November 2006 Issue: 38

FCA assisted IF Channel Construction towards Formulating Conceptual Data Modeling

YANG WANG AND JUNKANG FENG

E-Business Research Institute

Business College, Beijing Union University, China

Database Research Group

School of Computing, University of Paisley

University of Paisley, Paisley, Scotland, UK, PA1 2BE

yang.wang @paisley.ac.uk

junkang.feng@paisley.ac.uk

Abstract: In this paper we explore how IF (Barwise-Seligman’s information flow theory) [3] and FCA (Formal Concept Analysis) [20] may be used to help conceptual data modeling. A fundamental observation we make is that the process of conceptual data modeling is a distributed system in the sense of Barwise-Seligman’s information flow theory, i.e., the Channel theory [3], and therefore the process of conceptual data modeling per se, the correctness of it, and thus the usefulness of the resultant database depends solely on the existence of a relevant information channel (hereafter IF channel) that takes the real world domain being modelled and the conceptual data model as components. Based upon this conviction, we explore how such an IF channel may be constructed and how it guides conceptual data modeling.