CareDB: A context and preference-aware location-based database system

In this paper, we aim to realize a context and preference-aware database system, CareDB, that provides scalable personalized location-based services to users based on their preferences and current surrounding context. Unlike existing location-based database systems that answer queries based solely on proximity in distance, CareDB considers user preferences and various types of context in determining the answer to location-based queries. To this end, CareDB does not aim to define new location-based queries, instead, it aims to redefine the answer of existing location-based queries. The PhD thesis topics covered in this paper solve novel, core systems issues that help realize CareDB. These issues are: (1) efficient and extensible core DBMS query processor support for numerous preference evaluation methods, (2) core dbms support for preference query processing in the face of expensive contextual data, and (3) support for continuous preference and context-aware query processing.