A Philosophical Approach to the Concept of Data Model: Is a Data Model, in Fact, a Model?

The design of the database is crucial to the process of designing almost any Information System (IS) and involves two clearly identifiable key concepts: schema and data model, the latter allowing us to define the former. Nevertheless, the term model is commonly applied indistinctly to both, the confusion arising from the fact that in Software Engineering (SE), unlike in formal or empirical sciences, the notion of model has a double meaning of which we are not always aware. If we take our idea of model directly from empirical sciences, then the schema of a database would actually be a model, whereas the data model would be a set of tools allowing us to define such a schema.The present paper discusses the meaning of model in the area of Software Engineering from a philosophical point of view, an important topic for the confusion arising directly affects other debates where model is a key concept. We would also suggest that the need for a philosophical discussion on the concept of data model is a further argument in favour of institutionalizing a new area of knowledge, which could be called: Philosophy of Engineering.     

Regions-of-Interest and Spatial Layout for Content-Based Image Retrieval

To date most content-based image retrieval (CBIR) techniques rely on global attributes such as color or texture histograms which tend to ignore the spatial composition of the image. In this paper, we present an alternative image retrieval system based on the principle that it is the user who is most qualified to specify the query content and not the computer. With our system, the user can select multiple regions-of-interest and can specify the relevance of their spatial layout in the retrieval process. We also derive similarity bounds on histogram distances for pruning the database search. This experimental system was found to be superior to global indexing techniques as measured by statistical sampling of multiple users' satisfaction ratings.     

Unextendible Product Bases and Locally Unconvertible Bound Entangled States

Mutual convertibility of bound entangled states under local quantum operations and classical communication (LOCC) is studied. We focus on states associated with unextendible product bases (UPB) in a system of three qubits. A complete classification of such UPBs is suggested. We prove that for any pair of UPBs S and T the associated bound entangled states _S and _T cannot be converted to each other by LOCC, unless S and T coincide up to local unitaries. More specifically, there exists a finite precision (S,T) > 0 such that for any LOCC protocol mapping _S into a probabilistic ensemble (p, ), the fidelity between _T and any possible final state satisfies F(_T, ) = 1 - (S,T).PACS: 03.65.Bz; 03.67.-a; 89.70+c.     

Design sensitivity analysis of nonlinear dynamic response of structural and mechanical systems

This paper describes a unified variational theory for design sensitivity analysis of nonlinear dynamic response of structural and mechanical systems for shape, nonshape, material and mechanical properties selection, as well as control problems. The concept of an adjoint system, the principle of virtual work and a Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation to describe the deformations and the design variations are used to develop a unified view point. A general formula for design sensitivity analysis is derived and interpreted for usual performance functionals. Analytical examples are utilized to demonstrate the use of the theory and give insights for application to more complex problems that must be treated numerically.Derivatives The comma notation for partial derivatives is used, i.e. G,_u = G/u. An upper dot represents material time derivative, i.e. ü = ²u/t². A prime implies derivative with respect to the time measured in the reference time-domain, i.e. u = du/d.     

Necessary and sufficient conditions for the universality of programming formalisms

Summary Over many familiar datatypes the notion of computable coincides with the notion of flowchartable. It is also known that flowcharts are not a universal programming formalism over arbitrary datatypes, in the sense that there are datatypes over which not all computable functions are flowchartable. In this paper we consider various extensions and restrictions of the basic formalism of flowcharts, and then for every such formalism, we characterize the datatypes over which the computable functions are exactly the functions programmable in this formalism. We say that a function is computable over a datatype if it is effective relative to the primitive operations and relations of the datatype.     

Higher-Order and Modal Logic as a Framework for Explanation-Based Generalization

Certain tasks, such as formal program development and theorem proving, fundamentally rely upon the manipulation of higher-order objects such as functions and predicates. Computing tools intended to assist in performing these tasks are at present inadequate in both the amount of knowledge they contain (i.e., the level of support they provide) and in their ability to learn (i.e., their capacity to enhance that support over time). The application of a relevant machine learning technique—explanation-based generalization (EBG)—has thus far been limited to first-order problem representations. We extend EBG to generalize higher-order values, thereby enabling its application to higher-order problem encodings.Logic programming provides a uniform framework in which all aspects of explanation-based generalization and learning may be defined and carried out. First-order Horn logics (e.g., Prolog) are not, however, well suited to higher-order applications. Instead, we employ Prolog, a higher-order logic programming language, as our basic framework for realizing higher-order EBG. In order to capture the distinction between domain theory and training instance upon which EBG relies, we extend Prolog with the necessity operator of modal logic. We develop a meta-interpreter realizing EBG for the extended language, Prolog, and provide examples of higher-order EBG.     

Proof Reflection in Coq

We formalize natural deduction for first-order logic in the proof assistant Coq, using de Bruijn indices for variable binding. The main judgment we model is of the form d[:], stating that d is a proof term of formula under hypotheses it can be viewed as a typing relation by the Curry–Howard isomorphism. This relation is proved sound with respect to Coq's native logic and is amenable to the manipulation of formulas and of derivations. As an illustration, we define a reduction relation on proof terms with permutative conversions and prove the property of subject reduction.     

Virtual Connections and a Traffic Optimization Model for an ATM Network

The number of virtual connections in the nodal space of an ATM network of arbitrary structure and topology is computed by a method based on a new concept—a covering domain having a concrete physical meaning. The method is based on a network information sources—boundary switches model developed for an ATM transfer network by the entropy approach. Computations involve the solution of systems of linear equations. The optimization model used to compute the number of virtual connections in a many-category traffic in an ATM network component is useful in estimating the resource of nodal equipment and communication channels. The variable parameters of the model are the transmission bands for different traffic categories.     

Multimedia teleorchestra with independent sources: Part 1 — temporal modeling of collaborative multimedia scenarios

Multimedia synchronization involving independent sources is a challenging issue imposed by the distributed multimedia applications. In our work, this issue is studied by investigating the teleorchestra application (remote multimedia presentation). In teleorchestration, among the data objects to be presented, relative and uncertain temporal requirements may be involved. Fuzzy presentation scenarios are thus generated. In this paper, we describe a temporal model that can handle these fuzzy scenarios that contain imprecise synchronization constraints, such as unknown object presentation durations and relative event occurring times. The model supports a distributed synchronization algorithm that can schedule the independent sources for the multimedia teleorchestration.     

A Stylometric Analysis of Ya?ar Kemal’s ? nce Memed Tetralogy

We analyze four nce Memed novels of Yaar Kemal using six style markers: most frequent words, syllable counts, word type – or part of speech – information, sentence length in terms of words, word length in text, and word length in vocabulary. For analysis we divide each novel into five thousand word text blocks and count the frequencies of each style marker in these blocks. The style markers showing the best separation are most frequent words and sentence lengths. We use stepwise discriminant analysis to determine the best discriminators of each style marker. We then use these markers in cross validation based discriminant analysis. Further investigation based on multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) reveals how the attributes of each style marker group distinguish among the volumes.