Business Intelligence And Information Systems: Enhancing Student Knowledge In Database Courses

Companies are increasingly relying on business intelligence (BI) for decision making. However, integration of BI into university business courses has not kept pace with market needs. The purpose of this paper is to outline an innovative business intelligence teaching module for management information systems (MIS) education. The module was designed to highlight the basic principles of business intelligence as well as provide an applied experience with Microsoft Visual Studio using the Analysis Services and Reporting framework. This teaching module seeks to provide Information Systems students a relevant introduction to BI, providing a springboard to expand BI knowledge and prepare students for success in the business world

Combining Business Intelligence And Stock Market Data: A Primer For Data Analytics And Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) has become indispensible to modern business decision-making. Organizations rely on BI to interpret the mass amounts of data circulating throughout the world. However, integration of BI into university business programs does not parallel industry demands. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an innovative business intelligence project tutorial for Information Systems (IS) education. The applied tutorial was designed to help students learn how to design and publish a report using SQL Server Reporting Services to analyze current stock market data. This tutorial exposes students to the decision-making power derived from raw data analysis and assists in development of business professionals who can maximize profitability through effective use of business intelligence

Integrating Data Cleansing With Popular Culture: A Novel SQL Character Data Tutorial

Big data and data science have experienced unprecedented growth in recent years.  The big data market continues to exhibit strong momentum as countless businesses transform into data-driven companies. From salary surges to incredible growth in the number of positions, data science is one of the hottest areas in the job market. Significant demand and limited supply of professionals with data competencies has greatly affected the hiring market and this demand/supply imbalance will likely continue in the future. A major key in supplying the market with qualified big data professionals, is bridging the gap from traditional Information Systems (IS) learning outcomes to those outcomes requisite in this emerging field. The purpose of this paper is to share an SQL Character Data Tutorial.  Utilizing the 5E Instructional Model, this tutorial helps students (a) become familiar with SQL code, (b) learn when and how to use SQL string functions, (c) understand and apply the concept of data cleansing, (d) gain problem solving skills in the context of typical string manipulations, and (e) gain an understanding of typical needs related to string queries. The tutorial utilizes common, recognizable quotes from popular culture to engage students in the learning process and enhance understanding. This tutorial should prove helpful to educators who seek to provide a rigorous, practical, and relevant big data experience in their courses

Business Intelligence, Analytics And Data Visualization: A Heat Map Project Tutorial

Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) initiatives are helping countless organizations harness and interpret the vast amount of information available in the world today. The explosion of BI&A in industry has fueled the high demand for knowledge workers with advanced analytical skills. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a data visualization project tutorial for Information Systems (IS) education. The applied BI&A tutorial was designed to help students learn how to create and analyze a heat map using SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Students learn how to make decisions based on large amounts of data by presenting it in visual form. This tutorial exposes students to the decision-making power derived from data visualization. Utilizing the 5E Instructional Model, the tutorial assists in the development of BI&A professionals who can quickly make sense of mass amounts of data, identify trends buried within data sets, and are skilled in making sound decisions that add value to organizations

Sensorimotor signals underlying space perception: An investigation based on self-touch

Perception of space has puzzled scientists since antiquity, and is among the foundational questions of scientific psychology. Classical “local sign” theories assert that perception of spatial extent ultimately derives from efferent signals specifying the intensity of motor commands. Everyday cases of self-touch, such as stroking the left forearm with the right index fingertip, provide an important platform for studying spatial perception, because of the tight correlation between motor and tactile extents. Nevertheless, if the motor and sensory information in self-touch were artificially decoupled, these classical theories would clearly predict that motor signals – especially if self-generated rather than passive – should influence spatial perceptual judgements, but not vice versa. We tested this hypothesis by quantifying the contribution of tactile, kinaesthetic, and motor information to judgements of spatial extent. In a self-touch paradigm involving two coupled robots in master-slave configuration, voluntary movements of the right-hand produced simultaneous tactile stroking on the left forearm. Crucially, the coupling between robots was manipulated so that tactile stimulation could be shorter, equal, or longer in extent than the movement that caused it. Participants judged either the extent of the movement, or the extent of the tactile stroke. By controlling sensorimotor gains in this way, we quantified how motor signals influence tactile spatial perception, and vice versa. Perception of tactile extent was strongly biased by the amplitude of the movement performed. Importantly, touch also affected the perceived extent of movement. Finally, the effect of movement on touch was significantly stronger when movements were actively-generated compared to when the participant's right hand was passively moved by the experimenter. Overall, these results suggest that motor signals indeed dominate the construction of spatial percepts, at least when the normal tight correlation between motor and sensory signals is broken. Importantly, however, this dominance is not total, as classical theory might suggest

Place et rôle du riz pluvial dans les systèmes de production du lac Alaotra Les systèmes SCV (semis direct sur couverture végétale permanente) : une alternative viable pour une agriculture pluviale durable

La région de l'Alaotra repose sur un plateau situé à 750 mètres d'altitude avec au cœur de la plaine le lac Alaotra. La surface cultivée en riziculture est estimée à 148 500 ha en 2000 (FAO/UPDR, 2000), dont 75-80 000 ha dans la cuvette du Lac et plus de 65-70 000 ha au sud et dans les zones en périphérie, qui constitue 10% de la surface rizicole nationale pour seulement 4% des riziculteurs malgaches. Cette région réalise 33% de la valeur ajoutée de l'ensemble de la filière nationale et 15% de la richesse générée par le secteur riz. Le climat irrégulier constitue une contrainte majeure pour tous les agriculteurs du lac Alaotra. Les relations agriculture-élevage sont au cœur de la problématique de développement et d'évolution des exploitations agricoles.Ainsi, avec la saturation des rizières irrigables ou à Mauvaise Maîtrise de l'Eau (RMME), la colonisation agricole des tanety anciennement dévolus aux pâturages extensifs depuis les années 1980 s'est accélérer, induisant la perturbation des activités d'élevage bovin traditionnel extensif à objectif de capitalisation qui évoluent aujourd'hui vers un élevage productif (embouche et production laitière) ou de trait. Le diagnostic réalisé en 2007 a mis en évidence 7 types d'exploitations agricoles différents. Les différents systèmes de riziculture pluviale se retrouvent sur les plateaux sommitaux et les pentes des collines (en rotation jachère culture sur les sols très pauvres), les bas de pente et les baiboho, en rotation avec d'autres cultures pluviales (maïs, manioc, pois de terre...) avec ou sans jachère, ou en système SCV depuis leur introduction au début des années 2000. L'introduction de variétés composites poly-aptitudes de type Sebota a pu lever une contrainte majeure des zones ni totalement irriguées ni totalement pluviales mais intermédiaires dans les RMME (riziculture pluviale partiellement irriguée, selon l'accès à l'eau et les caractéristiques climatiques de la saison), Les systèmes SCV mis au point sur baiboho avec des successions culturales de type riz de saison / haricot de contre saison - maïs de saison ou riz de saison puis vesce de contre saison associée ou non à des cultures maraîchères montrent également un niveau de production et de sécurité par rapport aux aléas climatiques très proche voire supérieurs à ceux obtenus en riziculture irriguée. La part du riz pluvial dans la formation du revenu et la sécurité alimentaire a été analysée pour chaque type d'exploitation et varie de 20 à 30 % du revenu riz total (avant autoconsommation), et se révèle croissante en fonction du rapport tanety / rizière dans l'exploitation. Ainsi, sur certaines zones, le riz pluvial semble avoir de beaux jours devant lui

Interhemispheric communication during haptic self-perception

During the haptic exploration of a planar surface, slight resistances against the hand's movement are illusorily perceived as asperities (bumps) in the surface. If the surface being touched is one's own skin, an actual bump would also produce increased tactile pressure from the moving finger onto the skin. We investigated how kinaesthetic and tactile signals combine to produce haptic perceptions during self-touch. Participants performed two successive movements with the right hand. A haptic force-control robot applied resistances to both movements, and participants judged which movement was felt to contain the larger bump. An additional robot delivered simultaneous but task-irrelevant tactile stroking to the left forearm. These strokes contained either increased or decreased tactile pressure synchronized with the resistance-induced illusory bump encountered by the right hand. We found that the size of bumps perceived by the right hand was enhanced by an increase in left tactile pressure, but also by a decrease. Tactile event detection was thus transferred interhemispherically, but the sign of the tactile information was not respected. Randomizing (rather than blocking) the presentation order of left tactile stimuli abolished these interhemispheric enhancement effects. Thus, interhemispheric transfer during bimanual self-touch requires a stable model of temporally synchronized events, but does not require geometric consistency between hemispheric information, nor between tactile and kinaesthetic representations of a single common object

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus oncoprotein K13 protects against B cell receptor induced growth arrest and apoptosis through NF-κB activation

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) has been linked to the development of Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma and multicentric Castleman's disease (MCD). We have characterized the role of KSHV-encoded viral FLICE inhibitory protein K13 in the modulation of anti-IgM induced growth arrest and apoptosis in B cells. We demonstrate that K13 protects WEHI 231, an immature B cell line, against anti-IgM induced growth arrest and apoptosis. The protective effect of K13 was associated with the activation of the NF-κB pathway and was deficient in its mutant, K13-58AAA, and a structural homolog, vFLIP E8, which lack NF-κB activity. K13 upregulated the expression of NF-κB subunit RelB and blocked the anti-IgM induced decline in c-Myc and rise in p27(Kip1) that have been associated with growth arrest and apoptosis. K13 also upregulated the expression of Mcl-1, an anti-apoptotic member of the Bcl2 family. Finally, K13 protected the mature B cell line Ramos against anti-IgM induced apoptosis through NF-κB activation. Inhibition of anti-IgM induced apoptosis by K13 may contribute to the development of KSHV-associated lymphoproliferative disorders

Evaluation of Co-based thermodynamic databases with respect to own and literature experimental data

The development of Ni-based alloys proved the importance of dedicated Gibbs energies databases constructed following the CALPHAD method. Validated databases for Co-based and Ni/Co-based alloys are therefore imperative. These databases are being constructed concurrently with the development of new alloys in an interactive mode: databases anticipate quantities, new measurements are done which validate the database results or demand for changes. In this work we collect several thermodynamic assessments of ternaries and quaternaries systems, relevant for Co-based alloys, published recently in the literature and compare the calculated results with the obtained by using TCNI8 (which can also be used for Co-based alloys). We also compare calculated results to Liquidus and solidus temperatures experimentally determinate for several alloys in development in Erlangen. A comparison between First Principles calculated formation enthalpies of several TCP (topologically close packed) phases with the values calculated from the databases is also presented. As a result of this analysis necessary changes in the databases are pointed out as well as the regions of composition and temperature where more experimental data is required