Summary: OPTIMAL EXTERNAL MEMORY INTERVAL MANAGEMENT #
LARS ARGE + AND JEFFREY SCOTT VITTER #
SIAM J. COMPUT. c
# 2003 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 1488--1508
Abstract. In this paper we present the external interval tree, an optimal external memory data
structure for answering stabbing queries on a set of dynamically maintained intervals. The external
interval tree can be used in an optimal solution to the dynamic interval management problem, which
is a central problem for object­oriented and temporal databases and for constraint logic program­
ming. Part of the structure uses a weight­balancing technique for e#cient worst­case manipulation
of balanced trees, which is of independent interest. The external interval tree, as well as our new
balancing technique, have recently been used to develop several e#cient external data structures.
Key words. interval management, stabbing queries, I/O e#cient, data structures
AMS subject classifications. 68P05, 68P10, 68P15
DOI. 10.1137/S009753970240481X
1. Introduction. In recent years external memory data structures have been
developed for a wide range of applications, including spatial, temporal, and object­
oriented databases and geographic information systems. Often the amount of data
manipulated in such applications is too large to fit in main memory, and the data must
reside on disk. In such cases the input/output (I/O) communication between main

Source: Arge, Lars - Department of Computer Science, Aarhus Universitet

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences