Query By Icon (QBI)

Principal Investigator: P.K. Chrysanthis
Sources of Funding: National Science Foundation grants IRI9210588 and IRI-95020091, Integra Sistemi Interattivi, and Computer and Microimage S.p.A.

Query By Icon (QBI) is a query processing facility developed by Antonio Massari. It allows users to query a database through the use of icons. The icons and choices that the users are presented come from semantic knowledge about the structure of the underlying databases. This knowledge is presented to the user using a data model called the Complete Object Model. By clicking on these icons, the system will automatically compose and present the user a query in natural language. In order to achieve this, information about the underlying database is internally represented, graphically, using a semantic data model called the Binary Graph Model.

Some Relevant Publications:

A. Massari and P. K. Chrysanthis. "Visual Query of Completely Encapsulated Objects.'' Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Research Issues on Data Engineering: Distributed Object Management (RIDE-95), March 1995.

Mobile Query by Icon

Principal Investigator: P.K. Chrysanthis
Sources of Funding: National Science Foundation grants IRI9210588 and IRI-95020091, Integra Sistemi Interattivi, and Computer and Microimage S.p.A.

We developed a prototype of a query processing facility that supports the exploration and query of databases from a mobile computer based on our theoretical work on {\em Query by Icon}. This satisfies all three of the criteria identified in the literature for an effective mobile query processing facility: (1) It allows the construction of a database query with no special knowledge of how the database is structured and where it is located. Its iconic visual query language does not involve path specification in composing a query. Thus, it is equally useful to both ordinary and expert mobile users. (2) Users primarily interact with the system with a pointing device, such as a pen or a mouse, and compose a query by arranging icons. Thus, it overcomes any size limitations of a mobile computer while new requirements are not imposed. (3) Complete queries are formulated on metadata stored on the mobile computer in an incremental manner and without involving access to the actual data in the remote database to materialize intermediate steps. Our developed algorithms, particularly the metaquery tools, are designed to effectively operate under limited memory and disk capacity, limited battery power, and restricted wireless communication bandwidth.

Some Relevant Publications:

A. Massari, S. Weissman, and P. K. Chrysanthis. "Supporting Mobile Database Access through Query by Icons'', Distributed and Parallel Databases Journal. (Special issue on databases and mobility), Vol 4. pp. 1-21, 1996. (To appear)