Damir Kalpić

Review: The automatic creation of concept maps from documents written using morphologically rich languages

Concept map is a graphical tool for representing knowledge. They have been used in many different areas, including education, knowledge management, business and intelligence. Constructing of concept maps manually can be a complex task; an unskilled person may encounter difficulties in determining and positioning concepts relevant to the problem area. An application that recommends concept candidates and their position in a concept map can significantly help the user in that situation. This paper gives an overview of different approaches to automatic and semi-automatic creation of concept maps from textual and non-textual sources. The concept map mining process is defined, and one method suitable for the creation of concept maps from unstructured textual sources in highly inflected languages such as the Croatian language is described in detail. Proposed method uses statistical and data mining techniques enriched with linguistic tools. With minor adjustments, that method can also be used for concept map mining from textual sources in other morphologically rich languages.

CASE STUDY BASED ON A MULTI-PERIOD MULTI-CRITERIA PRODUCTION PLANNING MODEL

The aim of the described model and procedures is to enable production planning by using multi-criteria linear programming in a manufacturing environment. It is assumed that linearity holds within acceptable tolerances and the problem of choice is present, i.e. the majority of products can be manufactured in a number of technically and financially different processes. The same resources, raw materials, machines, tools, and manpower can be assigned to different processes. The planning objectives include calculating the optimum production mix and achieving the capacity and material balance, while maximizing the contribution and minimizing the duration of the longest resource engagement. Multiple periods are applied to achieve approximated time scheduling. The described software also calculates the direct costs, enables easy locating of infeasibility cause and offers sensitivity analysis. A goal programming variation is introduced for maximum satisfaction of the market requirements. The described procedures are in practical use in a thermoplastics factory.

Proactive monitoring of the information system risk and quality

Proactive system monitoring is the search for potential problems in the Information Systems (IS) before they occur. With reference to IS, monitoring is always proactive. Watching for evidence of emerging or potential problems and identifying their source (factor), checking available disk space, the health of essential processes, probing systems to ensure that they are reachable, business requirement fulfilment; these are all examples of detecting problems before they disrupt the work/flow of an IS. Monitoring is not something that should be cavalierly put off until theres nothing else on the development teams schedule to be done. As soon as the IS is put in production, it is time to start to protect it against all possible types of problems.

A prototype for the short-term prediction of moving object's movement using Markov chains

Due to the recent advances in Global Positioning System (GPS) and wireless technology, which enabled collection of large amount of data about moving objects, research on moving objects experiences its expanded phase. In this paper we focus on short-term prediction of moving objects movement using Markov chain adapted to spatiotemporal data. We demonstrate our prototype for tracking and predicting objects future location and perceive some problems in real-time prediction.

Methodological Framework for Virtual Team Project Management

Virtual teams greatly depend on various information and communication technologies that support different aspects of teams’ operation. Therefore, managing projects involving virtual teams requires specific tool and technology supported approach. Currently a number of project management methodologies exist, but none of them is entirely suitable for managing projects in virtual team environments. In this paper, a methodological framework suitable for management of projects involving virtual teams is proposed. Project life cycle adequate for virtual project teams is elaborated and effectiveness of the proposed framework is verified on a real-world project.

Application of smart cards in distributed information systems

Since their appearance in 1990, utilization of smart cards has been in constant growth. It is quite evident that any magnetic card can be replaced by a smart card bringing in all the benefits of this technology. The power of contemporary smart cards, which contain an embedded powerful computer, makes their area of application very extensive, especially in the field of information systems

Building a XML based Object Mapping System (OMS)

Client/server computing has created a deep paradigmatic shift in the information technology (IT) industry. It is replacing colossal monolithic mainframe systems with applications split across different computation units (clients and servers). Stateless business objects in the form of XML strings are a paradigm shift within a paradigm shift; this is a new client server revolution within the client server revolution. Stateless business objects in XML format break-up the client and server sides of an application into independent components that can interact together and roam across networks, with a unique and flexible interface definition. This paper proposes using the OMS (Object Mapping System) architecture template, to help system designers in building modern generic XML.

Scheduling of Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) Procedures with Genetic Algorithm

A number of ETL procedures are used in the process of loading data to data warehouse systems. Some procedures can be executed concurrently in parallel mode, while for the others there are precedence constraints. Thus, the problem in scheduling procedures for execution is similar to the problem of scheduling of jobs in multiprocessor systems. The solution to this problem has been proposed in the optimum schedule of jobs minimizing the total execution time. When optimizing the schedule for ETL procedures, minimization of the total execution time is not the primary goal. Namely, the ETL procedures provide data required for reports aimed for business users and such reports need to be prepared until the user-defined deadlines. If the deadlines are not breached, the solution is satisfactory, regardless of the total execution time. Also, one cannot assume that all ETL processes are of the same importance – some have higher priorities than the others. That is the reason why prioritization and introduction of explicit bounds to completion time for individual ETL processes is attempted with genetic algorithm (GA). This paper encompasses implementation of the algorithm, experiments with different parameters and testing the quality of obtained solutions.

Proactive Reactive Scheduling in Resource Constrained Projects with Flexibility and Quality Robustness Requirements

This paper presents a new approach to proactive reactive scheduling of stochastic resource-constrained project scheduling problems with known probability distributions of activity durations. To facilitate the search for cost-flexible proactive schedules that are adjustable and incur lower expected cost of future rescheduling, a new family of cost-based flexibility measures is introduced. Under these measures, cost is incurred on each rescheduling while taking into account the temporal distance of changes in the baseline schedule. We propose a new model that describes the integrated approach using the proposed cost-based flexibility measures where, in each stage, reactive scheduling can adjust the baseline schedule to accommodate flexibility and quality requirements. The model is based on bounded stochastic shortest path with finite state and action spaces. The commonly used schedule stability measure is put in the context of proposed family of flexibility measures and contrasted to them in the terms of project execution system properties.

INTRODUCTION OF SAP ERP SYSTEM INTO A HETEROGENEOUS ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

Introduction of a complex ERP system like SAP into a heterogeneous academic environment like the University of Zagreb is far from being a trivial task. The University comprises more than 30 constituents, called faculties or academies, geographically dispersed, with long and specific traditions. Financing according to the lump sum principle, enforced in Croatia as a side effect of the in Europe obligatory and omnipresent Bologna process, requires a unified view on the educational institutions in order to provide a more just and appropriate financing scheme than the current one. After the experience with own development to support educational tasks and student administration, for standard financial and administration tasks SAP has been chosen as the most appropriate platform. The developer was selected after public bidding and the authors’ institution was chosen for the pilot project. The authors were playing principal roles in the process of successful deployment and still expect to offer their expertise for implementation in the rest of the University. However, serious risks stemming from lack of motivation by some constituents are present.