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Welcome to the Database group

Vacancies

The DB-group is currently looking for:

·	student-assistants who can help with some projects. If you are interested, please contact Djoerd Hiemstra: Hiemstra@cs.utwente.nl.

The Database Group

The overall mission of the Database group is to contribute to the use and implementation of database systems to adequately support new applications. Current application focus is on ambient, e-science and web-based applications. As such, the research deals with the following topics:

·	Data management for new applications: Specifically context-aware querying, schema and data integration, probabilistic databases, web-scale search, security, sensor data processing

·	Database technology: Specifically XML storage/indexing/querying, query optimization, multimedia retrieval, scalability and extensibility, querying of different sensor data types (like e.g. streaming and manual sampled sensor data)

Head of the Database group is Prof.dr. Peter M.G. Apers. Research of the Database group is an integral part of the Strategic Research Orientation ASSIST, Strategic Research Orientation NICE and the Strategic Research Orientation ISTRICE of CTIT.

The Database Group contributes amongst others to the following research systems and projects:

Pathfinder is our XQuery to relational compiler developed at the Database Group in cooperation with CWI Amsterdam and TU München. The Pathfinder project is an exploration of how far we can push the idea of using mature relational database management technology to design and build a full-fledged XML database. Pathfinder requires only local extensions to the underlying DBMS’s kernel, such as the staircase join operator, a join recognition logic in our compiler, as well as a careful consideration of order properties of relational operators. The compiler is part of MonetDB/XQuery, which is claimed to be the world's most efficient XQuery database system. Website: http://www.pathfinder-xquery.org

PF/Tijah (Pathfinder/Tijah, pronounce as "Pee Ef Teeja") is a flexible open source text search system developed at the Database Group in cooperation with CWI Amsterdam and TU München. The system is integrated in Pathfinder and can be downloaded as part of the MonetDB/XQuery database system. PF/Tijah is used to aid research in information retrieval at the University of Twente, including the application of language models to search, entity retrieval, expert search and the efficient implementation of the W3C candidate recommendation XQuery Full-Text. Website: http://dbappl.cs.utwente.nl/pftijah/

Effort is a project run in cooperation with the University of Amsterdam to develop a web search frame word that combines representations of web page, for example, to derive models of the actual language-use of web pages to distinguish between arts, business, entertainment, education, etc. Similarly, it will be possible to derive models of the structure of web pages to distinguish between blogs, FAQs, personal web pages, cultural heritage pages, etc. Website: http://db.cs.utwente.nl/research/currentprojects/effort.doc

StreetTivo is a project run in cooperation with the Human Media Interaction (HMI) Group and CWI Amsterdam that will bring video annotation techniques - such as a large-vocabulary speech recognition system, shot detection, low-level feature detectors for query-by-example, high-level feature detectors such as a face detector, etc. - to everybody's living rooms. StreetTivo connects hard disk recorders in a peer-to-peer network, enabling the distribution of workload of video annotation over many small machines. Website: http://streettivo.sf.net

InstantDB opens up a new alternative to protect personal data over time. It is based on the assumption that long lasting purposes of data can often be satisfied with a less accurate, and therefore less sensitive, version of the data. In our data degradation model, called Life Cycle Policy model, data is stored accurately for a short period, such that services can make full use of it, then degraded on time progressively decreasing the sensitivity of the data, until complete removal from the system. Website: http://eprints.eemcs.utwente.nl/11408/

SensorDataLab is our sensor lab environment. It is used to identify issues, develop ideas and validate solutions for sensor data management. The SensorDataLab addresses a localization scenario with four different sensor networks and about 60 deployed devices. In the context of this lab meta data management, streaming data, manual sampled data and provenance data are collected and managed. The goal is to come with storage solutions to support querying, annotating and processing of the different data as well as combinations of the different data types.

Website: http://www.sensordatalab.org

More information on the research and teaching activities of the Database group can be found through the main menu of our website.