2266285
Relaxing join and selection queries
Database users can be frustrated by having an empty answer to a query. In this paper, we propose a framework to systematically relax queries involving joins and selections. When considering relaxing a query condition, intuitively one seeks the 'minimal' amount of relaxation that yields an answer. We first characterize the types of answers that we return to relaxed queries. We then propose a lattice based framework in order to aid query relaxation. Nodes in the lattice correspond to different ways to relax queries. We characterize the properties of relaxation at each node and present algorithms to compute the corresponding answer. We then discuss how to traverse this lattice in a way that a non-empty query answer is obtained with the minimum amount of query condition relaxation. We implemented this framework and we present our results of a thorough performance evaluation using real and synthetic data. Our results indicate the practical utility of our framework.
2113121
Computing capabilities of mediators
Existing data-integration systems based on the mediation architecture employ a variety of mechanisms to describe the query-processing capabilities of sources. However, these systems do not compute the capabilities of the mediators based on the capabilities of the sources they integrate. In this paper, we proposed a framework to capture a rich variety of query-processing capabilities of data sources and mediators. We present algorithms to compute the set of supported queries of a mediator, based on the capability limitations of its sources. Our algorithms take into consideration a variety of query-processing techniques employed by mediators to enhance the set of supported queries.
8510271
Supporting Efficient Record Linkage for Large Data Sets Using Mapping Techniques
This paper describes an efficient approach to record linkage. Given two lists of records, the record-linkage problem consists of determining all pairs that are similar to each other, where the overall similarity between two records is defined based on domain-specific similarities over individual attributes. The record-linkage problem arises naturally in the context of data cleansing that usually precedes data analysis and mining. Since the scalability issue of record linkage was addressed in [21], the repertoire of database techniques dealing with multidimensional data sets has significantly increased. Specifically, many effective and efficient approaches for distance-preserving transforms and similarity joins have been developed. Based on these advances, we explore a novel approach to record linkage. For each attribute of records, we first map values to a multidimensional Euclidean space that preserves domain-specific similarity. Many mapping algorithms can be applied, and we use the Fastmap approach [16] as an example. Given the merging rule that defines when two records are similar based on their attribute-level similarities, a set of attributes are chosen along which the merge will proceed. A multidimensional similarity join over the chosen attributes is used to find similar pairs of records. Our extensive experiments using real data sets show that our solution has very good efficiency and recall.
7967297
2D BubbleUp: Managing Parallel Disks for Media Servers
In this study we present a scheme called two-dimensional BubbleUp (2DB) for managing parallel disks in a multimedia server. Its goal is to reduce initial latency for interactive multimedia applications, while balancing disk loads to maintain high throughput. The 2DB scheme consists of a data placement and a request scheduling policy. The data placement policy replicates frequently accessed data and places them cyclically throughout the disks. The request scheduling policy attempts to maintain free ``service slots'''' in the immediate future. These slots can then be used to quickly service newly arrived requests. Through examples and simulation, we show that our scheme significantly reduces initial latency and maintains throughput comparable to that of the traditional schemes.
1386080
Using Constraints to Describe Source Contents in Data Integration Systems
In data integration systems, information sources often have constraints, such as "all houses stored at a source have a unique address." These constraints are useful in computing answers to queries and facilitating information exchange.
10902397
Protecting Individual Information Against Inference Attacks in Data Publishing
In many data-publishing applications, the data owner needs to protect sensitive information pertaining to individuals. Meanwhile, certain information is required to be published. The sensitive information could be considered as leaked, if an adversary can infer the real value of a sensitive entry with a high confidence. In this paper we study how to protect sensitive data when an adversary can do inference attacks using association rules derived from the data. We formulate the inference attack model, and develop complexity results on computing a safe partial table. We classify the general problem into subcases based on the requirements of publishing information, and propose the corresponding algorithms for finding a safe partial table to publish. We have conducted an empirical study to evaluate these algorithms on real data.
1987638
On limit graphs of finite vertex-primitive graphs
The class of all connected vertex-transitive graphs forms a metric space under a natural combinatorially defined metric. In this paper we study graphs which are limit points in this metric space of the subset consisting of all finite graphs that admit a vertex-primitive group of automorphisms. A description of these limit graphs provides a useful description of the possible local structures of generic finite graphs that admit a vertex-primitive automorphism group. We give an analysis of the possible types of these limit graphs, and suggest directions for future research. Some of the analysis relies on the finite simple group classification.
34090759
Segmentation of external force field for automatic initialization and splitting of snakes
Active contours or snakes have been extensively utilized in handling image segmentation and classification problems. In traditional active contour models, snake initialization is performed manually by users, and topological changes, such as splitting of the snake, cannot be automatically handled. In this paper, we introduce a new method to solve the snake initialization and splitting problem, based on an area segmentation approach: the external force field is segmented first, and then the snake initialization and splitting can be automatically performed by using the segmented external force field. Such initialization and splitting produces multiple snakes, each of which is within the capture range associated to an object and will be evolved to the object boundary. The external force used in this paper is a gradient vector flow with an edge-preserving property (EPGVF), which can prevent the snakes from passing over weak boundaries. To segment the external force field, we represent it with a graph, and a graph-theory approach can be taken to determine the membership of each pixel. Experimental results establish the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
17572048
Supporting ad-hoc ranking aggregates
This paper presents a principled framework for efficient processing of ad-hoc top-k (ranking) aggregate queries, which provide the k groups with the highest aggregates as results. Essential support of such queries is lacking in current systems, which process the queries in a naïve materialize-group-sort scheme that can be prohibitively inefficient. Our framework is based on three fundamental principles. The Upper-Bound Principle dictates the requirements of early pruning, and the Group-Ranking and Tuple-Ranking Principles dictate group-ordering and tuple-ordering requirements. They together guide the query processor toward a provably optimal tuple schedule for aggregate query processing. We propose a new execution framework to apply the principles and requirements. We address the challenges in realizing the framework and implementing new query operators, enabling efficient group-aware and rank-aware query plans. The experimental study validates our framework by demonstrating orders of magnitude performance improvement in the new query plans, compared with the traditional plans.
247296
On Finite s-Transitive Graphs of Odd Order
It is shown that, for a positive integer s, there exists an s-transitive graph of odd order if and only if s?3 and that, for s=2 or 3, an s-transitive graph of odd order is a normal cover of a graph for which there is an automorphism group that is almost simple and s-transitive.
516020
Efficient Processing of Ordered XML Twig Pattern
Finding all the occurrences of a twig pattern in an XML database is a core operation for efficient evaluation of XML queries. Holistic twig join algorithm has showed its superiority over binary decompose based approach due to efficient reducing intermediate results. The existing holistic join algorithms, however, cannot deal with ordered twig queries. A straightforward approach that first matches the unordered twig queries and then prunes away the undesired answers is obviously not optimal in most cases. In this paper, we study a novel holistic-processing algorithm, called OrderedTJ, for ordered twig queries. We show that OrderedTJ can identify a large query class to guarantee the I/O optimality. Finally, our experiments show the effectiveness, scalability and efficiency of our proposed algorithm.