A generalisation approach to temporal data models and their implementations
Andreas Steiner · 1998
Non-temporal data models and their implementations as database management systems (DBMS) capture a single state of the real world, usually the current one. They support modification operations which facilitate the transition from one consistent database state to another. For queries, they assume that the data is synchronous, meaning that all the facts stored in the database are valid at the time instant a query is evaluated. There exist many application domains, however, where it is necessary to reconstruct earlier database states or even store future database states (e. g. for planning, budgets) in parallel. The different database states are stored as temporal data. Such temporal data arises, for example, in financial and insurance applications, in reservation systems and in medical information management. Of course, it is also possible in practice to store timestamps in classical DBMS and model the temporal aspects mentioned above in this way. However, such an approach does not cater...