Track Proposal For

2006 ACM SYMPOSIUM ON APPLIED COMPUTING (SAC’06)

April 23 – 27, 2006, Dijon, France

1. Track Name and Chairs:

Name: Database Theory, Technology, and Applications (DTTA)

Track Co-Chairs: Dr. Ramzi A. Haraty, Dr. Apostolos Papadopoulos, Dr. Junping Sun

2.Mission Statement (Scope, Aims, and Topics)

In the last twenty years, ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) has been a primary and international forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineering, and other computer related professionals to gather, interact, present, and disseminate their research and development work. ACM SAC is sponsored by the Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP).SIGAPP mission is to further the interests of the computing professionals engaged in the development of new computing techniques and applications areas and the transfer of computing technology to new problem domains. For many years, the Database Theory, Technology, and Applications track has been one of the important parts of the ACM SAC conference. To support ACM SAC, we have successfully organized the Database Theory, Technology, and Applications tracks under the leadership and guidance of ACM SAC Organization Committees in the past. We strongly believe that the DTTA track will still be a very important forum for various database scientists, researchers, engineers, and practitioners from all over the world to exchange their great ideas, to share their research experiences, and to disseminate their research results. So we would like to continue our mission to propose a special track on DatabaseTheory, Technology, and Applications for SAC’05 for such kind of needs. The topics of interest proposed for DTTA track include, but are not limited to:

Active, Deductive, and Logic Databases

Audio/Video Database Systems

Cache and Buffer Management

Cooperative Database Systems and Workflow Management

Database Indexing and Tuning

Data Privacy, Security, and Disaster Recovery

Data Warehousing, Data Cubes, and Aggregate Processing

Digital Library

Disk Arrays and Tertiary Storage Systems for Very Large Databases

Distributed, Parallel and Heterogeneous Databases and Their Query Processing

Histogram and Sampling Techniques for Database Query Processing

Hypertext/Hypermedia/Multimedia Database and Information Systems

Image, Pictorial and Visual Databases

Internet and Web-Based Database Systems

Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining in Databases

Mobile Data Management and Mobile Database Systems

Multi-Database Systems/Federated Database Systems/Trusted Database Systems

Multidimensional Data Models/Indices/Database Systems

Object-Oriented and Object-Relational Database Systems

Probabilistic/Fuzzy Databases and Similarity/Approximate Query Processing

Real-Time and High Performance Database Systems

Scientific, Biological and Bioinformatics Data Management and Data Mining

Semantic Modeling and Management of Web-Based Databases

Semantic Web and Ontology

Semi-Structural Data Management, Meta Data, and XML

Spatial and Temporal Databases

Statistical and Historical Databases

Transaction Management and Secure Transaction Processing

3.Description of the Track -Co-Chairs’ Activities

a.Dissemination Plan for Track Call for Papers (CFP)

The Call-for-Paper will be distributed through DBWORLD, personal mailing, and e-mail list of the Track-Co-Chairs, handed out at various conferences co-chairs will attend, and posted in Track-Co-Chairs’ Web pages. The CFP will also be posted on the various locations of campus. The CFP will be available after this proposal gets approved.

b.Management of Review Process

The DTTA Track organizing committee will make the whole effort centralized by designating one of the co-chairs as the main recipient of submitted papers. The selected co-chair would then distribute the papers among the reviewers. The reviewers would send their feedbacks to the selected co-chair. The other co-chairs can help in this process by reviewing a few papers themselves. All the track co-chairs can then review the Review Reports to decide on the cutoff level/score for accepted papers (in coordination, of course, with the program chair). The selected co-chairs would then send out the acceptance/rejection letters and would handle the camera-ready papers and subsequently coordinate with the publication/registration chair(s).

The reviewing process will be supported by a web-based environment, powered by a database, which has been developed by Brigham Young University. Authors will be invited to upload the files of their contributions using the web interface. Moreover, reviewers will upload their comments according to the assigned papers. Papers will be selected for publication in the proceedings according to their score (rank). The system is capable of detecting discrepancies which may occur if there is a big difference between the scores of two reviewers for the same paper. More information on the reviewing system can be found in the following URL:

4.Track Co-Chairs

Dr. Ramzi A. Haraty has served as a DTTA Track Chair in SAC for the past eight years and has many valuable experiences in organizing the DTTA track in SAC. So Dr. Haraty will serve as one of the DTTA Track Co-Chairs for SAC’06.

Dr. Apostolos Papadopoulos has served for various prestigious database conferences and journals in various capacities such as conference committees, reviewer, and referee. The conferences he served include ACM Workshop in GIS in 1999, International Symposium in Spatial Databases in 1999, ACM SIGMOD Conference in 1999, International Workshop in Similarity Search in 1999, International Workshop in Spatiotemporal Data Management in 1999, International Conference on Extended Database Technology in 2004, ACM PODS Conference in 2004; the journals he served are The Computer Journal, VLDB Journal, etc. He has also served for ACM SAC’04 and ACM SAC’05 DTTA Track ( Track Co-Chair for SAC’05), and he made great contribution to the success of the track in both SAC’04 and SAC’05. Dr. Papadopoulos will serve as one of the DTTA Track Co-Chairs for SAC’06 and will be responsible for managing the software tools for the DTTA track activities (paper submission/review process).

Dr. Junping Sun has served for ACM SAC’04 and ACM SAC’05 as one of DTTA Track Co-Chairs and chaired one of DTTA tracks at ACM SAC’04 conference, and has also served for various other international conferences and journals as a program committee, reviewer, referee, etc. Dr. Junping Sun will serve as one of the DTTA Track Co-Chairs for SAC’06 and will draft CFP for the DB Track in SAC’06 if the proposal is approved.

5.Contact Information and Affiliation Address:

Track Co-Chairs:

Dr. Ramzi A. Haraty

Division of Computer Science and Mathematics

LebaneseAmericanUniversity

P.O. Box 13-5053 Chouran

Beirut, Lebanon 1102 2801

Phone: 961 1 867620 Ext. 1285

Fax:961 1 867620 Ext. 1226

Email: WWW URL: ramzi-haraty.lau.edu.lb

Dr. Apostolos Papadopoulos

Data Engineering Lab.

Department of Informatics

AristotleUniversity

Thessaloniki, 54124 Greece

Phnoe: +30-2310-991918

Fax:+30-2310-991913

Email: WWW URL:

Dr. Junping Sun

Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences

Nova Southeastern University

3301 College Avenue

Fort Lauderdale, Florida33314

USA

Phone: 1-(954) 262-2082

Fax: 1-(954) 262-3915

Email: WWW URL:

6. Short CVs:

Dr. Haraty’s CV:

Ramzi A. Haraty

LebaneseAmericanUniversity

P.O. Box 13-5053 Chouran

Beirut, Lebanon 1102 2801

Phone: 03/782010; Fax: 01/867098

Email:

Web site: ramzi-haraty.lau.edu.lb

I. Objective

To organize a Database Theory, Technology, and Applications track at the 21th Annual SAC (SAC 2006) in Dijon, France.

II. Education

Doctorate of Philosophy, Computer Science, North DakotaStateUniversity, December 1992

Title of Dissertation: Transaction Management in Multilevel Secure Database Management

Systems

Master of Science, Computer Science, MinnesotaStateUniversity, July 1989

Title of Thesis: Optical Fiber Communication Systems, Theory and Practice

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, MinnesotaStateUniversity, June 1988

Minor: Electronic Engineering Technology

III. Professional Experience

October 2003 - present

Chairperson, LebaneseAmericanUniversity

Duties include chairing the Division of Computer Science and Mathematics.

June 1998 - present

Associate Professor, LebaneseAmericanUniversity

Duties include teaching a variety of computer science courses, conducting research in the area of asynchronous transfer mode networks and computer security, serving on university committees, and advising undergraduate and graduate students.

March 1993 - May 1998

Senior Member of Technical Staff, The Aerospace Corporation

Duties included analyzing and evaluating various trusted commercial systems (operating systems and database management systems), performing security testing and evaluation, supporting various space programs in the area of secure system design, development and system integration, and conducting research in the area of multilevel secure systems engineering.

March 1992 - February 1993

Assistant Professor, MoorheadStateUniversity

Duties included teaching a variety of computer science and computer information systems courses, conducting research in the area of concurrency control and query processing, serving on university committees, and advising graduate students.

September 1989 -February 1992

Research Assistant, North DakotaStateUniversity

Duties included conducting research in the area of transaction management in multilevel secure database management systems, administrating an IBM AS/400 system, and serving as a graduate assistant for several graduate courses.

August 1988 -August 1989

Software Engineer, MinnesotaStateUniversity

Duties included developing test plans and executing test procedures on the various licensed products of the IBM AS /400 systems.

IV. Publications

Books

1. Transaction Management in Multilevel Secure Kernelized Database Systems. Encyclopaedia of Database Technologies and Applications. Idea Group Publishing. 2005.

2. Regression Test Selection for Database Applications. Advanced Topics in Database Research. Volume 3.Idea Group Publishing. 2004.

3. Informatics – Basic Education - Grade Twelve (English and French versions). National Centre for Educational Research and Development. National Textbook. Lebanese Educational Publishing Company. 2002.

4. Informatics – Basic Education – Teacher’s Guide - Grade Twelve (English and French versions). National Centre for Educational Research and Development. National Textbook. Lebanese Educational Publishing Company. 2002.

5. Evaluation Guide – Informatics. Grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. 2000.

6. Informatics – Basic Education - Grade Nine (English and French versions). National Centre for Educational Research and Development. National Textbook. Lebanese Educational Publishing Company. 2000.

7. Informatics – Basic Education – Teacher’s Guide - Grade Nine. National Centre for Educational Research and Development. National Textbook. Lebanese Educational Publishing Company. 2000.

8. Accelerating Queries in Multilevel Secure Database Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag. 2000.

Journals

  1. Abjad Hawwaz: An Off-line Arabic Handwriting Recognition System. International Journal of Computers and Applications. ACTA Press/IASTED. 2005.
  1. Indexing Arabic Text. Special Issue of the Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering (JCMSE): Intelligent Systems. 2005.
  1. Arabic Character Recognition. International Arab Journal of
    Information Technology. July 2004.
  1. Segmenting Handwritten Arabic Text. ACIS International Journal of Computer and Information Science (IJCIS), Volume 3, Number 4. December, 2002.
  1. Regression Testing of Database Applications. Journal of Database Management. Vol. 13, No. 2. 2002.
  1. Query Acceleration in Distributed Database Systems. Colombian Journal of Computation. Volume 2, Number 1. June 2001.
  1. Software Metrics for Database Applications. International Journal of Computers and Their Application – A Publication of the International Society for Computers and Their Applications. Volume 8, Number 1. March 2001.
  1. A Concurrency Control Model for Multilevel Secure Object-Oriented Databases. International Journal for Mini and Microcomputer Applications. Volume 14, No. 3 Alberta, Canada. 1995.
  1. KB - HYDRO: A Heterogeneous Distributed System Integrating Data and Knowledge Bases. International Journal for Mini and Microcomputer Application. Volume 13, No. 1. 1994.

International Refereed Conferences

  1. A Comparative Study of ElGamal Based Cryptographic Algorithms. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2004). Porto, Portugal. April 2004.
  1. BVA+ - A Bit Vectors Algorithm for Accelerating Queries in Multilevel Secure Databases. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2004). Porto, Portugal. April 2004.
  1. ADD: Arabic Duplicate Detector – A Duplicate Detection Data Cleansing Tool. Proceedings of the ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA 2003). Tunisia, Tunisia. July 2003.
  1. Neuro-Classification for Handwritten Arabic Text. Proceedings of the ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA 2003). Tunisia, Tunisia. July 2003.
  1. An Auto-Indexing System for Arabic Information Retrieval. Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Applied Informatics (AI 2003). Innsbruck, Austria. February 2003.
  1. ABJAD: An Off-Line Arabic Handwritten Recognition System. Proceedings of the 2002 International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT'2002). Doha, Qatar. December 2002.
  1. Segmenting Handwritten Arabic Text. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, e-Business, and Applications (CSITeA’02). Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. June 2002.
  1. A Bit Vectors Algorithm for Accelerating Queries in Multilevel Secure Databases. Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, e-Business, and Applications (CSITeA’02). Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. June 2002.
  1. Iterative Querying in Web-Based Database Applications. Proceedings of the 17th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2002). Madrid, Spain. March 2002.
  1. A Neuro-Heuristic Approach for Segmenting Handwritten Arabic Text. Proceedings of the ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA 2001). Beirut, Lebanon. June 2001.
  1. Regression Testing of Database Applications. Proceedings of the 16th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2001). Las Vegas, USA. March 2001.
  1. Transaction Acceleration in Secure Database Systems. Proceedings of the 13th National Conference on Computer Applications in Industry and Engineering (CAINE-2000). Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. November 2000.
  1. Accelerating Queries in Multilevel Secure Database Systems. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computing and Information ICCI ‘2000, Kuwait, November 18-21, 2000. (Proceedings not published yet!)
  1. A PERF Solution for Distributed Query Optimization. Proceedings of the ISCA 15th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications. Louisiana, USA. March 2000.
  1. Database Software Metrics for Small Database Applications. Proceedings of the 15th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing. Como, Italy. March 2000.
  1. Distributed Query Optimization Using PERF Joins. Proceedings of the 15th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing. Como, Italy. March 2000.
  1. A Security Policy Manager for Multilevel Secure Object Oriented Database Management Systems. Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied Modelling and Simulation. Cairns - Queensland, Australia. September 1999.
  1. C2 Secure Database Management Systems – A Comparative Study. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing. San Antonio, Texas. March 1999.
  1. A Concurrency Control Model for Multilevel Secure Object-Oriented Databases. Proceedings of the Mid-Content Conference on Information and Database Systems. Fargo, ND. May 1994.
  1. Secure Transaction Management and Query Processing in Multilevel Secure Database Systems. Proceedings of the Symposium on Applied Computing. Phoenix, AZ. April 1994.
  1. Transaction Processing in Multilevel Secure Replicated Databases. Proceedings of the Mid-Continent Information Systems Conference. Fargo, ND. May 1993.
  1. OOHYDRO:A Heterogeneous Distributed Database System for Object-Base and Database Interoperability. Proceedings of the Mid-Continent Information Systems Conference. Fargo, ND. May 1993.
  1. Multilevel Security in Multidatabase Systems. Proceedings of the SmallCollege Computing Symposium. Cedar Rapids, IA. April 1993.
  1. Integrating Knowledge Based Systems in Heterogeneous Distributed Databases. Proceeding of the International Conference on Computer Applications in Design, Simulation and Analysis. Washington, DC. March 1993.
  1. Transaction Management in Multilevel Secure Database Management Systems. International Conference on Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing in Science and Technology. College Park, MD. April 1993.
  1. Concurrency Control and Recovery in Multilevel Secure Replicated Databases (short paper). AAAI-IEEE-ACM-ISMM-International Conference of Information and Knowledge Management. Baltimore, MD. November 1992.

Local Conferences

  1. GISMO: A Geographical Information System for a Municipality Office.Proceedings of the International Conference on Research Trends in Science and Technology. Beirut, Lebanon. March 2002.
  1. MLS/ERD: A Tool for Building Multilevel Secure Entity Relationship Diagrams. Proceedings of the International Conference on Research Trends in Science and Technology. Beirut, Lebanon. March 2002.
  1. Factory Simulation. Proceedings of the 14th Science Meeting (Book of Abstracts) – 2000 – organized by the National Council for Scientific Research and the Lebanese Association for the Advancement of Science. Beirut, Lebanon. November 2000.
  1. Routing Journal Operations on Disk using Striping with Parity. Proceedings of the International Conference on Research Trends in Science and Technology (RTST). LebaneseAmericanUniversity. Beirut, Lebanon. March 2000.
  1. Query Optimization in Distributed Databases. Proceedings of the 13th Science Meeting (Book of Abstracts) – 1999 – organized by the National Council for Scientific Research and the Lebanese Association for the Advancement of Science. Beirut, Lebanon. November 1999.
  1. Using WebSQL to Query the World Wide Web. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Computations – Beirut, Lebanon. March 1999.

Technical Reports

1. Final Evaluation Report – Novell Incorporated Netware 4 Trusted Network System Design. National Computer Security Centre. CSC-EPL-98/XX. 1998.

2. Final Evaluation Report - Sybase SQL Server and Secure SQL Server. National Computer Security Centre. CSC-EPL-97/01. 1997.

3. Security Testing and Evaluation Report of the Operational Flight Program Build System for the F-22 Weapon System. July 1997.

4. Security Testing and Evaluation Report of the Integrated Maintenance Information System for the F-22 Weapon. May 1997.

5. Final Evaluation Report - Informix Online/Secure. National Computer Security Centre CSC-EPL-96/xx. 1996.

6. Technical Assessment of the IBM OS/2 Warp Operating System. August 1996.

7. Final Evaluation Report- IBM AS/400 System. National Computer Security Centre CSC-EPL-95/13. 1995.

8. Transaction Management in Multilevel Secure Database Management Systems. (NDSU-CS-TR-92-07). 1992.

9. Concurrency Control and Recovery in Multilevel Secure Replicated Databases. (NDSU-CS-TR-92-15). 1992.