DART+: Direction-aware bichromatic reverse k nearest neighbor query processing in spatial databases

This article presents a novel type of queries in spatial databases, called the direction-aware bichromatic reverse k nearest neighbor(DBRkNN) queries, which extend the bichromatic reverse nearest neighbor queries. Given two disjoint sets, P and S, of spatial objects, and a query object q in S, the DBRkNN query returns a subset P′ of P such that k nearest neighbors of each object in P′ include q and each object in P′ has a direction toward q within a pre-defined distance. We formally define the DBRkNN query, and then propose an efficient algorithm, called DART, for processing the DBRkNN query. Our method utilizes a grid-based index to cluster the spatial objects, and the B⁺-tree to index the direction angle. We adopt a filter-refinement framework that is widely used in many algorithms for reverse nearest neighbor queries. In the filtering step, DART eliminates all the objects that are away from the query object more than a pre-defined distance, or have an invalid direction angle. In the refinement step, remaining objects are verified whether the query object is actually one of the k nearest neighbors of them. As a major extension of DART, we also present an improved algorithm, called DART+, for DBRkNN queries. From extensive experiments with several datasets, we show that DART outperforms an R-tree-based naive algorithm in both indexing time and query processing time. In addition, our extension algorithm, DART+, also shows significantly better performance than DART.     

Direction-aware KNN queries for moving objects in a road network

Recently more and more people focus on k-nearest neighbor (KNN) query processing over moving objects in road networks, e.g., taxi hailing and ride sharing. However, as far as we know, the existing k-nearest neighbor (KNN) queries take distance as the major criteria for nearest neighbor objects, even without taking direction into consideration. The main issue with existing methods is that moving objects change their locations and directions frequently over time, so the information updates cannot be processed in time and they run the risk of retrieving the incorrect KNN results. They may fail to meet users’ needs in certain scenarios, especially in the case of querying k-nearest neighbors for moving objects in a road network. In order to find the top k-nearest objects moving toward a query point, this paper presents a novel algorithm for direction-aware KNN (DAKNN) queries for moving objects in a road network. In this method, R-tree and simple grid are firstly used as the underlying index structure, where the R-tree is used for indexing the static road network and the simple grid is used for indexing the moving objects. Then, it introduces the notion of “azimuth” to represent the moving direction of objects in a road network, and presents a novel local network expansion method to quickly judge the direction of the moving objects. By considering whether a moving object is moving farther away from or getting closer to a query point, the object that is definitely not in the KNN result set is effectively excluded. Thus, we can reduce the communication cost, meanwhile simplify the computation of moving direction between moving objects and query point. Comprehensive experiments are conducted and the results show that our algorithm can achieve real-time and efficient queries in retrieving objects moving toward query point in a road network.

     

Continuous aggregate nearest neighbor queries

This paper addresses the problem of continuous aggregate nearest-neighbor (CANN) queries for moving objects in spatio-temporal data stream management systems. A CANN query specifies a set of landmarks, an integer k, and an aggregate distance function f (e.g., min, max, or sum), where f computes the aggregate distance between a moving object and each of the landmarks. The answer to this continuous query is the set of k moving objects that have the smallest aggregate distance f. A CANN query may also be viewed as a combined set of nearest neighbor queries. We introduce several algorithms to continuously and incrementally answer CANN queries. Extensive experimentation shows that the proposed operators outperform the state-of-the-art algorithms by up to a factor of 3 and incur low memory overhead.     

移动对象的动态反向k最近邻研究

反向最近邻查询是空间数据库中最重要的算法之一。传统的反向最近邻查询方法主要是针对静态对象的查询,随着无线通讯和定位技术的快速发展,移动对象发出的查询请求成为新的研究热点。该文将TPR-tree作为算法的索引结构,并提出了基于矩形框的对角线的修剪策略,将半平面修剪策略进行改进,给出了移动对象的动态反向k最近邻的查询方案。     

Algorithms for constrained <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-nearest neighbor queries over moving object trajectories

An important query for spatio-temporal databases is to find nearest trajectories of moving objects. Existing work on this topic focuses on the closest trajectories in the whole data space. In this paper, we introduce and solve constrained k-nearest neighbor (CkNN) queries and historical continuous CkNN (HCCkNN) queries on R-tree-like structures storing historical information about moving object trajectories. Given a trajectory set D, a query object (point or trajectory) q, a temporal extent T, and a constrained region CR, (i) a CkNN query over trajectories retrieves from D within T, the k (≥ 1) trajectories that lie closest to q and intersect (or are enclosed by) CR; and (ii) an HCCkNN query on trajectories retrieves the constrained k nearest neighbors (CkNNs) of q at any time instance of T. We propose a suite of algorithms for processing CkNN queries and HCCkNN queries respectively, with different properties and advantages. In particular, we thoroughly investigate two types of CkNN queries, i.e., CkNN_P and CkNN_T, which are defined with respect to stationary query points and moving query trajectories, respectively; and two types of HCCkNN queries, namely, HCCkNN_P and HCCkNN_T, which are continuous counterparts of CkNN_P and CkNN_T, respectively. Our methods utilize an existing data-partitioning index for trajectory data (i.e., TB-tree) to achieve low I/O and CPU cost. Extensive experiments with both real and synthetic datasets demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms in terms of efficiency and scalability.     

Vague continuous K-nearest neighbor queries over moving objects with uncertain velocity in road networks

Recent research has focused on Continuous K Nearest Neighbor (CKNN) queries in road networks, where the queries and the data objects are moving. Most existing approaches assume the fixed velocity of moving objects. The release of fixed moving velocity makes the query process slowly due to the significant repetitive query cost. In this paper, we study CKNN queries over moving objects with uncertain velocity in road networks. A Distance Interval Model (DIM) is designed to calculate the minimal and maximal road network distances between moving objects and query point. Furthermore, we propose a novel Possibility-based Vague KNN (PVKNN) algorithm to process the query efficiently, which determines the CKNN query results with possibility within each division time subinterval of given time interval by applying the vague set theory. In the PVKNN algorithm, the query efficiency can be improved significantly with the pruning, distilling and possibility-ranking phases. With these phases, the objects candidates are scaled down and the given time interval is divided into subintervals to reduce the repetitive query cost. In addition, an index structure TPR^uv-Tree is designed to efficiently index moving objects with uncertain velocity in road network by involving edge connection and moving objects information. Experiments with simulation and comparison show that significant improvement in the performance of efficiency can be achieved with our proposed algorithms.     

一种预测性连续时空区域查询处理方法

预测性连续时空区域查询在用户指定的时间范围期间持续地返回给定未来查询时间范围期间将出现在查询区域的移动对象。论文提出了一种预测性连续时空区域查询处理方法,设计了支持连续查询处理的两种索引结构。移动对象索引用于记录移动对象不断更新的位置信息,它用于支持查询的首次处理。连续查询索引结构用于记录所有查询结果可能受到移动对象位置变化影响的连续查询,它用于支持连续查询处理。实验表明,论文提出的方法能够有效地提高处理大量连续查询的效率。     

Analysis and evaluation of V*-kNN: an efficient algorithm for moving kNN queries

The moving k nearest neighbor (MkNN) query continuously finds the k nearest neighbors of a moving query point. MkNN queries can be efficiently processed through the use of safe regions. In general, a safe region is a region within which the query point can move without changing the query answer. This paper presents an incremental safe-region-based technique for answering MkNN queries, called the V*-Diagram, as well as analysis and evaluation of its associated algorithm, V*-kNN. Traditional safe-region approaches compute a safe region based on the data objects but independent of the query location. Our approach exploits the knowledge of the query location and the boundary of the search space in addition to the data objects. As a result, V*-kNN has much smaller I/O and computation costs than existing methods. We further provide cost models to estimate the number of data accesses for V*-kNN and a competitive technique, RIS-kNN. The V*-Diagram and V*-kNN are also applicable to the domain of spatial networks and we present algorithms to construct a spatial-network V*-Diagram. Our experimental results show that V*-kNN significantly outperforms the competitive technique. The results also verify the accuracy of the cost models.     

Continuous reverse k nearest neighbor monitoring on moving objects in road networks

Continuous reverse k nearest neighbor (CRkNN) monitoring in road networks has recently received increasing attentions. However, there is still a lack of efficient CRkNN algorithms in road networks up to now. In road networks, moving query objects and data objects are restricted by the connectivity of the road network and both the object–query distance and object–object distance updates affect the result of CRkNN queries. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for continuous and incremental evaluation of CRkNN queries in road networks. Our method is based on a novel data structure called dual layer multiway tree (DLM tree) we proposed to represent the whole monitoring region of a CRkNN query q. We propose several lemmas to reduce the monitoring region of q and the number of candidate objects as much as possible. Moreover, by associating a variable NN_count with each candidate object, we can simplify the monitoring of candidate objects. There are a large number of objects roaming in a road network and many of them are irrelevant to a specific CRkNN query of a query object q. To minimize the processing extension, for a road in the network, we give an IQL list and an IQCL list to specify the set of query objects and data objects whose location updates should be maintained for CRkNN processing of query objects. Our CRkNN method consists of two phase: the initial result generating phase and incremental maintenance phase. In each phase, algorithms with high performance are proposed to make our CRkNN method more efficient. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted and the result shows that our proposed approach is efficient and scalable in processing CRkNN queries in road networks.     

Countering overlapping rectangle privacy attack for moving kNN queries

An important class of LBSs is supported by the moving k nearest neighbor (MkNN) query, which continuously returns the k nearest data objects for a moving user. For example, a tourist may want to observe the five nearest restaurants continuously while exploring a city so that she can drop in to one of them anytime. Using this kind of services requires the user to disclose her location continuously and therefore may cause privacy leaks derived from the user's locations. A common approach to protecting a user's location privacy is the use of imprecise locations (e.g., regions) instead of exact positions when requesting LBSs. However, simply updating a user's imprecise location to a location-based service provider (LSP) cannot ensure a user's privacy for an MkNN query: continuous disclosure of regions enable LSPs to refine more precise location of the user. We formulate this type of attack to a user's location privacy that arises from overlapping consecutive regions, and provide the first solution to counter this attack. Specifically, we develop algorithms which can process an MkNN query while protecting the user's privacy from the above attack. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of our privacy protection technique and the efficiency of our algorithm.