Query processing optimization in broadcasting XML data in mobile communications

Todays, XML as a de facto standard is used to broadcast data over mobile wireless networks. In these networks, mobile clients send their XML queries over a wireless broadcast channel and recieve their desired XML data from the channel. However, downloading the whole XML data by a mobile device is a challenge since the mobile devices used by clients are small battery powered devices with limited resources. To meet this challenge, the XML data should be indexed in such a way that the desired XML data can be found easily and only such data can be downloaded instead of the whole XML data by the mobile clients. Several indexing methods are proposed to selectively access the XML data over an XML stream. However, the existing indexing methods cause an increase in the size of XML stream by including some extra information over the XML stream. In this paper, a new XML stream structure is proposed to disseminate the XML data over a broadcast channel by grouping and summarizing the structural information of XML nodes. By summarizing such information, the size of XML stream can be reduced and therefore, the latency of retrieving the desired XML data over a wirless broadcast channel can be reduced. The proposed XML stream structure also contains indexes in order to skip from the irrelevant parts over the XML stream. It therefore can reduce the energy consumption of mobile devices in downloading the results of XML queries. In addition, our proposed XML stream structure can process different types of XML queries and experimental results showed that it improves the performace of XML query processing over the XML data stream compared to the existing research works in terms of access and tuning times.

     

PS+Pre/Post: A novel structure and access mechanism for wireless XML stream supporting twig pattern queries

XML data broadcast is an efficient way to disseminate XML data to a large number of mobile clients in mobile wireless networks. Recently, several indexing methods have been proposed to improve the performance of XML query processing in terms of access time and tuning time over XML streams. However, existing indexing methods cannot process twig pattern XML queries. In this paper, we propose a novel structure for streaming XML data called PS+Pre/Post by integrating the path summary technique and the pre/post labeling scheme. Our proposed XML stream structure exploits the benefits of the path summary technique and the pre/post labeling scheme to efficiently process different types of XML queries over the broadcast stream. Experimental results show that our proposed XML stream structure improves the performance of access time and tuning time in processing different types of XML queries.     

CSVD: clustering and singular value decomposition for approximate similarity search in high-dimensional spaces

Nearest-neighbor search of high-dimensionality spaces is critical for many applications, such as content-based retrieval from multimedia databases, similarity search of patterns in data mining, and nearest-neighbor classification. Unfortunately, even with the aid of the commonly used indexing schemes, the performance of nearest-neighbor (NN) queries deteriorates rapidly with the number of dimensions. We propose a method, called Clustering with Singular Value Decomposition (CSVD), which supports efficient approximate processing of NN queries, while maintaining good precision-recall characteristics. CSVD groups homogeneous points into clusters and separately reduces the dimensionality of each cluster using SVD. Cluster selection for NN queries relies on a branch-and-bound algorithm and within-cluster searches can be performed with traditional or in-memory indexing methods. Experiments with texture vectors extracted from satellite images show that CSVD achieves significantly higher dimensionality reduction than plain SVD for the same normalized mean squared error (NMSE), which translates into a higher efficiency in processing approximate NN queries.     

Power-aware data retrieval protocols for indexed broadcast parallel channels

In pervasive and mobile computing environments, “timely and reliable” access to public data requires methods that allow quick, efficient, and low-power access to information to overcome technological limitations of wireless communication and access devices. The literature suggests broadcasting (one-way communication) as an effective way to disseminate the public data to mobile devices. Within the scope of broadcasting, the response time and energy consumption of retrieval methods have been used as the performance metrics for measuring the effectiveness of different access methods. The hardware and architecture of the mobile units offer different operational modes that consume different energy levels. Along with these architectural and hardware enhancements, techniques such as indexing, broadcasting along parallel channels, and efficient allocation and retrieval protocols can be used to minimize power consumption and access latency.In general, the retrieval methods attempt to determine the optimal access pattern for retrieving the requested data objects on parallel broadcast channels. The employment of heuristics provides a methodology for such ideal path planning solutions. Using informative heuristics and intelligent searches of an access forest can provide a prioritized cost evaluation of access patterns for requested data objects and, hence, an optimal path for the access of requested data on broadcast air channels.This paper examines two scheduling methods that along with a set of heuristics generate and facilitate the access patterns for retrieving data objects in the presence of conflicts in an indexed parallel broadcast channel environment. A simulation of the proposed schemes is presented for analyzing the relationship between response time and power consumption.     

Energy- and Latency-Efficient Processing of Full-Text Searches on a Wireless Broadcast Stream

In wireless mobile computing environments, broadcasting is an effective and scalable technique to disseminate information to a massive number of clients, wherein the energy usage and latency are considered major concerns. This paper presents an indexing scheme for the energy- and latency-efficient processing of full-text searches over the wireless broadcast data stream. Although a lot of access methods and index structures have been proposed in the past for full-text searches, all of them are targeted for data in disk storage, not wireless broadcast channels. For full-text searches on a wireless broadcast stream, we firstly introduce a naive, inverted list-style indexing method, where inverted lists are placed in front of the data on the wireless channel. In order to reduce the latency overhead, we propose a two-level indexing method which adds another level of index structure to the basic inverted list-style index. In addition, we propose a replication strategy of the index list and index tree to further improve the latency performance. We analyze the performance of the proposed indexing scheme with respect to the latency and energy usage measures, and show the optimality of index replication. The correctness of the analysis is demonstrated through simulation experiments, and the effectiveness of the proposed scheme is shown by implementing a real wireless information delivery system.     

Image retrieval based on regions of interest

Query-by-example is the most popular query model in recent content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems. A typical query image includes relevant objects (e.g., Eiffel Tower), but also irrelevant image areas (including background). The irrelevant areas limit the effectiveness of existing CBIR systems. To overcome this limitation, the system must be able to determine similarity based on relevant regions alone. We call this class of queries region-of-interest (ROI) queries and propose a technique for processing them in a sampling-based matching framework. A new similarity model is presented and an indexing technique for this new environment is proposed. Our experimental results confirm that traditional approaches, such as Local Color Histogram and Correlogram, suffer from the involvement of irrelevant regions. Our method can handle ROI queries and provide significantly better performance. We also assessed the performance of the proposed indexing technique. The results clearly show that our retrieval procedure is effective for large image data sets.     

Evaluation and comparison of various indexing schemes in single-channel broadcast communication environment

Wireless Data Broadcasting is a newly developed data dissemination method for spreading public information to a tremendous number of mobile subscribers. Access Latency and Tuning Time are two main criteria to evaluate the performance of such system. With the help of indexing technology, clients can reduce tuning time significantly by searching indices first and turning to doze mode during waiting period. Different indexing schemes perform differently, so we can hardly compare the efficiency of different indexing schemes. In this paper, we redesigned several most popular indexing schemes for data broadcasting systems, i.e., distributed index, exponential index, hash table, and Huffman tree index. We created a unified communication model and constructed a novel evaluation strategy by using the probability theory to formulate the performance of each scheme theoretically and then conducted simulations to compare their performance by numerical experiments. This is the first work to provide scalable communication environment and accurate evaluation strategies. Our communication model can easily be modified to meet specific requirements. Our comparison model can be used by the service providers to evaluate other indexing schemes to choose the best one for their systems.     

Similarity search in sensor networks using semantic-based caching

Sensor networks build temporary wireless connections in environments where the stationary infrastructures are either destroyed or too expensive to construct. Most of the previous research in sensor networks focuses on routing protocols that adapt to the dynamic network topologies, and not much work has been done on data accessing. One important data accessing application is similarity search, which provides the foundation of content-based retrieval. Many traditional similarity search algorithms are based on centralized or flooding mechanisms, which are not effective in wireless sensor network environments due to the multiple limitations such as bandwidth and power. In this paper we tackle the problem of similarity search by using semantic-based caching to reflect the data content distribution in the network. The basic idea is analyzing the cached results of earlier queries and trying to resolve the later queries within a small collection of content-related mobile nodes. Based on a Hilbert space-filling curve, the data points in a multi-dimensional semantic space are described as a linear representation. These data points are further cached to facilitate query processing. Through extensive simulations, we show that our method can perform similarity search with improved performance in terms of search cost and response time.     

Adapting indexing trees to data distribution in feature spaces

Fast similarity retrieval is critical for content-based image retrieval systems. Tree indexing is a classical technique for fast retrieval, but the practical performance increase offered by the indexing tree depends on the intrinsic dimension of the data. Data with a low intrinsic dimension can be indexed more efficiently than data with high intrinsic dimension. This suggests that an indexing tree that is adapted to the data distribution may be more efficient. This paper proposes two adaptation procedures that are guaranteed to improve indexing efficiency. The procedures are based on a formula for average number of node tests incurred during the retrieval. The formula clearly shows how indexing performance varies with the distribution of feature points and the query. Greedy and optimal tree adaptation procedures are derived based on the formula. Both procedures explicitly enhance the retrieval performance of indexing trees. The optimally adapted tree carries the mathematical guarantee that it is the best performing tree in a set of possible trees obtained by node elimination. The adaptation procedures are applied to kdb-trees and hierarchical clustering trees for indexing synthetic as well as real data sets in medical image databases. Experimental results validate the claim that adaptation procedures increase retrieval efficiency.     

Indexing chromatic and achromatic patterns for content-based colour image retrieval

In this paper, we present a method to represent achromatic and chromatic image signals independently for content-based image indexing and retrieval for image database applications. Starting from an opponent colour representation, human colour vision theories and modern digital signal processing technologies are applied to develop a compact and computationally efficient visual appearance model for coloured image patterns. We use the model to compute the statistics of achromatic and chromatic spatial patterns of colour images for indexing and content-based retrieval. Two types of colour images databases, one colour texture database and another photography colour image database are used to evaluate the performance of the developed method in content-based image indexing and retrieval. Experimental results are presented to show that the new method is superior or competitive to state-of-the-art content-based image indexing and retrieval techniques.     

A formal framework for image indexing with triples: Toward a concept-based image retrieval

This paper provides a formal specification for concept-based image retrieval using triples. To effectively manage a vast amount of images, we may need an image retrieval system capable of indexing and searching images based on the characteristics of their content. However, such a content-based image retrieval technique alone may not satisfy user queries if retrieved images turn out to be relevant only when they are conceptually related with the queries. In this paper, we develop an image retrieval mechanism to extract semantics of images based on triples. The semantics can be captured by deriving concepts from its constituent objects and spatial relationships between them. The concepts are basically composite objects formed from the aggregation of the constituents. In our mechanism, all the spatial relationships between objects including the concepts are uniformly represented by triples, which are used for indexing images as well as capturing their semantics. We also develop a query evaluation for supporting the concept-based image retrieval. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Grid-partition index: a hybrid method for nearest-neighbor queries in wireless location-based services

Traditional nearest-neighbor (NN) search is based on two basic indexing approaches: object-based indexing and solution-based indexing. The former is constructed based on the locations of data objects: using some distance heuristics on object locations. The latter is built on a precomputed solution space. Thus, NN queries can be reduced to and processed as simple point queries in this solution space. Both approaches exhibit some disadvantages, especially when employed for wireless data broadcast in mobile computing environments. In this paper, we introduce a new index method, called the grid-partition index, to support NN search in both on-demand access and periodic broadcast modes of mobile computing. The grid-partition index is constructed based on the Voronoi diagram, i.e., the solution space of NN queries. However, it has two distinctive characteristics. First, it divides the solution space into grid cells such that a query point can be efficiently mapped into a grid cell around which the nearest object is located. This significantly reduces the search space. Second, the grid-partition index stores the objects that are potential NNs of any query falling within the cell. The storage of objects, instead of the Voronoi cells, makes the grid-partition index a hybrid of the solution-based and object-based approaches. As a result, it achieves a much more compact representation than the pure solution-based approach and avoids backtracked traversals required in the typical object-based approach, thus realizing the advantages of both approaches. We develop an incremental construction algorithm to address the issue of object update. In addition, we present a cost model to approximate the search cost of different grid partitioning schemes. The performances of the grid-partition index and existing indexes are evaluated using both synthetic and real data. The results show that, overall, the grid-partition index significantly outperforms object-based indexes and solution-based indexes. Furthermore, we extend the grid-partition index to support continuous-nearest-neighbor search. Both algorithms and experimental results are presented. Edited by R. Guting     

A wireless data clustering method for multipoint queries

By effective data clustering, the mobile clients can access the data objects of their interest in short latency. In this paper, we propose a clustering method of wireless data for multipoint queries, where wireless data objects are uniformly broadcasted.We first analyze the data clustering problem and propose a new measure, named the Query Distance, i.e., convenient to manipulate for the analyses of the average query performance. Then, we propose a clustering method that efficiently minimizes the Query Distance, based on the Gray coding scheme. We show that the Gray coding scheme has useful properties that can be utilized for clustering the data on the air. We also show the performance advantage of our method through experiments. Since, as far as we are aware of, there is no previous work that deals with multipoint queries in wireless data broadcasting, the experiments are in comparison with the random clustering method.     

Content-based indexing of multimedia databases

Content-based retrieval of multimedia database calls for content-based indexing techniques. Different from conventional databases, where data items are represented by a set of attributes of elementary data types, multimedia objects in multimedia databases are represented by a collection of features; similarity of object contents depends on context and frame of reference; and features of objects are characterized by multimodal feature measures. These lead to great challenges for content-based indexing. On the other hand, there are special requirements on content-based indexing: to support visual browsing, similarity retrieval, and fuzzy retrieval, nodes of the index should represent certain meaningful categories. That is to say that certain semantics must be added when performing indexing. ContIndex, the context-based indexing technique presented in this paper, is proposed to meet these challenges and special requirements. The indexing tree is formally defined by adapting a classification-tree concept. Horizontal links among nodes in the same level enhance the flexibility of the index. A special neural-network model, called Learning based on Experiences and Perspectives (FEP), has been developed to create node categories by fusing multimodal feature measures. It brings into the index the capability of self-organizing nodes with respect to certain context and frames of reference. An icon image is generated for each intermediate node to facilitate visual browsing. Algorithms have been developed to support multimedia object archival and retrieval using Contlndex     

基于LSH索引的快速图像检索

高维空间中点数据的索引及检索是基于内容图像检索领域的关键问题,文中将LSH(localitysensitivehashing)索引算法应用于基于内容图像检索系统中,与传统的索引方法相比,该算法具有复杂度比较低、支持非常高的维数、极低的I/O代价等特点。实验结果证明,将该索引算法应用于基于内容图像检索系统中,其性能优于传统的索引方法.     

Energy-efficient air-indices for shortest path and distance queries on road networks

Although various air-indices, e.g., Next Region (NR), have been proposed to support shortest path and distance queries at mobile clients on a road network, how to minimize the energy cost, which is dominated by the cost for obtaining traffic data from data broadcast, is still one of the most important performance objectives. Inspired by various preprocessing schemes in traditional computation models for shortest path queries that make use of special properties of road networks, we design in this paper a new air-index called the CH Index with the purpose of minimizing the energy cost for obtaining broadcasting data to perform shortest path and distance queries at mobile clients. Experimental evaluation shows that our CH Index is more energy efficient than the state-of-the-art index NR by an order of magnitude. We also extend the CH Index to the CHBN Index which provides a tradeoff between energy efficiency and response time for obtaining traffic data via a user-tunable parameter. We show that CHBN gives shorter response time than CH while still being energy efficient.