A Call to Arms: Revisiting Database Design

Good database design is crucial to obtain a sound, consistent database, and - in turn - good database design methodologies are the best way to achieve the right design. These methodologies are taught to most Computer Science undergraduates, as part of any Introduction to Database class. They can be considered part of the "canon", and indeed, the overall approach to database design has been unchanged for years. Moreover, none of the major database research assessments identify database design as a strategic research direction. Should we conclude that database design is a solved problem? Our thesis is that database design remains a critical unsolved problem. Hence, it should be the subject of more research. Our starting point is the observation that traditional database design is not used in practice - and if it were used it would result in designs that are not well adapted to current environments. In short, database design has failed to keep up with the times. In this paper, we put forth arguments to support our viewpoint, analyze the root causes of this situation and suggest some avenues of research.Comment: Removed spurious column break. Nothing else was change

Generic unified modelling process for developing semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models

Models play a vital role in supporting a range of activities in numerous domains. We rely on models to support the design, visualisation, analysis and representation of parts of the world around us, and as such significant research effort has been invested into numerous areas of modelling; including support for model semantics, dynamic states and behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. Whilst these efforts have increased our capabilities and allowed us to create increasingly powerful software-based models, the process of developing models, supporting tools and /or data structures remains difficult, expensive and error-prone. In this paper we define from literature the key factors in assessing a model’s quality and usefulness: semantic richness, support for dynamic states and object behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. We also identify a number of shortcomings in both existing modelling standards and model development processes and propose a unified generic process to guide users through the development of semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models

TLAD 2010 Proceedings:8th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the eighth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2010), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2010 - the 27th International Information Systems Conference. TLAD 2010 is held on the 28th June at the beautiful Dudhope Castle at the Abertay University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.This year, the workshop includes an invited talk given by Richard Cooper (of the University of Glasgow) who will present a discussion and some results from the Database Disciplinary Commons which was held in the UK over the academic year. Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will also present seven peer reviewed papers, and six refereed poster papers. Of the seven presented papers, three will be presented as full papers and four as short papers. These papers and posters cover a number of themes, including: approaches to teaching databases, e.g. group centered and problem based learning; use of novel case studies, e.g. forensics and XML data; techniques and approaches for improving teaching and student learning processes; assessment techniques, e.g. peer review; methods for improving students abilities to develop database queries and develop E-R diagrams; and e-learning platforms for supporting teaching and learning

Balancing contractual and relational approaches for PPP success and sustainability

Useful synergies are targeted by proposing a convergence of hitherto parallel international endeavours towards: (1) developing better and sustainable relationships for more productive construction project teams, in general; and (2) optimising the necessarily long term contractual arrangements of PPPs in particular. Examples are drawn from Africa and Latin America to reinforce reported PPP experiences from other regions, in building up a case for injecting ‘relational contracting approaches’ in order to develop more productive and sustainable PPPs. Strong and sustainable relationships are shown to be essential, and complementary to appropriate contractual incentives, that would together empower PPP project teams to focus on developing sustainable infrastructure and ultimately on overall sustainable development. These propositions are merged into a basic model that merits further investigation and development, in order to ensure that planned PPPs benefit the community at large, in respect of both present and future generations

Storage Solutions for Big Data Systems: A Qualitative Study and Comparison

Big data systems development is full of challenges in view of the variety of application areas and domains that this technology promises to serve. Typically, fundamental design decisions involved in big data systems design include choosing appropriate storage and computing infrastructures. In this age of heterogeneous systems that integrate different technologies for optimized solution to a specific real world problem, big data system are not an exception to any such rule. As far as the storage aspect of any big data system is concerned, the primary facet in this regard is a storage infrastructure and NoSQL seems to be the right technology that fulfills its requirements. However, every big data application has variable data characteristics and thus, the corresponding data fits into a different data model. This paper presents feature and use case analysis and comparison of the four main data models namely document oriented, key value, graph and wide column. Moreover, a feature analysis of 80 NoSQL solutions has been provided, elaborating on the criteria and points that a developer must consider while making a possible choice. Typically, big data storage needs to communicate with the execution engine and other processing and visualization technologies to create a comprehensive solution. This brings forth second facet of big data storage, big data file formats, into picture. The second half of the research paper compares the advantages, shortcomings and possible use cases of available big data file formats for Hadoop, which is the foundation for most big data computing technologies. Decentralized storage and blockchain are seen as the next generation of big data storage and its challenges and future prospects have also been discussed

Measuring usability for application software using the quality in use integration measurement model

User interfaces of application software are designed to make user interaction as efficient and as simple as possible. Market accessibility of any application software is determined by the usability of its user interfaces. A poorly designed user interface will have little value no matter how powerful the program is. Thus, it is significantly important to measure usability during the system development lifecycle in order to avoid user disappointment. Various methods and standards that help measure usability have been developed. However, these methods define usability inconsistently, which makes software engineers hesitant in implementing these methods or standards. The Quality in Use Integrated Measurement (QUIM) model is a consolidated approach for measuring usability through 10 factors, 26 criteria, and 127 metrics. It decomposes usability into factors, criteria, and metrics, and it is a hierarchical model that helps developers with no or little background of usability metrics. Among 127 metrics of QUIM, essential efficiency (EE) is the most specific metric used to measure the usability of user interfaces through an equation. This study involves a comparative analysis between three case studies that use the QUIM model to measure usability in terms of EE for three case studies: (1) Public University Registration System, (2) Restaurant Menu Ordering System, and (3) ATM system. A comparison is made based on the percentage of EE for each element of the use cases in each use case diagram. The results obtained revealed that the user interface design for Restaurant Menu Ordering System scored the highest percentage of EE, thus proving to be the most user-friendly application software among its counterparts