Temporal Databases

So far hundreds articles related to temporal databases have been published (Pissinou et al., 1994). The majority of work has been based on relational data models. Only very few approaches relate to different data models such as the object (e.g., Alfarmanesh et al., 1985) or entity-relationship data models (e.g., Studer, 1986). Langran (1992b) considered only relational databases as sufficiently mature for operational use. In database applications such as geographic information systems, Pissinou et al. (1994) considered the relational data model to be insufficient to represent the complex data structures needed for temporal extensions of these systems. In spite of the lively activity in temporal database research, no widely used temporal database management system is commercially available. In most prototypes (e.g., Ahn and Snodgrass, 1986) and implementations for specific applications, the interpretation of time was done by user application programs rather than by the database management system (DBMS) itself (Pissinou et al., 1994).