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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 2852–2856Cite as

Probabilistic Temporal Databases

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Synonyms

Temporally indeterminate databases; Temporally uncertain databases

Definition

There are many applications where the fact that a given event occurred is known, but where there is uncertainty about exactly when that event occurred. Such events are called temporally indeterminate events. Probabilistic temporal databases attempt to store information about events that are both temporally determinate and temporally indeterminate. For the latter, they specify a set of time points (often an interval) – it is known that the event occurred at some time point in this set. The probability that the event occurred at a specific time point is given by a probability distribution or by one of a set of probability distributions.

Historical Background

There is no shortage of events that are known to have certainly occurred, but where the exact dates are not known with certainty. For instance, the exact date of the extinction of dinosaurs is unknown – nor does the historical record show the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    V. S. Subrahmanian

Authors
  1. V. S. Subrahmanian
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to V. S. Subrahmanian .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ling Liu

  2. University of Waterloo School of Computer Science, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. Tamer Özsu

Section Editor information

  1. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Richard T. Snodgrass

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg Øst, Denmark

    Christian S. Jensen

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Subrahmanian, V.S. (2018). Probabilistic Temporal Databases. In: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8265-9_406

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