healthcare organizations to embrace the techniques of data mining in order to create and sustain optimal healthcare outcomes. Data mining is a domain of great importance nowadays as it provides advanced data analysis techniques for extracting the knowledge from the huge volumes of data collected and stored by every system of a daily basis. In the healthcare organizations data mining can provide valuable information for patient’s diagnosis and treatment planning, customer relationship management, organization resources management or fraud detection. In this article we focus on describing the importance of data mining techniques and systems for healthcare organizations with a focus on developing and implementing telemedicine solution in order to improve the healthcare services provided to the patients. We provide architecture for integrating data mining techniques into telemedicine systems and also offer an overview on understanding and improving the implemented solution by using Business Process Management methods.
Keywords: Telemedicine, Data Mining, Healthcare, Data Warehouse, Business Process Man-agement, Architecture

Factors Influencing the Quality of Mobile Applications
Alin ZAMFIROIU 131
Mobile applications are becoming increasingly used. Mobile devices are becoming indispensable for the user. In the material are claiming the sales of mobile devices internationally and the use of mobile applications compared to traditional internet use on desktop systems for the United States. Are presented influences the quality of mobile applications and based on these influencing factors built a model of choice for optimal application of mobile applications and traditional desktop application. At the end of the material presented methods to increase quality by tracking the influence factors during the development of mobile applications.
Keywords: Mobile Application, Quality, Influencing Factors, Model, Mobile Device

Evolution and Trends Regarding the Concepts of Innovation and Invention
Mihai Liviu DESPA 139
The paper is focused on analyzing the difference between the concepts of innovation and invention in terms of trends and evolution. The research is centered on innovation with invention being a benchmark for validating results. An economic perspective regarding the differences between invention and innovation is presented. The differences between the two concepts are also analyzed from a legal point of view. The number of references to the concept of innovation, made into a large corpus of books, is analyzed from an evolutionary perspective. The concept of invention is also analyzed in terms of number of occurrences in books. A pattern is drafted for both innovation and invention. The paper tackles the interest shown by the online community in innovation compared to the interested showed in invention. Relevant data sets depict the world’s most interested online communities in innovation and invention. Online communities are analyzed by country and by city. Online communities’ interest in innovation and invention is measured using statistics regarding Google searches. Events that triggered picks in interest shown towards one concept or the other are identified and portrayed. Data from relevant reports that are publicly available is presented.
Keywords: Innovation, Invention, Search Trends, Public Data

Designing a Software Test Automation Framework
Sabina AMARICAI, Radu CONSTANTINESCU 152
Testing is an art and science that should ultimately lead to lower cost businesses through in-creasing control and reducing risk. Testing specialists should thoroughly understand the sys-tem or application from both the technical and the business perspective, and then design, build and implement the minimum-cost, maximum-coverage validation framework. Test Automation is an important ingredient for testing large scale applications. In this paper we discuss several test automation frameworks, their advantages and disadvantages. We also propose a custom automation framework model that is suited for applications with very complex business requirements and numerous interfaces.
Keywords: Software Testing, Test Automation, Test Automation Framework, Data Driven, Keyword Driven, Hybrid

Issues and Challenges of Business Rules Modeling in Software Systems for Business Management
Anca ANDREESCU, Marinela MIRCEA 162
Software systems for business management appeared as a result of the growing need to ensure a consistent IT support for most of the business activities that organizations have to deal with. Moreover, organizations continue to struggle for obtaining competitive advantages on the business market and to lower the cost of developing and maintaining computer systems to support their operations. As business rules play an important role within any organization, they should be taken into consideration as distinct elements when developing a software system that will operate in a collaborative environment. The paper addresses the problem of business rules modeling, with special emphasis on incorporating business rules in Unified Modeling Language (UML) models.
Keywords: Business Rules, Software Systems, Business Management, UML Models, OCL

Publishing Guide for Authors 171

INFOREC Association 173