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

Bibliographie courante sur l'histoire de la population canadienne et la démographie historique au Canada, 1983 | A Current Bibliography on the History of Canadian Population and Historical Demography in Canada, 1983

Nous présentons ici le septième des relevés bibliographiques que la revue offre à ses lecteurs. Ce relevé a été établi à partir des chroniques parues dans Acadiensis, BC Studies, Canadian Historical Review, Études ethniques au Canada, la Revue canadienne des slavistes et La Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, et à l'aide de L' Anthropological lndex, du Population Index et de La Bibliographie internationale de la démographie historique. Une soixantaine de périodiques, dont nous communiquerons volontiers la liste aux intéressés, ont aussi été dépouillés. Pour cette bibliographie de 1983, nous n'avons retenu, comme à l'habitude, que des livres et articles que nous avons eus entre les mains. Nous ne prétendons pas qu'elle soit exhaustive; aussi invitons-nous les lecteurs à nous signaler les omissions qui pourront être corrigées dans la prochaine bibliographie. This is a continuation of the bibliography published regularly by the journal for its readers since 1978. It is compiled from bibliographies published in Acadiensis, BC Studies, Canadian Ethnic Studies, the Canadian Historical Review, the Canadian Slavonic Papers and the Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française, and with the help of the Anthropological Index, the Population Index, and the International Bibliography of Historical Demography. In addition, almost sixty periodicals, a list of which may be obtained from us, were consulted. As usual, only books and articles in hand have been enumerated. Please bring to our attention those we may have overlooked for inclusion in the next bibliography

Evidence-as-a-service: state recordkeeping in the cloud

The White House has engaged in recent years in efforts to ensure greater citizen access to government information and greater efficiency and effectiveness in managing that information. The Open Data policy and recent directives requiring that federal agencies create capacity to share scientific data have fallen on the heels of the Federal Government's Cloud First policy, an initiative requiring Federal agencies to consider using cloud computing before making IT investments. Still, much of the information accessed by the public resides in the hands of state and local records creators. Thus, this exploratory study sought to examine how cloud computing actually affects public information recordkeeping stewards. Specifically, it investigated whether recordkeeping stewards' concerns about cloud computing risks are similar to published risks in newly implemented cloud computing environments, it examined their perceptions of how cross-occupational relationships affect their ability to perform recordkeeping responsibilities in the Cloud, and it compared how recordkeeping roles and responsibilities are distributed within their organizations. The distribution was compared to published reports of recordkeeping roles and responsibilities in archives and records management journals published over the past 42 years. The study used an interpretive, constant comparative approach to data collection and an analytical framework from Structuration Theory. Findings were drawn from 29 interviews and their associated transcripts and from 682 published articles from six archives and records management journals dating from 1970 onwards. It was found that the actual work environments reported by interview participants most resembled the recordkeeping environments published by archival continuum theorists. In addition, records managers reported greater worry about status and a lack of clearly demarcated lines of responsibility in their work than did the archivists. Records managers also reported less impact from the new technology as physical artifact than from political and inter-occupational power adjustments that altered their status after the cloud implementations. It was also found that current cloud computing environments exhibit a variety of disincentives for accurate and complete recordkeeping, some of which are primarily due to political changes and others from the distributed nature of information storage in the Cloud.Doctor of Philosoph