Synonyms
Temporal type; Time granularity
Definition
In the context of databases, a temporal granularity can be used to specify the temporal qualification of a set of data, similar to its use in the temporal qualification of statements in natural languages. For example, in a relational database, the timestamp associated with an attribute value or a tuple may be interpreted as associating that data with one or more granules of a given temporal granularity (e.g., one or more days). As opposed to using instants from a system-specific time domain, the use of user-defined granularities enables both more compact representations and temporal qualifications at different levels of abstraction. Temporal granularities include very common ones like hours, days, weeks, months, and years, as well as the evolution and specialization of these granularities for specific contexts or applications: trading days, banking days, academic semesters, etc. Intuitively, a temporal granularity is defined by...
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Bettini, C., Wang, X.S., Jajodia, S. (2018). Temporal Granularity. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_397
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_397
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