Index and retrieve the skyline based on dominance relationship

• Published in: Frontiers of information technology & electronic engineering Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 62 - 75
• Main Authors: Xu, Chang, Shou, Li-dan, Chen, Gang, Gao, Yun-jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Heidelberg SP Zhejiang University Press 2011; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Children; Communications Engineering; Computer Hardware; Computer Science; Computer Systems Organization and Communication Networks; Construction; Decision making; Dominance; Electrical Engineering; Electronics and Microelectronics; Instrumentation; Networks; Nodes; Query processing; Searching; Topology; Trees; Preference queries; Skyline; TP391; Spatial database
• ISSN: 1869-1951; 2095-9184; 1869-196X; 2095-9230
• DOI: 10.1631/jzus.C0900003

In multi-criterion decision making applications, a skyline query narrows the search range, as it returns only the points that are not dominated by others. Unfortunately, in high-dimensional/large-cardinal datasets there exist too many skyline points to offer interesting insights. In this paper, we propose a novel structure, called the dominance tree （Do-Tree）, to effectively index and retrieve the skyline. Do-Tree is a straightforward and flexible tree structure, in which skyline points are resident on leaf nodes, while the internal nodes contain the entries that dominate their children. As Do-Tree is built on a dominance relationship, it is suitable for the retrieval of specified skyline via dominance-based predicates customized by users. We discuss the topology of Do-Tree and propose the construction methods. We also present the scan scheme of Do-Tree and some useful queries based on it. Extensive experiments confirm that Do-Tree is an efficient and scalable index structure for the skyline.