Karl Schnaitter

I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the department of computer science at UC Santa Cruz. My research is in database systems with Professor Alkis Polyzotis.

Current Projects

• Ranking Queries: My recent work has been related to ranking queries, or top-k join queries. We published a work on DEEP (DEpth Estimation for Physical plans), which is a method of estimating the number of tuples accessed by a join operator (a.k.a. depth) in a rank-aware plan. Our publication (pdf) describing this framework was the runner up for best paper in VLDB 2007. We also published a paper in PODS 2008 that explores theoretical properties of join algorithms for ranking queries. The full version of this paper can be found here (pdf)
• COLT (Continuous On-Line Tuning): a framework to automatically optimize the physical design of a database by selecting secondary access structures. We have specifically focused on the problem of automatically selecting B-tree indexes for a relational database. COLT can work online without user assistance. I worked on this project with Alkis Polyzotis, Serge Abiteboul, and Tova Milo. We presented a demonstration of this framework at SIGMOD 2006 (pdf) and a paper at SMDB 2007 (pdf). We also have a technical report on COLT (pdf).
• Chameleon DBMS: an extension of the traditional database system that allows the querying of text files via an SQL interface. This idea has been explored by other database systems for the case of XML files (see XMLTable). The Chameleon DBMS is an extensible system that works on any file format that can be represented by an abstract syntax tree. New file formats can be queried by plugging a new parser into the system.

Other Work

• LiFS Query Language: a path-based language that I designed to query the Linking File System (LiFS) as my final project in CMPS 221 (paper, slides). LiFS is a research project of the Storage Systems Research Center at UC Santa Cruz. The file system directly supports semantic links between files. Some aspects of my paper (especially the experiments) are out of sync with the current status of LiFS, but my language design has been incorporated into the current proposal for the system.

Illustrated Biography

	I was born in Massachusetts on June 22, 1982 to Aleta and Bill Schnaitter, an artist and a hardware guy. I moved to California at 6 and went to high school in San Ramon. I was a member of my school's jazz ensemble and Youth & Government at the YMCA.
	I attended the University of California, Berkeley from 2000 to 2004, where I earned my degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics, and ate the best hot dogs I ever had. We got the axe during my junior year, and held on to it until the end of the tragic 2007 season.
	While at Cal, I was a member and resident of Chi Psi Fraternity, which was a very loving environment. I lived there for three years and was only rushed to the emergency room once. I had many duties at The Lodge, most importantly Luau Chair during my senior year.
	I was also a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon Computer Science Honors Society, where I served as treasurer. Membership in UPE entailed a reading group, some donut distributions, and a game of broomball as the underdog.
	Now I am a banana slug. My favorite things to do in Santa Cruz include hanging out at 99 bottles, singing karaoke at The Boardwalk Bowl, and running along the many miles of inspiring trails. While at UCSC, my goal is to avoid becoming a trite, hackneyed mad scientist.
	Outside of school, I like to spend time practicing guitar. So far in my life I have earned $105 as a professional musician. Today, you may occasionally find me at local clubs playing guitar in God of Shamisen.