While many methodologies have been proposed for calculating a quantitative level of autonomy for intelligent Unmanned Systems (UMS), no one definitive measure of autonomy or autonomous performance has been validated and adopted by the UMS community. Particularly for military applications, a simple performance metric that is based on the UMSs mission profile and is comparable between UMS systems is critical. This metric would not only help define the features a UMS needs to successfully perform its mission, both in terms of hardware and software, but also enable the use of UMS for a broader range of applications at an increased level of autonomy. This paper presents the development of a new methodology for calculating a single-number performance metric for autonomous UMS, and this metric is called the Mission Performance Potential (MPP). Rather than a retroactive measure of UMS performance and autonomy level for one iteration of a given scenario, the MPP separates autonomy level and mission performance to provide a predictive measure of a UMS's expected performance for a mission set and level of autonomy. As an example application, the MPP is calculated for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) performing a target tracking mission, and this MPP value is compared to the results of field-testing with this system.

People often use powerful tools to manage the documents they encounter, but very rarely to store the mental knowledge they glean from those documents. Popcorn is a personal knowledge base: an experimental interface and database designed to store and retrieve a user's accumulated personal knowledge. It aims to let the user represent information in a way that corresponds more naturally to their mental conceptions than simply text would, in part by making heavy use of transclusion: sharing items among multiple contexts. This paper describes the design rationale for the system, contrasting it with related efforts, and presents the results of deploying it to a group of volunteers who used it in real-world settings. The results, while revealing some limitations in the tool, and some challenges in coping with knowledge reorganization, suggest that the analysis underlying the design is useful, and that Popcorn is a powerful and effective tool for a variety of intellectual work.

Abstract Web‐resident information is becoming ‘smarter’, in the sense that emerging technology will support the annotation of it with ontological terms, which will be used to locate and reuse information. This will pose a great security risk in the form of unintended breaches (as distinct from deliberate invasions). Web‐resident information will be far more readily available and relevant, thus causing inadvertent releases of secure information to potentially cause it to be diffusely spread across the Internet. Then as this information is iteratively transformed and integrated with other information, it will become irretrievable and potentially used in a myriad of unpredictable ways. The problem is that ontological annotations, while making information more understandable in its original form, do not provide a means for easily capturing the complex semantics of information that has been transformed via abstraction, aggregation, and integration. This demands the development of a semantically rich way of specifying ‘views’ of Web information, to which security controls can be attached. Also needed is a way for users of secure information to easily and voluntarily blend—and thereby propagate—security controls as information is transformed. Information mediators designed by collaborative teams of experts are proposed as the vehicle for wrapping information, so that at each step of reuse, high‐level views and their corresponding integrity controls can be made easily accessible to trusted users who will then be able to ensure their proper maintenance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract Modern persistent applications typically run on top of numerous (often hundreds) of distributed, heterogeneous databases. Integrating data from various data sources in order to provide uniform, homogeneous, and consistent access to the data from the underlying data sources while preserving the integrity and autonomy of preexisting data sources is a huge problem, especially in evolving environments. The main issue that a global information sharing system has to address is heterogeneity on all levels of the participating data sources: the data might be stored in heterogeneous data sources, using different data models and access/middleware technologies. Another major type of heterogeneity that has to be addressed by a global information sharing system is due to differences in the semantics of the data from the data source participating in the integration process. In particular, the resolution of potential conflicts due to structural and semantic heterogeneity of the integrated data is an essential part of the integration process performed by a data integration environment. The COIL data mediator definition language supports the definition of the integration process and its semantics on a high level of abstraction. The language provides powerful language components which can be used to resolve potential conflicts due to structural and semantic heterogeneity, and to define the integration process in general. The semantics of a specific integration process are defined in a COIL data mediator definition (COIL program). The COIL compiler uses those specifications expressed in the COIL language to generate a standard Java object which captures the semantics of the integration process defined in the COIL mediator definition. The generated Java object is called a COIL data mediator. In general, a COIL data mediator is a user‐defined, customized object/component which can be used like any other normal object in the Java development environment. A COIL data mediator presents a well‐defined interface which may be used to access and configure the mediator at runtime. Therefore it is possible to change the data mediator's behavior and the semantics of the integration process in general at runtime. We present a detailed description of the COIL data mediator definition language and its language components, along with a detailed discussion of how COIL data mediators are used to overcome different heterogeneity problems. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A likely trend in the development of future CAD, CASE and office information systems will be the use of object-oriented database systems to manage their internal data stores. The entities that these applications will retrieve, such as electronic parts and their connections or customer service records, are typically large complex objects composed of many interconnected heterogeneous objects, not thousands of tuples. These applications may exhibit widely shifting usage patterns due to their interactive mode of operation. Such a class of applications would demand clustering methods that are appropriate for clustering large complex objects and that can adapt on-line to the shifting usage patterns. While most object-oriented clustering methods allow grouping of heterogeneous objects, they are usually static and can only be changed off-line. We present one possible architecture for performing complex object reclustering in an on-line manner that is adaptive to changing usage patterns. Our architecture involves the decomposition of a clustering method into concurrently operating components that each handle one of the fundamental tasks involved in reclustering, namely statistics collection, cluster analysis, and reorganization. We present the results of an experiment performed to evaluate its behavior. These results show that the average miss rate for object accesses can be effectively reduced using a combination of rules that we have developed for deciding when cluster analyses and reorganizations should be performed.

The subject of this research project is the architecture and design of a multidatabase query facility. These databases contain structured data, typical for business applications. Problems addressed are: presenting a uniform interface for retrieving data from multiple databases, providing autonomy for the component databases, and defining an architecture for semantic services. DIRECT is a query facility for heterogeneous databases. The databases and their definitions can differ in their data models, names, types, and encoded values. Instead of creating a global schema, descriptions of different databases are allowed to coexist. A multidatabase query language provides a uniform interface for retrieving data from different databases. DIRECT has been exercised with operational databases that are part of an automated business system.

DBface is a toolkit for designing interfaces to object-oriented databases. It provides users with a set of tools for building custom interfaces with minimal programming. This is accomplished by combining techniques from User Interface Management Systems (UIMS) with a built-in knowledge about the specific kinds of techniques used by object-oriented databases. DBface allows users to create graphical constructs and interactive techniques by taking advantage of an object-oriented database environment and tools. Not only can database tools be used for creating an interface, but information about the interface being built is stored within a database schema and is syntactically consistent with all other schema information. Thus, an interface can deal with data and schema information, including information about another interface. This allows for easy reusability of graphical constructs such as data representations.

No abstract available.

In this paper a new method to improve the utilization of main memory systems is presented. The new method is based on prestoring in main memory a number of query answers, each evaluated out of a single memory page. To this end, the ideas of page-answers and page-traces are formally described and their properties analyzed. The query model used here allows for selection, projection, join, recursive queries as well as arbitrary combinations. We also show how to apply the approach under update traffic. This concept is especially useful in managing the main memories of an important class of applications. This class includes the evaluation of triggers and alerters, performance improvement of rule-based systems, integrity constraint checking, and materialized views. These applications are characterized by the existence at compile time of a predetermined set of queries, by a slow but persistent update traffic, and by their need to repetitively reevaluate the query set. The new approach represents a new type of intelligent database caching, which contrasts with traditional caching primarily in that the cache elements are derived data and as a consequence, they overlap arbitrarily and do not have a fixed length. The contents of the main memory cache are selected based on the data distribution within the database, the set of fixed queries to preprocess, and the paging characteristics. Page-answers and page-traces are used as the smallest indivisible units in the cache. An efficient heuristic to select a near optimal set of page-answers and page-traces to populate the main memory has been developed, implemented, and tested. Finally, quantitative measurements of performance benefits are reported.

Most existing databases lack features which allow for the convenient manipulation of text. It is even more difficult to use them if the text language is not based on the Roman alphabet. The Arabic language is a very good example of this case. Many projects have attempted to use conventional database systems for Arabic data manipulation (including text data), but because of Arabic's many differences with English, these projects have met with limited success. In the Bayan project, the approach has been different. Instead of simply trying to adopt an environment to Arabic, the properties of the Arabic language were the starting point and everything was designed to meet the needs of Arabic, thus avoiding the shortcomings of other projects. A text database management system was designed to overcome the shortcomings of conventional database management systems in manipulating text data. Bayan's data model is based on an object-oriented approach which helps the extensibility of the system for future use. In Bayan, we designed the database with the Arabic text properties in mind. We designed it to support the way Arabic words are derived, classified, and constructed. Furthermore, linguistic algorithms (for word generation and morphological decomposition of words) were designed, leading to a formalization of rules of Arabic language writing and sentence construction. A user interface was designed on top of this environment. A new representation of the Arabic characters was designed, a complete Arabic keyboard layout was created, and a window-based Arabic user interface was also designed.

Cactis is an object-oriented, multiuser DBMS developed at the University of Colorado. The system supports functionally-defined data and uses techniques based on attributed graphs to optimize the maintenance of functionally-defined data. The implementation is self-adaptive in that the physical organization and the update algorithms dynamically change in order to reduce disk access. The system is also concurrent. At any given time there are some number of computations that must be performed to bring the database up to date; these computations are scheduled independently and are performed when the expected cost to do so is minimal. The DBMS runs in the Unix/C Sun workstation environment. Cactis is designed to support applications that require rich data modeling capabilities and the ability to specify functionally-defined data, but that also demand good performance. Specifically, Cactis is intended for use in the support of such applications as VLSI and PCB design, and software environments.

In the database community there is considerable disagreement concerning the definition of 'object-oriented'. The author distinguishes between two very different ways in which this term is used in the database world, and argues that together, these two sorts of object-orientedness form a solid framework for supporting software engineering. Essentially, when database researchers use the word 'object-oriented', they are generally referring to one of two approaches-structural object-orientation or behavioral object-orientation. The former is usually called semantic modeling, after a class of data models that attempt to provide richer constructs for representing the semantics of database applications. The second class of data models is geared toward the behavior of objects and is concerned with the manipulation of data, taking an abstract data type approach of embedding operations (methods) within types.>

The Cactis project is an on-going effort oriented toward extending database support from traditional business-oriented applications to software environments. The main goals of the project are to construct an appropriate model, and develop new techniques to support the unusual data management needs of software environments, including program compilations, software configurations, load modules, project schedules, software versions, nested and long transactions, and program transformations. The ability to manage derived information is common to many of these data needs, and the Cactis database management system has the ability to represent and maintain derived data in a time- and space-efficient fashion. A central contribution of Cactis is its integration of the type constructors of semantic models and the localized behavior capabilities of object-oriented database management systems.>

Almost all applications using interactive graphics contain important structures and concepts which are deeper than the geometres used to display them to the user. One of the major tasks of the system implementer is to cause the user interface to reflect this deeper structure accurately so that it may be directly manipulated by the user. The authors describe a tool, the Higgens user interface management system (UIMS), which can automate much of this task for a wide class of systems using interactive graphics. It is able to generate graphical user interfaces automatically from a high-level interface specification. These specifications are primarily nonprocedural in nature. They describe how graphical images can be automatically derived and updated based on applications entities, and how graphical inputs can be translated back into terms which are appropriate to the application.>

Cactis is an object-oriented, multi-user DBMS developed at the University of Colorado. The implementation is self-adaptive and concurrent, and runs in the Unix/C Sun workstation environment. A central, unique focus of Cactis is the support of functionally-defined data in a manner which provides good performance. Cactis is intended for use in applications which are conducive to an object-oriented approach and involve derived data. Such applications include software environments.

A system for generating direct manipulation office systems is described. In these systems, the user directly manipulates graphical representations of office entities instead of dealing with these entities abstractly through a command language or menu system. These systems employ a new semantic data model to describe office entities. New techniques based on attribute grammars and incremental attribute evaluation are used to implement this data model in an efficient manner. In addition, the system provides a means of generating sophisticated graphics-based user interfaces that are integrated with the underlying semantic model. Finally, the generated systems contain a general user reversal and recovery (or undo) mechanism that allows them to be much more tolerant of human errors.

Article Free Access Share on A model of data distribution based on texture analysis Authors: Nabil Kamel Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado, 80309Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado, 80309Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder ColoradoView Profile , Roger King Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado, 80309Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado, 80309Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder ColoradoView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGMOD '85: Proceedings of the 1985 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of dataMay 1985 Pages 319–325https://doi.org/10.1145/318898.318929Published:01 May 1985Publication History 17citation240DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations17Total Downloads240Last 12 Months18Last 6 weeks2 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

A model and methodology for describing the information objects in an office information system and how such objects flow among the components of such a system are presented. The model and methodology support the specification of information objects at multiple levels of abstraction. An interactive prototype design tool based on the methodology and model has been designed and experimentally implemented.

An informal methodology is described for optimizing the likelihood of computer-generated records being admissible in a U.S. court of law. This methodology is intended for individuals who are converting to automated office procedures, as well as for those whose businesses are already highly computerized. However, this paper does not purport to be a formal legal guide; rather, it is intended as an overview of this issue.

Sedaco (the semantic database constructor) is a tool which may be used to implement databases. It is based on a semantic data model. Sedaco provides primitives for implementing semantic schemas and buffers the database designer from most low-level data structuring issues. Sedaco also efficiently maintains consistency within complex semantic databases. The tool is written in C and runs under Unix.

This paper describes a tool that may be used to implement databases. The tool is based on a semantic model, and is called Sedaco (SEmantic DAtabase Constructor). Sedaco provides primitives for implementing semantic Schemas and buffers the database designer from most low-level data structuring issues. Sedaco also efficiently maintains consistency within complex semantic databases. The tool is written in С and runs under Unix.