Measuring the Impact of Quality Improvement in a Software Company

The quality issue is not only a matter of developing and implementing a quality system. It mandatory this system to function precisely on a long term basis. The evaluation of quality impact as a consequence of its improvement is a scary thing the quality specialists prefer to be apart due to its complexity. That’s the reason why the article emphasize on: the need and justification of quality impact evaluation, particularities of quality in software domain generated by its specificity, what evaluation of economic effects means in the context of a quality improvement particularly in a software company, a proposed method to calculate the impact of quality (on the costs structure), a practical example of how the method should be used and the results interpreted based on two simulated case.quality improvement; quality management; software industry; quality impact evaluation; measure quality.

PARTICULARITIES OF QUALITY EVALUATION IN A SOFTWARE COMPANY

Quality management is a management domain very discussed and disputed nowadays and this is the first sign it is a very modern, needed and present concept in theory and practice. Some are seeing it as a solution to prepare things in the way they are needed, and the instrument which might guarantee a proper environment of keeping them in a specified and constant form. The application of quality management is a quality management system that has to be designed, developed and implemented to achieve the aim of quality. The article has the purpose to briefly present what a quality management system should mean in a software company, why it should be periodically evaluated and how it might be done. In the second part it points out the characteristics of the audit as a general evaluation instrument and the main contribution consists on the author’s endeavor to mark out the particularities of an audit process carried out on a software company, considering the fact that particularization increases the changes to easier and earlier succeed with such an activity on a practical basis.Management, quality management, software quality, quality evaluation, quality audit

Particularities of Quality Management in Software Industry

Very often IT domain, with its outcomes, through its multidisciplinary orientation, is an essential contributor to quality assurance of economic bodies and not only. It is difficult nowadays to find out an activity sector or even a sub-sector where software applications, regardless their nature, hadn’t marked out their place and contribution to its good economic and social development. In order to contribute as a tool toward economic and qualitative increasing of performance, the tool itself (the software product) must be of high quality. Therefore, it’s useful to turn back to a less visible thing, placed behind or aside of the other front stage things. It’s about the quality of the quality drivers, the quality of software, the quality into the software industry. The last thing is treated more carefully in this study and the intention is nothing else than a closer look and reveal of those elements which create some quality particularities coming up from those „specialties” of the so much particular software domain. Of course, quality principles are truly the same but their interpretation and implementation are slightly particular. The authors’ opinion is that the more we know about these particularities the easier is quality management improvement in software industry but with the remark it isn’t enough and the subject still remains not totally covered.quality; quality management; IT; software; plus quality.

Benefits and limits of quality cost concept applied to software industry

Quality Cost approach is important to be implemented for each product or project of any software company, wherever it’s possible, because it provides additional and more accurate information about costs, costs determined by level of product/project quality. In order to minimize the costs of the required quality level in software industry is important to find out a balance between prevention costs and failure costs. But, even if the prevention costs are very high, it doesn’t assure the elimination of all quality problems or it finally drives the product/project to an unacceptable price from the consumer point of view.failure costs, prevention costs, quality cost, software industry.

Social Responsibility and Environmental Issues Addressed by Businesses in Romania

This article aims to analyze the situation of Romanian companies from an environmental point of view. Environmental issues are addressed very often nowadays, and they reach and affect every domain, including the economical one. Implementing an environmental management system will not only help the companies to comply with laws and regulations, but, above all, will offer them an important competitive advantage

ANALYSIS OF SPATIO-TEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF AEOLIAN PROCESSES IN ARID AND SEMI-ARID AREAS USING REMOTE SENSING

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Crocodiles, sharks and turtles: the urban geo‑palaeontological heritage of Cagliari (Italy)

In this paper, we report on the first project on the promotion of urban geoheritage in Cagliari, the capital of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (Italy). We briefly address the history of geo-palaeontological research in the city area and outline the main phases of development in the history of Cagliari’s geo-palaeontological museum. Geotourism is an efficient method of bringing geosciences to a wider audience. For this project, we compiled a geoitinerary of the main lithotypes and fossils present within the urban territory. Miocene lithotypes are the most important materials in the edification of the Cagliari’s old town, and in the past, the quarrying activity favoured the geology knowledge of the area. The presence of abandoned quarries and natural outcrops in parks, public gardens, on the nearby coastline, and also of fossils exposed in ashlars of historic buildings, made Cagliari an excellent example to valorise the geo-palaeontological heritage using geotourism. This project showcases the importance of knowledge transfer and non-technical communication methods by converting highly technical aspects into accessible and engaging information dissemination to a wide range of audience types, including non-specialised ones

Land Cover Change Modeler: indicatori di trasformazione del territorio come driver per il monitoraggio della salinizzazione in un settore dell’Algeria

Questo studio ha come obiettivo la valutazione del trend spaziale di cambiamento della copertura e uso del suolo in un’area arida e semiarida del Nord Africa, nonché il potenziale di transizione da una classe di copertura del suolo ad un’altra considerando vari indicatori ambientali, culturali e socio-economici. Tali indicatori possono costituire i drivers per la costruzione degli scenari di evoluzione spaziale e temporale della salinizzazione dei suoli nel territorio dell’Oued Biskra in Algeria. Lo studio presentato fa parte delle attività del progetto dimostrativo WADIS-MAR, finanziato dalla Commissione Europea attraverso il Sustainable Water Integrated Management (SWIM) Programme (http://www.wadismar.eu). Partendo dalle mappe di land cover (LC) e salinizzazione elaborate da dati satellitari Landsat, sono stati testati alcuni algoritmi dedicati al Land Change Modeler (LCM). Lo studio si basa su un’analisi multitemporale di dati Landsat che ha portato allo sviluppo di un classificatore di tipo Decision Tree dedicato al riconoscimento delle aree salinizzate in ambiente arido e semiarido (Melis et al., 2013; Afrasinei et al., 2015). Questo classificatore è stato testato in particolare nel settore dell’Oued Biskra (Algeria orientale) lungo il limite settentrionale del sistema morfologico sahariano. La metodologia adottata propone di utilizzare queste mappe come base per la predizione degli scenari di evoluzione del fenomeno della salinizzazione. Tale fenomeno appare fortemente controllato dalle dinamiche sociali ed economiche legate all’utilizzo intensivo del territorio per l’agricoltura e in particolare per le coltivazioni di palme da dattero. Inoltre in questi ambienti il clima e le condizioni biofisiche locali hanno un’influenza immediata sulle variazioni di land cover anche con impatto giornaliero, pertanto questo tipo di driver, estremamente variabile, deve essere considerato nella sua dinamicità in modo differente rispetto ai parametri stabili nel tempo quali la morfologia e la litologia e rispetto a quelli a variabilità media come quelli socio-culturali ed economici

Polycentrism and commercial central places in Rome. State of art and scenarios of urban qualification

La Pianificazione urbana a Roma tende oggi verso l’obiettivo di una struttura policentrica delle periferie della città e dell’area metropolitana. Per questo un sistema di importanti Centralità è in fase di realizzazione, ed alcune di esse contengono anche estese super-strutture commerciali. Il paper intende analizzare gli aspetti positivi e negativi del rapporto tra policentrismo urbano e super-strutture commerciali nella città di Roma, a partire dall’analisi storica del rapporto tra potenziale morfogenetico della funzione commerciale e struttura dello spazio urbano, e osservando le vicende e le caratteristiche delle tre più estese e importanti nuove Centralità (Bufalotta, EUR Sud, Ponte di Nona). Sulla base di questa analisi, viene sinteticamente illustrata una serie di argomenti e criteri per la pianificazione e la qualificazione urbana di questo tipo di insediamenti. Benché questo studio sia frutto di un lavoro comune di ricerca dei due autori, a mero scopo di identificazione del contributo di ogni autore, a Antonio Cappuccitti vanno attribuiti il primo paragrafo, a Alexandra Afrasinei il secondo; insieme i due autori hanno redatto la sintesi finale (terzo paragrafo).Urban Planning in Rome today tends towards a polycentric structure of the suburbs and of the metropolitan area. For this reason, a system of important “Central Districts” is under construction, and some of them also contain large commercial super-structures. The paper intends to analyze the positive and negative aspects of the relationship between urban polycentrism and commercial super-structures in the city of Rome, starting from the description of the historical relationship between the morphogenetic potentiality of the commercial function and the structure of urban space, and observing the events and characteristics of three largest and most important new Central Districts (Bufalotta, EUR Sud, Ponte di Nona). Starting from this analysis, some topics and criteria for the planning and the urban qualification of this type of urban districts are briefly presented. This study is the result of a research work of the two authors. Antonio Cappuccitti wrote the first paragraph