Abstract
Query processing in a (relational) database context has been mainly confined to deducing information that is available in the database. The answers given to queries are supported by available data in the database and are computed using the classical operations of select, project and join. When the query cannot be answered using the above operations the database system returns an empty answer. But there are cases where an approximate answer for the query would be desirable instead of no answer from the database. In this paper, we provide one such approximation technique, inductive dependencies, that can be used to enhance conventional relational databases. The approach finds an approximation for a null value in the database, by using similarities, aggregate functions and relationships that are not expressible by functional dependencies. Inductive dependencies can also be applied to heterogeneous databases, where relationships between databases need to be expressed in a concise way.
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Keen, D., Rajasekar, A. (1993). Inductive dependencies and approximate databases. In: Finin, T.W., Nicholas, C.K., Yesha, Y. (eds) Information and Knowledge Management Expanding the Definition of “Database”. CIKM 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 752. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57419-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57419-0_7
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