Querying the global cube: Integration of multidimensional datasets from the web

Abstract

National statistical indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product per Capita are published on the Web by various organisations such as Eurostat, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Uniform access to such statistics will allow for elaborate analysis and visualisations. Though many datasets are also available as Linked Data, heterogeneities remain since publishers use several identifiers for common dimensions and differing levels of detail, units, and formulas. For queries over the Global Cube, i.e., the integration of available datasets modelled in the RDF Data Cube Vocabulary, we extend the well-known Drill-Across operation over data cubes to consider implicit overlaps between datasets in Linked Data. To evaluate more complex mappings we define the Convert-Cube operation over values from a single dataset. We generalise the two operations for arbitrary combinations of multiple datasets with the Merge-Cubes operation and show the feasibility of the analytical operations for integrating government statistics.