On Region Algebras, XML Databases, and Information Retrieval

This paper describes some new ideas on developing a logical algebra for databases that manage textual data and support information retrieval functionality. We describe a first prototype of such a system

A Database Approach to Content-based XML retrieval

This paper describes a rst prototype system for content-based retrieval from XML data. The system's design supports both XPath queries and complex information retrieval queries based on a language modelling approach to information retrieval. Evaluation using the INEX benchmark shows that it is beneficial if the system is biased to retrieve large XML fragments over small fragments

Relational Approach to Logical Query Optimization of XPath

To be able to handle the ever growing volumes of XML documents, effective and efficient data management solutions are needed. Managing XML data in a relational DBMS has great potential. Recently, effective relational storage schemes and index structures have been proposed as well as special-purpose join operators to speed up querying of XML data using XPath/XQuery. In this paper, we address the topic of query plan construction and logical query optimization. The claim of this paper is that standard relational algebra extended with special-purpose join operators suffices for logical query optimization. We focus on the XPath accelerator storage scheme and associated staircase join operators, but the approach can be generalized easily

Combining Indexing Schemes to Accelerate Querying XML on Content and Structure

This paper presents the advantages of combining multiple document representation schemes for query processing of XML queries on content and structure. We show how extending the Text Region approach [2] with the main features of the Binary Relation approach developed in [8] leads to a considerable speed-up in the processing of the XPath location steps. We detail how, by using the combined scheme, we reduce the number of structural joins used to process the XPath steps, while simultaneously limiting the amount of memory usage. We discuss optimisation strategies enabled by the new `combined representation scheme'. Experiments comparing the efficiency of alternative query processing strategies on a subset of the queries used at INEX 2003 (the Initiative for the Evaluation of XML Retrieval [4]) demonstrate a favourable performance for the combined indexing scheme

Reasoning & Querying – State of the Art

Various query languages for Web and Semantic Web data, both for practical use and as an area of research in the scientific community, have emerged in recent years. At the same time, the broad adoption of the internet where keyword search is used in many applications, e.g. search engines, has familiarized casual users with using keyword queries to retrieve information on the internet. Unlike this easy-to-use querying, traditional query languages require knowledge of the language itself as well as of the data to be queried. Keyword-based query languages for XML and RDF bridge the gap between the two, aiming at enabling simple querying of semi-structured data, which is relevant e.g. in the context of the emerging Semantic Web. This article presents an overview of the field of keyword querying for XML and RDF

Classification of index partitions to boost XML query performance

XML query optimization continues to occupy considerable research effort due to the increasing usage of XML data. Despite many innovations over recent years, XML databases struggle to compete with more traditional database systems. Rather than using node indexes, some efforts have begun to focus on creating partitions of nodes within indexes. The motivation is to quickly eliminate large sections of the XML tree based on the partition they occupy. In this research, we present one such partition index that is unlike current approaches in how it determines size and number of these partitions. Furthermore, we provide a process for compacting the index and reducing the number of node access operations in order to optimize XML queries

Web and Semantic Web Query Languages

A number of techniques have been developed to facilitate powerful data retrieval on the Web and Semantic Web. Three categories of Web query languages can be distinguished, according to the format of the data they can retrieve: XML, RDF and Topic Maps. This article introduces the spectrum of languages falling into these categories and summarises their salient aspects. The languages are introduced using common sample data and query types. Key aspects of the query languages considered are stressed in a conclusion