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A Short Account of Techniques for Assisting Users in Mastering Big Data

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A Comprehensive Guide Through the Italian Database Research Over the Last 25 Years

Part of the book series: Studies in Big Data ((SBD,volume 31))

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Abstract

One of the most challenging problems faced by the database community is to assist inexperienced or casual users, who need the support of a sophisticated system that guides them in making sense of the data. This problem becomes especially relevant in the case of Big Data, where the amount of data may quickly overwhelm users and discourage them from leveraging the richness of the data patrimony. In the last years, often in collaboration with other members of the Italian database community, we have developed several different techniques whose aim is both to reduce the size of the problem and to focus on the information that is most relevant to the user. To this end, most of these techniques fruitfully extract and exploit data semantics, for example by succinctly characterizing data via intensional properties such as integrity constraints or by tailoring the answer to the user context or preferences. Other techniques support the users in information exploration, for instance by extracting data not readily accessible (such as the Hidden Web) or by presenting them with appropriate summaries and suggesting possible exploration paths.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This particular research is carried out in collaboration with Università della Basilicata.

  2. 2.

    Information overload is the difficulty of people in understanding an issue in the presence of too much information. The term is used by Alvin Toffler in his books Future Shock and The Third Wave.

  3. 3.

    Context evolution [47] is the research topic that takes this into account; however, if this task is performed by the designer, it makes his or her burden even heavier.

  4. 4.

    The PerLa web site - http://perlawsn.sourceforge.net/index.php.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DEIB - Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milano, Italy

    Davide Martinenghi, Elisa Quintarelli, Fabio A. Schreiber & Letizia Tanca

Authors
  1. Davide Martinenghi
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  2. Elisa Quintarelli
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  3. Fabio A. Schreiber
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  4. Letizia Tanca
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Correspondence to Davide Martinenghi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Sergio Flesca

  2. University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Sergio Greco

  3. ICAR-CNR, Rende, Italy

    Elio Masciari

  4. University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Domenico Saccà

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Martinenghi, D., Quintarelli, E., Schreiber, F.A., Tanca, L. (2018). A Short Account of Techniques for Assisting Users in Mastering Big Data. In: Flesca, S., Greco, S., Masciari, E., Saccà, D. (eds) A Comprehensive Guide Through the Italian Database Research Over the Last 25 Years. Studies in Big Data, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61893-7_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61893-7_7

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