waashk/acm huggingface dataset:
a fast procedure for finding a tracker in a statistical database  to avoid trivial compromises, most on-line statistical databases refuse to answer queries for statistics about small subgroups. previous research discovered a powerful snooping tool, the tracker, with which the answers to these unanswerable queries are easily calculated. however, the extent of this threat was not clear, for no one had shown that finding a tracker is guaranteed to be easy.  this paper gives a simple algorithm for finding a tracker when the maximum number of identical records is not too large. the number of queries required to find a tracker is at most  (log2s) queries, where s is the number of distinct records possible. experimental results show that the procedure often finds a tracker with just a few queries. the threat posed by trackers is therefore considerable.  dorothy e. denning jan schlörer
an investigation of the inconstistencies of the rim-5 relational information management database management system (abstract only)  this paper focuses on three areas of research investigating the rim dbms, which is commercially available and is widely used in the academic environment. the first problem area is in the update mode in which rim locks out users from the entire database actually a view in the relational dbms sense. a method which only locks out a minimal portion during update is presented. the second area of concern is the relational completeness of rim. to be relationally complete a dbms must support the relational algebraic operations proposed by codd. the rim system does not support the division operator, nor can its equivalent be obtained using the current rim operators. two algorithms and an analysis of these is presented which when implemented performs the division operator. the final area addressed is the fact that rim supports vectors and matrices as elementary data types. this allows the existence of unnormalized relations.  pentti a. honkanen
evaluating a content based image retrieval system  content based image retrieval (cbir) presents special challenges in terms of how image data is indexed, accessed, and how end systems are evaluated. this paper discusses the design of a cbir system that uses global colour as the primary indexing key, and a user centered evaluation of the systems visual search tools. the results indicate that users are able to make use of a range of visual search tools, and that different tools are used at different points in the search process. the results also show that the provision of a structured navigation and browsing tool can support image retrieval, particularly in situations in which the user does not have a target image in mind. the results are discussed in terms of their implications for the design of visual search tools, and their implications for the use of user-centered evaluation for cbir systems.  sharon mcdonald ting-sheng lai john tait
research at altai"r  altair is a five year project which began in september of 1986. its goal is to design an implement a next generation database system. the five year project was divided in two phases: a three year prototyping phase and a two year phase devoted for one part to the development of a product from the prototype and for the other part to a new research effort.  the three year phase ended by the demonstration of the v1 prototype of the o2 object-oriented database system which has been distributed for experimentation to more than 40 universities and about 13 industrial partners.  the contribution of the altair group to the database research community has been mainly in three areas: data model and database languages, object stores, and programming environments. furthermore, all these efforts have been integrated in a consistent way into the v1 prototype. the results of this research and development effort are being summarized in a book [bdk91] which is a commented collection of papers, most of them already published in the proceedings of a number of internationally recognized conferences. we briefly survey in the following the o2 activities.  philippe richard
term position ranking: some new test results  presents seven sets of laboratory results testing variables in term position ranking which produce a phrase effect by weighting the distance between proximate terms. results of the 73 tests conducted by this project are included, covering variant term position algorithms, sentence boundaries, stopword counting, every pairs testing, field selection, and combinations of algorithm including collection frequency, record frequency and searcher weighted. the discussion includes the results of tests by fagan and by croft, the need for term stemming, proximity as a precision device, comparisons with boolean, and the quality of test collections.  e. michael keen
metaphor in theory and practice: the influence of metaphors on expectations  the use of metaphors is pervasive in all forms of discourse. this paper is concerned with providing a brief review of the development of metaphor theory,illustrated with some examples of supportive empirical research.these include a canonical study of the way concepts of instruction and education are influenced, a study into the effects of human-computer interface metaphors on computer systems users,and a study designed to assess the impacts of metaphor use on attitudes to internet commerce, particularly on attitudes to the roles played by information technology (it). the paper provides some contextual background to assist consideration of the effects of metaphors on attitudes and beliefs.in practice, metaphor use may be intentional,unconscious,or a mixture of both, but in any case metaphors can be shown to play powerful roles in the social construction of human reality.  anne hamilton
public use of digital community information sstems: findings from a recent study with implications for system design  the internet has considerably empowered libraries and changed common p erception of what they entail. public libraries, in particular, are using technological advancements to expand their range of services and enhance their civic roles. providing community information (ci) in innovative, digital forms via community networks is one way in which public libraries are facilitating everyday information needs. these networks have been lauded for their potential to strengthen physical communities through increasing information flow about local services and events, and through facilitating civic interaction. however, little is known about how the public uses such digital services and what barriers they encounter. this paper presents findings about how digital ci systems benefit physical communities based on extensive case studies in three states. at each site, rich data were collected using online surveys, field observation, in- depth interviews and focus groups with internet users, human service providers and library staff. both the online survey and the follow-up interviews with respondents were based on sense- making theory. in our paper we discuss our findings regarding: (1) how the public is using digital ci systems for daily problem solving, and (2) the types of barriers they encounter. suggestions for improving digital ci systems are provided.  karen e. pettigrew joan c. durrance
an integrated approach to logical design of relational database schemes    1. we propose a new approach to the design of relational database schemes. the main features of the approach are the following:    2. a combination of the traditional decomposition and synthesis approaches, thus allowing the use of both functional and multivalued dependencies.    3. separation of structural dependencies relevant for the design process from integrity constraints, that is, constraints that do not bear any structural information about the data and which should therefore be discarded at the design stage. this separation is supported by a simple syntactic test filtering out nonstructural dependencies.    4. automatic correction of schemes which lack certain desirable properties.  catriel beeri michael kifer
database for office automation  with a fast growth in the quantity and quality of software applications for office systems and advanced workstations, it is becoming clear that the trend is towards a more integrated software architecture for workstation or office systems. a critical piece in a truly integrated system is a well-designed general purpose database mangement system (dbms) that supports all applications running on the workstation (or office system). sophisticated dbmss have been developed on the main frames, primarily for large data processsing (dp) applications. is it true, then, that all we need is to transport these systems to the workstation?  the first problem that one faces to move a full scale dbms to a workstation is the size. it is not clear that trimming a big dbms down is an easy task. some of the advanced capabilities might be modular and relatively easy to remove. others could be quite difficult as the code is distributed throughout the system. in some cases, it might not even be possible to "trim" when the general capability is needed but to a lesser extent. in practice, most major dbmss are built without serious concern on the space restrictions. it might be easier to design and implement a new system with "smallness" in mind than to trim down a huge one. the considerations on smallness include the data structures, control blocks, interfaces, buffer requirements, configuration and packaging of the system, as well as the number of lines of code.  size is only the beginning. smallness makes the dbms possible to run on a workstation. because of the new operating environment, there are new requirements for the dbms which are different from the traditional dp environment on a main frame. the real challenge is to determine what these requirements are and how to design a system accordingly.  on an advanced workstation, one has to support word processing, data processing, engineering and scientific, administrative, as well as
semantics-based information brokering  the rapid advances in computer and communication technologies, and their merger, is leading to a global information market place. it will consist of federations of very large number of information systems that will cooperate to varying extents to support the users' information needs. we discuss an approach to information brokering in the above environment. we discuss two of its tasks: information resource discovery, which identifies relevant information sources for a given query, and query processing, which involves the generation of appropriate mapping from relevant but structurally heterogeneous objects. query processing consists of information focusing and information correlation.  our approach is based on: semantic proximity, which represents semantic similarities based on the context of comparison, and schema correspondences which are used to represent structural mappings and are associated with the context. the context of comparison of the two objects is the primary vehicle to represent the semantics for determining semantic proximity. specifically, we use a partial context representation to capture the semantics in terms of the assumptions in the intended use of the objects and the intended meaning of the user query. information focusing is supported by subsequent context comparison. the same mechanism can be used to support information resource discovery. context comparison leads to changes in schema correspondences that are used to support information correlation.  vipul kashyap amit sheth
audio-visual tracking for natural interactivity  the goal in user interfaces is natural interactivity unencumbered by sensor and display technology. in this paper, we propose that a multi-modal approach using inverse modeling techniques from computer vision, speech recognition, and acoustics can result in such interfaces. in particular, we demonstrate a system for audio-visual tracking, showing that such a system is more robust, more accurate, more compact, and yields more information than using a single modality for tracking. we also demonstrate how such a system can be used to find the talker among a group of individuals, and render 3d scenes to the user.  gopal pingali gamze tunali ingrid carlbom
autoadmin "what-if" index analysis utility  as databases get widely deployed, it becomes increasingly important to reduce the overhead of database administration. an important aspect of data administration that critically influences performance is the ability to select indexes for a database. in order to decide the right indexes for a database, it is crucial for the database administrator (dba) to be able to perform a quantitative analysis of the existing indexes. furthermore, the dba should have the ability to propose hypothetical ("what-if") indexes and quantitatively analyze their impact on performance of the system. such impact analysis may consist of analyzing workloads over the database, estimating changes in the cost of a workload, and studying index usage while taking into account projected changes in the sizes of the database tables. in this paper we describe a novel index analysis utility that we have prototyped for microsoft sql server 7.0. we describe the interfaces exposed by this utility that can be leveraged by a variety of front-end tools and sketch important aspects of the user interfaces enabled by the utility. we also discuss the implementation techniques for efficiently supporting "what-if" indexes. our framework can be extended to incorporate analysis of other aspects of physical database design.  surajit chaudhuri vivek narasayya
the need for distributed asynchronous transactions  the theme of the paper is to promote research on asynchronous transactions. we discuss our experience of executing synchronous transactions on a large distributed production system in the boeing company. due to the poor performance of synchronous transactions in our environment, it motivated the exploration of asynchronous transactions as an alternate solution. this paper presents the requirements and benefits/limitations of asynchronous transactions. open issues related to large scale deployments of asynchronous transactions are also discussed.  lyman do prabhu ram pamela drew
using semantic knowledge of transactions to increase concurrencywhen the only information available about transactions is syntacticinformation, serializability is the main correctness criterion for concurrencycontrol. serializability requires that the execution of each transaction mustappear to every other transaction as a single atomic step (i.e., the executionof the transaction cannot be interrupted by other transactions). manyresearchers, however, have realized that this requirement is unnecessarilystrong for many applications and can significantly increase transactionresponse time. to overcome this problem, a new approach for controllingconcurrency that exploits the semantic information available abouttransactions to allow controlled nonserializable interleavings has recentlybeen proposed. this approach is useful when the cost of producing onlyserializable interleavings is unacceptably high. the main drawback of theapproach is the extra overhead incurred by utilizing the semantic information.we examine this new approach in this paper and discuss its strengths andweaknesses. we introduce a new formalization for the concurrency controlproblem when semantic information is available about the transactions. thissemantic information takes the form of transaction types, transaction steps,and transaction break-points. we define a new class of "safe" schedules calledrelatively consistent (rc) schedules. this class contains serializable as wellas nonserializable schedules. we prove that the execution of an rc schedulecannot violate consistency and propose a new concurrency control mechanismthat produces only rc schedules. our mechanism assumes fewer restrictions onthe interleavings among transactions than previously introduced semantic-basedmechanisms.abdel aziz farrag m. tamer Ã-zsu
decomposition of a relation scheme into boyce-codd normal form  decomposition into boyce-codd normal form (bcnf) with a lossless join and preservation of dependencies is desired in the design of a relational database scheme. however, there may be no decomposition of a relation scheme into bcnf that is dependency preserving, and the known algorithms for lossless join decomposition into bcnf require exponential time and space. in this paper we give an efficient algorithm for lossless join decomposition and show that the problem of deciding whether a relation scheme has a dependency-preserving decomposition into bcnf is np-hard. the algorithm and the proof assume that all data dependencies are functional. we then discuss the extension of our techniques to the case where data dependencies are multivalued.  don- min tsou patrick c. fischer
a self-organized file cabinet  the self-organizing file cabinet is an information retrieval system associated with a user's physical file cabinet. it enhances a physical file cabinet with electronic information about the papers in it. it can remember, organize, update, and help the user find documents contained in the physical file cabinet. the system consists of a module for extracting electronic information about the papers stored in the file cabinet, a module for representing and storing this information in multiple views, and a module that allows a user to interact with this information. the focus of this paper is on the design and evaluation of the self-organized file cabinet.  dawn lawrie daniela rus
gestalt: an expressive database programming system  many new database applications require computational and data modelling power simply not present in conventional database management systems. developers are forced to design complex encodings of complex data into a limited set of database types, and to embed dml commands into a host programming language, a notoriously tricky and error-prone enterprise.  in this paper, we describe the design and implementation of gestalt, a system and methodology for organizing and interfacing to multiple heterogeneous, existing database systems. application programs are written in a supported programming language (currently c and lisp) using high-level data and control abstractions native to the language. the system is flexible in that the underlying database systems can easily be replaced/upgraded/augmented without affecting existing application programs.  we also describe our experience with the system: gestalt has been in daily operational use at mit for over a year, supporting an information system for caf, a research facility for the automation of semiconductor fabrication.  michael l. heytens rishiyur s. nikhil
syncro: a dataflow command shell for the lilith/modula computer  syncro is a two-dimensional command interpreter that allows human interface through a graphic command language. this paper describes the concept of two- dimensional commands for direct implementation of leveled data flow structures, and comments on the syncro scheme for effecting them. syncro is implemented in modula-2 on niklaus wirth's lilith/modula computer.  tom demarco aurel soceneantu
computing graphical queries over xml data the rapid evolution of xml from a mere data exchange format to a universal syntax for encoding domain-specific information raises the need for new query languages specifically conceived to address the characteristics of xml. such languages should be able not only to extract information from xml documents, but also to apply powerful transformation and restructuring operators, based on a well-defined semantics. moreover, xml queries should be natural to write and understand, as nontechnical persons also are expected to access the large xml information bases supporting their businesses. this article describes xml-gl, a graphical query language for xml data. xml-gl's uniqueness is in the definition of a graph-based syntax to express a wide variety of xml queries, ranging from simple selections to expressive data transformations involving grouping, aggregation, and arithmetic calculations. xml-gl has an operational semantics based on the notion of graph matching, which serves as a guideline both for the implementation of native processors, and for the adoption of xml-gl as a front-end to any of the xml query languages that are presently under discussion as the standard paradigm for querying xml data. sara comai ernesto damiani piero fraternali
probabilistic search team weighting - some negative results  the effect of probabilistic search term weighting on the improvement of retrieval quality has been demonstrated in various experiments described in the literature. in this paper, we investigate the feasibility of this method for boolean retrieval with terms from a prescribed indexing vocabulary. this is a quite different test setting in comparison to other experiments where linear retrieval with free text terms was used. the experimental results show that in our case no improvement over a simple coordination match function can be achieved. on the other hand, models based on probabilistic indexing outperform the ranking procedures using search term weights.  n. fuhr p. muller
messidor system  messidor is an interactive information retrieval system. it differs from current systems in that it allows the simultaneous search of several bibliographic databases. the databases may be on different sites and may use different query languages (mistral, quest,...). these local languages are invisible to the users of messidor. they are all translated to a single language. we describe messidor's goals, system architecture, user language and some details of the implementation. the system is implemented on a micral 80-30 microcomputer.  catherine moulinoux jean-claude faure witold litwin
informing the design of an information management system with iterative fieldwork  we report on the design process of a personal information management system, raton laveur, and how it was influenced by an intimate relationship between iterative fieldwork and design thinking. initially, the system was conceived as a paper-based ui to calendar, contacts, to-dos and notes. as the fieldwork progressed, our understanding of peoples practices and the constraints of their office infrastructures radically shifted our design goals away from paper-based interaction to embedded interaction with our system. by this we mean embedding information management functionality in an existing application such as email.  victoria bellotti ian smith
statistical database design  the security problem of a statistical database is to limit the use of the database so that no sequence of statistical queries is sufficient to deduce confidential or private information. in this paper it is suggested that the problem be investigated at the conceptual data model level. the design of a statistical database should utilize a statistical security management facility to enforce the security constraints at the conceptual model level. information revealed to users is well defined in the sense that it can at most be reduced to nondecomposable information involving a group of individuals. in addition, the design also takes into consideration means of storing the query information for auditing purposes, changes in the database, users' knowledge, and some security measures.  francis y. chin gultekin ozsoyoglu
a user-centred evaluation of ranking algorithms for interactive query expansion  the evaluation of 6 ranking algorithms for the ranking of terms for query expansion is discussed within the context of an investigation of interactive query expansion and relevance feedback in a real operational environment. the yardstick for the evaluation was provided by the user relevance judgements on the lists of the candidate terms for query expansion. the evaluation focuses on the similarities in the performance of the different algorithms and how the algorithms with similar performance treat terms.  efthimis n. efthimiadis