Performance-based learning requires that a computer system has deep, exact knowledge of what a person is doing and what they already know about that task to determine what they should learn now. Lifelong learning requires that a computer system have broad, general knowledge over a number of years of what a person has learned to determine what they should learn now. Separately, these are each difficult goals to accomplish. However, both goals must be met to effectively provide a workforce that meets the evolving needs of industry and government for skilled workers. This paper describes a system that can meet both of these goals and support performance-based lifelong learning.

The goal of the InfoSleuth project at MCC is to exploit and synthesize new technologies into a unified system that retrieves and processes information in an ever-changing network of information sources. InfoSleuth has its roots in the Carnot project at MCC, which specialized in integrating heterogeneous information bases. However, recent emerging technologies such as internetworking and the World Wide Web have significantly expanded the types, availability, and volume of data available to an information management system. Furthermore, in these new environments, there is no formal control over the registration of new information sources, and applications tend to be developed without complete knowledge of the resources that will be available when they are run. Federated database projects such as Carnot that do static data integration do not scale up and do not cope well with this ever-changing environment. On the other hand, recent Web technologies, based on keyword search engines, are scalable but, unlike federated databases, are incapable of accessing information based on concepts. In this experience paper, we describe the architecture, design, and implementation of a working version of InfoSleuth. We show how InfoSleuth integrates new technological developments such as agent technology, domain ontologies, brokerage, and internet computing, in support of mediated interoperation of data and services in a dynamic and open environment. We demonstrate the use of information brokering and domain ontologies as key elements for scalability.

Article Free Access Share on The InfoSleuth Project Authors: R. J. Bayardo Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , W. Bohrer Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , R. Brice Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , A. Cichocki Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , J. Fowler Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , A. Halal Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , V. Kashyap Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , T. Ksiezyk Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , G. Martin Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , M. Nodine Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , M. Rashid Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , M. Rusinkiewicz Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , R. Shea Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , C. Unnikrishnan Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , A. Unruh Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile , D. Woelk Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, Texas Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), 3500 West Balcones Center Drive, Austin, TexasView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGMOD '97: Proceedings of the 1997 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of dataJune 1997 Pages 543–545https://doi.org/10.1145/253260.253401Online:01 June 1997Publication History 7citation339DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations7Total Downloads339Last 12 Months2Last 6 weeks0 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

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The Carnot Project at MCC is addressing the problem of logically unifying physically-distributed, enterprise-wide, heterogeneous information. Carnot will provide a user with the means to navigate information efficiently and transparently, to update that information consistently, and to write applications easily for large, heterogeneous, distributed information systems. A prototype has been implemented which provides services for (a) enterprise modeling and model integration to create an enterprise-wide view, (b) semantic expansion of queries on the view to queries on individual resources, and (c) inter-resource consistency management. This paper describes the Carnot approach to transaction processing in environments where heterogeneous, distributed, and autonomous systems are required to coordinate the update of the local information under their control. In this approach, subtransactions are represented as a set of tasks and a set of intertask dependencies that capture the semantics of a particular relaxed transaction model. A scheduler has been implemented which schedules the execution of these tasks in the Carnot environment so that all intertask dependencies are satisfied.

The conventional models of authorization have been designed for database systems supporting the hierarchical, network, and relational models of data. However, these models are not adequate for next-generation database systems that support richer data models that include object-oriented concepts and semantic data modeling concepts. Rabitti, Woelk, and Kim [14] presented a preliminary model of authorization for use as the basis of an authorization mechanism in such database systems. In this paper we present a fuller model of authorization that fills a few major gaps that the conventional models of authorization cannot fill for next-generation database systems. We also further formalize the notion of implicit authorization and refine the application of the notion of implicit authorization to object-oriented and semantic modeling concepts. We also describe a user interface for using the model of authorization and consider key issues in implementing the authorization model.

ORION-2 is a commercially available, federated, object-oriented database management system designed and implemented at MCC. One major architectural innovation in ORION-2 is the coexistence of a shared databese and a number of private databases. The shared database is accessible to all authorized users of the system, while each private database is accessible to only the user who owns it. A distributed database system with a shared database and private databases for individual users is a natural architecture for data-intensive application environments on a network of workstations, notably computer-aided design and engineering systems. This paper discusses the benefits and limitations of such a system and explores the impact of such an architecture on the semantics and implementation of some of the key functions of a database system, notably queries, database schema, and versions. Although the issues are discussed in the context of an object-oriented data model, the results (at least significant portions thereof) are applicable to database systems supporting other data models.

Various architectural components of ORION-1 and ORION-1SX are described and a review of the current implementation is provided. The message handler receives all messages sent to the ORION system. The object subsystem provides high-level data management functions, including query optimization, schema management, long data management (including text search) and support for versionable objects, composite objects, and multimedia objects. The transaction management subsystem coordinates concurrent object accesses and provides recovery capabilities. The storage subsystem manages persistent storage of objects and controls the flow of objects between the secondary storage device and main memory buffers. In ORION-1, all subsystems reside in one computer. The ORION-1SX architecture is significantly different from ORION-1 in the management of shared data structures and distribution of these subsystems and their components.>

There are two major issues to address to achieve integration of an object-oriented programming system with a database system. One is the language issue: an object-oriented programming language must be augmented with semantic data modeling concepts to provide a robust set of data modeling concepts to allow modeling of entities for important real-world applications. Another is the computational-model issue: application programmers should be able to access and manipulate objects as though the objects are in an infinite virtual memory; in other words, they should not have to be aware of the existence of a database system in their computations with the data structures the programming language allows. This paper discusses these issues and presents the solutions which we have incorporated into the ORION object-oriented database system at MCC.

In this paper, we elaborate on three major enhancements to the conventional object-oriented data model, namely, schema evolution, composite objects, and versions. Schema evolution is the ability to dynamically make changes to the class definitions and the structure of the class lattice. Composite objects are recursive collections of exclusive components that are treated as units of storage, retrieval, and integrity enforcement. Versions are variations of the same object that are related by the history of their derivation. These additional features are strongly motivated by data management requirements of object-oriented applications from the AI, CAD/CAM, and OIS (office information systems with multimedia documents) domains. An object-oriented data model, with these enhancements, has been incorporated into ORION, a prototype database system developed at MCC as a vehicle of research into object-oriented databases.

Many applications in such domains as computer-aided design require the capability to define, store and retrieve as a single unit a collection of related objects known as a composite object. A composite object explicitly captures and enforces the IS-PART-OF integrity constraint between child and parent pairs of objects in a hierarchical collection of objects. Further, it can be used as a unit of storage and retrieval to enhance the performance of a database system.

Presented in this paper is the data model for ORION, a prototype database system that adds persistence and sharability to objects created and manipulated in object-oriented applications. The ORION data model consolidates and modifies a number of major concepts found in many object-oriented systems, such as objects, classes, class lattice, methods, and inheritance. These concepts are reviewed and three major enhancements to the conventional object-oriented data model, namely, schema evolution, composite objects, and versions, are elaborated upon. Schema evolution is the ability to dynamically make changes to the class definitions and the structure of the class lattice. Composite objects are recursive collections of exclusive components that are treated as units of storage, retrieval, and integrity enforcement. Versions are variations of the same object that are related by the history of their derivation. These enhancements are strongly motivated by the data management requirements of the ORION applications from the domains of artificial intelligence, computer-aided design and manufacturing, and office information systems with multimedia documents.

This paper identifies data modelling and data access and sharing requirements which multimedia applications impose on a database system. It shows the capabilities of an object-based data model and indicates extensions which are needed to meet the data modelling aspects of these requirements. A logical implementation of the operations on the model is described. The model generalizes the notions of instantiation and generalization in the standard object-oriented paradigm, and augments it with the notions of aggregation and relationships which are specialized for a multimedia application environment. Objects may exist in aggregation hierarchies which provide the capability to integrate diverse types of multimedia information such as text, sound, bit-mapped images, and complex graphics drawings. Objects may also be linked through other user-defined relationships to capture such application functions as voice annotation and referencing of one document by another. Using this model, the semantics of aggregation and relationships in a multimedia application environment can be understood and efficiently supported by a database system.