Modeling Phenomena in Spatiotemporal Databases: Desiderata and Solutions

This paper focuses on the database modeling of spatiotemporal phenomena. Their components and behavior are analyzed and a formal framework with a small set of concepts−namely objects, attributes, relationships, fields, and constraints, with spatial and temporal dimension−for their definition is provided. A mathematical model for the expression of spatiotemporal constraints, based on the aforementioned concepts, is presented. Next, all the described concepts are translated into modeling constructs−namely entities, attributes, relationships, fields, phenomena and constraints−to enrich the Entity-Relationship (ER) model for the conceptual design of spatiotemporal applications dealing with phenomena. We give the semantics and syntax of the prototypical extended ER; any other model augmented by the same constructs can be used for this purpose. An example demonstrates the applicability, modeling power and ease-of-use of this proposal.