Given the benefits that a database system provides for structuring data and preserving its durability and integrity, one might expect to find scientists and engineers making ex- tensive use of database systems to manage their data. Un- fortunately, domains such as biology, chemistry, mechanical engineering (and a variety of others) typically use databases in only the most rudimentary of ways, running few or no queries and storing only raw observations as they are cap- tured from sensors or other field instruments. This is be- cause the real-world data acquired using such measurement infrastructures is typically incomplete, imprecise, and erro- neous, and hence rarely usable as it is. The raw data needs to.
