A linear relational DEA model to evaluate two-stage processes with shared inputs

Two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency models identify the efficient frontier of a two-stage production process. In some two-stage processes, the inputs to the first stage are shared by the second stage, known as shared inputs. This paper proposes a new relational linear DEA model for dealing with measuring the efficiency score of two-stage processes with shared inputs under constant returns-to-scale assumption. Two case studies of banking industry and university operations are taken as two examples to illustrate the potential applications of the proposed approach.

A software tool that generates symbolic model verifier (SMV) input language from a predicate transition net

The purpose of this research was to apply model checking by using a symbolic model checker on Predicate Transition Nets (PrT Nets). A PrT Net is a formal model of information flow which allows system properties to be modeled and analyzed. The aim of this thesis was to use the modeling and analysis power of PrT nets to provide a mechanism for the system model to be verified. Symbolic Model Verifier (SMV) was the model checker chosen in this thesis, and in order to verify the PrT net model of a system, it was translated to SMV input language. A software tool was implemented which translates the PrT Net into SMV language, hence enabling the process of model checking. The system includes two parts: the PrT net editor where the representation of a system can be edited, and the translator which converts the PrT net into an SMV program.

Counseling Self-Efficacy and the Relational Efficacy Model

Relation-inferred self-efficacy (RISE), a relatively new concept, is defined as a target individual’s beliefs about how an observer, often a relationship partner, perceives the target’s ability to perform certain actions successfully. Along with self-efficacy (i.e., one’s beliefs about his or her own ability) and other-efficacy (i.e., one’s beliefs about his or her partner’s ability), RISE makes up a three part system of interrelated efficacy beliefs known as the relational efficacy model (Lent & Lopez, 2002). Previous research has shown this model to be helpful in understanding how relational dyads, including coach-athlete, advisor-advisee, and romantic partners, contribute to the development of self-efficacy beliefs. The clinical supervision dyad (i.e., supervisor-supervisee), is another context in which relational efficacy beliefs may play an important role. This study investigated the relationship between counseling self-efficacy, RISE, and other-efficacy within the context of clinical supervision. Specifically, it examined whether supervisee perceptions about how their supervisor sees their counseling ability (RISE) related to how supervisees see their own counseling ability (counseling self-efficacy), and what moderates this relationship. The study also sought to discover the degree to which RISE mediated the relationship between supervisor working alliance and counseling self-efficacy. Data were collected from 240 graduate students who were currently enrolled in counseling related fields, working with at least one client, and receiving regular supervision. Results demonstrated that years of experience and RISE predicted counseling self-efficacy and that the relationship between RISE and counseling self-efficacy was, as expected, moderated by other-efficacy. Contrary to expectations, however, counseling experience and level of client difficulty did not moderate the relationship between RISE and counseling self-efficacy. These findings suggest that the relationship between RISE and counseling self-efficacy was stronger when supervisees saw their supervisors as capable therapists. Furthermore, RISE was found to fully mediate the relationship between supervisor working alliance and counseling self-efficacy. Future research directions and implications for training and supervision are discussed.

Análisis del significado de conflicto en un grupo de jóvenes de la Universidad del Rosario desde el Modelo Relacional Simbólico

Esta investigación se propuso definir y reflexionar acerca de las concepciones de conflicto, reportadas por un grupo de jóvenes de la Universidad del Rosario, identificando si se consideraba el vínculo y las categorías simbólicas del Modelo Relacional Simbólico: confianza, justicia y esperanza. Se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas, que se analizaron en su contenido. Se logró establecer que la concepción predominante acerca del conflicto fue la de algo que no debe suceder o debe evitarse, entendido en general como una confrontación o un choque. Ninguno consideró el vínculo como un elemento fundamental o vital del conflicto. Se pudo deducir que el conflicto se da en las relaciones entre personas, pero la importancia del vínculo en términos de encuentro de generaciones, estirpes y géneros, como un espacio de confianza, esperanza y justicia en las que se entregan dones y se tienen deudas; no está presente de ninguna forma en las definiciones de conflicto. Estos aspectos muestran la necesidad de acoger los fundamentos vinculares y simbólicos del modelo, como riquezas y fortalezas que necesitan ser introducidas en la cotidianidad de la población Colombiana, en la construcción de una cultura de la paz. Esto, a través de la educación a todo nivel y en particular a corto plazo; con los estudiantes de primeros semestres universitarios, por el papel que como profesionales tendrán de líderes sociales, empresariales, espirituales, políticos y laborales; y porque aún se encuentran en una etapa propicia para la formación integral que estimule el fortalecimiento del vínculo como un eje vital de las relaciones y en el que sus categorías simbólicas (esperanza, justicia y confianza) se vuelvan parte conciente en las relaciones personales, familiares y sociales. Igualmente se hace indispensable transformar la visión de conflicto; de forma que deje de ser negativo, no deseable y se convierta en parte de la vida y en una oportunidad para crecer, conocer, generar y regenerar vínculos. Finalmente se propone la creación de una línea de investigación que extienda el estudio a otras poblaciones de jóvenes de distinto nivel socioeconómico y cultural, incluidos los afectados directa e indirectamente por la violencia en Colombia.

Caracterización de los vínculos familiares en jóvenes seminaristas castrenses

La presente investigación corresponde al trabajo final de Maestría en Mediación Familiar y Comunitaria llevada a cabo por la Universidad del Rosario y la Universidad Católica de Milán. La investigación tuvo como objetivo caracterizar los vínculos familiares de los jóvenes seminaristas castrenses desde el Modelo Relacional Simbólico propuesto por la Universidad Católica de Milán. La investigación de tipo exploratorio se realizó con los jóvenes seminaristas castrenses tomando como muestra a cuatro seminaristas. Para lograr el objetivo, se determinó la estructura de la familia a través de la aplicación del genograma, se describieron los eventos más significativos en la historia familiar y se identificaron los vínculos familiares más relevantes a través de la aplicación de una entrevista. Finalmente se encontró la urgente necesidad del Seminario Mayor Castrense de abordar con mayor atención, la dimensión familiar de los seminaristas en todas las etapas de su proceso formativo, para que así el futuro sacerdote pueda lograr con mayores herramientas reconocer la importancia de su propia dimensión familiar y sus efectos en la comprensión y atención de los conflictos de otros.

Análisis de las etapas del proceso de mediación familiar desde el Modelo Relacional Simbólico, en una intervención a una pareja en situación de separación de la Localidad de Puente Aranda. Bogotá D.C. 2008

La presente investigación se realizó con el objetivo de describir y analizar una mediación familiar hecha con la metodología del modelo relacional simbólico, por dos alumnos de la maestría en mediación familiar y comunitaria, a una pareja en situación de separación. Para ello se construyó un protocolo de acuerdo al modelo relacional simbólico, para la selección de las parejas. Por medio de la metodología determinada por la investigación cualitativa y específicamente el estudio de caso, los investigadores hicieron la recolección de la información, teniendo como guía los conceptos que se trabajaron en la mediación familiar, que corresponden a, los géneros, el relanzamiento de los vínculos, las generaciones y las estirpes. Una vez seleccionada la pareja se realizó la mediación familiar de acuerdo a las etapas y metodología planteada por el modelo, haciendo un registro pormenorizado de cada sesión. Finalizada la mediación familiar los investigadores realizaron la descripción y el análisis de lo ocurrido, encontrando como las varias sesiones y los objetivos de las mismas benefician a los padres en el transito de su separación, potenciando su rol como padres y relanzando los vínculos que los unen. El cumplimiento de las etapas fue adecuado, sin embargo en el manejo de la técnica los mediadores familiares tuvieron imprecisiones que los alejaron en algunos momentos del modelo relacional simbólico, debido a la falta de experticia frente a la aplicación de la mediación familiar. Los investigadores presentan recomendaciones para la formación y el entrenamiento de mediadores familiares de acuerdo al modelo relacional simbólico.

Improving reporting management with relational database management system

Data management consists of collecting, storing, and processing the data into the format which provides value-adding information for decision-making process. The development of data management has enabled of designing increasingly effective database management systems to support business needs. Therefore as well as advanced systems are designed for reporting purposes, also operational systems allow reporting and data analyzing. The used research method in the theory part is qualitative research and the research type in the empirical part is case study. Objective of this paper is to examine database management system requirements from reporting managements and data managements perspectives. In the theory part these requirements are identified and the appropriateness of the relational data model is evaluated. In addition key performance indicators applied to the operational monitoring of production are studied. The study has revealed that the appropriate operational key performance indicators of production takes into account time, quality, flexibility and cost aspects. Especially manufacturing efficiency has been highlighted. In this paper, reporting management is defined as a continuous monitoring of given performance measures. According to the literature review, the data management tool should cover performance, usability, reliability, scalability, and data privacy aspects in order to fulfill reporting managements demands. A framework is created for the system development phase based on requirements, and is used in the empirical part of the thesis where such a system is designed and created for reporting management purposes for a company which operates in the manufacturing industry. Relational data modeling and database architectures are utilized when the system is built for relational database platform.

Instrumental Fado: a generative interactive system

Fado was listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011. This dissertation describes a theoretical model, as well as an automatic system, able to generate instrumental music based on the musics and vocal sounds typically associated with fado’s practice. A description of the phenomenon of fado, its musics and vocal sounds, based on ethnographic, historical sources and empirical data is presented. The data includes the creation of a digital corpus, of musical transcriptions, identified as fado, and statistical analysis via music information retrieval techniques. The second part consists in the formulation of a theory and the coding of a symbolic model, as a proof of concept, for the automatic generation of instrumental music based on the one in the corpus.

Représentation de trajectoires spatiotemporelles dans un système d’information géographique : le cas des activités d’observation de mammifères marins dans le Parc marin du Saguenay – Saint-Laurent

Parc marin du Saguenay - Saint-Laurent, Groupe de recherche et d'éducation sur les mammifères marins, GREMM, excursions aux baleines, bélugas, Tadoussac, règlementation, ArcCatalog, ArcMap.

Interface issues in the ESCHER visual database editor

Presentation at the 1997 Dagstuhl Seminar "Evaluation of Multimedia Information Retrieval", Norbert Fuhr, Keith van Rijsbergen, Alan F. Smeaton (eds.), Dagstuhl Seminar Report 175, 14.04. - 18.04.97 (9716). - Abstract: This presentation will introduce ESCHER, a database editor which supports visualization in non-standard applications in engineering, science, tourism and the entertainment industry. It was originally based on the extended nested relational data model and is currently extended to include object-relational properties like inheritance, object types, integrity constraints and methods. It serves as a research platform into areas such as multimedia and visual information systems, QBE-like queries, computer-supported concurrent work (CSCW) and novel storage techniques. In its role as a Visual Information System, a database editor must support browsing and navigation. ESCHER provides this access to data by means of so called fingers. They generalize the cursor paradigm in graphical and text editors. On the graphical display, a finger is reflected by a colored area which corresponds to the object a finger is currently pointing at. In a table more than one finger may point to objects, one of which is the active finger and is used for navigating through the table. The talk will mostly concentrate on giving examples for this type of navigation and will discuss some of the architectural needs for fast object traversal and display. ESCHER is available as public domain software from our ftp site in Kassel. The portable C source can be easily compiled for any machine running UNIX and OSF/Motif, in particular our working environments IBM RS/6000 and Intel-based LINUX systems. A porting to Tcl/Tk is under way.

Transactional failure recovery for a distributed key-value store

With the advent of cloud computing, many applications have embraced the ensuing paradigm shift towards modern distributed key-value data stores, like HBase, in order to benefit from the elastic scalability on offer. However, many applications still hesitate to make the leap from the traditional relational database model simply because they cannot compromise on the standard transactional guarantees of atomicity, isolation, and durability. To get the best of both worlds, one option is to integrate an independent transaction management component with a distributed key-value store. In this paper, we discuss the implications of this approach for durability. In particular, if the transaction manager provides durability (e.g., through logging), then we can relax durability constraints in the key-value store. However, if a component fails (e.g., a client or a key-value server), then we need a coordinated recovery procedure to ensure that commits are persisted correctly. In our research, we integrate an independent transaction manager with HBase. Our main contribution is a failure recovery middleware for the integrated system, which tracks the progress of each commit as it is flushed down by the client and persisted within HBase, so that we can recover reliably from failures. During recovery, commits that were interrupted by the failure are replayed from the transaction management log. Importantly, the recovery process does not interrupt transaction processing on the available servers. Using a benchmark, we evaluate the impact of component failure, and subsequent recovery, on application performance.

Modelo de computación conexionista inspirado en las redes de procesadores evolutivos y su aprendizaje

La informática teórica es una disciplina básica ya que la mayoría de los avances en informática se sustentan en un sólido resultado de esa materia. En los últimos a~nos debido tanto al incremento de la potencia de los ordenadores, como a la cercanía del límite físico en la miniaturización de los componentes electrónicos, resurge el interés por modelos formales de computación alternativos a la arquitectura clásica de von Neumann. Muchos de estos modelos se inspiran en la forma en la que la naturaleza resuelve eficientemente problemas muy complejos. La mayoría son computacionalmente completos e intrínsecamente paralelos. Por este motivo se les está llegando a considerar como nuevos paradigmas de computación (computación natural). Se dispone, por tanto, de un abanico de arquitecturas abstractas tan potentes como los computadores convencionales y, a veces, más eficientes: alguna de ellas mejora el rendimiento, al menos temporal, de problemas NPcompletos proporcionando costes no exponenciales. La representación formal de las redes de procesadores evolutivos requiere de construcciones, tanto independientes, como dependientes del contexto, dicho de otro modo, en general una representación formal completa de un NEP implica restricciones, tanto sintácticas, como semánticas, es decir, que muchas representaciones aparentemente (sintácticamente) correctas de casos particulares de estos dispositivos no tendrían sentido porque podrían no cumplir otras restricciones semánticas. La aplicación de evolución gramatical semántica a los NEPs pasa por la elección de un subconjunto de ellos entre los que buscar los que solucionen un problema concreto. En este trabajo se ha realizado un estudio sobre un modelo inspirado en la biología celular denominado redes de procesadores evolutivos [55, 53], esto es, redes cuyos nodos son procesadores muy simples capaces de realizar únicamente un tipo de mutación puntual (inserción, borrado o sustitución de un símbolo). Estos nodos están asociados con un filtro que está definido por alguna condición de contexto aleatorio o de pertenencia. Las redes están formadas a lo sumo de seis nodos y, teniendo los filtros definidos por una pertenencia a lenguajes regulares, son capaces de generar todos los lenguajes enumerables recursivos independientemente del grafo subyacente. Este resultado no es sorprendente ya que semejantes resultados han sido documentados en la literatura. Si se consideran redes con nodos y filtros definidos por contextos aleatorios {que parecen estar más cerca a las implementaciones biológicas{ entonces se pueden generar lenguajes más complejos como los lenguajes no independientes del contexto. Sin embargo, estos mecanismos tan simples son capaces de resolver problemas complejos en tiempo polinomial. Se ha presentado una solución lineal para un problema NP-completo, el problema de los 3-colores. Como primer aporte significativo se ha propuesto una nueva dinámica de las redes de procesadores evolutivos con un comportamiento no determinista y masivamente paralelo [55], y por tanto todo el trabajo de investigación en el área de la redes de procesadores se puede trasladar a las redes masivamente paralelas. Por ejemplo, las redes masivamente paralelas se pueden modificar de acuerdo a determinadas reglas para mover los filtros hacia las conexiones. Cada conexión se ve como un canal bidireccional de manera que los filtros de entrada y salida coinciden. A pesar de esto, estas redes son computacionalmente completas. Se pueden también implementar otro tipo de reglas para extender este modelo computacional. Se reemplazan las mutaciones puntuales asociadas a cada nodo por la operación de splicing. Este nuevo tipo de procesador se denomina procesador splicing. Este modelo computacional de Red de procesadores con splicing ANSP es semejante en cierto modo a los sistemas distribuidos en tubos de ensayo basados en splicing. Además, se ha definido un nuevo modelo [56] {Redes de procesadores evolutivos con filtros en las conexiones{ , en el cual los procesadores tan solo tienen reglas y los filtros se han trasladado a las conexiones. Dicho modelo es equivalente, bajo determinadas circunstancias, a las redes de procesadores evolutivos clásicas. Sin dichas restricciones el modelo propuesto es un superconjunto de los NEPs clásicos. La principal ventaja de mover los filtros a las conexiones radica en la simplicidad de la modelización. Otras aportaciones de este trabajo ha sido el dise~no de un simulador en Java [54, 52] para las redes de procesadores evolutivos propuestas en esta Tesis. Sobre el término "procesador evolutivo" empleado en esta Tesis, el proceso computacional descrito aquí no es exactamente un proceso evolutivo en el sentido Darwiniano. Pero las operaciones de reescritura que se han considerado pueden interpretarse como mutaciones y los procesos de filtrado se podrían ver como procesos de selección. Además, este trabajo no abarca la posible implementación biológica de estas redes, a pesar de ser de gran importancia. A lo largo de esta tesis se ha tomado como definición de la medida de complejidad para los ANSP, una que denotaremos como tama~no (considerando tama~no como el número de nodos del grafo subyacente). Se ha mostrado que cualquier lenguaje enumerable recursivo L puede ser aceptado por un ANSP en el cual el número de procesadores está linealmente acotado por la cardinalidad del alfabeto de la cinta de una máquina de Turing que reconoce dicho lenguaje L. Siguiendo el concepto de ANSP universales introducido por Manea [65], se ha demostrado que un ANSP con una estructura de grafo fija puede aceptar cualquier lenguaje enumerable recursivo. Un ANSP se puede considerar como un ente capaz de resolver problemas, además de tener otra propiedad relevante desde el punto de vista práctico: Se puede definir un ANSP universal como una subred, donde solo una cantidad limitada de parámetros es dependiente del lenguaje. La anterior característica se puede interpretar como un método para resolver cualquier problema NP en tiempo polinomial empleando un ANSP de tama~no constante, concretamente treinta y uno. Esto significa que la solución de cualquier problema NP es uniforme en el sentido de que la red, exceptuando la subred universal, se puede ver como un programa; adaptándolo a la instancia del problema a resolver, se escogerín los filtros y las reglas que no pertenecen a la subred universal. Un problema interesante desde nuestro punto de vista es el que hace referencia a como elegir el tama~no optimo de esta red.---ABSTRACT---This thesis deals with the recent research works in the area of Natural Computing {bio-inspired models{, more precisely Networks of Evolutionary Processors first developed by Victor Mitrana and they are based on P Systems whose father is Georghe Paun. In these models, they are a set of processors connected in an underlying undirected graph, such processors have an object multiset (strings) and a set of rules, named evolution rules, that transform objects inside processors[55, 53],. These objects can be sent/received using graph connections provided they accomplish constraints defined at input and output filters processors have. This symbolic model, non deterministic one (processors are not synchronized) and massive parallel one[55] (all rules can be applied in one computational step) has some important properties regarding solution of NP-problems in lineal time and of course, lineal resources. There are a great number of variants such as hybrid networks, splicing processors, etc. that provide the model a computational power equivalent to Turing machines. The origin of networks of evolutionary processors (NEP for short) is a basic architecture for parallel and distributed symbolic processing, related to the Connection Machine as well as the Logic Flow paradigm, which consists of several processors, each of them being placed in a node of a virtual complete graph, which are able to handle data associated with the respective node. All the nodes send simultaneously their data and the receiving nodes handle also simultaneously all the arriving messages, according to some strategies. In a series of papers one considers that each node may be viewed as a cell having genetic information encoded in DNA sequences which may evolve by local evolutionary events, that is point mutations. Each node is specialized just for one of these evolutionary operations. Furthermore, the data in each node is organized in the form of multisets of words (each word appears in an arbitrarily large number of copies), and all the copies are processed in parallel such that all the possible events that can take place do actually take place. Obviously, the computational process just described is not exactly an evolutionary process in the Darwinian sense. But the rewriting operations we have considered might be interpreted as mutations and the filtering process might be viewed as a selection process. Recombination is missing but it was asserted that evolutionary and functional relationships between genes can be captured by taking only local mutations into consideration. It is clear that filters associated with each node allow a strong control of the computation. Indeed, every node has an input and output filter; two nodes can exchange data if it passes the output filter of the sender and the input filter of the receiver. Moreover, if some data is sent out by some node and not able to enter any node, then it is lost. In this paper we simplify the ANSP model considered in by moving the filters from the nodes to the edges. Each edge is viewed as a two-way channel such that the input and output filters coincide. Clearly, the possibility of controlling the computation in such networks seems to be diminished. For instance, there is no possibility to loose data during the communication steps. In spite of this and of the fact that splicing is not a powerful operation (remember that splicing systems generates only regular languages) we prove here that these devices are computationally complete. As a consequence, we propose characterizations of two complexity classes, namely NP and PSPACE, in terms of accepting networks of restricted splicing processors with filtered connections. We proposed a uniform linear time solution to SAT based on ANSPFCs with linearly bounded resources. This solution should be understood correctly: we do not solve SAT in linear time and space. Since any word and auxiliary word appears in an arbitrarily large number of copies, one can generate in linear time, by parallelism and communication, an exponential number of words each of them having an exponential number of copies. However, this does not seem to be a major drawback since by PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) one can generate an exponential number of identical DNA molecules in a linear number of reactions. It is worth mentioning that the ANSPFC constructed above remains unchanged for any instance with the same number of variables. Therefore, the solution is uniform in the sense that the network, excepting the input and output nodes, may be viewed as a program according to the number of variables, we choose the filters, the splicing words and the rules, then we assign all possible values to the variables, and compute the formula.We proved that ANSP are computationally complete. Do the ANSPFC remain still computationally complete? If this is not the case, what other problems can be eficiently solved by these ANSPFCs? Moreover, the complexity class NP is exactly the class of all languages decided by ANSP in polynomial time. Can NP be characterized in a similar way with ANSPFCs?

Semantic wrapping for heterogeneous database management

Query processing is a commonly performed procedure and a vital and integral part of information processing. It is therefore important and necessary for information processing applications to continuously improve the accessibility of data sources as well as the ability to perform queries on those data sources. ^ It is well known that the relational database model and the Structured Query Language (SQL) are currently the most popular tools to implement and query databases. However, a certain level of expertise is needed to use SQL and to access relational databases. This study presents a semantic modeling approach that enables the average user to access and query existing relational databases without the concern of the database's structure or technicalities. This method includes an algorithm to represent relational database schemas in a more semantically rich way. The result of which is a semantic view of the relational database. The user performs queries using an adapted version of SQL, namely Semantic SQL. This method substantially reduces the size and complexity of queries. Additionally, it shortens the database application development cycle and improves maintenance and reliability by reducing the size of application programs. Furthermore, a Semantic Wrapper tool illustrating the semantic wrapping method is presented. ^ I further extend the use of this semantic wrapping method to heterogeneous database management. Relational, object-oriented databases and the Internet data sources are considered to be part of the heterogeneous database environment. Semantic schemas resulting from the algorithm presented in the method were employed to describe the structure of these data sources in a uniform way. Semantic SQL was utilized to query various data sources. As a result, this method provides users with the ability to access and perform queries on heterogeneous database systems in a more innate way. ^

Design principles of semantic binary database management systems

The Semantic Binary Data Model (SBM) is a viable alternative to the now-dominant relational data model. SBM would be especially advantageous for applications dealing with complex interrelated networks of objects provided that a robust efficient implementation can be achieved. This dissertation presents an implementation design method for SBM, algorithms, and their analytical and empirical evaluation. Our method allows building a robust and flexible database engine with a wider applicability range and improved performance. ^ Extensions to SBM are introduced and an implementation of these extensions is proposed that allows the database engine to efficiently support applications with a predefined set of queries. A New Record data structure is proposed. Trade-offs of employing Fact, Record and Bitmap Data structures for storing information in a semantic database are analyzed. ^ A clustering ID distribution algorithm and an efficient algorithm for object ID encoding are proposed. Mapping to an XML data model is analyzed and a new XML-based XSDL language facilitating interoperability of the system is defined. Solutions to issues associated with making the database engine multi-platform are presented. An improvement to the atomic update algorithm suitable for certain scenarios of database recovery is proposed. ^ Specific guidelines are devised for implementing a robust and well-performing database engine based on the extended Semantic Data Model. ^