Location Dependent Query Processing

Introduction
The continuous development of wireless networks and mobile devices has motivated an intense research in mobile data services. The advances in wireless and mobile computing allow a mobile user to perform a wide range of applications once limited to non-mobile hard wired computing environments. As the geographical position of a mobile user is becoming more tractable, users need to pull data which are related to their location, perhaps seeking Information about unfamiliar places or local lifestyle data. In these requests, a location attribute has to be identified in order to provide more efficient access to location dependent data, whose value is determined by the location to which it is related. Local yellow pages, local events, and weather information are some of the examples of these data. There are several methods to process these data Location of an object or a person is its geographical position on the earth with respect to a reference point. This information can be characterized by using a number of different representations including latitude/longitude/altitude or street addresses, etc. and by giving granularity, accuracy and rate of change (velocity). With the technological advances in cellular communications and sensing appliances, location of people has become more real time and tractable. Location representation may include timestamp information as it may be related to a moving object/person, and may be represented in various ways We list two examples below to help us understand potential applications for WLDD. While the first example benefits everyone's daily life, the second example is of particular importance in case of emergency situation. Other applications could cover the following applications: Community Services, Dining & Entertainment, Money & Law, Emergency Services, to name but a few. Example 1 (Travel Information) suppose a traveler wants to find a hotel to stay for one night in the middle of his journey, but he/she does not know his current location. The traveler submits a query to WLDD querying system via his wireless handset, "List all hotels with room rate lower than $200 within a 1 Km radius". The system responds with two hotels, Holiday Inn and Shangri-La Hotel, and their other properties. The traveler selects "Holiday Inn" and issues another query, "Find the route to Holiday Inn". The system returns a detailed routing map from the traveler's location to Holiday Inn. Eventually the traveler finds his hotel. Example 2 (Assistance in Emergency) While walking on the street, a man suffers from a heart attack. His friend immediately queries the WLDD system with "Find the nearest hospital". The system replies "Mary Hospital" as well as its location. Having this information, the friend sends the man to that hospital by taxi in five minutes and the man's life is at last saved due to timely treatment.

Location Dependent Data

Location can be estimated by using deferent methodologies, and will become information as common as date information. Location Dependent Data (LDD) is defined as data whose value is determined by the location to which it is related. Local yellow pages, local events, hotel and restaurant information are some of the examples of these data. Location dependence in queries implies that the information asked is related to a location but the location is not explicitly known when the query is asked. For example, What are the names and addresses of the restaurants within 5 miles?" asks to find the restaurants within 5 miles of the current position of the query issuer. In order to provide the answer to the query, first we have to know the location of the issuer. Query can then be bound to this location. When we find out the issuer's location, the query becomes Location Aware since; this special location attribute is explicitly stated to be the issuer's location. A query including any location related attribute in its predicates is defined as a Location Aware Query (LAQ).

Location Based Services

Location-based services are a general class of computer program-level services used to include specific controls for location and time data as control features in computer programs. As such (LBS) is an information and has a number of uses in Social Networking today as an entertainment service, which is accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and which uses information on the geographical position of the mobile device. This has become more and more important with the expansion of the smartphone and tablet markets as well LBS are used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, entertainment, work, personal life, etc. Locating methods

Control plane locating

Sometimes referred to as positioning, with control plane locating the service provider gets the location based on the radio signal delay of the closest cell-phone towers (for phones without GPS features) which can be quite slow as it uses the 'voice control' channel. In the UK, networks do not use trilateration; LBS services use a single base station, with a "radius" of inaccuracy, to determine a phone's location. This technique was the basis of the E-911 mandate and is still used to locate cellphones as a safety measure. Newer phones and PDAs typically have an integrated A-GPS chip. In order to provide a successful LBS technology the following factors must be met: 1. Coordinates accuracy requirements that are determined by the relevant service; 2. Lowest possible cost;

3. Minimal impact on network and equipment.

GSM localization
GSM localization is the second option. Finding the location of a mobile device in relation to its cell site is another way to find out the location of an object or a person. It relies on various means of multilateration of the signal from cell sites serving a mobile phone. The geographical position of the device is found out through various techniques like time difference of arrival (TDOA) or Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD). Another example is Near LBS (NLBS), in which local-range technologies such as Bluetooth, WLAN, infrared and/or RFID/Near Field Communication technologies are used to match devices to nearby services. This application allows a person to access information based on their surroundings; especially suitable for using inside closed premises, restricted/ regional areas. Another alternative is an operator- and GPS-independent location service based on access into the deep level telecoms network (SS7). This solution enables accurate and quick determination of geographical coordinates of mobile phone numbers by providing operatorindependent location data and works also for handsets that are not GPS-enabled. Many other Local Positioning Systems are available, especially for indoor use. GPS and GSM do not work very well indoors, so other techniques are used, including Co-Pilot Beacon for CDMA Networks, Bluetooth, UWB, RFID and Wi-Fi. But which technique provides the best solution for a specific LBS problem? A general model for this problem has been constructed at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. Further information: Mobile phone tracking

Technologies for LBS :Two types of technologies relevant to LBSs are considered 1. Enabling technologies 2. Facilitating technologies

Enabling technologies
These are technologies which make LBSs possible. They are positioning techniques used to determine the location of a mobile device. Several positioning methods with different precision can be used. For example, the cell-id technique, also called Cell of Origin (COO) or Cell Global Identity (CGI), allows one to identify the cell in which a certain wireless device is located. This method takes advantage of the location data that a wireless infrastructure stores about the mobile devices it serves. However, the precision of cell-id is usually not enough for the purposes of existing LBSs, as cells in urban environments have a typical size between 500 m and 2 km. Thus, there is a myriad of other methods to obtain the location of a mobile device, such as Cell Global Identity with Timing Advance (CGI+TA), Uplink Time of Arrival (UL-TOA) or (TOA), Angle of Arrival (AOA), Observed Time Difference (OTD) or

Enhanced Observed Time Difference (EOTD), Global Positioning System (GPS), networkAssisted GPS (AGPS). There are also methods based on infrared/RFID, Ultra-Wideband etc

Facilitating technologies
These are technologies which are complementary technologies that provide the contextual environment where LBSs can be implemented in a value-added fashion. Four facilitating technologies for LBS are identified: 1. The Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) - It enables the access to information from the Internet taking into account limitations of mobile devices such as processing power and display size. WAP is a facilitating technology as it allows the specification of semantic links between locations and information. 2. The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or 2.5-generation mobile technology (2.5G) - It is the successor to GSM, which uses circuit-based connections, and Supports packet-based connections instead. This minimizes the connection time and allows charging based on data volume instead of airtime. 3. The Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) or third-generation mobile technology (3G) - It also uses packet-based connections, but it provides more bandwidth than GPRS. This could allow the delivery of enhanced content to the user, such as videos of facilities in nearby hotels

LBS applications

Recommending social events in a city Requesting the nearest business or service, such as an ATM or restaurant Turn by turn navigation to any address Locating people on a map displayed on the mobile phone Receiving alerts, such as notification of a sale on gas or warning of a traffic jam Location-based mobile advertising Asset recovery combined with active RF to find, for example, stolen assets in containers where GPS would not work Games where your location is part of the game play, for example your movements during your day make your avatar move in the game or your position unlocks content. Real-time Q&A revolving around restaurants, services, and other venues