Monday 25 February 2008

Lecture Review Week 6

Database --- This lecture is like a revision from the pre-requisite module. The truth is what you see inside the database, and not what is true in the real world. Things that don't make sense may be true, so don't use your knowledge to determine whether a statement is true.

Business Law --- This is on the sale of goods act. It's a contract to shift ownership of personal belongings from seller to buyer after the buyer paid money to the seller. Goods can be classified into three types - Specific goods where the very goods to be sold is confirmed at time when the contract is made. Unascertained goods where the goods to be sold is out of a bulk amount and not yet confirmed exactly which item in the bulk is to be sold. Future goods are goods that are not yet available at time when contract is made.

The ownership passes with the intention of the two parties in specific goods and for unascertained goods when they are ascertained. Once ownership is passed, the risk is also passed at the same time, meaning whatever that happens to the goods thereafter will be borne by the buyer. If the intent was not shown when the contract is made, the ownership passing will depends on the five rules listed in s18.

Business Communication --- Step 5 - step 8 of proposal writing is the actual part of writing the proposal. Step 5 is to organise the information you wish to present in a systematic way. Step 6 is to write your first draft, Step 7 to KISS (keep it short & simple) the reader and step 8 is to create visual impact to attract the reader's attention. This can be done by using a good font and formating of the document.

Artificial Intelligence --- To continue with more searching, this lecture goes on to constraint satisfaction problem. The most common question for this type of problem is the map colouring, which asks what is the least number of colours that you need to use to colour the whole map, and no two neighbouring states can have the same colour. This question can be easily represented in the form of a constraint graph.

Of course, when you choose which state to start colouring from, you will have to check for the state with the most constraints, in the graph representation will be the node with the highest degree.

You can also use other method like forward checking to check in advance the consequence of colouring the state. This is done by keeping track of the remaining legal value of unassigned nodes, if there is a state that will have no legal value, then it would signify a bad move.

Arc consistency is the chain reaction from making an assignment. When you remove a value from a state because the value is impossible, then it could cause other states to have other removal of their possible values.

Software Engineering --- Continuing into the design for the software, more notations are added to the domain modeling and use-case. Then there's something called the interaction diagram, which shows how the user will interact with the software. Sort of resembles a time-line, showing the different activities that take place when the user use the software.

Friday 15 February 2008

Lecture Review Week 5

Database --- This lecture covers conceptual modeling. It's more diagrams than words showing relationships between entities


Business Law --- The conclusion of contract laws this week covers the discharge from contracts. This is done in 4 ways. Firstly, when the contract is completed exactly and precisely, you are automatically discharged from the contract. It's 'ALL OR NOTHING', unless it's a divisible contract that states when you completed the contract to certain extent, you get paid partially.

Second way is ending the contract by agreement. Third way is by frustration, where neither party is at fault that the contract cannot be completed. In this case, the deposit must be refunded, no more outstanding sum of money will be payable but you can be paid for the expanses made so far till the point when there is a frustration.

The fourth way is by breaching the contract. Of course, this means there's a case. You can be sued for damages for breaching, but the amount of damages must be kept as low as possible for the wrong-doer. Damages is not profit, but a form of compensation. If damages is not enough, then Specific Performance may be used to make up for the inadequency.


Business Communication --- Proposal is an offer to furnish goods and services, research a subject, or to provide a solution to a problem. They can be divided into four types, solicited internal, usually requested by your boss to provide a solution to a problem, unsolicited internal, which you initiate to offer a solution to your boss (bootlicking?!), solicited external and unsolicited external.

Proposal writing can be divided into eight steps.
Step 1) Analyze RFP, Request for Proposal. Content requirement that gives technical function requirement, legal requirement which states terms and conditions, ownership of work, administration information which gives point of contacts, due date and how many copies of the proposal required, format guideline which states the language, font, page layout for the proposal.

Step2) Do research, understand the problem and needs of the public through market research. Do product research by coming out with viable solutions to the problem. Client research writing a targetted proposal.

Step3) Design a prototype,

Step4) Focus the proposal, arouse the interest of the reader


Artificial Intelligence --- One more searching technique introduced. This will be used in the the first project for the module. I wonder why people already finished this project even before this lecture.. Alpha-Beta pruning is a technique that that searches for a highest 'Minimax' value from the different states possible. The idea here is to assume the opponent is optimal, thus you can omit some paths which you know will lead to a worse state. However, if the opponent is noob, and will not choose his optimal path, then this technique may not be optimal.

This pruning depends alot on the order of expansion of nodes, sometimes, there may not be pruning at all.


Software Engineering --- Wow, this lecture basically just expand the Use-case Diagram and Domain Model to contain more detail planning. This will be the design for the software that you are going to build.

Tuesday 5 February 2008

Lecture Review Week 4

Week 4 of lectures has concluded early today.

Database --- Going into more advanced SQL,, there is the Group By att1, att2, though it there must be no ambiguity between the names of the attributes. The Having keyword is used for aggregate functions.

Nested queries are not recommended, and should be avoided as far as possible as nested queries might be quite misleading. In evaluating nested queries, you think of it as evaluating it in a nested for loop. Nesting are done in the Where line, as Where is the condition for the outer query. Results of inner query is not allowed to be brought out to the outer query.

View is a query with a name, after making the view, the view will be like another table and you can query the view as you would to any table. View is always up to date, any change in the original table will be reflected in the view.


Business Law --- Misrepresentation is a false statement and is of material fact that is made by one part to another, and induces this other part to enter into a contract. To show that it is a misrepresentation, all these four ingredients must be present.

Silence does not amount to misrepresentation, meaning that if the salesperson heard you saying to yourself about something wrong, and did not correct you, it won't be counted as a misrepresentation.

You are not induced into the contract if you had relied on your own judgement or individual investigation, knew of the false statement, or never knew of its existance.

There are three types of misrepresentation, fraudulent, negligent, wholly innocent. It is fraudulent when you know that the statement is false, without belief in its truth, or recklessly not caring whether it's true or not. It is negligent if the false statement is made without reasonable ground, and wholly innocent if it is made with reasonable grounds but the statement still turn out to be false.

Remedies to first two types are damages and/or recission, while for innocent misrepresentation is only recission. Recission is giving back and taking back.

Silence does not amount to misrepresentation unless there is a change in circumstances, or you told the truth but not the whole truth.

Next part was on illegal contracts, either illegal by statute or by common law. Illegal contracts are void contracts. Therefore it does not exist. To claim damages for this type of contract, you have to establish the case without relying on the illegal contract, or the parties are not equally at fault, or the plaintiff repents before the contract is substantially performed.

Contract in Restraint of Trade are prima facie void unless it can be proven that it protects properties of the person who enforced the restraint. For restraints in business, the length of restraints must be reasonable, and must not be contrary to public interest.


Business Communication --- In the continuation of User-Manual Writing, we discussed the six guidelines for task writing. 1) Task names should be action oriented, by using strong verbs and go direct to the point. 2) Organise the tasks logically, you won't want to read a manual which teaches you how to uninstall before installing do you? 3) Determine the elements for each task, 4) Write steps as actions, 5) Group steps under sub-task heading, this will make the manual more readable as related tasks are grouped into one. 6) Be consistent with options, notes and tips.

Tasks can be ordered in two ways, functional and sequential. Functional ordering is more used for reference as it focus on what the software can do. Sequential is more useful in teaching novice user as it focus on what the user wants to do with the program.

Here's the eleven task elements: Task name, user, explanation of task, start state, goal state, steps, results, screens, options, notes, tips. The essential elements are task names, explanation, steps, results, screens and notes.