A Comprehensive Review on Food Applications of Terahertz Spectroscopy and Imaging.

Food product safety is a public health concern. Most of the food safety analytical and detection methods are expensive, labor intensive, and time consuming. A safe, rapid, reliable, and nondestructive detection method is needed to assure consumers that food products are safe to consume. Terahertz (THz) radiation, which has properties of both microwave and infrared, can penetrate and interact with many commonly used materials. Owing to the technological developments in sources and detectors, THz spectroscopic imaging has transitioned from a laboratory-scale technique into a versatile imaging tool with many practical applications. In recent years, THz imaging has been shown to have great potential as an emerging nondestructive tool for food inspection. THz spectroscopy provides qualitative and quantitative information about food samples. The main applications of THz in food industries include detection of moisture, foreign bodies, inspection, and quality control. Other applications of THz technology in the food industry include detection of harmful compounds, antibiotics, and microorganisms. THz spectroscopy is a great tool for characterization of carbohydrates, amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins. Despite its potential applications, THz technology has some limitations, such as limited penetration, scattering effect, limited sensitivity, and low limit of detection. THz technology is still expensive, and there is no available THz database library for food compounds. The scanning speed needs to be improved in the future generations of THz systems. Although many technological aspects need to be improved, THz technology has already been established in the food industry as a powerful tool with great detection and quantification ability. This paper reviews various applications of THz spectroscopy and imaging in the food industry

Facilitating evolution in relational database design : a procedure to evaluate and refine novice database designers' schemata : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Studies in Information Systems at Massey University

Relational database management systems (RDBMS) have become widely used by many industries in recent years. Latterly these systems have begun to expand their market by becoming readily available at minimal cost to most users of modern computing technology. The quality of applications developed from RDBMSs however is largely dependent upon the quality of the underlying schema. This research looks at the area of schema design and in particular schemata designed by people who have a minimal understanding of relational concepts. It uses a survey and case studies to help define some of the issues involved in the area. A procedure to modify existing schemata is described, and the schema from one of the case studies used to apply the schema re-design procedure to a real database design. The results are compared to the original schema as well as a schema designed using a conventional application of the NIAM analysis and design methodology. The research supports the hypothesis that database applications based on schemata designed by lay-persons are currently being used to support business data management requirements. The utility, reliability and longevity of these applications depend to some extent on the quality of the underlying schema and its ability to store the required data and maintain that data's integrity. The application of the schema re-design procedure presented in this thesis reveals refinements on the original schema and provides a method for lay-persons to evaluate and improve existing database designs. A number of issues and questions related to the focus of this research are raised and, although outside the scope of the research, are noted as suggestions for further work

CS 205-01, 02, 03: Computer Literacy and Office Automation

•To understand basic computer operations and the principal components of a computer and connected peripheral devices•To understand and examine current operating systems, software utilities, device drivers and application software•To define and understand current storage technology and learn about logical file storage and management•To become proficient in using:-Windows-Word Processing Applications-Spreadsheet Applications-Database Applications-Presentation Graphics Applications•To understand the basics of e-mail•To introduce networking concepts including the Internet and its components and web browser basics•To learn ways to protect your data and avoid computer disaster

An SDI for the GIS-education at the UGent Geography Department

The UGent Geography Department (GD) (ca. 200 students; 10 professors) has been teaching GIS since the mid 90’s. Ever since, GIS has evolved from Geographic Information Systems, to GIScience, to GIServices; implying that a GIS specialist nowadays has to deal with more than just desktop GIS. Knowledge about the interaction between different components of an SDI (spatial data, technologies, laws and policies, people and standards) is crucial for a graduated Master student. For its GIS education, the GD has until recently been using different sources of datasets, which were stored in a non-centralized system. In conformity with the INSPIRE Directive and the Flemish SDI Decree, the GD aims to set-up its own SDI using free and open source software components, to improve the management, user-friendliness, copyright protection and centralization of datasets and the knowledge of state of the art SDI structure and technology. The central part of the system is a PostGIS-database in which both staff and students can create and share information stored in a multitude of tables and schemas. A web-based application facilitates upper-level management of the database for administrators and staff members. Exercises in various courses not only focus on accessing and handling data from the SDI through common GIS-applications as QuantumGIS or GRASS, but also aim at familiarizing students with the set-up of widely used SDI-elements as WMS, WFS and WCS services. The (dis)advantages of the new SDI will be tested in a case study in which the workflow of a typical ‘GIS Applications’ exercise is elaborated. By solving a problem of optimal location, students interact in various ways with geographic data. A comparison is made between the situation before and after the implementation of the SDI

Content And Multimedia Database Management Systems

A database management system is a general-purpose software system that facilitates the processes of defining, constructing, and manipulating databases for various applications. The main characteristic of the ‘database approach’ is that it increases the value of data by its emphasis on data independence. DBMSs, and in particular those based on the relational data model, have been very successful at the management of administrative data in the business domain. This thesis has investigated data management in multimedia digital libraries, and its implications on the design of database management systems. The main problem of multimedia data management is providing access to the stored objects. The content structure of administrative data is easily represented in alphanumeric values. Thus, database technology has primarily focused on handling the objects’ logical structure. In the case of multimedia data, representation of content is far from trivial though, and not supported by current database management systems