Some issues in data model mapping

Numerous data models have been reported in the literature since the early 1970's. They have been used as database interfaces and as conceptual design tools. The mapping between schemas expressed according to the same data model or according to different models is interesting for theoretical and practical purposes. This paper addresses some of the issues involved in such a mapping. Of special interest are the identification of the mapping parameters and some current approaches for handling the various situations that require a mapping

Codification, meritocracy and performativity: Debilitating factors for black pre-service teachers

This article presents an argument and commentary about the concomitant effects of codification, meritocracy and performativity in the academic performance of a cohort of black African Foundation Phase Bachelor of Education degree students at a previously predominantly white institution of higher learning. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the point that the combination of codification, meritocracy and performativity has potentially debilitating ramifications for the performance of this cohort of pre-service teachers. In this instance, language is a codification mechanism and a means towards epistemological access. This paper posits the viewpoint that the sociocultural backgrounds of the cohort predispose them to the resultant negative effects of the combination of the three factors. The study that forms the basis of this article used the qualitative theoretical orientation of the transformative paradigm to pursue a critical emancipatory and transformative theoretical agenda. This agenda is embodied in the recommendations that are informed by an infusion of the literature, the participants’ observations, as accrued from the data, and the researcher’s reflections. The intention of this social-justice-oriented support strategy is to make an implied decolonial contribution towards counteracting and diffusing the potentially debilitating effects of the combination of codification, meritocracy and performativity

The design and analysis of a complete hierarchical interface for the multi-backend database system.

http://archive.org/details/designanalysisof00weisNAN

Context based querying of scientific data: changing querying paradigms?

We are investigating and applying a semantically enhanced query answering machine for the needs of addressing semantically meaningful data and operations within a scientific information system. We illustrate a context based querying paradigm on the basis of a Regional Avalanche Information and Forecasting System - RAIFoS which is concerned with the collection and analysis of snow and weather related physical parameters in the Swiss Alps. The querying paradigm relies upon the issue of interactively constructing a semantically valid query rather than formulating one in a database specific query language and for a particular implementation model. In order to achieve this goal, the query answering machine has to make inferences concerning the properties and value domains, as well as data analysis operations, which are semantically valid within particular contexts. These inferences take place when the intended query is being constructed interactively on a Web-based blackboard. A graph-based display presentation formalism is used with elements including natural language terms, measurement units, statistical quantifiers and/or specific value domains. A meta-data database is used to organise and provide the elements of the graph each time the graph, and consequently the intended query, is expanded or further refined. Finally, the displayed graph is transformed into elements of the implementation model from which, in turn, SQL statements and/or sequences of statistical operations are created

The Query Cube: A Framework for Assessing User Productivity with Database Information Retrieval

Three key factors that affect user productivity on database information retrieval are representation realism, expressive ease, and task complexity. Representation realism is the level of abstraction used in formulating queries. Expressive ease is the syntactic flexibility of a query language. Task complexity is the level of difficulty of queries. These factors formed a three dimensional query cube. A laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate user productivity on database information retrieval corresponding to different vertices of the query cube. The results show that the query cube is a viable framework for assessing user productivity, both on effectiveness and efficiency perspective

Regional Development and Well-Being of Regions in Hungary

The purpose of this study is to formulate policy views from the perceived trends in regional development, as measured by the change in regional well-being indicators and urban prosperity factors. The theoretical foundations of these development policies are formulated by place-based regional strategies. Based on the OECD database on well-being indicators, ranking by the Global Urban Competitiveness Research Centre and the International Congress and Convention Association, the authors have found that despite regional disparities and the centrum-periphery gaps, well-being in Hungarian regions has improved. Moreover, Budapest has good potentials in strengthening connections and accelerating development, and may display its advantages in attracting global production factors

E-MIMIC: Empowering Multilingual Inclusive Communication

Preserving diversity and inclusion is becoming a compelling need in both industry and academia. The ability to use appropriate forms of writing, speaking, and gestures is not widespread even in formal communications such as public calls, public announcements, official reports, and legal documents. The improper use of linguistic expressions can foment unacceptable forms of exclusion, stereotypes as well as forms of verbal violence against minorities, including women. Furthermore, existing machine translation tools are not designed to generate inclusive content. The present paper investigates a joint effort of the research communities of linguistics and Deep Learning Natural Language Understanding in fighting against non-inclusive, prejudiced language forms. It presents a methodology aimed at tackling the improper use of language in formal communication, with a particular attention paid to Romanic languages (Italian, in particular). State-of-the-art Deep Language Modeling architectures are exploited to automatically identify non-inclusive text snippets, suggest alternative forms, and produce inclusive text rephrasing. A preliminary evaluation conducted on a benchmark dataset shows promising results, i.e., 85% accuracy in predicting inclusive/non-inclusive communications

Towards interoperability in heterogeneous database systems

Distributed heterogeneous databases consist of systems which differ physically and logically, containing different data models and data manipulation languages. Although these databases are independently created and administered they must cooperate and interoperate. Users need to access and manipulate data from several databases and applications may require data from a wide variety of independent databases. Therefore, a new system architecture is required to manipulate and manage distinct and multiple databases, in a transparent way, while preserving their autonomy. This report contains an extensive survey on heterogeneous databases, analysing and comparing the different aspects, concepts and approaches related to the topic. It introduces an architecture to support interoperability among heterogeneous database systems. The architecture avoids the use of a centralised structure to assist in the different phases of the interoperability process. It aims to support scalability, and to assure privacy and nfidentiality of the data. The proposed architecture allows the databases to decide when to participate in the system, what type of data to share and with which other databases, thereby preserving their autonomy. The report also describes an approach to information discovery in the proposed architecture, without using any centralised structure as repositories and dictionaries, and broadcasting to all databases. It attempts to reduce the number of databases searched and to preserve the privacy of the shared data. The main idea is to visit a database that either containsthe requested data or knows about another database that possible contains this data