Annex 6: Habilitation thesis reader’s report


Masaryk University



Faculty

                     MU Faculty of Informatics


Field of Habilitation

                     Informatics





Applicant

                     RNDr. Vlastislav Dohnal, Ph.D.


Affiliation

                     Masaryk University, Faculty of Informatics


Habilitation Thesis

                     Developing Similarity Search Technology





Reader


                     Professor Marco Patella


Affiliation

                     DEIS, University of Bologna


Report Text (as large as the reader deems necessary)


From the research point of view, the applicant has provided a number of results in the field of
similarity searching under the metric space model. The bulk of the thesis consists of the book
“Similarity Search – The Metric Space Approach”, that I consider as “the” reference book for any
researcher working in the area. Moreover, the applicant has published results improving
state-of-the-art query processing techniques for both centralized and distributed environments and
upgrading the quality of query results. Overall, the scientific production of the applicant is to
be considered, in my opinion, excellent. The production of scientific articles is also well
distributed over the years, without noticeable interruptions.

The applicant has also been principal investigator in 2 national projects and participated to other
4 long terms national projects.

I also appreciated the extensive involvement of the applicant in teaching duties, with no less than
three courses given in the last seven academic years (without counting seminars and state exams).

Reader’s questions to answer to defend the habilitation thesis (number of questions is upon
reader’s consideration)


I would like the applicant to comment on the generality of the metric space model, which is taken
as granted for most of the content of the thesis. In particular, the applicant could explain
whether such model is too restrictive (due to the triangular inequality that should hold for
efficient query processing) or too general (because some domain knowledge can be exploited to
improve efficiency) for some real-world applications.


Conclusion


Vlastislav Dohnal’s habilitation thesis of “Developing Similarity Search Technology” does meet the
standard requirements for a habilitation thesis in the field of Informatics.




In Bologna on …27/1/12………………                           Marco Patella…………………………