May 2004

Issue: 32

TEST YOUR FOUNDATION KNOWLEDGE
by Fabian Pascal
RELATIONAL WEAKNESSES MY FOOT!

Those who follow my writings (here, at DATABASE DEBUNKINGS , and elsewhere) know that the main thrust of my work has been demonstrating the negative effects of the lack of foundation knowledge on data management practice. They are familiar with the Weekly Quotes I post regularly on my site as evidence of the sad state of that knowledge. At the beginning of a new year I collect the best pearls from among the preceding year's quotes for a yearly presentation called To Laugh or To Cry? Fallacies in Data Management (in fact, I have just completed the 2004 edition, which was offered on May 3rd at the DAMA conference in Los Angeles).

A Semantically Complete Conceptual Modeling Technique
By Vladimir Ovchinnikov

Existent up-to-date conceptual modeling techniques have a row of features that complicate the process of modeling and model study: a designer and a model user have to work in the plane of relations and in the plane of object types simultaneously; to comprehend interconnection of certain object types completely, it is necessary to study a model as a whole; formulation of conceptual queries can not be done without using proper relation designations.

A semantically complete model is proposed as a basis of a conceptual modeling technique that is free of the enumerated peculiarities. For practical using of the semantically complete conceptual modeling technique it is necessary to define notations for models, constraints and conceptual queries. That is the topic of the paper.

Keywords: conceptual modeling, conceptual query language, semantically complete model, semantically complete query language

Conceptual Modeling of Electricity Consumption
Tracking with Semantically Complete Model
By Vladimir Ovchinnikov

Semantically complete modeling technique has a row of essential distinctions from other conceptual modeling techniques: a designer and a user of a model may work in the plane of object types only, not using relation designations; each relation has complete information about interconnection of object types included in it, there is no necessity to rebuild formed idea of object type interconnections during model study; formulation of conceptual queries may be fulfilled without using proper relation designations.

This article considers application of semantically complete modeling technique for conceptual modeling of electricity consumption tracking during creation of an appropriate information system.

Question From Class Assignment
Gordon Everest PhD. and the Data Modeling Class

Here is a question I gave my advanced database design class this spring (2004). Perhaps you would like to include it in JCM. Gordon Everest is long time advocate of Object Role Modeling has introduced ORM to many undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Minnesota

The Message Paradigm in Object-Oriented Analysis
By Dr Manuj Darbari and Dr. Vipin Saxena

The message paradigm is one of the most specific concepts of object orientation. This paradigm works well as long as one object is involved. When more than one object is involved, a choice has to be made with which type the message will be associated. In our opinion, this choice has to be postponed during object-oriented analysis. We propose to extend the concept of the message paradigm to messages with more than one implicit argument. Postponing the choice results in one model for one reality. Another problem rises when no object is involved. In our opinion this issue can best be tackled by introducing a domain layer and a functionality layer.

Awareness Net: An Integrated Modelling Language for Knowledge Sharing Requirements in Collabortive Process
By Farhad Daneshgar, Phd

This article introduces a multiple-perspective modelling language for both describing and measuring the knowledge sharing requirements in collaborative business processes. It is a conceptual framework that facilitates representation and analysis of knowledge sharing requirements of the actors in collaborative business processes. The representation and measurement are performed using a set of collaborative semantic concepts, and with the aim of enhancing collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the process. The type of the proposed language is a variation of Petri-net. However, contrary to many available Petri-net-based role interaction models that mainly aid the representation and execution of structured tasks in some way, the proposed language goes one step further to identify the knowledge sharing requirements of the actors who perform these structured tasks within the collaborative business processes. It provides a unified view of the collaborative process integrating the communication, cooperation and coordination (3Cs) perspectives in one hand, and the functional, behavioural and organisational perspectives in another. In defining knowledge sharing requirements special attention is given to the concepts focus and nimbus as units of identification for these requirements.

Requirements Engineering and RAD: Zachman, MDA,
and Deterministic Phraseology
By Brian Smith

This article is the first in a three-part series on system analysis and how system requirements can be used to accelerate the software development process.

System Requirements: As Important as Ever

System requirements are the bedrock upon which a software development project is built. Their importance is far-reaching and critical to the design of the software that will run the system. They take center stage at both the beginning and end of a project, as well as during sell-off. They define the scope of the system and typically accompany a Statement of Work (SOW) as part of a project’s contractual documentation. During acceptance testing, they are used to validate the finished product and serve as criteria to ensure that the new system meets specifications.

Requirements Engineering and RAD: Zachman, MDA, and Deterministic Phraseology By Brian Smith

Requirements Engineering and RAD: Zachman, MDA,
and Deterministic Phraseology
By Brian Smith