PReaCH: A Fast Lightweight Reachability Index using Pruning and Contraction Hierarchies

We develop the data structure PReaCH (for Pruned Reachability Contraction Hierarchies) which supports reachability queries in a directed graph, i.e., it supports queries that ask whether two nodes in the graph are connected by a directed path. PReaCH adapts the contraction hierarchy speedup techniques for shortest path queries to the reachability setting. The resulting approach is surprisingly simple and guarantees linear space and near linear preprocessing time. Orthogonally to that, we improve existing pruning techniques for the search by gathering more information from a single DFS-traversal of the graph. PReaCH-indices significantly outperform previous data structures with comparable preprocessing cost. Methods with faster queries need significantly more preprocessing time in particular for the most difficult instances

High-Performance Reachability Query Processing under Index Size Restrictions

In this paper, we propose a scalable and highly efficient index structure for the reachability problem over graphs. We build on the well-known node interval labeling scheme where the set of vertices reachable from a particular node is compactly encoded as a collection of node identifier ranges. We impose an explicit bound on the size of the index and flexibly assign approximate reachability ranges to nodes of the graph such that the number of index probes to answer a query is minimized. The resulting tunable index structure generates a better range labeling if the space budget is increased, thus providing a direct control over the trade off between index size and the query processing performance. By using a fast recursive querying method in conjunction with our index structure, we show that in practice, reachability queries can be answered in the order of microseconds on an off-the-shelf computer - even for the case of massive-scale real world graphs. Our claims are supported by an extensive set of experimental results using a multitude of benchmark and real-world web-scale graph datasets.Comment: 30 page

Four Lessons in Versatility or How Query Languages Adapt to the Web

Exposing not only human-centered information, but machine-processable data on the Web is one of the commonalities of recent Web trends. It has enabled a new kind of applications and businesses where the data is used in ways not foreseen by the data providers. Yet this exposition has fractured the Web into islands of data, each in different Web formats: Some providers choose XML, others RDF, again others JSON or OWL, for their data, even in similar domains. This fracturing stifles innovation as application builders have to cope not only with one Web stack (e.g., XML technology) but with several ones, each of considerable complexity. With Xcerpt we have developed a rule- and pattern based query language that aims to give shield application builders from much of this complexity: In a single query language XML and RDF data can be accessed, processed, combined, and re-published. Though the need for combined access to XML and RDF data has been recognized in previous work (including the W3C’s GRDDL), our approach differs in four main aspects: (1) We provide a single language (rather than two separate or embedded languages), thus minimizing the conceptual overhead of dealing with disparate data formats. (2) Both the declarative (logic-based) and the operational semantics are unified in that they apply for querying XML and RDF in the same way. (3) We show that the resulting query language can be implemented reusing traditional database technology, if desirable. Nevertheless, we also give a unified evaluation approach based on interval labelings of graphs that is at least as fast as existing approaches for tree-shaped XML data, yet provides linear time and space querying also for many RDF graphs. We believe that Web query languages are the right tool for declarative data access in Web applications and that Xcerpt is a significant step towards a more convenient, yet highly efficient data access in a “Web of Data”

Active Learning of Points-To Specifications

When analyzing programs, large libraries pose significant challenges to static points-to analysis. A popular solution is to have a human analyst provide points-to specifications that summarize relevant behaviors of library code, which can substantially improve precision and handle missing code such as native code. We propose ATLAS, a tool that automatically infers points-to specifications. ATLAS synthesizes unit tests that exercise the library code, and then infers points-to specifications based on observations from these executions. ATLAS automatically infers specifications for the Java standard library, and produces better results for a client static information flow analysis on a benchmark of 46 Android apps compared to using existing handwritten specifications

Probabilistic Model Checking for Energy Analysis in Software Product Lines

In a software product line (SPL), a collection of software products is defined by their commonalities in terms of features rather than explicitly specifying all products one-by-one. Several verification techniques were adapted to establish temporal properties of SPLs. Symbolic and family-based model checking have been proven to be successful for tackling the combinatorial blow-up arising when reasoning about several feature combinations. However, most formal verification approaches for SPLs presented in the literature focus on the static SPLs, where the features of a product are fixed and cannot be changed during runtime. This is in contrast to dynamic SPLs, allowing to adapt feature combinations of a product dynamically after deployment. The main contribution of the paper is a compositional modeling framework for dynamic SPLs, which supports probabilistic and nondeterministic choices and allows for quantitative analysis. We specify the feature changes during runtime within an automata-based coordination component, enabling to reason over strategies how to trigger dynamic feature changes for optimizing various quantitative objectives, e.g., energy or monetary costs and reliability. For our framework there is a natural and conceptually simple translation into the input language of the prominent probabilistic model checker PRISM. This facilitates the application of PRISM's powerful symbolic engine to the operational behavior of dynamic SPLs and their family-based analysis against various quantitative queries. We demonstrate feasibility of our approach by a case study issuing an energy-aware bonding network device.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure