Editorial

This, the first regular issue of Computer Science and Information Systems in 2011, marks the start of a new publication schedule for the two regular yearly issues of ComSIS: January–June, replacing the old June–December scheme. We hope that the new schedule will assist in bringing more up-to-date information and research results to the community of ComSIS readers. In addition, we are pleased to announce that ComSIS has been included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), contributing to the widening international recognition of our journal.

The content of this issue of ComSIS consists of seven regular papers and three papers selected from ICIT 2009, 4th International Conference on Information Technology, held during June 3–5 in Amman, Jordan. We thank the organizers of ICIT, especially the General Chair of the conference, professor Yahya Abdelfatah A., Al-Zaytoonah University, Jordan, Dean of the Faculty of Science and IT, and Program Chair of the conference, professor Ali Al-Dahoud, Al-Zaytoonah University, for assisting in the contribution of high-quality articles to this issue of ComSIS.

The first of the regular papers, entitled “VPN Solutions and Network Monitoring to Support Virtual Teams Work in Virtual Enterprises,” by Sebastian Marius Roşu and George Drăgoi, analyzes the network architecture for geographically dispersed enterprises, which are viewed as virtual enterprises, in the context of supporting virtual project development by virtual teams. The article also presents an enterprise networks monitoring solution using open source software.

The next regular paper “Towards the Methodology for Development of Fuzzy Relational Database Applications,” by Srđan Škrbić, Miloš Racković, and Aleksandar Takači, tackles the problem of extending the classic relational data model with mechanisms that can handle imprecise, uncertain and inconsistent attribute values using fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets. Besides presenting a fuzzy relational data model used for fuzzy knowledge representation in relational databases, the paper also introduces a novel CASE tool for fuzzy database model development.

The article “Design Pattern Instantiation Directed by Concretization and Specialization” by Peter Kajsa, Lubomir Majtas, and Pavol Navrat, describes a method of design pattern instantiation support that allows specification of pattern instance occurrence via semantic extension of UML directly on the context, enabling the use of higher levels of abstraction in the modeling of patterns. The approach also provides the means to determine and control the results of transformations and can represent a framework for supporting custom model structures.

In “A Grammar-Based Model for the Semantic Web”, Hyosook Jung and Seongbin Park present a two-level model for the Semantic Web from the perspective of formal language theory. The model consists of two grammars where the first-level grammar supports ontology creation, and the second-level grammar is used for specification of ontological instances. Based on the model, the authors implemented a system which enables construction of small-scale Semantic Web environments.

“Ontology-Based Multi-Label Classification of Economic Articles” by Sergeja Vogrinčič and Zoran Bosnić, presents an approach to the task of automatic multi-label document categorization in the field of economics, where labels represent keywords, using supervised machine learning. The article describes the complete cycle of corpus preparation using a tool which integrates ontology construction with text mining methods, and evaluation of three groups of multi-label classification approaches: transformation to single-class problems, specialized multi-label models, and hierarchical/ranking models, observing potential for successful use of all evaluated methods.

Wee Mee Chin and A. Abrizah, in “An Analysis of an Assessment Model for Participation in Online Forums,” analyze an assessment model implemented in online discussion forum software. The model is aimed at automating the assessment of students’ participation in forums, and is formulated based on four different participation indicators and educators’ feedback. Evaluation of the model in a real-world scenario indicates a high level of correlation between performance indicator scores generated by the model and the actual scores given by educators, suggesting that the assessment model is suitable for the task.

“A New Method for Constructing Kernel Vectors in Morphological Associative Memories of Binary Patterns” by Yiannis S. Boutalis examines kernel vectors as a representation for the retrieval of pattern associations, and focuses on the case when patterns are corrupted by a particular kind of erosive noise. Theoretical justification for the failure of kernel vectors under erosive noise is given, and a new method is proposed for the construction of kernel vectors for binary patterns associations that, instead of binary values, use ‘gray’ values in the [0, 1] range. The article shows that the new kernel vectors carry the good properties of conventional kernel vectors, can be easily computed, and do not suffer from the particular noise deficiency of conventional kernel vectors.

The following three articles represent selected and revised versions of papers published in the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information Technology (ICIT), June 3–5, 2009, Amman, Jordan.

In “Supply Chain Performance Measurement System Based on Scorecards and Web Portals” Nenad Stefanović and Dušan Stefanović introduce an architecture of a pervasive performance measurement (PM) system for supply chain management which aims to unify different business elements, concepts, technologies and tools. The article describes the main system elements: the process model, metrics and data warehouse, and presents a specialized PM Web portal which enables proactive performance monitoring and fosters the improvement and optimization.

Dragoslav Pešović, Milan Vidaković, Mirjana Ivanović, Zoran Budimac, and Jovana Vidaković, in “Usage of Agents in Document Management” consider the application of agents and workflows in the area of document management systems. The employed multi-agent system is the EXtensible Java-based Agent Framework (XJAF) – a pluggable architecture for hierarchical intelligent agent systems with communication based on KQML. Workflows, on the other hand, are handled by “Workers, Inc.” – a workflow management system implemented using mobile agents.

Finally, the article “Integration of Recommendations and Adaptive Hypermedia into Java Tutoring System” by Aleksandra Klašnja-Milićević, Boban Vesin, Mirjana Ivanović, and Zoran Budimac, presents an approach to the integration of recommender system technology into an existing web-based Java tutoring system, in order to provide various adaptive programming courses. The considered methods for making such an e-learning system adaptive include recommending and adapting the appearance of hyperlinks, as well as recommending actions and resources.

On behalf of the Editorial Board and the ComSIS Consortium, we would like to thank the authors for their high-quality contributions, and also the reviewers for the effort and time invested into the preparation of this issue of Computer Science and Information Systems.

Editor-in-Chief
Mirjana Ivanović

Managing Editor
Miloš Radovanović