Conceptual data modeling: An algebraic viewpoint

Abstract

Conceptual modeling of a system consists of giving a structured form of information in a way it captures, as much as possible, the semantics of real word objects. The most popular conceptual model for designing operational databases is the Entity-Relationship (ER) model. This model has evolved into models for designing object-oriented system in general. However, despite some formalization attempts, most conceptual techniques remain rather informal. Our aim in this paper is to provide a formal algebraic methodology for conceptual modeling. In the paper we apply our methodology to ER-model but we claim that it is applicable for object modeling with a slight modification. We believe that our approach can help designers in schema validation. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001.