Improving Users' Access to Quality Data

改善用户对高质量数据的访问

• 批准号: RGPIN-2021-04120
• 负责人: KhaghaniMilani, Mostafa
• 金额: $ 1.75万
• 依托单位: University of Western Ontario
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=749840
• 关键词: Improving; Users; Access; Quality; Data

In today's era of big data, users have access to more data than ever. Despite the availability of data, many users still have difficulty finding reliable, high-quality data for their applications. Some crucial factors that impact how users access and use data include: the proliferation of poor quality data, data privacy regulations, and the availability of large-scale and heterogeneous datasets. Over the course of the next five years, I will investigate some of the new challenges that database users face when trying to obtain high-quality data. I will focus on three challenges that I believe are particularly critical: querying and exploring databases, cleaning and repairing data, and protecting sensitive and private information. My research primarily concerns database users, i.e., users who directly interact with database systems, including software developers, data analysts, and data scientists. However, my research outcomes will ultimately benefit the general public through the products and services that the database users provide. The goal of my research program is two-fold: I intend to formulate problems related to the above challenges and I will develop practical solutions and algorithms that address these problems. Both aspects of my research goal (identifying problems and solutions) are equally important, although their outcomes and benefits are very different. Problem formulation creates a framework for developing and evaluating solutions; however, problems are important to database research in themselves because they generate new questions and research directions for other researchers to pursue. I expect that the resulting solutions will be used to either build new systems or to improve existing ones. Ultimately, this research will help software developers build reliable software systems. It will also help data scientists perform accurate and efficient data analysis, which will, in turn, benefit general users, who will have access to better quality data. In this proposal, I will describe my main objectives. I intend to work with my future students to achieve the following research objectives: (1) integrating data cleaning with querying databases, (2) designing techniques to assess the quality of private data, and (3) improving Query by Example (QBE) using query logs. The nature of this research is both theoretical and experimental. In terms of the theoretical aspects, I will use formal models for problem definitions, and I will apply different techniques (machine learning, statistical analysis, and probabilistic models) to solve these problems. On an experimental or pragmatic level, I will demonstrate the usefulness of my proposed solutions in real-world scenarios by gathering empirical data through user studies and surveys.

在当今的大数据时代，用户可以访问比以往任何时候都多的数据。尽管有数据可用，但许多用户仍然难以为其应用程序找到可靠、高质量的数据。影响用户如何访问和使用数据的一些关键因素包括：低质量数据的扩散，数据隐私法规以及大规模和异构数据集的可用性。在接下来的五年里，我将研究数据库用户在试图获得高质量数据时面临的一些新挑战。我将重点讨论我认为特别关键的三个挑战：查询和探索数据库，清理和修复数据，以及保护敏感和隐私信息。我的研究主要关注数据库用户，即，直接与数据库系统交互的用户，包括软件开发人员、数据分析师和数据科学家。然而，我的研究成果最终将通过数据库用户提供的产品和服务使公众受益。我的研究计划的目标是双重的：我打算制定与上述挑战相关的问题，我将开发解决这些问题的实用解决方案和算法。我的研究目标的两个方面（确定问题和解决方案）同样重要，尽管它们的结果和好处非常不同。问题的形成为开发和评估解决方案创建了一个框架;然而，问题本身对数据库研究很重要，因为它们为其他研究人员提出了新的问题和研究方向。我希望由此产生的解决方案将用于构建新系统或改进现有系统。最终，这项研究将帮助软件开发人员构建可靠的软件系统。它还将帮助数据科学家进行准确和有效的数据分析，这反过来将使普通用户受益，他们将能够获得更高质量的数据。 在这份建议书中，我将描述我的主要目标。我打算和我未来的学生一起实现以下研究目标：（1）将数据清洗与查询数据库集成，（2）设计评估私有数据质量的技术，（3）使用查询日志改进示例查询（QBE）。这项研究的性质是理论和实验。在理论方面，我将使用正式模型来定义问题，并将应用不同的技术（机器学习，统计分析和概率模型）来解决这些问题。在实验或务实的层面上，我将通过用户研究和调查收集经验数据，证明我提出的解决方案在现实世界中的有用性。