Workshop, 
chnology 
nance and 
patial data 
problem in 
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is are not 
, but span 
of data is 
'Ocessing. 
are very 
of the data 
by the fact 
are legacy 
n which is 
ubsequent 
of these 
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ms, some 
may span 
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sroup II/3 
related to 
rery large 
ology for 
1 of large 
n. In this 
first year 
h projects, 
round the 
research 
on storage 
volume of 
spatial data. In the next two years, the 
activities of the working group will be 
split its responsibilities into three phases, 
as follows: 
1) Problems of Spatial Information 
Representation and Models; 
2) Methods and Technology for Data 
Storage, Access, Exchange and 
Exchange Standards; 
3) Methods and Technology for High 
Speed Processing of Spatial 
Information Processing. 
There are no distinct lines of separation of 
these three categories and hence phases of 
our work. For example, some of the 
issues may span the two phases of our 
work. These separations only suggest the 
broad areas of emphasis of the topics. In 
another sense our work may relate to 
those of other working groups as well. 
Problems of spatial information 
representation and models will deal 
mainly with methods and technology for 
the consistent, accurate and reliable 
representation and storage of spatial 
information. Some of the related issues 
that are expected to be covered in our 
working sessions are: 
i How should information of real 
world spatial objects be modeled and 
represented? 
ii. Do current database management 
systems satisfy the large volumes of 
spatial data with respect to storage 
management, data access, and 
development of applications? 
iii. What global index methods are there 
and if not what research initiatives 
are underway ? 
information be 
using database 
iv. Can spatial 
maintained 
523 
management system so that the 
traditional concurrency, backup and 
recovery mechanism used to 
institute satisfactory reliability of the 
data during usage and access. 
v. How should temporal data be 
handled using current database 
management system or any recent 
advanced database management 
systems. 
vi. What data compression techniques 
are most suitable for the economic 
storage of data without undue 
information loss? 
vii. What meta-data representation 
techniques are there? 
viii. What inter-relationships of various 
global directories, catalogues and 
services exist and how can this be 
effectively utilized? 
The second phase of the work of the 
working group will address methods and 
technology for data storage, access, 
exchange and exchange standards. In 
addressing the problems of the storage of 
large volumes of spatial data, we 
distinguish between real-time and non 
real-time data acquisition, storage and 
access. The former relates to data 
acquisition where the time to store the 
data must meet some deadline. Namely 
that the time between successive storage 
of input must be less than the inter-arrival 
time of the input data. This is scenario is 
exemplified by the observation devices 
that capture and transmit observed data. 
However, a real-time data storage system 
must be able to organize and store the 
data at a faster rate than the rate of data 
acquisition. The non-real time scenario is 
exemplified by storage of map data. Here, 
the data such is captured, processed and 
to meet some standard quality control 
criteria after which it is submitted for