Hybrid-search and storage of semi-structured information

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-118).Given today's tangle of digital information, one of the hardest tasks for computer users of information systems is finding anything in the mess. For a number of well documented reasons including the amazing growth in the Internet's popularity and the drop in the cost of storage, the amount of information on the net as well as on a user's local computer, has increased dramatically in recent years. Although this readily available information should be extremely beneficial for computer users, paradoxically it is now much harder to find anything. Many different solutions have been proposed to the general information seeking task of users, but few if any have addressed the needs of individuals or have leveraged the benefit of single-user interaction. The Haystack project is an attempt to answer the needs of the individual user. Once the user's information is represented in Haystack, the types of questions users may ask are highly varied. In this thesis we will propose a means of representing information in a robust framework within Haystack. Once the information is represented we describe a mechanism by which the diverse questions of the individual can be answered. This novel method functions by using a combination of existing information systems. We will call this combined system a hybrid-search system.by Eytan Adar.M.Eng

WAQS : a web-based approximate query system

The Web is often viewed as a gigantic database holding vast stores of information and provides ubiquitous accessibility to end-users. Since its inception, the Internet has experienced explosive growth both in the number of users and the amount of content available on it. However, searching for information on the Web has become increasingly difficult. Although query languages have long been part of database management systems, the standard query language being the Structural Query Language is not suitable for the Web content retrieval. In this dissertation, a new technique for document retrieval on the Web is presented. This technique is designed to allow a detailed retrieval and hence reduce the amount of matches returned by typical search engines. The main objective of this technique is to allow the query to be based on not just keywords but also the location of the keywords within the logical structure of a document. In addition, the technique also provides approximate search capabilities based on the notion of Distance and Variable Length Don\u27t Cares. The proposed techniques have been implemented in a system, called Web-Based Approximate Query System, which contains an SQL-like query language called Web-Based Approximate Query Language. Web-Based Approximate Query Language has also been integrated with EnviroDaemon, an environmental domain specific search engine. It provides EnviroDaemon with more detailed searching capabilities than just keyword-based search. Implementation details, technical results and future work are presented in this dissertation

The spontaneous speaking vocabulary of children in kindergarten and third grade

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Insular Interconnectivity in the Viking Age: A Geospatial View from Norse Jarlshof

During the Viking Age, settlements and trading centers were often located near lakes, seas, waterways, and sailing routes. As such, access to other locations was facilitated, whether for the purpose of settlement, trade, resource acquisition, or conflict, by some form of seafaring vessel or watercraft. Over the course of the Scandinavian Diaspora, a level of cultural and economic interconnectedness was maintained between mainland Scandinavia and the settlements in the North Atlantic region. This shared link with Scandinavia contributed to the development of local connections between insular and coastal sites within the broader diasporic network. This thesis considers the archaeological evidence for insular interconnectivity during the Viking Age ca. 790-1066 CE in the British Isles and North Atlantic, as well as the potential for using a GIS-based joint visibility and mobility model that depicts the experiential use of, and interaction between, past landscapes and seascapes while maintaining a quantitative approach. This is considered through the evaluation of intervisibility between a mobile sailing ship entering the mouth of Grutness Voe and the occupants of the Norse farmstead at the Jarlshof archaeological site, Mainland, Shetland over the course of its occupation ca.850-1200 CE. The results of this research support the argument that the investigation of the diasporic maritime communities of the Viking Age can benefit from the use geospatial technology to evaluate insular interconnectivity and to better conceptualize broader patterns within those extensive maritime networks. Broadly speaking, these findings can also inform our understanding of coastal and insular populations in the past, and the way that they have engaged with their environment, both aqueous and terrestrial. Advisor: Heather Richards-Rissett

Creatures of Habitat: The Changing Nature of Wildlife and Wild Places in Utah and the Intermountain West

From flying squirrels on high wooded plateaus to hanging gardens in redrock canyons, the Intermountain West is home to some of the world\u27s rarest and most fascinating animals and plants. Creatures of Habitat details many unique but little-known talents of this region\u27s strange and wonderful wild inhabitants and descibes their connections with native environments. For example, readers will learn about the pronghorn antelope\u27s supercharged cardiovascular system, a brine shrimp-powered shorebird that each year flies nonstop from the Great Salt Lake to Central Argentina, and a rare mustard plant recently discovered on Mount Ogden. Emphasizing how increasing loss and degradation of habitat hinders native species\u27 survival, Mark Gerard Hengesbaugh discusses what is happening to wildlife and wild places and what is being done about it.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1130/thumbnail.jp

Bloody Disgusting! Abjection, Excess & Absurdity: The Carnivalesque Cohesion Between Horror & Comedy in Film & Television

Horror and comedy. Screaming and laughing. Two genres and the visceral responses which they provoke, broadly considered to be polarised, apparently juxtaposed. This thesis argues that horror and comedy can be significantly more cohesive in their thematic traits, visual presentation and narrative events, than might initially be considered. Expanding a relatively underexplored academic field and building on the work of Paul (1994), the doctorate explores gross-out cinema and television in both theory and praxis. Part One opens with scholarly exploration of core theories of genre, horror and comedy. Semiotic and historical analysis and close reading of key texts in the horror, comedy, and hybrid horror comedy genre identifies and considers shared representation across the genres. Analysed texts include The Evil Dead series (1981-1992), Grimsby (2016), Nighty Night (2004-2005) and Braindead (1992). The core shared themes and representations across the genres are posited as abjection, excess and absurdity. Each of these elements is then explored in context of the tension of horror and humour co-present in the grotesque (Thomson, 1972). The paradoxical pleasure in reception (often in the disgust response) is found to align to the transgressions of the carnivalesque, and moreover, the carnivalesque grotesque (Danow, 1995, Bakhtin, 1974 et al.). These findings are then uniquely applied in praxis in Part Two in the original feature lengthfilm script Knitters! in which the women of the Potter’s Bluff Townswomen’s Guild must face an indestructible supernatural foe in an isolated Lake District resort. In the Lake District no-one can hear you scream! The Part Three exegesis reflects rigorously on the application of thesis findings in praxis, alongside detailed gnosis of the practical construction of a feature length script including close consideration of plotting, narrative pacing and characterisation

Bachelor of magic

Includes bibliographical references