U.S.-Germany Cooperative Research: Efficient Algorithms for Spatial Databases--Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

0129182 Arge This award supports Lars Arge and graduate students from Duke University in a collaboration with Jan Vahrenhold of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Muenster. The project will focus on bridging the gap between theory and practice of spatial database algorithms research, where there still exists a large gap between theory and practice in algorithms for massive spatial databases. Often, theoretically efficient algorithms are too complicated to be of practical use, while theoretically inefficient algorithms often perform well on most real-life data sets. Theoretical developments, however, have also led to tremendous runtime improvements. Because spatial databases, especially geographic information systems, have emerged as extremely powerful management and analysis tools in science and engineering, this work is likely to lead to new algorithms that will benefit scientists, engineers, and other spatial database users. The collaboration supported here will bring together experimentalists and theorists in a way that will significantly advance the field of nuclear fission.