Databases Overview - Concepedia

Principles

Definition

Databases is an academic field and technological discipline concerned with the principles, design, implementation, and management of structured collections of digital data. It investigates methodologies for organizing information, ensuring data integrity and security, facilitating efficient query and retrieval, and developing systems architectures for persistent data storage and access across various applications and scales.

Ontological type

Data Models

Transactions and Consistency

Query Languages

Key developments

Key Figures

Measurement Standardization era

Louis Meites [1], associated with Yale University [3], stands as a figure in the Measurement Standardization era (1924–1957). His Cells, Apparatus, and Methodology for Precise Analysis by Coulometry at Controlled Potential [6] marks a key contribution by standardizing Coulometric analysis with controlled potential, essential for producing repeatable, comparable data across laboratories. Ralph H. Müller [2], affiliated with Columbia University [4] and New York University [5], embodies the cross-institutional activity of this era. His Application of the Photo–Electric Cell to Automatic Titrations [7] demonstrates automation and standardization of titration procedures, promoting consistent data collection and enabling primitive aggregation.

Architectures for Analytics era

Amos Bairoch [1] was affiliated with Yale University [3] and the University of Geneva [4] during this era. His key contribution was shaping The PROSITE database, its status in 1997 [7] and The PROSITE database, its status in 1999 [8], which standardized motif representations and accelerated protein annotation in this era. Padhraic Smyth [2] was affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology [5] and the California Institute of Technology [6] during this era. Padhraic Smyth [2] contributed The KDD process for extracting useful knowledge from volumes of data [9], a foundational idea that shaped data mining and in-database analytics during this era.

Provenance and Interoperability era

Minoru Kanehisa [1] engages with cross-institutional research ecosystems in this era, with affiliations including Kyoto Bunkyo University [3] and Karolinska Institutet [4]. His KEGG: new perspectives on genomes, pathways, diseases and drugs [7] represents a key contribution, providing a curated, interoperable resource that supports reproducibility and cross-dataset interpretation in systems biology. Christian Bizer [2] has been affiliated with Freie Universität Berlin [5] and University of Mannheim [6], reflecting his role in shaping data linking in this era. His 2009 work Linked Data - The Story So Far [8] outlines foundational practices for Linked Data, structuring provenance, interoperability, and reuse in large-scale data ecosystems.