A Multidimensional Conceptual Model
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YAM A Multidimensional Conceptual Mo del PhD Thesis Alb erto Ab ello Advisors Dr Jose Samos and Dr Felix Saltor Programa de Do ctorat de Software Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informatics Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya ToEnry for her unlimited supp ort and love Foreword v Foreword I havenotalent for making new friends but oh such a genius for delityto old ones Peter Ibb etson Lets saythiswork b egan several years ago when the Spanish armygavemeawholeyear of vacations in the North of Africa Leaving aside making go o d friends like Jorge I had nothing to do but reading b o oks playing chess and think ab out my future Paraphrasing G Polya I thought I am not go o d enough for mathematics and I am to o go o d for the army Computer science is in b etween Thus I arrived to the Facultat dInformatica de Barcelona There I was lucky in enjoying great classmates like Alex and Xavi something essential to get a degree We found some go o d lecturers but I guess that who made me fall in love with database design was Jaume Sistac Fiveyears later as I nished my undergraduate studies I decided to try a do ctorate Felix Saltor gave me the opp ortunity of joining his research group and the Generalitat de Catalunya the grant FI which allowed me to write this thesis I was also included in pro jects TIC TICC and TICC from the Spanish Research Program PRONTIC So I b ecame a memb er of the Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informatics which resourced me with sp ecial mention for the valuable work of the secretaries of the department and I was kindly welcome by the memb ers of the Seccio de Sistemes dInformacio Since then Ive b een sharing an oce with Elena for nearly four lovely years From time to time we got the visit of Marta the other memb er of the research group always supp ortive from Lleida What to say ab out them Just a pleasure to work together Time arrived to nd an advisor and I got two instead of only one Felix taughtmehowto do quality research and contributed his long exp erience I should name a couple of imp ortant things I was not able to learn from him write a correct bibliography and drink go o d wine instead of cokeorkalimotxo The other advisor was Jose Samos I should thank him lots of things like b eing an inexhaustible fountain of optimism but over the others his almost innite patience during our fruitful neverending discussions The work with Josewas easier thanks to the Departamento de Lengua jes y Sistemas In formaticos of the Universidad the Granada which oered me a place to work there As a side vi Foreword eect b eing there allowed me to meet wonderful p eople like Cecilia Eladio or Ventura who made me feel at home during mynumerous stays in Granada Arriving to the end I also thank Antoni Olive Ernest Teniente Juan Carlos Trujillo Pedro Blesa MohandSaid Hacid A Min Tjoa and Panos Vassiliadis for revising this PhD thesis and accepting b eing part of the jury I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers of the thesis and those anonymous referees of the dierent pap ers who sent useful constructive and instructive comments Two more things b efore I nish this words I should not forget friends here b ecause chat b eer playing role games and cycling is also imp ortant to write a thesis And last but not least an sp ecial acknowledgementforthewomen in my family mymum my dear aunt Angelines and my grandmother They broughtmeup Alb erto Contents vii Contents Intro duction General concepts Motivation and ob jectives Main contributions Organization of the thesis Second chapter Multidimensional mo deling and the OO paradigm Third chapter Multilevel schemas architecture Fourth chapter Elements of a multidimensional mo del Fifth chapter YAM Yet Another Multidimensional Mo del Sixth chapter Conclusions Appendixes Typ ographic conventions Multidimensional mo deling and the OO paradigm Multidimensional mo deling An analysis framework Other frameworks A classication and description framework Classication and description of existing multidimensional mo dels Research eorts at Conceptual level Research eorts at Logical level Research eorts at Physical level Research eorts on Formalisms Other work Summary Howmultidimensional analysis b enets from OO ClassicationInstantiation GeneralizationSp ecialization AggregationDecomp osition Behavioural CallerCalled Derivability Dynamicity viii Contents Conclusions Multilevel schemas architecture Extending a schemas architecture for Data warehousing An example The parts The whole Op erations on schemas Drilling across semantically related Stars Drillacross in the literature Multistar conceptual schemas Interstellar semantic relationships Discussion Conclusions Elements of a multidimensional mo del Analysis dimensions The imp ortance of aggregation hierarchies Semantic problems in presentmultidimensional mo deling How to solvethem Facts sub ject of analysis Factual data in other mo dels Multidimensional elements unleashed Conclusions YAM Yet Another Multidimensional Mo del YAM is not JAM Just Another Multidimensional Mo del Structures Nodes Arcs Inherentintegrity constraints Op erations Metaclasses Comparison with other multidimensional mo dels Conclusions Conclusions Survey of results Future work Bibliography Contents ix A UML Prole for Multidimensional Mo deling A Intro duction A Summary of Prole A Stereotyp es and Notation A MultidimensionalSchema A Star A Fact A Dimension A Cell A SummarizedCell A FundamentalCell A Level A Measure A SummarizedMeasure A FundamentalMeasure A Descriptor A Base A Summarization A Transitive A NonTransitive A SummaryParam A CellRelation A LevelRelation A KindOfMeasure A List A Induction A WellFormedness Rules A Star A Fact A Dimension A Cell A SummarizedCell A FundamentalCell A Level A Measure A FundamentalMeasure A Descriptor A Base A Summarization A SummaryParam A CellRelation A LevelRelation x Contents A Induction B Design examples with YAM B Sales of pro ducts in a gro cery chain B Kimballsschema B Golfarellis version of Kimballs schema B YAM schema B Discussion B Warehouse B Original schema B YAM schema B Discussion B Tickets in sup ermarkets B Original schema B YAM schema B Discussion B Clinical Data Warehousing B Original schema B YAM schema B Discussion B Vehicle repairs B Original schema B YAM schema B Discussion C List of publications C Related to chapter C Related to chapter C Related to chapter C Related to chapter C Other publications Glossary List of Figures xi List of Figures Corp orate Information FactoryIIS Multidimensional mo deling Mo deling and implementation pro cess in OLAP vs OLTP environments Example of multidimensional schema at Upp er detail level Example of multidimensional schema at Intermediate and Lower detail levels Database schemas at three levels Example of GeneralizationSp ecialization Example of AggregationDecomp osition levels schemas architecture ROSC .