Multi-Representation: Modeling Issues
Web success has put a new emphasis on data personalization (or
customization) services. These have been a constant
concern for database research, with solutions spanning over very
different approaches, such as views, roles, and multiscale
geographic databases. This talk presents a generic approach to
personalization, allowing every individual data modeling
requirement to be met through a specific representation of the data. The
challenge for the data model and for the DBMS is
to provide full support for multiple representations of the same real
world data. This is beyond current capabilities. We
propose a simple stamping technique to differentiate among multiple
representations of a given phenomenon. Then we
analyze alternatives to model multiple representations. Finally we focus
on consequences of multiple coexisting
representations on data modeling and data manipulation. Our proposal has
been tested and validated with users, and
implemented as a front-end to existing DBMS and GIS. |