Curriculum Vitae

Jean-Robert Gruser

Nationality : French

Office Address : UMIACS Laboratory

A.V. Williams Building, room 3159

University of Maryland

College Park, MD 20742, USA

Tel : 301 405 6769. Fax : 301 314 9658.

E-mail : gruser@umiacs.umd.edu

Home Page : http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/users/gruser

Education

1986

``Baccalaureat'' (Secondary school examination for university entrance qualification) in Math and Biology.

1986-1989

``Math-sup'' and ``Math-spé'' (Two advanced math classes in preparation for the ``Grandes Ecoles'' of engineers).

1990

DEUG (Diploma awarded after two years at university) in Math and Physics.

1992

Diploma ENSI ``Grandes Ecoles'' in mechanical engineering, option CAD-CAM, from the CESTI (Superior Education Center in Industrial Techniques).

1992

DEA (Post-graduate diploma awarded before completing a Ph.D.) of Automated Production from ENS (Superior ``Normale'' School) of Cachan.

1993-1997

Researcher in the Rodin project of INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique).

1996

Doctor in Computer Science from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris VI. Advisor : Patrick Valduriez.

1997-1998

PostDoc in the UMIACS Laboratory at the University of Maryland at College Park, USA.

Areas of Expertise

Databases, distributed and parallel object-oriented database systems, database programming languages and strong knowledge in query compilers/optimizers. Relational and object-oriented execution models and placement models. Distributed heterogeneous systems.

Professional Experience

1997-1998

Conception and development of a mediator system able to access equivalent heterogeneous WEB sources.

1994-1997

Conception and development of an OQL (Object Query Language) compiler/optimizer for object-oriented databases.

1992-1993

Scientific Military training in the ``Gendarmerie Nationale'' (National Guard).

1992 (6 months)

End of studies training in the mechanical laboratory of the ISMCM (Superior Institute of materials and mechanical buildings).

1991 (3 months)

Training in production-control in the methods department of the company Gec-Alsthom. Design and implementation of a computer system for the management of industrial production.

1990 (2 months)

Training in design-studies in the company RDR building flexible elements for industrial machine tools. Design of different mechanical assemblies.

1986-1990

Training Periods of one month in four different companies Pons (Mechanic), Arte (TV Channel), Alcatel (Telecommunication), Thomson-Sintra (Electronic).

Prototypes

A Meta-Wrapper for WEB equivalent sources : Internet provides a great number of equivalent information servers. The goal of the Meta-Wrapper is to give access alternatively to these sources. If some sources are not available, the Meta-Wrapper will choose the fastest adequate source to answer the input query. The prototype has been developed in Java. A physical optimizer choose the best Meta-Wrapper algorithms programmed by using an iterator execution model. The Meta-Wrapper uses Wrappers to access remote WEB sources. These Wrappers have been generated using a Wrapper Generator for HTML source. The Wrapper generator allows the user to build URL constructors and HTML Extractors to transparently access its source. The estimation cost to access these sources are made by using Multi Dimensional Tables (MDT). These tables learn from past queries to estimate the cost to access a WEB source and to return feedbacks to the physical optimizer.

The Flora compiler : In the scope of the European Esprit project IDEA the Flora compiler is a query optimization tool which supports the query language and the data model of the ODMG standard. This environment is composed of a cost based query optimizer able to translate a declarative query into an efficient execution plan and a graphical module which allows the visualization of plans and the control of the optimization process. The current version of the prototype executes the resulting plans on the O2 system. This prototype has been built in C++, the graphical interface has been generated with ILOG tools. The prototype validation has been done with the Genome database of INRIA and the OO7 Benchmark. The prototype has been demonstrated in several forums (IDEA project reviews, International Conference on Extending DataBase Technology, EDBT'96).

Development of an application for the statistical automatic calculations on the National Guard Inventory Database. Design and implementation of decision support applications under Windows Visual C++ and under Foxpro.

Design and implementation of an expert system for CAD-CAM to help the user to choose ball bearings for the ``Dassault Systèmes'' company. The prototype has been developed in Lisp with Pecos (constraints programming) and Smeci (Expert systems generator).

Teaching Experience

1997-1998 Courses in JAVA for the Business School at the University of Maryland.

1994-1997 Courses in ADA and Caml languages for the CNAM (National Conservatoire of Arts and Crafts).

``Flora - A Query Optimizer for OODBMSs'' in Engineering of Information Systems, AFCET, 1996. (with D. Florescu, H. Naacke, Z. H. Tang and M. Ziane)

``Design and Implementation of Flora, a Language for Object Algebra'', in Information Science, Vol.87, Num.1-3, November 1996. (with D. Florescu, M. Novak, P. Valduriez and M. Ziane)

``Cost-Based Selection of Path Expression Processing in Object-Oriented Databases'', in Int. Conf. on VLDB, Bombay, September 1996. (with G. Gardarin and Z. H. Tang)

``A Cost Model for Clustered Object-Oriented Databases'', in Int. Conf. on VLDB, Zurich, September 1995. (with G. Gardarin and Z. H. Tang)

``A Cost Model for Evaluating Path Expression using Placement Information'', in Int. Conf. for Young Computer Scientists, ICYCS95, Beijing, july 1995. (with Z. H. Tang)

``The Flora-Opt Language'', IDEA report No IDEA.DD.4N.003 (with M. Ziane and C. Chachaty)

``A Cost Model for the Flora Optimizer'', IDEA report No IDEA.DD.24N.001 (with G. Gardarin and Z.H. Tang)

``Report on the Mathematical Tools for Estimating the Size and Number of Iterations in the Computation of Recursive Relations'', IDEA report No IDEA.DE.3E.009 (with S. Bressan)