Constellation Queries over Big Data

A geometrical pattern is a set of points with all pairwise distances (or, more generally, relative distances) specified. Finding matches to such patterns has applications to spatial data in seismic, astronomical, and transportation contexts. For example, a particularly interesting geometric pattern in astronomy is the Einstein cross, which is an astronomical phenomenon in which a single quasar is observed as four distinct sky objects (due to gravitational lensing) when captured by earth telescopes. Finding such crosses, as well as other geometric patterns, is a challenging problem as the potential number of sets of elements that compose shapes is exponentially large in the size of the dataset and the pattern. In this paper, we denote geometric patterns as constellation queries and propose algorithms to find them in large data applications. Our methods combine quadtrees, matrix multiplication, and unindexed join processing to discover sets of points that match a geometric pattern within some additive factor on the pairwise distances. Our distributed experiments show that the choice of composition algorithm (matrix multiplication or nested loops) depends on the freedom introduced in the query geometry through the distance additive factor. Three clearly identified blocks of threshold values guide the choice of the best composition algorithm. Finally, solving the problem for relative distances requires a novel continuous-to-discrete transformation. To the best of our knowledge this paper is the first to investigate constellation queries at scale

Distributed top-k aggregation queries at large

Top-k query processing is a fundamental building block for efficient ranking in a large number of applications. Efficiency is a central issue, especially for distributed settings, when the data is spread across different nodes in a network. This paper introduces novel optimization methods for top-k aggregation queries in such distributed environments. The optimizations can be applied to all algorithms that fall into the frameworks of the prior TPUT and KLEE methods. The optimizations address three degrees of freedom: 1) hierarchically grouping input lists into top-k operator trees and optimizing the tree structure, 2) computing data-adaptive scan depths for different input sources, and 3) data-adaptive sampling of a small subset of input sources in scenarios with hundreds or thousands of query-relevant network nodes. All optimizations are based on a statistical cost model that utilizes local synopses, e.g., in the form of histograms, efficiently computed convolutions, and estimators based on order statistics. The paper presents comprehensive experiments, with three different real-life datasets and using the ns-2 network simulator for a packet-level simulation of a large Internet-style network

A self-adapting latency/power tradeoff model for replicated search engines

For many search settings, distributed/replicated search engines deploy a large number of machines to ensure efficient retrieval. This paper investigates how the power consumption of a replicated search engine can be automatically reduced when the system has low contention, without compromising its efficiency. We propose a novel self-adapting model to analyse the trade-off between latency and power consumption for distributed search engines. When query volumes are high and there is contention for the resources, the model automatically increases the necessary number of active machines in the system to maintain acceptable query response times. On the other hand, when the load of the system is low and the queries can be served easily, the model is able to reduce the number of active machines, leading to power savings. The model bases its decisions on examining the current and historical query loads of the search engine. Our proposal is formulated as a general dynamic decision problem, which can be quickly solved by dynamic programming in response to changing query loads. Thorough experiments are conducted to validate the usefulness of the proposed adaptive model using historical Web search traffic submitted to a commercial search engine. Our results show that our proposed self-adapting model can achieve an energy saving of 33% while only degrading mean query completion time by 10 ms compared to a baseline that provisions replicas based on a previous day's traffic

An adaptive directed query dissemination scheme for wireless sensor networks

This paper describes a directed query dissemination scheme, DirQ that routes queries to the appropriate source nodes based on both constant and dynamic-valued attributes such as sensor types and sensor values. Unlike certain other query dissemination schemes, location information is not essential for the operation of DirQ. DirQ uses only locally available information in order to route queries accurately. Nodes running DirQ are able to adapt autonomously to changes in network topology due to certain cross-layer features that allow it to exchange information with the underlying MAC protocol. DirQ allows nodes to autonomously control the rate of sending update messages in order to keep the routing information updated. The rate of sending updates is dependent on both the number of queries injected into the network and the rate of variation of the measured physical parameter. Our results show that DirQ spends between 45% and 55% the cost of flooding

PriPeARL: A Framework for Privacy-Preserving Analytics and Reporting at LinkedIn

Preserving privacy of users is a key requirement of web-scale analytics and reporting applications, and has witnessed a renewed focus in light of recent data breaches and new regulations such as GDPR. We focus on the problem of computing robust, reliable analytics in a privacy-preserving manner, while satisfying product requirements. We present PriPeARL, a framework for privacy-preserving analytics and reporting, inspired by differential privacy. We describe the overall design and architecture, and the key modeling components, focusing on the unique challenges associated with privacy, coverage, utility, and consistency. We perform an experimental study in the context of ads analytics and reporting at LinkedIn, thereby demonstrating the tradeoffs between privacy and utility needs, and the applicability of privacy-preserving mechanisms to real-world data. We also highlight the lessons learned from the production deployment of our system at LinkedIn.Comment: Conference information: ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2018