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A chronon is the smallest, discrete, non-decomposable unit of time in a temporal data model. In a one-dimensional model, a chronon is a time interval or period, while in an n-dimensional model it is a non-decomposable region in n-dimensional time. Important special types of chronons include valid-time, transaction-time, and bitemporal chronons.
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Data models often represent a time line by a sequence of non-decomposable, consecutive time periods of identical duration. These periods are termed chronons. A data model will typically leave the size of each particular chronon unspecified. The size (e.g., one microsecond) will be fixed later by an individual application or by a database management system, within the restrictions posed by the implementation of the data model. The number of chronons is finite in a bounded model (i.e., a model with a minimum and maximum chronon), or countably infinite otherwise. Consecutive...
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Dyreson C.E. and Snodgrass R.T. The base-line clock. In The TSQLZ temporal query language, Kluwer, pp. 73–92, 1987.
Dyreson C.E. and Snodgrass R.T. Timestamp Semantics and Representation. Inf. Syst., 18(3):143–166, 1993.
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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Dyreson, C. (2009). Chronon. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1050
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1050
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-35544-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-39940-9
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