Dawit Yimam Seid

Grouping and Aggregate queries Over Semantic Web Databases

As a growing number of applications represent data as semantic graphs like RDF (Resource Description Format) and the many entity-attribute-value formats, query languages for such data are being required to support operations beyond graph pattern matching and inference queries. Specifically the ability to express aggregate queries is an important feature which is either lacking or is implemented with little attention to the peculiarities of the data model. In this paper, we study the meaning and implementation of grouping and aggregate queries over RDF graphs. We first define grouping and aggregate operators algebraically and then show how the SPARQL query language can be extended to express grouping and aggregate queries.

RAF: an activation framework for refining similarity queries using learning techniques

In numerous applications that deal with similarity search, a user may not have an exact specification of his information need and/or may not be able to formulate a query that exactly captures his notion of similarity. A promising approach to mitigate this problem is to enable the user to submit a rough approximation of the desired query and use relevance feedback on retrieved objects to refine the query. In this paper, we explore such a refinement strategy for a general class of structured similarity queries. Our approach casts the refinement problem as that of learning concepts using the tuples on which the user provides feedback as a labeled training set. Under this setup, similarity query refinement consists of two learning tasks: learning the structure of the query and learning the relative importance of query components. The paper develops machine learning approaches suitable for the two learning tasks. The primary contribution of the paper is the Refinement Activation Framework (RAF) that decides when each learner is invoked. Experimental analysis over many real life datasets shows that our strategy significantly outperforms existing approaches in terms of retrieval quality.

Semantically Ranked Graph Pattern Queries for Link Analysis

Relationship pattern based queries are important components of intelligence link analysis, Typically the analyst gives a prototypical graph pattern which needs to be approximately matched to the data. Performing such inexact graph pattern matching is currently carried out using some variant of graph edit distance measures. This approach suffers from two main shortcomings: (1) it relies on detailed graph edit cost assignment by the analyst, and (2) it cannot efficiently incorporate semantic similarities that can be, in most cases, computed based on appropriate ontologies. In this paper, we propose novel techniques for evaluating graph pattern queries to produce semantically-ranked results. Our approach systematically combines both partial structural matches and semantic similarities in order to relieve the user from specifying edit costs.

A framework for refining similarity queries using learning techniques

In numerous applications that deal with similarity search, a user may not have an exact idea of his information need and/or may not be able to construct a query that exactly captures his notion of similarity. A promising approach to mitigate this problem is to enable the user to submit a rough approximation of the desired query and use the feedback on the relevance of the retrieved objects to refine the query. In this paper, we explore such a refinement strategy for a general class of SQL similarity queries. Our approach casts the refinement problem as that of learning concepts using examples. This is achieved by viewing the tuples on which a user provides feedback as a labeled training set for a learner. Under this setup, SQL query refinement consists of two learning tasks, namely learning the structure of the SQL query and learning the relative importance of the query components. The paper develops appropriate machine learning approaches suitable for these two learning tasks. The primary contribution of the paper is a general refinement framework that decides when each learner is invoked in order to quickly learn the user query. Experimental analyses over many real life datasets and queries show that our strategy outperforms the existing approaches significantly in terms of retrieval accuracy and query simplicity.

AGGREGATE QUERY PROCESSING FOR SEMANTIC WEB DATABASES: AN ALGEBRAIC APPROACH

As a growing number of applications represent data as semantic graphs like RDF (Resource Description Format) and the many entity-attribute-value formats, query languages for such data are being required to support operations beyond graph pattern matching and inference queries. Specifically the ability to express aggregate queries is an important feature which is either lacking or is implemented with little attention to the peculiarities of the data model. In this paper, we study the meaning and implementation of grouping and aggregate queries over RDF graphs. We first define grouping and aggregate operators algebraically and then show how the SPARQL query language can be extended to express grouping and aggregate queries.