Multi-Period Trading via Convex Optimization

We consider a basic model of multi-period trading, which can be used to evaluate the performance of a trading strategy. We describe a framework for single-period optimization, where the trades in each period are found by solving a convex optimization problem that trades off expected return, risk, transaction cost and holding cost such as the borrowing cost for shorting assets. We then describe a multi-period version of the trading method, where optimization is used to plan a sequence of trades, with only the first one executed, using estimates of future quantities that are unknown when the trades are chosen. The single-period method traces back to Markowitz; the multi-period methods trace back to model predictive control. Our contribution is to describe the single-period and multi-period methods in one simple framework, giving a clear description of the development and the approximations made. In this paper we do not address a critical component in a trading algorithm, the predictions or forecasts of future quantities. The methods we describe in this paper can be thought of as good ways to exploit predictions, no matter how they are made. We have also developed a companion open-source software library that implements many of the ideas and methods described in the paper

Estimering av Webutviklingsprosjekter : Use case poeng sammenliknet med eksperters estimater, funksjonspoeng, COCOMO II og WEBMO

This document is my master thesis at the Institute of Informatics, University of Oslo. This is a multiple case study where the focus is estimating web based software projects. For consultants in the software industry, the bidding process is one of the most important processes. At this point the costumer chooses which supplier they want to develop the planned software. Two important parts of the suppliers offer are price and time. The supplier has to make an estimate as good and realistic as possible to become the one that is chosen. When the costumer is going to choose its supplier, the estimates are studied in detail and the objective of the customer is to receive the best system as fast and cheap as possible. This may lead to incorrect estimates both when time and money are concerned because of the competition between suppliers. It is useful to study a model of estimation, to help the customer understand the price and development time of the planned software. It is also useful to discuss which estimation approach that a costumer understands. Estimates are important when starting a software project. A costumer needs to know time and costs to see if they can afford the software. For suppliers estimates are important to calculate income and how long that project will take. This way they will also know when the developers will be ready to start new projects. Estimates are often based on the experiences of the experts. One challenge with these estimates are that they have to be done early, even before the suppliers know the details about the system. It is therefore important to know how to estimate when only the functionality described in the user specification is known. It is useful to study how the user specification, specially the functional requirements, can be used when estimating. In May 2003 the Software Engineering group at Simula Research Laboratory began a research on the development of web based software. Four suppliers developed a research database, called “The Simula Database of Empirical Studies”, simultaneously as the researchers was doing a research on the development. This thesis looks at the estimation process in the development. The main focus is to study how an estimation approach, based on use case, may support both costumers and suppliers in the bidding process. The use case approach is based on a systems functional requirement written in use cases. There is a huge interest in the approach, but it is still necessary to adjust it to different kinds of projects. This thesis studies how an approach for use case based estimation may be used to estimate web based software by testing it on the projects and compare it to other more established methods. The chosen methods are Function Points, COCOMO II early design and WEBMO. The most important aspects discussed are; information requirements, how the approaches estimates compared to how experts estimates, actual effort, which quality the approaches plan and also when the approaches can be used and who to use them. This study shows that the size measure in the use case point approach is easier to use for people without any technical knowledge, for instance a costumer in software projects, than function point. This predicts well structured use cases. This study suggests guidelines for use case structuring, when the use cases are very detailed from the beginning. Further, the study shows that cost drivers bound to quality of code like maintenance, reuse, documentation, complexity and experience affects the effort to a greater extent. The study looks at how such cost drivers can be used in web projects. In this case the estimation approaches estimated as good as, or better than the experts. This indicates that the use case point approach may support both costumer and developer in a bidding process where a use case model describes the functional requirements

Evaluating Pricing Strategy Using e-Commerce Data: Evidence and Estimation Challenges

As Internet-based commerce becomes increasingly widespread, large data sets about the demand for and pricing of a wide variety of products become available. These present exciting new opportunities for empirical economic and business research, but also raise new statistical issues and challenges. In this article, we summarize research that aims to assess the optimality of price discrimination in the software industry using a large e-commerce panel data set gathered from Amazon.com. We describe the key parameters that relate to demand and cost that must be reliably estimated to accomplish this research successfully, and we outline our approach to estimating these parameters. This includes a method for ``reverse engineering'' actual demand levels from the sales ranks reported by Amazon, and approaches to estimating demand elasticity, variable costs and the optimality of pricing choices directly from publicly available e-commerce data. Our analysis raises many new challenges to the reliable statistical analysis of e-commerce data and we conclude with a brief summary of some salient ones.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000187 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Project Controls and Management Systems : current practice and how it has changed over the past decade

Project Controls and Management System (PCMS) refers to an ecosystem of processes, tools and personnel required for the proper planning and execution of capital projects throughout the different phases of design, procurement, construction and startup. This can be divided into different focus areas (functions) that would include Estimating, Planning, Scheduling, Cost Control, Change Management, Progressing, and Forecasting. Various trends such as globalization, contractor specialization and information technology developments have impacted the way PCMS are implemented and made it the subject of extensive research over the past years to investigate how to best utilize those trends. Replicating the research methodology used in a 2011 report published by the Construction Research Institute (CII), this work aims to investigate the current status of PCMS implementation and how it has changed over the past decade. It was concluded that while the original PCMS principles are still valid, adoption has drastically changed in terms of efficiency for the majority of the functions. The research also identifies areas of potential concerns and provides recommendations for further improvement.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Web development evolution: the business perspective on security

Protection of data, information, and knowledge is a hot topic in today’s business environment. Societal, legislative and consumer pressures are forcing companies to examine business strategies, modify processes and acknowledge security to accept and defend accountability. Research indicates that a significant portion of the financial losses is due to straight forward software design errors. Security should be addressed throughout the application development process via an independent methodology containing customizable components. The methodology is designed to integrate with an organization’s existing software development processes while providing structure to implement secure applications, helping companies mitigate hard and soft costs

Design diversity: an update from research on reliability modelling

Diversity between redundant subsystems is, in various forms, a common design approach for improving system dependability. Its value in the case of software-based systems is still controversial. This paper gives an overview of reliability modelling work we carried out in recent projects on design diversity, presented in the context of previous knowledge and practice. These results provide additional insight for decisions in applying diversity and in assessing diverseredundant systems. A general observation is that, just as diversity is a very general design approach, the models of diversity can help conceptual understanding of a range of different situations. We summarise results in the general modelling of common-mode failure, in inference from observed failure data, and in decision-making for diversity in development.

Software cost estimation

The paper gives an overview of the state of the art of software cost estimation (SCE). The main questions to be answered in the paper are: (1) What are the reasons for overruns of budgets and planned durations? (2) What are the prerequisites for estimating? (3) How can software development effort be estimated? (4) What can software project management expect from SCE models, how accurate are estimations which are made using these kind of models, and what are the pros and cons of cost estimation models