Data Warehouse concept need and history

Introduction and Need

Today in the age of information technology data is an important entity. Today many companies face the problem related to data like

o   Data is scattered over the network

o   Many versions, subtle differences

o   Need an expert to get the data

o   Available data poorly documented

o   Data found can’t be used

§  Results are unexpected

§  Data needs to be transformed from one form to other

So data warehouse concept was introduced to tackle such problems.

Definitions

A warehouse is a subject oriented, integrated, time variant and non volatile collection of data in support of management’s decision making process.

Data warehouse is defined as a single, complete and consistent store of data obtained from a variety of different sources made available to end users in what they can understand and use in a business context.

Data Warehouse is combining data from multiple sources in one comprehensive database. It is a process of transforming data into information and making it available to users in a timely enough manner to make a difference.

Data warehouse is a technique for assembling and managing data from various sources for the purpose of answering business questions thus making decisions that were not previous possible.

It is a decision support database maintained separately from the organization’s operational database.

Characteristics

Data warehouse has following characteristics

• Subject oriented – Data that gives information about a particular subject instead of about the company’s ongoing operations.

• Integrated – Data that is gathered into data warehouse from a variety of sources and merged into a coherent whole.

• Time variant – All data in data warehouse is identified with a particular time period.

• Non volatile – Data is stable in data warehouse. More data is added but data is never removed.

History

The Key developments in early years of data warehousing are

• 1960 – General Mills and Datrmouth College in joint research project.
• 1970 – ACNielson and IRI provide dimensional data marts for retail sales.
• 1983 – Teradata introduces a database management sys specifically designed for decision support .
• 1988 – Barry Devlin & Paul murphy published the article An architecture for a business & info. Sys  In IBM systems Journal where they introduced the term “Business data warehouse”
• 1990 – Red Brick systems introduces Red Brick Warehouse a database mang sys. for data warehousing.
• 1991 – Prism solutions intorduced Prism Warehouse manager s/w for developing a warehouse.
• 1995 – The data warehousing institute that promotes data warehousing is founded
• 1996 – Ralph kimball publishes the book The Data Warehouse Toolkit
• 1997 – Oracle 8 with support for star queries is released.

Uses

• Analyse trends – Data warehouse is commonly used by the companies to analyse trends over time.
• View operations – Companies can use the data warehouse to view day to day operations.
• Planning – Its main purpose however is to facilitate the strategic planning resulting from long term data overviews.
• Other uses – The overview can be used to
• Build the business model,
• Make forecasts,
• Write reports etc.
• Current data – Data warehouse is used to make up to date database.

Autonomic Systems

Autonomic computer systems are the systems capable of self-management. They overcome the rapidly growing complexity of computing systems management and reduce the barrier that complexity poses to further growth.

            In other words, autonomic computing refers to the self-managing characteristics of distributed computing resources, adapting to unpredictable changes whilst hiding intrinsic complexity to operators and users. 

            It is inspired by the autonomic nervous system of the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious intervention.

Features

An autonomic system can have following features 

•   Make decisions on its own,
•   Will constantly check and optimize its status
•   Automatically adapt itself to changing conditions. 

The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. An autonomic computing framework can be build by Autonomic Components interacting with each other.

An Autonomic Components can be modeled with 

•   Sensors (for self-monitoring)
•   Effectors (for self-adjustment)
•   Knowledge and adapter (for exploiting policies based on self- and environment awareness).

 

Benefits of autonomic systems

•   They enable modern, networked computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. 

•   Here human operator takes on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the self-management process. For this process.

•   IBM has defined the following four functional areas for autonomic systems

 

1.      Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components;

2.      Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults;

3.      Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements;

4.      Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks.

Personal broadcasting

Personal broadcasting is a term for participatory journalism that focuses on television webcasting over the internet and mobile internet.  

The Internet has made it possible for almost anyone to create their own web-based, online radio station. For a small investment, it is now possible to stream music or talk show to a global audience. For educational organizations and other qualifying groups, many broadcasting options are available like

•   Low Power FM Broadcasts
•   Create Your Own Radio Show
•   Create Internet Radio

Benefits of personal broadcasting 

•  Privacy and Security: Users invite subscribers, such as family and friends, who are the only people who can access a channel’s password-protected media. 

• Convenience for Users: After a simple download and installation, users simply save files to a folder associated with the channel, and links are automatically fed to the subscriber. Any time a file is saved or edited, the channel’s links are automatically updated. Any type of file can be securely shared in a channel, including online media such as YouTube videos and online music.

• Convenience for Subscribers: Subscribers do not have to seek out their friend or family members’ updates on multiple Web sites. Instead, it automatically comes to them in convenient, well-visited places: a personalized homepage such as My Yahoo or My AOL, a social networking site, in Microsoft Vista’s Sidebar, or aWeb browser bookmark. Anyone with Internet access can receive Private Netcasting channels, on their computer or mobile device. The subscriber does not need to install anything.

• Organization: Users can easily arrange the sequence of their shared media to tell a story or to have the most recent appear noticeably on top. They can create separate channels by audience, such as a Joke Channel for friends, a Hobby Channel for other enthusiasts and a Family Channel for the extended family.

• Unlimited Sharing: Consumers can share an unlimited amount of personal media with their subscribers, overcoming the size limitations of alternative systems. Subscribers always will get the most popular and newest content “On Demand,” even if the user’s PC is turned off. 

• Feedback Mechanisms Consistent with Web 2.0: Each media item has its own discussion thread enabling focused communication between the user and all channel subscribers. Users can review a channel’s “Ratings” which tracks how many times a media item has been viewed or commented upon, to help them learn which are most popular for future personal broadcasts.

Example of Personal broadcasting media - 

EnjoyMyMedia is the world’s first personal broadcasting service
Its features are

•  Its free
•  It Enables consumers to conveniently and securely broadcast personal multimedia—photos, videos, audio, documents or any other file—over the Internet in private, secure channels.
•  Private Netcasting turns the act of saving a file into a way to stay connected, and is the safest and simplest way to keep friends and family updated.
•  Transforms PC folders into broadcast channels.
•  Save any file to a folder, and the files are automatically shared with invited family and friends, who do not need to install any software. 
• Subscribers access the passwordprotected channels throughMy Yahoo, iGoogle, My AOL, Microsoft Vista’s Sidebar, Facebook, current Internet browsers or any other RSS-compliant system. The digital media market has been focused on sharing with the world in a one-to-many model, including distributing to a consumer’s 1,000 “closest friends” on a social networking site, or video sharing.

Context aware environments

Introduction & Definition

Context awareness is a term from ubiquitous computing or as so-called pervasive computing which sought to deal with linking changes in the environment with computer systems, which are otherwise static. 

This term is usually applied to the business theory in relation with the business process management.

Basically context is the rules of inter-relationship of features in processing any entities. Context is supposed to be the combination of the four entities which are

• Location
• Identity
• Activity
• Time

Context aware devices are the devices which can both sense, and react based on their environment. Devices may have information about the circumstances under which they are able to operate and based on rules, or an intelligent stimulus, react accordingly. These devices try to make assumptions about the user's current situation. 

Context aware systems can

•          Perceive a situation i.e. acquisition of context.
•          Understand the context. i.e. matching sensory stimulus to a context.
•          Trigger actions i.e. behaviour based on the recognized context.

User’s activity and location are very crucial factors in context awareness. 

Applications of context aware devices 

•   Adapt interfaces
•   Tailor application-relevant data
•   Discover services
•   Make the user interaction implicit
•   Build smart environments.

Categories of context aware environments

• 1.      Human factors related context –
•       User information – user’s habits, emotional state etc.
•       User’s social environment - co-location of others, social interaction
•       User’s tasks - Spontaneous activity, engaged tasks.
• 2.      Physical environment context –
•       Location (absolute position, relative position, co-location,...),
•       Infrastructure (surrounding resources for computation, communication, task performance...),
•       Physical conditions (noise, light, pressure,...).

Educational gaming

                 Educational games are the innovative softwares built to teach the people concepts, subjects, events, culture as they play. There have been numerous educational games on various popular subjects which are very helpful in understanding a subject very quickly without much effort. Educational games have been most helpful in schools providing a fun medium of teaching.

There are various types of educational games

•          Board games
•          Card games
•          Video games

Board games

These types of games are played with the pieces that are placed on premarked board and they can be moved across or removed from it. The board games have the board marked according to need.

The usual theme of game is map of an area. And the pieces can be moved across the area with the roll of dice.

Example – Monopoly, chess.

Card games

These types of games are played using cards which are regular deck of 52 cards or according to the game. These games help in chain expanding, set matching, etc.

There are flash card games also which help in improving the memory by teaching the maths or other concepts.

Video games 

Video games have historically received more criticism than other forms of recreational learning because they are often perceived as or associated with issues such as mindless entertainment, enhanced social recluse, sexism and consumerism.

            Educational video games are considered a type of serious game, as these games have a strong purpose other than pure entertainment.

            Video games can aid the development of proficiency by allowing users to interact with objects and manipulate variables.

            An educational computer game can be defined as an electronic medium with all the characteristics of a gaming environment that have intended educational outcomes targeted at specific groups of learners.

Educational games also aid in educating students and adults about the finer details of different political systems.

            Children growing up today can benefit from educational video games because they are already exposed to a society that is increasingly dependent on digital technology.

            The medium of educational games provides an opportunity for teachers to introduce educational and playful elements into the learning environment.

            Computer games could become part of the school curriculum after researchers found they had significant educational value.

            Many games such as Sim City and Roller Coaster, Tycoon, where players create societies or build theme parks, developed children's strategic thinking and planning skills.

             Adult education games are aimed at higher levels of education being targeted at young-adults and up. Like children's games, they can be in the form of mini-games, adventure games, role-playing games and so on.

Children's games

•          Genomics Digital Lab
•          Gizmos & Gadgets
•          History of Biology game
•          Reader Rabbit
•          Urban Jungle
•          WolfQuest

Adult educational computer games

•          Democracy
•          Food Force
•          Global Conflict: Palestine
•          Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
•          Miniconomy

Ubiquitous Computing

Introduction & Definition

Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.

Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. 

In Ubiquitous computing human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. In the course of ordinary activities, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems simultaneously, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so.

History of research

            Mark Weiser introduced the phrase ‘ubiquitous computing’ in 1988 during his tenure as chief technologist of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He wrote some early papers on the subject to define and give more information on the subject with the inportant concerns regarding the subject.

            Some more contribution to the field was also given by MIT at media labs in form of consortium by Hiroshi Ishii. Also Georgia Tech's College of Computing, NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, UC Irvine's Department of Informatics, Microsoft Research, Intel Research and Equator, Ajou University UCRi & CUS were some of the contributions.

Concept of ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing presents challenges across computer science: in systems design and engineering, in systems modeling, and in user interface design. Contemporary human-computer interaction models, whether command-line, menu-driven, or GUI-based, are inappropriate for the ubiquitous case, natural interaction paradigm will be needed for interaction.

Three forms of ubiquitous system devices are

1.      Dust

2.      Skin

3.      Clay

1. Dust – Dust are tiny devices without visual display. They are autonomous sensing and communication devices in cubic millimetre.

E.g.- Sensors for temperature, humidity, light, motion, in product monitoring, car monitoring, etc.

2. Skin – Skin are the fabrics made of light emitting and conductive polymers. They can be grouped to form flexible display surfaces like on cloths.

E.g.- OLED displays.

3. Clay – Ensembles of “Dust” systems formed into arbitrary 3D shapes resembling many physical objects. 

Advantages

• Facilitating human-computer interaction
• Advancement from the desktop paradigm
• Small, inexpensive, robust networked processing devices
• Integrated into everyday objects and activities
• Context awareness.

Applications

1. Natalie Jeremijenko's "Live Wire" - For indication of traffic.
2. Ambient Devices' orb - For receiving data from a wireless network and report current events, such as stock prices and the weather 

Location based services

Location based services definition

Today in the age of telecommunication the mobile network operators innovate ways to create differentiation. One such innovation is delivering services which are highly personalized. The services are mostly location based. These are also called as Location based services.

So the Location based services are the services which are of entertainment and information nature which can be accessible with the mobile devices through the mobile network using the geographical position of mobile device.

Location is a strategic asset of wireless carriers. Leveraging this information enables the user to experience value-added services and the mobile network operator to offer differentiation and incremental profitability

Technology used

Location based services use the following technologies

•           Global positioning systems. (GPS) – this is used for positioning the user globally with the help of satellites.

•          Network based positioning systems – for triangulation of the signal from cell sites serving a mobile phone.

•          Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – It  provide the tools to provision and administer base map data such as manmade structures (streets, buildings) and terrain (mountains, rivers). GIS is also used to manage point-of-interest data such as location of gas stations, restaurants etc. Finally, GIS information also includes information about the radio frequency characteristics of the mobile network. This allows the system to determine the serving cell site of the user.

•          Location Management Function - The location management function acts as a gateway and mediator between positioning equipment and LBS infrastructure. location management function processes positioning and GIS data on behalf of LBS applications.

Mobile locating methods

There are following locating methods

•          Control plane locating – here the control plane service provider gets location based on radio signal delay of the closest cell phone tower. But this method is time consuming as it uses voice controlled channel.

•          GSM localization – here the mobile is located in relation with the cell site. This method rely on various means of multilateration of the signal from cell sites serving the mobile phone.

Location based services applications

·     Requesting the business service like ATM

·         Navigation of drivers

·         Advertising

·         Receiving alerts

·         Tracking.

Privacy issues – 

With the network so wide spread and the messaging ability combined with the locating power the privacy issues are of high concern. IT acts is enforced in many countries like US and Europe which prohibits the spammers also other people using the network for their own benefit.