Modeling statistical metadata

An object oriented statistical metadata model is presented, which can be used in building information systems providing metadata-guided, statistical data processing features. The semantics of the model are analyzed and a set of operators (transformations) is proposed that allows for the automatic manipulation of both data and metadata at the same time. We discuss the mathematical properties of these transformations, and subsequently as a case study, we demonstrate how a statistical office can use the presented framework to build a Web site offering ad hoc query capabilities to its data consumers.