Thursday, November 28, 2019

Designing a SemTech Proof-of-Concept Get Ready for Our Next Live Online Training

Designing a SemTech Proof-of-Concept: Get Ready for Our Next Live Online Training Next month marks the twelfth edition of our live online training Designing a Semantic Technology Proof-of-Concept.The journey, which started more than two years ago, has been long and bumpy. But it has enriched us in terms of identifying key needs for those looking to build a simple prototype in order to demonstrate the power of semantic technology, linked data and knowledge graphs. Some of that journey has been recorded in a previous blog post. What This Training IsSo, what is this live online training about, you might wonder? Lets start with a quick definition of the basics. Semantic technology is a broad technological term that covers specific technological approaches, principles and methodologies for managing data and knowledge. If we have to boil it down to the essentials it deals with the meaning rather than the structure of the data.The most important question our training tries to answer, both in theory and in practice, is how to approach a use case that is a good fit for semantic technology.Of course, this can mean a variety of things but we can start by thinking about:how to model the data to allow for its dynamic integration and reuse in the future;how to automate knowledge discovery;how to interlink data with other data sources (think Linked Open Data);what kind of auxiliary resources should we use, if at all;what kind of databases support and enable such complex data structures.The answers to these questions ar e presented in the course of week-long, self-paced sessions and a 4.5-hour live online practice session. The training is structured to follow the steps of building a simple prototype to test the feasibility of the technology with hands-on guidance by experienced instructors. After a mandatory introduction to the broader theory of semantic technology, participants are taken on a live journey where they:interact with some publicly available datasets and convert them from common tabular formats, such as CSV, to a semantic data representation using OntoRefine;model the data against some auxiliary resources such as ontologies;create some classes and properties and develop a data modeling scenario;interlink the data with other structured, semi-structured and/or textual sources;explore the interlinked datasets with SPARQL;interact with the semantic graph database from an external project.In the end, for those who have advanced in conceptualizing their prototype and would like to go beyond, there is an opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with the instructors. There, they can turn the acquired knowledge into a practical solution to their specific business case and strategize about its implementation. What This Training Is Not This training will not make a SPARQL master out of anyone. Ideally, the training is available to semantic technology beginners. This includes people who are not versed in its concepts and theory but have some basic understanding of the technology and are not afraid to dive directly into the practice. For a small part of the training, this means SPARQL queries.In order to feel comfortable and keep up with the training, participants need to have at least a basic understanding of the SPARQL query language and the underlying graph-based data model. Therefore, we provide a theoretical overview of both, including some practical exercises in SPARQL. Still, newcomers are advised to dedicate some time to any of the excellent SPARQL tutorials out there, some of which are referred to in the FAQ section of the training page.Another thing you should not expect from this training is presenting use cases from different domains. Instead, we work on one factitious use case and by thoroughly developin g it, we address fundamental questions about how to work on a typical semantic technology use case.Most important in terms of setting the expectations straight is that this training does not aim to immediately deliver a ready-to-pitch project. It will, however, teach participants how to approach a data challenge that might be a good candidate for semantic technology and will show them how to put together a simple prototype. This will lay solid foundations for the rest of the work necessary for implementing a full, working knowledge graph solution.Why You Should Give it a TryAs always, the most convincing is to see how the knowledge gained from our training can lead to a successful solution.One of the best success stories as a result of our training is Culture Creates. The aim of this project is to make cultural events findable for voice-powered and AI-powered search assistants. This becomes possible thanks to metadata enrichment, integrating and linking data from various data source s and, ultimately, dumping, structuring and querying that data with the help of a semantic graph database. All these steps and techniques are addressed in theory and in practice throughout the training.You should also keep in mind that more and more reports estimate that until 2022 the annual growth of the graph database market will be 100%. In addition, according to Gartner’s report, knowledge graphs are â€Å"ideally suited to storing data extracted from the analysis of unstructured sources†. So, if you’re dealing with massive amounts of data, especially unstructured and locked in silos, it is inevitable that you will encounter complex questions across that data. And very often it is not practical or even possible to answer them using SQL databases.This is where semantic technology and graph data stores come into the picture with their capability to efficiently model, explore and query data with complex interrelationships across data silos.Interested? Go to ou r training page where you can learn details  or contact the team for specific questions.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Definition and Examples of Crots in Composition

Definition and Examples of Crots in Composition In composition, a crot is a verbal bit or fragment used as an autonomous unit to create an effect of abruptness and rapid transition. Also called a blip. In  An Alternate Style: Options in Composition  (1980), Winston Weathers described crot  as an archaic word for bit or fragment. The term, he said, was revived by  American essayist and novelist  Tom Wolfe in his introduction to  The Secret Life of Our Times  (Doubleday, 1973). This is one of the few great ways that a fragment sentence can be used effectively - they are often used in poetry but can be used in other forms of literature as well. Examples and Observations in Literature New Years Eve on Broadway. 1931. The poets dream. The bootleggers heaven. The hat check girls julep of joy. Lights. Love. Laughter. Tickets. Taxis. Tears. Bad booze putting hics into hicks and bills into tills. Sadness. Gladness. Madness. New Years Eve on Broadway.(Mark Hellinger, New Years Eve on Broadway. Moon Over Broadway, 1931)The Crots of Mr. JingleAh! fine place, said the stranger, glorious pile - frowning walls - tottering arches - dark nooks - crumbling staircases - Old cathedral too - earthy smell - pilgrims feet worn away the old steps - little Saxon doors - confessionals like money-takers boxes at theatres - queer customers those monks - Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day - buff jerkins too - matchlocks - Sarcophagus - fine place - old legends too - strange stories: capital and the stranger continued to soliloquize until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High Street, where the coach stopped.(Alfred Jingle in Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, 1837) Coetzees CrotsWhat absorbs them is power and the stupor of power. Eating and talking, munching lives, belching. Slow, heavy-bellied talk. Sitting in a circle, debating ponderously, issuing degrees like hammer blows: death, death, death. Untroubled by the stench. Heavy eyelids, piggish eyes, shrewd with the shrewdness of generations of peasants. Plotting against each other too: slow peasant plots that take decades to mature. The new Africans, pot-bellied, heavy-jowled men on their stools of office: Cetshwayo, Dingane in white skins. Pressing downward: their power in their weight.(J.M. Coetzee, The Age of Iron, 1990)Crots in PoetryAh to be aliveon a mid-September mornfording a streambarefoot, pants rolled up,holding boots, pack on,sunshine, ice in the shallows,northern rockies.(Gary Snyder, For All)Crots in AdvertisingTell England. Tell the world. Eat more Oats.  Take Care of your Complexion. No More War. Shine your Shoes with Shino. Ask your Grocer. Children love Laxamalt.  Prepar e to meet thy God. Bungs Beer is Better. Try Dogsbodys Sausages. Whoosh the Dust Away. Give them Crunchlets. Snagsburys Soups are Best for the Troops.  Morning Star, best Paper by Far. Vote for Punkin and Protect your Profits. Stop that Sneeze with Snuffo. Flush your Kidneys with Fizzlets. Flush your Drains with Sanfect. Wear Wool-fleece next the Skin. Popps Pills Pep you Up. Whiffle your Way to Fortune. . . .Advertise, or go under.(Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, 1933) Menckens CrotsTwenty million voters with IQs below 60 have their ears glued to the radio; it takes four days hard work to concoct a speech without a sensible word in it. Next day a dam must be opened somewhere. Four senators get drunk and try to neck a lady politician built like an overloaded tramp steamer. The Presidential automobile runs over a dog. It rains.(H.L. Mencken, Imperial Purple)Updikes CrotsFootprints around a KEEP OFF sign.Two pigeons feeding each other.Two showgirls, whose faces had not yet thawed the frost of their makeup, treading indignantly through the slush.A plump old man saying Chick, chick and feeding peanuts to squirrels.Many solitary men throwing snowballs at tree trunks.Many birds calling to each other about how little the Ramble has changed.One red mitten lying lost under a poplar tree.An airplane, very bright and distant, slowly moving through the branches of a sycamore.(John Updike, Central Park)Winston Weathers and Tom Wolfe on Crots- In its most intense form, the crot is characterized by a certain abruptness in its termination. As each crot breaks off, Tom Wolfe says, it tends to make ones mind search for some point that must have just been made- presque vu!- almost seen! In the hands of a writer who really understands the device, it will have you making crazy leaps of logic, leaps you never dreamed of before.The provenance of the crot may well be in the writers note itselfin the research note, in the sentence or two one jots down to record a moment or an idea or to describe a person or place. The crot is essentially the note left free of verbal ties with other surrounding notes. . . .The general idea of unrelatedness present in crot writing suggests correspondence- for those who seek it- with the fragmentation and even egalitarianism of contemporary experience, wherein the events personalities, places of life have no particular superior or inferior status to dictate priorities of presentation.(Winston Weathers, An Alternate Style : Options in Composition. Boynton/Cook, 1980) Bangs manes bouffants beehives Beatle caps butter faces brush-on lashes decal eyes puffy sweaters French thrust bras flailing leather blue jeans stretch pants stretch jeans honeydew bottoms eclair shanks elf boots ballerina Knight slippers.(Tom Wolfe, The Girl of the Year. The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, 1965)MontagePart of the power of moving images comes from the technique [Sergei] Eisenstein championed: montage. Here the tables turn in the contest between the novel and moving images, for in switching rapidly between perspectives, it is those who share their imaginations with us by writing who are at a disadvantage.Because writers must work to make each view they present believable, it is very difficult for them to present a rapid series of such views. Dickens, with his marvelous alertness, succeeds as well as any writer has: the whistling of drovers, the barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the grunting and squealing of pig s; the cries of the hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarrelling on all sides [Oliver Twist]. But when attempting to capture the energy and chaos of this stunning and bewildering market-morning scene, Dickens is often reduced to lists: Countrymen, drovers, butchers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade or crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping and yelling.(Mitchell Stephens, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word. Oxford University Press, 1998) See also: Collage EssayIn Defense of Fragments,  Crots, and Verbless SentencesListMinor SentenceSentence FragmentSuite Amà ©ricaine, by H.L. MenckenUsing Sentence Fragments EffectivelyVerbless SentenceWhat Is a Sentence?

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Principles and Functions of Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Principles and Functions of Management - Essay Example This theory focused upon the achievement of short term objectives as a means to fulfilling the long term goals of the organization. (Birnbaum 2000:43-52). Employees in every department were to set out short-term objectives, which were to be achieved within a certain deadline. Companies such as General Motors and RCA Foods adopted this method of management. However, in actual practice, this theory failed to take into account the political bickering and rivalry that existed between various departments. In actual practice, the departments rarely bothered to make and adhere to short-term objectives and the theory was soon scrapped by 1985, because it was found to be ineffective. The reason for this was because the theory failed to take into account the unpredictable human factor, that often results in problems arising with the practical execution of a management theory that may be sound good on paper but fails in practice. Managers therefore failed to make use of this theory on a wide ra nging basis, because while it sounded good as a theory it was not effective in actual practice. This is a commonly used management practice today and the tool through which it functions is commonly known as the SWOT analysis. This theory was also derived from Peter Drucker’s rational approach with an attempt to also include political inputs. This method involves the analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to a business. This was a management technique that was set out with the purpose of identifying a particular niche for every business. The aim and objective behind this management theory was to enable an organization to survive and compete effectively in a rapidly changing, globalizing environment. According to this theory, the SWOT analysis helps to analyze external and internal data within the organization and compare it with others in the industry in order to evaluate the exact