Design Of Database System Research Articles

Stonebraker receives IEEE John von Neumann Medal

In December 2004, Michael Stonebraker was selected to receive the 2005 IEEE John von Neumann Medal for his "contributions to the design, implementation, and commercialization of relational and object-relational database systems." Mike is the first person from the database field selected to receive this award. He joins an illustrious group of former recipients, including Barbara Liskov (2004), Alfred Aho (2003), Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard (2002), Butler Lampson (2001), John Hennessy and David Patterson (2000), Douglas Engelbart (1999), Ivan Sutherland (1998), Maurice Wilkes (1997), Carver Mead (1996), Donald Knuth (1995), John Cocke (1994), Fred Brooks (1993), and Gordon Bell (1992).

Current use and future development of the database of the St. Catherine's Library Conservation Project

Summary The St. Catherine's library conservation project has focussed so far on the condition assessment of the collection, which took place in the St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. Detailed information of each of the 3306 manuscripts of the library has been collected. Approximately 1000 observations were made on each manuscript. During the assessment, this information was kept on paper. However, a computer filing system was necessary to store the information in digital format which would then allow quick searching of the data. In this paper, the authors describe the design and implementation of a computer database system which helps organize, categorize and access the collected data quickly and efficiently. The article includes an extensive description of the principles behind the database design. It also refers to the complexity of the recorded data and how this fits the relational database model. The paper concludes by exploring the future development of the database and its transition to XML.

The Design and Implementation of a Self-Healing Database System

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of ITDB, a self-healing or intrusion-tolerant database prototype system. While traditional secure database systems rely on preventive controls and are very limited in surviving malicious attacks, ITDB can detect intrusions, isolate attacks, contain, assess, and repair the damage caused by intrusions in a timely manner such that sustained, self-stabilized levels of data integrity and availability can be provided to applications in the face of attacks. ITDB is implemented on top of a COTS DBMS. We have evaluated the cost effectiveness of ITDB using several micro-benchmarks. Preliminary testing measurements suggest that when the accuracy of intrusion detection is satisfactory, ITDB can effectively locate and repair the damage on-the fly with reasonable (database) performance penalty.

Design and application of dynamic monitoring and visualization management information system of karst land rocky desertification

In order to study the spatial-temporal change and environmental management of regional karst LUCC (land use and land cover change) and its causative environmental effect—rocky desertification by integrating qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, and relying on RS, GIS and GPS (3S) techniques, karst land rocky derification dynamic monitoring and visualization management information system (KLRD.DMVM.IS) is framed, which includes design aim and structure model, function design, database design and model system design. The model system design gives priority to dynamic monitoring, drive force diagnosis, comprehensive evaluation and decision support of karst rocky desertification. From the viewpoint of model type, mathematic expression and its meaning, the dynamic monitoring models are concretely devised to reflect the spatial and temporal changing features and the trend of karst LUCC and rocky desertification. Taking Du’an Yao Autonomic County of Guangxi as an example, the KLRD. DMVM.IS is systematically analyzed in the application of the process and trend of karst LUCC and rocky desertification in Du’an County, and it provides the technical support for the study on karst land rocky desertification.

Designing Navy Hull Forms for Fuel Economy

ABSTRACTDuring initial hull form design, a multitude of requirements need to be met. Among these are mission, ship size, armament, communications, stability, speed, sea keeping, etc. Tools such as ASSET are used to arrive at a design solution that will satisfy all these requirements. However, at this early design stage, attention needs to be given to the hull form shape, and its impact upon fuel consumption. Rising fuel costs and the need to conserve energy have mandated that Navy designs become more “energy efficient.”This paper documents a new design metric “CPE” for evaluating the resistance of any hull design. A CPE database is developed from historic model test data residing in the U.S. Navy Hull Design Database System (HDDS). CPE compares the resistance of a hull form to that of a similar Taylor Standard Series hull form. The paper also introduces a new hull form optimization computer program developed by Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) and applies this program to show the potential for hull form improvement and fuel cost savings.

On Completeness of Reasoning about Planar Spatial Relationships in Pictorial Retrieval Systems

In this paper we consider the completeness problem of reasoning about planar spatial relationships in pictorial retrieval systems. We define a large class of two-dimensional scenes, the extended pseudo-symbolic pictures. The existing rule system R is proved to be complete for (ex- tended) pseudo-symbolic pictures. We also introduce a new iconic indexing, the (extended) pseudo- 2D string representation, for them. The (extended) pseudo-2D string has the good properties of the 2D string. It is unambiguous, like the augmented 2D string, and has a compact form suitable for image retrieval. We then present efficient algorithms to determine whether a given planar picture is (extended) pseudo-symbolic or not, and if it is, these algorithms also return its (extended) pseudo-2D string representation. Picture retrieval by (extended) pseudo-2D strings is also discussed. 1. Introduction. Image database systems have been much studied over the past 20 years. One of the most important problems in the design of image database systems is how images are stored in the image databases (5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 24). While the use of indexing to allow database accessing has been well established in traditional database systems, content-based picture indexing techniques need to be developed for facilitating pictorial information retrieval from a pictorial database. Tanimoto (25) suggested the use of picture icons as picture indexes, thus intro- ducing the concept of iconic indexing. Subsequently, Chang et al. (11) developed the concept of iconic indexing by introducing the 2D string representation of the image. The 2D string approach is based on the idea that the spatial knowledge contained in a real picture can be suitably represented by a symbolic picture (i.e., a matrix of symbols) where every symbol corresponds to a significant element of the image. The position of a symbol in the grid corresponds to the position of the centroid of the rep- resented significant element. Depending on the application, the significant elements of the image can be pixels, lines, regions, and objects, etc. A 2D string representing a symbolic picture is derived from the picture by orthogonally projecting its symbols by columns and by rows. This approach gives an efficient and natural way to con- struct iconic indexes for two-dimensional pictures. With the 2D string approach, the problem of pictorial information retrieval for 2D pictures becomes a problem of 2D

Design and implementation of an active database system for receiving broadcast data

AbstractSatellite‐based data broadcasting has been the focus of increasing attention in recent years due to launches of new broadcasting or communications satellites and the initiation of new services. The popularization of these kinds of broadcasting systems has led to a dramatic increase in both the broadcast volume and types of services. As a result, a system is needed that will enable an ordinary user to efficiently extract, store, and reuse required information from the massive amount of data that is broadcast. In response to this request, the authors propose a super active database system (SADB) and describe its design and implementation. The proposed SADB is an adaptation of an active database, which is an event‐triggered database, to a broadcasting system. Since the SADB must quickly process the massive amount of data that is sent to it, the reception actions and reception data processing were designed independently of the rule processor. This paper evaluates the performance of an implemented system and shows the data volume that it can handle. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 86(9): 87–99, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.10111

Relibase: Design and Development of a Database for Comprehensive Analysis of Protein–Ligand Interactions

Knowledge discovery from the exponentially growing body of structurally characterised protein–ligand complexes as a source of information in structure-based drug design is a major challenge in contemporary drug research. Given the need for powerful data retrieval, integration and analysis tools, Relibase was developed as a database system particularly designed to handle protein–ligand related problems and tasks. Here, we describe the design and functionality of the Relibase core database system. Features of Relibase include, e.g. the detailed analysis of superimposed ligand binding sites, ligand similarity and substructure searches, and 3D searches for protein–ligand and protein–protein interaction patterns. The broad range of functions provided in Relibase and its high level of data integration, along with its flexible and intuitive interface, makes Relibase an invaluable data mining tool which can significantly enhance the drug development process. An example, illustrating a 3D query for quarternary ligand nitrogen atoms interacting with aromatic ring systems in proteins, a pattern found in pharmaceutically relevant target proteins such as, e.g. acetylcholine-esterase, is discussed.

A Query-Driven Approach to the Design and Management of Flexible Database Systems

The need for timely information in the e-business world provides the impetus to develop a flexible database system with the capability to adapt and maintain performance levels under changing querie...

Issues of web-enabled high performance databases

The Internet with Web technology has not only presented new opportunities, but also fresh challenges to the database research community. This paper attempts to investigate the impact of Web developments on the design and implementation of high performance database systems. In particular, the paper highlights the benefits of Web-enabled databases and discusses some of the key areas of active research in this field. The research work we are undertaking, outlined in the paper, attempts to address several issues in these areas.

Implementation of the Prometheus Taxonomic Model: a comparison of database models and query languages and an introduction to the Prometheus Object­Oriented Model

AbstractTypes of databases commonly used for handling taxonomic data are compared. It is shown that none of the existing types of databases fully support the requirements of taxonomic data. The results of this comparison provide a rationale for the design and implementation of a new database system based on an Extended Object­Oriented model. The new model, the Prometheus Object­Oriented Model (POOM) and its query language Prometheus Object­Oriented Language (POOL), are discussed in relation to the requirements of taxonomic data and the Prometheus Taxonomic Data Model. POOM provides the ability to represent the semantics of relationships between data. This allows us to build the type of graph structures that are found in taxonomic hierarchies. In addition, the system can query and manipulate these graphs (POOL). These features have been used to improve the original Prometheus Taxonomic Data Model. These improvements and the advantages they offer are described and discussed.

A methodology for learning across application domains for database design systems

Although database design tools have been developed that attempt to automate (or semiautomate) the design process, these tools do not have the capability to capture common sense knowledge about business applications and store it in a context-specific manner. As a result, they rely on the user to provide a great deal of trivial details and do not function as well as a human designer who usually has some general knowledge of how an application might work based on his or her common sense knowledge of the real world. Common sense knowledge could be used by a database design system to validate and improve the quality of an existing design or even generate new designs. This requires that context-specific information about different database design applications be stored and generalized into information about specific application domains (e.g., pharmacy, daycare, hospital, university, manufacturing). Such information should be stored at the appropriate level of generality in a hierarchically structured knowledge base so that it can be inherited by the subdomains below. For this to occur, two types of learning must take place. First, knowledge about a particular application domain that is acquired from specific applications within that domain are generalized into a domain node (e.g., entities, relationships, and attributes from various hospital applications are generalized to a hospital node). This is referred to as within domain learning. Second, the information common to two (or more) related application domain nodes is generalized to a higher-level node; for example, knowledge from the car rental and video rental domains may be generalized to a rental node. This is called across domain learning. This paper presents a methodology for learning across different application domains based on a distance measure. The parameters used in this methodology were refined by testing on a set of representative cases; empirical testing provided further validation.

Naive semantics to support automated database design

Research devoted to developing knowledge-based tools for database design has demonstrated that it is possible to encode a great deal of process knowledge about database design in a (knowledge-based) computer program. However, experience with these tools shows that the contribution of an expert human designer extends beyond his or her knowledge of database design techniques. The paper discusses the application of an approach, called Naive Semantics (NS), to simulate the contributions made to a design based on the designer's general knowledge. Naive semantics involves the use of an extensible store of generally understood knowledge about the world. The paper describes the types of information that could be included in a Naive Semantics knowledge base and how that knowledge might be applied to increase the effectiveness of automated database design systems. Results of various implementations of ontologies based on Naive Semantics are discussed.

Design and Realization of Standard Literature Database System

Design and Realization of Standard Literature Database System

Symbolic picture retrieval by relative-metric spatial relations

Symbolic pictures can be used for iconic indexing, spatial reasoning, and similarity retrieval in the design of intelligent image database systems. [S. K. Chang, C. W. Yan, Donald C. Dimitroff, and Timothy Arndt, IEEE Trans. Software Engineering 1988, 14, 681–688; S.-K. Chang, Principles of Pictorial Information Systems Design, Prentice-Hall, New York, 1989.] However, previous approaches to designing such systems usually ignore relative-metric information on symbolic pictures and cause several deficiencies in indexing, spatial reasoning, and retrieval. In our approach, we extract relative-metric information from symbolic pictures and use such information to help establish indexes based on an improvement from a minimal perfect hashing scheme. As a result, more accurate picture retrieval can be achieved through our indexing mechanism. Capabilities in spatial reasoning and query representation/processing are also improved. By utilizing relative-metric spatial relations, an image database system becomes more flexible and intelligent. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Multimedia databases

Multimedia databases (MMDBs) must cope with the increased usage of huge amounts of multimedia data in several diverse applications. These include: digital libraries, manufacturing and retailing, art and entertainment, journalism and so forth. Some inherent qualities of multimedia data have direct and indirect impacts on the design and development of a multimedia database. MMDBs need to have all the functionalities of traditional databases. In addition, they must have new and enhanced functionalities and features. Broadly, MMDBs are required to provide unified frameworks for storing, processing, retrieving, transmitting, and presenting a variety of media data types in a wide variety of formats. At the same time, they must adhere to numerous constraints that are absent in traditional databases. The article considers the issues involved in the design of a multimedia database system are numerous and quite complex.

Design and Implementation of the ROL Deductive Object-Oriented Database System

ROL is a deductive object-oriented database system that has been implemented at the University of Regina. It provides a uniform rule-based declarative language for defining, manipulating and queryi...

Bounded Rationality and Materials Selection

The vulnerabilities inherent in choosing an innovative material for a design can make for technological catastrophe. The points of weakness are not dependent on the technical nature of the innovation, but instead are intrinsic to human problem-solving and decision-making. We present a computational approach for managing and containing this fallibility using ideas from cognitive science and artificial intelligence, in particular, understanding how the boundedly rational behavior of humans and organizations leads to specific kinds of errors that affect the choice and use of materials.Materials choice in an industrial setting is often the result of a long chain or network of circumstances whose origins lie in many domains—from traditional engineering practice to the very latest innovation, from the commercial to the technical. In turn, every materials-selection decision has a long chain of consequences that are difficult to compute. This lengthy chain of consequences of a single decision gives rise to numerous points of error. What is particularly troublesome about these errors is not that they arise because of incomplete scientific engineering knowledge, but rather that they occur in spite of the fact that all (or at least, almost all) of the technically relevant information is available and sometimes even known to the technical personnel on the project. We will illustrate this approach by using a historical example of a major materials failure. Advances in database-systems design present an opportunity for integrating the ontology of material attributes with properties data. This may enable the design of more appropriate validation procedures required in proving a material for an artifact.

Analysing uncertainty in location memory: issues in the design of spatial database systems

Future generations of databases will store increasing amounts of pictorial and other visuospatial material. Among other methods, these will require retrieval techniques which exploit memory for the location of objects in pictures stored within the database. Experiments are reported in which subjects recalled the location of an object in a picture and, as an expression of their uncertainty, a range of locations within which they were sure the target fell. This is analogous to a database query method in which users specify a range of values for a location as a means of overcoming the unavoidable problem of imprecision in the expression of an analogue quantity. This paper investigates the psychological issues which allow us access to the potential value of this method in the design of pictorial databases. Although recall confidence (defined by the width of the range of responses given by the subject) is shown to be correlated with recall accuracy, the results demonstrate a trend in which subjects systematically overestimate the precision of their recall. A further experiment examines the extent to which this effect can be manipulated by instructions to the subjects. This shows that instructions aimed at reducing overconfidence produce a counterintuitive response. Subjects remain spuriously overconfident about the accuracy of responses which are in fact incorrect, but additionally they demonstrate a reduced confidence for accurate recalls. Overall, these experiments indicate that while confidence ranges can communicate useful information about the accuracy of location memory, this is less than that expected because subjects are poor at assessing the accuracy of their own recalls and are subject to a range of biases when attempting to do so. Implications for the design of retrieval systems are discussed.

Analysing uncertainty in location memory: issues in the design of spatial database systems

Future generations of databases will store increasing amounts of pictorial and other visuo-spatial material. Among other methods, these will require retrieval techniques which exploit memory for the location of objects in pictures stored within the database. Experiments are reported in which subjects recalled the location of an object in a picture and, as an expression of their uncertainty, a range of locations within which they were sure the target fell. This is analogous to a database query method in which users specify a range of values for a location as a means of overcoming the unavoidable problem of imprecision in the expression of an analogue quantity. This paper investigates the psychological issues which allow us access to the potential value of this method in the design of pictorial databases. Although recall confidence (defined by the width of the range of responses given by the subject) is shown to be correlated with recall accuracy, the results demonstrate a trend in which subjects systematically overestimate the precision of their recall. A further experiment examines the extent to which this effect can be manipulated by instructions to the subjects. This shows that instructions aimed at reducing overconfidence produce a counterintuitive response. Subjects remain spuriously overconfident about the accuracy of responses which are in fact incorrect, but additionally they demonstrate a reduced confidence for accurate recalls. Overall, these experiments indicate that while confidence ranges can communicate useful information about the accuracy of location memory, this is less than that expected because subjects are poor at assessing the accuracy of their own recalls and are subject to a range of biases when attempting to do so. Implications for the design of retrieval systems are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.