MIS 420 Business Information Retrieval and Database Management

Course syllabus for MIS 420A Business Information Retrieval and Database Management Course description: Introduction to the management of database systems. Management problem solving will be related to the output of databases to include the development of business strategies, competitive analysis, internal analysis of cost, and other selected business subjects. Commercial software will be reviewed for performance and advantage. This course will cut across functional management lines and show a relationship between the external and internal environment and the business firm. The course is designed as an introduction to the design, operation and performance evaluation of databases. The role of databases as an integral part of management information systems, decision support systems, and expert systems is emphasized. Major part of the course is devoted to Relational Data Models; a basic introduction of the hierarchical and network models is included as part of the course. Topics covered include : Database Architecture, Conceptual and Physical Design of Databases, Database Environment, Database Administration, Database Security, Object-oriented Data Languages, Knowledge-Based systems, etc

Object-Oriented Software Representation of Polymer Materials Information in Engineering Design

The software application POISE, Polymer Objects in a Smalltalk™ Environment, integrates knowledge representation, user interfaces, and data management; a system of tools for the materials domain expert involved in design. Engineering design solutions initially build from generalisations. POISE represents multiple levels of generalisations from classifications of polymer information. The class-instance paradigm classifies software objects. An object’s behaviour is an exclusive function of its class. Polymer’s behaviours are a function of multiple orthogonal factors, like chemistry and processing, therefore multiple orthogonal classes must represent polymers. Taxonomy only represents one of these factors. The Enhancer mechanism resolves this conflict between classification and representation. Polymer classification is not well established, with new materials evolving. The software compensates by evolving the classification schema. Guided with a specialised interface tool, the domain expert updates the schema by adding new polymer families and re-classifying existing classes. Through analysing the generalisations in the classification, the domain expert can develop an appropriate classification. This analysis relies on the engineering properties differentiating the principal material qualities. Standard properties do not distinguish specific structural differences in polymer materials, necessitating new properties. Material properties distinguish materials in the domain whereas the classes describe the properties of polymer objects. Domain experts add new properties to the polymer classes to distinguish polymer objects. Properties are independent objects that partially describe the class template; Partial Template Objects. Persistence of personal design information and management of shared data requires dichotomous database management. Shared data requires multi-user access, and consequently transaction management. Transaction management in object-oriented systems often holds resources for a long duration. Transaction declaration hinders transparent access to storage, and corrupts the representation. For single-user design information, transactions are implicit with access. Database proxies provide transparent per-object transaction management to persistent design information. The WorkBase is an object-storage utility that utilises Enhancers as proxies

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

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

Towards Intelligent Databases

This article is a presentation of the objectives and techniques of deductive databases. The deductive approach to databases aims at extending with intensional definitions other database paradigms that describe applications extensionaUy. We first show how constructive specifications can be expressed with deduction rules, and how normative conditions can be defined using integrity constraints. We outline the principles of bottom-up and top-down query answering procedures and present the techniques used for integrity checking. We then argue that it is often desirable to manage with a database system not only database applications, but also specifications of system components. We present such meta-level specifications and discuss their advantages over conventional approaches

KOMBASE - a knowledge representation system with frames for an object-oriented knowledge base

Knowledge representation is an important area of research which is currently being done in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In order to manipulate the wealth of information available in a typical AI application, mechanisms must be provided to represent and to reason with knowledge at a high level of abstraction. Knowledge representation with frames is a structured and object-oriented approach to this problem. KOMBASE is a prototype to a frame-based system containing organizational information of companies and other corporate bodies. This paper describes the approach adopted in the development of KOMBASE and discusses its implementation, particularly from a knowledge representational perspective

Innovative Evaluation System – IESM: An Architecture for the Database Management System for Mobile Application

As the mobile applications are constantly facing a rapid development in the recent years especially in the academic environment such as student response system [1-8] used in universities and other educational institutions; there has not been reported an effective and scalable Database Management System to support fast and reliable data storage and retrieval. This paper presents Database Management Architecture for an Innovative Evaluation System based on Mobile Learning Applications. The need for a relatively stable, independent and extensible data model for faster data storage and retrieval is analyzed and investigated. It concludes by emphasizing further investigation for high throughput so as to support multimedia data such as video clips, images and documents

Expert system decision support for low-cost launch vehicle operations

Progress in assessing the feasibility, benefits, and risks associated with AI expert systems applied to low cost expendable launch vehicle systems is described. Part one identified potential application areas in vehicle operations and on-board functions, assessed measures of cost benefit, and identified key technologies to aid in the implementation of decision support systems in this environment. Part two of the program began the development of prototypes to demonstrate real-time vehicle checkout with controller and diagnostic/analysis intelligent systems and to gather true measures of cost savings vs. conventional software, verification and validation requirements, and maintainability improvement. The main objective of the expert advanced development projects was to provide a robust intelligent system for control/analysis that must be performed within a specified real-time window in order to meet the demands of the given application. The efforts to develop the two prototypes are described. Prime emphasis was on a controller expert system to show real-time performance in a cryogenic propellant loading application and safety validation implementation of this system experimentally, using commercial-off-the-shelf software tools and object oriented programming techniques. This smart ground support equipment prototype is based in C with imbedded expert system rules written in the CLIPS protocol. The relational database, ORACLE, provides non-real-time data support. The second demonstration develops the vehicle/ground intelligent automation concept, from phase one, to show cooperation between multiple expert systems. This automated test conductor (ATC) prototype utilizes a knowledge-bus approach for intelligent information processing by use of virtual sensors and blackboards to solve complex problems. It incorporates distributed processing of real-time data and object-oriented techniques for command, configuration control, and auto-code generation