CLASSIC is a data model that encourages the description ofobjects not only in terms of their relations to other known objects, but in terms of a level of intensional structure as well. The CLASSIC language of structured descriptions permits i) partial descriptions of individuals, under an `open world' assumption, ii) answers to queries either as extensional lists of valuesorasdescriptions that necessarily hold of all possible answers, and iii) an easily extensible schema, which can be accessed uniformly with the data. One of the strengths of the approach is that the same language plays multiple roles in the processes of defining and populating the DB, as well as querying and answering. classic (for which we have a prototype main-memory implementation) can actively discover new information about objects from several sources: it can recognize new classes under which an object falls based on a description of the object, it can propagate some deductive consequences of DB upda...

Most common database management systems represent information in a simple record-based format. Semantic modeling provides richer data structuring capabilities for database applications. In particular, research in this area has articulated a number of constructs that provide mechanisms for representing structurally complex interrelations among data typically arising in commercial applications. In general terms, semantic modeling complements work on knowledge representation (in artificial intelligence) and on the new generation of database models based on the object-oriented paradigm of programming languages. This paper presents an in-depth discussion of semantic data modeling. It reviews the philosophical motivations of semantic models, including the need for high-level modeling abstractions and the reduction of semantic overloading of data type constructors. It then provides a tutorial introduction to the primary components of semantic models, which are the explicit representation of objects, attributes of and relationships among objects, type constructors for building complex types, ISA relationships, and derived schema components. Next, a survey of the prominent semantic models in the literature is presented. Further, since a broad area of research has developed around semantic modeling, a number of related topics based on these models are discussed, including data languages, graphical interfaces, theoretical investigations, and physical implementation strategies.

An approach to the coordinated sharing and interchange of computerized information is described emphasizing partial, controlled sharing among autonomous databases. Office information systems provide a particularly appropriate context for this type of information sharing and exchange. A federated database architecture is described in which a collection of independent database systems are united into a loosely coupled federation in order to share and exchange information. A federation consists of components (of which there may be any number) and a single federal dictionary. The components represent individual users, applications, workstations, or other components in an office information system. The federal dictionary is a specialized component that maintains the topology of the federation and oversees the entry of new components. Each component in the federation controls its interactions with other components by means of an export schema and an import schema. The export schema specifies the information that a component will share with other components, while the import schema specifies the nonlocal information that a component wishes to manipulate. The federated architecture provides mechanisms for sharing data, for sharing transactions (via message types) for combining information from several components, and for coordinating activities among autonomous components (via negotiation). A prototype implementation of the federated database mechanism is currently operational on an experimental basis.

, Exception, Clock, Externalg Granularity ae fMember, Subset, Setg Type ae fPrimitive, Composite g Operators ae for, and, seq, closure, times, not g Consumption mode ae fRecent, Chronicle, Cumulative, Continuous g Role 2 fMandatory, Optional, Noneg Condition Role 2 fMandatory, Optional, Noneg Context ae fDB T , BindE , DBE , DBC g Action Options ae fStructure Operation, Behavior Invocation, Update-Rules, Abort Inform, External, Do Instead g Context ae fDB T , BindE , BindC , DBE , DBC , DBA g ---behavior invocation, in which case the event is raised by the execution of some user-defined operation (e.g. the message display is sent to an object of type widget). It is common for event languages to allow events to be raised before or after an operation has been executed. ---transaction, in which case the event is raised by transaction commands (e.g. abort, commit, begin-transaction) ---abstract or user-defined, in which case a programming mechanism is used that allows an appli...

The duality of objects and relationships is so deeply embedded in our thinking that almost all modelling languages include it as a fundamental distinction. Yet there is evidence that the two are naturally complemented by a third, equally fundamental notion: that of roles. Although definitions of the role concept abound in the literature, we maintain that only few are truly original, and that even fewer acknowledge the intrinsic role of roles as intermediaries between relationships and the objects that engage in them. After discussing the major families of role conceptualizations, we present our own basic definition and demonstrate how it naturally accounts for many modelling issues, including multiple and dynamic classification, object collaboration, polymorphism, and substitutability. <3 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Knowledge bases, data bases and object-oriented systems (referred to in the paper as Object-Centered systems) all rely on attributes as the main construct used to associate properties to objects; among these, a fundamental role is played by the so-called part-whole relation. The representation of such a structural information usually requires a particular semantics together with specialized inference and update mechanisms, but rarely do current modeling formalisms and methodologies give it a specific "first-class" dignity. The main thesis of this paper is that the part-whole relation cannot simply be considered as an ordinary attribute, its specific ontological nature requires to be understood and integrated within data modeling formalisms and methodologies. On the basis of such an ontological perspective, we survey the conceptual modeling issues involving part-whole relations, and the various modeling frameworks provided by knowledge representation and object-oriented formalisms.

Machiavelli is a polymorphically typed programming language in the spirit of ML, but supports an extended method of type inferencing that makes its polymorphism more general and appropriate for database applications. In particular, a function that selects a field f of a records is polymorphic in the sense that it can be applied to any record which contains a field f with the appropriate type. When combined with a set data type and database operations including join and projection, this provides a natural medium for relational database programming. Moreover, by implementing database objects as reference types and generating the appropriate views — sets of structures with “identity ” — we can achieve a degree of static type checking for object-oriented databases. 1

Conceptual data modelling techniques aim at the representation of data at a high level of abstraction.

Many Web sites include significant and substantial pieces of information, in a way that is often difficult to share, correlate and maintain. In many cases the management of a Web site can greatly benefit from the adoption of methods and techniques borrowed from the database field. This paper introduces a methodology for designing and maintaining large Web sites based on the assumption that data to be published in the site are managed using a DBMS. We see the process of designing the site as the result of two intertwined activities: the database design and the hypevtex't design. Each of these is further divided in a conceptual design phase and a logical design phase, based on specific data models. A new logical data model, called ADM, is used to describe the structure of a Web hypertext. It is page-oriented, in the sense that the main construct is the one of page-scheme, providing an intensional description of a class of pages in the site. Based on the ADM scheme of the site, we introduce a language, called PENELOPE, that allows to automatically generate HTML pages starting from the database content. PENELOPE is also able to correlate different pages in a complex hypertext using a suitable URL invention mechanism to guarantee reference integrity. ADM and PENELOPE strongly support site maintenance: the first provides a concise description of the site structure; it allows to reason about the overall organization of pages in the site, in order to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the chosen structure, and possibly to restructure it; at the same time, PENELOPE alleviates the burden of managing HTML files by hand, and guarantees link consistency in presence of updates and reorganizations.

Data of interest to biomedical researchers associated with the Human Genome Project (HGP) is stored all over the world in a number of different electronic data formats and accessible through a varietyof interfaces and retrieval languages. These data sources include conventional relational databases with SQL interfaces, formatted text files on top of which indexing is provided for efficient retrieval (ASN.1-Entrez), and binary files that can be interpreted textually or graphically via special purpose interfaces (ACeDB). Researchers within the HGP wanttocombine data from these different data sources, add value through sophisticated data analysis techniques (such as the biosequence comparison software BLAST and FASTA), and view it using special purpose scientific visualization tools. However, currently there are no commercial tools for enabling such an integrated digital library, and a fundamental barrier to developing such tools appears to be one of language design and optimization: The data f...