Database management standards: status and applicability

This article presents the current status of existing and emerging ISO, ANSI, and FIPS standards for database management, specifically Database Languages NDL and SQL and Remote Database Access (RDA). It describes the general content of each standard and discusses its applicability, availability, completeness, maturity, stability, existing usage, and known limitations. Where appropriate, it also addresses the availability of conformance test suites and future plans for enhancements and follow-on standardization efforts.     

Ethical and legal issues for writing researchers in an age of media convergence

With the convergence of digital media into ever-widening social and technological networks for creation and distribution, the contexts for writing and the study of writing and writers have certainly changed. Researchers must navigate a dense matrix of ethical and legal issues in all phases of research when studying the ever-changing processes and products of digital communications. In this article, I draw from numerous sources to articulate a few of the challenges facing digital writing researchers in this age of convergence, focusing on issues of representation (researcher, participant, third-party), issues of informed consent, and issues of copyright and fair use.     

Environmental ergonomics: a review of principles, methods and models

A review of the principles, methods and models used in environmental ergonomics is provided in terms of the effects of heat and cold, vibration, noise and light on the health, comfort and performance of people. Environmental ergonomics is an integral part of the discipline of ergonomics and should be viewed and practised from that perspective. Humans do not respond to the environment in a way monotonically related to direct measures of the physical environment. There are human characteristics which determine human sensitivities and responses. Practical methods for assessing responses to individual environmental components are presented as well as responses to ‘total’ environments and current and proposed International Standards concerned with the ergonomics of the physical environment.     

Integration | Innovation | Inclusion: Values,Variables and the Design of Human Environments

Complexity, complication, contradiction, consumption, confusion, delusion, depression. Opportunity, inspiration, ingenuity, compassion, wisdom. Our world is perplexing, our times are fast moving, and our choices are many. To find an appropriate path is a daunting yet vital challenge that confronts us as individuals, as communities, and as a civilization. How sustainable is our world? How reasonable are our behaviors? The present article is a collection of thoughts on a series of intertwined issues related to the contemporary world, its environmental dimensions, and their present-day problems. The goal is to survey the landscape through a lens of Environmental Design, to provide some perspectives, to raise some questions, and to explore systems, beliefs, and values informing and influencing actions. It is important to consider how people's belief systems influence, inform, and shape actions. This holds true in realms political, spiritual, and cultural. It also proves relevant in the ways in which we imagine, design, develop, and construct our buildings, cities, spaces, and places.

Appropriate solutions to some of our most daunting problems will arise through the concerted efforts, open dialogue, and collective wisdom of the wide array of stakeholders, professionals, politicians, decision makers, and citizens (both engaged and disenfranchised) who have the will and wherewithal to make a difference and to make the world safer, healthier, and better. It seems vital for us to critically examine, and question, our belief systems and their connections to the ways we define, refine, and realize progress. Architecture and Environmental Design, in both a philosophical and a practical sense, reflect as well as form greater aspirations, directions, and events of our times.     

基于RGB-D信息的移动机器人SLAM和路径规划方法研究与实现

移动机器人在各种辅助任务中需具备自主定位、建图、路径规划与运动控制的能力。本文利用RGB-D信息和ORB-SLAM算法进行自主定位,结合点云数据和GMapping算法建立环境栅格地图,基于二次规划方法进行平滑可解析的路径规划,并设计非线性控制器,实现了由一个运动底盘、一个RGB-D传感器和一个运算平台组成的自主移动机器人系统。经实验验证,这一系统实现了复杂室内环境下的实时定位与建图、自主移动和障碍物规避。由此,为移动机器人的推广应用提供了一个硬件结构简单、性能良好、易扩展、经济性好、开发维护方便的解决方案。     

Interpretive Tools for 3-D Structural Geological Modelling Part II: Surface Design from Sparse Spatial Data

We present software tools and methods applicable to the geological modelling of sparse spatial and structural data within a 3-D digital environment. Free-form surfaces derived from section-style control frames and constrained by field-based structural measurements are employed as partially automated design aids intended to speed up and streamline the 3-D geological model building process. Some design degrees of freedom such as NURBS tension (or weights), knot sequencing and tying surface features are also discussed with examples drawn from spatial and structural data collected in Baffin Island by the Geological Survey of Canada and near-mine exploration data from Canadian mines. Interpolation of field-based structural measurements along the boundary of an unknown surface is also demonstrated. This work is potentially relevant to regional mappers and others dealing with sparse spatial and structural data, and/or conceptual surface modelling.     

Expert system verification and validation: a survey and tutorial

Assuring the quality of an expert system is critical. A poor quality system may make costly errors resulting in considerable damage to the user or owner of the system, such as financial loss or human suffering. Hence verification and validation, methods and techniques aimed at ensuring quality, are fundamentally important. This paper surveys the issues, methods and techniques for verifying and validating expert systems. Approaches to defining the quality of a system are discussed, drawing upon work in both computing and the model building disciplines, which leads to definitions of verification and validation and the associated concepts of credibility, assessment and evaluation. An approach to verification based upon the detection of anomalies is presented, and related to the concepts of consistency, completeness, correctness and redundancy. Automated tools for expert system verification are reviewed. Considerable attention is then given to the issues in structuring the validation process, particularly the establishment of the criteria by which the system is judged, the need to maintain objectivity, and the concept of reliability. This is followed by a review of validation methods for validating both the components of a system and the system as a whole, and includes examples of some useful statistical methods. Management of the verification and validation process is then considered, and it is seen that the location of methods for verification and validation in the development life-cycle is of prime importance.     

Real-world effectiveness of Ergonomic methods

The way ahead with the practical development and application of Ergonomic methods is through a better anticipation and appreciation of changes to system effectiveness and human work that will be incurred through the introduction of new technologies to the workplace. These improvements will involve an improved awareness by the system of the working context and environment. The argued future is with improvements in the handling and use of knowledge by systems. The development of suitable Ergonomics methods, or the careful adaptation of existing methods, should accompany any technological revolution. Moreover, future methods are needed that are specifically developed to be applicable to the real time study of work considering both work context and the amalgamation of results from the use of many diverse methods throughout the design and development life cycle of a system. Part of this process will be a necessary complementation of both quantitative and qualitative methods and guidelines. Another focus should be on creating improved Ergonomics participation within multidisciplinary system design and development environments throughout the system's life cycle. Only through this avenue can Ergonomics show a consistent and valued contribution to quality design and its development. In parallel to such a contribution will be an acceptance by other engineering disciplines, managers, and customers that such an application of Ergonomics is cost effective.     

Developing Faculty ICT Competencies Inside and Outside the Library

Despite all the financial resources that are directed to support and acquire learning technologies, the results have been generally disappointing. Faculty are eager to use technology but lack the technical skills, ability, and experience. Library staff includes a talent tool rich in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)/WEB 2.0 technical expertise and experience. In terms of content sourcing and procurement, library technical services and selection staff have broad knowledge of the marketplace for online information and content as well as experience in licensing access. They have a firm grasp of the transaction process, workflows, pricing, and licensing negotiations. Content development and sourcing inevitably involves access management, online storage, copyright, and licensing—things at which libraries are good. ICT deployment is changing teaching and learning on campuses, and the roles of those involved in teaching and learning are also changing. Whether formally through mandated library services, or informally through back channels, library staff are supporting faculty new technology use as well as faculty teaching materials content sourcing and procurement.     

面向集群服务器系统的监控平台综述

为保证云计算、高性能计算集群服务器系统的服务能力,需构建监控平台对各种来源数据的实现统一管理、统计分析和展现。本文面向集群服务器系统监控平台的搭建方式,综述当前各种常见的监控平台架构和组件,分析各类平台在部署、数据规模、统计分析能力以及时效性等方面的不同。分析结果表明,集群服务器系统监控平台搭建方案应根据监控数据规模、时效性要求、查询和统计需求选择方案。