Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

Application Of Vibrational Techniques In Determination Of Dynamic Properties Of Agricultural Products-State Of The Arton Of Vibrational Techniques In Determination Of Dynamic Properties Of Agricultural Products-State Of The Art, Silas Kajuna

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Vibration is one of the techniques employed in the determination of dynamic properties of fruits and vegetables. It entails generation of a mechanical or acoustic vibrational signal which is propagated through the flesh of the agricultural material. A transducer is either attached or held close to the specimen to monitor the propagation of the signal through the specimen. The manner in which the signal is transmitted through the material is analyzed, and the dynamic properties of the specimen which relate to its firmness or its internal being are derived. The technique has been around for the past 30 years or …

Characterizations Of Classes Of Programs By Three-Valued Operators, Anthony K. Seda, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Several important classes of normal logic programs, including the classes of acyclic, acceptable, and locally hierarchical programs, have the property that every program in the class has a unique two-valued supported model. In this paper, we call such classes unique supported model classes. We analyse and characterize these classes by means of operators on three-valued logics. Our studies will motivate the definition of a larger unique supported model class which we call the class of Phi-accessible programs. Finally, we show that the class of Phi -accessible programs is computationally adequate in that every partial recursive function can be implemented by …

On-Line Bayesian Tree-Structured Transformation Of Hidden Markov Models For Speaker Adaptation, Shaojun Wang, Yunxin Zhao

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents a new recursive Bayesian learning approach for transformation parameter estimation in speaker adaptation. Our goal is to incrementally transform (or adapt) the entire set of HMM parameters for a new speaker or new acoustic enviroment from a small amount of adaptation data. By establishing a clustering tree of HMM Gaussian mixture components, the finest affine transformation parameters for individual HMM Gaussian mixture components can be dynamically searched. The on-line Bayesian learning technique proposed in our recent work is used for recursive maximum a posteriori estimation of affine transformation parameters. Speaker adaptation experiments using a 26-letter English alphabet …

Implementing Sap R/3 At The University Of Nebraska, T. Sieber, Keng Siau, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, M. Sieber

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In April 1995, I asked four Nebraskans from the private sector and four senior people of the University to review the administrative processes of the University of Nebraska. In the appointment letter for this Task Force, I noted that many current administrative processes need to be examined to improve quality and productivity.

Measuring Information Quality Of Web Site: Development Of Instrument, P. Katerattanakul, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Web sites have been extensively used to provide information to consumers. While practitioners and researchers have proposed different criteria for effective Web site design based on common sense, intuition, and rules-ofthumb, effective Web site design focusing on the quality of the information it provides has rarely been studied. In this research, we propose a framework and develop an instrument to measure the information quality of individual or personal Web sites. The theoretical foundation of this research is the information quality framework. The proposed framework and instrument were tested in an individual or personal Web site context.

Zbroker: A Query Routing Broker For Z39.50 Databases, Yong Lin, Jian Xu, Ee Peng Lim, Wee-Keong Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A query routing broker is a software agent that determines from a large set of accessing information sources the ones most relevant to a user's information need. As the number of information sources on the Internet increases dramatically, future users will have to rely on query routing brokers to decide a small number of information sources to query without incurring too much query processing overheads. In this paper, we describe a query routing broker known as ZBroker developed for bibliographic database servers that support the Z39.50 protocol. ZBroker samples the content of each bibliographic database by using training queries and …

Critical It Role In Healthcare: National Agenda, Applications, And Technologies, Jack Corley, Warren Karp, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We share a widely-held vision that tomorrow's health care will be delivered by a distributed team using a knowledge based process that is focused on prevention and wellness. Caregivers will be able to treat and monitor patients where and when needed, capturing data as a natural byproduct of care delivery. Clinical teams with a wide range of skills and expertise will deliver consistent, quality care based on timely, situation-specific knowledge and guidance derived from outcomes evidence. That same knowledge will support advances in healthcare research and education. Home care and remote medicine will increase, reducing the need for high-cost hospitalization. …

Efficient Support For Decision Flows In E-Commerce Applications, Richard Hull, Francois Llirbat, Jianwen Su, Guozhu Dong, Bharat Kumar, Gang Zhou

Kno.e.sis Publications

In the coming era of segment-of-one marketing, decisions about business transactions will be quite intricate, so that customer treatments can be highly individualized, reflecting customer preferences, targeted business objectives, etc. This paper describes a paradigm called “decision flows” for specifying a form of incremental decision-making that can combine a myriad of diverse business factors and be executed in near-realtime. Starting with initial input, a decision flow will iteratively gather and derive additional information until a conclusion is reached. Decision flows can be specified in a rules-based manner that generalizes so-called “business rules” but provides more structure than traditional expert systems. …

Xcert Software, Inc., Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Xcert’s business is in developing Internet and Intranet security enhancement technology. Xcert was founded in April 1996 by Andrew Csinger and Pat Richard and was headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Xcert’s solution to Internet security was a public key infrastructure (PKI). PKI is a system of digital certi® cates, certi® cate authorities (CAs) and other registration authorities that verify and authenticate the validity of each party involved in an Internet transaction. Xcert’s PKI technology allows organizations of any size to issue digital certi® cates to their members. These organizations become their own CA and are empowered to issue digital certi® cates …

Wedagen: A Synthetic Web Database Generator, Pallavi Priyardarshini, Fengqiong Qin, Ee Peng Lim, Wee-Keong Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

At the Centre for Advanced Information Systems (CAIS), a Web warehousing system is being developed to store and manipulate Web information. The system named WHOWEDA (WareHouse Of WEb DAta) stores extracted Web information as Web tables and provides several Web operators, eg. Web join, Web select, global coupling, etc., to manipulate Web tables. During the implementation of WHOWEDA, it is necessary to perform systematic testing on the system and to evaluate its system performance. While it is possible for WHOWEDA to be tested or evaluated using actual Web pages downloaded from WWW, the amount of time required for such testing …

Locating Web Information Using Web Checkpoints, Aik Kee Luah, Wee-Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim, Wee Peng Lee, Yinyan Cao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Conventional search engines locate information by letting users establish a single web checkpoint1. By specifying one or more keywords, users direct search engines to return a set of documents that contain those keywords. From the documents (links) returned by search engines, user proceed to further probe the WWW from there. Hence, these initial set of documents (contingent upon the occurrence of keyword(s)) serve as a web checkpoint. Generally, these links are numerous and may not result in much fruitful searches. By establishing multiple web checkpoints, a richer and controllable search procedure can be constructed to obtain more relevant Web information. …

Research Issues In Web Data Mining, Sanjay Kumar Madria, Sourav S. Bhowmick, Wee-Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we discuss mining with respect to web data referred here as web data mining. In particular, our focus is on web data mining research in context of our web warehousing project called WHOWEDA (Warehouse of Web Data). We have categorized web data mining into threes areas; web content mining, web structure mining and web usage mining. We have highlighted and discussed various research issues involved in each of these web data mining category. We believe that web data mining will be the topic of exploratory research in near future.

Non-Repudiation In An Agent-Based E-Commerce System, Chin Chuan Liew, Wee-Keong Ng, Ee Peng Lim, Beng Suang Tan, Kok-Leong Ong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Abecos is an agent-based e-commerce system under development at the Nanyang Technological University. A key factor in making this system usable in practice is strict security controls. One aspect of security is the provision of non-repudiation services. As protocols for non-repudiation have focused on -message non-repudiation, its adaptation to afford non-repudiation in a communication session for two agents in Abecos is inefficient. In this work, we investigate and propose a protocol for enforcing non-repudiation in a session. The protocol is believed to be applicable in any e-commerce system; agent- or not agent-based.

Knowledge Sharing With Customers On The Www: Approaches By National Tourism Organizations, Xinran You, Joseph O'Leary, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The importance of knowledge management has been emphasized increasingly in recent literature. Knowledge has been regarded as the most important corporate asset in an organization (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). But what is knowledge? According to Harris (1996), "when information is combined with context and experience, it becomes knowledge". Hence, knowledge is the integration of information, context, and experience (Ponelis and Fairer-Wessels, 1998). In the tourism context of this paper, there are two components of knowledge: (1) customer knowledge--understanding of customers by marketers that leads to more effective marketing actions; and (2) destination knowledge that either the travelers or travel experts …

A Recurring Improvisational Methodology For Change Management In Erp Implementation, Michelle Sieber, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Change has become an ongoing phenomenon and business process re-engineering has become a necessity for survival of organizations as we approach the 21st century. As participants in this ever-changing working environment, we must be innovative in managing change as it affects both our professional and personal lives. One of the innovative ways to manage change in the implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is to adopt a comprehensive change management methodology. In this research, we propose the use of the recurring improvisational change methodology for managing such change. This research is also aimed at implementing the improvisational change …

Website Design: The Concepts Of Informational And Computational Equivalence, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

“To the end users, the user interface is the system.” This slogan has been widely used in human-computer interaction field to stress the importance of user interface design. In the Internet and electronic commerce area, the website is not only the system, but it also projects an image of the organization in cyberspace. The design of websites is central to businesses as they create the first impression of organizations to visitors. For a virtual organization, the website is also the only medium that visitors rely on to form their impression of the organization. In this paper, we look at theories …

Artificial Intelligence Approach To Analyzing The Bullwhip Effect In Supply Chains, C. Qing, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Supply chain management critically affects businesses’ abilities to obtain and sustain competitive advantages. The bullwhip effect, however, presents a challenge for successful supply chain management by amplifying demands in the supply chains. This paper presents a systematic approach to tackle the issue of bullwhip effect. Firstly, we define the supply chain under a multiagent framework. Secondly, the group problem solving paradigm, which is a rule learning approach, is proposed to enhance the decision making process within the supply chain framework. The group problem solving paradigm is also suggested as a means to alleviate the bullwhip effect. The paper concludes with …

Cluster-Based Database Selection Techniques For Routing Bibliographic Queries, Jian Xu, Ee Peng Lim, Wee-Keong Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we focus on the database selection problem in the context of a global digital library consisting of a large number of online bibliographic servers. Each server hosts a bibliographic database that contains bibliographic records each of which consists of text values for a number of pre-defined bibliographic attributes such as title, author, call number, subject, etc.. Each bibliographic database supports user queries on the bibliographic attributes. Since bibliographic records are relatively small in size, we only consider bibliographic databases that support boolean queries on the bibliographic attributes, and the query results are not ranked. While focusing on …

Analysis Of N-Tier Architecture Applied To Distributed-Database Systems, Alexandre G. Valente

Theses and Dissertations

N-tier architecture has been more commonly used as a methodology for developing large database applications. This work evaluates the use of this architecture instead of the classical Client/Server architecture in developing corporate applications based on distributed databases. The comparison between architectures is performed using applications that execute transactions similar to those defined in the Transaction Process Council Type C benchmark (TPC-C). The environment used for development and testing was the AFIT Bimodal Cluster (ABC); a heterogeneous cluster of PCs, running Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 OS. The comparative experimental analysis demonstrated that the N-tier architecture allows more efficient bandwidth utilization between …

A Multilevel Secure Workflow Management System, Myong H. Kang, Judith N. Froscher, Amit P. Sheth, Krzysztof J. Kochut, John A. Miller

Kno.e.sis Publications

The Department of Defense (DoD) needs multilevel secure (MLS) workflow management systems to enable globally distributed users and applications to cooperate across classification levels to achieve mission critical goals. An MLS workflow management system that allows a user to program multilevel mission logic, to securely coordinate widely distributed tasks, and to monitor the progress of the workflow across classification levels is required. In this paper, we present a roadmap for implementing MLS workflows and focus on a workflow builder that is a graphical design tool for specifying such workflows.

Considerations For An Effective Telecommunications-Use Policy, Michael E. Whitman, Anthony M. Townsend, Robert J. Aalberts

Faculty Articles

Recent changes in federal telecommunications legislation have underscored the importance of an up-to-date and effective telecommunications-use policy in business organizations. With the proliferation of the Internet, intranets, and email as commonplace business tools, the potential for misuse and subsequent liability has become an increasing concern. Even though the recent Supreme Court decision struck down the obscenity provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), it left intact legislation that effectively mandates development of a sound telecommunications-use policy. In addition to potential liability for systems misuse, organizations have also had to address issues of individual employee privacy within the new systems.

This …

Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms: Classifications, Analyses, And New Innovations, David A. Van Veldhuizen

Theses and Dissertations

This research organizes, presents, and analyzes contemporary Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm (MOEA) research and associated Multiobjective Optimization Problems (MOPs). Using a consistent MOEA terminology and notation, each cited MOEAs' key factors are presented in tabular form for ease of MOEA identification and selection. A detailed quantitative and qualitative MOEA analysis is presented, providing a basis for conclusions about various MOEA-related issues. The traditional notion of building blocks is extended to the MOP domain in an effort to develop more effective and efficient MOEAs. Additionally, the MOEA community's limited test suites contain various functions whose origins and rationale for use are often …

Methodology For Integrating The Scenario Databases Of Simulation Systems, Emilia M. Colonese

Theses and Dissertations

The use of many different simulation systems by the United States Department of Defense has resulted in many different scenario data representations contained in heterogeneous databases. These heterogeneous databases all represent the same data concept, but have different semantics due to intrinsic variations among the data models. In this research, I describe a unified scenario database to allow interoperability and reuse of the scenario data components while avoiding the problems of data redundancy. Using the object oriented approach, the data and schema of the scenario databases, represented in an object oriented model, are integrated into a global database also represented …

The Effectiveness Of Expert Support Technology For Decision Making: Individuals Versus Small Groups, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Jiye Mao, Izak Benbasat

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Expert support systems (ESSs) are increasingly used in organizations to support individuals and groups in decision making. Although ESSs have been shown to enhance the decision-making capabilities of individuals, their benefits in supporting group decision making are less clear. To the best of our knowledge, no empirical research has evaluated the effectiveness of the technology in the group setting or compared its usefulness for supporting individual versus group decision making. The results of this research show that ESSs benefit decision making of both individuals and groups and novices are able to gain more from ESSs than experts. The findings also …

Porting The Sisal Functional Language To Distributed-Memory Multiprocessors, Jui-Yuan Ku

Dissertations

Parallel computing is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in recent years. The sizes of application problems continuously increase for solving real-world problems. Distributed-memory multiprocessors have been regarded as a viable architecture of scalable and economical design for building large scale parallel machines. While these parallel machines can provide computational capabilities, programming such large-scale machines is often very difficult due to many practical issues including parallelization, data distribution, workload distribution, and remote memory latency.

This thesis proposes to solve the programmability and performance issues of distributed-memory machines using the Sisal functional language. The programs written in Sisal will be automatically parallelized, scheduled and …

Automatic Document Classification And Extraction System (Adoces), Xuhong Li

Dissertations

Document processing is a critical element of office automation. Document image processing begins from the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) phase with complex processing for document classification and extraction. Document classification is a process that classifies an incoming document into a particular predefined document type. Document extraction is a process that extracts information pertinent to the users from the content of a document and assigns the information as the values of the “logical structure” of the document type. Therefore, after document classification and extraction, a paper document will be represented in its digital form instead of its original image file format, …

A New-Generation Class Of Parallel Architectures And Their Performance Evaluation, Qian Wang

Dissertations

The development of computers with hundreds or thousands of processors and capability for very high performance is absolutely essential for many computation problems, such as weather modeling, fluid dynamics, and aerodynamics. Several interconnection networks have been proposed for parallel computers. Nevertheless, the majority of them are plagued by rather poor topological properties that result in large memory latencies for DSM (Distributed Shared-Memory) computers. On the other hand, scalable networks with very good topological properties are often impossible to build because of their prohibitively high VLSI (e.g., wiring) complexity. Such a network is the generalized hypercube (GH). The GH supports full-connectivity …

Applying Neural Networks In Case-Based Reasoning Adaptation For Cost Assessment Of Steel Buldings, Essam Amin Mlotfy Abdrabou

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

How Proteins Fold, Flex, And Bind Other Molecules, Leslie A. Kuhn, Volker Schnecke, Michael L. Raymer, Paul C. Sanschagrin

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

The Dynamics Of Cyberspace: Examining And Modelling Online Social Structure, Brian S. Butler '89

Doctoral Dissertations

It has been proposed that online social structures represent new forms of organizing which are fundamentally different from traditional social structures. However, while there is a growing body of empirical research that considers behavioral aspects of online activity, research on online social structure structural remains largely anecdotal. This work consists of three papers that combine previous studies of traditional social structures, empirical analysis of longitudinal data from a sample of Internet listservs, and computational modeling to examine the dynamics of social structure development in networked environments.

The first paper (Title: When is a Group not a Group: An Empirical Examination …