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Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 557

Ana Maria Madureira

Ajith Abraham
Dorabela Gamboa
Paulo Novais Editors

Intelligent
Systems Design
and Applications
16th International Conference on
Intelligent Systems Design and
Applications (ISDA 2016) held in Porto,
Portugal, December 16–18, 2016
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing

Volume 557

Series editor
Janusz Kacprzyk, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
About this Series
The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory,
applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually
all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT,
economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list
of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent systems and computing.
The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily
textbooks and proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover
significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and applicable character.
An important characteristic feature of the series is the short publication time and world-wide
distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results.

Advisory Board
Chairman
Nikhil R. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India
e-mail: [email protected]
Members
Rafael Bello Perez, Universidad Central “Marta Abreu” de Las Villas, Santa Clara, Cuba
e-mail: [email protected]
Emilio S. Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
Hani Hagras, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
László T. Kóczy, Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
e-mail: [email protected]
Vladik Kreinovich, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
Chin-Teng Lin, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: [email protected]
Jie Lu, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
Patricia Melin, Tijuana Institute of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico
e-mail: [email protected]
Nadia Nedjah, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
e-mail: [email protected]
Ngoc Thanh Nguyen, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland
e-mail: [email protected]
Jun Wang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong
e-mail: [email protected]

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11156

Ana Maria Madureira Ajith Abraham
•

Dorabela Gamboa Paulo Novais

•

Editors

Intelligent Systems
Design and Applications
16th International Conference on Intelligent
Systems Design and Applications
(ISDA 2016) held in Porto, Portugal,
December 16–18, 2016

123
Editors
Ana Maria Madureira Dorabela Gamboa
Departamento de Engenharia Informática Polytechnic Institute of Porto
Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Port Felgueiras
Porto Portugal
Portugal
Paulo Novais
Ajith Abraham Campus of Gualtar
Scientific Network for Innovation University of Minho
and Research Excellence Braga
Machine Intelligence Research Labs Portugal
Auburn, WA
USA

ISSN 2194-5357 ISSN 2194-5365 (electronic)

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
ISBN 978-3-319-53479-4 ISBN 978-3-319-53480-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53480-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017930789

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

Welcome to the 16th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and

Applications (ISDA16), which is held in Porto, Portugal during December 16–18,
2016. ISDA 2016 is jointly organized by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do
Porto, Portugal and Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA.
ISDA 2016 brings together researchers, engineers, developers and practitioners
from academia and industry working in all interdisciplinary areas of intelligent
systems and system engineering to share their experiences, and to exchange and
cross-fertilize their ideas. The aim of ISDA 2016 is to serve as a forum for the
dissemination of state-of-the-art research and development of intelligent systems,
intelligent technologies, and applications.
The themes of the contributions and scientific sessions range from theories to
applications, reflecting a wide spectrum of the coverage of intelligent systems and
computational intelligence areas. ISDA 2016 received submissions from over 32
countries and each paper was reviewed by at least five reviewers in a standard
peer-review process. Based on the recommendation by five independent referees,
finally about 105 papers were accepted for publication in the proceedings published
by Springer, Verlag.
Many people have collaborated and worked hard to produce the successful ISDA
2016 conference. First, we would like to thank all the authors for submitting their
papers to the conference, for their presentations and discussions during the con-
ference. Our thanks to Program Committee members and reviewers, who carried
out the most difficult work by carefully evaluating the submitted papers. Our special
thanks to J.A. Tenreiro Machado, Institute of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto
and Francisco Almada Lobo, Critical Manufacturing, Portugal for the exciting
plenary talks.

v
vi Preface

We express our sincere thanks to special session chairs, organizing committee

chairs for helping us to formulate a rich technical program.

Ana Maria Madureira

Ajith Abraham
Dorabela Gamboa
Paulo Novais
ISDA 2016 – Organization

General Chairs

Ana Maria Madureira Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Portugal

Ajith Abraham Machine Intelligence Research Labs (MIR Labs), USA

Program Chairs

Dorabela Gamboa Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Paulo Novais University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

Advisory Board members

Aboul Ella Hassanien University of Cairo, Egypt

André Ponce de Leon F de Carvalho University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Andries Engelbrecht University of Pretoria, South Africa
Emilio Corchado Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
Francisco Herrera University of Granada, Spain
Francesco Marcelloni University of Pisa, Italy
Hideyuki Takagi Kyushu University, Japan
Imre J. Rudas Obuda University, Hungary
Jeng-Shyang Pan Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Krzysztof Cios Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Mario Koeppen Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan
Janusz Kacprzyk Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Sebastián Ventura University of Cordoba, Spain

vii
viii ISDA 2016 – Organization

Tutorials/Workshops and Special Sessions Chairs

Amélia Loja Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Portugal

Eduardo Solteiro Pires University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal
Leonilde Varela Minho University, Portugal

Publication Chair

Azah Kamilah Muda Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia

Web Master

Kun Ma University of Jinan, China

Local Organizing Committee

Judite Ferreira Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Ivo Pereira Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Bruno Cunha Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal
André Gomes Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal
José Ricardo Puga Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Luis Coelho Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal

Technical Program Committee

Alberto Cano Virginia Commonwealth University

Alex James Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Alexander Mendiburu The University of the Basque Country, Spain
Alfredo Arias Montano Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico
Alma Rahat University of Exeter, UK
Amelia Zafra Gómez University of Córdoba, Spain
Anan Banharnsakun King Mongkut’s University of Technology
Thonburi, Thailand
Anand Jayant Kulkarni Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore
Anang Hudaya Muhamad Amin Multimedia University, Malaysia
Andrea Corradini University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Andrew L. Nelson Androtics LLC, USA
ISDA 2016 – Organization ix

Anna Kononova Heriot-Watt University, UK

Anne Laurent University of Montpellier II, France
Antonio Dourado University of Coimbra, Portugal
Antonio J. Tallón Ballesteros Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Antonio LaTorre Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Antreas Nearchou University of Patras, Greece
Arshin Rezazadeh Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran
Ashwani Kush Kurukshetra University, India
Asoke Nath St. Xaviers College (Autonomous), India
AzaBahareh Asadi Islamic Azad University, Iran
Biju Issac Teesside University, UK
Bing Xue Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand
Binod Kumar Prasad Maharastra Academy of Engineering, India
Carlos Alberto Ochoa Ortiz Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico
Carlos Fernandez Llatas Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Carlos Pereira Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra,
Portugal
Cerasela Crisan “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau,
Romania
Chi Kin Chow University of Hong Kong, China
Chu Hsing Lin Tunghai University, Taiwan
Chun Wei Lin National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Clara Pizzuti Università della Calabria, Italy
Dalia Kriksciuniene Vilnius University, Lithuania
Dalila Duraes Technical University of Madrid, Madrid,
Spain
Daniela Zaharie West University of Timisoara, Romania
Davide Ciucci Università di Milano Bicocca, Italy
Diaf Moussa Université Mouloud Mammeri, Algeria
Doaa Hassan National Telecommunication Institute, Egypt
Edgar Alfredo Portilla Flores Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico
Eduardo Solteiro Pires University of Trás-os-Montes
and Alto Douro, Portugal
Eiji Uchino Yamaguchi University, Japan
Eliana Costa e Silva Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal
Eliska Ochodkova VSB – Technical University of Ostrava,
Czech Republic
Elpida Tzafestas University of Athens, Greece
El-Sayed M. El-Alfy King Fahd University of Petroleum
and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
Fernando Jimenez University of Murcia, Spain
Francesco Moscato Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli,
Italy
x ISDA 2016 – Organization

Francisco Chicano Universidad de Málaga, Spain

Franco Frattolillo Università degli Studi del Sannio, Italy
Gabriel Luque Universidad de Málaga, Spain
Gai Ge Wang Jiangsu Normal University, China
Georg Peters Munich University of Applied Sciences,
Germany
George Georgiev University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA
Georgy Sofronov Macquarie University, Australia
Ghanshyam Thakur National Institute of Technology, India
Giancarlo Mauri Università di Milano Bicocca, Italy
Heder Bernardino Universidade Federal de Juiz de For a, Brazil
Ian Sillitoe University of Wolverhampton, UK
James O’Shea Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
José Raúl Romero University of Córdoba, Spain
Jose Santos Universidad de A Coruña, Spain
Kang Tai Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore
Konstantinos Parsopoulos University of Ioannina, Greece
Korhan Karabulut Yaşar Üniversitesi, Turkey
Kun Ma University of Jinan, China
Laurence Amaral Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil
Leonardo Trujillo Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico
Leonilde Varela Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Li Zhang Soochow University, China
Luigi Benedicenti University of Regina, Canada
Majid Bakhtiari Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia
Mario Koeppen Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan
Marjan Kuchaki Rafsanjani Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran
Mauricio Ayala Rincon Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil
Mengjie Zhang Victoria University of Wellington,
New Zealand
Miguel Rocha Universidade do Minho, Portugal
Mohammad Reza Bonyadi The University of Adelaide, Australia
Ngo Hea Choon Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Malaysia
Patrick Siarry Universit de Paris, France
Paulo Moura Oliveira University of Trás-os-Montes
and Alto Douro, Portugal
Ricardo Landa Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico
Riyad Alshammari Dalhousie University, Canada
Roberto Antonio Vázquez Lasallistas de Corazón, Mexico
Espinoza De Los Monteros
Rodica Ioana Lung Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania
Solteiro Pires UTAD University, Portugal
Sung Bae Cho Yonsei University, South Korea
ISDA 2016 – Organization xi

Tatiana Kalganova Brunel University London, UK

Thomas Hanne University of Applied Sciences Northwestern
Switzerland, Switzerland
Tien Tsin Wong University of Hong Kong, China
Tzung Pei Hong National University of Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Victor Manuel Landassuri UAEM Valle de Mexico, Mexico
Moreno
Vincenzo Piuri Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Wei Chiang Hong Oriental Institute of Technology, Taiwan
Yi Mei RMIT University, Australia
Ying Ping Chen National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Yogan Jaya Kumar Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Malaysia
Yong Wang Central South University, China
Yun Huoy Choo Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Malaysia
Contents

An Innovative Approach to Manage Heterogeneous Information

Using Relational Database Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Cosmin Sabo, Petrică C. Pop, Honoriu Vălean, and Daniela Dănciulescu
Reliable Attribute Selection Based on Random Forest (RASER) . . . . . . 11
Aboudi Noura, Hechmi Shili, and Lotfi Ben Romdhane
Estimating the Number of Clusters as a Pre-processing
Step to Unsupervised Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Paulo Rogerio Nietto and Maria do Carmo Nicoletti
Agglomerative and Divisive Approaches to Unsupervised Learning
in Gestalt Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Rodrigo C. Camargos, Paulo R. Nietto, and Maria do Carmo Nicoletti
Improving Imputation Accuracy in Ordinal Data Using Classification . . . 45
Shafiq Alam, Gillian Dobbie, and XiaoBin Sun
GA-PSO-FASTSLAM: A Hybrid Optimization Approach
in Improving FastSLAM Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Alif Ridzuan Khairuddin, Mohamad Shukor Talib,
Habibollah Haron, and Muhamad Yazid Che Abdullah
Three Case Studies Using Agglomerative Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Rodrigo C. Camargos and Maria do Carmo Nicoletti
Historic Document Image De-noising Using Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) and Local Pixel Grouping (LPG) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Han-Yang Tang, Azah Kamilah Muda, Yun-Huoy Choo,
Noor Azilah Muda, and Mohd Sanusi Azmi
A Robust and Optimally Pruned Extreme Learning Machine . . . . . . . . . 88
Ananda L. Freire and Ajalmar R. Rocha Neto

xiii
xiv Contents

Investigating the Effect of Combining Text Clustering

with Classification on Improving Spam Email Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Doaa Hassan
Radial Basis Function Neural Networks for Datasets
with Missing Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Diego P. Paiva Mesquita and João Paulo P. Gomes
Evaluation Method for an Adaptive Web Interface: GOMS Model . . . . 116
Rebai Rim, Maalej Mohamed Amin, Mahfoudhi Adel, and Abid Mohamed
Diversification Strategies in Differential Evolution Algorithm to Solve
the Protein Structure Prediction Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Pedro Henrique Narloch and Rafael Stubs Parpinelli
Using Cluster Barycenters for the Generalized Traveling
Salesman Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Mehdi El Krari, Belaïd Ahiod, and Bouazza El Benani
On Pollution Attacks in Fully Connected P2P Networks
Using Trusted Peers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Cristóbal Medina-López, Ilshat Shakirov, L.G. Casado,
and Vicente González-Ruiz
Certification Under Uncertainties of Control Methods
for Multisource Elevators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Chloé Desdouits, Mazen Alamir, Rodolphe Giroudeau,
and Claude Le Pape
Robust and Reliable Bionic Optimization of Nonlinear
Control Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Lukas Haas and Rolf Steinbuch
Human Detection Using Biological Signals in Camera Images
with Privacy Aware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Toshihiro Kitajima, Edwardo Arata Y. Murakami, Shunsuke Yoshimoto,
Yoshihiro Kuroda, and Osamu Oshiro
Nuclei Malignancy Analysis Based on an Adaptive
Bottom-Hat Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Tiia Ikonen, Keijo Haataja, Pekka Toivanen, Teemu Tolonen,
and Jorma Isola
Self-Organizing Maps and Fuzzy C-Means Algorithms on Gait
Analysis Based on Inertial Sensors Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Rafael Caldas, Yabing Hu, Fernando Buarque de Lima Neto,
and Bernd Markert
Contents xv

Age, Gender, Race and Smile Prediction Based on Social Textual

and Visual Data Analyzing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Onsa Lazzez, Wael Ouarda, and Adel M. Alimi
Test Suite Prioritization Using Nature Inspired
Meta-Heuristic Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Daya Gupta and Vishal Gupta
A New Trajectory Optimization Approach for Safe Mobile Robot
Navigation: A Comparative Study (Khepera II Mobile Robot) . . . . . . . . 227
Walid Ellili, Abdelfetteh Lachtar, and Mounir Samet
The Improvement of an Image Compression Approach
Using Weber-Fechner Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Mourad Rahali, Habiba Loukil, and Mohamed Salim Bouhlel
A Minimal Rare Substructures-Based Model for Graph
Database Indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Mehdi Azaouzi and Lotfi Ben Romdhane
Multibiometrics Enhancement Using Quality Measurement in Score
Level Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Saliha Artabaz, Layth Sliman, Hachemi Nabil Dellys, Karima Benatchba,
and Mouloud Koudil
Effects of Random Sampling on SVM Hyper-parameter Tuning . . . . . . 268
Tomáš Horváth, Rafael G. Mantovani, and André C.P.L.F. de Carvalho
Bayesian Networks for Identifying Semantic Relations
in a Never-Ending Learning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Edimilson Batista dos Santos, Massilon Lourenço Fernandes,
Estevam R. Hruschka, Jr., and Maísa Cristina Duarte
Training a Spiking Neural Network to Generate Online
Handwriting Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Mahmoud Ltaief, Hala Bezine, and Adel M. Alimi
Using a Synthetic Character Database for Training Deep Learning
Models Applied to Offline Handwritten Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Jorge Sueiras, Victoria Ruiz, Ángel Sánchez, and José F. Vélez
Cognitive Conversation Language - CCL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Wesley Willy Oliveira de Souza, and Estevam Rafael Hruschka Júnior
A Genetic-Fuzzy Classification Approach to Improve
High-Dimensional Intrusion Detection System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Imen Gaied, Farah Jemili, and Ouajdi Korbaa
A New Data Placement Approach for Scientific Workflows in Cloud
Computing Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Hamdi Kchaou, Zied Kechaou, and Adel M. Alimi
xvi Contents

A Novel Simulated Annealing-Based Learning Algorithm for Training

Support Vector Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Madson L. Dantas Dias and Ajalmar R. Rocha Neto
Fish School Search Variations and Other Metaheuristics in the
Solution of Assembly Line Balancing Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
I.M.C. de Albuquerque, J.B.M. Filho, F.B.L. Neto, and A.M.O. Silva
Improved Search Mechanisms for the Fish School Search Algorithm . . . 362
João Batista Monteiro Filho, Isabela Maria Carneiro Albuquerque,
Fernando Buarque Lima Neto, and Filipe Vieira Silva Ferreira
A Survey on Outlier Detection in the Context of Stream Mining:
Review of Existing Approaches and Recommadations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Imen Souiden, Zaki Brahmi, and Hajer Toumi
Heuristic for Scheduling Intrees on m Machines
with Non-availability Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Khaoula Ben Abdellafou, Hatem Hadda, and Ouajdi Korbaa
Network Intrusion Detection Using Danger Theory
and Genetic Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
João Lima Santanelli and Fernando Buarque de Lima Neto
A Gamification Model for Resource Sharing in Malaysian Schools
Using Cloud Computing Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
M. Nordin A. Rahman, Abdullahi Nababa Saidu, M. Fadzil A. Kadir,
Syadiah Nor Shamsudin, and Syarilla Iryani A. Saany
A Modified Naïve Possibilistic Classifier for Numerical Data . . . . . . . . . 417
Karim Baati, Tarek M. Hamdani, Adel M. Alimi, and Ajith Abraham
Combinatorial Structural Clustering (CSC): A Novel Structural
Clustering Approach for Large Scale Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Liang Chen, Hongbo Liu, Weishi Zhang, and Bo Zhang
Memetic Algorithms for the Automatic Discovery
of Software Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Aurora Ramírez, Rafael Barbudo, José Raúl Romero,
and Sebastián Ventura
Multi-objective Dynamic Analysis Using Fractional Entropy . . . . . . . . . 448
E.J. Solteiro Pires, J.A. Tenreiro Machado, and P.B. de Moura Oliveira
Multi-agent Based Truck Scheduling Using Ant Colony Intelligence
in a Cross-Docking Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
Houda Zouhaier and Lamjed Ben Said
From Traditional Data Warehouse To Real Time Data Warehouse . . . . 467
Senda Bouaziz, Ahlem Nabli, and Faiez Gargouri
Contents xvii

Intelligent Traffic Congestion Prediction System Based on ANN

and Decision Tree Using Big GPS Traces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Wiam Elleuch, Ali Wali, and Adel M. Alimi
Forecasting Using Elman Recurrent Neural Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Emna Krichene, Youssef Masmoudi, Adel M. Alimi, Ajith Abraham,
and Habib Chabchoub
Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimisation for Robust Dynamic
Scheduling in a Permutation Flow Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Mohanad Al-Behadili, Djamila Ouelhadj, and Dylan Jones
Mining Perfectly Rare Itemsets on Big Data: An Approach Based
on Apriori-Inverse and MapReduce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
F. Padillo, J.M. Luna, and S. Ventura
Patient-Specific Epilepsy Seizure Detection Using Random Forest
Classification over One-Dimension Transformed EEG Data . . . . . . . . . . 519
Marco A. Pinto-Orellana and Fabio R. Cerqueira
A New Approach to Human Activity Recognition Using Machine
Learning Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Leandro B. Marinho, A.H. de Souza Junior, and P.P. Rebouças Filho
Lung Segmentation in Chest Computerized Tomography Images
Using the Border Following Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Murillo B. Rodrigues, Leandro B. Marinho, Raul Victor M. Nóbrega,
João Wellington M. Souza, and Pedro Pedrosa Rebouças Filho
Learner’s Profile Hierarchization in an Interoperable
Education System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Leila Ghorbel, Corinne Amel Zayani, Ikram Amous, and Florence Sèdes
ACO-PSO Optimization for Solving TSP Problem
with GPU Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Olfa Bali, Walid Elloumi, Ajith Abraham, and Adel M. Alimi
A Parallel Adaptive PSO Algorithm with Non-iterative Electrostatic
Repulsion and Social Dynamic Neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Daniel Soto and Wilson Soto
Fishing Monitor System Data: A Naïve Bayes Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
Joao C. Ferreira, Serge Lage, Iola Pinto, and Nuno Antunes
Detection of Behavioral Patterns for Increasing Attentiveness Level. . . . 592
Dalila Durães, Sérgio Gonçalves, Davide Carneiro, Javier Bajo,
and Paulo Novais
xviii Contents

Towards a Medical Intensive Care Unit Decision Support System

Based on Intuitionistic Fuzzy Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
Hanen Jemal, Zied Kechaou, and Mounir Ben Ayed
M2Onto: An Approach and a Tool to Learn OWL Ontology
from MongoDB Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
Hanen Abbes and Faiez Gargouri
Comparison of Hard and Probabilistic Evidence in Bayesian Model . . . 622
Rebai Rim, Maalej Mohamed Amin, Mahfoudhi Adel, and Abid Mohamed
Towards Activity Theory - Preliminary Report: Ambient Intelligence
Applied to Smart Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
Frederica Gonçalves, Eduardo Fermé, Ana Lúcia Martins,
and João C. Ferreira
Emerging Opportunities for Ambient Intelligence in Creativity
Support Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Frederica Gonçalves, Eduardo Fermé, and João C. Ferreira
Time Series Data Mining for Energy Prices Forecasting:
An Application to Real Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Eliana Costa e Silva, Ana Borges, M. Filomena Teodoro,
Marina A.P. Andrade, and Ricardo Covas
Efficient Parameterization for Automatic Speaker Recognition
Using Support Vector Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659
Rania Chakroun, Mondher Frikha, and Leila Beltaïfa Zouari
Security Incident Response: Towards a Novel
Decision-Making System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
Samih Souissi, Ahmed Serhrouchni, Layth Sliman, and Benoit Charroux
A New Social Media Mashup Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Abir Troudi, Corinne Amel Zayani, Salma Jamoussi, and Ikram Amous
Enabling the Definition and Reuse of Multi-Domain Workflow-Based
Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
Rubén Salado-Cid and José Raúl Romero
An Improved Elman Neural Network for Daily Living
Activities Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Zaineb Liouane, Tayeb Lemlouma, Philippe Roose,
Fréderic Weis, and Hassani Messaoud
Towards an Approach Based on Ontology for Semantic-Temporal
Modeling of Social Network Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708
Rim Chiha and Mounir Ben Ayed
Contents xix

Evaluation of the Simulated Annealing and the Discrete Artificial Bee

Colony in the Weight Tardiness Problem with Taguchi
Experiments Parameterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718
André S. Santos, Ana M. Madureira, and Maria R. Varela
Industrial Plant Layout Analyzing Based on SNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728
M.L.R. Varela, V.K. Manupati, K. Manoj, G.D. Putnik,
A. Araújo, and A.M. Madureira
A Genetic Neural Network Approach for Unusual Behavior
Prediction in Smart Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738
Zaineb Liouane, Tayeb Lemlouma, Philippe Roose,
Fréderic Weis, and Hassani Messaoud
New Adaptive Resource Allocation Scheme in LTE-Advanced . . . . . . . . 749
Radhia Khdhir, Kais Mnif, Aymen Belghith, and Lotfi Kamoun
An Approach for Measuring Flexibility of Business Processes Based
on Distances Between Models and Their Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Asma Mejri, Sonia Ayachi Ghannouchi, and Ricardo Martinho
Specification of an Architecture for Self-organizing
Scheduling Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771
Ana Madureira, Ivo Pereira, and Bruno Cunha
Towards Better SWRL Rules Dependency Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781
Abir Boujelben, Tarak Chaari, and Ikram Amous
Clustering of Maintenance Tasks for the Danish Railway System . . . . . 791
Shahrzad M. Pour and Una Benlic
Evaluating the Quality of Business Process Models Based on Measures
and Criteria in Higher Education: Developing a Framework
for Continuous Quality Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800
Fouzia Kahloun and Sonia Ayachi Ghannouchi
Age and Gender Classification from Finger Vein Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . 811
Wafa Damak, Randa Boukhris Trabelsi, Alima Damak Masmoudi,
Dorra Sellami, and Amine Nait-Ali
Coupling Event-B/ProB for the Analysis of the Software Architecture
Evolution Described in PDDL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 821
Farah Fourati, Mohamed Tahar Bhiri, and Riadh Robbana
Trust Intrusion Detection System Based on Location
for Wireless Sensor Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831
Hela Maddar, Wafa Kammoun, and Habib Youssef
xx Contents

Temporal Patterns Visualization for Knowledge Acquisition

in Dynamic Decision-Making Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841
Jihed Elouni, Hela Ltifi, Mounir Ben Ayed, and Mohamed Masmoudi
Cloudlets Architecture for Wireless Sensor Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852
Hela Maddar, Wafa Kammoun, and Habib Youssef
Data Fusion Classification Method Based on Multi Agents System . . . . . 863
Elhoucine Ben Boussada, Mounir Ben Ayed, and Adel M. Alimi
Community Detection in Bipartite Networks Using a Noisy Extremal
Optimization Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871
Noémi Gaskó, Rodica Ioana Lung, and Mihai Alexandru Suciu
An Approach for Incorporating the Usability Optimization Process
into the Model Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
Marwa Hentati, Lassaad Ben Ammar, Abdelwaheb Trabelsi,
and Adel Mahfoudhi
An ILS Heuristic for the Waste Collection Vehicle Routing Problem
with Time Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889
Alba A. Campos and José Elias C. Arroyo
An NLP-Based Ontology Population for Intentional Structure . . . . . . . . 900
Noura Labidi, Tarak Chaari, and Rafik Bouaziz
Metaheuristics Parameter Tuning Using Racing and Case-Based
Reasoning in Scheduling Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 911
Ivo Pereira, Ana Madureira, and Bruno Cunha
A Branch-and-Price Algorithm for the Double Vehicle Routing
Problem with Multiple Stacks and Heterogeneous Demand. . . . . . . . . . . 921
Jonatas B.C. Chagas and André G. Santos
BigDimETL: ETL for Multidimensional Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935
Hana Mallek, Faiza Ghozzi, Olivier Teste, and Faiez Gargouri
Knowledge Integration in Collaborative Environments
Using Supervised Ontological Alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945
Leandro Pupo Natale and Nizam Omar
A General VNS Heuristic for a Three-Stage Assembly Flow Shop
Scheduling Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 955
Saulo C. Campos, José Elas C. Arroyo, and Ricardo G. Tavares
Towards NoSQL Graph Data Warehouse for Big Social
Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965
Hajer Akid and Mounir Ben Ayed
Contents xxi

A Contribution of Dynamical Systems Theory and Epidemiological

Modeling to a Viral Marketing Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
João N.C. Gonçalves, Helena Sofia Rodrigues, and M. Teresa T. Monteiro
Developing an Ambient Intelligent-Based Decision Support System
for Production and Control Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 984
Marco Gomes, Fábio Silva, Filipa Ferraz, António Silva, Cesar Analide,
and Paulo Novais
CobWeb Multidimensional Model: Visualizing OLAP Query Results
Using Tag-Cloud Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 995
Omar Khrouf, Kaïs Khrouf, and Jamel Feki
A Time Delay Neural Network for Online Arabic
Handwriting Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005
Ramzi Zouari, Houcine Boubaker, and Monji Kherallah
A Proposal to Model Knowledge Dimension in Sensitive
Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1015
Mariam Ben Hassen, Mohamed Turki, and Faïez Gargouri
Using Intelligent Systems to Improve Case Flow in Court Systems . . . . 1031
Ana Lúcia Martins
Similarity and Trust Metrics Used in Recommender Systems:
A Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
Maryam Jallouli, Sonia Lajmi, and Ikram Amous
Analysing the Performance of a Tomographic Reconstructor
with Different Neural Networks Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1051
Sergio Luis Suárez Gómez, Carlos González Gutiérrez,
Jesús Daniel Santos Rodríguez, María Luisa Sánchez Rodríguez,
Fernando Sánchez Lasheras, and Francisco Javier de Cos Juez
Robot Swarms Theory Applicable to Seek and Rescue Operation . . . . . 1061
Jose León, Gustavo A. Cardona, Andres Botello, and Juan M. Calderón
Linguistic Representation by Fuzzy Formal Concept and Interval
Type-2 Feature Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071
Sahar Cherif, Nesrine Baklouti, Adel M. Alimi, and Vaclav Snasel
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1083
 An Innovative Approach to Manage Heterogeneous
Information Using Relational Database Systems

Cosmin Sabo1 ✉ , Petrică C. Pop1, Honoriu Vălean1, and Daniela Dănciulescu2

( )

1
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, România
[email protected]
2
University of Craiova, Craiova, România

Abstract. In this paper, we propose a novel database design structure that can
deal with all the aspects of the complexity of data that has to be managed, using
the concepts of defining objects in object oriented programming (OOP). As well,
we create a set of procedures in database system that allows us to manage all type
of data, without knowing the structure of the database. The creation of the data‐
base structure, also the mechanism of inserting and retrieval the information is
made by using a metadata set of information.
The major benefit of the proposed approach is that we can use a relational
database management system (RDBMS), that can assure ACID (atomicity,
consistency, isolation and durability) principles, low cost management and quick
development based on metadata structure. The main advantages of our approach
comparing with NoSQL database system is that we preserve ACID properties of
the information and comparing with NewSQL is that the cost of the projection of
database structure and management of the system is much lower.
Our proposed system is functional and can manage very large amount of data
from heterogenic sources that can be managed by companies without a lot of
know-how.

Keywords: Databases · Data logical models · Relational models · Object-

oriented models

1 Introduction

How to manage big quantities of dataset with a high rate of changes from heterogeneous
sources and preserve in the same time ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation and
durability) principles of database systems is a question that each of us has to deal with.
Most of the applications used by companies to manage their data use relational data‐
base management systems (RDMSs) and this fact will remain for the next years, even
though database management systems (DMSs) are evolving very fast. On the other hand,
data structure, are changing often and the number of data sources needed to be used by
companies to remain competitive are rising every day. This is the reason why we create
this new approach in order to retrieve and manage information datasets.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

A.M. Madureira et al. (eds.), Intelligent Systems Design and Applications,
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 557,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53480-0_1
2 C. Sabo et al.

The evolution of database management system capabilities is a clear indicator of the

existence of necessity of finding mechanisms for structuring information. Databases are
defined by Frawley [7] as collections of data integrated into one or more files, organized
to facilitate the storage, change, query and retrieval of information relevant to users
needs. Frawley estimated that global information generated will double every 20 months
and the size and number of databases will grow even faster, see for more information
[7]. Coltri believes that the database is one of the areas with the most important devel‐
opments in software engineering [19].
In the last period, librarianship has developed and implemented a suite of standards for
information management, and for ensuring the sustainability of stored information. We
will mention few of these standards used for resource description: BIBFRAME - Biblio‐
graphic Framework Initiative [8], EAD - Encoded Archival Description [9] EDTF -
Extended Date/Time Format, MARCXML - Machine-Readable Cataloging XML [10],
MODS - metadata Object Description Standard, but there are standards for digital
resources, such as PREMIS - Preservation metadata or METS - metadata Encoding and
Transmission Standard [11]. These standards can be extended in order to be used in other
areas.
As is shown by Rokitskii [5], object oriented models are data logical in their essence
but, at the same time, since object oriented models are formal, they allow one to specify
formal constructions of data, formal relations between them, and formal operations on
them. Object-oriented modeling has been already used at the interface level of three-
level architectures of database management systems (DBMSs) and also at the conceptual
level of design. In contrast to object-oriented tools occupying a rather large segment of
the market of creation of application programs at the present time, the market of object-
oriented database management systems has a low acceptance in small and medium
business software. Based on this premises, Rokitskii [5] used relational database
management systems (DBMSs) in order to create a data structure model based on object-
oriented principals. For more information, see [5].
Vysniauskas and Nemuraite in [6] have presented a solution for a problem that has
arisen from practical needs: namely, possibilities for storing ontological information and
processing this information by user applications. For this purpose, they used relational
database (RDB) considering that it is a good candidate that has proven capabilities to
cope with large amounts of data. Methodologies for transforming entity relationship and
object-oriented conceptual models to relational database structures are well-established
and implemented in their tools.
Ontology Definition Metamodel, initiated by OMG, is seeking to define transfor‐
mations between OWL, UML, ER and other modelling languages, where Simple
Common Logic is chosen for definition of constraints. On the base of existing method‐
ologies, there are some possible ways to relate ontological information described by
ontological language, with relational schemas. For more information, see [4].
In this paper we present a novel solution of structuring the information in a relational
database system. Our approach is using concepts from library standards and object
oriented programming, and is totally different from previous studies.
 An Innovative Approach to Manage Heterogeneous Information 3

The aim of this paper is to describe an innovative approach that combines informa‐
tional standards from librarianship field with object oriented programming techniques
in order to manage financial and contact information of possible partners or clients.

2 Defining the Concepts Used for Solving this Problem

2.1 Library Standards for Defining Information

MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging) is currently the most widely used standard for
storing and exchanging bibliographic records. Evolution of MARC standard has a
history of more than forty years. MARC, is basically a concept for structuring and inter‐
changing of information which evolved separately from concepts of management
systems databases. Even if it is a standard with a high degree of use in libraries, it does
not solve all problems arising from the rapid evolution of data structures and quantity
of existing information.
The structure of the information in MARC format is a linear one, each type of infor‐
mation stored is defined by a set of metadata composed from a set of three numerical
characters that defined field, an element represented by a character alphanumeric that
represents subfield and field label to define the meaning of this field subfield tuple [16].
The information can be stored in field or in a subfield. Basically, if you want to specify
the author of a work, the information that will identify metadata is filed 100, and the
corresponding value will be written to the right of this metadata, in subfield a, as you
can see in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. A bibliographic record represented in MARC and FRBR model

4 C. Sabo et al.

If there is repetitive information for a given metadata field, we will add a new meta‐
data representing information and the corresponding value. If a subfield is repetitive, $
separator will be used followed by subfield name to write repetitive set of values. The
maximum number of characters that can be stored in a field or subfield, of MARC
standard, is 999 characters.
MARC standard has proved that are some inconvenient in information management:
– The number of fields and subfields are insufficient to encapsulate all type of infor‐
mation needed to be represented;
– Fields and subfields containing a large amount of information are not possible to be
managed;
– Special characters can generate errors in automated process.
Based on this fact regarding MARC standards, MARCXML standard was developed.
This standard representation of information eliminates previously existing limitations
in storing large amounts of information in a single subfield or storing special chars.
This linear way of defining information within a bibliographic record cannot solve
all situations generated by evolution of information needed to be stored, ensuring
sustainability of the concerned information with minimal redundancy, but allows a
semantic presentation of the information stored on this structure [3]. In this sense, to
solve the aforementioned issues, IFLA - International Federation of Library Associa‐
tions and other institutions have proposed and developed FRBR - Functional Require‐
ments for Bibliographic Records, which adopts a description of hierarchical information
in order to increase the level of granularity and to allow better information reuse.

2.2 Representing Information Structures Using FRBR Model

FRBR [2] reduces the number of descriptive elements at record level, but significantly
increases the number of records that can be described in separate facilities, as is shown
in Fig. 2. The linear model description of records in MARC standard is converted into
a hierarchical model in FRBR model, and this model can be mapped to object oriented
information, but this aspect will be treated in the next chapter.
Clearly, in FRBR representation there are few shortcomings [12], because the aim
of defining FRBR was to reduce the cost of classical description of bibliographic
resources, but has left aside other aspects such as:
– Prioritizing information at field level;
– Repetitive order of subfields repetitive not standardized;
– Another important aspect is related to the description of records or parts of records
in a different language.
 An Innovative Approach to Manage Heterogeneous Information 5

Fig. 2. Representing relations in a record FRBR

3 Problem Solution Using Metadata Definitions

Next we will define a complex informational structure using relational database manage‐
ment systems [18] that is easy to be managed and we will show how to combine the
expertise gained by the team members in librarian bibliographic standards [1], relational
database management systems and object-oriented programming [17].
Object-oriented programming (OOP) refers to a type of computer programming
(software design) in which programmers define not only the data type of a data structure,
but also the types of operations (functions) that can be applied to the data structure.
In this way, the data structure becomes an object that includes both data and func‐
tions. In addition, programmers can create relationships between one object and another.
For example, objects can inherit characteristics from other objects [15].
OOP concepts allow the development of simple and effective solutions to many
problems, enabling software programming complexity decreased, but improving the
quality of the solutions obtained [14].
MARC standard with the list of fields and subfields can be associated with linear
programming where we can manage, perhaps hundreds of variables and procedures, but
increasing their number can generate unmanageable situations. Obviously, the continued
growth of the types of records required to be described will generate situations hard to
be manage in a linear structure.
Managing complex informational structures without the risk of losing information
and in the same time providing tools for easy information retrieval, it is not an easy task,
and this is the reason why we define a normalized information structure, using MARC
definitions and concept of structuring objects specific to object oriented programming,
that allow us to have an easy information management.
The MARC structure, which according to Fig. 1, is defined as linear way of defining
information was mapped into a structure on three levels as we will describe in what it
follows.
6 C. Sabo et al.

The first level defines the uniqueness of registration, and a set of adjacent properties.
This level is equivalent in object-oriented programming with class variables defined at
class level, each record in the database consist in an instance of this class.
The second level consists in the definitions MARC fields, their names having a fixed
length of three characters and values between 001 and 999. Each field has clear defined
meaning, and the meaning of the fields is grouped for easy identification. This level is
equivalent with methods from object oriented programming.
The third level is defined by subfields, that have a fixed length that consists in one
character that has values between a–z and 0–9. Most of the information is stored at
subfield level. There are only a few fields that store information, the remaining fields
representing the relationship between subfield and record level. This concept allows an
easy way to define 1:n and n:m relations. These subfields represent in object oriented
programming the variables defined inside methods.
The principle of defining the database structure for the example above is shown in
Fig. 3. Since the number of tables and relations between tables is too big to be exhaustive
represented here, we represent those elements that are representative for the principles
shown before.

Fig. 3. OO information mapping using MARC fields

This concept has as starting point librarianship and information science, and concepts
specific to object-oriented programming, which were used to define a metadata structure,
which automatically generate data structures necessary through stored procedures. The
result is that any user can manage all this data structure and information stored in without
knowledge of database management or knowledge about standard query language, the
entire process of defining and extending the database structure is based on the metadata
definition.
 An Innovative Approach to Manage Heterogeneous Information 7

Basically, we defined a set of tables in the database that store all metadata we need
to generate: structures of tables, fields, data types, restrictions and relations between
them. Based on triggers, when changes are made on these tables the appropriate oper‐
ation for adding, modifying or deleting tables and relations between them are generated.
Similarly, when we interrogate the database we shall use a single stored procedure
with the list of required parameters to be entered, such as the list of fields needed, the
list of conditions to be fulfilled and other optional parameters.
It does not matter if you want to take information about a person, a task list, employ‐
ment or any other information, you can always call the same procedure, without needing
to know the database structure.
This model is implemented using MySQL database system, a system that allows
storing sufficient quantities of information at the level of TB or PB, with the possibility
of clustering. The concepts defined in this material may be used for other database
systems. The reason for choosing this database system is the ability to achieve rapid
transition from SQL to NoSQL [13] using schemas. For further studies we intend to
compare our results with other NoSQL database systems and also, to map our structure
to some web ontology language (OWL) [6].

4 Preliminary Results

We took in consideration datasets provided by http://data.gov.ro, a governmental

website, that offers information under licensed distribution OGL-ROU-1.0, which
allows the collection, processing and distribution of this information without any
warranty. Now the website contains 669 sets of structured data in 16.770 files structured
in various formats and informational structure.
In order to highlight the innovative concept presented in this article, we took infor‐
mation about Romanian companies in a set of years (2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013). Each
set of data has source files consist of six separate documents structured as CSV (comma
separated values) format, the content of this files is different.
Also, in order to check the entire functionality of the mentioned concepts we have
taken information about companies in Romania, from other public governmental sites,
to ensure the heterogeneity of information. Data source in this case was in html format,
retrieving information was performed using XPath.
The implementation process has required the following steps:
– Defining the structure based on information provided by the documents published on
the website data.gov.ro and information retrieved from other websites;
– Identifying other sites that provide information about public companies;
– Extension metadata structure to embed this new information;
– Taking information from files provided by data.gov.ro;
– Generate the automation to extract relevant data from HTML (Hyper Text Markup
Language) files;
– Insert datasets into database structure using stored procedures specialized for this
operation.
8 C. Sabo et al.

The metadata information defines 41 fields and a total of 89 subfields. The next figure
shows on the left side the list of fields defined in this metadata structure and the type of
information that can be stored at field level, with length limitation if it is needed and on
the right side, the list of subfields defined for the filed selected (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Field and subfield metadata definition

Metadata set allow to define if a field or a subfield is active or not, based on this
information, stored procedures will allow or not to insert information in field or subfield.
We also define if a subfield is repetitive or not, how many times it can be repeated,
maximum length of information stored in it, if the value stored in a field subfield tuple
is entered by user, or is generated based on some automatic procedures specific to each
data structure.
This metadata structure defines if a field or subfield value should be validated by a
regular expression and if this validation does not pass what will be the results returned
to user. Validation rule can send to user an info note that this information does not respect
the rules defined, a warning, or can generate an error message and reject the insert or
update operation.
Each field or subfield can have different data source information. For example,
subfield CAEN code (activities classification) has as source a dictionary of values, based
on fact that CAEN code is a predefined list. The owner of the company represents an
authority information, which means that behind that name is a complex structure that
respects the same principals. The owner company name is an authority structure because
we can add another information about the owner, like contact information. The
complexity of this information can be extended based on new data source information
that we find. Link data source represents a connection to another data set from the same
structure. For example, if a company is connected to another, we can represent this by
using the link data source.
After the insertion process in database based on metadata that define the entire struc‐
ture the result is 1.738.053 companies from Romania with contact information and main
financial indicators from the last eight years.
To obtain the list of companies that exists in database we use the next stored procedure:
marc_select_advanced_fast('b2b', 'rou', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '',
'', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '200a,010a*,210j,210l,220b,220a,212a*,217a*', '', '27',
'539973', '', '', '');
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
“spotted” condition; and that this condition is amenable to and
requires purification by suffering,—water, or more frequently fire,
which wash or burn out these stains of sin. So Plutarch (who died
about 120 a.d.) still declares that the souls in Hades have stains of
different colours according to the different passions; and the object
of the purificatory punishment is “that, these stains having been
worn away, the soul may become altogether resplendent.” And Virgil,
when he declares “the guilt which infects the soul is washed out or
burnt out … until a long time-span has effaced the clotted stain, and
leaves the heavenly conscience pure”: is utilizing an Orphic-
Pythagorean Hades-book.[261]
This conception of positive stains is carefully taken over by the
Alexandrian Fathers: Clement speaks of “removing, by continuous
prayer, the stains (κηλίδας) contracted through former sins,” and
declares that “the Gnostic,” the perfect Christian, “fears not death,
having purified himself from all the spots (σπίλους) on his soul.” And
Origen describes “the pure soul that is not weighed down by leaden
weights of wickedness,” where the spots have turned to leaden
pellets such as were fastened to fishing-nets. Hence, says Clement,
“post-baptismal sins have to be purified out” of the soul; and, says
Origen, “these rivers of fire are declared to be of God, who causes
the evil that is mixed up with the whole soul to disappear from out
of it.”[262]
In Pseudo-Dionysius the non-Orphic, purely negative, view
prevails: “Evil is neither in demons nor in us as an existent evil, but
as a failure and dearth in the perfection of our own proper goods.”
And St. Thomas similarly declares that “different souls have
correspondingly different stains, like shadows differ in accordance
with the difference of the bodies which interpose themselves
between the light.”[263]
But Catherine, in this inconsistent with her own general Privation-
doctrine, again conceives the stain, the “macchia del peccato,” as
Cardinal Manning has acutely observed, not simply as a deprivation
of the light of glory, but “as the cause, not the effect, of God’s not
shining into the soul”: it includes in it the idea of an imperfection,
weakness with regard to virtue, bad (secondary) dispositions, and
unheavenly tastes.[264]
3. The true and the false in the Orphic conception.
Now precisely in this profoundly true conception of Positive Stain
there lurk certain dangers, which all proceed from the original Orphic
diagnosis concerning the source of these stains, and these dangers
will have to be carefully guarded against.
(1) The conviction as to the purificatory power of fire was no
doubt, originally, the direct consequence from the Orphic belief as to
the intrinsically staining and imprisoning effect of the body upon the
soul. “The soul, as the Orphics say, is enclosed in the body, in
punishment for the punishable acts”; “liberations” from the body,
and “purifications” of the living and the dead, ever, with them,
proceed together. And hence to burn the dead body was considered
to purify the soul that had been stained by that prison-house: the
slain Clytemnestra, says Euripides, “is purified, as to her body, by
fire,” for, as the Scholiast explains, “fire purifies all things, and burnt
bodies are considered holy.”[265] And such an intensely anti-body
attitude we find, not only fully developed later on into a deliberate
anti-Incarnational doctrine, among the Gnostics, but, as we have
already seen, slighter traces of this same tone may be found in the
(doubtless Alexandrian) Book of Wisdom, and in one, not formally
doctrinal passage, a momentary echo of it, in St. Paul himself. And
Catherine’s attitude is generally, and often strongly, in this direction.
(2) A careful distinction is evidently necessary here. The doctrine
that sin defiles,—affects the quality of the soul’s moral and spiritual
dispositions, and that this defilement and perversion, ever
occasioned by the search after facile pleasure or the flight from
fruitful pain, can normally be removed and corrected only by a long
discipline of fully accepted, gradually restorative pain, either here, or
hereafter, or both: are profound anticipations, and have been most
rightly made integral parts, of the Christian life and conception. The
doctrine that the body is essentially a mere accident or superaddition
or necessary defilement to the soul, is profoundly untrue, in its
exaggeration and one-sidedness: for if the body is the occasion of
the least spiritual of our sins, it can and should become the chief
servant of the spirit; the slow and difficult training of this servant is
one of the most important means of development for the soul itself;
and many faults and vices are not occasioned by the body at all,
whilst none are directly and necessarily caused by it. Without the
body, we should not have impurity, but neither should we have
specifically human purity of soul; and without it, given the
persistence and activity of the soul, there could be as great, perhaps
greater, pride and solipsism, the most anti-Christian of all the vices.
Hence if, in Our Lord’s teaching, we find no trace of a Gnostic desire
for purification from all things bodily as essentially soul-staining, we
do find a profound insistence upon purity of heart, and upon the
soul’s real, active “turning,” conversion, (an interior change from an
un- or anti-moral attitude to an ethical and spiritual dependence
upon God), as a sine qua non condition for entrance into the
Kingdom of Heaven. And the Joannine teachings re-affirm this great
truth for us as a Metabasis, a moving from Death over to Life.
4. Catherine’s conceptions as to the character of the stains and of
their purgation.
And this idea, as to an intrinsic purgation through suffering of
impurities contracted by the soul, can be kept thoroughly Christian,
if we ever insist, with Catherine in her most emphatic and deepest
teachings, that Purgation can and should be effected in this life,
hence in the body,—in and through all the right uses of the body, as
well as in and through all the legitimate and will-strengthening
abstentions from such uses; that the subject-matter of such
purgation are the habits and inclinations contrary to our best
spiritual lights, and which we have largely ourselves built up by our
variously perverse or slothful acts, but which in no case are directly
caused by the body, and in many cases are not even occasioned by
it; and, finally, that holiness consists primarily, not in the absence of
faults, but in the presence of spiritual force, in Love creative, Love
triumphant,—the soul becoming flame rather than snow, and
dwelling upon what to do, give and be, rather than upon what to
shun.—Catherine’s predominant, ultimate tone possesses this
profound positiveness, and corrects all but entirely whatever, if taken
alone, would appear to render the soul’s substantial purity
impossible in this life; to constitute the body a direct and necessary
cause of impurity to the soul; and to find the ideal of perfection in
the negative condition of being free from stain. In her greatest
sayings, and in her actual life, Purity is found to be Love, and this
Love is exercised, not only in the inward, home-coming, recollective
movement,—in the purifying of the soul’s dispositions, but also in the
outgoing, world-visiting, dispersive movement,—in action towards
fellow-souls.
5. Judaeo-Roman conception of Purgatory.
And this social side and movement brings us to the second
element and current in the complete doctrine of a Middle State,—a
constituent which possesses affinities and advantages, and produces
excesses and abuses, directly contrary to those proper to the
element of an intrinsic purgation.
(1) Here we get early Christian utilizations, for purposes of a
doctrine concerning the Intermediate State, of sayings and images
which dwell directly only upon certain extrinsic consequences of evil-
doing, or which, again, describe a future historical and social event,
—the Last Day. For already Origen interprets, in his beautiful Treatise
on Prayer, XXIX, 16, Our Lord’s words as to the debtor: “Thou shalt
be cast into prison, thou shalt not come forth from thence, until thou
hast paid the uttermost farthing,” Matt, v, 25, 26, as applying to
Purgatory. And in his Contra Celsum, VII, 13, he already takes, as
the Biblical locus classicus for a Purgatory, St. Paul’s words as to how
men build, upon the one foundation Christ, either gold, silver, gems,
or wood, hay, stubble; and how fire will test each man’s work; and,
if the work remain, he shall receive a reward, but if it be burnt, he
shall suffer loss and yet he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire, 1
Cor. iii, 10-15. It appears certain, however, that St. Paul is, in this
passage, thinking directly of the Last Day, the End of the World, with
its accompaniment of physical fire, and as to how far the various
human beings, then on earth, will be able to endure the dread stress
and testing of that crisis; and he holds that some will be fit to bear it
and some will not.
Such a destruction of the world by fire appears elsewhere in
Palestinian Jewish literature,—in the Book of Enoch and the
Testament of Levi; and in the New Testament, in 2 Peter iii, 12: “The
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, the elements shall melt
with fervent heat.” Josephus, Antiquities, XI, ii, 3, teaches a
destruction by fire and another by water. And the Stoics, to whom
also Clement and Origen appeal, had gradually modified their first
doctrine of a simply cosmological Ekpyrōsis, a renovation of the
physical universe by fire, into a moral purification of the earth,
occasioned by, and applied to, the sinfulness of man. Thus Seneca
has the double, water-and-fire, instrument: “At that time the tide” of
the sea “will be borne along free from all measure, for the same
reason which will cause the future conflagration. Both occur when it
seems fit to God to initiate a better order of things and to have done
with the old.… The judgment of mankind being concluded, the
primitive order of things will be recalled, and to the earth will be re-
given man innocent of crimes.”[266]
(2) It is interesting to note how—largely under the influence of the
forensic temper and growth of the Canonical Penitential system, and
of its successive relaxations in the form of substituted lighter good
works, Indulgences,—the Latin half of Christendom, ever more social
and immediately practical than the Greek portion, came, in general,
more and more to dwell upon two ideas suggested to their minds by
those two, Gospel and Pauline, passages. The one idea was that
souls which, whilst fundamentally well-disposed, are not fit for
Heaven at the body’s death, can receive instant purification by the
momentary fire of the Particular Judgment; and the other held that,
thus already entirely purified and interiorly fit for Heaven, they are
but detained (in what we ought, properly, to term a Satisfactorium),
to suffer the now completely non-ameliorative, simply vindictive,
infliction of punishment,—a punishment still, in strict justice, due to
them for past sins, of which the guilt and the deteriorating effects
upon their own souls have been fully remitted and cured.
In this way it was felt that the complete unchangeableness of the
condition of every kind of soul after death, or at least after the
Particular Judgment (a Judgment held practically to synchronize with
death), was assured. And indeed how could there be any interior
growth in Purgatory, seeing that there is no meriting there? Again it
was thought that thus the vision of God at the moment of Judgment
was given an operative value for the spiritual amelioration of souls
which, already in substantially good dispositions, could hardly be
held to pass through so profound an experience without intrinsic
improvement, as the other view seemed to hold.—And, above all,
this form of the doctrine was found greatly to favour the
multiplication among the people of prayers, Masses and good-works
for the dead; since the modus operandi of such acts seemed thus to
become entirely clear, simple, immediate, and, as it were,
measurable and mechanical. For these souls in their “Satisfactorium,”
being, from its very beginning, already completely purged and fit for
Heaven,—God is, as it were, free to relax at any instant, in favour of
sufficiently fervent or numerous intercessions, the exigencies of his
entirely extrinsic justice.
(3) The position of a purely extrinsic punishment is emphasized,
with even unusual vehemence, in the theological glosses inserted, in
about 1512 to 1529, in Catherine’s Dicchiarazione. Yet it is probably
the very influential Jesuit theologian Francesco Suarez, who died in
1617, who has done most towards formulating and theologically
popularizing this view. All the guilt of sin, he teaches, is remitted (in
these Middle souls) at the first moment of the soul’s separation from
the body, by means of a single act of contrition, whereby the will is
wholly converted to God, and turned away from every venial sin.
“And in this way sin may be remitted, as to its guilt, in Purgatory,
because the soul’s purification dates from this moment”;—in
strictness, from before the first moment of what should be here
termed the “Satisfactorium.” As to bad habits and vicious
inclinations, “we ought not to imagine that the soul is detained for
these”: but “they are either taken away at the moment of death, or
expelled by an infusion of the contrary virtues when the soul enters
into glory.”[267] This highly artificial, inorganic view is adopted,
amongst other of our contemporary theologians, by Atzberger, the
continuator of Scheeben.[268]
6. The Judaeo-Roman conception must be taken in synthesis with
the Alexandrine.
Now it is plain that the long-enduring Penitential system of the
Latin Church, and the doctrine and practice of Indulgences stand for
certain important truths liable to being insufficiently emphasized by
the Greek teachings concerning an intrinsically ameliorative
Purgatorium, and that there can be no question of simply eliminating
these truths. But neither are they capable of simple co-ordination
with, still less of super-ordination to, those most profound and
spiritually central immanental positions. As between the primarily
forensic and governmental, and the directly ethical and spiritual, it
will be the former that will have to be conceived and practised as,
somehow, an expression and amplification of, and a practical
corrective and means to, the latter.[269]
(1) The ordinary, indeed the strictly obligatory, Church teaching
clearly marks the suggested relation as the right one, at three,
simply cardinal points. We are bound, by the Confession of Faith of
Michael Palaeologus, 1267 a.d., and by the Decree of the Council of
Florence, 1429 a.d., to hold that these Middle souls “are purged after
death by purgatorial or cathartic pains”; and by that of Trent “that
there is a Purgatory.”[270] Yet we have here a true lucus a non
lucendo, if this place or state does not involve purgation: for no
theologian dares explicitly to transfer and restrict the name
“Purgatory” to the instant of the soul’s Particular Judgment; even
Suarez, as we have seen, has to extend the name somehow.
 Next we are bound, by the same three great Decrees, to hold
indeed that “the Masses, Prayers, Alms, and other pious offices of
the Faithful Living are profitable towards the relief of these pains,”
yet this by mode of “suffrage,” since, as the severely orthodox
Jesuit, Father H. Hurter, explains in his standard Theologiae
Dogmaticae Compendium, “the fruit of this impetration and
satisfaction is not infallible, for it depends upon the merciful
acceptance of God.”[271] Hence in no case can we, short of
superstition, conceive such good works as operating automatically:
so that the a priori simplest view concerning the mode of operation
of these prayers is declared to be mistaken. We can and ought,
then, to choose among the conceptions, not in proportion to their
mechanical simplicity, but according to their spiritual richness and to
their analogy with our deepest this-life experiences.
And we are all bound, by the Decree of Trent and the
Condemnation of Baius, 1567 a.d., to hold that Contrition springing
from Perfect Love reconciles man with God, even before Confession,
and this also outside of cases of necessity or of martyrdom.[272]
Indeed, it is the common doctrine that one single act of Pure Love
abolishes, not only Hell, but Purgatory, so that, if the soul were to
die whilst that act was in operation, it would forthwith be in Heaven.
If then, in case of perfect purity, the soul is at once in heaven, the
soul cannot be quite pure and yet continue in Purgatory.
(2) It is thus plain that, as regards Sin in its relation to the Sinner,
there are, in strictness, ever three points to consider: the guilty act,
the reflex effect of the act upon the disposition the agent, and the
punishment; for all theologians admit that the more or less bad
disposition, contracted through the sinful act, remains in the soul,
except in the case of Perfect Contrition, after the guilt of the act has
been remitted. But whilst the holders of an Extrinsic, Vindictive
Purgatory, work for a punishment as independent as possible of
these moral effects of sin still present in the pardoned soul, the
advocates of an Intrinsic, Ameliorative Purgatory find the
punishment centre in the pain and difficulty attendant upon “getting
slowly back to fully virtuous dispositions, through retracing the steps
we have taken in departing from it.”[273] And the system of
Indulgences appears, in this latter view, to find its chief justification
in that it keeps up a link with the past Penitential system of the
Church; that it vividly recalls and applies the profound truth of the
interaction, for good even more than for evil, between all human
souls, alive and dead; and that it insists upon the readily forgotten
truth of even the forgiven sinner, the man with the good
determination, having ordinarily still much to do and to suffer before
he is quit of the effects of his sin.
(3) And the difficulties and motives special to those who supplant
the Intrinsic, Ameliorating Purgatory by an Extrinsic, Vindicative
Satisfactorium, can indeed be met by those who would preserve that
beautifully dynamic, ethical, and spiritual conception. For we can
hold that the fundamental condition,—the particular determination of
the active will,—remains quite unchanged, from Death to Heaven, in
these souls; that this determination of the active will requires more
or less of time and suffering fully to permeate and assimilate to itself
all the semi-voluntary wishes and habits of the soul; and that this
permeation takes place among conditions in which the soul’s acts are
too little resisted and too certain of success to be constituted
meritorious. We can take Catherine’s beautiful Plunge-conception as
indicating the kind of operation effected in and by the soul, at and
through the momentary vision of God. And we can feel convinced
that it is ever, in the long run, profoundly dangerous to try to clarify
and simplify doctrines beyond or against the scope and direction of
the analogies of Nature and of Grace, which are ever so dynamic
and organic in type: for the poor and simple, as truly as the rich and
learned, ever require, not to be merely taken and left as they are,
but to be raised and trained to the most adequate conceptions
possible to each.—It is, in any case, very certain that the marked
and widespread movement of return to belief in a Middle State is
distinctly towards a truly Purgative Purgatory, although few of these
sincere truth-seekers are aware, as is Dr. Anrich, that they are
groping after a doctrine all but quite explained away by a large body
of late Scholastic and Neo-Scholastic theologians.[274]
(4) Yet it is very satisfactory to note how numerous, and especially
how important are, after all is said, the theologians who have
continued to walk, in this matter, in the footsteps of the great
Alexandrines. St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches a healing of the soul in
the beyond and a purification by fire.[275] St. Augustine says that
“fire burns up the work of him who thinketh of the things of this
world, since possessions, that are loved, do not perish without pain
on the part of their possessor. It is not incredible that something of
this sort takes place after this life.”[276]
St. Thomas declares most plainly: “Venial guilt, in a soul which
dies in a state of grace, is remitted after this life by the purging fire,
because that pain, which is in some manner accepted by the will,
has, in virtue of grace, the power of expiating all such guilt as can
co-exist with a state of grace.” “After this life … there can be merit
with respect to some accidental reward, so long as a man remains in
some manner in a state of probation: and hence there can be
meritorious acts in Purgatory, with respect to the remission of venial
sin.”[277]—Dante (d. 1321) also appears, as Father Faber finely
notes, to hold such a voluntary, immanental Purgatory, where the
poet sees an Angel impelling, across the sea at dawn, a bark filled
with souls bent for Purgatory: for the boat is described as driving
towards the shore so lightly as to draw no wake upon the water.[278]
Cardinal Bellarmine, perhaps the greatest of all anti-Protestant
theologians (d. 1621) teaches that “venial sin is remitted in
Purgatory quoad culpam,” and that “this guilt, as St. Thomas rightly
insists, is remitted in Purgatory by an act of love and patient
endurance.”[279] St. Francis of Sales, that high ascetical authority (d.
1622), declares: “By Purgatory we understand a place where souls
undergo purgation, for a while, from the stains and imperfections
which they have carried away with them from this mortal life.”[280]
 And recently and in England we have had Father Faber, Cardinal
Manning, and Cardinal Newman, although differing from each other
on many other points, fully united in holding and propagating this
finely life-like, purgative conception of purgatory.[281]
7. A final difficulty.
One final point concerning a Middle State. In the Synoptic tradition
there is a recurrent insistence upon the forgiveness of particular
sins, at particular moments, by particular human and divine acts of
contrition and pardon. In the Purgatorial teaching the stress lies
upon entire states and habits, stains and perversities of soul, and
upon God’s general grace working, in and through immanently
necessary, freely accepted sufferings, on to a slow purification of the
complete personality. As Origen says: “The soul’s single acts, good
or bad, go by; but, according to their quality, they give form and
figure to to the mind of the agent, and leave it either good or bad,
and destined for pains or for rewards.”[282]
The antagonism here is but apparent. For the fact that a certain
condition of soul precedes, and that another condition succeed, each
act of the same soul, in proportion as this act is full and deliberate,
does not prevent the corresponding, complimentary fact that such
acts take the preceding condition as their occasion, and make the
succeeding condition into a further expression of themselves. Single
acts which fully express the character, whether good or bad, are
doubtless rarer than is mostly thought. Yet Catherine, in union with
the Gospels and the Church, is deeply convinced of the power of one
single act of Pure Love to abolish, not of course the effects outward,
but the reflex spiritual consequences upon the soul itself, of sinful
acts or states.
Catherine’s picture again, of the deliberate Plunge into Purgatory,
gives us a similar heroic act which, summing up the whole soul’s
active volitions, initiates and encloses the whole subsequent
purification, but which itself involves a prevenient act of Divine Love
and mercy, to which this act of human love is but the return and
response. Indeed, as we know, this plunge-conception was but the
direct projection, on to the other-world-picture, of her own personal
experience at her conversion, when a short span of clock-time held
acts of love received and acts of love returned, which transformed all
her previous condition, and initiated a whole series of states ever
more expressive of her truest self.—Act and state and state and act,
each presupposes and requires the other: and both are present in
the Synoptic pictures, and both are operative in the Purgatorial
teaching; although in the former the accounts are so brief as to
make states and acts alike look as though one single act; and, in the
latter, the descriptions are so large as to make the single acts almost
disappear behind the states.

V. Catherine and Heaven—Three Perplexities to be considered.

We have found a truly Purgational Middle state, with its sense of

succession, its mixture of joy and suffering, and its growth and
fruitfulness, to be profoundly consonant with all our deepest spiritual
experiences and requirements. But what about Heaven, which we
must, apparently, hold to consist of a sense of simultaneity, a
condition of mere reproductiveness and utterly uneventful finality,
and a state of unmixed, unchanging joy?—Here again, even if in a
lesser degree, certain experiences of the human soul can help us to
a few general positions of great spiritual fruitfulness, which can
reasonably claim an analogical applicability to the Beyond, and
which, thus taken as our ultimate ideals, cannot fail to stimulate the
growth of our personality, and, with it, of further insight into these
great realities. I shall here consider three main questions, which will
roughly correspond to the three perplexities just indicated.
1. Time and Heaven.
Our first question, then, is as to the probable character of man’s
happiest ultimate consciousness,—whether it is one of succession or
of simultaneity: in other words, whether, besides the disappearance
of the category of space (a point already discussed), there is likely to
be the lapse of the category of time also.—And let it be noted that
the retention of the latter sense for Hell, and even for Purgatory,
does not prejudge the question as to its presence or absence in
Heaven, since those two states are admittedly non-normative,
whereas the latter represents the very ideal and measure of man’s
full destination and perfection.
(1) Now it is still usual, amongst those who abandon the ultimacy
of the space-category, simultaneously to drop, as necessarily
concomitant, the time-category also. Tennyson, among the poets,
does so, in his beautiful “Crossing the Bar”: “From out our bourne of
Time and Place, the flood may bear me far”; and Prof. H. J.
Holtzmann, among speculative theologians, in criticising Rothe’s
conception of man as a quite ultimately spacial-temporal being,
treats these two questions as standing and falling together.[283]—Yet
a careful study of Kant’s critique of the two categories of Space and
Time suffices to convince us of the indefinitely richer content, and
more ultimate reality, of the latter. Indeed, I shall attempt to show
more fully in the next Chapter, with the aid of M. Henri Bergson, that
mathematical, uniform clock-time is indeed an artificial compound,
which is made up of our profound experience of a duration in which
the constituents (sensations, imaginations, thoughts, feelings,
willings) of the succession ever, in varying degrees, overlap,
interpenetrate, and modify each other, and the quite automatic and
necessary simplification and misrepresentation of this experience by
its imaginary projection on to space,—its restatement, by our
picturing faculty, as a perfectly equable succession of mutually
exclusive moments. It is in that interpenetrative duration, not in this
atomistic clock-time, that our deeper human experiences take place.
(2) But that sense of duration, is it indeed our deepest
apprehension? Dr. Holtzmann points out finely how that we are well
aware, in our profoundest experiences, of “that permanently
incomprehensible fact,—the existence of, as it were, a prism,
through which the unitary ray of light, which fills our consciousness
with a real content, is spread out into a colour-spectrum, so that
what, in itself, exists in pure unitedness” and simultaneity, “becomes
intelligible to us only as a juxtaposition in space and a succession in
time. Beyond the prism, there are no such two things.” And he
shows how keenly conscious we are, at times, of that deepest mode
of apprehension and of being which is a Simultaneity, an eternal
Here and Now; and how ruinous to our spiritual life would be a full
triumph of the category of time.[284]
But it is St. Augustine who has, so far, found the noblest
expression for the deepest human experiences in this whole matter
of Duration and Simultaneity, as against mere Clock-Time, although,
here as with regard to Space, he is deeply indebted to Plotinus. “In
thee, O my soul, I measure time,—I measure the impression which
passing events make upon thee, who remainest when those events
have passed: this present impression then, and not those events
which had to pass in order to produce it, do I measure, when I
measure time.” “The three times,” tenses, “past, present, and future
… are certain three affections in the soul, I find them there and
nowhere else. There is the present memory of past events, the
present perception of present ones, and the present expectation of
future ones.” God possesses “the splendour of ever-tarrying
Eternity,” which is “incomparable with never-tarrying times,” since in
it “nothing passes, but the content of everything abides simply
present.” And in the next life “perhaps our own thoughts also will not
be flowing, going from one thing to another, but we shall see all we
know simultaneously, in one intuition.” St. Thomas indeed is more
positive: “All things will,” in Heaven, “be seen simultaneously and not
successively.”[285]
(3) If then, even here below, we can so clearly demonstrate the
conventionality of mere Clock-Time, and can even conceive a perfect
Simultaneity as the sole form of the consciousness of God, we
cannot well avoid holding that, in the other life, the clock-time
convention will completely cease, and that, though the sense of
Duration is not likely completely to disappear, (since, in this life at
least, this sense is certainly not merely phenomenal for man, and its
entire absence would apparently make man into God), the category
of Simultaneity will, as a sort of strong background-consciousness,
englobe and profoundly unify the sense of Duration. And, the more
God-like the soul, the more would this sense of Simultaneity
predominate over the sense of Duration.
2. The Ultimate Good, concrete, not abstract.
Our second question concerns the kind and degree of variety in
unity which we should conceive to characterize the life of God, and
of the soul in its God-likeness. Is this type and measure of all life to
be conceived as a maximum of abstraction or as a maximum of
concretion; as pure thought alone, or as also emotion and will; as
solitary and self-centred, or as social and outgoing; and as simply
reproductive, or also as operative?
(1) Now it is certain that nothing is easier, and nothing has been
more common, than to take the limitations of our earthly conditions,
and especially those attendant upon the strictly contemplative, and,
still more, those connected with the technically ecstatic states, as so
many advantages, or even as furnishing a complete scheme of the
soul’s ultimate life.
As we have already repeatedly seen in less final matters, so here
once more, at the end, we can trace the sad impoverishment to the
spiritual outlook produced by the esteem in which the antique world
generally held the psycho-physical peculiarities of trances, as directly
valuable or even as prophetic of the soul’s ultimate condition; the
contraposition and exaltation, already on the part of Plato and
Aristotle, of a supposed non-actively contemplative, above a
supposed non-contemplatively active life; the largely excessive, not
fully Christianizable, doctrines of the Neo-Platonists as to the
Negative, Abstractive way, when taken as self-sufficient, and as to
Quiet, Passivity, and Emptiness of Soul, when understood literally;
and the conception, rarely far away from the ancient thinkers, of the
soul as a substance which, full-grown, fixed and stainless at the first,
requires but to be kept free from stain up to the end.
 And yet the diminution of vitality in the trance, and even the
inattention to more than one thing at a time in Contemplation, are,
in themselves, defects, at best the price paid for certain gains; the
active and the contemplative life are, ultimately, but two mutually
complementary sides of life, so that no life ever quite succeeds in
eliminating either element, and life, caeteris paribus, is complete and
perfect, in proportion as it embraces both elements, each at its
fullest, and the two in a perfect interaction; the Negative, Abstractive
way peremptorily requires also the other, the Affirmative, Concrete
way; the Quiet, Passivity, Emptiness are really, when wholesome, an
incubation for, or a rest from, Action, indeed they are themselves a
profound action and peace, and the soul is primarily a Force and an
Energy, and Holiness is a growth of that Energy in Love, in full
Being, and in creative, spiritual Personality.
(2) Now on this whole matter the European Christian Mystics,
strongly influenced by, yet also largely developing, certain doctrines
of the Greeks, have, I think, made two most profound contributions
to the truths of the spirit, and have seriously fallen short of reality in
three respects.
The first contribution can, indeed, be credited to Aristotle, whose
luminous formulations concerning Energeia, Action, (as excluding
Motion, or Activity), we have already referred to. Here to be is to
act, and Energeia, a being’s perfect functioning and fullest self-
expression in action, is not some kind of movement or process; but,
on the contrary, all movement and process is only an imperfect kind
of Energeia. Man, in his life here, only catches brief glimpses of such
an Action; but God is not so hampered,—He is ever completely all
that He can be, His Action is kept up inexhaustibly and ever
generates supreme bliss; it is an unchanging, unmoving Energeia.
[286]—And St. Thomas echoes this great doctrine, for all the
Christian schoolmen: “A thing is declared to be perfect, in proportion
as it is in act,”—as all its potentialities are expressed in action; and
hence “the First Principle must be supremely in act,” “God’s Actuality
is identical with His Potentiality,” “God is Pure Action (Actus
Purus).”[287]—Yet it is doubtless the Christian Mystics who have most
fully experienced, and emotionally vivified, this great truth, and who
cease not, in all their more characteristic teachings, from insisting
upon the ever-increasing acquisition of “Action,” the fully fruitful,
peaceful functioning of the whole soul, at the expense of “activity,”
the restless, sterile distraction and internecine conflict of its powers.
And Heaven, for them, ever consists in an unbroken Action, devoid
of all “activity,” rendering the soul, in its degree, like to that Purest
Action, God, who, Himself “Life,” is, as our Lord declared, “not the
God of the dead but of the living.”[288]
And the second contribution can, in part, be traced back to Plato,
who does not weary, in the great middle period of his writings, from
insisting upon the greatness of the nobler passions, and who already
apprehends a Heavenly Eros which in part conflicts with, in part
transcends, the Earthly one. But here especially it is Christianity, and
in particular Christian Mysticism, which have fully experienced and
proclaimed that “God” is “Love,” and that the greatest of all the
soul’s acts and virtues is Charity, Pure Love. And hence the Pure Act
of God, and the Action of the God-like soul, are conceived not,
Aristotle-like, as acts of pure intelligence alone, but as tinged
through and through with a noble emotion.
(3) But in three matters the Mystics, as such and as a whole,
have, here especially under the predominant influence of Greek
thought, remained inadequate to the great spiritual realities, as most
fully revealed to us by Christianity. The three points are so closely
interconnected that it will be best first to illustrate, and then to
criticise them, together.
(i) Aristotle here introduces the mischief. For it is he who in his
great, simply immeasurably influential, theological tractate, Chapters
VI to X of the Twelfth Book of his Metaphysic, has presented to us
God as “the one first unmoved Mover” of the Universe, but Who
moves it as desired by it, not as desiring it, as outside of it, not as
also inside it. God here is sheer Pure Thought, Noēsis, for
“contemplation is the most joyful and the best” of actions. And
“Thought” here “thinks the divinest and worthiest, without change,”
hence “It thinks Itself, and the Thinking is a Thinking of
Thought.”[289] We have here, as Dr. Caird strikingly puts it, a God
necessarily shut up within Himself, “of purer eyes than to behold,
not only iniquity but even contingency and finitude, and His whole
activity is one act of pure self-contemplation.” “The ideal activity
which connects God with the world, appears thus as in the world
and not in God.”[290]
(ii) Now we have already allowed that the Mystics avoid Aristotle’s
elimination of emotion from man’s deepest action, and of emotion’s
equivalent from the life of God. But they are, for the most part,
much influenced in their speculations by this intensely Greek,
aristocratic, intellectualist conception, in the three points of a disdain
of the Contingent and Historical; of a superiority to volitional,
productive energizing; and of a presentation of God as unsocial, and
as occupied directly with Himself alone. We have already studied
numerous examples of the first two, deeply un-Christian, errors as
they have more or less influenced Christian Mysticism; the third
mistake, of a purely Transcendental, Deistic God, is indeed never
consistently maintained by any Christian, and Catherine, in
particular, is ever dominated by the contrary great doctrine,
adumbrated by Plato and fully revealed by Our Lord, of the impulse
to give Itself intrinsic to Goodness, so that God, as Supreme
Goodness, becomes the Supreme Self-giver, and thus the direct
example and motive for our own self-donation to Him. Yet even so
deeply religious a non-Christian as Plotinus, and such speculative
thinkers as Eriugena and Eckhart (who certainly intended to remain
Christians) continue all three mistakes, and especially insist upon a
Supreme Being, Whose true centre, His Godhead, is out of all
relation to anything but Himself. And even the orthodox Scholastics,
and St. Thomas himself, attempt at times to combine, with the
noblest Platonic and the deepest Christian teachings, certain
elements, which, in strictness, have no place in an Incarnational
Religion.
 (iii) For, at times, the fullest, deepest Action is still not conceived,
even by St. Thomas, as a Harmony, an Organization of all Man’s
essential powers, the more the better. “In the active life, which is
occupied with many things, there is less of beatitude than in the
contemplative life, which is busy with one thing alone,—the
contemplation of Truth”; “beatitude must consist essentially in the
action of the intellect; and only accidentally in the action of the
will.”[291] God is still primarily intelligence: “God’s intelligence is His
substance”; whereas “volition must be in God, since there is
intelligence in Him,” and “Love must of necessity be declared to be
in God, since there is volition in Him.”[292] God is still, in a certain
sense, shut up in Himself: “As He understands things other than
Himself, by understanding His own essence, so He wills things other
than Himself, by willing His own goodness.” “God enjoys not
anything beside Himself, but enjoys Himself alone.”[293]—And we
get, in correspondence to this absorption of God in Himself, an
absorption of man in God, of so direct and exclusive a kind, as, if
pressed, to eliminate all serious, permanent value, for our soul, in
God’s actual creation of our fellow-creatures. “He who knoweth Thee
and creatures, is not, on this account, happier than if he knows
them not; but he is happy because of Thee alone.” And “the
perfection of Love is essential to beatitude, with respect to the Love
of God, not with respect to the Love of one’s neighbour. If there
were but one soul alone to enjoy God, it would be blessèd, even
though it were without a single fellow-creature whom it could
love.”[294]
(iv) And yet St. Thomas’s own deeply Christian sense, explicit
sayings of Our Lord or of St. Paul, and even, in part, certain of the
fuller apprehensions of the Greeks, can make the great Dominican
again uncertain, or can bring him to entirely satisfactory
declarations, on each of these points. For we get the declaration that
direct knowledge of individual things, and quasi-creative
operativeness are essential to all true perfection. “To understand
something merely in general and not in particular, is to know it
imperfectly”; Our Lord Himself has taught us that “the very hairs of
your head are all numbered”; hence God must “know all other
individual things with a distinct and proper knowledge.”—And “a
thing is most perfect, when it can make another like unto itself. But
by tending to its own perfection, each thing tends to become more
and more like God. Hence everything tends to be like God, in so far
as it tends to be the cause of other things.”[295]—We get a full
insistence, with St. Paul, (in I Cor. xiii), upon our love of God, an act
of the will, as nobler than our cognition of Him; and with Plato and
St. John, upon God’s forthgoing Love for His creatures, as the very
crown and measure of His perfection. “Everything in nature has, as
regards its own good, a certain inclination to diffuse itself amongst
others, as far as possible. And this applies, in a supreme degree, to
the Divine Goodness, from which all perfection is derived.” “Love,
Joy, Delight can be predicated of God”; Love which, of its very
essence “causes the lover to bear himself to the beloved as to his
own self”: so that we must say with Dionysius that “He, the very
Cause of all things, becomes ecstatic, moves out of Himself, by the
abundance of His loving goodness, in the providence exercised by
Him towards all things extant.”[296]
(v) And we get in St. Thomas, when he is too much dominated by
the abstractive trend, a most interesting, because logically
necessitated and quite unconscious, collision with certain sayings of
Our Lord. For he then explains Matt. xviii, 10, “their,” the children’s,
“Angels see without ceasing the face of their Father who is in
Heaven” as teaching that “the action (operatio), by which Angels are
conjoined to the increate Good, is, in them, unique and
sempiternal”; whereas his commentators are driven to admit that
the text, contrariwise, implies that these Angels have two
simultaneous “operations,” and that their succouring action in nowise
disturbs their intellectual contemplation. Hence, even if we press
Matt. xxii, 30, that we “shall be as the Angels of God,” we still have
an organism of peaceful Action, composed of intellectual, affective,
volitional, productive acts operating between the soul and God, and
the soul and other souls, each constituent and object working and
attained in and through all the others.
(vi) Indeed all Our Lord’s Synoptic teachings, as to man’s ultimate
standard and destiny, belong to this God-in-man and man-in-God
type of doctrine: for there the two great commandments are strictly
inseparable; God’s interest in the world is direct and detailed,—it is
part of His supreme greatness that He cares for every sparrow that
falls to the ground; and man, in the Kingdom of God, will sit down at
a banquet, the unmistakable type of social joys.—And even the
Apocalypse, which has, upon the whole, helped on so much the
conception of an exclusive, unproductive entrancement of each soul
singly in God alone, shows the deepest emotion when picturing all
the souls, from countless tribes and nations, standing before the
throne,—an emotion which can, surely, not be taken as foreign to
those souls themselves.[297] But, indeed, Our Lord’s whole life and
message become unintelligible, and the Church loses its deepest
roots, unless the Kingdom of God is, for us human souls, as truly a
part of our ultimate destiny as is God Himself, that God who fully
reveals to us His own deepest nature as the Good Shepherd, the
lover of each single sheep and of the flock as a whole.[298]
(4) We shall, then, do well to hold that the soul’s ultimate
beatitude will consist in its own greatest possible self-realization in
its God-likeness,—an Action free from all Activity, but full of a
knowing, feeling, willing, receiving, giving, effectuating, all which will
energize between God and the soul, and the soul and other souls,—
each force and element functioning in its proper place, but each
stimulated to its fullest expansion, and hence to its deepest delight,
by the corresponding vitalization of the other powers and ends, and
of other similar centres of rich action.
3. The pain-element of Bliss.
And our third, last question is whether our deepest this-life
apprehensions and experiences give us any reason for holding that a
certain equivalent for what is noblest in devoted suffering, heroic
self-oblivion, patient persistence in lonely willing, will be present in
the life of the Blessed. It would certainly be a gain could we discover
such an equivalent, for a pure glut of happiness, an unbroken state
of sheer enjoyment, can as little be made attractive to our most
spiritual requirements, as the ideal of an action containing an
element of, or equivalent for, devoted and fruitful effort and
renunciation can lose its perennial fascination for what is most
Christian within us.
(1) It is not difficult, I take it, to find such an element, which we
cannot think away from any future condition of the soul without
making that soul into God Himself. The ultimate cause of this
element shall be considered, as Personality, in our next Chapter:
here I can but indicate this element at work in our relations to our
fellow-men and to God.—Already St. Thomas, throughout one
current of his teaching, is full of the dignity of right individuality.
“The Multitude and Diversity of natures in the Universe proceed
directly from the intention of God, who brought them into being, in
order to communicate His goodness to them, and to have It
represented by them. And since It could not be sufficiently
represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse
ones, so that what is wanting to the one towards this office, should
be supplied by the other.”[299] Hence the multiplication of the
Angels, who differ specifically each from all the rest, adds more of
nobility and perfection to the Universe, than does the multiplication
of men, who differ only individually.[300] And Cardinal Nicolas of
Coes writes, in 1457 a.d., “Every man is, as it were, a separate
species, because of his perfectibility.”[301] As Prof. Josiah Royce tells
us in 1901, “What is real, is not only a content of experience and the
embodiment of a type; but an individual content of experience, and
the unique embodiment of a type.”[302]
(2) Now in the future beatitude, where the full development of
this uniqueness in personality cannot, as so often here, be stunted
or misapplied, all this will evidently reach its zenith. But, if so, then it
follows that, although one of the two greatest of the joys of those
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