Research

My main areas of research are in Database and Information Systems. Some of my particular interests are in the following topics (note about manuscripts here provided and other relevant links):

• Semantic Data Integration
  • Semantic Data Integration in Hierarchical Domains (with Afsheen Rajendran). IEEE Intelligent Systems, March - April, pp. 66-73, 2003.
  • Using a Layered Approach for Interoperability on the Semantic Web (with Huiyong Xiao). 4th International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering, Rome, Italy, 2003.
  • Ontology Driven Data Integration in Heterogeneous Networks (with Huiyong Xiao). Complex Systems in Knowledge-Based Environments, eds. Andreas Tolk and Lakhmi Jain, pages 75-97, Springer, 2009.
• Semantic Desktop for Personal Information Management
  • A Multi-Ontology Approach for Personal Information Management (with Huiyong Xiao). 1st Workshop on The Semantic Desktop - Next Generation Personal Information Management and Collaboration Infrastructure, Galway, Ireland, November 2005 (in association with ISWC).
  • Semantically-Driven Multimedia Querying and Presentation (with Olga Sayenko). Managing Multimedia Semantics, Idea Group Publishing, 2005.
  • Semantic Organization of Multimedia Data for Meaningful Display (with Olga Sayenko). HCI International Conference, Las Vegas, NV, 2005.
  • A Layered Framework Supporting Personal Information Integration and Application Design for the Semantic Desktop (with Huiyong Xiao), VLDB Journal, vol 17, no. 6, pp 1385-1406, November 2008.
• Schema and Ontology Alignment
  • Exploring a New Approach to the Alignment of Ontologies (with Afsheen Rajendran). Workshop on Semantic Web Technologies for Searching and Retrieving Scientific Data, Sanibel Island, Florida, 2003.
  • Structural Alignment Methods with Applications to Geospatial Ontologies (with William Sunna). Transactions in GIS, special issue on Semantic Similarity Measurement and Geospatial Applications, eds. Krzystof Janowicz, Martin Raubal, Angela Schwering, Werner Kuhn, vol. 12, no. 6, pages 683-711, December 2008.
  • AgreementMaker Efficient Matching for Large Real-World Schemas and Ontologies (Demo Paper) (with Flavio Palandri Antonelli, and Cosmin Stroe). International Conference on Very Large Databases, Lyons, France, September 2009 (to appear).
• Semantic Web and Security
  • A Role and Attribute Based Access Control System Using Semantic Web Technologies (with Lorenzo Cirio and Roberto Tamassia), IFIP WG 2.12 and WG 12.4 International Workshop on Semantic Web and Web Semantics (SWWS), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4806, Springer, pages 1256-1266, 2007.
  • A Secure Mediator for Integrating Multiple Level Access Control Policies (with Rigel Gjomemo and Mirko Orsini). 12th International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information & Engineering Systems, XML Security Track, ed. Ernesto Damiani, Zagreb, Croatia, Springer, 2008.
  • A Location Aware Role and Attribute Based Access Control System (Demo Paper) (with Rigel Gjomemo, Benjamin Lin, and Mirko Orsini), ACM GIS, 2008.
  • A Constraint and Attribute Based Security Framework for Dynamic Role Assignment in Collaborative Environments (with Rigel Gjomemo, Benjamin Lin, and Mirko Orsini), CollaborateCom, 2008.
• Geospatial Information Systems
  • Object Interoperability for Geospatial Applications. First Semantic Web Working Symposium, SWWS, Stanford, California, 2001.
  • Querying Heterogeneous Land Use Data: Problems and Potential (with Nancy Wiegand, Daniel Patterson, Naijun Zhou, Steve Ventura). dg.o 2002, Los Angeles, California, 2002.
  • Handling Semantic Heterogeneities using Declarative Agreements (with Afsheen Rajendran, William Sunna, and Nancy Wiegand). ACM GIS 2002.
  • A Web Query System for Heterogeneous Geospatial Data (with Nancy Wiegand, Naijun Zhou). Scientific and Statistical Database Management, SSDBM, July 2003, pp. 262-265.
  • Data Integration for Querying Geospatial Sources (with Huiyong Xiao). Geospatial Services and Applications for the Internet, eds. John Sample, Kevin Shaw, Shengru Tu, and Mahdi Abdelguerfi, Springer, pages.113-137, 2008.
• User Interfaces for Multimedia Information Systems
  • A User Interface for Distributed Multimedia Database Querying with Mediator Supported Refinement (with Kim James). International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, IDEAS '99, Montreal, Canada, pp. 433-441, IEEE Press, August 1999.
  • A Framework for the Dynamic Presentation of Fused Multimedia Databases (with Haiyan Lin, Yuan Feng Huang). International Workshop on Multimedia Information Systems, Ischia, Italy, pp.13-22, 2003.
  • A Layered Architecture for the Exploration of Heterogeneous Information Using Coordinated Views (with Yuan Feng Huan). IEEE Visual Languages, pp. 11-18, 2004.
• Visualization for the Semantic Web
  • Web Rendering Systems: Techniques, Classification Criteria, and Challenges (with Tiziana Catarci and Stephen Kimani). Visualizing the Semantic Web, eds. V. Geroimenko and C. Chen, Springer Verlag, 2002.
• Visual Query Languages
  • Implementation of a Constraint-Based Visualization System (with Peter Leveille, IEEE Visual Languages, pp. 13-20, 2000). Best Paper Award.
  • As You Like It: Personalized Database Visualization Using a Visual Language (with Peter Leveille, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 2001).
• Information and Algorithm Visualization
  • Visualizing Geometric Algorithms over the Web (with James Baker, Giuseppe Liotta, and Roberto Tamassia, Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications, 12(1-2), pp. 125-152, 1999).
• Graph Drawing, and in particular Declarative or Contraint-based Graph Drawing
  • Graph Drawing Tutorial (with Roberto Tamassia)
  • 3D Graph Drawing with Simulated Annealing (with Joseph P. Twarog). Graph Drawing 1995: 162-165
  • Drawing Graphs by Example Efficiently: Trees and Planar Acyclic Digraphs (with Ashim Garg). Graph Drawing 1994: 404-415
• Web Information Systems
  • WebSA: Database Support for Efficient Web Site Navigation (with Leo Liu and Tony Wu, 5th IFIP 2.6 Working Conference on Visual Database Systems (VDB5), Fukuoka - Japan, May 10-12, 2000, Kluwer Academic Publisher).
  • Measuring Structural Similarity Among Web Documents: Preliminary Results (with Slava Borisov, Michael Marks, and Tim Webb, 7th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, EP '98, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1375, Springer, 1998, pp. 513-524).

Other Links of Interest

• Publications page.
• Partial publication list in the excellent DBLP Bibliography Database, by Michael Ley.
• Research groups and center:
  • ADVIS Lab
  • Database and Information Systems Research Group at UIC.
  • Mobile Information Systems Research Center.
  • Center for RITES (Research and Instruction in Technologies for Electronic Security)
• Electronic Visualization Laboratory at UIC.
• Research groups in Computer Science at UIC.

Note: The manuscripts provided here are preliminary. The final version of the papers can be obtained from the named sources.