The role of the users and their needs are now recognized in the database community. Many efforts are devoted to improve the quality of the interaction between the user and the database. For designing better interfaces that make the systems more usable, the use of suitable metaphors is crucial. The problem we address in this paper is whether an appropriate notion of metaphor can be tailored to t...

The following concepts shall be required in the sequel: Definition 1.1 [5, 27]. A uniform space (X,Φ) is a nonempty set X equipped with a nonempty family Φ of subsets of X ×X satisfying the following properties: (i) if U is in Φ, then U contains the diagonal {(x, x) |x ∈ X}; (ii) if U is in Φ and V is a subset of X ×X which contains U, then V is in Φ; (iii) if U and V are in Φ, then U ∩ V is in...

Keratoconus is a disease characterized by progressive thinning, bulging, and distortion of the cornea. Advanced cases usually present with loss of vision due to high irregular astigmatism. A majority of these cases require surgical intervention. This review provides an update on the current treatment modalities of corneal surgery available for the management of advanced corneal ectasias.