III: Small: Collaborative Research: The Package Query Paradigm

今天的数据比以往任何时候都多，这种可用性使突破性的新应用和社会进步成为可能。然而，当今存储、组织和搜索数据的计算技术正在努力跟上数据增长和新应用的需求所强加的需求。数据管理系统需要进行调整，以支持现代应用程序不断变化的信息需求。本项目将扩展数据管理技术，以支持对满足复杂要求的数据项集合进行有约束的搜索。对这一功能的需求出现在许多领域：在线市场根据客户偏好将产品分组为有意义的集合，旅行社组织协调旅行和酒店预订的度假套餐，营养师设计满足复杂营养需求的膳食计划。目前，这种应用程序不得不求助于临时解决方案，导致次优结果和性能差。本项目将建立理论基础，并将解决为软件包提供支持的实际问题。包是一组数据项，它们共同满足一组约束。该项目将扩展数据管理技术，为包提供全面的支持，并将在三个方面做出贡献：（1）支持包查询的声明性语言，（2）有效计算包查询答案的评估策略，以及（3）包规范的交互技术。这项工作的更广泛影响将是数据管理技术的进步，以处理新出现的应用需求，这反过来将增加数据和计算系统对社会的积极影响。http://packagebuilder.cs.umass.edu

More data is available today than ever before, and this availability has enabled groundbreaking new applications and societal advances. However, today's computing technology that stores, organizes, and searches data is struggling to keep up to the demands imposed by the data's growth and by the requirements of new applications. Data management systems need to adapt to support the evolving information needs of modern applications. This project will extend data management technology to support constrained search for collections of data items that satisfy complex requirements. The need for this functionality arises in many domains: Online marketplaces group products into meaningful collections based on customer preferences, travel agents organize vacation packages that coordinate travel and hotel reservations, and dietitians design meal plans that satisfy complex nutritional needs. Currently, such applications have to resort to ad hoc solutions that lead to suboptimal results and poor performance.This project will establish the theoretical foundations and will address practical aspects of providing support for packages. A package is a group of data items that collectively satisfy a set of constraints. This project will extend data management technology to provide full-fledged support for packages, and will make contributions on three fronts: (1) a declarative language to support querying for packages, (2) evaluation strategies to efficiently compute answers to package queries, and (3) interaction techniques for package specification. The broader impact of this work will be the advancement of data management technology to handle emerging application needs, which in turn will increase the positive impact that data and computing systems have on society.For further information see the project web site at:  http://packagebuilder.cs.umass.edu