Query processing of geometric objects with free form boundarie sin spatial databases

The increasing demand for the use of database systems as an integrating factor in CAD/CAM applications has necessitated the development of database systems with appropriate modelling and retrieval capabilities. One essential problem is the treatment of geometric data which has led to the development of spatial databases. Unfortunately, most proposals only deal with simple geometric objects like multidimensional points and rectangles. On the other hand, there has been a rapid development in the field of representing geometric objects with free form curves or surfaces, initiated by engineering applications such as mechanical engineering, aviation or astronautics. Therefore, we propose a concept for the realization of spatial retrieval operations on geometric objects with free form boundaries, such as B-spline or Bezier curves, which can easily be integrated in a database management system. The key concept is the encapsulation of geometric operations in a so-called query processor. First, this enables the definition of an interface allowing the integration into the data model and the definition of the query language of a database system for complex objects. Second, the approach allows the use of an arbitrary representation of the geometric objects. After a short description of the query processor, we propose some representations for free form objects determined by B-spline or Bezier curves. The goal of efficient query processing in a database environment is achieved using a combination of decomposition techniques and spatial access methods. Finally, we present some experimental results indicating that the performance of decomposition techniques is clearly superior to traditional query processing strategies for geometric objects with free form boundaries

Object-oriented querying of existing relational databases

In this paper, we present algorithms which allow an object-oriented querying of existing relational databases. Our goal is to provide an improved query interface for relational systems with better query facilities than SQL. This seems to be very important since, in real world applications, relational systems are most commonly used and their dominance will remain in the near future. To overcome the drawbacks of relational systems, especially the poor query facilities of SQL, we propose a schema transformation and a query translation algorithm. The schema transformation algorithm uses additional semantic information to enhance the relational schema and transform it into a corresponding object-oriented schema. If the additional semantic information can be deducted from an underlying entity-relationship design schema, the schema transformation may be done fully automatically. To query the created object-oriented schema, we use the Structured Object Query Language (SOQL) which provides declarative query facilities on objects. SOQL queries using the created object-oriented schema are much shorter, easier to write and understand and more intuitive than corresponding S Q L queries leading to an enhanced usability and an improved querying of the database. The query translation algorithm automatically translates SOQL queries into equivalent SQL queries for the original relational schema

We Have Seen It All. At the Mall

Many of us have conflicted attitudes toward suburban shopping malls in the United States. Malls are environmentally irresponsible, reinforce a dependence on cars, fortify economic and social stratification, generate private-property, emphasize consumption, and are architecturally disappointing. Malls are also the places where we bought school shoes, where we garnered our first jobs, where we may see a diversity of products and people and tastes, and, remarkably, malls can still surprise us. This article is an overview of mall criticism and a narrative from reluctant mall enthusiasts. We sit at an equivocal place—in between the complexity and contradiction of the suburban shopping mall—while enjoying lunch

How Transformative Is Transformative Mediation?: A Constructive-Developmental Assessment

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Student Disposition Towards Discussing Race in the Classroom

Discussions of race in the classroom have always been fraught. How do we broach such sensitive topics? How do we create an environment in which students feel both safe and comfortable discussing race on both a personal level and at a systemic scale? How does a student’s race factor into the conversation? And how does the instructor’s race factor in as well, or in conjunction with a student’s racial identity? As a Latina educator of color, I designed a research study which examined the impact my own race and ethnicity held in the classroom, and additionally how intersecting factors such as class and gender contribute to classroom dynamics. In this study, students were given surveys which gauged their interest and comfort level in discussing race and their own racial identities. Reflections based on readings in the class, which tackle race dynamics within the Black Lives Matter movement and border crossings, were utilized to examine students’ engagement with discussing race and their willingness to engage with their own racial identities as an audience. This study focused on three students of different racial backgrounds– a self-identified male white student, a self-identified male student of color that is not Latinx, and a self-identified female Latina student of color. This study examined the impact a student’s race and ethnicity had on their level of comfort and engagement with discussing race and ethnicity in the classroom, and furthermore, how having a nonwhite Latina professor affected these students’ engagements specifically

Enhancing Course Objectives for a Sophomore Electronic Devices Class via Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) Model and Attached Projects

This Full Innovative Practice paper presents a new Peer-Led team Learning (PLTL) recitation model for the sophomore Electronics Analysis and Design course, emphasizing device physics, device models, and analog and digital applications in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at IUPUI. This new PLTL model with small number of students assigned to one peer-leader has enabled students to cooperate with each other and build teamwork, to get more practice with course software, and to better understand the course design component. This new model has overall improved the students' performance in the course. The new model has also enabled the instructor to introduce students to some research topics which led to students being encouraged to enroll in higher level related courses and to pursue further research in these areas. This paper details the structure of this new model, the feedback from students, the PLTL model recitation guidelines for the course semester, and attached projects. The paper also assesses the course objectives using this new model as compared to previous offerings

The Effects of Grade Configuration on Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grade Students’ TNReady English Language Arts and Math Achievement

The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference exists in the TNReady scores of Tennessee students who attend a kindergarten through eighth grade school (K-8) as compared to students who attend a middle school (6-8 grades). The results of the 2018-2019 TNReady, the state adopted standardized achievement test for Tennessee, were used as the data for the study. The relationship between grade configuration and the percent of students who scored on track or mastered in English language arts and math was analyzed using an independent samples t-test. Further disaggregating by specific grade levels, grade configuration and TNReady achievement data was analyzed to note the impact in English language arts and math in each grade. When a significant difference was discovered, the data was further analyzed with an analysis of variance to determine if a significant difference existed in gender and grade configuration

Linking the Cs of Financial Stability: Crises, Competition, and Concentration

This paper is a replication and extension of Schaeck, Cihak, and Wolfe (2009). In contrast to results for a heterogeneous set of countries in Schaeck, Cihak, and Wolfe (2009), findings herein indicate that there is a chance that competition engenders systemic banking crisis for ASEAN EMEs, and that although concentration may not increase the probability of a banking crisis, at decreasing levels of competition, increasing concentration could damage financial stability. When controls for regulation and macroprudential tools are introduced, the opposite effects of competition and concentration on financial stability becomes more apparent

A Comparative Analysis of Socio-Legal and Psycho-Social Theories and the Construction of a Model to Explain How Law Operates and Evolves in the Dependency Court

This thesis examines data and theory about how the system of law (SL) operates and evolves: it contrasts data from social workers and attorneys working in the juvenile dependency court with theories about how individuals and social systems evolve. The analysis is based on research conducted in San Diego and revolves around a theory about human development, or the "individual as a system" (HD), and a theory about social systems, such as the autopoietic theory of law and its self-reproducing system (LA). It is suggested that together, the theories of HD+LA help to examine how professionals and law operate and evolve in the legal system. Overall, the thesis rejects the autopoietic systems theory that law reproduces itself, by itself. Instead, analysis in this study supports the finding that law is defined and operates through a dialectic of the individual and the social (or the organic and the mechanistic respectively) such that each gives rise to the other. On the basis of this system connection, aspects from systems theory about legal autopoiesis are integrated into concepts from constructive-developmental theory (HDLA), thus providing a new framework through which to examine how law and its system functions. The new framework is built around an equation that emerged some time after data analysis and theoretical development: SL=HDLA+DSA . The equation states that: The evolution of the system of law involves processes of human development and to some but a much lesser degree, the autopoietic nature of law. The extent of this evolution is best determined by analyzing data from a court setting. The dialectical relationship between individual and social influences in the evolution of law is facilitated by the accumulation of social action - such as activity from media and advocacy groups - and the individual meaning that professionals make about this action, which in turn has an influence on the formal and informal operations that they perform when operating law. The nature of these interacting dynamics will be shown through two interconnected tools of analysis: one is a typology of individual, professional and system self-concepts; the typology helps to show how a cycle of system change (human development giving rise to legal change and vice versa) occurs in the court; the other is the operative structure (or culture) of systems for law and social work in child abuse cases - which unite in court operations. These two interconnected tools help to show how the court operates and how social action (SA) for change contributes to professional and system change in the evolution of law

Audiovisual Translation and multimodality: Character (re)design from source to target multimodal text. The Chicano gangster stereotype as a case study

The present work aims to expand the scope of research on audiovisual language and translation by taking into consideration the relationship between the audiovisual text and other modes characterising the audiovisual product. The complexity of this kind of product calls for an analytical framework that makes it possible to deal with multiple modes simultaneously. Although intuitively applicable to qualitative research, this kind of analysis has so far been difficult to achieve in larger corpora. In particular, the main focus of this thesis is character design in movies. A character is a recognizable, stereotyped diegetic device, composed of audiovisual as well as textual elements. Movies rely heavily on stereotyped characters to convey messages to the audience and fulfil a specific communicative function based on a set of shared assumptions. The analysis will take as a case study a selection of American movies released between 1988 and 1993 and dubbed into Italian, featuring the stereotypical character of the Chicano gangster. The methodology is informed by descriptive translation studies and multimodality, as well as corpus-based analysis and translation of fictional nonstandard varieties. A linguistic and historical profiling of the chosen character will serve as a toolkit in the final step, the analysis of the movies. First, the analysis will focus on identifying the linguistic variety spoken by the character, with particular attention to its prestige, with the purpose of understanding the way in which the variety of the source text was re-presented in the target text. This will allow the inference of the type of strategies used by the translators. Subsequently, the relationship between linguistic elements and non-textual elements will be analysed to understand the way that intermodal relationships are built in both texts. This will shed light on the communicative meaning conveyed by the character in the multimodal text, and the way it is preserved or transformed through the audiovisual translation process.The analysis will have an initially quantitative approach, so as to outline a general trend in the character design and re-design within the analysed corpus. The data will then be reviewed and interpreted, in order to understand how specific linguistic choices in a multimodal environment are linked to the linguacultural context that generated them