Abstract
Human understanding of constraint expressions (also called schema rules) in large conceptual schemas is very difficult. This is due to the fact that the elements (entity types, attributes, relationship types) involved in an expression are defined in different places in the schema, which may be very distant from each other and embedded in an intricate web of irrelevant elements. The problem is insignificant when the conceptual schema is small, but very significant when it is large. In this paper we describe a novel method that, given a set of constraint expressions and a large conceptual schema, automatically filters the conceptual schema, obtaining a smaller one that contains the elements of interest for the understanding of the expressions. We also show the application of the method to the important case of understanding the specification of event types, whose constraint expressions consists of a set of pre and postconditions. We have evaluated the method by means of its application to a set of large conceptual schemas. The results show that the method is effective and efficient. We deal with conceptual schemas in UML/OCL, but the method can be adapted to other languages.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Lenat, D.B.: Cyc: a large-scale investment in knowledge infrastructure. Commun. ACM 38(11), 33–38 (1995)
Object Management Group (OMG): Unified Modeling Language (UML) Superstructure Specification, version 2.3 (May 2010)
Beeler, G.: HL7 Version 3–An object-oriented methodology for collaborative standards development. International Journal of Medical Informatics 48(1-3), 151–161 (1998)
Object Management Group (OMG): Object Constraint Language Specification (OCL), version 2.0 (February 2010)
Hevner, A., March, S., Park, J., Ram, S.: Design science in information systems research. Mis Quarterly 28(1), 75–105 (2004)
Bauerdick, H., Gogolla, M., Gutsche, F.: Detecting OCL Traps in the UML 2.0 Superstructure: An Experience Report. In: Baar, T., Strohmeier, A., Moreira, A., Mellor, S.J. (eds.) UML 2004. LNCS, vol. 3273, pp. 188–196. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Ramirez, A.: Esquema conceptual de Magento, un sistema de comerç electrónic. Technical report. Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/2099.1/12294
Tort, A., Olivé, A.: The osCommerce conceptual schema. Technical report, Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (2007), http://hdl.handle.net/2099.1/5301
Frias, L., Queralt, A., Olivé, A.: EU-Rent car rentals specification. Technical report, Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (2003), http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~techreps/files/R03-59.zip
Villegas, A., Olivé, A.: A Method for Filtering Large Conceptual Schemas. In: Parsons, J., Saeki, M., Shoval, P., Woo, C., Wand, Y. (eds.) ER 2010. LNCS, vol. 6412, pp. 247–260. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Tzitzikas, Y., Hainaut, J.-L.: How to Tame a Very Large ER Diagram (Using Link Analysis and Force-Directed Drawing Algorithms). In: Delcambre, L.M.L., Kop, C., Mayr, H.C., Mylopoulos, J., Pastor, Ó. (eds.) ER 2005. LNCS, vol. 3716, pp. 144–159. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Auddino, A., Dennebouy, Y., Dupont, Y., Fontana, E., Spaccapietra, S., Tari, Z.: SUPER – Visual interaction with an object-based ER model. In: Pernul, G., Tjoa, A.M. (eds.) ER 1992. LNCS, vol. 645, pp. 340–356. Springer, Heidelberg (1992)
Lanzenberger, M., Sampson, J., Rester, M.: Visualization in ontology tools. In: Intl. Conf. on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems, pp. 705–711. IEEE Computer Society (2009)
Shoval, P., Danoch, R., Balabam, M.: Hierarchical entity-relationship diagrams: the model, method of creation and experimental evaluation. Requirements Engineering 9(4), 217–228 (2004)
Moody, D.L., Flitman, A.: A Methodology for Clustering Entity Relationship Models - A Human Information Processing Approach. In: Akoka, J., Bouzeghoub, M., Comyn-Wattiau, I., Métais, E. (eds.) ER 1999. LNCS, vol. 1728, pp. 114–130. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Campbell, L.J., Halpin, T.A., Proper, H.A.: Conceptual schemas with abstractions making flat conceptual schemas more comprehensible. Data & Knowledge Engineering 20(1), 39–85 (1996)
Kuflik, T., Boger, Z., Shoval, P.: Filtering search results using an optimal set of terms identified by an artificial neural network. Information Processing & Management 42(2), 469–483 (2006)
Hanani, U., Shapira, B., Shoval, P.: Information filtering: Overview of issues, research and systems. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 11(3), 203–259 (2001)
Belkin, N.J., Croft, W.B.: Information filtering and information retrieval: two sides of the same coin? Commun. ACM 35, 29–38 (1992)
Villegas, A., Sancho, M.-R., Olivé, A.: A Tool for Filtering Large Conceptual Schemas. In: De Troyer, O., Bauzer Medeiros, C., Billen, R., Hallot, P., Simitsis, A., Van Mingroot, H. (eds.) ER Workshops 2011. LNCS, vol. 6999, pp. 353–356. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Olivé, À.: Definition of Events and Their Effects in Object-Oriented Conceptual Modeling Languages. In: Atzeni, P., Chu, W., Lu, H., Zhou, S., Ling, T.-W. (eds.) ER 2004. LNCS, vol. 3288, pp. 136–149. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Downs, E., Clare, P., Coe, I.: Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method: Application and Context, 2nd edn. Prentice-Hall (1992)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Villegas, A., Olivé, A., Sancho, MR. (2012). Understanding Constraint Expressions in Large Conceptual Schemas by Automatic Filtering. In: Atzeni, P., Cheung, D., Ram, S. (eds) Conceptual Modeling. ER 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7532. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34002-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34002-4_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34001-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34002-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)