Relational Databases: A Tutorial for Statisticians,
Abstract
This tutorial links relational database concepts to probability concepts. For example, the fundamental relational database concepts of an attribute(column heading), a relation scheme (unpopulated table), and a relation (populated table) correspond respectively to the probability concepts of a random variable, a random vector, and a multivariate probability distribution. The relational select and project operators correspond respectively to finding a conditional and marginal distribution Functional dependencies, multivalued dependences, and join dependencies correspond respectively to variable transformations, conditional independencies, and more general factorizations of distributions. These connections indicate that statisticians may know more about relational databases than they realize. Beyond these pedagogical benefits, these connections between relational databases and statistics provide a bridge, both directions of which have proven to be useful for developing new theory.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADP007113
Entities
People
- Joe R. Hill