Multimedia, similarity, and preferences: Adding flexibility to your information needs

Abstract

Starting from the 90’s, it was easily recognized that commonly adopted search paradigms were not enough to deal with at-the-time emerging novel DB applications, in which the presence of multimedia data and high dimensionality were both key aspects. In this paper we survey the research activity of our group in the last 25 years, therefore going through issues such as indexing, approximate query processing, and support for preference queries, which are now quite well understood. In doing this we also consider the need to provide the users with simple but powerful tools, able to smooth the processes of query creation/customization and of result interpretation. We complete with a look to the novel issues that the “Big Data” era brings to us.