The unprecedented scale at which data is both produced and consumed today has generated a large demand for scalable data management solutions facilitating fast access from all over the world. As one consequence, a plethora of non-relational, distributed NoSQL database systems have risen in recent years and today’s data management system landscape has thus become somewhat hard to overlook. As another consequence, complex polyglot designs and elaborate schemes for data distribution and delivery have become the norm for building applications that connect users and organizations across the globe – but choosing the right combination of systems for a given use case has become increasingly difficult as well. To help practitioners stay on top of that challenge, this book presents a comprehensive overview and classification of the current system landscape in cloud data management as well as a survey of the state-of-the-art approaches for efficient data distribution and delivery to end-user devices. The topics covered thus range from NoSQL storage systems and polyglot architectures (backend) over distributed transactions and Web caching (network) to data access and rendering performance in the client (end-user). By distinguishing popular data management systems by data model, consistency guarantees, and other dimensions of interest, this book provides an abstract framework for reasoning about the overall design space and the individual positions claimed by each of the systems therein. Building on this classification, this book further presents an application-driven decision guidance tool that breaks the process of choosing a set of viable system candidates for a given application scenario down into a straightforward decision tree.
ASPLOS is a multi-disciplinary conference for research that spans the boundaries of hardware, computer architecture, compilers, languages, operating systems, networking, and applications. ASPLOS provides a high quality forum for scientists and engineers to present their latest research findings in these rapidly changing fields. It has captured some of the major computer systems innovations of the past two decades (e.g., RISC and VLIW processors, small and large-scale multiprocessors, clusters and networks-of-workstations, optimizing compilers, RAID, and network-storage system designs).
‘KUMBA AFRICA’, is a compilation of African Short Stories written as fiction by Sampson Ejike Odum, nostalgically taking our memory back several thousands of years ago in Africa, reminding us about our past heritage. It digs deep into the traditional life style of the Africans of old, their beliefs, their leadership, their courage, their culture, their wars, their defeat and their victories long before the emergence of the white man on the soil of Africa. As a talented writer of rich resource and superior creativity, armed with in-depth knowledge of different cultures and traditions in Africa, the Author throws light on the rich cultural heritage of the people of Africa when civilization was yet unknown to the people. The book reminds the readers that the Africans of old kept their pride and still enjoyed their own lives. They celebrated victories when wars were won, enjoyed their New yam festivals and villages engaged themselves in seasonal wrestling contest etc; Early morning during harmattan season, they gathered firewood and made fire inside their small huts to hit up their bodies from the chilling cold of the harmattan. That was the Africa of old we will always remember. In Africa today, the story have changed. The people now enjoy civilized cultures made possible by the influence of the white man through his scientific and technological process. Yet there are some uncivilized places in Africa whose people haven’t tested or felt the impact of civilization. These people still maintain their ancient traditions and culture. In everything, we believe that days when people paraded barefooted in Africa to the swarmp to tap palm wine and fetch firewood from there farms are almost fading away. The huts are now gradually been replaced with houses built of blocks and beautiful roofs. Thanks to modern civilization. Donkeys and camels are no longer used for carrying heavy loads for merchants. They are now been replaced by heavy trucks and lorries. African traditional methods of healing are now been substituted by hospitals. In all these, I will always love and remember Africa, the home of my birth and must respect her cultures and traditions as an AFRICAN AUTHOR.
The twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes is a major figure in European literature. His courtly romances fathered the Arthurian tradition and influenced countless other poets in England as well as on the continent. Yet because of the difficulty of capturing his swift-moving style in translation, English-speaking audiences are largely unfamiliar with the pleasures of reading his poems. Now, for the first time, an experienced translator of medieval verse who is himself a poet provides a translation of Chrétien’s major poem, Yvain, in verse that fully and satisfyingly captures the movement, the sense, and the spirit of the Old French original. Yvain is a courtly romance with a moral tenor; it is ironic and sometimes bawdy; the poetry is crisp and vivid. In addition, the psychological and the socio-historical perceptions of the poem are of profound literary and historical importance, for it evokes the emotions and the values of a flourishing, vibrant medieval past.