Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 2957–2960Cite as

Temporal Database

  • Reference work entry

Synonyms

Historical database; Time-oriented database

Definition

A temporal database is a collection of time-referenced data. In such a database, the time references capture some temporal aspect of the data; put differently, the data are timestamped. Two temporal aspects are prevalent. The time references may capture either the past and current states of the database, yielding a transaction-time database; they may capture states of the reality being modeled by the data, yielding a valid-time database; or they may capture both aspects of the data, yielding a bitemporal database.

Historical Background

“Time” is a fundamental concept that pervades all aspects of daily life. As one indicator, a recent study by Oxford University Press found that the word “time” is the most commonly used noun in the English language. The nouns “year” and “day” rank third and fifth in the study.

Moving to a database context, the capture and representation of time-varying information go back literally thousands...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   2,500.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Recommended Reading

  1. Rolland C., Bodart F., and Leonard M. (eds.). In Proc. Conf. on Temporal Aspects in Information Systems. North-Holland/Elsevier, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Al-Tara K.K., Snodgrass R.T., and Soo M.D. A bibliography on spatio- temporal databases. Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Syst., 8(1):95–103,January–February 1994.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Boulour A., Anderson T.L., Dekeyser L.J., and Wong H.K.T. The role of time in information processing: a survey. ACM SIGMOD Rec., 12(3):27–50,April 1982.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Böhlen M.H., Gamper J., and Jensen C.S. Temporal databases. In Handbook of Database Technology, J. Hammer, M. Schneider (eds.). Computer and Information Science Series. Chapman and Hall, to appear.

    Google Scholar 

  5. BöhlenM.H. and Jensen C.S. Temporal data model and query language concepts. In Encyclopedia of Information Systems, Vol. 4.Academic, New York, NY, USA, 2003, pp. 437–453.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chomicki J. Temporal query languages: A survey. In Proc. 1st Int. Conf. on Temporal Logic, 1994, pp. 506–534.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Chomicki J. and Toman D. Temporal databases. In Handbook of Time in Artificial Intelligence, M.’ Fisher et al. (eds.). Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  8. J. and Clifford A. (eds.). Tuzhilin In Proc. International Workshop on Temporal Databases: Recent Advances in Temporal Databases, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Grandi F. Introducing an annotated bibliography on temporal and evolution aspects in the World Wide Web. ACM SIGMOD Rec., 33(2):84–86, June 2004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Jensen C.S. and Snodgrass R.T. Temporal data management. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 11(1):36–44, January/February 1999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. López I.F.V., Snodgrass R.T., and Moon B. Spatiotemporal aggregate computation: A survey. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 17(2):271–286, February 2005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Özsoyoǧlu G. and Snodgrass R.T., Temporal and real-time databases: A survey. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng., 7(4):513–532, August 1995.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Roddick J.F. and Spiliopoulou M. A bibliography of temporal, spatial and spatio-temporal data mining research. SIGKDD Explor., 1(1):34–38, January 1999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Snodgrass R.T. Temporal databases: Status and research directions. ACM SIGMOD Rec., 19(4):83–89, December 1990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Snodgrass R.T. Temporal databases. In Proc. Int. Conf. on GIS: From Space to Territory, 1992, pp, 22–61.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Tansel A., Clifford J., Gadia S., Jajodia S., Segev A., and Snodgrass R.T. (eds.). Temporal databases: Theory, design, and implementation. Database Systems and Applications Series. Benjamin/Cummings, Redwood City, CA, USA, March 1993, pp. 633+xx.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Wu Y., Jagodia S., and Wang X.S. Temporal database bibliography update. In Temporal Databases – Research and Practice. D. Etzion, S. Jajodla and S. Sripada (eds.). Springer, Berlin, pp. 338–367.1998,

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Zaniolo C., Ceri S., Faloutsos C., Snodgrass R.T., Subrahmanian V.S., and Zicari R. Advanced Database Systems. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Christian S. Jensen

  2. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Richard T. Snodgrass

Authors
  1. Christian S. Jensen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Richard T. Snodgrass
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry

Jensen, C.S., Snodgrass, R.T. (2009). Temporal Database. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_395

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation