Abstract
AbstractThe paper describes the coded delta scheme, which is one of the methods used by the Census Research Unit, University of Durham, for compacting the 1971 U.K. census data. It evaluates the merits and limitations of the technique in relation to the characteristics of the data set and other techniques available for compact encoding of numeric and string data.
Highlights
There has been a progressive trend in the social sciences to collate and process larger and larger data sets so that they form an expanding data base for several applications
Different methods of data compaction were employed based on the structure and other characteristics of the data body.l> Suppression of zeros was one of the processes by which the file was compacted to half its previous size
This paper compares the performance of the conventional bitmap scheme and the coded delta scheme for indexing non-zero value elements
Summary
There has been a progressive trend in the social sciences to collate and process larger and larger data sets so that they form an expanding data base for several applications. The grid square-based 1971 census data for the U.K. is one example of a large data base, with which the Census Research Unit (CRU) of the Department of Geography, University of Durham, is investigating complex methodological issues in the mapping and spatial analysis of population characteristics. An information storage and retrieval system, which would aIso preprocess the data for other statistical and survey analysis packages and undertake a certain amount of processing and mapping functions itself, is currently being designed. Different methods of data compaction were employed based on the structure and other characteristics of the data body.l> Suppression of zeros was one of the processes by which the file was compacted to half its previous size.
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