Semantic caching of Web queries

Abstract. In meta-searchers accessing distributed Web-based information repositories, performance is a major issue. Efficient query processing requires an appropriate caching mechanism. Unfortunately, standard page-based as well as tuple-based caching mechanisms designed for conventional databases are not efficient on the Web, where keyword-based querying is often the only way to retrieve data. In this work, we study the problem of semantic caching of Web queries and develop a caching mechanism for conjunctive Web queries based on signature files. Our algorithms cope with both relations of semantic containment and intersection between a query and the corresponding cache items. We also develop the cache replacement strategy to treat situations when cached items differ in size and contribution when providing partial query answers. We report results of experiments and show how the caching mechanism is realized in the Knowledge Broker system. Received June 15, 1999 / Accepted December 24, 1999     

Extending SPARQL with regular expression patterns (for querying RDF)

RDF is a knowledge representation language dedicated to the annotation of resources within the framework of the semantic web. Among the query languages for RDF, SPARQL allows querying RDF through graph patterns, i.e., RDF graphs involving variables. Other languages, inspired by the work in databases, use regular expressions for searching paths in RDF graphs. Each approach can express queries that are out of reach of the other one. Hence, we aim at combining these two approaches. For that purpose, we define a language, called PRDF (for “Path RDF”) which extends RDF such that the arcs of a graph can be labeled by regular expression patterns. We provide PRDF with a semantics extending that of RDF, and propose a correct and complete algorithm which, by computing a particular graph homomorphism, decides the consequence between an RDF graph and a PRDF graph. We then define the PSPARQL query language, extending SPARQL with PRDF graph patterns and complying with RDF model theoretic semantics. PRDF thus offers both graph patterns and path expressions. We show that this extension does not increase the computational complexity of SPARQL and, based on the proposed algorithm, we have implemented a correct and complete PSPARQL query engine.     

Semantics preserving SPARQL-to-SQL translation

Most existing RDF stores, which serve as metadata repositories on the Semantic Web, use an RDBMS as a backend to manage RDF data. This motivates us to study the problem of translating SPARQL queries into equivalent SQL queries, which further can be optimized and evaluated by the relational query engine and their results can be returned as SPARQL query solutions. The main contributions of our research are: (i) We formalize a relational algebra based semantics of SPARQL, which bridges the gap between SPARQL and SQL query languages, and prove that our semantics is equivalent to the mapping-based semantics of SPARQL; (ii) Based on this semantics, we propose the first provably semantics preserving SPARQL-to-SQL translation for SPARQL triple patterns, basic graph patterns, optional graph patterns, alternative graph patterns, and value constraints; (iii) Our translation algorithm is generic and can be directly applied to existing RDBMS-based RDF stores; and (iv) We outline a number of simplifications for the SPARQL-to-SQL translation to generate simpler and more efficient SQL queries and extend our defined semantics and translation to support the bag semantics of a SPARQL query solution. The experimental study showed that our proposed generic translation can serve as a good alternative to existing schema dependent translations in terms of efficient query evaluation and/or ensured query result correctness.     

Semantic caching and query processing

Semantic caching is very attractive for use in distributed systems due to the reduced network traffic and the improved response time. It is particularly efficient for a mobile computing environment, where the bandwidth of wireless links is a major performance bottleneck. Previous work either does not provide a formal semantic caching model, or lacks efficient query processing strategies. This paper extends the existing research in three ways: formal definitions associated with semantic caching are presented, query processing strategies are investigated and, finally, the performance of the semantic cache model is examined through a detailed simulation study.     

Learning-based SPARQL query performance modeling and prediction

One of the challenges of managing an RDF database is predicting performance of SPARQL queries before they are executed. Performance characteristics, such as the execution time and memory usage, can help data consumers identify unexpected long-running queries before they start and estimate the system workload for query scheduling. Extensive works address such performance prediction problem in traditional SQL queries but they are not directly applicable to SPARQL queries. In this paper, we adopt machine learning techniques to predict the performance of SPARQL queries. Our work focuses on modeling features of a SPARQL query to a vector representation. Our feature modeling method does not depend on the knowledge of underlying systems and the structure of the underlying data, but only on the nature of SPARQL queries. Then we use these features to train prediction models. We propose a two-step prediction process and consider performances in both cold and warm stages. Evaluations are performed on real world SPRAQL queries, whose execution time ranges from milliseconds to hours. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can effectively predict SPARQL query performance and outperforms state-of-the-art approaches.     

RDF partitioning for scalable SPARQL query processing

The volume of RDF data increases dramatically within recent years, while cloud computing platforms like Hadoop are supposed to be a good choice for processing queries over huge data sets for their wonderful scalability. Previous work on evaluating SPARQL queries with Hadoop mainly focus on reducing the number of joins through careful split of HDFS files and algorithms for generating Map/Reduce jobs. However, the way of partitioning RDF data could also affect system performance. Specifically, a good partitioning solution would greatly reduce or even totally avoid cross-node joins, and significantly cut down the cost in query evaluation. Based on HadoopDB, this work processes SPARQL queries in a hybrid architecture, where Map/Reduce takes charge of the computing tasks, and RDF query engines like RDF-3X store the data and execute join operations. According to the analysis of query workloads, this work proposes a novel algorithm for automatically partitioning RDF data and an approximate solution to physically place the partitions in order to reduce data redundancy. It also discusses how to make a good trade-off between query evaluation efficiency and data redundancy. All of these proposed approaches have been evaluated by extensive experiments over large RDF data sets.     

基于CouchDB的SPARQL查询引擎实现

传统的SPARQL查询引擎在处理查询时以三元组模式为基本单位做查询优化处理,在三元组模式较多时存在着过多的连接操作,开销比较大。文中基于文档数据库的存储和查询特点,提出一种利用主语分类的方式来存储RDF数据的方法,将不同的RDF三元组按主语分成不同的类,并存入文档数据库的文档中。在处理SPARQL查询时将三元组模式也按照主语分类,构成以主语相关块为单位的查询图,并提出一种基于属性相关性的选择度估计方法来优化查询执行计划。文中利用文档数据库CouchDB实现了新的SPARQL查询引擎,实验证明文中的方法能够提高SPARQL基本图模式查询的效率。     

A mobile query service for integrated access to large numbers of online semantic web data sources

From the Semantic Web’s inception, a number of concurrent initiatives have given rise to multiple segments: large semantic datasets, exposed by query endpoints; online Semantic Web documents, in the form of RDF files; and semantically annotated web content (e.g., using RDFa), semantic sources in their own right. In various mobile application scenarios, online semantic data has proven to be useful. While query endpoints are most commonly exploited, they are mainly useful to expose large semantic datasets. Alternatively, mobile RDF stores are utilized to query local semantic data, but this requires the design-time identification and replication of relevant data. Instead, we present a mobile query service that supports on-the-fly and integrated querying of semantic data, originating from a largely unused portion of the Semantic Web, comprising online RDF files and semantics embedded in annotated webpages. To that end, our solution performs dynamic identification, retrieval and caching of query-relevant semantic data. We explore several data identification and caching alternatives, and investigate the utility of source metadata in optimizing these tasks. Further, we introduce a novel cache replacement strategy, fine-tuned to the described query dataset, and include explicit support for the Open World Assumption. An extensive experimental validation evaluates the query service and its alternative components.     

Form-based proxy caching for database-backed web sites: keywords and functions

Web caching proxy servers are essential for improving web performance and scalability, and recent research has focused on making proxy caching work for database-backed web sites. In this paper, we explore a new proxy caching framework that exploits the query semantics of HTML forms. We identify two common classes of form-based queries from real-world database-backed web sites, namely, keyword-based queries and function-embedded queries. Using typical examples of these queries, we study two representative caching schemes within our framework: (i) traditional passive query caching, and (ii) active query caching, in which the proxy cache can service a request by evaluating a query over the contents of the cache. Results from our experimental implementation show that our form-based proxy is a general and flexible approach that efficiently enables active caching schemes for database-backed web sites. Furthermore, handling query containment at the proxy yields significant performance advantages over passive query caching, but extending the power of the active cache to do full semantic caching appears to be less generally effective.     

SPARQL查询的关系代数表示与转换方法

为解决基于本体的数据集成系统中的查询转换问题,提出SPARQL查询的关系代数表示和转换方法。引入RDF图模式的关系代数,定义了五种基本的关系运算,给出了SPARQL查询的关系代数表示;提出了SPARQL到SQL的查询转换方法,将基于本体的SPARQL查询转换为可在关系数据库上直接执行的SQL查询,从而实现关系数据库的集成。系统实现表明,该方法能够有效地实现查询语言的转换。     

移动查询缓存处理的研究

客户缓存为提高客户／服务器数据库系统整体性能以及客户方数据可用性提供了有效途径。移动环境下网络资源的贫乏使客户缓存的作用更为重要，语义缓存是基于客户查询语义相关建立的一类缓存，提出一个基于语义缓存的客户缓存机制，给出缓存的内容组织，提出缓存项合并策略；然后讨论了基于语义缓存的查询处理策略；最后，模拟结果表明该客户缓存机制能够提高分布式、特别是移动环境下客户服务器数据库系统的性能。     

分布式环境下大规模资源描述框架数据划分方法综述

随着知识图谱的日益发展和在各个垂直领域的广泛应用,对于资源描述框架（RDF）数据的高效处理需求日益成为现代大数据管理领域中的新课题。RDF是W3C提出的用于描述知识图谱实体以及实体间关系的数据模型。为了有效地应对大规模RDF数据的存储和查询,很多学者考虑在分布式环境中管理RDF数据。RDF数据的分布式存储所面临的关键问题是数据的划分,而划分的结果很大程度上决定了SPARQL的查询性能。从数据划分的角度,主要围绕两类：基于图结构的RDF数据划分方法和基于语义的RDF数据划分方法展开深入阐述。前者包括多粒度层次划分、模板划分和聚类划分,适用于通用领域查询的语义范畴较为宽泛的场景;后者包括哈希划分、垂直划分和模式划分,更加适用于垂直领域查询的语义范畴相对固定的环境。此外,针对几种典型的划分方法进行对比与分析,为未来RDF数据划分方法的研究提供参考。最后,对未来RDF数据划分方法的发展方向进行了归纳总结。     

Active semantic caching to optimize multidimensional data analysis in parallel and distributed environments

In this paper, we present a multi-query optimization framework based on the concept of active semantic caching. The framework permits the identification and transparent reuse of data and computation in the presence of multiple queries (or query batches) that specify user-defined operators and aggregations originating from scientific data-analysis applications. We show how query scheduling techniques, coupled with intelligent cache replacement policies, can further improve the performance of query processing by leveraging the active semantic caching operators. We also propose a methodology for functionally decomposing complex queries in terms of primitives so that multiple reuse sites are exposed to the query optimizer, to increase the amount of reuse. The optimization framework and the database system implemented with it are designed to be efficient irrespective of the underlying parallel and/or distributed machine configuration. We present experimental results highlighting the performance improvements obtained by our methods using real scientific data-analysis applications on multiple parallel and distributed processing configurations (e.g., single symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) machine, cluster of SMP nodes, and a Grid computing configuration).     

语义缓存查询裁剪优化

查询处理是语义缓存的一个关键问题,但是现有的查询处理算法在时空效率和裁剪结果的复杂度两个方面存在很大的局限性,这在一定程度上限制了语义缓存的实用性。为了克服这些缺陷,本文对语义缓存的裁剪过程进行优化处理,减少了对服务器的无效访问,并给出了生成探测查询和剩余查询的裁剪算法;算法分析从理论上证明了该优化机制的有效性,同时,仿真实验的性能比较也表明该优化方法在提高查询裁剪时空效率和降低剩余查询复杂度等方面均要明显优于没有优化的方法。     

Ultrawrap: SPARQL execution on relational data

The Semantic Web’s promise of web-wide data integration requires the inclusion of legacy relational databases,¹ i.e. the execution of SPARQL queries on RDF representation of the legacy relational data. We explore a hypothesis: existing commercial relational databases already subsume the algorithms and optimizations needed to support effective SPARQL execution on existing relationally stored data. The experiment is embodied in a system, Ultrawrap, that encodes a logical representation of the database as an RDF graph using SQL views and a simple syntactic translation of SPARQL queries to SQL queries on those views. Thus, in the course of executing a SPARQL query, the SQL optimizer uses the SQL views that represent a mapping of relational data to RDF, and optimizes its execution. In contrast, related research is predicated on incorporating optimizing transforms as part of the SPARQL to SQL translation, and/or executing some of the queries outside the underlying SQL environment.Ultrawrap is evaluated using two existing benchmark suites that derive their RDF data from relational data through a Relational Database to RDF (RDB2RDF) Direct Mapping and repeated for each of the three major relational database management systems. Empirical analysis reveals two existing relational query optimizations that, if applied to the SQL produced from a simple syntactic translations of SPARQL queries (with bound predicate arguments) to SQL, consistently yield query execution time that is comparable to that of SQL queries written directly for the relational representation of the data. The analysis further reveals the two optimizations are not uniquely required to achieve a successful wrapper system. The evidence suggests effective wrappers will be those that are designed to complement the optimizer of the target database.     

关联数据的自然语言查询方法

以RDF结构为基础的数据网的发展中,高效数据检索成为关键问题之一。形式化查询语言(如SPARQL)因其语法的复杂性及查询本体的相关性阻碍其效用的发挥,迫切需要新的方法或工具实现以自然语言为基础(如关键字检索)的检索。形式化查询语言是检索这类结构化数据的有效方式,用户习惯自然语言为基础的检索方式。因而如何自动将关键词为基础的检索方式转换成以形式化查询为基础的检索方式是实现数据网的重要一环。关联数据的自然语言查询方法自动将自然语言查询转换成SPARQL查询,提高系统的有效性和效率。文中在抽象转换度量模型的基础上,以本体为基础构建查询语义图及实现语义消歧,构建SPARQL查询。实验结果表明,该方法具有更高的召回率、精度及更低的时间消耗。     

KGDB: Knowledge Graph Database System with Unified Model and Query Language

Knowledge graph is an important cornerstone of artificial intelligence, which currently has two main data models: RDF graphs and property graphs. There are several query languages on these two data models, including SPARQL on RDF graphs and Cypher on property graphs. Over the last decade, various communities have developed different data management methods for RDF graphs and property graphs. Inconsistent data models and query languages hinder the wider application of knowledge graphs. In this paper, we propose a knowledge graphy database (KGDB) system with unified data model and query language. (1) We work out a unified storage scheme based on the relational model that supports the efficient storage of RDF graphs and property graphs, catering to the smooth storage and query of knowledge graph data. (2) The characteristic set-based clustering is used in KGDB for the storage of typeless entities. (3) It realizes the interoperability of SPARQL and Cypher by enabling them to operate on the same knowledge graph. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets and synthetic datasets reveal that KGDB is more efficient than existing knowledge graph database management systems in storage management and query efficiency. KGDB saves 30% of the storage space on average compared with gStore and Neo4j. In addition, KDGB is two orders of magnitude faster than gStore and Neo4j in the query of the real-world datasets, seen from experiments on the query of basic graph pattern matching.     

RDF查询语言到SQL语言的转换原理及其实现方法

RDF查询语言的优点是具有语义性，缺点是对于海量信息的存储和查找的效率都很低．而关系数据库对海量信息的存储和查找的效率皆很高，但是其查询语言SQL却缺乏语义信息．为了使信息查询既有RDF的语义性又有关系数据库的高性能，提出将RDF查询语言到SQL语言的转换原理，并在此基础上实现一个对用户透明的、建立在关系数据库之上的RDF查询引擎．其优点是：可以利用关系数据库来存储和查询RDF信息，提高其海量存储和查找效率；对存储在不同的关系数据库中的关系数据，能够利用RDF的查找特性进行异质数据库之间的信息交换及信息融合．