On the complexity of queries with intersection joins

This thesis studies the complexity of join processing on interval data. It defines a class of queries, called Conjunctive Queries with Intersections Joins (IJQs). An IJQ is a query in which the variables range both over scalars and intervals with real-valued endpoints. The joins are expressed through intersection predicates; an intersection predicate over a multi-set that consists of both scalars and intervals is a true assertion, if the elements in the multi-set intersect; otherwise, it is false. The class of IJQs includes queries that are often asked in practice. This thesis introduces techniques for obtaining reductions from the problem of evaluating IJQs to the problem of evaluating Conjunctive Queries with Equality Joins (CQs). The key idea is the rewriting of an intersection predicate over a set of intervals into an equivalent predicate with equality conditions. This rewriting is achieved by building a segment tree where the nodes hierarchically encode intervals using bit-strings. Given a multi-set of intervals, their intersection is captured by certain equality conditions on the encoding of the nodes. Following that, it turns out that the problem of evaluating an IJQ on an input database containing intervals can be reduced to the problem of evaluating a union of CQs on a database containing scalars and vice versa. Such reductions lead to upper and lower bounds for the data complexity of Boolean IJQs, given upper and lower bounds for the data complexity Boolean CQs. The upper bounds are obtained using a reduction called forward reduction, which reduces any Boolean IJQ to a disjunction of Boolean CQs. The lower bounds are obtained by a reduction called backward reduction, in which any Boolean CQ from the aforementioned disjunction is reduced to the input Boolean IJQ. Overall, the two findings suggest that a Boolean IJQ is as difficult as the forward disjunctions' most difficult Boolean CQ. Last but not least, this thesis identifies an interesting subclass of Boolean IJQs that admit quasi-linear time computation in data complexity. They are referred to as $\iota$-acyclic IJQs

GYO reductions, canonical connections, tree and cyclic schemas, and tree projections

AbstractDatabase schemas may be partitioned into two subclasses: three schemas and cyclic schemas. The analysis of tree vs . cyclic schemas introduced the concepts of GYO reductions, canonical connections, and tree projections. This paper investigates the intricate relationships among these concepts in the context of universal relation databases

Optimal Algorithms for Ranked Enumeration of Answers to Full Conjunctive Queries

We study ranked enumeration of join-query results according to very general orders defined by selective dioids. Our main contribution is a framework for ranked enumeration over a class of dynamic programming problems that generalizes seemingly different problems that had been studied in isolation. To this end, we extend classic algorithms that find the k-shortest paths in a weighted graph. For full conjunctive queries, including cyclic ones, our approach is optimal in terms of the time to return the top result and the delay between results. These optimality properties are derived for the widely used notion of data complexity, which treats query size as a constant. By performing a careful cost analysis, we are able to uncover a previously unknown tradeoff between two incomparable enumeration approaches: one has lower complexity when the number of returned results is small, the other when the number is very large. We theoretically and empirically demonstrate the superiority of our techniques over batch algorithms, which produce the full result and then sort it. Our technique is not only faster for returning the first few results, but on some inputs beats the batch algorithm even when all results are produced.Comment: 50 pages, 19 figure

Quanta of Maths

The work of Alain Connes has cut a wide swath across several areas of math- ematics and physics. Reflecting its broad spectrum and profound impact on the contemporary mathematical landscape, this collection of articles covers a wealth of topics at the forefront of research in operator algebras, analysis, noncommutative geometry, topology, number theory and physics

Quanta of Maths

The work of Alain Connes has cut a wide swath across several areas of math- ematics and physics. Reflecting its broad spectrum and profound impact on the contemporary mathematical landscape, this collection of articles covers a wealth of topics at the forefront of research in operator algebras, analysis, noncommutative geometry, topology, number theory and physics

Multibody dynamics 2015

This volume contains the full papers accepted for presentation at the ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics 2015 held in the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, on June 29 - July 2, 2015. The ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics is an international meeting held once every two years in a European country. Continuing the very successful series of past conferences that have been organized in Lisbon (2003), Madrid (2005), Milan (2007), Warsaw (2009), Brussels (2011) and Zagreb (2013); this edition will once again serve as a meeting point for the international researchers, scientists and experts from academia, research laboratories and industry working in the area of multibody dynamics. Applications are related to many fields of contemporary engineering, such as vehicle and railway systems, aeronautical and space vehicles, robotic manipulators, mechatronic and autonomous systems, smart structures, biomechanical systems and nanotechnologies. The topics of the conference include, but are not restricted to: Formulations and Numerical Methods, Efficient Methods and Real-Time Applications, Flexible Multibody Dynamics, Contact Dynamics and Constraints, Multiphysics and Coupled Problems, Control and Optimization, Software Development and Computer Technology, Aerospace and Maritime Applications, Biomechanics, Railroad Vehicle Dynamics, Road Vehicle Dynamics, Robotics, Benchmark Problems. The conference is organized by the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona. The organizers would like to thank the authors for submitting their contributions, the keynote lecturers for accepting the invitation and for the quality of their talks, the awards and scientific committees for their support to the organization of the conference, and finally the topic organizers for reviewing all extended abstracts and selecting the awards nominees.Postprint (published version

Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in an eighteenth-century Swiss canton: the case of Dr Laurent Garcin

Symposium: S048 - Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in the long eighteenth centuryThis paper takes as a case study the experience of the eighteenth-century Swiss physician, Laurent Garcin (1683-1752), with Chinese medical and pharmacological knowledge. A Neuchâtel bourgeois of Huguenot origin, who studied in Leiden with Hermann Boerhaave, Garcin spent nine years (1720-1729) in South and Southeast Asia as a surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. Upon his return to Neuchâtel in 1739 he became primus inter pares in the small local community of physician-botanists, introducing them to the artificial sexual system of classification. He practiced medicine, incorporating treatments acquired during his travels. taught botany, collected rare plants for major botanical gardens, and contributed to the Journal Helvetique on a range of topics; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, where two of his papers were read in translation and published in the Philosophical Transactions; one of these concerned the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), leading Linnaeus to name the genus Garcinia after Garcin. He was likewise consulted as an expert on the East Indies, exotic flora, and medicines, and contributed to important publications on these topics. During his time with the Dutch East India Company Garcin encountered Chinese medical practitioners whose work he evaluated favourably as being on a par with that of the Brahmin physicians, whom he particularly esteemed. Yet Garcin never went to China, basing his entire experience of Chinese medical practice on what he witnessed in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia (the ‘East Indies’). This case demonstrates that there were myriad routes to Europeans developing an understanding of Chinese natural knowledge; the Chinese diaspora also afforded a valuable opportunity for comparisons of its knowledge and practice with other non-European bodies of medical and natural (e.g. pharmacological) knowledge.postprin