Wolfgang Pauli Institute (WPI) Vienna

Fundamentals of Queries and Data Exchange (2005)

Organizers: Georg Gottlob (WPI, U.Oxford), Michael Schrefl (JKU Linz), Johann Eder (U. Vienna)

This programme will consist of visits of international scientists and students and a series of lectures on the topic of querying data and knowledge bases, and exchanging data between databases of different structure (i.e., whose schemas differ or are even incompatible). Particular attention will be paid to the mathematical (in particular, graph theoretic), as well as to the logical and algorithmical analysis of queries and data exchange settings. Due to the rapid progress of business process automatization and of electronic commerce, we are today, more than ever before, faced with the problem of transferring data between heterogeneous systems, and, in particular, between databases whose schemas differ substantially and are prima faciae incompatible. The market has reacted to this demand by offering a plethora of software tools and solutions for cross-platform data transfer, query transformation, data integration, and system integration. These tools are, however, at best suboptimal with regard to transferring information as accurately as possible. In fact, if data is transferred from a source to a target schema, then it is often necessary to insert null values into data fields corresponding to attributes present in the target schema but not in the source schema. If such null values are handled inappropriately, are wrongly amalgamated, are improperly interpreted, or are not or not correctly subjected to integrity constraints asserted for the target database, then not only a loss of information may occur, but also wrong information may be generated in the targert database. The problem of inserting data structured under a source schema into a target schema of different structure (possibly with integrity constraints), while reflecting the source data as accurately as possible is referred to as "data exchange". The urgent need of adequate data exchange mechanisms and the lack of satisfactory methods, let alone software tools, for data exchange, made of this problem quickly an appealing and hot research topic. This program will mainly deal with the following topics: *) Improving query answering and data exchange mechanisms through the identification and decomposition of underlying graphs or hypergraphs. In particular: Applying tree decompositions and hypertree decompositions to query and data exchange problems. Advancing the theory of such decompositions. *) Investigating and applying new logical methods for query answering and data exchange. *) Studying the computational complexity of query languages and data exchange systems, and identifying relevant tractable cases. *) Query learning. Investigations and presentations of results on how queries can be automatically learned based on given sources and results (e.g. query results visually annotated by a trainer). *) Studying the performance, reliability of web service invocations *) Transformation of workflow models for improving turn-around times and throughput. *) Querying encrypted data in a service provider model. *) Data exchange between business processes. Data and process integration.

Events

Data Extraction and Data Mappings - Minisymposium

Location: TU Vienna
Time: 5. Dec 2005 (Mon) - 5. Dec 2005 (Mon); Opening: 9:00
Organiser(s)
G. Gottlob, TU Vienna

3. Pauli Colloquium

Location: TU Wien, Gusshausstr. 27 - 29
(New building) 1st floor, Hoersaal EI 7
Time: 6. May 2005 (Fri) - 6. May 2005 (Fri); Opening: 16:50
Topics:
17.05: Peter Markowich(WPI c/o Fakultät f. Mathematik, Uni Wien - Wittgensteinpreis 2000)
Welcome address: "The scientific mission of the WPI"
17.15: Tom Henzinger(EPFL and UC Berkeley) "Games, Time and Probabilities: Models and Algorithms for System Design and Analysis"
18.10 Georg Gottlob (WPI c/o Inst. f. Informationssysteme, TU Wien
Wittgensteinpreis 1997) "Database and Artificial Intelligence: current activities in Vienna"
Organiser(s)
WPI and TU Wien
Remark: Coffee, Tea and Cake from 16.50 on
Cocktails and Sandwiches from 18.30 on

Visitors

Buldt, Bernd 9. Oct 2005-15. Oct 2005
Czuchry, Andrew J. 28. May 2005-5. Jun 2005
Embley, David 23. Oct 2005-25. Oct 2005
Flesca, Sergio 20. Feb 2005-28. Feb 2005
Forster, Thomas 9. Oct 2005-15. Oct 2005
Giunchiglia, Fausto 19. Sep 2005-21. Sep 2005
Goguen, Joseph 26. Jun 2005-9. Jul 2005
Golumbic, Martin 2. Jun 2005-9. Jun 2005
Henzinger, Thomas 4. May 2005-8. May 2005
Jeavons, Peter Zentrum für Informatikforschung (ZIF) 3. Dec 2005-5. Dec 2005
Klein, Thomas 28. Jul 2005-6. Sep 2005
Lausen, Georg TU Vienna 22. May 2005-29. May 2005
Nash, Alan 16. Oct 2005-30. Oct 2005
Schallhart, Christian 11. Mar 2005-20. Mar 2005
Schwentick, Thomas 30. May 2005-1. Jul 2005
Schwind, Camilla 5. Sep 2005-8. Oct 2005
Tannen, Val 19. Nov 2005-21. Nov 2005

Long Term Visitors

Gurvich, Vladimir 15. May 2005-15. Sep 2005

PostDocs

Gurvich, Vladimir P17222-N04 (FWF) 15. May 2005-15. Sep 2005

PreDocs

Ganzow, Tobias Ph.D. Student 1. Apr 2005-31. Jul 2005
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