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2006 | Buch

Conceptual Modeling - ER 2006

25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, Tucson, AZ, USA, November 6-9, 2006. Proceedings

herausgegeben von: David W. Embley, Antoni Olivé, Sudha Ram

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Buchreihe : Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

Conceptual modeling has long been recognized as the primary means to enable so- ware development in information systems and data engineering. Nowadays, conc- tual modeling has become fundamental to any domain in which organizations have to cope with complex, real-world systems. Conceptual modeling fosters communi- tion between information systems developers and end-users, and it has become a key mechanism for understanding and representing computing systems and environments of all kinds, including the new e-applications and the information systems that support them. The International Conference on Conceptual Modeling provides the premiere - rum for presenting and discussing current research and applications in which the - jor emphasis is on conceptual modeling. Topics of interest span the entire spectrum of conceptual modeling including research and practice in areas such as theories of c- cepts and ontologies underlying conceptual modeling, methods and tools for devel- ing and communicating conceptual models, and techniques for transforming conc- tual models into effective implementations. Moreover, new areas of conceptual mod- ing broaden its application to include interdependencies with knowledge-based, lo- cal, linguistic, and philosophical theories and approaches. The conference also makes major strides in fostering collaboration and exchange between academia and industry. In this year’s conference, research papers focused on XML, Web services, business modeling, conceptual modeling applied to human-computer interaction, quality in conceptual modeling, conceptual modeling applied to interoperability, requirements modeling, reasoning, the Semantic Web, and metadata management. The call for papers attracted 158 research papers, whose authors represent 27 different countries.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Keynote Papers

Suggested Research Directions for a New Frontier – Active Conceptual Modeling

This paper discusses several research directions and challenges of a new frontier of research: active conceptual modeling. It suggests how the Entity-Relationship (ER) model may be extended to satisfy some of the needs of a new set of emerging user needs and applications.

Peter P. Chen
From Conceptual Modeling to Requirements Engineering

A number of studies show [1][2][3][4] that systems fail due to an inadequate or insufficient understanding of the requirements they seek to address. Further, the amount of effort needed to fix these systems has been found to be very high [5]. To correct this situation, it is necessary to address the issue of requirements elicitation, validation, and specification in a relatively more focussed manner. The expectation is that as a result of this, more acceptable systems will be developed in the future. The field of requirements engineering has emerged to meet this expectation.

Colette Rolland

Web Services

A Context Model for Semantic Mediation in Web Services Composition

This paper presents a context-driven approach that aims at supporting semantic mediation between composed Web services. Despite the widespread adoption of Web services by the IT community, innovative solutions are needed in order to overcome the challenging issue that relates to the semantic disparity of exchanged data. Indeed, there is a lack of means for interpreting these data according to the contextual requirements of each Web service. The context-driven approach suggests two steps. The first step consists of developing a model for anchoring context to data flowing between Web services. In the second step, we use this model to support the semantic mediation between Web services engaged in a composition.

Michael Mrissa, Chirine Ghedira, Djamal Benslimane, Zakaria Maamar
Modeling Service Compatibility with Pi-calculus for Choreography

Service choreography has become an emerging and promising technology to design and build complex cross-enterprise business applications. Dynamic composition of services on the fly requires mechanisms for ensuring that the component services in the composition are compatible with each other. Current service composition languages provide notations for describing the interactions among component services. However, they focus only on the compatibility at the syntax and semantic level in an informal way, yet ignoring the dynamic behavior within services. This paper emphasizes the importance of the behavior in the compatibility verification between services and utilizes the

π

-calculus to model the service behavior and the interaction in a formal way. Based on the formalization, it proposes a method based on the operational semantics of the

π

-calculus to automate the verification of compatibility between two services and presents an algorithm to measure the compatibility degree quantitatively.

Shuiguang Deng, Zhaohui Wu, Mengchu Zhou, Ying Li, Jian Wu
The DeltaGrid Abstract Execution Model: Service Composition and Process Interference Handling

This paper introduces the DeltaGrid abstract execution model as a foundation for building a semantically robust execution environment for concurrent processes executing over Delta-Enabled Grid Services (DEGS). A DEGS is a Grid Service with an enhanced capability to capture incremental data changes, known as deltas, associated with service execution in the context of global processes. The abstract model contains a service composition model that provides multi-level protection against service execution failure, thus maximizing the forward recovery of a process. The model also contains a process recovery model to handle the possible impact caused by failure recovery of a process on other concurrently executing processes using data dependencies derived from a global execution history and using user-defined correctness criteria. This paper presents the abstract execution model and demonstrates its use. We also outline future directions for incorporating application exception handling and build a simulation framework for the DeltaGrid system.

Yang Xiao, Susan D. Urban, Ning Liao

Quality in Conceptual Modeling

Evaluating Quality of Conceptual Models Based on User Perceptions

This paper presents the development of a user evaluations based quality model for conceptual modeling applying the model of DeLone and McLean [6] for evaluating information systems in general. Given the growing awareness about the importance of high-quality conceptual models, it is surprising that there is no practical evaluation framework that considers the quality of conceptual models from a user’s perspective. Human factors research in conceptual modeling is still scarce and the perception of quality by model users has been largely ignored. A first research goal is therefore to determine what the appropriate dimensions are for evaluating conceptual models from a user’s perspective. Secondly, we investigate the relationships between these dimensions. Furthermore, we present the results of two experiments with 187 and 124 business students respectively, designed to test the proposed model and the generated hypotheses. The results largely support the developed model and have implications for both theory and practice of quality evaluation of conceptual models.

Ann Maes, Geert Poels
Representation Theory Versus Workflow Patterns – The Case of BPMN

Selecting an appropriate process modeling language forms an important task within business process management projects. A wide range of process modeling languages has been developed over the last decades, leading to an obvious need for rigorous theory to assist in the evaluation and comparison of the capabilities of these languages. While academic progress in the area of process modeling language evaluation has been made on at least two premises, Representation Theory and Workflow Patterns, it remains unclear how these frameworks relate to each other. We use a generic framework for language evaluation to establish similarities and differences between these acknowledged reference frameworks and discuss how and to what extent they complement respectively substitute each other. Our line of investigation follows the case of the popular BPMN modeling language, whose evaluation from the perspectives of Representation Theory and Workflow Patterns is reconciled in this paper.

Jan Recker, Petia Wohed, Michael Rosemann
Use Case Modeling and Refinement: A Quality-Based Approach

In this paper, we propose a quality-based use case refinement approach. It consists of a step by step refinement process that combines quality metrics with use case transformation rules. We propose several quality metrics, based on complexity concepts, aimed at measuring the complexity of use cases. Starting from an initial use case, we apply successively a set of transformation rules and measure the resulting use case based on the quality metrics. Our approach is embedded in a general framework allowing us to guide software designers by the mean of quality metrics.

Samira Si-said Cherfi, Jacky Akoka, Isabelle Comyn-Wattiau

Aspects of Conceptual Modeling

Ontology with Likeliness and Typicality of Objects in Concepts

Ontologies play an indispensable role in the Semantic Web by specifying the definitions of concepts and individual objects. However, most of the existing methods for constructing ontologies can only specify concepts as crisp sets. However, we cannot avoid encountering concepts that are without clear boundaries, or even vague in meanings. Therefore, existing ontology models are unable to cope with many real cases effectively. With respect to a certain category, certain objects are considered as more representative or typical. Cognitive psychologists explain this by the prototype theory of concepts. This notion should also be taken into account to improve conceptual modeling. While there has been different research attempting to handle vague concepts with fuzzy set theory, formal methods for measuring typicality of objects are still insufficient. We propose a cognitive model of concepts for ontologies, which handles both likeliness (fuzzy membership grade) and typicality of individuals. We also discuss the nature and differences between likeliness and typicality. This model not only enhances the effectiveness of conceptual modeling, but also brings the results of reasoning closer to human thinking. We believe that this research is beneficial to future research on ontological engineering in the Semantic Web.

Ching-man Au Yeung, Ho-fung Leung
In Defense of a Trope-Based Ontology for Conceptual Modeling: An Example with the Foundations of Attributes, Weak Entities and Datatypes

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in approaches that employ foundational ontologies as theoretical tools for analyzing and improving conceptual modeling languages. However, some of these approaches do not always make explicit their ontological commitments. This leads to situations where criticisms resulting from the specific ontological choices made by a particular approach are generalized to the enterprise of ontology as a whole. In this paper we discuss an example of such a case involving the BWW approach. First, we make explicit the ontological commitments underlying that approach by relating it to other possible philosophical alternatives. Second, we construct an ontological theory which commits to a different philosophical position. Third, we show how the ontology proposed here can be used to provide real-world semantics and sound modeling guidelines for the modeling constructs of Attributes, Weak Entities and Datatypes. Finally, we compare the ontology proposed here with BWW, thus demonstrating its benefits.

Giancarlo Guizzardi, Claudio Masolo, Stefano Borgo
Explicitly Representing Superimposed Information in a Conceptual Model

Superimposed information

(SI) refers to new information such as annotations and summaries overlaid on fragments of existing

base information

(BI) such as web pages and PDF documents. Each BI fragment is referenced using an encapsulated address called a

mark

. Based on the widespread applicability of SI and wide range of superimposed applications (SAs) that can be built, we consider here how to represent marks explicitly in a conceptual model for an SA. The goal of this work is to facilitate the development of SAs by making it easy to model SI (including the marks) and to exploit the middleware and query capability that we have developed for managing marks and interacting with the base applications. The contribution of this paper is a general-purpose framework to make marks explicit in a conceptual (ER) model. We present conventions to associate marks with entities, attributes, and relationships; and to represent that an attribute’s value is the same as the excerpt obtained from a mark. We also provide procedures to automatically convert ER schemas expressed using our conventions to relational schemas, and show how a resulting relational schema supports SQL queries over the combination of SI, the associated marks and the excerpts associated with the marks.

Sudarshan Murthy, Lois Delcambre, David Maier

Modeling Advanced Applications

Preference Functional Dependencies for Managing Choices

The notion of user preference in database modeling has recently received much attention in advanced applications, such as personalization of e-services, since it captures the human wishes on querying and managing data. The paradigm of preference-driven choices in the real world requires new semantic constraints in modelling. In this paper, we assume preference constraints can be defined over data domains and thus the assumption gives rise to preference relations as a special case of ordered relations over schemas consisting of the preference, preferencedependent and preference-independent attributes. We demonstrate that Lexicographically Ordered Functional Dependencies (LOFDs) can be employed to maintain the consistency of preference semantics embedded in preference database, since prioritized multiple preferences can be represented. We thus define a useful semantic constraint in terms of a set of LOFDs, called Preference Functional Dependencies (PFDs), in order to capture the semantics of the preference ranked data. We exhibit a sound and complete axiom system for PFDs, whose implication problem is shown to be decidable in polynomial-time. We also confirm the existence of Armstrong preference relations for PFDs, a fundamental result related to the practical use of PFDs in database design.

Wilfred Ng
Modeling Visibility in Hierarchical Systems

We consider hierarchical systems where nodes represent entities and edges represent binary relationships among them. An example is a hierarchical composition of Web services where the nodes denote services and edges represent the parent-child relationship of a service invoking another service. A fundamental issue to address in such systems is, for two nodes X and Y in the hierarchy whether X can see Y, that is, whether X has visibility over Y. In a general setting, X seeing Y may depend on (i) X wishing to see Y, (ii) Y wishing to be seen by X, and (iii) other nodes not objecting to X seeing Y. The visibility could be with respect to certain attributes like operational details, execution logs, security related issues, etc. In this paper, we develop a generic conceptual model to express visibility. We study two complementary notions:

sphere of visibility

of a node X that includes all the nodes in the hierarchy that X sees; and

sphere of noticeability

of X that includes all the nodes that see X. We also identify the dual properties, coherence and correlation, that relate the visibility and noticeability notions. We propose elegant methods of constructing the spheres with these properties.

Debmalya Biswas, K. Vidyasankar
A Model for Anticipatory Event Detection

Event detection is a very important area of research that discovers new events reported in a stream of text documents. Previous research in event detection has largely focused on finding the first story and tracking the events of a specific topic. A topic is simply a set of related events defined by user supplied keywords with no associated semantics and little domain knowledge. We therefore introduce the Anticipatory Event Detection (AED) problem: given some user preferred event transition in a topic, detect the occurence of the transition for the stream of news covering the topic. We confine the events to come from the same application domain, in particular, mergers and acquisitions. Our experiments showed that classical cosine similarity method fails for the AED task, whereas our conceptual model-based approach, through the use of domain knowledge and named entity type assignments, seems promising. We show experimentally that an AED voting classifier operating on a vector representation with name entities replaced by types performed AED successfully.

Qi He, Kuiyu Chang, Ee-Peng Lim

XML

A Framework for Integrating XML Transformations

XML is the de facto standard for representing and exchanging data on the World Wide Web and XSLT is a primary language for XML transformation. Integration of XML data is an increasingly important problem and many methods have been developed. In this paper, we study the related and more difficult problem of how to integrate XSLT programs. Program integration can be particularly important for server-side XSLT applications, where it is necessary to generate a global XSLT program, that is a combination of some initial XSLT programs and which is required to operate over a newly integrated XML database. This global program should inherit as much functionality from the initial XSLT programs as possible, since designing a brand new global XSLT program from scratch could be expensive, slow and error prone, especially when the initial XSLT programs are large or/and complicated. However, it is a challenging task to develop methods to support XSLT integration. Difficulties such as template identification, unmapped template processing and template equivalence all need to be resolved. In this paper, we propose a framework for semi-automatic integration of XSLT programs. Our method makes use of static analysis techniques for XSLT and consists of four key steps: i) Pattern Specialization, ii) Template Translation, iii) Lost Template Processing and iv) Program Integration. We are not aware of any previous work that deals with integrating XML transformations.

Ce Dong, James Bailey
Oxone: A Scalable Solution for Detecting Superior Quality Deltas on Ordered Large XML Documents

Recently, a number of relational-based approaches for detecting the changes to XML data have been proposed to address the scalability problem of main memory-based approaches (e.g., X-Diff, XyDiff). These approaches store the XML documents in the relational database and issue SQL queries (whenever appropriate) to detect the changes. In this paper, we propose a relational-based

ordered

XML change detection technique (called

Oxone

) that uses a

schema-conscious

approach as the underlying storage strategy for XML data. Previous efforts have focused on detecting changes to ordered XML in an

schema-oblivious

storage environment. Although the schema-oblivious approach produces better

result quality

compared to XyDiff (a main memory-based ordered XML change detection approach), its performance degrade with increase in data size and is slower than XyDiff for smaller data set. We propose a technique to overcome these limitations. Our experimental results show that

Oxone

is up to 22 times faster and more scalable than the relational-based schema-oblivious approach. The performances of

Oxone

and XyDiff (C version) are comparable. However, more importantly, our approach is more scalable compared to XyDiff for larger datasets and has much superior the result quality of deltas than XyDiff.

Erwin Leonardi, Sourav S. Bhowmick
Schema-Mediated Exchange of Temporal XML Data

When web servers publish data formatted in XML, only the current state of the data is (generally) published. But data evolves over time as it is updated. Capturing that evolution is vital to recovering past versions, tracking changes, and evaluating temporal queries. This paper presents a system to build a

temporal

data collection, which records the history of each published datum rather than just its current state. The key to exchanging temporal data is providing a

temporal schema

to mediate the interaction between the publisher and the reader. The schema describes how to construct a temporal data collection by “gluing” individual states into an integrated history.

Curtis Dyreson, Richard T. Snodgrass, Faiz Currim, Sabah Currim
A Quantitative Summary of XML Structures

Statistical summaries in relational databases mainly focus on the distribution of data values and have been found useful for various applications, such as query evaluation and data storage. As xml has been widely used, e.g. for online data exchange, the need for (corresponding) statistical summaries in xml has been evident. While relational techniques may be applicable to the data values in xml documents, novel techniques are requried for summarizing the structures of xml documents. In this paper, we propose metrics for major structural properties, in particular, nestings of entities and one-to-many relationships, of XML documents. Our technique is different from the existing ones in that we generate a quantitative summary of an xml structure. By using our approach, we illustrate that some popular real-world and synthetic xml benchmark datasets are indeed highly skewed and hardly hierarchical and contain few recursions. We wish this preliminary finding shreds insight on improving the design of xml benchmarking and experimentations.

Zi Lin, Bingsheng He, Byron Choi

Semantic Web

Database to Semantic Web Mapping Using RDF Query Languages

One of the main drawbacks of the Semantic Web is the lack of semantically rich data, since most of the information is still stored in relational databases. In this paper, we present an approach to map legacy data stored in relational databases into the Semantic Web using virtually any modern RDF query language, as long as it is closed within RDF. Consequently, a Semantic Web developer does not need to learn and adopt a new mapping language, but he may perform the mapping task using his preferred RDF query language.

Cristian Pérez de Laborda, Stefan Conrad
Representing Transitive Propagation in OWL

Transitive propagation along properties can be modelled in various ways in the OWL description logic. Doing so allows existing description logic reasoners based on the tableaux algorithm to make inferences based on such transitive constructs. This is espectially useful for medical knowledge bases, where such constructs are common.

This paper compares, contrasts and evaluates a variety of different methods for simulating transitive propagation: property subsumption, classic SEP triples and adapted SEP triples. These modelling techniques remove the need to extending the OWL language with additional operators in order to express the transitive propagation. Other approaches require an extended tableaux reasoner or first-order logic prover, as well as a modification of the OWL standard.

The adapted SEP triples methodology is ultimately recommended as the most reliable modelling technique.

Julian Seidenberg, Alan Rector
On Generating Content and Structural Annotated Websites Using Conceptual Modeling

An important milestone in the evolution of the Web is the Semantic Web: a Web in which the semantics of the available content and functionality is made explicit. Web design methods, originally aimed at offering a well-structured, systematic approach to Web design, now face new opportunities and challenges: Semantic Web technology can be used to make the semantics of the conceptual design models explicit; however a major challenge is to (semi-) automatically generate the semantic annotations, effectively enabling the Semantic Web. In this paper, we describe how WSDM, a well-known Web design method, was adapted to use Semantic Web technology for its conceptual modeling and how this can be exploited to generate semantically annotated websites. We consider two types of semantic annotations: content-related annotations and structural annotations. The first type allows to describe the semantics of the content of the website, the latter are annotations that explicitly describe the semantics of the different structural elements used in the website.

Sven Casteleyn, Peter Plessers, Olga De Troyer

Requirements Modeling

A More Expressive Softgoal Conceptualization for Quality Requirements Analysis

Initial software quality requirements tend to be imprecise, subjective, idealistic, and context-specific. An extended characterization of the common Softgoal concept is proposed for representing and reasoning about such requirements during the early stages of the requirements engineering process. The types of information often implicitly contained in a Softgoal instance are highlighted to allow richer requirements to be obtained. On the basis of the revisited conceptual foundations, guidelines are suggested as to the techniques that need to be present in requirements modeling approaches that aim to employ the given Softgoal conceptualization.

Ivan J. Jureta, Stéphane Faulkner, Pierre-Yves Schobbens
Conceptualizing the Co-evolution of Organizations and Information Systems: An Agent-Oriented Perspective

In today’s ever-transforming business environment, information systems need to evolve in concert with changes in their organizational settings. In order to help system analysts conceptualize the co-evolution of organizations and information systems, we adopt an agent-oriented perspective to develop the Tropos Evolution Modeling Process for Organizations (TEMPO). Specifically, inspired by Kauffman’s NKC model, we introduce the concept of goal interface into the traditional agent-oriented Tropos methodology; within this interface, evolution is conceptualized as a negotiation process between agents. TEMPO is illustrated with a case study that demonstrates how to evolve a retail website under new European e-commerce legislation. TEMPO is also evaluated with a small behavioral experiment, which offers additional evidence on the usefulness of the approach.

Ning Su, John Mylopoulos
Towards a Theory of Genericity Based on Government and Binding

Conceptual modelling in the area of data-intensive systems produces database schemata and a variety of systems characteristics, which ideally could be used to facilitate the generation of an implementation. This paper proposes a framework for the development of patterns and components that will permit a direct computation of the corresponding functions, whenever all system parameters and the schemata of the application are known. For this a theory of genericity that is based on the linguistic theory of government and binding (GB), which consists of a two-step specialization of ideas or raw utterances, is developed. This theory of GB genericity is applied to obtain generic workflows and the functionality involved in them.

Alexander Bienemann, Klaus-Dieter Schewe, Bernhard Thalheim

Aspects of Interoperability

Concept Modeling by the Masses: Folksonomy Structure and Interoperability

The recent popularity of social software in the wake of the much hyped “Web2.0” has resulted in a flurry of activity around folksonomies, the emergent systems of classification that result from making public the individual users’ personal classifications in the form of simple free form “tags”. Several approaches have emerged in the analysis of these folksonomies including mathematical approaches for clustering and identifying affinities, social theories about cultural factors in tagging, and cognitive theories about their mental underpinnings. In this paper we argue that the most useful analysis is in terms of mental phenomena since naive classification is essentially a cognitive task. We then describe a method for extracting structural properties of free form user tags, based on the linguistic properties of the tags. This reveals some deep insights in the conceptual modeling behavior of naive users. Finally we explore the usefulness of the latent structural properties of free form “tag clouds” for interoperability between folksonomies from different services.

Csaba Veres
Method Chunks for Interoperability

Interoperability is a key property of enterprise applications, which is hard to achieve due to the large number of interoperating components and semantic heterogeneity. Platform-based approaches such as service-oriented architectures address the technical integration of systems. However, a deep integration needs to cover the whole lifecycle of the interoperable system. We propose method engineering as a means for encoding situated knowledge about achieving interoperability in the form of method chunks. We analysed the field of interoperability for enterprise applications and propose that a tool modelling the business- and ICT-related choices in the form of method chunks is needed for a knowledge-based solution of interoperability problems. An industrial case is included to back our claims.

Jolita Ralyté, Per Backlund, Harald Kühn, Manfred A. Jeusfeld
Domain Analysis for Supporting Commercial Off-the-Shelf Components Selection

Though new technological trends and paradigms arise for developing complex software systems, systematic reuse continues to be an elusive goal. In this context, the adoption of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technologies introduces many challenges that still have not been fully overcome, such as the lack of comprehensive mechanisms to record and manage the required information for supporting COTS components selection. In this paper we present a domain analysis approach for gathering the information needed to describe COTS market segments as required for effective COTS components selection. Due to the diversity of the information to capture, we propose different dimensions of interest for COTS components selection that are covered by different domain models. These models are articulated by means of a single framework based on a widespread software quality standard.

Claudia Ayala, Xavier Franch

Metadata Management

A Formal Framework for Reasoning on Metadata Based on CWM

During the metadata creation based on Common Warehouse Metamodel(CWM), the different experiences and views of describing data of organizations involved in metadata creation bring metadata on some problems inevitably, such as inconsistencies and redundancies. However, reasoning on CWM metadata for automatically detecting these problems is difficult because CWM metamodel and metadata lack precise semantics. In this paper, we formalize and reason on CWM metamodel and metadata in terms of a logic belonging to Description Logics, which are subsets of First-Order Logic. We distinguish consistency into horizontal consistency and evolution consistency. Towards evolution consistency, we extend CWM metamodel with version capabilities so that reasoning about inconsistency caused by evolution can be done. Then reasoning engine LOOM is applied to check consistency for the above two situations, the results are encouraging.

Xiaofei Zhao, Zhiqiu Huang
A Set of QVT Relations to Assure the Correctness of Data Warehouses by Using Multidimensional Normal Forms

It is widely accepted that a requirement analysis phase is necessary to develop data warehouses (DWs) which adequately represent the information needs of DW users. Moreover, since the DW integrates the information provided by data sources, it is also crucial to take these sources into account throughout the development process to obtain a consistent representation. In this paper, we use multidimensional normal forms to define a set of Query/View/Transformation (QVT) relations to assure that the DW designed from user requirements agrees with the available data sources that will populate the DW. Thus, we propose a hybrid approach to develop DWs, i.e., we firstly obtain the conceptual schema of the DW from user requirements and then we verify and enforce its correctness against data sources by using a set of QVT relations based on multidimensional normal forms.

Jose-Norberto Mazón, Juan Trujillo, Jens Lechtenbörger
Design and Use of ER Repositories: Methodologies and Experiences in eGovernment Initiatives

In this paper we describe the main results of a fifteen years research activity in the area of repositories of Entity-Relationship conceptual schemas. We first introduce a set of integration/abstraction primitives that are used in order to organize a large set of conceptual schemas in a repository. We describe the methodology conceived to produce the repository of schemas of central public administrations in Italy. Then we describe an heuristic methodology, applied in the production of the set of schemas of the public administrations of an italian region. We also compare the former exact methodology and the heuristic one according to their correctness, completeness, and efficiency. Finally, we show how such repositories can be used in eGovernment initiatives for planning activities and in the identification of projects. Further work highlights possible evolutions of the repositories toward enhanced semantic representations and usage.

Carlo Batini, Daniele Barone, Manuel F. Garasi, Gianluigi Viscusi

Human-Computer Interaction

Notes for the Conceptual Design of Interfaces

This paper presents a design method for user interfaces based on some ideas from conversation analysis. The method uses

interaction diagram

and it is conceived to design the overall flow of conversation between the user and the computer system in an abstract way, as an architectural prolegomenon to the designer’s choice of the actual interface elements that will be used.

Simone Santini
The User Interface Is the Conceptual Model

Frequently, the structure and description of the data in a database bears little resemblance to the structure and description of data as it appears in the tool that captured it. This makes it difficult for users to write queries because they receive little information from the database schema regarding the precise meaning of the data. We assert that the semantics of data can be more reliably understood by viewing the data in the context of the user interface (UI) of the software tool used to enter the data rather than the bare framework of a database. GUAVA (GUi As View) presents a conceptual model that captures information about user interface components. In this paper, we describe how to model a forms-based UI using a GUAVA-tree (g-tree), which can be used to generate a natural schema against which querying is simple. We then introduce and formalize the notion of a channel of database transformation operators from the natural schema to the underlying physical schema.

James F. Terwilliger, Lois M. L. Delcambre, Judith Logan
Towards a Holistic Conceptual Modelling-Based Software Development Process

Traditionally, the Conceptual Modelling (CM) community has been interested in defining methods to model Information Systems by specifying their data and behaviour, disregarding user interaction. On the other hand, the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community has defined techniques oriented to the modelling of the interaction between the user and the system, proposing a user-centred software construction, but leaving out details on system data and behaviour. This paper aspires to reconcile both visions by integrating task modelling techniques using a sound, conceptual model-based software development process in a HCI context. The system is considered on its three axis (data, functionality and interaction), as a whole. The use of CTT (Concurrent Task Trees) embedded in a model-based approach makes it possible to establish mapping rules between task structure patterns that describe interaction and the elements of the abstract interface model. By defining such structural patterns, the CTT notation is much more manageable and productive; therefore, this HCI technique can be easily integrated in a well-established conceptual modelling approach. This proposal is underpinned by the MDA-based technology OlivaNova Method Execution, which allows real automatic software generation, while still taking user interface into account at an early requirements elicitation stage.

Sergio España, José Ignacio Panach, Inés Pederiva, Óscar Pastor

Business Modeling

A Multi-perspective Framework for Organizational Patterns

The goal of this paper is twofold. First we present a multi-perspective framework supporting the description of organizational patterns, supporting the design of business conversations among organizations within a virtual enterprise. The framework exploits three different concurrent views: an

intentional view

, a

strategic view

and a

process view

. Each view addresses a specific set of concerns of interest to different stakeholders in the system and, as a consequence, it has its own particular notation, rationale and constraints. The paper then introduces three patterns that are particularly well-suited for designing business conversations. One of these is studied in detail and validated through a non-trivial case study from an Italian industrial district.

Enzo Colombo, John Mylopoulos
Deriving Concepts for Modeling Business Actions

We outline a procedure called communicative and material functions analysis that can be used to derive business modeling concepts. It is rooted in the language-action perspective on organizations and has its point of departure in Business Action Theory, an empirically grounded framework for modeling business processes from an action perspective. We apply this procedure to enhance an existing method, the Situation-adaptable work and Information systems Modeling Method. This extended method is then used to analyze a business situation in order to follow up the commitments that are made in the course of a business process with the ultimate aim of detecting flaws in that process.

Peter Rittgen
Towards a Reference Ontology for Business Models

Ontologies are viewed as increasingly important tools for structuring domains of interests. In this paper we propose a reference ontology of business models using concepts from three established business model ontologies; the REA, BMO, and e3-value. The basic concepts in the reference ontology concern actors, resources, and the transfer of resources between actors. Most of the concepts in the reference ontology are taken from one of the original ontologies, but we have also introduced a number of additional concepts, primarily related to resource transfers between business actors. The purpose of the proposed ontology is to increase the understanding of the original ontologies as well as the relationships between them, and also to seek opportunities to complement and improve on them.

Birger Andersson, Maria Bergholtz, Ananda Edirisuriya, Tharaka Ilayperuma, Paul Johannesson, Jaap Gordijn, Bertrand Grégoire, Michael Schmitt, Eric Dubois, Sven Abels, Axel Hahn, Benkt Wangler, Hans Weigand

Reasoning

Reasoning on UML Class Diagrams with OCL Constraints

We propose a new approach to check whether a given UML class diagram with its OCL integrity constraints satisfies a set of desirable properties such as schema satisfiability, class liveliness, redundancy of integrity constraints or reachability of partially specified states. Our approach is based on translating both the class diagram and the OCL constraints into a logic representation. Then, we use the CQC Method to verify whether these properties hold for the given diagram and constraints.

Anna Queralt, Ernest Teniente
On the Use of Association Redefinition in UML Class Diagrams

Association redefinition is a new concept in UML 2.0 that makes it possible to impose additional constraints on some instances of associations. In this paper, we describe how to use association redefinition to declare additional referential integrity and cardinality constraints for associations. We also analyze the interactions between taxonomic constraints and association redefinitions and their impact on the satisfaction of taxonomic constraints. Finally, we establish several conditions that are necessary to guarantee well-formed association redefinitions.

Dolors Costal, Cristina Gómez
Optimising Abstract Object-Oriented Database Schemas

Conceptual design is one step on the way from requirements analysis to implementation. During conceptual design of a database application we work with conceptual database schemas, which are based on a formal model. Because of this formal model it is possible to investigate equivalence of schemas and consequently to examine schema transformations. In an earlier work we presented a cost model that allows us to estimate time costs for machine programs of an abstract database machine. In this paper we show how this cost model can be employed to evaluate cost effects of schema transformations. This enables us to steer schema transformations to meet given time requirements of critical database queries and updates. In particular, we analyse the schema transformation pivoting. As a result of such an analysis we can characterise high-level queries and updates and tell how the time required for their execution is affected by the schema transformation.

Joachim Biskup, Ralf Menzel

Panels

Experimental Research on Conceptual Modeling: What Should We Be Doing and Why?

This panel considers a number of contentious issues in the conduct of experimental research on conceptual modeling. The panelists will present a range of perspectives on the issues to encourage audience input and discussion.

Geert Poels, Andrew Burton-Jones, Andrew Gemino, Jeffrey Parsons, V. Ramesh
Eliciting Data Semantics Via Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches: Challenges and Opportunities

Data semantics can be defined as the meaning and use of data [2]. In the context of databases, data semantics refers to the set of mappings from a representation language to agreed-upon concepts in the real world [1]. Eliciting and capturing data semantics can enable better management of the enterprise data. Additionally, elicitation of data semantics can enhance understanding of applications and result in reduced maintenance and testing costs along with improved administration of applications. “Bad” data, or data whose semantics are not known or are not clear, is considered a major cause of failures such as “botched marketing campaigns, failed CRM and data warehouse projects, angry customers, and lunkhead decisions” [3]. To investigate the practical challenges and to propose future research opportunities, this discussion panel, moderated by Vijay Khatri and Carson Woo, will present: 1) views from Management Information Systems (MIS) and Computer Science (CS) research as well as 2) methods, tools and approaches employed in practice.

Lois Delcambre, Vijay Khatri, Yair Wand, Barbara Williams, Carson Woo, Mark Zozulia

Industrial Track

The ADO.NET Entity Framework: Making the Conceptual Level Real

This paper describes the ADO.NET Entity Framework, a platform for programming against data that raises the level of abstraction from the logical (relational) level to the conceptual (entity) level, and thereby significantly reduces the impedance mismatch for applications and data services such as reporting, analysis, and replication. The conceptual data model is made real by a runtime that implements an extended relational model (the Entity Data Model aka the EDM), that embraces entities and relationships as first class concepts; a query language for the EDM; a comprehensive mapping engine that translates from the conceptual to the logical (relational) level, and a set of model-driven tools that help create entity-object, object-xml, and entity-xml transformers.

José A. Blakeley, S. Muralidhar, Anil Nori
XMeta Repository and Services

The XMeta repository is an emerging industrial-strength model and instance persistence, management, access, query, update, upgrade and mapping facility based on EMF modelling technology. It is actively used as the foundation of several commercial metadata intensive products within IBM as well as several research efforts involving conceptual modeling. This talk covers both the features of XMeta and its services, and some of its current uses. It is expected that a version of XMeta will be made more widely available in some external form in the future.

Lee Scheffler
IBM Industry Models: Experience, Management and Challenges

IBM’s Industry Models for Banking and Insurance continue to evolve to encompass our accumulated experience with our customers, the changing needs of the industry, and the changing directions in technologies. With over 15 years of use, these models represent a wealth of information about the information models, process models and integration models for these industries. The models are in use today by more than 300 leading Banks and Insurance companies, where they serve in a variety of capacities – from supporting Data Consolidation initiatives and Business Process Re-Design to addressing Risk & Compliance issues such as Anti-Money Laundering, Sarbanes-Oxley, or Basel II.

As successful as these models have been, technical challenges remain. Such challenges include:

1. the extension of the models to formally incorporate (and relate) additional dimensions (ontologies, states, KPIs, rules, etc)

2. how to establish both inter-model relationships as well as traceability (and per-haps round-tripping) from models to runtime

3. how to better identify and reuse common model snippets across domains

4. how to facilitate better understanding of complex models

5. automating the deployment of run-time artifacts based on models

While the IBM Industry Models represent a significant body of content, the management of this content and more broadly the management of metadata are also key concerns. In this talk, we will review the IBM Industry Models, discuss how this work is evolving, the metadata management roadmap and discuss some of these key ongoing technical challenges to be addressed by both research and development communities.

Pat G. O’Sullivan, Dan Wolfson
Community Semantics for Ultra-Scale Information Management

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) presents an instance of an ultra-scale information management problem: thousands of information systems, millions of users, billions of dollars for procurement and operations. Military organizations are often viewed as the ultimate in rigid hierarchical control. In fact, authority over users and developers is widely distributed, and centralized control is quite difficult – or even impossible, as many of the DoD core functions involve an extended enterprise that includes completely independent entities, such as allied military forces, for-profit corporations, and non-governmental organizations. For this reason, information management within the DoD must take place in an environment of limited autonomy, one in which influence and negotiation are as necessary as top-down direction and control.

This presentation examines the DoD’s information management problems in the context of its transformation to network-centric warfare The key tenent of NCW holds that “seamless” information sharing leads to increased combat power. We examine several implications of the net-centric transformation and show how each depends upon shared semantic understanding within communities of interest. Opportunities for research and for commercial tool development in the area of conceptual modeling will be apparent as we go along.

Scott Renner
Managing Data in High Throughput Laboratories: An Experience Report from Proteomics

Scientific laboratories are rich in data management challenges. This paper describes an end-to-end information management infrastructure for a high throughput proteomics industrial laboratory. A unique feature of the platform is a data and applications integration framework that is employed for the integration of heterogeneous data, applications and processes across the entire laboratory production workflow. We also define a reference architecture for implementing similar solutions organized according to the laboratory data lifecycle phases. Each phase is modeled by a set of workflows integrating programs and databases in sequences of steps and associated communication and data transfers. We discuss the issues associated with each phase, and describe how these issues were approached in the proteomics implementation.

Thodoros Topaloglou
Policy Models for Data Sharing

Data sharing has become an enabler of a diverse and important set of activities in areas such as science, law enforcement, and commerce. Data sharing scenarios frequently involve issues such as personal confidentiality, data misinterpretation, the potential for malicious exploitation of shared data, data with proprietary or first-use value, secret data, and governmental regulation. For these reasons, the need to state and enforce data sharing policy has grown increasingly significant. In this talk, we discuss models for data sharing policy and their key concepts.

Ken Smith

Demos and Posters

Protocol Analysis for Exploring the Role of Application Domain in Conceptual Schema Understanding

In keeping with prior research [1] that suggests that the objective of empirical research in conceptual modeling is to understand the cognitive model created by viewing conceptual schemas (e.g., ER diagrams), this research contributes to the foundation for developing a cognitive model of conceptual modelers. The aspect on which we focus in our research is the role of the application domain in conceptual schema understanding.

Vijay Khatri, Iris Vessey
Auto-completion of Underspecified SQL Queries

Formulating SQL queries involving joins is tedious, error-prone, and requires in-depth schema knowledge. We demonstrate a modified version of SQL [2] that does not require specification of table references and joins. The Schema-Free SQL system can expresses queries not supported in keyword-based searches [1]. Unlike Universal Relation approaches, the system is scaleable to large schemas, and it has built-in mechanisms for handling ambiguity and ranking interpretations for the user. The auto-completion feature is not intended to remove all of the complexity in building SQL queries, just like auto-completion of code fragments does not remove the challenges of programming. However, it does make it easier to build SQL queries. Thus, the system provides a value-added feature to SQL querying that increases its flexibility and usability with no sacrifice in expressiveness or performance. The amount of the final SQL code that is autocompleted depends on the number of joins and the complexity of the rest of the SQL expression. The time to complete a query takes around 5 milliseconds [3].

Terrence Mason, Ramon Lawrence
iQL: A Query Language for the Instance-Based Data Model

Unlike class-based models, such as the relational model and object-oriented models, the instance-based data model (IBDM) [1] separates data stored about individual things (instances) from how those instances are classified, resulting in a ‘two-layered’ approach (instance and class layers). In this poster and system demonstration, we illustrate the use of iQL (instance-based query language) for the IBDM. This language supports unique query capabilities that exploit the separation of data about instances from their classification. The tool has been implemented in conjunction with a prototype DBMS to support the IBDM [2].

Jeffrey Parsons, Jianmin Su
Designing Under the Influence of Speech Acts: A Strategy for Composing Enterprise Integration Solutions

Designing enterprise-wide integration solutions remains a difficult task. Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP) [1] provide possible design solutions that may be used to compose enterprise-wide integration solutions. Because of the multitude of platforms on which legacy systems are implemented, these composed solutions must ensure platform-independent implementation, e.g. with web services. A promising mechanism that allows this path is conversation models [2] that may be used to implement interactions among web services that represent different legacy systems. For this translation to occur, though, EIPs must be converted into a representation that is amenable to a conversation models.

Karthikeyan Umapathy, Sandeep Purao
Geometry of Concepts

Every study organizes data according to a specific conceptualization scheme, which is defined by the purpose and method of exploration. Co-processing data from diverse studies requires concept mapping. The model presented in this work places all elements of knowledge into a topological space. Conceptualization schemes subdivide this space into subspaces of lower dimensionality where every element has well-defined coordinates. Allocating semantics to the conceptualization scheme enables the use of abstract mathematical approaches, such as category theory and geometry, for concept and data mapping. Relative coordinates of concepts, models and data are defined via morphisms that represent complex relationships among these elements. Data models for implementing morphisms in a database are presented here. This work provides a framework for data and knowledge integration illustrated with practical examples. It addresses several important challenges in interdisciplinary data integration and ontology building, such as defining complex relationships and unambiguous data interpretation. The geometrical interpretation enables visualization of the intangible world of data and knowledge and facilitates interactive and meaningful discussions of the subject.

Olga Brazhnik
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Conceptual Modeling - ER 2006
herausgegeben von
David W. Embley
Antoni Olivé
Sudha Ram
Copyright-Jahr
2006
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-540-47227-8
Print ISBN
978-3-540-47224-7
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/11901181