Semantic integrity in data warehousing : a framework for understanding : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Information Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Data modelling has gathered an increasing amount of attention by data warehouse developers as they come to realise that important implementation decisions such as data integrity, performance and meta data management, depend on the quality of the underlying data model. Not all organisations model their data but where they do, Entity-Relationship (E-R) modelling, or more correctly relational modelling, has been widely used. An alternative, dimensional modelling, has been gaining acceptance in recent years and adopted by many practitioners. Consequently, there is much debate over which form of modelling is the most appropriate and effective. However, the dimensional model is in fact based on the relational model and the two models are not so different that a debate is necessary. Perhaps, the real focus should be on how to abstract meaning out of the data model. This research explores the importance of semantic integrity during data warehouse design and its impact on the successful use of the implemented warehouse. This has been achieved through a detailed case study. Consequently, a conceptual framework for describing semantic integrity has been developed. The purpose of the framework is to provide a theoretical basis for explaining how a data model is interpreted through the meaning levels of understanding, connotation and generation, and also how a data model is created from an existing meaning structure by intention, generation and action. The result of this exploration is the recognition that the implementation of a data warehouse may not assist with providing a detailed understanding of the semantic content of a data warehouse

Ontology based data warehousing for mining of heterogeneous and multidimensional data sources

Heterogeneous and multidimensional big-data sources are virtually prevalent in all business environments. System and data analysts are unable to fast-track and access big-data sources. A robust and versatile data warehousing system is developed, integrating domain ontologies from multidimensional data sources. For example, petroleum digital ecosystems and digital oil field solutions, derived from big-data petroleum (information) systems, are in increasing demand in multibillion dollar resource businesses worldwide. This work is recognized by Industrial Electronic Society of IEEE and appeared in more than 50 international conference proceedings and journals

Ontology based data warehouse modelling - a methodology for managing petroleum field ecosystems

Petroleum field ecosystems offer an interesting and productive domain for ontology based data warehousing model and methodology development. This paper explains the opportunities and challenges confronting modellers, methodologists, and managers operating in the petroleum business and provides some detailed techniques and suggested methods for constructing and using the ontology based warehouse.Ecologically sensitive operations such as well drilling, well production, exploration, and reservoir development can be guided and carefully planned based on data mined from a suitable constructed data warehouse. Derivation of business intelligence, simulations and vizualisation can also be driven by online analytical processing based on warehoused data and metadata

Solutions for decision support in university management

The paper proposes an overview of decision support systems in order to define the role of a system to assist decision in university management. The authors present new technologies and the basic concepts of multidimensional data analysis using models of business processes within the universities. Based on information provided by scientific literature and on the authors’ experience, the study aims to define selection criteria in choosing a development environment for designing a support system dedicated to university management. The contributions consist in designing a data warehouse model and models of OLAP analysis to assist decision in university management.university management, decision support, multidimensional analysis, data warehouse, OLAP

Data warehouse structuring methodologies for efficient mining of Western Australian petroleum data sources

Representing the knowledge domain of a petroleum system is a complex problem. In the present study, logical modelling of shared attributes of resources industry entities (dimensions or objects) has been used for construction of a dynamic and time-variant metadata model. This work demonstrates effectiveness of multidimensional data modelling for petroleum industry, which will be further investigated for fine-grain data presentation and interpretation for quality knowledge discovery

On data integration workflows for an effective management of multidimensional petroleum digital ecosystems in Arabian Gulf Basins

Data integration of multiple heterogeneous datasets from multidimensional petroleum digital ecosystems is an effective way, for extracting information and adding value to knowledge domain from multiple producing onshore and offshore basins. At present, data from multiple basins are scattered and unusable for data integration, because of scale and format differences. Ontology based warehousing and mining modeling are recommended for resolving the issues of scaling and formatting of multidimensional datasets, in which case, seismic and well-domain datasets are described. Issues, such as semantics among different data dimensions and their associated attributes are also addressed by Ontology modeling.Intelligent relationships are built among several petroleum system domains (structure, reservoir, source and seal, for example) at global scale and facilitated the integration process among multiple dimensions in a data warehouse environment. For this purpose, integrated workflows are designed for capturing and modeling unknown relationships among petroleum system data attributes in interpretable knowledge domains.This study is an effective approach in mining and interpreting data views drawn from warehoused exploration and production metadata, with special reference to Arabian onshore and offshore basins

Ontology based data warehouse modeling and managing ecology of human body for disease and drug prescription management

Health care sector is currently experiencing a major crisis with information overload. With the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and the ageing population the amount of paper-work is more than ever before. In the US, a hospital admission of one patient generates an estimate of 60 pieces of paper. The federal governments of various countries have passed policies and initiatives that focus on introducing information systems into the health care sector. Technology will immensely reduce the cost of managing patients and even reduce the risks of mis-diagnosing and prescribing incorrectmedications to patients. This paper primarily focuses on introducing the concept of ontology based warehouse modelling and managing ecology of human body for disease and drug prescription management. Disorders of the human body and factors such as the patient?s age, living and working conditions, familial and genetic influences can be simulated into Metadata in a warehousing environment. In this environment, various relationships are identified and described between these factors and the diseases. Secondly, we also introduce ontological representation of the various human body systems such as the digestive, musculoskeletal and nervous system in disease processes. Although this is an extensive and complex knowledge domain, the work in this paper is one of the first to attempt to introduce the use of ontology based data warehousing and data mining conceptually. We also aim at implementing and applying this research in practice

Warehousing of object oriented petroleum data for knowledge mapping

Australia produces a-third of world?s natural resources. Enormous amounts of energy and financial resources are expended in order to tap these natural reserves from the earth?s surface. Vast amounts of these resources, however, remain unexplored and under exploited. Data pertaining natural resources, such as mineral and petroleum, are, in general, heterogeneous and complex in nature. Volumes of these types of data are geographically distributed among many companies in Australia and abroad. The existing historical resources data are logically and physically organized using warehousing techniques. Entity relationship (ER) and object oriented (OO) data mapping techniques are used for analyzing the data entities, dimensions and objects. In this paper object oriented data and warehousing of object class data models have been described. Data mining techniques can be employed to explore many more resources hidden, under great depths of the earth?s crust, without additional efforts of exploration and development. Warehoused object oriented resources data can significantly reduce the complexity of the resources data structuring and enhance the data integration and information sharing among various operational units of the resources industry. Large amount of financial inputs can be saved if these technologies are successfully implemented in the resources industry

Big Data guided Digital Petroleum Ecosystems for Visual Analytics and Knowledge Management

The North West Shelf (NWS) interpreted as a Total Petroleum System (TPS), is Super Westralian Basin with active onshore and offshore basins through which shelf, - slope and deep-oceanic geological events are construed. In addition to their data associativity, TPS emerges with geographic connectivity through phenomena of digital petroleum ecosystem. The super basin has a multitude of sub-basins, each basin is associated with several petroleum systems and each system comprised of multiple oil and gas fields with either known or unknown areal extents. Such hierarchical ontologies make connections between attribute relationships of diverse petroleum systems. Besides, NWS has a scope of storing volumes of instances in a data-warehousing environment to analyse and motivate to create new business opportunities. Furthermore, the big exploration data, characterized as heterogeneous and multidimensional, can complicate the data integration process, precluding interpretation of data views, drawn from TPS metadata in new knowledge domains. The research objective is to develop an integrated framework that can unify the exploration and other interrelated multidisciplinary data into a holistic TPS metadata for visualization and valued interpretation. Petroleum digital ecosystem is prototyped as a digital oil field solution, with multitude of big data tools. Big data associated with elements and processes of petroleum systems are examined using prototype solutions. With conceptual framework of Digital Petroleum Ecosystems and Technologies (DPEST), we manage the interconnectivity between diverse petroleum systems and their linked basins. The ontology-based data warehousing and mining articulations ascertain the collaboration through data artefacts, the coexistence between different petroleum systems and their linked oil and gas fields that benefit the explorers. The connectivity between systems further facilitates us with presentable exploration data views, improvising visualization and interpretation. The metadata with meta-knowledge in diverse knowledge domains of digital petroleum ecosystems ensures the quality of untapped reservoirs and their associativity between Westralian basins