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lalbatros
Yak Posting Veteran
69 Posts |
 Posted - 2008-06-23 : 12:01:51
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| Hello,I have delayed a small project by at least 6 months.Now I think I have an idea about "what is needed".Colleagues want to track the state of several plants on a daily basis.This involves tracking quantities essentially (continuous variables).However, a lot of flexibility is needed in the way things are calculated.For example, sometimes material movements are calculated, sometimes they are measured.As another example, sometimes the fluxes are calculated from a simple "perfectly mixed tank" model.Sometimes several methods are possible at the same time and sometimes this is used to check consistency and drift of some devices.The main demand is about flexibility.My first idea was about representing "real facts" in various tables.For example: a table of movements, another for stocks.I realized that this would not be flexible enough, would not be opened to the end user, and too much specific.Actually, I think now they need something extremely simple.Their database should record the state of the plants, based on states variables.Therefore, an important field would be the (names of the) state variables, like a stock level.Building on that, it is clear that some state variable would be measured while some would be calculated from other state variables.And this can also be represented in a field, without any need for a physical interpretation. The meaning is left to the end-user.In this table, the calculation formulas could be included as a field and evaluated when needed. The formulas would involve current values or values from the previous day. The flexibility would be extreme since the formulas could even be changed everyday (this would be useful at least from time to time).Now my question:Have you ever seen such a database?I would appreciate suggestions and ideas before I start implementation.Thanks |
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db template for "continuous state machine"