Business intelligence has always been considered an essential ingredient for success. However, it is not until recently that the technology has enabled organizations to generate and deploy intelligence for global competition. These technologies can be leveraged to create the intelligent enterprises of the 21st century that will not only provide excellent and customized services to their customers, but will also create business efficiency for building relationships with suppliers and other business partners on a long term basis. Creating such intelligent enterprises requires the understanding and integration of diverse enterprise components into cohesive intelligent systems. Anticipating that future enterprises need to become intelligent, Intelligent Enterprises of the 21st Century brings together the experiences and knowledge from many parts of the world to provide a compendium of high quality theoretical and applied concepts, methodologies, and techniques that help diffuse knowledge and skills required to create and manage intelligent enterprises of the 21st century for gaining sustainable competitive advantage in a global environment. This book is a comprehensive compilation of the state of the art vision and thought processes needed to design and manage globally competitive business organizations.

Traditional database management systems can't handle the demands of managing multimedia data. with the rapid growth of multimedia platforms and the world wide web, database management systems must now process, store, index, and retrieve alphanumeric data, bitmapped and vector-based graphics, and video and audio clips both compressed and uncompressed. The comprehensive, systematic approach of Multimedia Database Management Systems presents you with current and emerging methods for managing the increasing demands of multimedia databases and their inherent design and architecture issues.

There is now so much data on the Web that managing it with conventional tools is becoming almost impossible. To manage this data, provide interoperability and warehousing between multiple data sources and systems, and extract information from the databases and warehouses, various tools are being developed. In fact, developments in multimedia databa

Affordable and mainstream manipulation of multimedia data types will lead to tremendous growth in imaging and multimedia data in general computing environments. Multimedia and imaging applications can now provide benefits to common business applications by integrating voice, sound, images, animation and digitized video. Ultimately, it will be possible to convert all information that is currently stored on paper, video and film into a digitized environment. This will allow users to organize, search and route multimedia objects over local and wide area networks in real time. The authors' introductory level presentation of this new class of data types supplies the database technology required for effective manipulation and storage. Multimedia and database experts, Khoshafian and Baker aptly illustrate the ability of multimedia database systems to concurrently share, access, and query large collections of multimedia information. They introduce the elemental concepts of object and relational databases and then apply them to multimedia and imaging databases. Fundamental database topics discussed include querying, transaction support, recovery, security, and storage. This book provides information essential to the incorporation of multimedia databases that will improve the quantity and quality of information manipulated by computer users in many areas including medicine, computer aided design, and information retrieval systems.

Multimedia Database Management Systems presents the issues and the techniques used in building multimedia database management systems. Chapter 1 provides an overview of multimedia databases and underlines the new requirements for these applications. Chapter 2 discusses the techniques used for storing and retrieving multimedia objects. Chapter 3 presents the techniques used for generating metadata for various media objects. Chapter 4 examines the mechanisms used for storing the index information needed for accessing different media objects. Chapter 5 analyzes the approaches for modeling media objects, both their temporal and spatial characteristics. Object-oriented approach, with some additional features, has been widely used to model multimedia information. The book discusses two systems that use object-oriented models: OVID (Object Video Information Database) and Jasmine. The models for representing temporal and spatial requirements of media objects are then studied. The book also describes authoring techniques used for specifying temporal and spatial characteristics of multimedia databases. Chapter 6 explains different types of multimedia queries, the methodologies for processing them and the language features for describing them. The features offered by query languages such as SQL/MM (Structured Query Language for Multimedia), PICQUERY+, and Video SQL are also studied. Chapter 7 deals with the communication requirements for multimedia databases. A client accessing multimedia data over computer networks needs to identify a schedule for retrieving various media objects composing the database. The book identifies possible ways for generating a retrieval schedule. Chapter 8 ties together the techniques discussed in the previous chapters by providing a simple architecture of a distributed multimedia database management system. Multimedia Database Management Systems can be used as a text for graduate students and researchers working in the area of multimedia databases. In addition, the book serves as essential reading material for computer professionals who are in (or moving to) the area of multimedia databases.

Until recently, databases contained easily indexed numbers and text. Today, in the age of powerful, graphically based computers, and the world wide web, databases are likely to contain a much greater variety of data forms, including images, sound, video clips, and even handwritten documents. When multimedia databases are the norm, traditional methods of working with databases no longer apply. How do you query a video library, or an image database containing x-rays, or sounds in an audio database? Principles of Multimedia Database Systems explains how to work with these new multimedia data forms. It is the first comprehensive treatment of the skills and techniques required to build, maintain, and query multimedia databases. This book presents the mix of techniques necessary for working with multimedia databases, including synthetic solutions for the design and deployment of multimedia database systems. Because rapid technological developments are constantly changing the landscape of multimedia databases, the book teaches basic theoretical principles applicable to any database. * Covers the major issues of multimedia database design, with a strong focus on distributed multimedia databases. * Discusses important topics including how to organize the vast data types, storage and retrieval, and creation and delivery of multimedia presentations. * Organized around the lively scenario of a crime-fighting database that evolves as new concepts are introduced. * Includes numerous exercises and suggestions for programming projects. * Additional materials on the web include updates, on-line supplements, and links to downloadable software.

Multimedia Database Management Systems brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this important area. Multimedia Database Management Systems serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most important research issues in the field.