The paper presents a review of 200 references in content-based image retrieval. The paper starts with discussing the working conditions of content-based retrieval: patterns of use, types of pictures, the role of semantics, and the sensory gap. Subsequent sections discuss computational steps for image retrieval systems. Step one of the review is image processing for retrieval sorted by color, texture, and local geometry. Features for retrieval are discussed next, sorted by: accumulative and global features, salient points, object and shape features, signs, and structural combinations thereof. Similarity of pictures and objects in pictures is reviewed for each of the feature types, in close connection to the types and means of feedback the user of the systems is capable of giving by interaction. We briefly discuss aspects of system engineering: databases, system architecture, and evaluation. In the concluding section, we present our view on: the driving force of the field, the heritage from computer vision, the influence on computer vision, the role of similarity and of interaction, the need for databases, the problem of evaluation, and the role of the semantic gap.

A new access meth d, called M-tree, is proposed to organize and search large data sets from a generic "metric space", i.e. whE4 object proximity is only defined by a distance function satisfyingth positivity, symmetry, and triangle inequality postulates. We detail algorith[ for insertion of objects and split management, whF h keep th M-tree always balanced - severalheralvFV split alternatives are considered and experimentally evaluated. Algorithd for similarity (range and k-nearest neigh bors) queries are also described. Results from extensive experimentationwith a prototype system are reported, considering as th performance criteria th number of page I/O's and th number of distance computations. Th results demonstratethm th Mtree indeed extendsth domain of applicability beyond th traditional vector spaces, performs reasonably well inhE[94Kv#E44V[vh data spaces, and scales well in case of growing files. 1

Mining information and knowledge from large databases has been recognized by many researchers as a key research topic in database systems and machine learning, and by many industrial companies as an important area with an opportunity of major revenues. Researchers in many different fields have shown great interest in data mining. Several emerging applications in information providing services, such as data warehousing and on-line services over the Internet, also call for various data mining techniques to better understand user behavior, to improve the service provided, and to increase the business opportunities. In response to such a demand, this article is to provide a survey, from a database researcher's point of view, on the data mining techniques developed recently. A classification of the available data mining techniques is provided and a comparative study of such techniques is presented.

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the technical achievements in the research area of image retrieval, especially content-based image retrieval, an area that has been so active and prosperous in the past few years. The survey includes 100+ papers covering the research aspects of image feature representation and extraction, multidimensional indexing, and system design, three of the fundamental bases of content-based image retrieval. Furthermore, based on the state-of-the-art technology available now and the demand from real-world applications, open research issues are identified and future promising research directions are suggested. C ○ 1999 Academic Press 1.

The problem of searching the elements of a set that are close to a given query element under some similarity criterion has a vast number of applications in many branches of computer science, from pattern recognition to textual and multimedia information retrieval. We are interested in the rather general case where the similarity criterion defines a metric space, instead of the more restricted case of a vector space. Many solutions have been proposed in different areas, in many cases without cross-knowledge. Because of this, the same ideas have been reconceived several times, and very different presentations have been given for the same approaches. We present some basic results that explain the intrinsic difficulty of the search problem. This includes a quantitative definition of the elusive concept of “intrinsic dimensionality. ” We also present a unified

Accrue Software, Inc. Clustering is a division of data into groups of similar objects. Representing the data by fewer clusters necessarily loses certain fine details, but achieves simplification. It models data by its clusters. Data modeling puts clustering in a historical perspective rooted in mathematics, statistics, and numerical analysis. From a machine learning perspective clusters correspond to hidden patterns, the search for clusters is unsupervised learning, and the resulting system represents a data concept. From a practical perspective clustering plays an outstanding role in data mining applications such as scientific data exploration, information retrieval and text mining, spatial database applications, Web analysis, CRM, marketing, medical diagnostics, computational biology, and many others. Clustering is the subject of active research in several fields such as statistics, pattern recognition, and machine learning. This survey focuses on clustering in data mining. Data mining adds to clustering the complications of very large datasets with very many attributes of different types. This imposes unique

Two different techniques of browsing through a collection of spatial objects stored in an R-tree spatial data structure on the basis of their distances from an arbitrary spatial query object are compared. The conventional approach is one that makes use of a k-nearest neighbor algorithm where k is known prior to the invocation of the algorithm. Thus if m#kneighbors are needed, the k-nearest neighbor algorithm needs to be reinvoked for m neighbors, thereby possibly performing some redundant computations. The second approach is incremental in the sense that having obtained the k nearest neighbors, the k +1 st neighbor can be obtained without having to calculate the k +1nearest neighbors from scratch. The incremental approach finds use when processing complex queries where one of the conditions involves spatial proximity (e.g., the nearest city to Chicago with population greater than a million), in which case a query engine can make use of a pipelined strategy. A general incremental nearest neighbor algorithm is presented that is applicable to a large class of hierarchical spatial data structures. This algorithm is adapted to the R-tree and its performance is compared to an existing k-nearest neighbor algorithm for R-trees [45]. Experiments show that the incremental nearest neighbor algorithm significantly outperforms the k-nearest neighbor algorithm for distance browsing queries in a spatial database that uses the R-tree as a spatial index. Moreover, the incremental nearest neighbor algorithm also usually outperforms the k-nearest neighbor algorithm when applied to the k-nearest neighbor problem for the R-tree, although the improvement is not nearly as large as for distance browsing queries. In fact, we prove informally that, at any step in its execution, the incremental...

The problem of indexing time series has attracted much research interest in the database community. Most algorithms used to index time series utilize the Euclidean distance or some variation thereof. However is has been forcefully shown that the Euclidean distance is a very brittle distance measure. Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) is a much more robust distance measure for time series, allowing similar shapes to match even if they are out of phase in the time axis.

We consider the following two instances of the projective clustering problem: Given a set S of n points in R d and an integer k ? 0; cover S by k hyper-strips (resp. hyper-cylinders) so that the maximum width of a hyper-strip (resp., the maximum diameter of a hyper-cylinder) is minimized. Let w be the smallest value so that S can be covered by k hyper-strips (resp. hyper-cylinders), each of width (resp. diameter) at most w : In the plane, the two problems are equivalent. It is NP-Hard to compute k planar strips of width even at most Cw ; for any constant C ? 0 [50]. This paper contains four main results related to projective clustering: (i) For d = 2, we present a randomized algorithm that computes O(k log k) strips of width at most 6w that cover S. Its expected running time is O(nk 2 log 4 n) if k 2 log k n; it also works for larger values of k, but then the expected running time is O(n 2=3 k 8=3 log 4 n). We also propose another algorithm that computes a c...

... process a set S of points in so that the points of S lying inside a query R region can be reported or counted quickly. Wesurvey the known techniques and data structures for range searching and describe their application to other related searching problems.