Arrays and continuous attributes

Abstract

Computers store and exploit knowledge, at least that is one of the aims of Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems research fields. However, the problem is to understand what knowledge means, to find ways of representing knowledge, and to extract useful information from stored data. Scientific and engineering disciplines are developing daily. This progress is strongly connected to complex techniques and methods. However, it is surprising to observe that the majority of data tables (Information Systems) considered have binary attributes, and therefore discrete attributes values, and of course, the methods and techniques used are binary based. This paper presents an approach for handling data tables with multiple valued continuous attributes by considering an unusual algebra. The proposed algebra does not handle raw data, it handles declarative descriptions of the data. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.