Use of Abstraction in Creating Data Dictionaries for Materials Data Banks

Construction of all databases requires an underlying "data model," either implicit or explicit. The different options for data models for materials property data are an appropriate subject for standardization because they require agreed specifications for the formats of catalogs, data dictionaries, or thesauri. An understanding of these underlying data models is also crucial in deriving useful and flexible data interchange formats. This paper shows that a "layered" approach in constructing data dictionaries can be helpful both in setting up databases and in defining interchange formats.