Distributed Information Systems Lab

Current Projects

• Adaptability in multi-tier information Systems: Web-based applications based on complex multi-tier architecture have become one of the most emerging new technologies over the last years. Fault-tolernace, load balancing and adaptability are important issues.
• Massively Multiplayer Games In massively multiplayer online games (MMOG),  thousands of players around the globe connect via their home computers to a common game platform. We are investigating topics such as data distribution, fault-tolerance, scalability, and different networking environments (e.g., server-clusters and P2P).
  

Past Projects

• Database Replication: Data replication is very attractive to increase system throughput, provide fault-tolerance, and have fast local access. We have been looking at database replication as a middleware layer and as part of the database kernelt. At the middleware layer, we have developed Middle-R which runs on top of standard database systems. Research focus within Middle-R is on various topics such as wide-area replication, partial replication, relationship between replication middleware and underlying database system, and data consistency. Within the database kernel, we have developed Postgres-R, an extension to PostgreSQL that provides fast, cluster-based data replication based on the rich semantics of group communication. Recent work has looked on recovery and reconfiguration mechanisms for Postgres-R
  
• McXML: A native XML data management system: The XML data format is currently widely used for data exchange between distributed components and as the common data model to publish data on the web (e.g., in bioinformatics information systems). We have developed the native XML data management system McXML. Its focus is on efficient update management.
• Exp-DB: A Laboratory Information System Framework: The analysis of proteins and their functionality in the cell involves many complex steps including various types of experiments. Many of these steps are supported by specific software products resulting in enormous amounts of data (several Gigabytes per day). Adequate storage, tracing, and linking of this data is essential. Other important issues are workflow management, and access control.
  
• Machine Learning meets Databases.  Many software packages for data mining and machine algorithms assume all data can reside in main memory limiting the amount of data they can handle. We are investigating how to plug relational database systems as storage manager to such learning software. .
  

People

• Professor
  • Prof. Bettina Kemme
• Current Graduate Students
  • Kamal Zellag (PhD)
  • Amir Yahyavi (PhD)
  • Yousuf Ahmad (PhD)
  • Cesar Canas (PhD) (co-supervised)
  • Tarek Aljabban (M.Sc.)
  • Alex Gal (M.Sc.)
  • Sanket Manjul Joshipura (M.Sc.)
  • Rizwan Maredia (M.Sc.)
  • Michael Martel (summer undergraduate)
  • Youcef Tebbal (summer undergraduate)
• Alumni
• Yi Lin (PhD)
• Huaigu Wu (PhD)
• Shamir Sultan Ali (M.Sc.)
• Yanwar Asrigo (M.Sc.)
• Riry Pheng (M.Sc.)
• Kaiwen Zhang (M.Sc.)
• Jean-Francois Desjeans Gauthier (M.Sc.)
• Christian Seeger (M.Sc.)
• Namir Ahmed (M.Sc.)
• Ashar Aziz (M.Sc.)
• Hesheng Chen (Summer Student)
  
• Mabrouk Chouk (M.Sc.)
• Tia Chung (CREW research)
  
• Yan Ding (M.Sc.)
• Brian Gabor (M.Sc.)
• J-P. Guguy (NSERC undergraduate)
  
• Michael Greis (M.Sc.)
• Clara Huizing (M.Sc.)
• Nadeem Khan (M.Sc.)
• Jean-Sebastien Légaré (NSERC undergraduate)
  
• Xueli Li (M.Sc.)
• WeiBin Liang (M.Sc.)
• Xiaoguang Liang (M.Sc.)
• Yi Sheng Liu (M.Sc.)
• Xyesong Ma (M.Sc.) (co-supervised with Prof. Precup)
• Emory Merryman (M.Sc.)
• P. Bounsong (CREW research)
  
• Zeeshan Sardar (M.Sc.)
• Chenliang Sun (M.Sc.)
• Stefan Schidlin (Summer Student)
  
• Arin Soyen (M.Sc.)
• Raj Suchak (M.Sc.)
• Chen Tang (M.Sc.) (co-supervised with Prof. Precup)
• Neeraj Tickoo (M.Sc.)
• Jiafeng Wu (M.Sc.)
• Shuqing Wu (M.Sc.)
• Qifang Zheng (M.Sc.)
• Beibei Zou (M.Sc.) (co-supervised with Prof. Precup)

Publications