Digital Symposium Collection 2000  

 
 
 
 
 
 

 















Multidimensional Data Modeling for Complex Data

T.B. Pedersen and C.S. Jensen

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Return to Session 9: OLAP & Multi-Dimensional Data

Abstract

On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) systems considerably ease the process of analyzing business data and have become widely used in industry. Such systems primarily employ multidimensional data models to structure their data. However, current multidimensional data models fall short in their abilities to model the complex data found in some real-world application domains. The paper presents nine requirements to multidimensional data models, each of which is exemplified by a real-world, clinical case study. A survey of the existing models reveals that the requirements not currently met include support for many-to-many relationships between facts and dimensions, built-in support for handling change and time, and support for uncertainty as well as different levels of granularity in the data. The paper defines an extended multidimensional data model, and an associated algebra, which address all nine requirements.

























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