COOPERATIVE QUERY ANSWERING FOR APPROXIMATE ANSWERS WITH NEARNESS MEASURE IN HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Cooperative query answering for approximate answers has been utilized in various problem domains. Many challenges in manufacturing information retrieval, such as: classifying parts into families in group technology implementation, choosing the closest alternatives or substitutions for an out-of-stock part, or finding similar existing parts for rapid prototyping, could be alleviated using the concept of cooperative query answering. Most cooperative query answering techniques proposed by researchers so far concentrate on simple queries or single table information retrieval. Query relaxations in searching for approximate answers are mostly limited to attribute value substitutions. Many hierarchical structure information systems, such as manufacturing information systems, store their data in multiple tables that are connected to each other using hierarchical relationships - "aggregation", "generalization/specialization", "classification", and "category". Due to the nature of hierarchical structure information systems, information retrieval in such domains usually involves nested or jointed queries. In addition, searching for approximate answers in hierarchical structure databases not only considers attribute value substitutions, but also must take into account attribute or relation substitutions (i.e., WIDTH to DIAMETER, HOLE to GROOVE). For example, shape transformations of parts or features are possible and commonly practiced. A bar could be transformed to a rod. Such characteristics of hierarchical information systems, simple query or single-relation query relaxation techniques used in most cooperative query answering systems are not adequate. In this research, we proposed techniques for neighbor knowledge constructions, and complex query relaxations. We enhanced the original Pattern-based Knowledge Induction (PKI) and Distribution Sensitive Clustering (DISC) so that they can be used in neighbor hierarchy constructions at both tuple and attribute levels. We developed a cooperative query answering model to facilitate the approximate answer searching for complex queries. Our cooperative query answering model is comprised of algorithms for determining the causes of null answer, expanding qualified tuple set, expanding intersected tuple set, and relaxing multiple condition simultaneously. To calculate the semantic nearness between exact-match answers and approximate answers, we also proposed a nearness measuring function, called "Block Nearness", that is appropriate for the query relaxation methods proposed in this research

ERA: A Framework for Economic Resource Allocation for the Cloud

Cloud computing has reached significant maturity from a systems perspective, but currently deployed solutions rely on rather basic economics mechanisms that yield suboptimal allocation of the costly hardware resources. In this paper we present Economic Resource Allocation (ERA), a complete framework for scheduling and pricing cloud resources, aimed at increasing the efficiency of cloud resources usage by allocating resources according to economic principles. The ERA architecture carefully abstracts the underlying cloud infrastructure, enabling the development of scheduling and pricing algorithms independently of the concrete lower-level cloud infrastructure and independently of its concerns. Specifically, ERA is designed as a flexible layer that can sit on top of any cloud system and interfaces with both the cloud resource manager and with the users who reserve resources to run their jobs. The jobs are scheduled based on prices that are dynamically calculated according to the predicted demand. Additionally, ERA provides a key internal API to pluggable algorithmic modules that include scheduling, pricing and demand prediction. We provide a proof-of-concept software and demonstrate the effectiveness of the architecture by testing ERA over both public and private cloud systems -- Azure Batch of Microsoft and Hadoop/YARN. A broader intent of our work is to foster collaborations between economics and system communities. To that end, we have developed a simulation platform via which economics and system experts can test their algorithmic implementations

Schema-agnostic entity retrieval in highly heterogeneous semi-structured environments

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Scalable Approach to Uncertainty Quantification and Robust Design of Interconnected Dynamical Systems

Development of robust dynamical systems and networks such as autonomous aircraft systems capable of accomplishing complex missions faces challenges due to the dynamically evolving uncertainties coming from model uncertainties, necessity to operate in a hostile cluttered urban environment, and the distributed and dynamic nature of the communication and computation resources. Model-based robust design is difficult because of the complexity of the hybrid dynamic models including continuous vehicle dynamics, the discrete models of computations and communications, and the size of the problem. We will overview recent advances in methodology and tools to model, analyze, and design robust autonomous aerospace systems operating in uncertain environment, with stress on efficient uncertainty quantification and robust design using the case studies of the mission including model-based target tracking and search, and trajectory planning in uncertain urban environment. To show that the methodology is generally applicable to uncertain dynamical systems, we will also show examples of application of the new methods to efficient uncertainty quantification of energy usage in buildings, and stability assessment of interconnected power networks

Grid service orchestration using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)

Modern scientific applications often need to be distributed across grids. Increasingly applications rely on services, such as job submission, data transfer or data portal services. We refer to such services as grid services. While the invocation of grid services could be hard coded in theory, scientific users want to orchestrate service invocations more flexibly. In enterprise applications, the orchestration of web services is achieved using emerging orchestration standards, most notably the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). We describe our experience in orchestrating scientific workflows using BPEL. We have gained this experience during an extensive case study that orchestrates grid services for the automation of a polymorph prediction application