410 research outputs found
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Men's Baseball team, 1996
No full textFront row: Pat Noonan, Jeff Ross, Mike Chaisson, Aviv Kaufmann, Eric Niccoli, Matt Whitten (Captain), Len Macrina (Captain), Eric Dubois (Captain), Tom Michalowski (Captain), Jeff Peterson, Chris Vandette, Ken Bonanno, Jason Merry, Scott Townsend; Back row: Dave Wigren (Asst Coach), Pete Verrill, Guy Miller, James Blum, Mike Hager, Steve Johnson, Carl Hultgren, Tim Tully, Eric Colby, Alex Bartkin, Adam Abrams, Jeremy Bragg, Eric Hannula, Justin Downing, Whit Griffith (Head Coach
Implementation of Web Query Languages Reconsidered
No full textVisions of the next generation Web such as the "Semantic Web" or the "Web 2.0" have triggered the emergence of a multitude of data formats. These formats have different characteristics as far as the shape of data is concerned (for example tree- vs. graph-shaped). They are accompanied by a puzzlingly large number of query languages each limited to one data format. Thus, a key feature of the Web, namely to make it possible to access anything published by anyone, is compromised.
This thesis is devoted to versatile query languages capable of accessing data in a variety of Web formats. The issue is addressed from three angles: language design, common, yet uniform semantics, and common, yet uniform evaluation. % Thus it is divided in three parts:
First, we consider the query language Xcerpt as an example of the advocated class of versatile Web query languages. Using this concrete exemplar allows us to clarify and discuss the vision of versatility in detail.
Second, a number of query languages, XPath, XQuery, SPARQL, and Xcerpt, are translated into a common intermediary language, CIQLog. This language has a purely logical semantics, which makes it easily amenable to optimizations. As a side effect, this provides the, to the best of our knowledge, first logical semantics for XQuery and SPARQL. It is a very useful tool for understanding the commonalities and differences of the considered languages.
Third, the intermediate logical language is translated into a query algebra, CIQCAG. The core feature of CIQCAG is that it scales from tree- to graph-shaped data and queries without efficiency losses when tree-data and -queries are considered: it is shown that, in these cases, optimal complexities are achieved. CIQCAG is also shown to evaluate each of the aforementioned query languages with a complexity at least as good as the best known evaluation methods so far. For example, navigational XPath is evaluated with space complexity O(q d) and time complexity O(q n) where q is the query size, n the data size, and d the depth of the (tree-shaped) data.
CIQCAG is further shown to provide linear time and space evaluation of tree-shaped queries for a larger class of graph-shaped data than any method previously proposed. This larger class of graph-shaped data, called continuous-image graphs, short CIGs, is introduced for the first time in this thesis. A (directed) graph is a CIG if its nodes can be totally ordered in such a manner that, for this order, the children of any node form a continuous interval.
CIQCAG achieves these properties by employing a novel data structure, called sequence map, that allows an efficient evaluation of tree-shaped queries, or of tree-shaped cores of graph-shaped queries on any graph-shaped data. While being ideally suited to trees and CIGs, the data structure gracefully degrades to unrestricted graphs. It yields a remarkably efficient evaluation on graph-shaped data that only a few edges prevent from being trees or CIGs
Putting the pieces together: the systematic development of a software defined radio toolflow for the Rhino project
No full textThis dissertation is concerned with the thesis that it is possible for a software defined radio system that has been described in accordance with synchronous data flow theory to be implemented upon a reconfigurable computing platform
Conversation as action under uncertainty
No full textConversations abound with uncertainties of various kinds. Treating conversation as inference and decision making under uncertainty, we propose a task independent, multimodal architecture for supporting robust continuous spoken dialog called Quartet. We introduce four interdependent levels of analysis, and describe representations, inference procedures, and decision strategies for managing uncertainties within and between the levels. We highlight the approach by reviewing interactions between a user and two spoken dialog systems developed using the Quartet architecture: Presenter, a prototype system for navigating Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, and the Bayesian Receptionist, a prototype system for dealing with tasks typically handled by front desk receptionists at the Microsoft corporate campus.
False Prophet, or Genuine Savior? Assessing the Effects of Economic Openness on Sustainable Development, 1980–1999
No full textWhile many herald globalization—the increasing interconnectedness of national economies—to be associated with rising standards of living across the globe, many others fear its effects on sustainability. Anti- globalization forces and environmentalists in particular view these developments as a threat to the welfare of future generations because of profligate and excessive current consumption. This study is the first to estimate the effects of dependence on trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and an index of economic freedom on the World Bank’s measure of sustainability (the genuine savings rate), which measures the rate at which investment in the total stock of manufactured, human, and natural capital exceeds its depreciation. Contrary to pessimists’ fears, our indicators of economic openness show positive effects on sustainability, results that are robust to sample size, testing procedure, and several alternative specifications. The results support those who suggest that distorted economies tend to be both inefficient and damaging to future generations. If increasing trade, foreign direct investment, and economic freedom are hallmarks of globalization, then worries about its effects on future well-being are misplaced.
The cathedral and the bazaar of e-repository development: encouraging community engagement with moving pictures and sound
No full textThis paper offers an insight into the development, use and governance of e‐repositories for learning and teaching, illustrated by Eric Raymond's bazaar and cathedral analogies and by a comparison of collection strategies that focus on content coverage or on the needs of users. It addresses in particular the processes that encourage and achieve community engagement. This insight is illustrated by one particular e‐repository, the Education Media On‐Line (EMOL) service. This paper draws analogies between the bazaar approach for open source software development and its possibilities for developing e‐repositories for learning and teaching. It suggests in particular that the development, use and evaluation of online moving pictures and sound objects for learning and teaching can benefit greatly from the community engagement lessons provided by the development, use and evaluation of open source software. Such lessons can be underpinned by experience in the area of learning resource collections, where repositories have been classified as ‘collections‐based’ or ‘user‐based’. Lessons from the open source movement may inform the development of e‐repositories such as EMOL in the future
Neuroarthistory : Discovering a Greater Appreciation of Art Through Science
No full textiv, 90 p.The author reviews several themes of neuroarthistory from theories of aesthetic interest, light perception and the eye, and the visual brain, considering the critical work of John Onians, Margaret Livingston, Semir Zeki, Tim Adams, Eric Fernie, Dominic Lopes, and V. S. Ramachandran
Prosperity without growth? : the transition to a sustainable economy
No full textThis report is summarised by the documents 'Prosperity without growth? : summary' and 'Ffyniant heb dwf? : crynodeb'Prosperity without Growth? analyses the complex relationships between growth, environmental crises and social recession.Publisher PD
A Pattern-based Foundation for Language-Driven Software Engineering
No full textThis work brings together two fundamental ideas for modelling, programming and analysing software systems. The first idea is of a methodological nature: engineering software by systematically creating and relating languages. The second idea is of a technical nature: using patterns as a practical foundation for computing. The goal is to show that the systematic creation and layering of languages can be reduced to the elementary operations of pattern matching and instantiation and that this pattern-based approach provides a formal and practical foundation for language-driven modelling, programming and analysis.
The underpinning of the work is a novel formalism for recognising, deconstructing, creating, searching, transforming and generally manipulating data structures. The formalism is based on typed sequences, a generic structure for representing trees. It defines basic pattern expressions for matching and instantiating atomic values and variables. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal and hierarchical operators are different ways of combining patterns. Transformations combine matching and instantiating patterns and they are patterns themselves. A quasiquotation mechanism allows arbitrary levels of meta-pattern functionality and forms the basis of pattern abstraction. Path polymorphic operators are used to specify fine-grained search of structures. A range of core concepts such as layering, parsing and pattern-based computing can naturally be defined through pattern expressions.
Three language-driven tools that utilise the pattern formalism showcase the applicability of the pattern-approach. Concat is a self-sustaining (meta-)programming system in which all computations are expressed by matching and instantiation. This includes parsing, executing and optimising programs. By applying its language engineering tools to its own meta-language, Concat can extend itself from within. XMF (XML Modeling Framework) is a browser-based modelling- and meta-modelling framework that provides flexible means to create and relate modelling languages and to query and validate models. The pattern functionality that makes this possible is partly exposed as a schema language and partly as a JavaScript library. CFR (Channel Filter Rule Language) implements a language-driven approach for layered analysis of communication in complex networked systems. The communication on each layer is visible in the language of an “abstract protocol” that is defined by communication patterns
An Experimental Assessment of Confederate Reserve Price Bids in Online Auction
No full textinternet auctions, bid shilling, reserve price, internet fraud, market design
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