2005/03/04 by Floris Geerts, Geerts, Floris, Sofie Haesevoets +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Advanced Database Systems and Queries #Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization #Data Management and Algorithms #Databases (cs.DB) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #H.2.3 #Semantic Web and Ontologies #cs.DB
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cs/0503012
Cleaned up source code
openalex publication_date 2005/03/04 · arxiv created 2005/03/07 · arxiv updated 2016/08/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We address a fundamental question concerning spatio-temporal database systems: ``What are exactly spatio-temporal queries?'' We define spatio-temporal queries to be computable mappings that are also generic, meaning that the result of a query may only depend to a limited extent on the actual internal representation of the spatio-temporal data. Genericity is defined as invariance under groups of geometric transformations that preserve certain characteristics of spatio-temporal data (e.g., collinearity, distance, velocity, acceleration, ...). These groups depend on the notions that are relevant in particular spatio-temporal database applications. These transformations also have the distinctive property that they respect the monotone and unidirectional nature of time. We investigate different genericity classes with respect to the constraint database model for spatio-temporal databases and we identify sound and complete languages for the first-order and the computable queries in these genericity classes. We distinguish between genericity determined by time-invariant transformations, genericity notions concerning physical quantities and genericity determined by time-dependent transformations.