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Constructed in his self-acknowledge hometown of Richland Center, Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright was to work on the A.D. German Warehouse twice during his lifetime. Initially constructed between 1917 and 1921, financial woes on the part of the owner led to a shuttered building. In 1934 Wright worked on an adaptive reuse, but the plans were never to be implemented and German lost the building for good. A careful study of the history of the structure, foregoing todays computers for Wrights triangles, and an analysis of the frieze led me to my own adaptive reuse. The musical characteristics of harmony and countperpoint found powerful expression in the pairings of vertical and horizontal, light and dark, and new and old. These relational tensions resonated with the internal structure of the transformational geometry and created a powerful resolution between the enclosing massive forms of the original Warehouse and my new design. / Master of Architecture

In an attempt to address the accessibility of the arts in Washington, D.C. and also to engage the underutilized waterfront, this thesis proposes a cultural center for the arts that at once links the building with the water, but which also becomes a source of excitement for the city. The arts center will act as an atelier that mixes education, production and exhibition of fine arts, theater, dance and music, with the goal being to achieve a space alive with activity and shared energy. Typically, buildings for art education have followed a model that emphasizes interaction by forcing artists of different media to share the same space in a classroom environment. Those same rooms may appear no different than, say, a room intended for an English class or science lab. The District of Columbia Waterfront Atelier (DCWA) aims to offer spaces that are designed for the specific medium and nothing else, thus, elevating the importance of the craft. By separating the arts into singular units, one may wonder if interaction between artists is lost. Interaction, however, may be achieved through different methods rather than, simply, by programmatic ones and the DCWA has become an exploration to discover alternatives to maintain and heighten the universal goal of an art atelier: to become engulfed and energized by the arts in an interactive setting. / Master of Architecture

Data warehouse technology has been successfully integrated into the information infrastructure of major organizations as potential solution for eliminating redundancy and providing for comprehensive data integration. Realizing the importance of a data warehouse as the main data repository within an organization, this dissertation addresses different aspects related to the data warehouse architecture and performance issues. Many data warehouse architectures have been presented by industry analysts and research organizations. These architectures vary from the independent and physical business unit centric data marts to the centralised two-tier hub-and-spoke data warehouse. The operational data store is a third tier which was offered later to address the business requirements for inter-day data loading. While the industry-available architectures are all valid, I found them to be suboptimal in efficiency (cost) and effectiveness (productivity). In this dissertation, I am advocating a new architecture (The Hybrid Architecture) which encompasses the industry advocated architecture. The hybrid architecture demands the acquisition, loading and consolidation of enterprise atomic and detailed data into a single integrated enterprise data store (The Enterprise Data Warehouse) where businessunit centric Data Marts and Operational Data Stores (ODS) are built in the same instance of the Enterprise Data Warehouse. For the purpose of highlighting the role of data warehouses for different applications, we describe an effort to develop a data warehouse for a geographical information system (GIS). We further study the importance of data practices, quality and governance for financial institutions by commenting on the RBC Financial Group case. v The development and deployment of the Enterprise Data Warehouse based on the Hybrid Architecture spawned its own issues and challenges. Organic data growth and business requirements to load additional new data significantly will increase the amount of stored data. Consequently, the number of users will increase significantly. Enterprise data warehouse obesity, performance degradation and navigation difficulties are chief amongst the issues and challenges. Association rules mining and social networks have been adopted in this thesis to address the above mentioned issues and challenges. We describe an approach that uses frequent pattern mining and social network techniques to discover different communities within the data warehouse. These communities include sets of tables frequently accessed together, sets of tables retrieved together most of the time and sets of attributes that mostly appear together in the queries. We concentrate on tables in the discussion; however, the model is general enough to discover other communities. We first build a frequent pattern mining model by considering each query as a transaction and the tables as items. Then, we mine closed frequent itemsets of tables; these itemsets include tables that are mostly accessed together and hence should be treated as one unit in storage and retrieval for better overall performance. We utilize social network construction and analysis to find maximum-sized sets of related tables; this is a more robust approach as opposed to a union of overlapping itemsets. We derive the Jaccard distance between the closed itemsets and construct the social network of tables by adding links that represent distance above a given threshold. The constructed network is analyzed to discover communities of tables that are mostly accessed together. The reported test results are promising and demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the developed approach.

Com o crescimento do volume de dados manipulado por aplicações de data warehousing, soluções centralizadas tornam-se muito custosas e enfrentam dificuldades para tratar a escalabilidade do volume de dados. Nesse sentido, existe a necessidade tanto de se armazenar grandes volumes de dados quanto de se realizar consultas analíticas (ou seja, consultas OLAP) sobre esses dados volumosos de forma eficiente. Isso pode ser facilitado por cenários caracterizados pelo uso de bancos de dados NoSQL gerenciados em ambientes paralelos e distribuídos. Dentre os desafios relacionados a esses cenários, destaca-se a necessidade de se promover uma análise de desempenho de aplicações de data warehousing que armazenam os dados do data warehouse (DW) em bancos de dados NoSQL orientados a colunas. A análise experimental e padronizada de diferentes sistemas é realizada por meio de ferramentas denominadas benchmarks. Entretanto, benchmarks para DW foram desenvolvidos majoritariamente para bancos de dados relacionais e ambientes centralizados. Nesta pesquisa de mestrado são investigadas formas de se estender o Star Schema Benchmark (SSB), um benchmark de DW centralizado, para o banco de dados NoSQL distribuído e orientado a colunas HBase. São realizadas propostas e análises principalmente baseadas em testes de desempenho experimentais considerando cada uma das quatro etapas de um benchmark, ou seja, esquema e carga de trabalho, geração de dados, parâmetros e métricas, e validação. Os principais resultados obtidos pelo desenvolvimento do trabalho são: (i) proposta do esquema FactDate, o qual otimiza consultas que acessam poucas dimensões do DW; (ii) investigação da aplicabilidade de diferentes esquemas a cenários empresariais distintos; (iii) proposta de duas consultas adicionais à carga de trabalho do SSB; (iv) análise da distribuição dos dados gerados pelo SSB, verificando se os dados agregados pelas consultas OLAP estão balanceados entre os nós de um cluster; (v) investigação da influência de três importantes parâmetros do framework Hadoop MapReduce no processamento de consultas OLAP; (vi) avaliação da relação entre o desempenho de consultas OLAP e a quantidade de nós que compõem um cluster; e (vii) proposta do uso de visões materializadas hierárquicas, por meio do framework Spark, para otimizar o desempenho no processamento de consultas OLAP consecutivas que requerem a análise de dados em níveis progressivamente mais ou menos detalhados. Os resultados obtidos representam descobertas importantes que visam possibilitar a proposta futura de um benchmark para DWs armazenados em bancos de dados NoSQL dentro de ambientes paralelos e distribuídos. / Due to the explosive increase in data volume, centralized data warehousing applications become very costly and are facing several problems to deal with data scalability. This is related to the fact that these applications need to store huge volumes of data and to perform analytical queries (i.e., OLAP queries) against these voluminous data efficiently. One solution is to employ scenarios characterized by the use of NoSQL databases managed in parallel and distributed environments. Among the challenges related to these scenarios, there is a need to investigate the performance of data warehousing applications that store the data warehouse (DW) in column-oriented NoSQL databases. In this context, benchmarks are widely used to perform standard and experimental analysis of distinct systems. However, most of the benchmarks for DW focus on relational database systems and centralized environments. In this masters research, we investigate how to extend the Star Schema Benchmark (SSB), which was proposed for centralized DWs, to the distributed and column-oriented NoSQL database HBase. We introduce proposals and analysis mainly based on experimental performance tests considering each one of the four steps of a benchmark, i.e. schema and workload, data generation, parameters and metrics, and validation. The main results described in this masters research are described as follows: (i) proposal of the FactDate schema, which optimizes queries that access few dimensions of the DW; (ii) investigation of the applicability of different schemas for different business scenarios; (iii) proposal of two additional queries to the SSB workload; (iv) analysis of the data distribution generated by the SSB, verifying if the data aggregated by OLAP queries are balanced between the nodes of a cluster; (v) investigation of the influence caused by three important parameters of the Hadoop MapReduce framework in the OLAP query processing; (vi) evaluation of the relationship between the OLAP query performance and the number of nodes of a cluster; and (vii) employment of hierarchical materialized views using the Spark framework to optimize the processing performance of consecutive OLAP queries that require progressively more or less aggregated data. These results represent important findings that enable the future proposal of a benchmark for DWs stored in NoSQL databases and managed in parallel and distributed environments.

Aliada à crescente evolução da computação, dois fatores também começaram a receber maior atenção: o conhecimento e a informação. Esta evolução faz com que a informação possa estar disponibilizada a todos, contribuindo de certa forma, para o auxílio na aquisição de conhecimento e visando posterior tomada de decisão, observa-se também a grande importância dos bancos de dados. Este trabalho apresenta a proposta de um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão (SAD), utilizando-se de avançadas metodologias de armazenamento de dados em poderosos bancos de dados (Data Warehouse), para o controle e gerenciamento agrícola em usinas de açúcar e álcool. Foi desenvolvido um ambiente estruturado, extensível, projetado para a análise de dados não voláteis, logicamente e fisicamente transformados, provenientes de diversas aplicações, alinhados com a estrutura da empresa, atualizados e mantidos por um longo período de tempo, referidos em termos utilizados no negócio e sumarizados para análise rápida. Com a implantação destas novas tecnologias, a empresa estará apta a obter informações do nível gerencial e estratégico para ajudar nos seus processos de tomada de decisão, o que antes não era possível com os atuais sistemas de informação existentes na empresa. / Information and knowledge are receiving more attention with the growing of computing evolution. This evolution provides available information to everybody contributing for the acquisition of knowledge, transforming the database in an important key of this evolution process. This work presents a research about the use of technologies of systems of support to the decision by using methodologies of data storage in powerful data bases (Data Warehouse) for the control and management agricultural in sugar and ethanol plants. An environment was developed for the analysis of non-volatile data, extensible, projected and physically transformed, proceeding from diverse applications, aligned with the structure of the company, updated and kept for a long period of time, related in business\' terms and grouped for fast analysis. With the implantation of these new technologies, the company will be able to obtain information of the managerial and strategic level to help on its decision making processes, what was not possible before with the current systems of information existent at the company.

The era of Big Data is here: the combination of unprecedented amounts of data collected every day with the promotion of open source solutions for massively parallel processing has shifted the industry in the direction of data-driven solutions. From recommendation systems that help you find your next significant one to the dawn of self-driving cars, Cloud Computing has enabled companies of all sizes and areas to achieve their full potential with minimal overhead. In particular, the use of these technologies for Data Warehousing applications has decreased costs greatly and provided remarkable scalability, empowering business-oriented applications such as Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). One of the most essential primitives in Data Warehouses are the Star Joins, i.e. joins of a central table with satellite dimensions. As the volume of the database scales, Star Joins become unpractical and may seriously limit applications. In this thesis, we proposed specialized solutions to optimize the processing of Star Joins. To achieve this, we used the Hadoop software family on a cluster of 21 nodes. We showed that the primary bottleneck in the computation of Star Joins on Hadoop lies in the excessive disk spill and overhead due to network communication. To mitigate these negative effects, we proposed two solutions based on a combination of the Spark framework with either Bloom filters or the Broadcast technique. This reduced the computation time by at least 38%. Furthermore, we showed that the use of full scan may significantly hinder the performance of queries with low selectivity. Thus, we proposed a distributed Bitmap Join Index that can be processed as a secondary index with loose-binding and can be used with random access in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). We also implemented three versions (one in MapReduce and two in Spark) of our processing algorithm that uses the distributed index, which reduced the total computation time up to 88% for Star Joins with low selectivity from the Star Schema Benchmark (SSB). Because, ideally, the system should be able to perform both random access and full scan, our solution was designed to rely on a two-layer architecture that is framework-agnostic and enables the use of a query optimizer to select which approaches should be used as a function of the query. Due to the ubiquity of joins as primitive queries, our solutions are likely to fit a broad range of applications. Our contributions not only leverage the strengths of massively parallel frameworks but also exploit more efficient access methods to provide scalable and robust solutions to Star Joins with a significant drop in total computation time. / A era do Big Data chegou: a combinação entre o volume dados coletados diarimente com o surgimento de soluções de código aberto para o processamento massivo de dados mudou para sempre a indústria. De sistemas de recomendação que assistem às pessoas a encontrarem seus pares românticos à criação de carros auto-dirigidos, a Computação em Nuvem permitiu que empresas de todos os tamanhos e áreas alcançassem o seu pleno potencial com custos reduzidos. Em particular, o uso dessas tecnologias em aplicações de Data Warehousing reduziu custos e proporcionou alta escalabilidade para aplicações orientadas a negócios, como em processamento on-line analítico (Online Analytical Processing- OLAP). Junções Estrelas são das primitivas mais essenciais em Data Warehouses, ou seja, consultas que realizam a junções de tabelas de fato com tabelas de dimensões. Conforme o volume de dados aumenta, Junções Estrela tornam-se custosas e podem limitar o desempenho das aplicações. Nesta tese são propostas soluções especializadas para otimizar o processamento de Junções Estrela. Para isso, utilizamos a família de software Hadoop em um cluster de 21 nós. Nós mostramos que o gargalo primário na computação de Junções Estrelas no Hadoop reside no excesso de operações escrita do disco (disk spill) e na sobrecarga da rede devido a comunicação excessiva entre os nós. Para reduzir estes efeitos negativos, são propostas duas soluções em Spark baseadas nas técnicas Bloom filters ou Broadcast, reduzindo o tempo total de computação em pelo menos 38%. Além disso, mostramos que a realização de uma leitura completa das tables (full table scan) pode prejudicar significativamente o desempenho de consultas com baixa seletividade. Assim, nós propomos um Índice Bitmap de Junção distribuído que é implementado como um índice secundário que pode ser combinado com acesso aleatório no Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Nós implementamos três versões (uma em MapReduce e duas em Spark) do nosso algoritmo de processamento baseado nesse índice distribuído, os quais reduziram o tempo de computação em até 77% para Junções Estrelas de baixa seletividade do Star Schema Benchmark (SSB). Como idealmente o sistema deve ser capaz de executar tanto acesso aleatório quanto full scan, nós também propusemos uma arquitetura genérica que permite a inserção de um otimizador de consultas capaz de selecionar quais abordagens devem ser usadas dependendo da consulta. Devido ao fato de consultas de junção serem frequentes, nossas soluções são pertinentes a uma ampla gama de aplicações. A contribuições desta tese não só fortalecem o uso de frameworks de processamento de código aberto, como também exploram métodos mais eficientes de acesso aos dados para promover uma melhora significativa no desempenho Junções Estrela.

[pt] Desde meados da década de 90, muitas empresas implementaram Sistemas Integrados de Gestão Empresarial com o objetivo de integrar seus processos de negócio, obter uma gestão melhor de suas operações e da informação que é originada em cada uma das áreas da empresa. Na Petrobras, este projeto foi iniciado em 2000 e em outubro de 2004, após algumas implantações em outras empresas do grupo, foi implantado o SAP R/3 na holding. Em paralelo, foi implantado também um ambiente de informações gerenciais para suportar o processo de gestão da empresa, com o objetivo de disponibilizar informações corporativas e com qualidade para os usuários. O presente estudo tem por objetivo avaliar a situação da qualidade das informações disponibilizadas neste ambiente, e foi escolhida a área de Materiais e Serviços para esta análise. Foram identificados, de acordo com o referencial teórico, critérios que orientaram esta avaliação e a partir destes critérios foi elaborado um questionário, que foi aplicado para cerca de 130 usuários. As respostas foram consolidadas e avaliadas estatisticamente onde foram identificados os percentuais de satisfação dos usuários com relação a cada critério avaliado. Em seguida, a luz do referencial teórico, os critérios foram grupados e foi feita uma avaliação geral de cada um dos grupamentos, identificando possíveis razões para os números encontrados, apresentando exemplos obtidos na pesquisa documental, e sugerindo ações de ajuste ou melhoria. Finalizando foram listados em ordem decrescente, os maiores problemas encontrados, bem como suas ações de correção, que servirão na prática, para orientação dos ajustes que precisam ser feitos no ambiente analítico da Petrobras. / [en] Since the mid of 90´s, many companies had implemented Entreprise Informations Systems Management with the objective to integrate their business processes, obtaining a better control of the information generated in each of the company areas. In Petrobras, this project was initiated in the year 2000. In October, 2004, following the implementation in some units of the corporation, the system was implemented in the holding company. In parallel, it was also installed an environment (another system) to support the management processes of the company. Its purpose is to provide corporate information to help in the decision process. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the quality of the information available in the information environment. For this analysis it was choosen the area of Materials and Services. In compliance with the theoretical referential, some criteria were established as guidelines, to permit the elaboration of a questionnaire which was submitted to 130 users. The answers were consolidated and evaluated with a statistical support that produced the percentage on the levels of user´s satisfaction related to each criteria. After that, in the light of the theoretical reference, the criteria were grouped and a general evaluation of each one of the groups was proceeded. Then, for each group, possible reasons for numbers found were identified, some examples gotten in the documentary research were presented and actions of adjustment or improvement were suggested. Finally, the criterias were listed in descending order, and the major problems were found. A list of recommendations were suggested, and that will help, as an orientation for the adjustments that had to be made in Petrobras analytical environment.