Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

A Sketch-Based Language For Representing Uncertainty In The Locations Of Origin Of Herbarium Specimens, Barry Kronenfeld, Andrew Weeks

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Uncertainty fields have been suggested as an appropriate model for retrospective georeferencing of herbarium specimens. Previous work has focused only on automated data capture methods, but techniques for manual data specification may be able to harness human spatial cognition skills to quickly interpret complex spatial propositions. This paper develops a formal modeling language by which location uncertainty fields can be derived from manually sketched features. The language consists of low-level specification of critical probability isolines from which a surface can be uniquely derived, and high-level specification of features and predicates from which low-level isolines can be derived. In a case …

Online Collaborative Whiteboard, Niranjana Kumari Subramanian

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to build a simple Online Collaborative Whiteboard (OCW) application to enable multiple users to brainstorm and share ideas interactively by using fun tools to start thinking together. Includes source code.

Nominal Schemas For Integrating Rules And Ontologies, Frederick Maier, Adila A. Krisnadhi, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a description-logic style extension of OWL DL, which includes DL-safe variable SWRL and seamlessly integrates datalog rules. Our language also sports a tractable fragment, which we call ELP 2, covering OWL EL, OWL RL, most of OWL QL, and variable restricted datalog.

Spreadsheets Grow Up: Three Spreadsheet Engineering Methodologies For Large Financial Planning Models, Thomas A. Grossman Jr., O Ozluk

Business Analytics and Information Systems

Many large financial planning models are written in a spreadsheet programming language (usually Microsoft Excel) and deployed as a spreadsheet application. Three groups, FAST Alliance, Operis Group, and BPM Analytics (under the name “Spreadsheet Standards Review Board”) have independently promulgated standardized processes for efficiently building such models. These spreadsheet engineering methodologies provide detailed guidance on design, construction process, and quality control. We summarize and compare these methodologies. They share many design practices, and standardized, mechanistic procedures to construct spreadsheets. We learned that a written book or standards document is by itself insufficient to understand a methodology. These methodologies represent a …

Scale: A Scalable Framework For Efficiently Clustering Transactional Data, Hua Yan, Keke Chen, Ling Liu, Zhang Yi

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents SCALE, a fully automated transactional clustering framework. The SCALE design highlights three unique features. First, we introduce the concept of Weighted Coverage Density as a categorical similarity measure for efficient clustering of transactional datasets. The concept of weighted coverage density is intuitive and it allows the weight of each item in a cluster to be changed dynamically according to the occurrences of items. Second, we develop the weighted coverage density measure based clustering algorithm, a fast, memory-efficient, and scalable clustering algorithm for analyzing transactional data. Third, we introduce two clustering validation metrics and show that these domain …

From Questions To Effective Answers: On The Utility Of Knowledge-Driven Querying Systems For Life Sciences Data, Amir H. Asiaee, Prashant Doshi, Todd Minning, Satya S. Sahoo, Priti Parikh, Amit P. Sheth, Rick L. Tarleton

Kno.e.sis Publications

We compare two distinct approaches for querying data in the context of the life sciences. The first approach utilizes conventional databases to store the data and intuitive form-based interfaces to facilitate easy querying of the data. These interfaces could be seen as implementing a set of 'pre-canned' queries commonly used by the life science researchers that we study. The second approach is based on semantic Web technologies and is knowledge (model) driven. It utilizes a large OWL ontology and same datasets as before but associated as RDF instances of the ontology concepts. An intuitive interface is provided that allows the …

Sensor Discovery On Linked Data, Josh Pschorr, Cory Andrew Henson, Harshal Kamlesh Patni, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

There has been a drive recently to make sensor data accessible on the Web. However, because of the vast number of sensors collecting data about our environment, finding relevant sensors on the Web is a non-trivial challenge. In this paper, we present an approach to discovering sensors through a standard service interface over Linked Data. This is accomplished with a semantic sensor network middleware that includes a sensor registry on Linked Data and a sensor discovery service that extends the OGC Sensor Web Enablement. With this approach, we are able to access and discover sensors that are positioned near named-locations …

Sensor Data And Perception: Can Sensors Play 20 Questions, Cory Andrew Henson

Kno.e.sis Publications

Currently, there are many sensors collecting information about our environment, leading to an overwhelming number of observations that must be analyzed and explained in order to achieve situation awareness. As perceptual beings, we are also constantly inundated with sensory data, yet we are able to make sense of our environment with relative ease. Why is the task of perception so easy for us, and so hard for machines; and could this have anything to do with how we play the game 20 Questions?

A Qualitative Examination Of Topical Tweet And Retweet Practices, Meenakshi Nagarajan, Hemant Purohit, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This work contributes to the study of retweet behavior on Twitter surrounding real-world events. We analyze over a million tweets pertaining to three events, present general tweet properties in such topical datasets and qualitatively analyze the properties of the retweet behavior surrounding the most tweeted/viral content pieces. Findings include a clear relationship between sparse/dense retweet patterns and the content and type of a tweet itself; suggesting the need to study content properties in link-based diffusion models.

A Sketch-Based Language For Representing Uncertainty In The Locations Of Origin Of Herbarium Specimens, Barry J. Kronenfeld, Andrew Weeks

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

Uncertainty fields have been suggested as an appropriate model for retrospective georeferencing of herbarium specimens. Previous work has focused only on automated data capture methods, but techniques for manual data specification may be able to harness human spatial cognition skills to quickly interpret complex spatial propositions. This paper develops a formal modeling language by which location uncertainty fields can be derived from manually sketched features. The language consists of low-level specification of critical probability isolines from which a surface can be uniquely derived, and high-level specification of features and predicates from which low-level isolines can be derived. In a case …

Integrating Environmental Science Into Information Technology Content To Generate Student Interest, Rondalynne Mcclintock '13, Yoonmi Lee '12, June Hilton '04, Brian Hilton, Gondy Leroy

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

In an effort to increase female student interest in computing we applied and evaluated an interdisciplinary approach at a suburban high school in eastern Los Angeles County, California. Three classes, an IB Environmental Science class, an AP Environmental Science class, and a Computer Science were surveyed to assess attitude changes toward information technology. Results indicated gender differences between the participating classes, and differences before and after the project. Although the project did not uniformly impact the attitude of female high school students, it impacted teachers who are adjusting their teaching methods, an outcome that has a long-term positive influence.

Provenance Aware Linked Sensor Data, Harshal Kamlesh Patni, Satya S. Sahoo, Cory Andrew Henson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Provenance, from the French word “provenir”, describes the lineage or history of a data entity. Provenance is critical information in the sensors domain to identify a sensor and analyze the observation data over time and geographical space. In this paper, we present a framework to model and query the provenance information associated with the sensor data exposed as part of the Web of Data using the Linked Open Data conventions. This is accomplished by developing an ontology-driven provenance management infrastructure that includes a representation model and query infrastructure. This provenance infrastructure, called Sensor Provenance Management System (PMS), is …

Getting Code Near The Data: A Study Of Generating Customized Data Intensive Scientific Workflows With Domain Specific Language, Ashwin Manjunatha, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Paul E. Anderson, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

The amount of data produced in modern biological experiments such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analysis far exceeds the processing capability of a single machine. The present state-of-the-art is taking the ”data to code”, the philosophy followed by many of the current service oriented workflow systems. However this is not feasible in some cases such as NMR data analysis, primarily due to the large scale of data.

The objective of this research is to bring ”code to data”, preferred in the cases when the data is extremely large. We present a DSL based approach to develop customized data intensive scientific …

Loqus: Linked Open Data Sparql Querying System, Prateek Jain, Kunal Verma, Peter Z. Yeh, Pascal Hitzler, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

The LOD cloud is gathering a lot of momentum, with the number of contributors growing manifold. Many prominent data providers have submitted and linked their data to other dataset with the help of manual mappings. The potential of the LOD cloud is enormous ranging from challenging AI issues such as open domain question answering to automated knowledge discovery. We believe that there is not enough technology support available to effectively query the LOD cloud. To this effect, we present a system called Linked Open Data SPARQL Querying System (LOQUS), which automatically maps users queries written in terms of a conceptual …

Computing For The Human Experience: Semantics-Empowered Sensors, Services, And Social Computing On The Ubiquitous Web, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

People are on the verge of an era in which the human experience can be enriched in ways they couldn't have imagined two decades ago. Rather than depending on a single technology, people progressed with several whose semantics-empowered convergence and integration will enable us to capture, understand, and reapply human knowledge and intellect. Such capabilities will consequently elevate our technological ability to deal with the abstractions, concepts, and actions that characterize human experiences. This will herald computing for human experience (CHE). The CHE vision is built on a suite of technologies that serves, assists, and cooperates with humans to nondestructively …

Online Administration System For Small And Medium-Sized Running Events, Steinar Johansen

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to address inefficiency at small to medium-sized running events with regards to registration, race timing, and result service. As a race coordinator or participant, it is important that the race timing is correct and that the result service can be delivered as soon as possible after the event in finished. Contains source code.

Provenance Context Entity (Pace): Scalable Provenance Tracking For Scientific Rdf Data, Satya S. Sahoo, Olivier Bodenreider, Pascal Hitzler, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) format is being used by a large number of scientific applications to store and disseminate their datasets. The provenance information, describing the source or lineage of the datasets, is playing an increasingly significant role in ensuring data quality, computing trust value of the datasets, and ranking query results. Current provenance tracking approaches using the RDF reification vocabulary suffer from a number of known issues, including lack of formal semantics, use of blank nodes, and application-dependent interpretation of reified RDF triples. In this paper, we introduce a new approach called Provenance Context Entity (PaCE) that uses …

A Study In Hadoop Streaming With Matlab For Nmr Data Processing, Kalpa Gunaratna, Paul E. Anderson, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Applying Cloud computing techniques for analyzing large data sets has shown promise in many data-driven scientific applications. Our approach presented here is to use Cloud computing for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)data analysis which normally consists of large amounts of data. Biologists often use third party or commercial software for ease of use. Enabling the capability to use this kind of software in a Cloud will be highly advantageous in many ways. Scripting languages especially designed for clouds may not have the flexibility biologists need for their purposes. Although this is true, they are familiar with special software packages that allow …

An Interactive Website For Disability Sports Festival Based On Asp.Net, Yuhe Li

Theses Digitization Project

The Disability Sport Festival Website (DSFW) is a dynamic and extendable website used by the organizer of the Disability Sport Festival (DSF), sport participants and DSF supporters from the Inland Empire. DSFW provides sport participants and DSF supporters a user-friendly interface to view and register activites and programs or make donations to the organization throughout the year. The purpose of this project is to re-structure, redesign and rewrite the old website to serve the desired needs of DSF better. The DSF is an official site that represents California State University, San Bernardino. Therefore, it must comply with the CSUSB Web …

The Effects Of Linguistic Features And Evaluation Perspective On Perceived Difficulty Of Medical Text, Gondy Leroy, Stephen Helmreich, James Cowie

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Millions of laypersons need more medical information than they are customarily provided during their doctor’s visit. Health websites can help fill this knowledge gap, but the text is believed to be too difficult to understand for many laypersons. To help write text that is not perceived as too difficult and leads to better comprehension (actual difficulty), we study how linguistic structures influence text difficulty. Since perceived difficulty has been shown to be a barrier to self-education, evaluating perceived difficulty is an essential first step to take. In this study, we evaluated the impact of noun phrase complexity and of function …

Twitris 2.0 : Semantically Empowered System For Understanding Perceptions From Social Data, Ashutosh Sopan Jadhav, Hemant Purohit, Pavan Kapanipathi, Pramod Anantharam, Ajith H. Ranabahu, Vinh Nguyen, Pablo N. Mendes, Alan Gary Smith, Michael Cooney, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We present Twitris 2.0, a Semantic Web application that facilitates understanding of social perceptions by Semantics-based processing of massive amounts of event-centric data. Twitris 2.0 addresses challenges in large scale processing of social data, preserving spatio-temporal-thematic properties. Twitris 2.0 also covers context based semantic integration of multiple Web resources and expose semantically enriched social data to the public domain. Semantic Web technologies enable the systematic integration and analysis abilities.

Power Of Clouds In Your Pocket: An Efficient Approach For Cloud Mobile Hybrid Application Development, Ashwin Manjunatha, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The advancements in computing have resulted in a boom of cheap, ubiquitous, connected mobile devices as well as seemingly unlimited, utility style, pay as you go computing resources, commonly referred to as Cloud computing. However, taking full advantage of this mobile and cloud computing landscape, especially for the data intensive domains has been hampered by the many heterogeneities that exist in the mobile space as well as the Cloud space. Our research focuses on exploiting the capabilities of the mobile and cloud landscape by defining a new class of applications called cloud mobile hybrid (CMH) applications and a Domain Specific …

Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability, Pascal Hitzler, Krzysztof Janowicz

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Approximate Instance Retrieval On Ontologies, Tuvshintur Tserendorj, Stephan Grimm, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

With the development of more expressive description logics (DLs) for the Web Ontology Language OWL the question arises how we can properly deal with the high computational complexity for efficient reasoning. In application cases that require scalable reasoning with expressive ontologies, non-standard reasoning solutions such as approximate reasoning are necessary to tackle the intractability of reasoning in expressive DLs. In this paper, we are concerned with the approximation of the reasoning task of instance retrieval on DL knowledge bases, trading correctness of retrieval results for gain of speed. We introduce our notion of an approximate concept extension and we provide …

On The Applications Of Deterministic Chaos For Encrypting Data On The Cloud, Jonathan Blackledge, Nikolai Ptitsyn

Conference papers

Cloud computing is expected to grow considerably in the future because it has so many advantages with regard to sale and cost, change management, next generation architectures, choice and agility. However, one of the principal concerns for users of the Cloud is lack of control and above all, data security. This paper considers an approach to encrypting information before it is ‘place’ on the Cloud where each user has access to their own encryption algorithm, an algorithm that is based on a set of Iterative Function Systems that outputs a chaotic number stream, designed to produce a cryptographically secure cipher. …

A Correlational Study Of Telework Frequency, Information Communication Technology, And Job Satisfaction Of Home-Based Teleworkers, Shana P. Webster-Trotman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2008, 33.7 million Americans teleworked from home. The Telework Enhancement Act (S. 707) and the Telework Improvements Act (H.R. 1722) of 2009 were designed to increase the number of teleworkers. The research problem addressed was the lack of understanding of factors that influence home-based teleworkers' job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction has been found to have a significant impact on voluntary turnover. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship among telework frequency, information communication technology (ICT), and job satisfaction. The research questions were designed to answer whether correlational relationships exist among telework frequency, ICT, and job satisfaction and …

A Structural Equation Model Of The Factors Associated With Influence And Power Of It Departments And Their Relationship To Firm's It Orientation And Business Performance, Raghu V. Kowshik

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although few firms can function without an information technology (IT) department, senior executives often consider IT as secondary. Historically, studies have found IT departments to have low influence and power status compared to other departments. Few, if any, studies have investigated what factors contribute to this subservient position. Three research questions that inspired this study regarding the IT department's influence and power included factors that shape the IT influence and power, the consequences for the firm's IT orientation and business performance, and how firm's IT orientation affects business performance. This quantitative study explored the notion that accountability, innovativeness, customer connectedness …

Comparing The Effects Of Two Asynchronous Teaching Methods, Wikis And Eboards, On Spanish Students' Cultural Proficiency, Kristopher D. Muir

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Culture tends to be misplaced as a secondary instructional goal in most foreign language classrooms. Although research has suggested that a strong link exists between language and culture, the problem resides in how best to teach culture in the classroom. While this problem impacts all learners, it may affect high school students more because they are entering a multilingual and multicultural world through higher education, study abroad, and employment. Based on Moran's conceptual framework of culture, this study addressed a gap in the literature by examining the effects of 2 innovative technologies, wikis and eBoards, and their potential to improve …

Updated Bus Routes And Text Messaging System For San Luis Obispo Public Transit System Web Application, Matthew Bojorquez

Computer Engineering

As gas prices continue to rise and people become more aware of their carbon footprint, public transportation becomes more economically, environmentally, and sustainably viable. Currently, bus route timetables are available inside buses and at the transit center, but many users have little knowledge of how to read them. Therefore, to entice more people into using public transportation, we must make riding the buses less of a hassle for users. The Efficient Deployment of Advanced Public Transportation Systems (EDAPTS) system attempts to accomplish this. Building upon a web application designed by Jeff Tikkanen, a former Cal Poly student, that places bus …

Semantics Centric Solutions For Application And Data Portability In Cloud Computing, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Cloud computing has become one of the key considerations both in academia and industry. Cheap, seemingly unlimited computing resources that can be allocated almost instantaneously and pay-as-you-go pricing schemes are some of the reasons for the success of Cloud computing. The Cloud computing landscape, however, is plagued by many issues hindering adoption. One such issue is vendor lock-in, forcing the Cloud users to adhere to one service provider in terms of data and application logic. Semantic Web has been an important research area that has seen significant attention from both academic and industrial researchers. One key property of Semantic Web …