Link Analysis (LA) is a visual data analysis technique originally developed for analysing crime related data. The technique enables the user to gain a better understanding of the connections between objects of interest in the problem domain by displaying the connections in a form of network diagram referred to as a link chart. A link chart is often altered during its lifetime, as part of the exploratory nature of the knowledge discovery process, to reflect new information, and to increase the level of comprehensibility. To provide the necessary flexibility for accessing and manipulating large volumes of data the data collected in an investigation is often stored in a database. Permitting link charts to be constructed from this data is of great value, as LA is not adequately supported by the database query systems currently available. This is because the record-based data models they often use are inappropriate for modelling connections between objects, the query languages they typically provide can only retrieve connections between objects if the way connections may be derived are specified in the query, and their data visualisation facilities generally do not allow the results of a number of queries to be integrated and edited. This thesis concerns the Exploratory Database View Constructor (EDVC), an experimental visual database interface for supporting LA. The results obtained from a user evaluation of EDVC indicate that the system may be used by individuals with no experience of interacting directly with a database management system (DBMS). This is a consequence of the style of interaction supported, which allows the data stored to be browsed without having to possess explicit knowledge of the database schema. Such knowledge is typically a prerequisite for using a database query language and can prevent productive use of such a language by an inexperienced DBMS user.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:406701 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Smith, Mathew Neville |
| Publisher | Birkbeck (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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