0000000000377228
AUTHOR
Stefano Spaccapietra
Object Orientation and Conceptual Modeling
The object oriented (OO) approach is very popular nowadays. It has proved to be a powerful and practical programming paradigm for the development of large and complex software systems, including database management systems (DBMS). Among its many benefits are significant improvements in modularity, reusability, flexibility, and extensibility. The database community has already taken advantage of the OO approach and produced a number of OO DBMSs, much faster than in the case of the previous generation of relational systems.
On Using Conceptual Modeling for Ontologies
Are database concepts and techniques suitable for ontology design and management? The question has been on the floor for some time already. It gets a new emphasis today, thanks to the focus on ontologies and ontology services due to the spread of web services as a new paradigm for information management. This paper analyzes some of the arguments that are relevant to the debate, in particular the question whether conceptual data models would adequately support the design and use of ontologies. It concludes suggesting a hybrid approach, combining databases and logic-based services.
Model independent assertions for integration of heterogeneous schemas
Due to the proliferation of database applications, the integration of existing databases into a distributed or federated system is one of the major challenges in responding to enterprises' information requirements. Some proposed integration techniques aim at providing database administrators (DBAs) with a view definition language they can use to build the desired integrated schema. These techniques leave to the DBA the responsibility of appropriately restructuring schema elements from existing local schemas and of solving inter-schema conflicts. This paper investigates the assertion-based approach, in which the DBA's action is limited to pointing out corresponding elements in the schemas an…
Complex objects modeling: An entity-relationship approach
Facilities for complex object modeling are nowadays needed in several areas of database applications (CAD/CAM, office automation, robotics, ...). Consequently, either new models are developed, or existing ones are extended to better respond to this requirement. Current proposals in the latter category are mainly based on the relational approach (with, as major outcome, the NF2 family of models) or on functional models like DAPLEX. This paper intends to show that the entity-relationship approach may secure an equivalent result, preserving the well known advantages inherent to this approach : increased readability and graphical display of the database schema.