1. A processor-implemented method for performing a query, comprising: receiving an identification of data item components and an identification of an association between the data item components, wherein the data item components include a measure and a category, and wherein the identified association indicates that the measure is independent of another data item component, indicates that the measure is dependent on another data item component, or indicates that two or more data item components are correlated; creating a database query for retrieving data item components, wherein the database query includes a first Uquery, wherein the first Uquery includes a Mx segment subquery and a U0 segment subquery, wherein the Mx segment subquery is operable to gather measures and is associated with an Mx segment table that contains the measure included in the data item components, columns for a calculated measure, or correlated measures, and wherein the U0 segment subquery is associated with a table that contains the category, a table that contains columns for a calculated category, a dependent measure table, or a dependent filter table, and wherein the U0 segment subquery further facilitates selecting a set of categories and join keys, the join keys of the set including join keys that join directly to the Mx segment subquery; executing the Mx segment subquery to generate Mx segment subquery results; executing the U0 segment subquery to generate U0 segment subquery results; and joining the Mx segment subquery results with the U0 segment subquery results to generate Uquery results.