Knowledge Creation through User-Guided Data Mining: A Database Case

This case focuses on learning by applying the four integrating mechanisms of Nonaka\u27s knowledge creation theory: socialization, externalization, combination and internalization. In general, such knowledge creation and internalization (i.e., learning) is critical to database students since they will be expected to apply their specialized database knowledge to a wide variety of business problems, incorporating the various concepts of multiple business disciplines. The case, presented below, depicts a four-phase consulting assignment for each two-student team. In Phase 1, the teams design and implement a reservations database for a small corporate airline, basing their design on a written list of requirements. In Phase 2, each team uses the resulting database to address questions (queries) posed by key managers in the client firm. In Phase 3, each team develops operational and profit improvement recommendations for consideration by the firm\u27s top management. And finally, Phase 4 requires each team to present their recommendations to the client firm\u27s Board of Directors (the rest of the database class), answering any questions and concerns raised by this august board. Taken together, the four phases constitute knowledge creation through user-guided data mining. Since the queries require a variety of functions, subqueries, and cascading views, this case is most suitable as an integrative term project in either an upper-division undergraduate or a graduate level database course

Enhancing Knowledge Integration: An Information System Capstone Project

This database project focuses on learning through knowledge integration; i.e., sharing and applying specialized (database) knowledge within a group, and combining it with other business knowledge to create new knowledge. Specifically, the Tiny Tots, Inc. project described below requires students to design, build, and instantiate a database system for a hypothetical national retail marketing chain. The project also requires the students to test, via queries, several profit improvement hypotheses and, based on their analysis of query results, propose a set of recommendations for improving profits at Tiny Tots. Designing, instantiating, and using a database provides a learning opportunity for students to integrate the basic database techniques (entity-relation diagrams, normalization, scripting, joins, etc.) into a sensible whole and, through teamwork, to diffuse that knowledge throughout the group. Proposing, documenting, and defending their profit improvement recommendations encourages students to integrate their database knowledge with that learned in marketing (price elasticity and supply chain management), accounting (cost accounting and income statement analysis), management (personnel evaluation and compensation analysis), finance (capital budgeting and credit card analysis), and operations management (fraud detection and working capital control). Such knowledge integration is critical to graduating IS students since they will be expected to apply their specialized knowledge to a wide variety of business problems. This project is most suitable in an information systems capstone course or a graduate level database course

THE EFFECTS OF GETTING UNSTRESSED (GUSTM), A WHOLISTIC MULTI-MODAL PROGRAM, ON ADOLESCENTS' WELL-BEING

This study examined the effects of a wholistic multi-modal program on the well-being of adolescents, aged thirteen to nineteen. The program was designed to manage and reduce stress in a self-directed format, with a selection of specific techniques that addressed the teenagers' self-concept and their experiences of anxiety, and to provide tools to assist in decision-making. The dependent measures used included the StateTrait Anxiety Inventoty (STAI) , the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale (NS), and the Self-Description Questionnaire II (SDQ II). The experimental design was a pre-test!post-test with a control group. The independent variable was constructed as a one-day, eight-hour workshop in which all 72 adolescent research subjects participated. The wholistic multi-modal program intervention yielded statistically significant differences for the treatment group (p < .05), lowering state anxieties. Findings also indicate statistically significant improvements (p < .01) in the Total Self-Concept scores of the adolescents, as well as in two of the eleven sub-scales. The results provided evidence of a shift towards a more internal locus of control (p < .01). No statistically significant differences were found for the trait anxiety levels of the treatment group, nor between the treatment and control groups

Knowledge Management in Decision Making: Instance-Based Cognitive Mapping

Abstract Knowledge management deals with explicit knowledge and tacit (or implicit

Oxygen flux in the solar wind: Ulysses observations

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94605/1/grl27577.pd

Quantum Algorithm for Spectral Measurement with a Lower Gate Count

We present two techniques that can greatly reduce the number of gates required to realize an energy measurement, with application to ground state preparation in quantum simulations. The first technique realizes that to prepare the ground state of some Hamiltonian, it is not necessary to implement the time-evolution operator: any unitary operator which is a function of the Hamiltonian will do. We propose one such unitary operator which can be implemented exactly, circumventing any Taylor or Trotter approximation errors. The second technique is tailored to lattice models, and is targeted at reducing the use of generic single-qubit rotations, which are very expensive to produce by standard fault tolerant techniques. In particular, the number of generic single-qubit rotations used by our method scales with the number of parameters in the Hamiltonian, which contrasts with a growth proportional to the lattice size required by other techniques