MS-07

Management Programme

ASSIGNMENT FIRST SEMESTER 2013

MS - 07: Information Systems for Managers

School of Management Studies INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY MAIDAN GARHI, NEW DELHI 110 068

IGNOU MBA MS-07 Solved Assignment 2013

Course Code Course Title Assignment Code Coverage : : : : MS-7 Information Systems for Managers MS-07/TMA/SEM-I/2013 All Blocks

Note : Attempt all the questions and submit this assignment on or before 30th April, 2013 to the coordinator of your study center. 1. Ans: In the world of globalization, Information system is such where data are collected, classified and put into process interpreting the result thereon in order to provide an integrated series of information for further communicating and analyzing. In a progressively more spirited worldwide atmosphere, Information System plays the role as enabler and facilitator, which endows with tactical values to the officialdom and considerable step up to the excellence of administration. An Information System is a particular type of work system that uses information technology to detain, put on the air, store, retrieve, manipulate or display information, thereby partisan one or more other work structure. In totting up to taking sides assessment making, co-ordination and control, information systems may also help managers and workers investigate problems, envisage complex subjects and generate new merchandise or services. Information technology has become the backbone of fortune 500 companies and many a great wonders in medicine. The capabilities of information systems required depend on the type of business. I am specifying information systems capabilities for Professional Services. Key System Capabilities Integration The data and business processes of consulting organizations cross all phases of the engagement lifecycle: selling, planning, delivering, collecting and support. A system with real-time integration helps reduce the amount of manual entry, decreases IT costs, and helps the company to be more responsive to customers. A business system should leverage the tools consultants use on a day-to-day basis, such as Microsoft Office System and Microsoft Office Project, and they should have a flexible architecture, so it's easy to integrate with other tools, add-ons, and existing applications. (a) Is Information Technology as vital to modern global business as money? Why or why not? Discuss some trends in IT development.

Reliability, Stability, and Security Secure business computing is critical, and not only for the obvious reasons. When the clients know their data is in safe hands, it can be a competitive advantage for the company. Global Capability Capabilities such as multiple currency, multiple language, localization, and global customer support are critical for companies that cross, or want to be prepared to cross geographic, cultural, and business borders. Simplicity and Ease of Use A system with a single source for data entry, an intuitive user interface, and minimal IT overhead will shorten learning curves, create higher morale among your team, and allow to do more with less. Project Planning and Scheduling It's important to structure projects so they reflect the best practices of the firm, make sense to firms prospect, and ensure efficient use of resources. It's equally important that you collect resource and cost information and use it in your reporting. Critical path schedules help ensure the highest priority work gets done, and portfolio management capabilities help consulting firms identify trends and focus on the most critical projects. HR Management Competitive management consulting firms recruit, develop, deploy, and support their professional resources effectively. They have a complete understanding of the current and past skills and availability of staff and future scheduled demands including those in the sales pipeline. With such a view, one can assemble the skills most valued by the client and, thus, command good billing rates. And, with this view, firm can strategically hire, deploy, and develop resources that match the needs of project portfolio. Risk Management Clients have become wary of the risks inherent in consulting projects. A business software system can help the firm provide them with a choice among scenarios based on modeling of various risk trade-offs. A business software system can also help to configure workflow-driven approval processes and critical path schedules early on. Finally, it can help to configure automatic, exception-driven alerts so key decision makers see and respond to risk issues quickly without losing sight of them among less important details. Portfolio Management The ability to view and manage portfolios by various dimensions (such as practice area and industry) can help manage projects better. You can identify at-risk and underperforming activities. What's more, analysis tools can provide insight into the performance of the overall portfolio by identifying trends and problem areas. And of course, insight into the portfolio and, in particular, firm-wide scheduling of resources can help establish reliable plans during the bidding cycle. Opportunity Management Successful software and IT firms develop, gather, and integrate knowledge of their

industry with knowledge of prospects and customers. They then leverage this knowledge in the management of those relationships. Thus, tight integration of e-mail, client account activity and history, opportunities, packaged offerings, proposals, quotes, orders, literature, contacts, appointments, tasks, and past projects is essential. It is also vital to be able to manage leads through a defined sales process with rules guiding automation of routing, notifications, approvals, and escalations. Historical Information (for Profitable and Competitive Bids) With customers forcing tightly competitive bids and insisting on shared risks, it's critical to forecast revenue accurately before submitting a proposal. One key to success is to maintain a rich repository of historical project information. Analytical tools can then be used to model alternatives. Integrating the proposal system with scheduling and resource management tools during the proposal phase can help ensure all scheduled work is included in the cost proposal. Rate modeling can help ensure rates are adjusted to reflect the risk of various proposal types, such as fixed price and time and materials. Project Tracking The ability of team members to share knowledge helps make projects run smoothly. A business software system that allows people to manage, track, and report on activities, even from distant locations, makes processes more efficient. Automatic alerts, automated workflows, and access to real-time, business-critical project data make for an efficient process. The right system can also help you get your customers to manage their part of the project effectively, using tools they already know like Microsoft Office and Web browsers. Shared Documents and Collaboration Portals help teams improve the quality and efficiency of collaboration. The ability to publish documents while controlling different versions makes it easier to collaborate. Subcontracts Clients often demand specialists with deep knowledge. Assembling the necessary experts required to win business often requires partnering with other firms. A business software system can help to track agreements and documents and change orders. Automated payment controls can help to protect cash flow, track outstanding liabilities, and make payments contingent on deliverables. This helps to handle payment retention and paywhen-paid scenarios.

(b) Write a note on input and output devices. Distinguish between human data input devices and source data capture devices. Ans:
The input device is any machine that feeds data into a computer. The input devices are: i)- Keyboard:- Keyboard is an input device consisting of a set of typewriter keys that enable us to enter data into a computer. Computer keyboard are similar to electric typewriter. Keyboard has the following keys. Alphabetic keys (A to Z, a to z) Alphanumeric keys (0 to 9).

Special keys. Functions keys, control keys, arrow keys caps lock key, and so on. ii). Mouse:- Mouse is a device that controls the movement of the curser or pointer on a display screen. A mouse is a small object we can roll along a hard flat surface. As we move the mouse the pointer on the display screen moves in the same direction. iii). Joystick:- A lever that moves in all directions and controls the movement of a pointer or some other display symbols. A joystick is similar to a mouse except that with a mouse the cursor stops moving as soon as we stop moving the mouse. With a joystick the pointer continuous moving in the direction the joystick is pointing. Joysticks are used mostly for computer games but that are also used occasionally for CAD/CAM systems and other applications. iv). Scanners:- Scanner is an input device that can read text or Picture printed on paper and translates the information into a form that the computer can use. A scanner works by digitizing an image dividing it into a grid of boxes and representing each box with either a zero or a one. We can send the picture or other images to compute. v). Digital Camera:- Images can be input into a computer using a digital camera. These images can then be manipulated in many ways using the images tools. The digital camera takes a still photograph, stores it and then sends it as digital input the computer. The images are then stored as digital files. vi). Bar Code Reader: The bard code identifies the product to the supermarkets, computers, which has a description and the latest price of the product the computer automatically tells the point of sales terminal what the price is. vii). Light Pen. Light pen is an input device that utilizes a light sensitive detector to select objects on a display screen. A light pen is similar to a mouse except that with a light pen we can move the pointer and select objects on the display screen by directly pointing to the objects with the pen. OUTPUT DEVICE: - An output device is any machine capable of representing information forms a computer. Output devices include display screens, loudspeakers, printers, plotters etc. i). Monitor: Monitor is displays output. We can see the result by monitor. It is look like a T.V screen. There are many ways to classify monitors. The most basic is in terms of color capacities separates monitors into three classes. Monochrome: Monochrome monitors actually display two colors, one for the background and one for the foreground. The colors can be black and white, green and black or amber and black. Color: Color monitors can display anywhere from 16 to over I million different colors it is also called RGB monitors because they accept three separate signals red, green, and blue. An RGB monitor consists of a vacuum tube with three electron guns one each for red, green, and blue at one end and the screen at the other end. Classification of Monitors. 1). Digital Monitor. 2). Analog Monitor. 1). Digital Monitor: A digital monitor accepts digital signals rather than analog signals all monitors use CRT technology, which is essentially analog. The term digital, therefore, refers only to the type of input received from the video adapter. A digital monitor then translates the digital signals analog that controls the actual display.

2). Analog Monitor: This is the traditional type of color display screen that has been used for years in televisions. All monitors based on CRT technology are analog. Some monitors are called digitals monitors because they accept digital signals from the video adapter. ii). Printer : Printer is a device that prints text or picture on a paper and in many cases on transparencies and other media. There are many different types of printers. Daisy wheel printer: There is a type of printer that produces letter quality type. A daisy wheel printer works on the same principle as a ball head typewriter. The daisy wheel is a disk made of plastic or metal on which characters stand out in relief along the outer edge. b). Dot Matrix Printer: Dot-Matrix printers create characters by striking pins against an ink ribbon. Each pin makes a dot and combinations of dots from characters and pictures. Dot-matrix printers vary in two important characteristics. Speed: given in characters per second the speed can vary from about 50 to over 500. Print Quality: determined by the number of pins it can vary from 9 to 24. The best dot-matrix printers 24 pins can produce near letter quality type. c). Ink-Jet Printer: Ink-jet printer work by spraying ionized ink at a sheet of paper. Magnetized plates in the inks path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes. Ink jet printers approaching that produced by laser printers. A typical ink jet printer provides a resolution of 300 dots per inch. d). Laser Printer: Laser printer utilizes a laser beam to produce an image on a drum. The light of the laser alters the electrical charge on the drum wherever it hits. The drum is then rolled through a reservoir of toner, which is picked up by the charged portions of the drum. Disk Drives : Disk drives facilitate to read or write a disk. Floppy disks are transportable form one pc to another. Hard disk is fixed inside the system unit and has much higher storage capacities than floppies. Hard disk: Hard disk is a magnetic disk on which we can store computer data. The term hard is used to distinguish it from a soft or floppy disk, hard disks hold more data and are faster anywhere from 10 MB to several Gigabytes. A hard disk consist of several platters, each platter require two read/write heads. One for each side. All the read/write heads are attached to a single access arm so that they cannot move independently. Magnetic Tape: Magnetic tape is a magnetically coated strip of plastic on which data can be encoded tape for computer are similar to the tapes used to store music. Some personal computers, in fact, enable us to use normal cassette tapes. Floppy Disk: Floppy disk is a soft magnetic disk it is also called floppy because it flops if you have wave it. Most hard disk floppy disks are portable, because we can remove them from a disk drive. Floppy disk are slower to access than hard disk and have less storage capacities, but they are less expensive and are portable. Zip Disk: These are high capacity floppy disk drives developed by the Lomega Corporation. Zip disks are slightly larger than the conventional floppy disks, and are about twice as thick. They can hold 100 MB of data. Because they are relatively inexpensive and durable, they have become large files. Optical disk: These are a storage medium from which data is read and to which it is written by lasers. Optical disks can store much more data up to 6 gigabytes. There are three types of optical disk. 1). CD-ROM: CD-ROM stands for Compact Disk Read Only Memory. The data is permanent and can be read any number of times, but CD-ROMs cannot be modified. 2). WORM: WORM stands for write once read many with a worm disk drive we can write data onto a worm

disk, but only once. After that the worm disk behaves just like a CD-ROM. 3). CD-RW: CD-RW stands for (Compact Disk Re-writ able). This is a new type of CD disk that enables to write onto it in multiple sessions. One of the problems the CR-R disks is that we can only write to them once. With CD-RW drives and disks we can treat the optical disk just a floppy or hard disk, writing data onto it multiple times. The first CD-RW drives became available in mid-1997. They can read CD-ROMs and can write onto todays CD-R disks, but they cannot write on CD-ROMs. Plotter: Plotter is a device that draws pictures on paper based on commands from a computer. Plotters differ from printers in that they draw lines using a pen. Multicolor plotters use different color pens to draw different colors.

human data input devices

A human interface device or HID is a type of computer device that interacts directly with, and most often takes input from, humans and may deliver output to humans. The term "HID" most commonly refers to the USB-HID specification. The term was coined by Mike Van Flandern of Microsoft when he proposed the USB committee create a Human Input Device class working group. The working group was renamed as the Human Interface Device class at the suggestion of Tom Schmidt of DEC because the proposed standard supported bi-directional communication.

Source data capture devices

Data capture devices provide another level of security to prevent critical human error. CI Solutions offers a complete line of data capture tools and products to help you create and manage your identity verification systems. As technology advances, it becomes easier and easier for people to forge credentials, but data collection devices help prevent this fraud. If you make or use photo badges or ID cards, magnetic strip readers provide an additional form of authentication that is virtually impossible to forge or tamper with. In order to validate the authenticity of a visitor, staff, or employee badge, the data about that person is encoded onto the ID card using the magnetic strip. When they enter your facility, requiring them to scan their ID card in, a magnetic strip reader will validate that the card is genuine. We offer ID card magnetic strip readers, as well as card writers, which imbed the information on the magnetic strip. Another secure option is digital signature verification using signature capture pads. Access control is based on the verification of a security badge, along with a matching signature that must match the signature put on file at the time the security badge was created. Other secondary verification measures, such as PIN numbers, can easily be forgotten or compromised. But a signature is unique - it is never lost or stolen and is a socially accepted method of verifying identity.

2. Ans:

(a) Discuss the objectives and process of computer aided decision support system.

A decision support system (DSS) is a computer-based information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization and help to make decisions, which may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in advance. Decision support systems can be either fully computerized, human or a combination of both. DSSs include knowledge-based systems. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from

a combination of raw data, documents, and personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions. Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present includes:

inventories of information assets (including legacy and relational data sources, cubes, data warehouses, and data marts), comparative sales figures between one period and the next, projected revenue figures based on product sales assumptions.

Decision support systems help people to be more consistent with their decision making. People are naturally subjective and may change their decisions based on all kinds of irrelevant criteria such as their personal mood the people affected by the decision etc. These systems help to implement a formal method (such as a balanced score card) to take input data and produce a consistent and impartial decision that stands up to scrutiny. Finally where it is impractical for a human to process all of the input data a decision support system can analyse the data and produce summary data and provide recommendations. However, ultimately the person can choose to override the computer's analysis - otherwise the system would be entirely automated.

(b) Describe the decision making process of acquiring application software. Ans:
The decision making process of acquiring Application Software

Applications are made available in line with business requirements. This process covers the design of the applications, the proper inclusion of application controls and security requirements, and the development and configuration in line with standards. This allows organisations to properly support business operations with the correct automated applications. Control over the IT process of Acquire and maintain application software that satisfies the business requirement for IT of aligning available applications with business requirements, and doing so in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost by focusing on ensuring that there is a timely and cost-effective development process is achieved by:

Translating business requirements into design specifications Adhering to development standards for all modifications Separating development, testing and operational activities

and is measured by

Number of production problems per application causing visible downtime Percent of users satisfied with the functionality delivered

3. Ans:

(a) Define MIS. Describe the functions that MIS supports in an organization.

Management Information System (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management Information Systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization.[1] Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. Decision Support Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems. This is an emerging science which sets its the main task of it is to strengthen the information management of enterprises by taking advantage of modern computer and network communication technology to the largest extent, and set up the correct data based on the research of human resource, financial resource, equipments, technology, etc. owned by enterprises, and provide timely various of processed and systemized information data to the manager so as to make correct decisions and improve continuously the management level and economic benefits of enterprises. MIS is generally used for system decision-making. For instance, enterprise employee can make use of MIS to find out problems that need to be solved urgently and feedback in time to the upper managers in order to make them understand the current progress and its shortages. Some of the functions can be listed as below:1. data processing It includes the collection, transmission, storage, processing and output of data. It simplifies the statistics and reduces to the lowest cost by supplying an unified format. 2. function of prediction It predicts the future situation by applying modern mathematics, statistics or simulation. 3. function of plan It arranges reasonably the plans of each functional department in accordance with the restrictions afforded by enterprises and provides the appropriate planning reports according to different management. 4. function of control It monitors and inspects the operation of plans and comprises with the differences between operation and plan in accordance with the data afforded by every functional department, and be assistant to managers to control timely each method by analyzing the reasons why the differences comes into being. 5. function of assistance It derives instantly the best answers of related problems by applying to various of mathematics' mode and analyzing a plentiful data stored in computers in the hope of using rationally human resource, financial resource, material resource and information resource for relative abundant economic benefits.

(b) What are the various ways of assessing the value of information? Explain each method briefly. Ans: An information system is a computer system that provides management and other personnel within an organization with up-to-date information regarding the organization's performance; for example, current inventory and sales. It usually is linked to a computer

network, which is created by joining different computers together in order to share data and resources. It is designed to capture, transmit, store, retrieve, manipulate, and or display information used in one or more business processes. These systems output information in a form that is useable at all levels of the organization: strategic, tactical, and operational. Systems that are specifically geared toward serving general, predictable management functions are sometimes called management information systems (MIS). A good example of an MIS report is the information that goes into an annual report created for the stockholders of a corporation (a scheduled report). The administration of an information system is typically the province of the MIS or information technology (IT) department within an organization. Some applications have infringed on the familiar MIS landscape. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and executive information systems (EIS) both provide packaged modules and programs that perform the same functions as traditional MIS, but with greater functionality, flexibility, and integration capabilities. There are different ways to construct an information system, based upon organizational requirements, both in the function aspect and the financial sense. Of course, the company needs to take into consideration that hardware that is purchased and assembled into a network will become outdated rather quickly. It is almost axiomatic that the technologies used in information systems steadily increase in power and versatility on a rapid time scale. Perhaps the trickiest part of designing an information system from a hardware standpoint is straddling the fine line between too much and not enough, while keeping an eye on the requirements that the future may impose. Applying foresight when designing a system can bring substantial rewards in the future, when system components are easy to repair, replace, remove, or update without having to bring the whole information system to its knees. When an information system is rendered inaccessible or inoperative, the system is considered to be "down." A primary function of the maintaining an information system is to minimize downtime, or hopefully, to eradicate downtime altogether. The costs created by a department, facility, organization, or workforce being idled by an inoperative system can become staggering in a short amount of time. The inconvenience to customers can cost the firm even more if sales are lost as a result, in addition to any added costs the customers might incur. Another vital consideration regarding the design and creation of an information system is to determine which users have access to which information. The system should be configured to grant access to the different partitions of data and information by granting user-level permissions for access. A common method of administering system access rights is to create unique profiles for each user, with the appropriate user-level permissions that provide proper clearances. Individual passwords can be used to delineate each user and their level of access rights, as well as identify the tasks performed by each user. Data regarding the performance of any

user unit, whether individual, departmental, or organizational can also be collected, measured, and assessed through the user identification process. The OSI seven-layer model attempts to provide a way of partitioning any computer network into independent modules from the lowest (physical/hardware) layer to the highest (application/program) layer. Many different specifications can exist at each of these layers. A crucial aspect of administering information systems is maintaining communication between the IS staff, who have a technical perspective on situations, and the system users, who usually communicate their concerns or needs in more prosaic terminology. Getting the two sides to negotiate the language barriers can be difficult, but the burden of translation should fall upon the IS staff. A little patience and understanding can go a long way toward avoiding frustration on the part of both parties. There is more to maintaining an information system than applying technical knowledge to hardware or software. IS professionals have to bridge the gap between technical issues and practicality for the users. The information system should also have a centralized body that functions to provide information, assistance, and services to the users of the system. These services will typically include telephone and electronic mail "help desk" type services for users, as well as direct contact between the users and IS personnel.

4. Ans:

(a) Is outsourcing information systems a better proposition in most of the situations? Discuss some advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing.

Information Technology has many advantages and disadvantages. IT Outsourcing is just similar to any other type of overseas development services. Now a day Offshore Software Development is expanding all over the world. Previously, outsourcing decision was as simple as checking the budget, experience of the service provider and present in-house ability. India is the hottest spot of the IT outsourcing. The reasons are that India has supportive government policy, advanced Technology, reliable communication facilities, huge skilled men power with proficiency in English language. Thus, there are lots of advantages of IT outsourcing. Let us have a look at some of them: 1. Cost-Effectiveness: There is no doubt about this advantage of outsourcing to India. Outsourcing your IT requirements save you as much as 30% of company's expenditure and that says for itself. One can always resort to Offshore Software Development to implement huge projects which may not be affordable to a company in the western world. Offshoring not only takes care of the development costs but also slashes hiring costs, training costs and cost of infrastructure to a great extent.

2. Qualitative Services: Service providers provide qualitative services not at high cost but competitive rates. Asia is known for its service and this attribute clubbed with qualitative manpower makes Asia especially India an ideal outsourcing destination. 3. Skilled Manpower: India has a large pool of technically skilled and English proficient population, thus making it favourable for making it an outsourcing partner. 4. Focus: Outsourcing enables a company to focus on its core competencies while it offloads its non-core activities to other service providers. 5. Expertise in IT Outsourcing: Expertise comes only at that time when customer deals with highly skilled and capable service provider. Everybody wants to become an expert service provider. This business playing progressively major role to become an expert businessman. Now look at the Disadvantages of IT Outsourcing: 1. Loss of Control: Because of some misunderstanding you will lose control on all over project in that case you have to clear all things. That means transparency must have to in the business of Offshore Software Outsourcing. 2. Communication Challenges & Different Standards: Sometimes in the business of IT Outsourcing communication problems are usually comes. For the better communication service provider have to use email and instant messaging program because it's online communication. Sometimes telephone communication is the bad thing for this business. 3. Time Zone- a double-edged Sword: Time zone would be creating disadvantages of IT outsourcing. Because vendors and customers are in the different countries so in that case they have to understand the difference between time for online meetings and requirement between the customers and vendors. 4. Cultural Differences: Because of the two different countries language and cultural problems might be create disadvantage of Offshore Software Outsourcing. 5. Service Provider wants to diversify and take more projects: To diversify the business of IT Outsourcing, service providers' wants to take more projects and in that case sometimes they can not give better preference for all projects. 6. Customer is Novice: Many a times, customer is novice and in the effort to satisfy him, the project may go haywire.

(b) Discuss the three major areas of feasibility, which are addressed in system analysis? Ans:

A well-conducted feasibility study provides a sense of the likelihood of success and of the expected cost of solving the problem, and gives management a basis for making resource allocation decisions. In many organizations, the feasibility study reports for all pending projects are submitted to a steering committee where some are rejected and others accepted and prioritized. Because the feasibility study occurs near the beginning of the system development life cycle, the discovery process often uncovers unexpected problems or parameters that can significantly change the expected system scope. It is useful to discover such issues before significant funds have been expended. However, such surprises make it difficult to plan, schedule, and budget for the feasibility study itself, and close management control is needed to ensure that the cost does not balloon out of control. The purpose of a feasibility study is to determine, at a reasonable cost, if the problem is worth solving. It is important to remember that the feasibility study is preliminary. The point is to determine if the resources should be allocated to solve the problem, not to actually solve the problem. Conducting a feasibility study is time consuming and costly. For essential or obvious projects, it sometimes makes sense to skip the feasibility study. Three Major Areas of Feasibility in system analysis in organization 1. Technical feasibilityIs it possible to solve the problem using existing technology? Typically, the analyst proves technical feasibility by citing existing solutions to comparable problems. Prototypes , physical models, and analytical techniques [such as simulation are also effective. 2. Economic feasibilityDo the benefits outweigh the cost of solving the problem? The analyst demonstrates economic feasibility through cost/benefit analysis . 2. Operational feasibilityCan the system be implemented in the users environment? Perhaps a union agreement or a government regulation constrains the analyst. There might be ethical considerations. Maybe the boss suffers from computer phobia. Such intangible factors can cause a system to fail just as surely as technology or economics. Some analysts call this criterion political feasibility.

5.

Write short notes on any four of the following: (a) Open Source Software

Ans: only 4 answer to give in this (b) Stealth and Polymorphic Viruses Ans: Stealth Viruses

In computer security, a stealth virus is a computer virus that uses various mechanisms to avoid detection by antivirus software. Generally, stealth describes any approach to doing something while avoiding notice. Viruses that escape notice without being specifically designed to do so -- whether because the virus is new, or because the user hasn't updated their antivirus software -- are sometimes described as stealth viruses too. Stealth viruses are nothing new: the first known virus for PCs, Brain (reportedly created by software developers as an anti-piracy measure), was a stealth virus that infected the boot sector in storage. Typically, when an antivirus program runs, a stealth virus hides itself in memory, and uses various tricks to also hide changes it has made to any files or boot records. The virus may maintain a copy of the original, uninfected data and monitor system activity. When the program attempts to access data that's been altered, the virus redirects it to a storage area maintaining the original, uninfected data. A good antivirus program should be able to find a stealth virus by looking for evidence in memory as well as in areas that viruses usually attack. Polymorphic Viruses A polymorphic virus is a computer virus which is capable of mutating itself when it replicates, making it more difficult to identify with ordinary antivirus software. To effectively find such viruses, antivirus software needs to have more complex algorithms available to help it identify distinctive patterns which can betray the presence of a virus even when the code behind the virus is not known to the software. Such software tends to be more expensive, reflecting the additional effort required during development and updates to make the software functional. The first known polymorphic virus was developed in 1990, in the early days of the Internet, illustrating the fact that virus creators have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to developing malicious code. These viruses operate with the assistance of an encryption engine which changes with each virus replication; this keeps the encrypted virus functional, while still hiding the virus from the computer it infects and allowing the virus to slip through security systems which are designed to prevent malicious code from entering or exiting a network.

(c) MRP II Ans:

An integrated information system used by businesses. Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) evolved from early Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) systems by including the integration of additional data, such as employee and financial needs. The system is designed to centralize, integrate and process information for effective decision making in scheduling, design engineering, inventory management and cost control in manufacturing.

(d) Information System and TQM

Ans: The objective of the Total Quality Management (TQM) in the information system design is to assure the quality of information. This is done by ensuring, verifying, and maintaining software integrity through an appropriate methodology choice amongst the technology, design and architecture. It institutes appropriate procedures with checks and control in all the processes of information systems development. It ensures that the scope and the objective of the system, choice of the design architecture and development methodology and further quality ensuring the processes and planned implementation methodologies are correctly chosen. A single most important measure of quality assurance is the level of user satisfaction it attains. The user satisfaction is highest if it meets his information needs on a continuing basis in a dynamic business environment.

In the process of achieving user satisfaction, the information system must be conceived with business focus and orientation. It must address the total scope of the business with specific attention in the areas of core competence and mission critical applications. The choice of the Information Technology strategy should be such that it supports the business strategy implementation to achieve business goals and mission.

TQM addresses all these requirements of the information systems development. It ensures that the information system design is flexible, bug free and easy to maintain with the changing needs.

In the TQM application to information systems, the technologies play a vital role. We can make two parts of these technologies. First, as a current and the second one as the emerging technologies. The current technologies are database management, distributed data processing, object orientation, parallel processing, data warehousing and replication, networks and communication.

The emerging technologies are Internet/Intranet, EDI and E-mail, Groupware for team based application, client/server for application processing, multi-media for voice, video, image processing, imaging systems for image creation, storage mixing knowledge base (KBS) for expert, artificial intelligence system and Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) for a systematic application development.

The quality of information is governed by the quality of the information processing system design. The perception of good quality is that of a customer or a user of the information system and not that of the conceiver, the planner or the designer of the information system.

The quality of the information and the systems which generate that information will be rated high provided it assures:

A precise and an accurate information A high level response in an interactive processing User friendly operations Reliability of information An ease of maintenance

(e) Genetic Algorithms Ans: Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are adaptive heuristic search algorithm premised on the evolutionary ideas of natural selection and genetic. The basic concept of GAs is designed to simulate processes in natural system necessary for evolution, specifically those that follow the principles first laid down by Charles Darwin of survival of the fittest. As such they represent an intelligent exploitation of a random search within a defined search space to solve a problem. First pioneered by John Holland in the 60s, Genetic Algorithms has been widely studied, experimented and applied in many fields in engineering worlds. Not only does GAs provide an alternative methods to solving problem, it consistently outperforms other traditional methods in most of the problems link. Many of the real world problems involved finding optimal parameters, which might prove difficult for traditional methods but ideal for GAs.