Thesis (M.S.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1999. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 3192. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaf. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-74).

Natural language interfaces to databases (NLIDB) are systems that aim to bridge the gap between the languages used by humans and computers, and automatically translate natural language sentences to database queries. This thesis proposes a novel approach to NLIDB, using graph-based models. The system starts by collecting as much information as possible from existing databases and sentences, and transforms this information into a knowledge base for the system. Given a new question, the system will use this knowledge to analyze and translate the sentence into its corresponding database query statement. The graph-based NLIDB system uses English as the natural language, a relational database model, and SQL as the formal query language. In experiments performed with natural language questions ran against a large database containing information about U.S. geography, the system showed good performance compared to the state-of-the-art in the field.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the last century the earth has experienced an increase in the global mean temperature, with the main contributing factor being the increase in greenhouse gasses. Evidence indicates that the burning of fossil fuels, critical in the supply of energy, contributed towards three quarters of the carbon dioxide (CO2) increase. In 2008 South Africa reached electricity capacity constraints. A subsequent economic downturn experienced in the country, brought about by the worldwide economic recession, has relieved some of the strain on the electricity supply system. However, consumption levels are returning to those experienced during 2008 and no new base load power stations have been added. Short-term capacity constraints can be managed by shifting the peak demand, but the electricity shortage can only be avoided by adding additional capacity or reducing the overall electricity consumption. Supply-side solutions are both overdue and too expensive. The only solutions that can provide lasting results are demand-side solutions. During the past few years the Energy Efficiency and Demand-side Management (EEDSM) programme implemented by South Africa’s electricity supply utility, Eskom, has gained prominence. This programme relies heavily on calculating the savings incurred through any demand-side intervention. Energy audits enable the calculation of various consumption scenarios and can provide valuable insight into load operation and user behaviour. Energy audits involve a two-part procedure consisting of load surveying and an analysis. This thesis describes the development of both these procedures, combined into a single application. The application has been tested and provides an accurate and effective tool for simulating consumption and quantifying savings for various load adjustments. The results gained from the auditing application surpassed the expectations and provides the user with a sufficient base-line consumption estimate. The results do not reflect day-to-day variations, but the simulations are sufficient to quantify savings and determine whether demand-side interventions are financially viable. The application also presents a benchmark for the type of applications required to successfully implement an EEDSM programme. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die afgelope eeu het die aarde se gemiddelde temperatuur toegeneem, met die toename in kweekhuisgasse as die grootste bydraende faktor. Dit wil ook voorkom asof die verbranding van fossielbrandstowwe, wat noodsaaklik is vir die verskaffing van energie, verantwoordelik is vir driekwart van die toename in koolstofdioksied (CO2). Gedurende 2008 het Suid-Afrika elektrisiteitsbeperkings bereik. Die daaropvolgende ekonomiese afswaai wat in die land ervaar is weensdie wêreldwye ekonomiese resessie, het van die druk op die elekriese netwerk verlig. Verbruikersvlakke is egter besig om terug te keer na waar dit in 2008 was, maar geen nuwe basislas-kragstasies is gebou nie. Op die kort termyn kan die kapasiteitsbeperkings bestuur word deur die aanvraag te verskuif, maar die elektrisiteitstekort kan op die lang duur slegs vermy word deur bykomende kapasiteit by te voeg of die totale aanvraag te verminder. Toevoerkant-oplossings is beide agterstallig en te duur. Die enigste oplossings wat blywende resultate kan lewer, is dus aan die verbruikerkant. In die afgelope paar jaar het die effektiewe bestuur van energieverbruik baie aansien geniet. Die nasionale energievoorsiener, Eskom, het ook 'n program geloods om te help met die implimentering van energiebesparingmaatreëls. Die implementering van energie-oudits om met die kwantifisering van besparings te help, is van integrale belang vir die sukses van die program. Energie-oudits stel die eindverbruiker in staat om verskeie verbruiksmoontlikhede te beproef en sodoende waardevolle inligitng te verkry rakende die verbruikspatrone van die fasiliteit. Energie-oudits behels 'n tweeledige proses, bestaande uit 'n lasopname en 'n verbruiksanalise. Hierdie proefskrif beskryf die ontwikkeling van 'n stelsel wat beide die prosesse kombineer in 'n enkele applikasie. Die applikasie is getoets en bied 'n akkurate en doeltreffende instrument om verbruik te simuleer en besparings te kwantifiseer vir verskeie verbruiksmoontlikhede. v Die resultate van die oudit het die aanvanklike verwagtinge oortref en voorsien verbruikers van 'n goeie skatting van die basisverbruik van 'n fasiliteit. Die resultate weerspieël nie dagtot- dag variasies nie, maar die simulasies is voldoende om besparings te kwantifiseer en help om die finansiële lewensvatbaarheid van verbruikerskant-intervensies te bepaal. Die program bied ook 'n verwysingspunt vir applikasies wat besparingstudies wil implementeer.

he goal of this thesis is to analyze current situation in the area of internet commerce and design and implement own application to solve administration of customers and productcs of the firm, which deals with selling musical pieces in electronic form. The main component will be an internet shop based on subscribed custom accounts and enabled prompt offtake of the musical pieces. Designed system will be implemented as a WWW application in PHP language with using database MySQL.

Database systems build an integral component of today’s software systems and as such they are the central point for storing and sharing a software system’s data while ensuring global data consistency at the same time. Introducing the primitives of roles and their accompanied metatype distinction in modeling and programming languages, results in a novel paradigm of designing, extending, and programming modern software systems. In detail, roles as modeling concept enable a separation of concerns within an entity. Along with its rigid core, an entity may acquire various roles in different contexts during its lifetime and thus, adapts its behavior and structure dynamically during runtime. Unfortunately, database systems, as important component and global consistency provider of such systems, do not keep pace with this trend. The absence of a metatype distinction, in terms of an entity’s separation of concerns, in the database system results in various problems for the software system in general, for the application developers, and finally for the database system itself. In case of relational database systems, these problems are concentrated under the term role-relational impedance mismatch. In particular, the whole software system is designed by using different semantics on various layers. In case of role-based software systems in combination with relational database systems this gap in semantics between applications and the database system increases dramatically. Consequently, the database system cannot directly represent the richer semantics of roles as well as the accompanied consistency constraints. These constraints have to be ensured by the applications and the database system loses its single point of truth characteristic in the software system. As the applications are in charge of guaranteeing global consistency, their development requires more effort in data management. Moreover, the software system’s data management is distributed over several layers, which results in an unstructured software system architecture. To overcome the role-relational impedance mismatch and bring the database system back in its rightful position as single point of truth in a software system, this thesis introduces the novel and tripartite RSQL approach. It combines a novel database model that represents the metatype distinction as first class citizen in a database system, an adapted query language on the database model’s basis, and finally a proper result representation. Precisely, RSQL’s logical database model introduces Dynamic Data Types, to directly represent the separation of concerns within an entity type on the schema level. On the instance level, the database model defines the notion of a Dynamic Tuple that combines an entity with the notion of roles and thus, allows for dynamic structure adaptations during runtime without changing an entity’s overall type. These definitions build the main data structures on which the database system operates. Moreover, formal operators connecting the query language statements with the database model data structures, complete the database model. The query language, as external database system interface, features an individual data definition, data manipulation, and data query language. Their statements directly represent the metatype distinction to address Dynamic Data Types and Dynamic Tuples, respectively. As a consequence of the novel data structures, the query processing of Dynamic Tuples is completely redesigned. As last piece for a complete database integration of a role-based notion and its accompanied metatype distinction, we specify the RSQL Result Net as result representation. It provides a novel result structure and features functionalities to navigate through query results. Finally, we evaluate all three RSQL components in comparison to a relational database system. This assessment clearly demonstrates the benefits of the roles concept’s full database integration.