title: A similarity-based data warehousing environment for medical images.
abstract: A core issue of the decision-making process in the medical field is to support the execution of analytical (OLAP) similarity queries over images in data warehousing environments. In this paper, we focus on this issue. We propose imageDWE, a non-conventional data warehousing environment that enables the storage of intrinsic features taken from medical images in a data warehouse and supports OLAP similarity queries over them. To comply with this goal, we introduce the concept of perceptual layer, which is an abstraction used to represent an image dataset according to a given feature descriptor in order to enable similarity search. Based on this concept, we propose the imageDW, an extended data warehouse with dimension tables specifically designed to support one or more perceptual layers. We also detail how to build an imageDW and how to load image data into it. Furthermore, we show how to process OLAP similarity queries composed of a conventional predicate and a similarity search predicate that encompasses the specification of one or more perceptual layers. Moreover, we introduce an index technique to improve the OLAP query processing over images. We carried out performance tests over a data warehouse environment that consolidated medical images from exams of several modalities. The results demonstrated the feasibility and efficiency of our proposed imageDWE to manage images and to process OLAP similarity queries. The results also demonstrated that the use of the proposed index technique guaranteed a great improvement in query processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of São Paulo at São Carlos, 13.560-970 São Carlos, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: williamteixeira5@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jefferson William
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Teixeira
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Federal University of São Carlos, 13.565-905 São Carlos, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: annibal.l.p@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Luana Peixoto
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Annibal
authors.affiliation: Department of Computing and Mathematics, University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto, 14040-901 Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: jfelipe@ffclrp.usp.br.
authors.forename: Joaquim Cezar
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Felipe
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Federal University of São Carlos, 13.565-905 São Carlos, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: ricardo@dc.ufscar.br.
authors.forename: Ricardo Rodrigues
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Ciferri
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of São Paulo at São Carlos, 13.560-970 São Carlos, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: cdac@icmc.usp.br.
authors.forename: Cristina Dutra de Aguiar
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Ciferri
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D002648:Child; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003657:Decision Making; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006257:Head / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D007717:Knee / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
keywords: Bitmap index; Data warehousing; ETL process; Indexing; Medical database; Medical image; OLAP query processing; Similarity search