Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Northwest Missouri State University, 2009. / The full text of the thesis is included in the pdf file. Title from title screen of full text.pdf file (viewed on March 29, 2010) Includes bibliographical references.

When information is abundant, it becomes increasingly difficult to fit nuggets of knowledge into a single coherent picture. Complex stories spaghetti into branches, side stories, and intertwining narratives; search engines, our most popular navigational tools, are limited in their capacity to explore such complex stories. We propose a methodology for creating structured summaries of information, which we call metro maps. Our proposed algorithm generates a concise structured set of documents that maximizes coverage of salient pieces of information. Most importantly, metro maps explicitly show the relations among retrieved pieces in a way that captures story development. The overarching theme of this work is formalizing characteristics of good maps, and providing efficient algorithms (with theoretical guarantees) to optimize them. Moreover, as information needs vary from person to person, we integrate user interaction into our framework, allowing users to alter the maps to better reflect their interests. Pilot user studies with real-world datasets demonstrate that the method is able to produce maps which help users acquire knowledge efficiently. We believe that metro maps could be powerful tools for any Web user, scientist, or intelligence analyst trying to process large amounts of data.

The aim of this study is to analyze the Django framework in terms of design patterns and architectural principles with emphasis on development of information systems. Based on a comparison of two real systems was identified basic general functionality, the systems commonly support. This analysis helped identify the strengths and weaknesses of the framework. These ensue from the application architecture and from weaknesses of some of its components. Based on these were derived requirements for library expansion and new application components. Problems that have arisen with the solution of the new application components within the specified requirements are theoretically analyzed and described their solutions with emphasis on the application of appropriate design patterns. The solution here appears the Observer design pattern in an environment different processes, access control entries (pessimistic and optimistic locking) and a database schema in an incremental approach to the development of an information system. Implemented components were used to program information system in a team, which demonstrates the overall suitability of this framework for use in the development of information systems.