Comparing the latest ranking techniques: pros and cons of flexible skylines, regret minimization and skyline ranking queries

Abstract

Long-established ranking approaches, such as top-k and skyline queries, have been thoroughly discussed and their drawbacks are well acknowledged. New techniques have been developed in recent years that try to combine traditional ones to overcome their limitations. In this paper we focus our attention on some of them: flexible skylines, regret minimization and skyline ranking queries, because, while these new methods are promising and have shown interesting results, a comparison between them is still not available. After a short introduction of each approach, we discuss analogies and differences between them with the advantages and disadvantages of every technique debated.