Article ID: | iaor20033337 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 7 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 49 |
End Page Number: | 59 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2003 |
Journal: | Journal of Applied Mathematics & Decision Sciences |
Authors: | King Ronald S., Legendre James, J. |
Keywords: | datamining |
This study develops the foundation for a simple, yet efficient method for uncovering functional and approximate functional dependencies in relational databases. The technique is based upon the mathematical theory of partitions defined over a relation's row identifiers. Using a levelwise algorithm the minimal non-trivial functional dependencies can be found using computations conducted on integers. Therefore, the required operations on partitions are both simple and fast. Additionally the row identifiers provide the added advantage of nominally identifying the exceptions to approximate functional dependencies, which can be used effectively in practical data mining applications.