Improving STEM Education in Research: Preliminary Report on the Development of a Computer-Assisted Student-Mentor Research Community

Research education in STEM disciplines currently suffers from 1) The inability to feasibly collect highly detailed data on both the student’s and mentor’s activities; 2) The lack of tools to assist students and mentors in organizing and managing their research activities and environments; and 3) The inability to correlate a student’s assessment results with their actual research activities. Together these three problems act to impede both the improvement and educational quality of student research experiences. We propose a computer-assisted student-mentor research community as a solution to these problems. Within this community setting, students and their mentors are provided tools to make their work easier, much like a word processor makes writing a letter easier. Through their use of these tools, details of student-mentor activities are automatically recorded in a relational database, without burdening users with the responsibility of archiving data. Equally important, student assessments of outcome can be directly related to student activity, allowing educators to identify practices resulting in successful research experiences. Community tools also facilitate the use of labor-intensive teaching laboratories involving real inquiry-based research. The community structure has the added benefit of allowing students to see, communicate and interact more freely with other students and their projects, thus enriching the student’s research experience. We provide herein a preliminary report on the development and testing of a prototype, student-mentor research community, and present its tools, an assessment of student interest in participating in the community, and discuss its further development into a nationally-available student-mentor research community

XML document design via GN-DTD

Designing a well-structured XML document is important for the sake of readability and maintainability. More importantly, this will avoid data redundancies and update anomalies when maintaining a large quantity of XML based documents. In this paper, we propose a method to improve XML structural design by adopting graphical notations for Document Type Definitions (GN-DTD), which is used to describe the structure of an XML document at the schema level. Multiples levels of normal forms for GN-DTD are proposed on the basis of conceptual model approaches and theories of normalization. The normalization rules are applied to transform a poorly designed XML document into a well-designed based on normalized GN-DTD, which is illustrated through examples

Development of web application for designing a relational database

In the graduate thesis I will present and show how I made a web application for designing relational databases. The purpose of the web application is to enable a database designer as opposed to the rest of paid applications that use logical level, free design in the conceptual level. At the beginning of the thesis I briefly introduce the planning phases of the database. Below I explain what added value has our product using conceptual level in comparison with the others. After placement of the product in the level of planning, I present the way of planning within the application itself. In the second more practical part are described all the used tools and libraries we have used, and in the last part I describe and introduce the input mask and the main functionality of the product

The ERA of FOLE: Foundation

This paper discusses the representation of ontologies in the first-order logical environment FOLE (Kent 2013). An ontology defines the primitives with which to model the knowledge resources for a community of discourse (Gruber 2009). These primitives, consisting of classes, relationships and properties, are represented by the entity-relationship-attribute ERA data model (Chen 1976). An ontology uses formal axioms to constrain the interpretation of these primitives. In short, an ontology specifies a logical theory. This paper is the first in a series of three papers that provide a rigorous mathematical representation for the ERA data model in particular, and ontologies in general, within the first-order logical environment FOLE. The first two papers show how FOLE represents the formalism and semantics of (many-sorted) first-order logic in a classification form corresponding to ideas discussed in the Information Flow Framework (IFF). In particular, this first paper provides a foundation that connects elements of the ERA data model with components of the first-order logical environment FOLE, and the second paper provides a superstructure that extends FOLE to the formalisms of first-order logic. The third paper defines an interpretation of FOLE in terms of the transformational passage, first described in (Kent 2013), from the classification form of first-order logic to an equivalent interpretation form, thereby defining the formalism and semantics of first-order logical/relational database systems (Kent 2011). The FOLE representation follows a conceptual structures approach, that is completely compatible with formal concept analysis (Ganter and Wille 1999) and information flow (Barwise and Seligman 1997)

Justification for inclusion dependency normal form

Functional dependencies (FDs) and inclusion dependencies (INDs) are the most fundamental integrity constraints that arise in practice in relational databases. In this paper, we address the issue of normalization in the presence of FDs and INDs and, in particular, the semantic justification for Inclusion Dependency Normal Form (IDNF), a normal form which combines Boyce-Codd normal form with the restriction on the INDs that they be noncircular and key-based. We motivate and formalize three goals of database design in the presence of FDs and INDs: noninteraction between FDs and INDs, elimination of redundancy and update anomalies, and preservation of entity integrity. We show that, as for FDs, in the presence of INDs being free of redundancy is equivalent to being free of update anomalies. Then, for each of these properties, we derive equivalent syntactic conditions on the database design. Individually, each of these syntactic conditions is weaker than IDNF and the restriction that an FD not be embedded in the righthand side of an IND is common to three of the conditions. However, we also show that, for these three goals of database design to be satisfied simultaneously, IDNF is both a necessary and sufficient condition

Active Learning via a Sample Database: The Case of Microsoft\u27s Adventure Works

This paper describes the use and benefits of Microsoft’s Adventure Works (AW) database to teach advanced database skills in a hands-on, realistic environment. Database management and querying skills are a key element of a robust information systems curriculum, and active learning is an important way to develop these skills. To facilitate active learning and produce a compelling narrative, the data structure and content of a useful pedagogically-oriented database should be realistic and lifelike. It should contain data that accurately depicts the business processes, functions, and entities of a realistic organization, structured in a way that demonstrates best practices in database design. Most database textbooks include sample databases, but these are often small and sparse of data. By contrast, Microsoft’s AW database presents a robust, realistic, and comprehensive framework for many important educational objectives in an IS curriculum. This paper introduces the AW business case and database, and illustrates several pedagogical uses in an undergraduate CIS program

Mathematics as a Supporting Tool for Technological Management

The necessity of production involving the applicability of mathematics in the management decision-making process stimulates the elaboration of this article. This approach seeks to develop under a new profile of Mathematical Science, now as another tool of technological management, while it allows to understand the diverse deductive paradigms of this knowledge of support to the administrative process. In this way, the general objective is to deal with the application of mathematics as a tool in technological management; (1), to evaluate the applicability of these tools in the management of small and medium enterprises (2), to propose a mathematical model that contributes to the innovation of the business enterprise (3). The theoretical foundation is in the Taxonomy of Bloom, prescribed for the development of abilities and cognitive attitudes of the individual. There will be no doubt that mathematical problem-solving procedures advance significantly, especially to the demands of complex solutions. The Content Analysis Method and related procedures apply to this task. As a result .... Therefore, the study of mathematical and statistical application, in addition to computer resources to identify the possible trend in the index of technological management, the present article states that mathematics as a tool has its widespread applicability within the most diverse types of technological management, regardless of their size and showing how mathematics is associated in different areas of knowledge as a trend for technological management, since it is still considered for some as a difficult element among managers

Earth Sciences Data and Information System (ESDIS) program planning and evaluation methodology development

An Earth Sciences Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project Management Plan (PMP) is prepared. An ESDIS Project Systems Engineering Management Plan (SEMP) consistent with the developed PMP is also prepared. ESDIS and related EOS program requirements developments, management and analysis processes are evaluated. Opportunities to improve the effectiveness of these processes and program/project responsiveness to requirements are identified. Overall ESDIS cost estimation processes are evaluated, and recommendations to improve cost estimating and modeling techniques are developed. ESDIS schedules and scheduling tools are evaluated. Risk assessment, risk mitigation strategies and approaches, and use of risk information in management decision-making are addressed