Energy-Conserving Air Indexes for Nearest Neighbor Search
A location-based service (LBS) provides information based on the location information specified in a query. Nearest-neighbor (NN) search is an important class of queries supported in LBSs. This paper studies energy-conserving air indexes for NN search in a wireless broadcast environment. Linear access requirement of wireless broadcast weakens the performance of existing search algorithms designed for traditional spatial database. In this paper, we propose a new energy- conserving index, called grid-partition index, which enables a single linear scan of the index for any NN queries. The idea is to partition the search space for NN queries into grid cells and index all the objects that are potential nearest neighbors of a query point in each grid cell. Three grid partition schemes are proposed for the grid-partition index. Performance of the proposed grid-partition indexes and two representative traditional indexes (enhanced for wireless broadcast) is evaluated using both synthetic and real data. The result shows that the grid-partition index substantially outperforms the traditional indexes.

title: Performance evaluation of an optimal cache replacement policy for wireless data dissemination
abstract: Data caching at mobile clients is an important technique for improving the performance of wireless data dissemination systems. However, variable data sizes, data updates, limited client resources, and frequent client disconnections make cache management a challenge. We propose a gain-based cache replacement policy, Min-SAUD, for wireless data dissemination when cache consistency must be enforced before a cached item is used. Min-SAUD considers several factors that affect cache performance, namely, access probability, update frequency, data size, retrieval delay, and cache validation cost. The paper employs stretch as the major performance metric since it accounts for the data service time and, thus, is fair when items have different sizes. We prove that Min-SAUD achieves optimal stretch under some standard assumptions. Moreover, a series of simulation experiments have been conducted to thoroughly evaluate the performance of Min-SAUD under various system configurations. The simulation results show that, in most cases, the Min-SAUD replacement policy substantially outperforms two existing policies, namely, LRU and SAIU.

title: Using path information for query processing in object-oriented database systems
abstract: This paper argues that most queries in object-oriented databases require traversing from one object to another in the aggregation hierarchy. Thus, the connections between objects through object identifiers are essential to the efficiency of query processing and should be represented separately from the database. We introduce the concept of path dictionary and describe how it supports queries of different types. We evaluate the storage overhead, query and update costs of the path dictionary. Compared to the path index, the path dictionary has better overall query and update performance and lower storage overhead.

title: On processing nested queries in distributed object-oriented database systems
abstract: In this paper, we discuss nested query processing in a distributed object-oriented database system. We present three query processing strategies to exploit parallelism in a distributed environment. Then, we review three access methods designed for centralized systems and discuss how they can be applied to the distributed environment. Heuristics for selecting attributes for indexing and determining where to store the indexes are also presented. Finally, a replication strategy is proposed for the path dictionary method.<<ETX>>

title: Exponential index: a parameterized distributed indexing scheme for data on air
abstract: Wireless data broadcast has received a lot of attention from industries and academia in recent years. Access efficiency and energy conservation are two critical performance concerns in a wireless data broadcast environment. To improve the efficiency of energy consumption on mobile devices, traditional disk-based indexing techniques such as B$^+$-tree have been extended to index broadcast data on a wireless channel. However, existing designs are mostly based on centralized tree structures. Most of these indexing techniques are not flexible in the sense that the trade-off between access efficiency and energy conservation is not adjustable based on application specific requirements. We propose in this paper a novel parameterized index, called the exponential index, which can be tuned to optimize the access latency with the tuning time bounded by a given limit, and vice versa. The proposed index is very efficient because it facilitates replication naturally by sharing links in multiple search trees and thus minimizes storage overhead. Experimental results show that the exponential index not only achieves better performance than the state-of-the-art indexes but also enables great flexibility in trade-offs between access latency and tuning time.

title: The D-tree: an index structure for planar point queries in location-based wireless services
abstract: Location-based services (LBSs), considered as a killer application in the wireless data market, provide information based on locations specified in the queries. In this paper, we examine the indexing issue for querying location-dependent data in wireless LBSs; in particular, we focus on an important class of queries, planar point queries. To address the issues of responsiveness, energy consumption, and bandwidth contention in wireless communications, an index has to minimize the search time and maintain a small storage overhead. It is shown that the traditional point-location algorithms and spatial index structures fail to achieve either objective or both. This paper proposes a new index structure, called D-tree, which indexes spatial regions based on the divisions that form the boundaries of the regions. We describe how to construct a binary D-tree index, how to process queries based on the D-tree, and how to page the binary D-tree. Moreover, two parameterized methods for partitioning the original space, called fixed grid assignment (FGA) and adaptive grid assignment (AGA), are proposed to enhance the D-tree. The performance of the D-tree is evaluated using both synthetic and real data sets. Experimental results show that the proposed D-tree outperforms the well-known indexes such as the R/sup */-tree, and that both the FGA and AGA approaches can achieve different performance trade-offs between the index search time and storage overhead by fine-tuning their algorithmic parameters.

title: Robustness of multiplexing protocols for audio-visual services over wireless networks
abstract: The protocols used to multiplex the various streams in an audio-visual service (such as MPEG 2 systems and ITU-T H.223) have an important impact on the quality of the service. The fact that wireless channels are often associated with high bit-error rates which are often bursty means that the multiplexing protocols should be designed to be robust against such errors. We suggest two departures from traditional practice which can improve significantly the performance of a packet-oriented multiplex for use with audio-visual services: (1) where the packet header is protected against errors using forward error correcting codes, the use of a synchronization codeword (or flag) is often unnecessary, and (2) for channels where errors tend to occur in bursts, the occurrence of errors in the header can be reduced by transmitting the header information twice (at both ends of the packet) with a low level of FEC protection instead of using the same number of bits to obtain an increased level of protection using a single code word. The value of these approaches is confirmed by simulations.

title: JAM: Java Agents for Meta-Learning over Distributed Databases
abstract: In this paper, we describe the JAM system, a distributed, scalable and portable agent-based data mining system that employs a general approach to scaling data mining applications that we call meta-learning. JAM provides a set of learning programs, implemented either as JAVA applets or applications, that compute models over data stored locally at a site. JAM also provides a set of meta-learning agents for combining multiple models that were learned (perhaps) at different sites. It employs a special distribution mechanism which allows the migration of the derived models or classifier agents to other remote sites. We describe the overall architecture of the JAM system and the specific implementation currently under development at Columbia University. One of JAM's target applications is fraud and intrusion detection in financial information systems. A brief description of this learning task and JAM's applicability are also described. Interested users may download JAM from http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sal/JAM/PROJECT.

title: Nearest Surrounder Queries
abstract: In this paper, we present a new type of spatial queries called Nearest Surrounder (NS) queries. An NS query determines the nearest polygon-shaped spatial objects (referred to as nearest surrounder objects) and their orientations with respect to a query point from an object set. Besides, we derive two NS query variants, namely, multitier NS (m-NS) queries and angle-constrained NS (ANS) queries. An m-NS query searches multiple layers of NS objects for the same range of angles from a query point. An ANS query searches for NS objects within a specified range of angles. To evaluate NS queries and their variants, we explore angle-based and distance-based bound properties of polygons, and devise two efficient algorithms, namely, Sweep and Ripple, based on R-tree. The algorithms access objects in an order according to their orientations and distances with respect to a given query point, respectively. They are efficient as they can finish a search with one index lookup. Besides, they can progressively deliver a query result. Through empirical studies, we evaluate the proposed algorithms and report their performance for both synthetic and real object sets.

title: Impossible Differential Cryptanalysis of Reduced Round XTEA and TEA
abstract: We present the impossible differential cryptanalysis of the block cipher XTEA[7] and TEA[6]. The core of the design principle of these block ciphers is an easy implementation and a simplicity. But this simplicity dose not offer a large diffusion property. Our impossible differential cryptanalysis of reduced-round versions of XTEA and TEA is based on this fact. We will show how to construct a 12-round impossible characteristic of XTEA. We can then derive 128-bit user key of the 14- round XTEA with 262.5 chosen plaintexts and 285 encryption times using the 12-round impossible characteristic. In addition, we will show how to construct a 10-round impossible characteristic of TEA. Then we can derive 128-bit user key of the 11-round TEA with 252.5 chosen plaintexts and 284 encryption times using the 10-round impossible characteristic.

title: Real Face Communication in a Virtual World
abstract: This paper describes an efficient method to make an individual face for animation from several possible inputs and how to use this result for a realistic talking head communication in a virtual world. We present a method to reconstruct 3D facial model from two orthogonal pictures taken from front and side views. The method is based on extracting features from a face in a semiautomatic way and deforming a generic model. Texture mapping based on cylindrical projection is employed using a composed image from the two images. A reconstructed head is animated immediately and is able to talk with given text, which is transformed to corresponding phonemes and visemes. We also propose a system for individualized face-to-face communication through network using MPEG4.