Database Research Group

The University of Washington's database group aims at broadening the focus of database and data management techniques beyond their traditional scope.  We do both theoretical and systems work in areas such as probabilistic databases, stream processing, sensor-based monitoring, databases and the web, XML, data management for ubiquitous computing, data integration, and data mining.  We also frequently work with the UW Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Information Systems, Distributed Systems, and Ubiquitous Computing groups.

Announcements

Major Research Areas

Current Projects

• Stream and sensor data management
  

  Moirae: Exploiting historical information in near-real-time monitoring systems.
  RFID Ecosystem: Experimenting with a building-wide RFID infrastructure.
  StreamClean: Detecting and recovering from sensor input data errors.
  PEEX: Extracting probabilistic events from RFID data.
  
  

• Probabilistic data management
  

  MystiQ: Using probabilistic query semantics to find answers in large numbers of data sources exhibiting various kinds of imprecisions.
  
  

• Privacy and security
  

  Project X: Studying fundamental problems related to privacy and security in data exchange.
  FlowDB: Using relational databases in network forensic analysis.
  
  

• Personal information management
  

  Semex: Extracting, managing, integrating, and searching personal information.
  SharedViews: Organizing and selectively sharing dynamic personal data over the Internet.
  
  

• Semantic web and information integration
  

  Learning semantic mappings: Automatically learning relationships between schemas or ontologies
  Model management: Extending database-like operations to managing the change in models and the transformation of data from one model to another
  Woogle web service search engine: Searching web services by exploring their semantic meanings
  The "structure chasm": Exploring the border between structured and unstructured data
  Semantic webs: Make the web understandable to computers
  Piazza: Addressing problems in semantic mediation within a peer-to-peer query environment
  
  

• Data mining
  

  Data mining: Identifying valid, novel, useful and understandable patterns in large volumes of data