Stefano Rizzi

Business intelligence: with this term we denote a wide class of applications for collecting, managing, and analyzing data aimed at supporting managers in the decision-making process. The core of a business intelligence platform is typically a data warehouse, i.e., a repository that stores information according to a multidimensional schema and is optimized for supporting analysis queries. In this area, our research is mainly related to formalisms and methods for designing applications for data analysis, with specific reference to what-if analysis systems and to the management of user preferences. What-if analysis is a data-intensive simulation that enables users to analyze the behavior of a complex system when some given scenarios occur. Starting from real case studies, we developed UML-based formalisms for modeling what-if systems, and we proposed an ad hoc design methodology. Besides, we extended the techniques for managing user preferences available for relational databases to enable selective, personalized, and context-dependent access to information in business intelligence platforms. In the context of collaborative business intelligence, we devised an approach for reformulating OLAP queries on networks of autonomous peers. Finally, we explored the open research issues in the context of data warehouse design, with specific reference to the application of agile methods.