Getting Started Writing a Thesis/Dissertation

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Getting Started Writing aThesis/Dissertation

• Dr. Karen C. Davis
• Electrical Computer Engineering Dept.

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Graduation
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ECES 877 Advanced Data Modelsand Query
Optimization

• query optimization
• logical
• physical
• advanced data models
• object-relational
• data warehouse
• XML

Spring 2007 coming to a classroom near you!
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Relational Algebra Query Trees
Sujan Turlapatys thesis defense Performance
Analysis of Self-Maintainable Data Warehousing
Algorithms, 11/99
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Multiple View Processing Plan (MVPP)

• view chromosome 101100010100001
• index chromosome 1100110
• Fitness sum of query processing costs of
  individual queries using the views and indexes
  selected

thesis defense of Sirisha Machiraju Space
Allocation for Materialized Views and Indexes
Using Genetic Algorithms, June 2002
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BH System Architecture
Michael Brant, Binding Hash Technique for XML
Query Optimization, 2006
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My Students
Ph.D. (2) Satish Venkatesan, 1996, Database
Modeling for Electronic Design Automation
Environments, awarded ECECS Outstanding
Dissertation Award, 1996. Yunsong Zhan, XML-based
Data Integration for Application
Interoperability, 2002. M.S. (24) Lun Ye, A
Compiler Cooperative Dynamic Memory Management
System for C, 1993. Ron Meade, EasyOpt A
Design Optimization Interface Package, 1994. Rao
Seshagiri Kasinadhuni, Design and Performance
Issues of Client-Server DBMS Architectures,
1994. Samir Nigam, Transformation-based Semantic
Query Optimization for Object-Oriented Databases,
1994. Baskaran Dharmarajan, The Property Map A
Theoretical Foundation and Query Optimization
Algorithms, 1997. Mala Rajamani, Reduction and
Maintenance of Self-maintainable Views for Data
Warehousing, 1997. Veena Pandiri, A Global
Framework for Distributed Agent-based Systems,
1997. Radha Ganapathy, Selection of
Self-Maintainable Views to Materialize in a Data
Warehouse, 1998. Vishal Sheth, Extended Property
Maps An Efficient Access Mechanism for Retrieval
from Large Data Sets, 1998. Gayathri Krishnan,
Physical Schema Design for Object Databases,
1998. Shobha Ravishankar, Object-Oriented Index
Selection and Integration, 1998. Ji Qin, Access
Plan Generation for Property Maps and
Multidimensional Indexes, 1999. Sujan Turlapaty,
Performance Analysis of Self-Maintainable Data
Warehousing Algorithms, 1999. Unmi Tina Kang,
Path Inherited Dictionary Index (PIDI) An
Integrated Object-Oriented Database Index,
2000. Jennifer Grommon-Litton, Heuristic Design
Algorithms and Evaluation Methods for Property
Maps, 2000. Rajeswari Malladi, Applying Multiple
Query Optimization in Mobile Databases,
2001. Xioaming Du, Dynamic Channel and Broadcast
Disk Organization in Mobile Databases,
2001. Krishnamoorthy Janakiraman, Entity
Identification Using Data Mining Techniques,
2001. Casie Phipps, Migrating an Operational
Database Schema to Data Warehouse Schemas,
2002. Ashima Gupta, Performance Comparison of
Property Map Indexing and Bitmap Indexing for
Data Warehousing, 2002. Sirisha Machiraju, Space
Allocation for Materialized Views and Indexes
Using Genetic Algorithms, 2002. Ravi Darira, A
Design Framework for Property Maps,
2006. Micheale Brant, Binding Hash Technique for
XML Query Optimization, 2006. Janet Rajan, A
Framework for Medical Acronym Disambiguation,
2007.
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Thesis/Dissertation Organization

• title page, abstract, dedication, table of
  contents, list of figures, list of tables
• Introduction
• Related Research
• Foundations
• Results (may be several chapters)
• Conclusions and Future Work
• Appendices

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Sample Table of Contents
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Introduction

• introduce the general topic area
• narrow the focus to specific topic
• motivate the research
• why is it needed?
• who will benefit from the research?
• conclude with a clear statement of the problem
• give a statement of the work
• provide an overview of the thesis (one sentence
  per chapter)

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Sample Introduction
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Research Objectives

• general research objective one sentence
  describing what you hope to accomplish (not how!)

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Parallel Sections Statement of the Work

• specific research objectives partition the
  general objective into sub-goals
• research plan/methodology/tasks/approach revisit
  the objectives
• your approach to solving the problem
• each objective has an associated task or approach
  to satisfy the objective
• expected contributions revisit the methodology
• what will you know or have when youve done the
  task?
• potential impact of your work

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Sample Parallel Sections
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Related Research

• focused around your topic not a tutorial!
• compare/contrast to your approach
• tables with features/research efforts are
  concise, readable way to summarize

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Examples of Summary Tables
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Foundations

• work you build on (your own or someone elses)
• definitions, theorems, models, system

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Research

• Discuss conventions, setup, hypotheses of
  experiments, proofs
• why did you do it?
• what did you learn from it?
• Presenting
• figures
• algorithms
• tables
• graphs
• Sample! Dont do a dump of everything put
  everything in appendices and discuss
  representative results in the body of the thesis
  or dissertation

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Example Experiment Setup

• Goals
• What are the comparative storage and retrieval
  cost of REBSI and PMaps in different scenarios?
• How is individual and relative performance
  affected by parameters such as blocksize,
  database size, selectivity of queries and
  cardinality of attributes, kind of queries,
  property ordering?
• Can PMaps design and performance be improved
  using this knowledge?
• In what conditions is it better to use either
  index?

Query Set
PMap
PMap Performance
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properties
and Storage Cost Word Size (ws)
(pu, pstring)

16, 32



Tuple size (t)
1,000,000, 50,000
Blocksize (SB)
2048, 4096, 8192


REBSI Performance
and Storage Cost
Scaling Factor (sf)
min, , 10
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Example Presentation of Results

• number figures (e.g., Figure 3.2)
• refer to the figures in text
• In Figure 3.2, results for the HCAQS are
  shown.
• Figure 3.2 shows HCAQS results.
• explain the conventions
• The x-axis shows individual queries and the
  y-axis shows index pages retrieved. The queries
  are ordered by decreasing cardinality.
• offer observations to help the reader see what is
  important or interesting
• REBSI performance improves as the cardinality
  decreases.
• discuss possible reasons for the observed results
• give general conclusions

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Conclusions and Future Work

• revisit objectives
• what was accomplished?
• what was learned?
• topics for future work
• extensions
• open questions

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Conclusions

• BH method work well for deeply nested queries
  with few branches (non-bushy)
• BH Indexing technique requires further
  optimization
• BindingCollection is a flexible data structure
• Can be used in to generate witness trees for
  processing embedded Xpath expressions
• Used to process Xpath expression directly
• Can use a different indexing schemes

Future Work

• Modify indexing technique to increase performance
  and perform inequality matching
• Expand Post-order Traversal to support more TAX
  pattern tree features e.g., value-based joins
• Expand more extensive performance study

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Citations

• allow the reader to follow up on the topic
• fill in background information
• judge what youve said by reading original
  sources
• relieve you of the burden of going over all
  territory on a subject
• strengthen/justify your point
• respect your peers by acknowledging their
  contributions

vL78
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Citations

• not a part of speech!
• not a part of speech!
• not a part of speech!
• 11 never, ever, use a bracketed number as if it
  were the name of an author or a work vL78
• BAD In 23, algorithms are presented
• GOOD Jones presents algorithms 23.

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Writing Style

• avoid vague words (e.g., deals with, handles)
• avoid contractions
• be consistent in spelling, punctuation,
  capitalization style
• use the same grammatical style for items in a
  list
• develop flow/transitions between paragraphs,
  sections, chapters
• avoid empty sections
• merge/eliminate single item sublists or
  subsections
• place punctuation inside quotes
• avoid second person (you )
• try to write in only one verb tense, preferably
  the present tense
• use including instead of etc.
• use such as instead of like
• put math in definitions, theorems, proofs
  explain in English to build the readers
  intuition
• Use instead of - in technical writing
• Space after ) and (not before!)
• Use that instead of which when not counting
  things

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References

• s99 Strunk, The Elements of Style, New York
  bartleby.com, 1999, http//www.bartleby.com/141.
• vL78 van Leunen, M.-C., A Handbook for
  Scholars, Alfred A. Knopf, 1978.

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Current Research Work

• Sandipto Banerjee, Ph.D.
• Bartley Richardson, Ph.D.
• Lydia Fitzgerald, M.S.
• Bill Nicholson, M.S./Ph.D