"Can I ask whether people make use of the functionality provided by the database to ensure adequate data quality. Secondly do people apply this retrospectively as seems quite reasonable to me when a data problem is identified and the source data cleaned up--to do so could prevent future errors. There appears to be a tension between this sort of implementation and at least a perception of flexibility as database changes would be required should additional allowable values be required." --LinkedIn.com

1. Database Truth of the Week

"And [AI] weaknesses there are. Watson requires many months of laborious training, as experts must feed vast quantities of well-organized data into the platform for it to be able to draw any useful conclusions. And then it can only draw conclusions based upon the body of data, or ‘corpus’ (plural: ‘corpora’) that it has been trained on. The ‘well-organized’ requirement is especially challenging for Watson, as unprepared data sets are typically insufficient. As a result, Watson customers must hire teams of expert consultants to prepare the data sets, a time-consuming and extraordinarily expensive process." --Is IBM's Watson a Joke?

1. Database Truth of the Week

"For the operations of a formal system to have inverses within some specific use of that system (like a specific application):

• The basic elements must be orthogonal (independent), hence the Principle of Orthogonal Design;
• The combination of basis elements and operations must be expressive enough to represent every aspect of the subject matter, hence the Principle of Expressively Complete Design;
• And, at the same time, not so expressive that there is more than one way to express each aspect of the subject matter, hence the Principle of Representation Minimality Design.

The basic elements of a relational database is the relation. Adherence to these principles ensure thatthere is a unique relational expression for every aspect of the subject matter--either a base relation or a derived relation--and if there are two ways to derive a derived relation, then those two expressions are provably equivalent (i.e., the differences are merely syntax and never meaningful)." --David McGoveran