Arnab Bhattacharya
Date: Friday, September 7th, 2012
Time: 4 PM
Venue: CS101.
How does one choose a "good" flight from Kolkata to Agartala? Not always is the cost the only attribute to optimize. Sometimes, for example, one may also consider ratings and amenities as important characteristics. In other words, a user looks for an overall picture of which flights are "better" in terms of preferences on multiple attributes.
Databases solve this problem through what is known as a "skyline query". Formally, for each attribute of interest, there is a preference function (e.g., lesser price is preferred, more amenities is preferred, etc.), and the skyline set contains only those objects that are not "worse" from any other object for all such preferences. Intuitively, it provides the user a refined subset of objects for a more thorough examination.
In this talk, I will introduce the notion of skylines and some important extensions and applications using them.