Inaug.-Diss.-Frankfurt am Main. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 339-345.

Thesis (M.S.) in Spatial Information Science and Engineering--University of Maine, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-91).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-145). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-50). Also available in electronic version.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

by Yip Suen-man. / Appendixes in Chinese and English. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. / Acknowledgment --- p.1 / Abstract --- p.2 / Table of Contents --- p.3 / List of Tables --- p.5 / List of Figures --- p.6 / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.7 / Chapter 1.1 --- Objectives --- p.9 / Chapter 1.2 --- Chapter Summary --- p.10 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Related Work --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1 --- Relational Query Language --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Relational Algebra Vs Relational Calculus --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Procedural Vs Nonprocedural --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Natural Language (NL) Vs Restricted Natural Language (RNL) --- p.13 / Chapter 2.2 --- Existing Relational Query Language --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3 --- Chinese Related Work --- p.16 / Chapter 2.4 --- Chapter Summary --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Chinese Database Query Language : Chiql --- p.19 / Chapter 3.1 --- Naturalness --- p.19 / Chapter 3.2 --- Simplicity --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3 --- Procedural and Multi-statements Query Style --- p.21 / Chapter 3.4 --- Functional Completeness --- p.22 / Chapter 3.5 --- Chapter Summary --- p.25 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Query Processing --- p.26 / Chapter 4.1 --- Query Optimization --- p.27 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Query Representation --- p.27 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Standardization --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Simplification --- p.29 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- Amelioration --- p.29 / Chapter 4.2 --- Query Translation of SQL --- p.29 / Chapter 4.3 --- Query Processing in Chiql --- p.33 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Overview of the Query Processing --- p.33 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Inter-Statement Dependency --- p.34 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Translation flow of Chiql-to-SQL --- p.36 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- An Introductory Example --- p.37 / Chapter 4.4 --- Chapter Summary --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Statement Merging Algorithm (SMA) --- p.41 / Chapter 5.1 --- Problems --- p.41 / Chapter 5.2 --- Definitions --- p.42 / Chapter 5.3 --- Linear Merging Algorithm (LMA) --- p.43 / Chapter 5.4 --- Tree Merging Algorithm (TMA) --- p.47 / Chapter 5.5 --- Statement Merging Algorithm (SMA) --- p.50 / Chapter 5.6 --- Improvement --- p.56 / Chapter 5.7 --- Chapter Summary --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Pattern Mapping Algorithm (PMA) --- p.58 / Chapter 6.1 --- Problem --- p.58 / Chapter 6.2 --- Type of Patterns --- p.61 / Chapter 6.3 --- Pre-requisite of Pattern Mapping --- p.65 / Chapter 6.4 --- Pattern Mapping Algorithm (PMA) --- p.65 / Chapter 6.5 --- An Illustration Example --- p.68 / Chapter 6.6 --- Chapter Summary --- p.72 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Evaluation --- p.73 / Chapter 7.1 --- Testing the Correctness --- p.73 / Chapter 7.2 --- Comparison in Translation Power With Other Translator --- p.76 / Chapter 7.3 --- Chapter Summary --- p.78 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.79 / Reference --- p.82 / Appendix --- p.86

It is common to see documents with explicit structure marked up in languages such as XML. Queries, on the other hand, typically have no structure. There is a clear mismatch, although documents contain structure it is typically not used in information retrieval. An efficient index structure for document-centric searching is proposed and its efficiency is discussed. It is shown to be at worst linear with respect to the number of occurrences of a given search term. The algorithm is then extended to accommodate element-centric information retrieval. Ranking algorithms for structured documents are examined. Genetic Algorithms are used to learn different weights for each structure present in a document. Applying these weights as part of a function is shown to yield significant precision improvements in some functions. Genetic Programming is then used to learn an entire ranking function. This function is shown to be portable between document collections. A query language for structured information retrieval is proposed. Use of this language in the 2004 INEX workshop resulted in a large decrease in query errors. Structured information retrieval is now a viable alternative to its unstructured counterpart. A successful query language, efficient indexing structures, and improved ranking functions are all presented.

The temporal behavior in applications involving visual data can be critical for the correctness of some programs. Forms/3 allows the user to specify temporal behaviors in an independent way, without introducing extraneous code in the original spreadsheet, whereas some other languages define new language devices specific to time. In this thesis, we present the implementation of a new user interface for temporal programming in Forms/3 and the results of two empirical studies. The results of the first study show that one of the models for temporal programing in Forms/3 is more suitable for end users than a traditional stream-based approach representative of the approach used by many other languages. The results of our second experiment show that the explicit information provided by the approach can help the users to judge the correctness of their spreadsheets. / Graduation date: 2002

XML is a very versatile data format that has been used to represent many different kinds of data, including web pages, books, business and accounting data, programming interfaces, vector graphics, system logs, and games. In a short span of time, it has gained wide acceptance as the document and data standard on the web. As more and more XML data gets generated everyday, a lot of research focus has been on query languages for XML. The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has chosen XQuery as the standard language for querying XML. From an end-user point of view, XQuery sacrifices usability for expressiveness. We introduce FoXQ, a visual language that enables end users to query XML. FoXQ brings a lot of the functionality of XQuery within the reach of the end users without getting them embroiled in the intricacies of XQuery syntax. The query interface is form-based and the query model is based on a document metaphor in which the users formulate queries by filling out forms. / Graduation date: 2004