64,772 research outputs found
Indexing Metric Spaces for Exact Similarity Search
With the continued digitalization of societal processes, we are seeing an
explosion in available data. This is referred to as big data. In a research
setting, three aspects of the data are often viewed as the main sources of
challenges when attempting to enable value creation from big data: volume,
velocity and variety. Many studies address volume or velocity, while much fewer
studies concern the variety. Metric space is ideal for addressing variety
because it can accommodate any type of data as long as its associated distance
notion satisfies the triangle inequality. To accelerate search in metric space,
a collection of indexing techniques for metric data have been proposed.
However, existing surveys each offers only a narrow coverage, and no
comprehensive empirical study of those techniques exists. We offer a survey of
all the existing metric indexes that can support exact similarity search, by i)
summarizing all the existing partitioning, pruning and validation techniques
used for metric indexes, ii) providing the time and storage complexity analysis
on the index construction, and iii) report on a comprehensive empirical
comparison of their similarity query processing performance. Here, empirical
comparisons are used to evaluate the index performance during search as it is
hard to see the complexity analysis differences on the similarity query
processing and the query performance depends on the pruning and validation
abilities related to the data distribution. This article aims at revealing
different strengths and weaknesses of different indexing techniques in order to
offer guidance on selecting an appropriate indexing technique for a given
setting, and directing the future research for metric indexes
Taking advantage of hybrid systems for sparse direct solvers via task-based runtimes
The ongoing hardware evolution exhibits an escalation in the number, as well
as in the heterogeneity, of computing resources. The pressure to maintain
reasonable levels of performance and portability forces application developers
to leave the traditional programming paradigms and explore alternative
solutions. PaStiX is a parallel sparse direct solver, based on a dynamic
scheduler for modern hierarchical manycore architectures. In this paper, we
study the benefits and limits of replacing the highly specialized internal
scheduler of the PaStiX solver with two generic runtime systems: PaRSEC and
StarPU. The tasks graph of the factorization step is made available to the two
runtimes, providing them the opportunity to process and optimize its traversal
in order to maximize the algorithm efficiency for the targeted hardware
platform. A comparative study of the performance of the PaStiX solver on top of
its native internal scheduler, PaRSEC, and StarPU frameworks, on different
execution environments, is performed. The analysis highlights that these
generic task-based runtimes achieve comparable results to the
application-optimized embedded scheduler on homogeneous platforms. Furthermore,
they are able to significantly speed up the solver on heterogeneous
environments by taking advantage of the accelerators while hiding the
complexity of their efficient manipulation from the programmer.Comment: Heterogeneity in Computing Workshop (2014
Efficient data representation for XML in peer-based systems
Purpose - New directions in the provision of end-user computing experiences mean that the best way to share data between small mobile computing devices needs to be determined. Partitioning large structures so that they can be shared efficiently provides a basis for data-intensive applications on such platforms. The partitioned structure can be compressed using dictionary-based approaches and then directly queried without firstly decompressing the whole structure. Design/methodology/approach - The paper describes an architecture for partitioning XML into structural and dictionary elements and the subsequent manipulation of the dictionary elements to make the best use of available space. Findings - The results indicate that considerable savings are available by removing duplicate dictionaries. The paper also identifies the most effective strategy for defining dictionary scope. Research limitations/implications - This evaluation is based on a range of benchmark XML structures and the approach to minimising dictionary size shows benefit in the majority of these. Where structures are small and regular, the benefits of efficient dictionary representation are lost. The authors' future research now focuses on heuristics for further partitioning of structural elements. Practical implications - Mobile applications that need access to large data collections will benefit from the findings of this research. Traditional client/server architectures are not suited to dealing with high volume demands from a multitude of small mobile devices. Peer data sharing provides a more scalable solution and the experiments that the paper describes demonstrate the most effective way of sharing data in this context. Social implications - Many services are available via smartphone devices but users are wary of exploiting the full potential because of the need to conserve battery power. The approach mitigates this challenge and consequently expands the potential for users to benefit from mobile information systems. This will have impact in areas such as advertising, entertainment and education but will depend on the acceptability of file sharing being extended from the desktop to the mobile environment. Originality/value - The original work characterises the most effective way of sharing large data sets between small mobile devices. This will save battery power on devices such as smartphones, thus providing benefits to users of such devices
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