214792426
TIP: a temporal extension to Informix
Commercial relational database systems today provide only limited temporal support. To address the needs of applications requiring rich temporal data and queries, we have built TIP (Temporal Information Processor), a temporal extension to the Informix database system based on its DataBlade technology. Our TIP DataBlade extends Informix with a rich set of datatypes and routines that facilitate temporal modeling and querying. TIP provides both C and Java libraries for client applications to access a TIP-enabled database, and provides end-users with a GUI interface for querying and browsing temporal data.
154630
Dual Labeling: Answering Graph Reachability Queries in Constant Time
Graph reachability is fundamental to a wide range of applications, including XML indexing, geographic navigation, Internet routing, ontology queries based on RDF/OWL, etc. Many applications involve huge graphs and require fast answering of reachability queries. Several reachability labeling methods have been proposed for this purpose. They assign labels to the vertices, such that the reachability between any two vertices may be decided using their labels only. For sparse graphs, 2-hop based reachability labeling schemes answer reachability queries efficiently using relatively small label space. However, the labeling process itself is often too time consuming to be practical for large graphs. In this paper, we propose a novel labeling scheme for sparse graphs. Our scheme ensures that graph reachability queries can be answered in constant time. Furthermore, for sparse graphs, the complexity of the labeling process is almost linear, which makes our algorithm applicable to massive datasets. Analytical and experimental results show that our approach is much more efficient than stateof- the-art approaches. Furthermore, our labeling method also provides an alternative scheme to tradeoff query time for label space, which further benefits applications that use tree-like graphs.
12872505
Value-Based Notification Conditions in Large-Scale Publish/Subscribe Systems
We address the problem of providing scalable support for subscriptions with personalized value-based notification conditions in wide-area publish/subscribe systems. Notification conditions can be fine-tuned by subscribers, allowing precise and flexible control of when events are delivered to the subscribers. For example, a user may specify that she should be notified if and only if the price of a particular stock moves outside a "radius" around her last notified value. Naive techniques for handling notification conditions are not scalable. It is challenging to share subscription processing and notification dissemination of subscriptions with personalized value-based notification conditions, because two subscriptions may see two completely different sequences of notifications even if they specify the same radius. We develop and experimentally evaluate scalable processing and dissemination techniques for these subscriptions. Our approach uses standard network substrates for notification dissemination, and avoids pushing complex application processing into the network. Compared with other alternatives, our approach generates orders of magnitude lower network traffic, and incurs lower server processing cost.
6794000
Performance Issues in Incremental Warehouse Maintenance
A well-known challenge in data warehousing is the efficient incremental maintenance of warehouse data in the presence of source data updates. In this paper, we identify several critical data representation and algorithmic choices that must be made when developing the machinery of an incrementally maintained data warehouse. For each decision area, we identify various alternatives and evaluate them through extensive experiments. We show that picking the right alternative can lead to dramatic performance gains, and we propose guidelines for making the right decisions under different scenarios. All of the issues addressed in this paper arose in our development of WHIPS, a prototype data warehousing system supporting incremental maintenance.
7776820
Scalable continuous query processing by tracking hotspots
This paper considers the problem of scalably processing a large number of continuous queries. We propose a flexible framework with novel data structures and algorithms for group-processing and indexing continuous queries by exploiting potential overlaps in query predicates. Our approach partitions the collection of continuous queries into groups based on the clustering patterns of the query ranges, and then applies specialized processing strategies to those heavily-clustered groups (or hotspots). To maintain the partition dynamically, we present efficient algorithms that maintain a nearly optimal partition in nearly amortized logarithmic time. We show how to use the hotspots to scalably process large numbers of continuous select-join and band-join queries, which are much more challenging than simple range selection queries. Experiments demonstrate that this approach can improve the processing throughput by orders of magnitude. As another application of hotspots, we show how to use them to build a high-quality histogram for intervals in linear time.
17739128
Modified Hough Transforms for Object Feature Extraction
In this paper, we propose the use of modified Hough transforms to efficiently extract object feature parameters, which are usually contaminated by heavily noisy corrugation and discontinuity. The modified HT (MHT) is developed by introducing spatial and parameter weighting functions to improve the detection performance for the traditional Hough transform (HT), which generally fails to robustly detect natural object parameters. Using designed test patterns and real images, simulations show that the proposed weighting functions are helpful in detecting noise-corrupted object features. Due to its robustness, the MHT can be easily figured with a coarse-to-fine adaptive search mechanism to reduce the huge amount of computation for feature parameters extraction.
1590392
Inference and learning methodology of belief-rule-based expert system for pipeline leak detection
Belief rule based expert systems are an extension of traditional rule based systems and are capable of representing more complicated causal relationships using different types of information with uncertainties. This paper describes how the belief rule based expert systems can be trained and used for pipeline leak detection. Pipeline operations under different conditions are modelled by a belief rule base using expert knowledge, which is then trained and fine tuned using pipeline operating data, and validated by testing data. All training and testing data are collected and scaled from a real pipeline. The study demonstrates that the belief rule based system is flexible, can be adapted to represent complicated expert systems, and is a valid novel approach for pipeline leak detection.
207007399
Integrating adaptive mutations and family competition into genetic algorithms as function optimizer
Abstract In this paper, we propose a robust evolutionary algorithm, called adaptive mutations genetic algorithm, for function optimization problems. Our main contribution is robustly optimizing problems whose number of variables from 2 to 200. In order to have a fair comparison, we propose the criteria for constructing a testing bed and for classifying these problems into different complexity degrees. The proposed approach, based on the family competition and multiple adaptive rules, successfully integrates the decreasing-based Gaussian mutation and self-adaptive Cauchy mutation to balance the exploitation and exploration. It is implemented and applied to widely used test functions and several nonseparable multimodal functions. Experimental results indicate that our approach is more robust than ten evolutionary algorithms.
5715843
A Cautionary Tale
Recently we have been investigating various methods for improving the retrieval of documents. One frequently used context for such studies is to work with a known database and set of queries, where sufficient work has previously been done to establish an "official" set of relevant documents for each query. Working within such a context, we have discovered at least one instance wherein the combination of the document descriptions in the database, the query, and the set of documents deemed relevant foredooms our attempts at retrieval improvement to failure. This note is to caution other researchers against such possibilities, and to recommend that the database in question, that of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), as represented on Virginia Disk 1, be retired from use.
3016307
Weighted Information Entropy: A Method for Estimating the Complex Degree of Infrared Images' Backgrounds
The validity of using the weighted information entropy to estimate the complex degree of the infrared images' backgrounds is discussed in this paper. A Butterworth high pass filter whose cut-off frequency can be adaptively regulated to meet the different backgrounds is proposed to restrain the different clutters. Since the backgrounds usually have some random change in the video sequences, an adaptive binarisation criterion for small target detection is also presented. Experimental results show the robustness of our method.