Information of COE Seminar

We would like to inform you about COE-Seminar as follows.

DATE : May 2, 2005 14:00-16:30
PLACE : IS Collaboration room 6 (IS III-5)
SPEAKER: Ralph-Johan Back, Åbo Akademi University and TUCS
                   "Incremental Software Construction"
                    Barbro Back, Computer Science Turku, Finland
                    "Combining Data and Text Mining Techniques for Analyzing Financial Reports"
SPEECH : English
Reference: Research Center for Trustworthy e-Society (E-mail:miyuki-s)

ABSTRACT
Prof. Ralph-Johan Back
ii A central problem in constructing large software systems is how to
manage complexity.
The larger the system becomes, the more difficult it also is to extend the
system and adapt it to changing requirements. For this purpose, we have been
experimenting with a software construction process that we refer to as
stepwise feature introduction, where a software system is built in very thin
layers. Each layer adds just one new feature (unit of functionality) to the
system, without destroying the features that already are present.
The extension mechanism is class inheritance. A layer will usually consist
of a collection of extensions of previous classes in earlier layers.
Stepwise feature introduction allows an evolutionary approach to software
construction, where the software can be adapted to changing requirements
during the construction process.
We have used this approach in a number of practical experiments in
software construction, and the experience has been very encouraging.
Stepwise feature introduction fits well with the short iteration cycles that
are championed in extreme programming, and we apply a combination of these
two techniques in our software projects. We will look at both theoretical
and practical aspects of stepwise feature introduction, focusing in
particular on software architecture and design aspects , correctness
concerns , and software processes and practical experiences More
information and publications, are available at the web page
www.abo.fi/~backrj (in Research/Current research/Incremental software
construction).

Prof. Barbro Back
There is a vast amount of financial information on companies'
financial performance available to investors in electronic form today. While
automatic analysis of financial figures is common, it has been difficult to
extract meaning from the textual part of financial reports automatically.
The textual part of an annual report can contain richer information than the
numerical part solely. In my research group, we have combined data and text
mining methods for analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from
financial reports, in order to investigate whether the textual part contains
some indication about future financial performance. We have used the
self-organizing maps for analyzing the quantitative data and text mining
methods for analyzing the textual part of the reports. In my presentation I
will report on the methods used, i.e. the prototype matching method,
collocational networks and the self-organizing maps, and on our research
results.

CAREER SUMMARY
Prof. Ralph-Johan Back
Ralph-Johan Back is Professor of Computer Science at Abo Akademi
University, Turku, Finland. He has presently a 5-year research position
(Academy professor) at the Academy of Finland. He is the director for one of
the Centers of Excellence nominated and funded by the Academy of Finland
(Center for Formal Methods in Programming). He is the founder of TUCS (Turku
Centre for Computer Science) and its first director, 1993 -2000. He recieved
his Ph.D. from University of Helsinki in 1978. He has spent a post doctoral
year at the Mathematical Center (now CWI) in Amsterdam (1979-80), held a
professors position at the University of Tampere (1982-83), and been a
visiting professor at Caltech (1991-92) and Universty of Utrecht (1994). He
is the inventor of the Refinement Calculus (1978) and the co-inventor of the
Action system formalism (1982, together with Reino Kurki-Suonio). He has
written two books on the Refinement Calculus, one published in 1980 and the
second (jointly with Joakim von Wright) in 1998. His main interests are
formal methods (in particular programming logics, programing methods,
semantics and mechanized reasoning), distributed and parallel systems,
multiprocessor technology, software engineering and teaching of mathematics.
He is a member of IFIP WG 2.3 and Academia Europea.