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Summary Ordination and clustering methods are widely applied to ecological data that are non-negative, for example, species abundances or biomasses. These methods rely on a measure of multivariate proximity that quantifies differences between the sampling units (e.g. individuals, stations, time points), leading to results such as: (i) ordinations of the units, where interpoint distances optimally display the measured differences; (ii) clustering the units into homogeneous clusters or (iii) assessing differences between pre-specified groups of units (e.g. regions, periods, treatment–control groups). These methods all conceal a fundamental question: To what extent are the differences between the sampling units, computed according to the chosen proximity function, capturing the ‘size’ in the multivariate observations, or their ‘shape’? ‘Size’ means the overall level of the measurements: for example, some samples contain higher total abundances or more biomass, others less. ‘Shape’ means the relative levels of the measurements: for example, some samples have different relative abundances, i.e. different compositions. To answer this question, several well-known proximity measures are considered and applied to two datasets, one of which is used in a simulation exercise where ‘shape’ differences have been eliminated by randomization. For any dataset and any proximity measure, a quantification is achieved of the proportion of ‘size’ variance and ‘shape’ variance that the measure is capturing, as well as the proportion of variance that confounds ‘size’ and ‘shape’ together. The results consistently show that the Bray–Curtis coefficient incorporates both ‘size’ and ‘shape’ differences, to varying degrees. These two components are thus always confounded by this proximity measure in the determination of ordinations, clusters, group comparisons and relations to environmental variables. There are several implications of these results, the main one being that researchers should be aware of this issue when they choose a proximity measure. They should compute the ‘size’ and ‘shape’ components for their particular datasets, as this can radically affect the interpretation of their results. It is recommended to separate these components: analysing total abundances or other measures of ‘size’ by univariate methods, and using multivariate analysis on the relative abundances where size has been specifically excluded.

This paper proposes a new way to measure and deal with risk within the portfolio selection problem using a skewness/semivariance biobjective optimization framework. The solutions of this biobjective optimization problem allow the investor to analyse the efficient trade-off between skewness and semivariance. Due to the endogeneity of the cosemivariance matrix, the biobjective problem is solved using a derivative-free algorithm based on direct multisearch. For four datasets, collected from the Fama/French benchmark collection, the direct multisearch was able to determine the in-sample Pareto frontier. The out-of-sample performance of the skewness/semivariance model was assessed by choosing three portfolios (the portfolio that maximizes a skewness per semivariance ratio, the portfolio that maximizes the Sharpe ratio and the portfolio that maximizes the Sortino ratio) at each in-sample Pareto frontier and measuring their performance in terms of skewness per semivariance ratio, Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio and turnover. The results show that the efficient skewness/semivariance portfolios are consistently competitive, and often superior, comparatively to the benchmark portfolios considered. Both in-sample and the out-of-sample performance analysis were conducted using three different benchmark returns for the semivariance computations.

We construct a weighted Euclidean distance that approximates any distance or dissimilarity measure between individuals that is based on a rectangular cases-by-variables data matrix. In contrast to regular multidimensional scaling methods for dissimilarity data, our approach leads to biplots of individuals and variables while preserving all the good properties of dimension-reduction methods that are based on the singular-value decomposition. The main benefits are the decomposition of variance into components along principal axes, which provide the numerical diagnostics known as contributions, and the estimation of nonnegative weights for each variable. The idea is inspired by the distance functions used in correspondence analysis and in principal component analysis of standardized data, where the normalizations inherent in the distances can be considered as differential weighting of the variables. In weighted Euclidean biplots, we allow these weights to be unknown parameters, which are estimated from the data to maximize the fit to the chosen distances or dissimilarities. These weights are estimated using a majorization algorithm. Once this extra weight-estimation step is accomplished, the procedure follows the classical path in decomposing the matrix and displaying its rows and columns in biplots.

The research paper, focused on a rather technical approach, has the goal to design a system that brings together diverse audit stakeholders and investigates how an audit database available online can be implemented in SharePoint, as part of an on-line audit system which is collaborative and national. The online audit database covers various information needs for both financial auditors and the employees of the Chamber of Financial Auditors of Romania. For rapid deployment, we used various tools: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010 and various implementation features: external content types, external lists, business data web parts etc. In this paper, we use two research methods: the first one is empiric, based on formulating a questionnaire and the interpretation of the results, while the second is the analysis of the implementation process by using a step-by-step approach. The online audit database stores information about the results of previous audits, the opinions issued as result of audits, the results of online electronic inspections, audit firms, audited entities, risks identified etc. The conclusion was that the online database, which is updated through Internet, is feasible to implement in SharePoint, for multiple audit stakeholders including financial auditors who can sell their financial audit services benefiting from the transparency that the system provides.

In recent years, dealing with a lot of data originating from social media sites and mobile communications among data from business environments and institutions, lead to the definition of a new concept, known as Big Data. The economic impact of the sheer amount of data produced in a last two years has increased rapidly. It is necessary to aggregate all types of data (structured and unstructured) in order to improve current transactions, to develop new business models, to provide a real image of the supply and demand and thereby, generate market advantages. So, the companies that turn to Big Data have a competitive advantage over other firms. Looking from the perspective of IT organizations, they must accommodate the storage and processing Big Data, and provide analysis tools that are easily integrated into business processes. This paper aims to discuss aspects regarding the Big Data concept, the principles to build, organize and analyse huge datasets in the business environment, offering a three-layer architecture, based on actual software solutions. Also, the article refers to the graphical tools for exploring and representing unstructured data, Gephi and NodeXL.

Guyana was a proving ground for both the capitalist and socialist development ideas in the latter half of the 20th century. We analyze the problems and solutions for those experiment from the point of views of appraising their performances. Traditional theories such as input-output models, sectorial models, and growth models form the windows for the appraisal. When the subject matter is judgmental, Analytic Network Process and (ANP) and Data Envelop Analysis (DEA) are engaged. When the subject matter is structural, the time series of gross investment to GDP is considered as a driver of growth. We subject that ratio to spectral and cross-spectral analysis for a half a century of data for Guyana vs. neighboring countries. The results indicate that Guyana has stepped into the long-run cumulative growth process after its struggles with development.Keywords: Development, Planning, Sectorial Models, Analytic Network Process, Data Envelop Analysis, Spectral Analysis.JEL Class.:C00 (Quantitative Analysis); C15 (Simulation); C88 (Data Analysis)

This paper studies the behavior of the smile in the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) during the volatile summer of 2011.We investigate the volatility smile derived from liquid call and put options on the Polish WIG20 index which option series expired on September 2011. In this period, the polish index has dropped about 20% in two weeks time. By linear interpolation, implied volatilities for moneyness points needed were calculated, then we construct 355 smile curves for calls and puts options to study and make some kind of smile-types classification. We propose seventeen types-smiles which represent all possible cases of three points (three moneynesses) graphical patterns. This classification is made basing upon relationship higher/equal/lower values of implied volatility for each of three points. Furthermore, we distinguish the convexity of pattern. We can note that smiles, smirks and ups are convex in shape, while reversed ones and downs are concave functions. / Este artículo analiza el comportamiento de la sonrisa de la volatilidad en la Bolsa de Varsovia (WSE) durante el volátil verano de 2011, derivada de las opciones más líquidas sobre el índice polaco WIG20, cuyas series expiraron en septiembre de 2011. En ese período, el índice había caído aproximadamente un 20% en tan sólo dos semanas. Mediante interpolación lineal construimos 355 curvas de sonrisas para poder estudiar una posible clasificación o tipología de las mismas. Proponemos 17 tipos de sonrisas, las cuales representan todos los casos posibles de tres monetizaciones de patrones gráficos. Esta clasificación se basa en la relación valores superiores/iguales/inferiores de la volatilidad implícita para cada uno de los tres puntos. Además, se distingue la convexidad de cada una. Destacamos que las sonrisas completas, las sonrisas asimétricas y las inclinadas hacia arriba son de forma convexa, mientras que las invertidas y las inclinadas hacia abajo son funciones cóncavas.

Providing a guarantee for the customer satisfaction is essential nowadays in multiple domains. A user-centric approach has become a necessity since user satisfaction represents a key performance indicator for the providers; a metric, providers can use in order to improve their business. In multimedia environments, users are sensitive to factors as noise, echo or delay; it is a matter of seconds to quit using a service. To this purpose, QoS (Quality of Service) plays a crucial role. This paper focus is to provide insights on how QoS impacts the QoE (Quality of Experience) perceived by the end-user of multimedia networks. The literature review, the practical approaches and the experiments described in this paper aim at providing a better understanding of the QoS-QoE relationship when dealing with multimedia traffic.

In this paper we extend the study of the cardinality impact from the standard mean-variance scenario to higher moments, considering a utility maximization framework. For each scenario, we propose a bi-objective model that allows the investor to directly analyse the efficient trade-off between expected utility and cardinality. We study not only the effect of cardinality in each scenario but also the real gain of considering higher moments in portfolio management. This analysis is performed assuming that the investor has constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) preferences. For the data collected on the PSI20 index, the empirical results showed that there are no performance gains, in-sample, from the efficient mean-variance expected utility/cardinality portfolios to the efficient expected utility/cardinality portfolios when higher moments are considered. However, the out-of-sample performance of the efficient mean-variance-skewness expected utility/cardinality portfolios and of the efficient mean-variance-skewness-kurtosis expected utility/cardinality portfolios suggest the existence of real gains, especially when transaction costs are considered.

Analyzing and working with big data could be very diffi cult using classical means like relational database management systems or desktop software packages for statistics and visualization. Instead, big data requires large clusters with hundreds or even thousands of computing nodes. Offi cial statistics is increasingly considering big data for deriving new statistics because big data sources could produce more relevant and timely statistics than traditional sources. One of the software tools successfully and wide spread used for storage and processing of big data sets on clusters of commodity hardware is Hadoop. Hadoop framework contains libraries, a distributed fi le-system (HDFS), a resource-management platform and implements a version of the MapReduce programming model for large scale data processing. In this paper we investigate the possibilities of integrating Hadoop with R which is a popular software used for statistical computing and data visualization. We present three ways of integrating them: R with Streaming, Rhipe and RHadoop and we emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of each solution., Romanian Statistical Review no. 2 / 2014

The present paper exposes an overview of the state-of-the-art of R statistical software in the official statistics in Romania, predominantly in the social statistics. Examples on data analysis and econometric models of Small Area Estimation successfully completed are given. The scientific approach includes also a summary of the applications of R in other statistical offices around the world. Other countries like United Kingdom or Netherlands are truly experienced in the use of R. We conclude with a series of proposals on the future research opportunities and other potential analysis procedures of R in the social statistics.

Resumen El cómputo de alto rendimiento es una necesidad para el desarrollo deinvestigaciones con grandes volúmenes de datos. La creciente demanda de este tipo deresultados ha impulsado a varios centros de investigación a poner en funcionamientorecursos de cómputo de alto rendimiento. En Cuba no existe una solución definitiva quepermita a todos los centros de investigación disponer de los recursos de cómputonecesarios para desarrollar sus proyectos. Este trabajo propone el empleo de un clúster decomputadoras de la Universidad de Griffith a través de una interfaz basada en el correoelectrónico. Esta solución permite disponer de recursos de cómputo de alto rendimientosin necesidad de una alta conectividad. Como caso de estudio se analizan los resultadosobtenidos en un proyecto de optimización global en grandes dimensiones desarrollado enla Universidad de La Habana. Para experimentos con un mes de duración (en unacomputadora estándar) los resultados muestran que al utilizar el recurso de altorendimiento es posible alcanzar un incremento en el rendimiento relativo superior al1300%. Abstract: Research with large volumes of data usually require access to High Performance Computing. The increasing demand for this kind of research has led many institutions to develop their own computer clusters. However, in Cuba there is no definitive solution for the High Performance Computing requirements of institutions such as the University of Havana. The expenses of building a computer cluster disallows many institutions to have their own, while the low connectivity limits the use of international high performance computing services. This research presents an alternative solution based on the development of an email-based platform for accessing a computer cluster at Griffith University in Australia. This new communication interface has been successfully used on a Large Scale Optimization research project at the University of Havana. Computational results show that by using the remote cluster it is possible to improve upon the performance of a personal computer by up to 1300%.

In the context of the generalization process of computerization in all areas of economic and social necessity author presents the design of information systems at risk as small operation. This paper defines the concept of reliability of systems, its basic components and create a model for accomplishing it. Reliability is a key factor considered by the author to reduce the risk of operating systems. The problem is even more important for embedded computing systems. The paper is designed and presented an original design of systems with high reliability. According to the author, the cost of preparing such a system is a factor that determines the level of reliability designed paper presents various design alternatives based on costs..

Forward Search (FS) is an iterative method to detect the presence of groups of outliers in the case of regression or multivariate data. In the present paper, FS is applied to Istat data on marriages celebrated in 2011 and to the characteristics of partners. The aim is to identify Provinces and Municipalities with significantly different characteristics from the other Italian Provinces and Municipalities. The analysis was conducted referring to three FS models: the multivariate, the compositional and the regression model. The comparison of the results obtained highlights the importance of the reference framework to define an observation as outlier. The analysis was performed using SiRiO (Outlier Research System), a software developed in Istat to make the FS analysis available for non- expert users.

This paper provides an overview over a way of integrating R with PHP scripting language in order to analyze statistical data (time series). We analyze the relationship between the foreign direct investments and GDP of the Republic of Moldova over 1992-2012 time period.

From the first applications to this day, expert systems have obtained remarkable results in many areas, by using knowledge extracted and transferred from human experts. The main reason behind the advent of expert systems was the potential to provide recommendations to a large number of users. In today’s world, the spread of the Internet and web applications generated an exponential growth of the quantity of information that needs to be processed by an increasing number of users. Under these circumstances emerged the convergence of web technologies with expert systems, resulting in the category of web based expert systems. The potential of traditional expert systems was harnessed by using web technologies, offering new ways of disseminating expertise and knowledge to a mass audience. In this paper we will first review base concepts and features of traditional expert systems and then point out the benefits brought by the development and the use of web based expert systems.

During 2011 General Population and Housing Census methodological innovations towards the planning of a register-based census were introduced. Such innovations allowed to reach a satisfactory cost-benefit balance but increased the survey complexity and the risk of errors.Istat focus on web technologies was aimed at performing an innovative census, both in terms of methodology and costs and of data dissemination timeliness. This paper shows how a highly integrated web information system was used to manage a census workflow involving several actors and multiple phases and integrating different data sources. The success of 2011 Census led Istat to adopt such technological infrastructure as the core of the ‘Continuous General Population and Housing Census’.

At the beginning of the XXI century society, knowledge based society, the management of economic organizations can only be achieved through optimal IT systems. They can be seen as an extension of increasingly complex information systems and provide effective leadership only if they are integrated in the economic system of the organization. We have previously shown some of the features that recommend integrated IT systems to be controlled and used, as well as main principles for building the integrated computer systems, strategies that can be applied in the designing of this type of IT system. Advantages of management integrated IT systems can be best supported by examples, and therefore we intend to present a special category, but increasingly used, of integrated IT systems: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). They are “distributed IT systems based on client / server and developed for the processing of transactions and facilitating the integration of business processes with suppliers, customers and other business partners.”

The main objective of this paper is to expose the evolution of R, as the most used data analysis tool among statisticians and the academic researchers. Its flexibility and complexity simply gained the statisticians and data scientists. The paper examines some of the reasons behind the popularity of R, using tools like SWOT analysis. R software environment offers integrated tools for a very large area of data analysis, from computations and data mining to high-effects visualization. As an example, we performed in this paper an illustration of 3D plotting.

During the last years, the global economic crisis has affected all domains, including the health sector. Many governments have considered that the solution to this problem is to reduce public expenses on healthcare, to decrease the budgets for health services, to rationalize the medical plans for the population, to increase the share of health expenditure paid by patients and to select the products on the pharmaceutical market. In order to improve the medical service whilst maintaining reduced infrastructure costs, the new digital technologies offer the solution of cloud-based services for the e-health systems. In this paper we present the cloud-hosted healthcare applications concept, the advantages of using e-Health on distributed platforms and some considerations about the security levels. Also, we further present an experiment based on the free OpenEMR solution, which has also a cloud version, ZH-Services OpenEMR.

The main purpose of this paper is to present an idea of using mobile technology for optimization of orders management inside a restaurant. For implementing this idea we used SQL Server 2008 R2 Express for databases, Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone for developing the application used from phones, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express for developing web services, Internet Information Server for expose the web services to the internet. The phone application can be deployed to Windows Marketplace, and can be downloaded by any potential user. In this case the application can be used by any client of the restaurant if they will receive a username and a password. The entire process of placing orders can be transferred directly to the client, and can be made with the hardware of the client. More clients means more hardware’s which can be used concurrently.

Mutaţiile din domeniul tehnologiei informaţionale şi al metodelor de abordare a sistemelor s-au reflectat şi în ciclul de viaţă al dezvoltării sistemelor, fie prin schimbarea etapelor acestuia, fie prin modificarea opticii de parcurgere a lor. Spre exemplu, odată cu abordarea orientată-obiect a sistemelor, s-au lansat şi noi modele ale ciclului de viaţă. Prin parcurgerea materialelor de specialitate, se poate constata că numărul fazelor/etapelor unui ciclu de viață variază de la trei (de exemplu analiza, proiectarea, implementarea) la peste douăzeci. Există multe metodologii de dezvoltare a sistemelor, și fiecare dintre ele este unică în funcție de ordinea și importanța fiecărei faze din ciclul de dezvoltare. Unele metodologii reprezintă standarde formale folosite de agenții guvernamentale, în timp ce altele au fost dezvoltate de firme de consultanță pentru a fi vândute clienților. Multe organizații au metodologiile lor interne care au fost rafinate de-a lungul anilor. Lucrarea aceasta îsi propune să facă un scurt inventar al principalelor metodologii de dezvoltarea a programelor informatice, evidențiind diferențele și asemănările dintre ele, ca în final să ofere sugestii cu privirea la oportunitatea folosirii unei metode sau alta în funcție de tipul proiectului.

Currently, two anthropological models are dominant in Romania. The first is the atheistic-evolutionary model and the second is the Christian model. The purpose of this article is to assess the students’ opinion on the two anthropological models and, in particular, on the purpose of human life. To that effect, there have been used the coefficients of association between the main aspects of the two models. Starting from the two outlined approaches, this paper aims to investigate the opinions of the students from two different specializations within Ovidius University of Constanta – the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Theology – on the issues mentioned above

Forecasting Populations (FPOP) is a microsimulation model (MSM) that is the demographic core of an extensible modeling framework. The framework, with FPOP at its core, enables the geospatial projection of a population under purely demographic processes or under the additional influence of exogenous factors such as disease, policy changes and prevention programs, or environmental stressors. Empirically-derived transition probabilities of life events such as birth, death, marriage, divorce and migration, captured in lookup table format, drive the simulation. These transition probabilities can be modified dynamically by external user-defined functions or other external MSMs. The use of MSM structures and methodologies enables FPOP to portray the impact of heterogeneity in the geospatial dimension (e.g., distribution of environmental factors or distribution of intervention programs), as well as the social dimension (e.g., household or social network correlates), on the projections. POP is designed and structured to: enable linking with external MSMs of any kind; support inclusion or configuration of more detailed transition probabilities; be scalable to millions of agents; use either an existing baseline synthetic population or a custom synthetic population of the user’s design; and, run under computing environments that don’t require a high degree of specialized software or hardware. In this paper we describe the design and structure of FPOP and then apply FPOP first under purely demographic processes and, secondly, in conjunction with an external disease model of obesity.The objective of FPOP is to provide a demographically realistic projection of the size, structure, and movement of populations and households decades into the future.

The paper describes some methods of extracting knowledge from large amounts of data, and also the concepts of classification, regression and clustering. In terms of classification, it describes some of the techniques and methods, namely the decision trees, the Bayesian method, k-NN, etc. The steps of a process solving clustering and the K-means algorithm used are also described.

With interface macros you can perform actions such as opening another view, applying a filter, or creating a new record. There are two kinds: “embedded” UI macros, which attach directly to user interface objects such as command buttons, combo boxes, or the Action Bar button object, and “standalone” UI macros, contained in macro objects. To avoid duplicating code, reuse standalone UI macros by calling them from other macros. You can see the standalone UI macros in the Navigation Pane, under Macros, but you can’t run them directly from there. Use the Run Macro action to run a standalone UI macro from an embedded UI macro

Applications performed using computer systems and those computerized have an important role in the design and specification of the problem under study, help define a solution, support documentation, the implementation and testing of the solution and, finally, assessment the results. Also through the means of applications, through the design and construction of the windows of communication between administrator and user through the intervention of the programmer, these bases are useful and necessary facilitating scientific research.

One of the necessary conditions to align management of the SMEs in Romania to the requirements and existing standards of the EU market is the rapid integration of the latest trends in ICT. The main requirement that must be satisfied in this context, is the transition from the informational society to the one based on knowledge, by implementing specific technologies such as ERP, SCM, CRM, document and workflow management, quality management in IT , eBusiness, eLearning and other techniques for working in Internet platforms. ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning is a business management concept representing the efficiency activity, productivity optimization and minimizing the procedures for carrying out services of an organization in a unified system through proper planning of its resources

Business process management systems (BPMS) are specialized software systems, suitable for the management and automation of complex, dynamically changing processes, which are implemented in various business units with the participation of a great number of users and the use of diverse information systems and technologies. For the purpose of their more effective adoption and utilization, in the article there is made an attempt at defining their conceptual architecture and to that end there is used an approach based on a study of the characteristics of business processes and their life cycle in the BPMS. The applied approach is in our view in conformity with the standpoint of managers and users, for whom it is particularly important to know to what extent BPMS can aid and facilitate the management and realization of business processes in the organization. Through the architecture there are presented in a generalized manner the main capabilities and specific peculiarities of BPMS, their modules and the tools included in them, as well as some of their basic mechanisms.

There are various methods and scales used for determining the deviations of the baby growth. A scale has been applied to 40 babies in the 12, 24 and 36 month periods and language development has been explained by the period of breast feeding without any additional food, social-emotional development during these periods and fine motor development variables. As a sub-model the period of breast feeding without any additional food has been explained by the gender of the baby, the educational status of the mother during birth and the birth weight of the baby. Furthermore other sub-models, the social-emotional development of the baby has been interpreted by the educational status and the age of the mother during birth variables, fine motor development of the baby has been explained by the baby's gender, mother's educational status, baby's birth height and weight variables. Multilevel analysis has been applied to these data which have longitudinal structure.

The paper aims to study the different types of information used in decision making. We also analyzed the levels of aggregation, management and softwares that process these types of information. The study started from the fact that data underlying the decision are increasingly complex, and the management should focus on the essence of the decision process and not on the structure and complexity of data. The author clarifyies the concept of information in relation to the data. At the end of the paper the author proposes an approach for analysis data underlying the decision.

The cosmological model is one of the elements of general knowledge. Nowadays, two of these models are dominant. The first model is the one which is generally accepted by the scientific international community, and the second model is the Biblical one. Each model is characterized by several principal aspects. The aim of this article is to estimate the opinion of the students regarding the two cosmological models. For this, the correlation and association coefficients were used between the principal aspects of the two models

This paper aims at describing some techniques for manipulating data stored in databases. At first, it is important to describe the main features of a network, their classification, the client - server concept, and the data manipulation language. The paper is divided into two parts: the first part deals with the ADO.NET object, and its characteristics, and the second part deals with seeking the methods for handling data stored in the database.

In the new society we all live in, new types of resources have become a priority, namely information and knowledge and tangible products have been replaced by intangible ones. Thus, in the information society, any modern organization cannot perform without enjoying real-time, correct and coherent information all together. This task is part of the information system which is responsible with processing, transmitting, memorizing and providing information. Therefore, in order for an organization to cope with a competitive environment affected by the economic crisis, it should integrate modern information technologies into its business.

The paper describes the concept of Data Mining and its origin.. Data mining is a process of analyzing data in order to find hidden useful and understandable relationship for the data user. Furthermore, we mention the main areas that are likely to produce data sources, classification criteria of DM, and knowledge discovery are mentioned.

It is accepted that the orientation of computer information systems towards web services is a „best practice“ and an innovative technology in their development. Along with that, web services are a complicated, complex and heterogeneous technology. This requires that their functions are presented at a high level of abstraction, and for that purpose, according to us, it is appropriate to use the UML standard – thus there are created conditions for them to be more easily adopted by a wide circle of specialists. With regard to this, in this publication, having systematized the main capabilities and elements of web services, there are offered solutions for their presentation by means of UML. It has been determined that they can be presented in two main forms – as classes and components, which are closely connected with each other. There is studied the main mechanism of communication between web services, and it is further developed and supplemented with the mechanisms for data exchange between the customer and the web service through the parameters of its operations. By means of specific models there is illustrated the use of complex data structures with web services.

Because of the fact that specialty agricultural assistance is not always available when the farmers need it, we identified expert systems as a strong instrument with an extended potential in agriculture. This started to grow in scale recently, including all socially-economic activity fields, having the role of collecting data regarding different aspects from human experts with the purpose of assisting the user in the necessary steps for solving problems, at the performance level of the expert, making his acquired knowledge and experience available. We opted for a general presentation of the expert systems as well as their necessity, because, the solution to develop the agricultural system can come from artificial intelligence by implementing the expert systems in the field of agricultural insurance, promoting existing insurance products, farmers finding options in depending on their necessities and possibilities. The objective of this article consists of collecting data about different aspects about specific areas of interest of agricultural insurance, preparing the database, a conceptual presentation of a pilot version which will become constantly richer depending on the answers received from agricultural producers, with the clearest exposure of knowledgebase possible. We can justify picking this theme with the fact that even while agricultural insurance plays a very important role in agricultural development, the registered result got from them are modest, reason why solutions need to be found in the scope of developing the agricultural sector. The importance of this consists in the proposal of an immediate viable solution to correspond with the current necessities of agricultural producers and in the proposal of an innovative solution, namely the implementation of expert system in agricultural insurance as a way of promoting insurance products. Our research, even though it treats the subject at an conceptual level, it wants to undertake an attempt to present the necessity and importance of implementing expert systems in agricultural insurance as a solution of development of the Romanian agricultural sector since insurance play an important role in the stimulation of investments in agriculture and in the stabilization of agricultural producers incomes. The results of the study, at a conceptual level, confirms the necessity of aplying expert systems in agricultural insurance because of the benefits which would be created (informing agricultural producers about the existence and importance of agricultural insurance, the development of the insurance market which would lead to the development of agriculture, creation of new insurance products adapted to the needs of the farmers).

The security risks introduced by the e-learning represent an important issue which was not seriously taken into account in the actual educational context, where increasingly more people are taking online courses. Also, universities and other organizations are resorting to e- learning to provide instruction on-line. The e-learning platforms are today production systems that need to be secured. In this paper we will discuss the security elements required to be implemented within e-learning environments. Also we paper presents the most popular e-learning standards to determine their provisions and limitations for privacy and security.

At least since Thomas Piketty's best-selling "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" (2014, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press), percentile shares have become a popular approach for analyzing distributional inequalities. In their work on the development of top incomes, Piketty and collaborators typically report top-percentage shares, using varying percentages as thresholds (top 10%, top 1%, top 0.1%, etc.). However, analysis of percentile shares at other positions in the distribution may also be of interest. In this paper I present a new Stata command called pshare that estimates percentile shares from individual-level data and displays the results using histograms or stacked bar charts.

Dans un jeu de l’evolution resolu par l’action motrice, la strategie evolutionnairement stable (ses) est-elle robuste ? Cinquante-six etudiants sportifs participent a faucons vs colombes qu’ils jouent chacun cinq fois. Deux joueurs se separent a egale distance d’un ballon. Ils choisissent secretement un maillot, de couleur differente pour colombe et faucon. Au signal, chacun tente de ramener le ballon dans son camp. Ceci en usant des techniques du rugby pour faucon et du basket-ball pour colombe. La ses invite theoriquement a choisir faucon sept fois sur douze. Sur 140 tournois, la petite moitie de joueurs (25) jouant cet equilibre de Nash n’a pas maximise ses gains. Cela tient a la pertinence motrice du jeu. Les joueurs s’eloignant de la ses revelent une autre logique basee sur leurs possibilites dynamiques d’intervention, en liaison anticipee avec les caracteristiques des autres joueurs.

Knowledge Analysis in Terms of Representation,Processing based Mobilisation and DistributionAbstract: Understanding, defining and using knowledge can be based on a number of many approaches, such as the synthesis of Knowledge Management Systems, Knowledge Agents, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Organizational Semantic Webs. Knowledge is based on the accumulation of facts, procedural rules or heuristics. Knowledge is supported by both formal and informal processes and structures in their acquisition, sharing and applications. Workers and employees communicate and assimilate values, procedures, rules and data from the beginning of their activity in an organization, and hypothetically should begin to be increasingly willing to share what they know as their length of service increases. This paper presents a deep analysis of knowledge, as the basic pillar of the intelligent enterprise and of many other Intelligent Economic Systems. In this respect I emphasize that it is essential to realize that Knowledge Management is both a cultural and a technological provocation. We might say that the cultural aspect is a priority. Any system designed to support these challenges must extend far beyond the technological boundaries and take into account the people who will use it and contribute to its success. Our work demonstrates the main aspects and strategic advantages of knowledge representation, processing based mobilisation and distribution in the long process from integrating information and applications to automate knowledge worker functions. Developing systems that incorporate knowledge within organizations differs significantly from other systems, because it is absolutely necessary to associate operational interpretations with the information, in order to transform them into knowledge useful in various acts of decision.

Using e-learning systems, computer assisted technologies, or learning management systems to supplement or replace the classroom experience is becoming more common in education. The use of these technologies generates a large volume of transactional data that record how each student progressed through the learning materials in the e-learning system. This data, which is currently underutilized, could be used to understand student learning behaviors, and to help both the instructor and the student benefit more from the course content. This paper describes an architecture using business intelligence methodology for using the data captured by e-learning systems to understand what students are doing (or not doing) in the e-learning system, and thereby to make changes that enhance student learning.

The usefulness of generalized audit software in increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of audits has been well recognized. Consequently, there has been an increasing trend especially during the past five years towards incorporating audit software into the chapters of many of the mainstream textbooks on auditing. Consistent with this trend, changes have been made to the auditing curriculums of many business schools. However, precious little guidance is available to instructors on how to best incorporate and introduce students to generalized audit software as part of the auditing curriculum. This paper attempts to fill this gap by delineating a tested pedagogy that has been successfully implemented at an AACSB accredited business school for introducing students to generalized audit software.

This paper examines Virtualization Technologies which are popular in modern financial management systems. Many researchers and financial systems administrators have researched the techniques related to utilizing server computational resources. Currently there are many technologies for this purpose. These technologies include running multiple applications, and multiple operating systems on the same hardware, like: VMWARE, Linux-VServer, VirtualBox and Xen. These technologies try to solve the problem of resource allocation from two approaches: running multiple operating system instances on the same hardware and virtualizing the operating system environment. Our study presents an evaluation of scalability and performance of an operating system virtualization technology known as Solaris Containers. The main objective is to measure the influence of a security technology known as Solaris Trusted Extensions for securing financial management software.

The paper shortly presents some actual features of the development of smart devices and generally smart communication and information technologies (CIT), regarding their influence on people personality and behavior. These features are addressing a diversity of applications fields, but maybe the most important is that our device- companion will be a real-time health assistant, monitoring the data of vital functions, connecting them to the expertise of doctors and providing personalized advices. As the direct speech communications with the smartphone will be a default feature, our companion could be a surrogate for a baby sleep/breath monitor, a nurse, a teacher, a coach, a guardian and eventually an expert-adviser for children, young or old people. The paper also presents the mechanisms of the influence of smart ICT on the economical, social, political, ethical, educational and medical factors, which further contribute to the global effect and the extent of deepness on people personality and peoples creative potential. The paper concludes that the smart devices and ICT have a strong influence on the people personality and way of life, as ICT is the main factor of the evolution of IS toward KBS. Also it is confirmed that people get smarter using the benefits of smarter devices, but the evaluation of all the influences of these devices on mankind needs a further and complex analysis, which can also reveal the negative or subliminal effects.

In recent decades, all studies have shown that information, based on modern information technologies, have gained particular importance is seen as a strategic resource necessary for the development of the resource, which is sometimes considered more important than raw materials or energy. The impact of information technology on various areas of human and economic life is so great that it speaks of a new phase in the evolution of society, namely: information society. Field studies show that information technology industry is one of the largest in the world and more than that have a tendency to increase in continuity.

Business intelligence is a business management term used to describe applications and technologies which are used to gather, provide access to, and analyse data and information about the organization, to help make better business decisions. The multi-agent approach provides a feasible solution for construction of the business intelligence system. This paper firstly briefly introduces the traditional business intelligence architecting principles and multi-agent approach. Secondly, a design of business intelligence system architecture is proposed, which is composed of the system framework, agent description and system workflow. This design allows to reduce effectively the construction costs of business intelligence systems and to extend the applied scope of business intelligence by minimizing the amount of data transfer and data storage. Using the predictive functionality of the system can bring a significant competitive advantage of business units. The paper presents a new approach for business intelligence architecture modelling, representing an extension over existing systems.

The increased globalization makes every country more and more responsible for its actions that are meant to support the price stability and the fiscal position sustainability in an unpredictable world. Decisions makers can provide the right solutions to overcome the latest global economic crisis by using methods of classifying the continuously growing amounts of digital economic data. The principles of neural networks are applied in order to classify a set of countries according to their statistical data for economic indicators provided by the European Committee. The results and performance of this classification technique is discussed in the final section of the paper.

In this paper, we analyze a purchase lot-sizing decision that includes transport cost using actual motor carrier freight rates. Lot-sizing models in the literature either estimate motor carrier freight rates with a continuous function or simplify less-than-truckload freight rates unrealistically by using too few weightbreak ranges. We present an Excel Solver model that we use in a supply chain management class to teach students the following principles: how to look up less-than-truckload freight rates using a carrier’s software, how to calculate less-than-truckload and truckload freight rates, to decide whether to overdeclare (artificially inflate) the weight of a less-than-truckload shipment to lower the freight charge, and how to find the purchase lot size that minimizes annual logistics cost. We assume that all-units purchase quantity discounts are offered by the supplier and the product is shipped Free On Board (FOB) Origin, Freight Collect. We discuss how to solve this model with Excel’s GRG Nonlinear Solver.

The business environment’s changes occurring more and more quickly and company activities’ becoming more and more complex require permanent, fast adjustments which often test human factors’ abilities for efforts and analyses. The creation and development of ERP-type systems have been and are still believed to be the solutions of such challenges ensuring certain support to process large amounts of data and information needed in companies’ decision-making processes. An ERP system helps the integration of a company’s set of information into a single platform due to the way in which it succeeds in combining business management techniques and practices with the new information technology, providing the transparency of data and the access to the necessary information.