Terminological aspects of data elements
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
- Martin Marietta Aerospace, Denver, CO (United States)
The creation and display of data comprise a process that involves a sequence of steps requiring both semantic and systems analysis. An essential early step in this process is the choice, definition, and naming of data element concepts and is followed by the specification of other needed data element concept attributes. The attributes and the values of data element concept remain associated with them from their birth as a concept to a generic data element that serves as a template for final application. Terminology is, therefore, centrally important to the entire data creation process. Smooth mapping from natural language to a database is a critical aspect of database, and consequently, it requires terminology standardization from the outset of database work. In this paper the semantic aspects of data elements are analyzed and discussed. Seven kinds of data element concept information are considered and those that require terminological development and standardization are identified. The four terminological components of a data element are the hierarchical type of a concept, functional dependencies, schematas showing conceptual structures, and definition statements. These constitute the conventional role of terminology in database design. 12 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 5987161
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9106286-1; ON: DE92001676
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) meeting on standardizing terminology for better communication, Cleveland, OH (United States), 12-19 Jun 1991
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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