Building a Hybrid Database Application for Structured Documents

In this article, we propose a database-internal representation for SGML-/HyTime-documents based on object-oriented database technology with the following features: documents of arbitrary type can be administered. The semantics of architectural forms is reflected by means of methods that are part of the database schema and by the database-internal representation of HyTime-specific characteristics. The framework includes mechanisms to ensure conformance of documents to the HyTime standard. Measures for improved performance of HyTime operations are also described. The database-internal representation of documents is a hybrid between a completely structured and a flat representation. Namely, the structured representation is better to support the HyTime semantics, and modifications of document components. On the other hand, most operations are faster for the flat representation, as will be shown.     

Schema evolution and integration

Providing support forschema evolution allows existing databases to be adjusted for varying roles over time. This paper reflects on existing evolution support schemes and introduces a more general and functional mechanism to support schema evolution andinstance adaptation for centralized and distributed object-oriented database systems. Our evolution support scheme is distinguished from previous mechanisms in that it is primarily concerned with preserving existing database objects and maintaining compatibility for old applications, while permitting a wider range of evolution operations. It achieves this by supporting schema versioning, allowing multiple representations of instances to persist simultaneously, and providing for programmer specification of how to adapt existing instances. The mechanism is general enough to provide much of the support necessarily forheterogeneous schema integration, as well as incorporating much of the features of object migration and replication.     

Automatic property‐based testing and path validation of XQuery programs

Property‐based testing has gained popularity in recent years in many areas of software development. The specification of assertions/properties helps to understand the semantics of pieces of code, and in modern programming environments, it can serve to test the program behavior. In this paper an XQuery property‐based testing tool is presented, which enables to automatically test XQuery programs. The tool is able to systematically generate XML instances (i.e., test cases) from a given XML schema, and to filter XML instances with input properties specified by the programmer. Additionally, the tool automatically checks output (respectively, input‐output) properties in each output instance (respectively, each pair of input‐output instances). The tool is able to report whether the XQuery program passes the test, that is, if all the test cases satisfy the (input‐)output property, as well as the number of test cases used for testing. In addition, if the XQuery program fails the test, the tool shows counterexamples found in the test cases. Properties are specified with XQuery Boolean functions, and the testing tool has been implemented in XQuery. Additionally, an XQuery path validation tool is presented. This tool is able to detect wrong paths in XQuery expressions. The path validation tool takes as input an XML schema, and it reports those paths on the XQuery program that do not match the XML schema. The path validation tool is a complement to the testing tool rejecting XQuery programs that do not conform to the XML schema. The path validation tool has been also implemented in XQuery. Finally, a web tool has been developed enabling to test and validate XQuery programs.     

A Deterministic Logical Semantics for Esterel

Esterel is a synchronous design language for the specification of reactive systems. There exist two main semantics for Esterel. On the one hand, the logical behavioral semantics provides a simple and compact formalization of the behavior of programs using SOS rules. But it does not ensure deterministic executions for all programs and all inputs. As non-deterministic programs have to be rejected as incorrect, this means it defines behaviors for incorrect programs, which is not convenient. On the other hand, the constructive semantics is deterministic (amongst other properties) but at the expense of a much more complex formalism. In this work, we construct and thoroughly analyze a new deterministic semantics for Esterel that retains the simplicity of the logical behavioral semantics, from which it derives. In our view, it provides a much better framework for formal reasoning about Esterel programs.     

Constraint analysis: a design process for specifying operations onobjects

A design process for an object-oriented database design environment, known as constraint analysis, is presented. Given the increased level of semantics associated with an object-oriented database schema, constraint analysis makes use of semantics expressed as database constraints to support the flexible specification of propagation actions for operations on objects. Constraints are formally represented using Horn logic. The constraint analysis process then reasons about constraints at design time to help the designer understand the effects of constraints on object manipulation, identifying possible constraint violations as well as design alternatives for handling violations. An advantage of constraint analysis is that both inherent and explicit schema constraints are included in the analysis process. A formal representation is given that supports the analysis of constraints and the automatic identification of design alternatives for responding to constraint violations     

基于模式集成语义的查询处理

在采用面向对象模型作为公共数据模型的多数据库系统中，基于模式集成语义的查询处理不仅要实现针对集成模式查询到针对输出模式查询的转换，而且要从语义上尽可能减少回答用户查询所需数据，保证对象引用的正确性.为了达到这个目标,提出了一些新的概念及基于模式集成语义的查询处理规则和路径表达式的查询处理方法.     

Rendez-vous with metric semantics

A comparative semantic study is made of an element of the family of concurrent object-oriented programming languages. Particular attention is paid to two notions: (i) dynamically evolving process structures, including a mechanism to name and refer to processes and a means to create new processes, and (ii) rendez-vous between processes involving the sending and answering of messages and the induced execution of method calls. The methodology of metric semantics is applied in the design of operational and denotational semantics, as well as in the proof of their equivalence. Both semantics employ domains which are determined as fixed points of a contracting functor in the category of complete metric spaces. Moreover, fruitful use is made of the technique of defining semantic meaning functions as fixed points of contracting higher-order mappings. Finally. syntactic and semantic continuations play a pervasive role.     

Primitives for schema updates in an object-oriented database system: a proposal

Updating the schema is an important facility for object-oriented databases. However, updates should not result in inconsistencies either in the schema or in the database. We propose a classification of basic schema updates and define a set of parametrized primitives to perform schema updates which the designer will use to define his/her own update semantics.     

Identifying extended entity-relationship object structures inrelational schemas

Relational schemas consisting of relation-schemes, key dependencies and key-based inclusion dependencies (referential integrity constraints) are considered. Schemas of this form are said to be entity-relationship (EER)-convertible if they can be associated with an EER schema. A procedure that determines whether a relational schema is EER-convertible is developed. A normal form is proposed for relational schemas representing EER object structures. For EER-convertible relational schemas, the corresponding normalization procedure is presented. The procedures can be used for analyzing the semantics of existing relational databases and for converting relational database schemas into object-oriented database schemas     

Application invariants: Design by Contract augmented with deployment correctness logic

Design by Contract is a method for the development of robust object‐oriented software, introducing class invariants as conditions corresponding to the design axioms that should be satisfied by every valid instance of a class. Additionally, the method states formally the way client programs should correctly utilize supplier classes, so that the composition of correct programs may be accomplished. However, the contextual correctness of supplier instances within client programs, only reflected in the client‐specific semantics for supplier‐class deployment, cannot be expressed through Design by Contract. For instance, supplier instances satisfying the supplier class invariant may not constitute plausible supplier instances in the context of a particular client program. In this context, we introduce application invariants as an extension to Design by Contract, for hosting the contextual‐correctness logic for supplier instances, as conditionally defined by client programs. This allows stronger validation of supplier instances, through the dynamic encapsulation of client‐specific acceptance filtering, enabling more intensive defect detection. Application invariants are implemented in the context of client classes as methods utilizing correctness condition expressions, are dynamically hosted within supplier instances, while always called by supplier instances when the basic supplier‐class invariant test is performed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Object-oriented query language access to relational databases: A semantic framework for query translation

This research investigates and approach to query processing in a multidatabase system that uses an objectoriented model to capture the semantics of other data models. The object-oriented model is used to construct a global schema, defining an integrated view of the different schemas in the environment. The model is also used as a self-describing model to build a meta-database for storing information about the global schema. A unique aspect of this work is that the object-oriented model is used to describe the different data models of the multidatabase environment, thereby extending the meta database with semantic information about the local schemas. With the global and local schemas all represented in an object-oriented form, structural mappings between the global schema and each local schema are then easily supported. An object algebra then provides a query language for expressing global queries, using the structural mappings to translate object algebra queries into SQL queries over local relational schema. The advantage of using an object algebra is that the object-oriented database can be viewed as a blackboard for temporary storage of local data and for establishing relationships between different databases. The object algebra can be used to directly retrieve temporarily-stored data from the object-oriented database or to transparently retrieve data from local sources using the translation process described in this paper.     

Semantic schema theory for genetic programming

Schema theory is the most well-known model of evolutionary algorithms. Imitating from genetic algorithms (GA), nearly all schemata defined for genetic programming (GP) refer to a set of points in the search space that share some syntactic characteristics. In GP, syntactically similar individuals do not necessarily have similar semantics. The instances of a syntactic schema do not behave similarly, hence the corresponding schema theory becomes unreliable. Therefore, these theories have been rarely used to improve the performance of GP. The main objective of this study is to propose a schema theory which could be a more realistic model for GP and could be potentially employed for improving GP in practice. To achieve this aim, the concept of semantic schema is introduced. This schema partitions the search space according to semantics of trees, regardless of their syntactic variety. We interpret the semantics of a tree in terms of the mutual information between its output and the target. The semantic schema is characterized by a set of semantic building blocks and their joint probability distribution. After introducing the semantic building blocks, an algorithm for finding them in a given population is presented. An extraction method that looks for the most significant schema of the population is provided. Moreover, an exact microscopic schema theorem is suggested that predicts the expected number of schema samples in the next generation. Experimental results demonstrate the capability of the proposed schema definition in representing the semantics of the schema instances. It is also revealed that the semantic schema theorem estimation is more realistic than previously defined schemata.     

Transfinite Semantics in the Form of Greatest Fixpoint

Transfinite semantics is a semantics according to which program executions can continue working after an infinite number of steps. Such a view of programs can be useful in the theory of program transformations.So far, transfinite semantics have been succesfully defined for iterative loops. This paper provides an exhaustive definition for semantics that enable also infinitely deep recursion.The definition is actually a parametric schema that defines a family of different transfinite semantics. As standard semantics also match the same schema, our framework describes both standard and transfinite semantics in a uniform way.All semantics are expressed as greatest fixpoints of monotone operators on some complete lattices. It turns out that, for transfinite semantics, the corresponding lattice operators are cocontinuous. According to Kleene’s theorem, this shows that transfinite semantics can be expressed as a limit of iteration which is not transfinite.     

基于对象的角色工作流模型研究

工作流是流程集成的有效方法，但工作流模型在描述复杂的流程时语义和柔性不足，导致实用中工作流模型的仿真分析和运行能力欠佳；另一方面，对象技术作为一种很有潜力的流程建模方法，可以改善工作流的描述。它与工作流的结合，将有助于上述问题的解决。文章借助对象技术，分析了面向角色的工作流模型，并在此基础上讨论了其实现。     

Conceptual design of object-oriented database schemas using the binary-relationship model

We describe an algorithmic method for transforming a binary-relationship (BR) conceptual schema to an object-oriented (OO) database schema. The BR schema is a semantically rich diagram that represents the reality being modeled in terms of objects, relationships and constraints. It is easy to understand and serves as a communication tool between users and designers. Therefore it can be created in the early stages of system development, and later on be transformed into a specific OO database schema. The transformation method employs a multi-stage algorithm, which first identifies the essential objects in the BR schema, together with their relationships and constraints. These are then mapped to object classes, attributes, and constraints, maintaining the semantics and all types of constraints present in the conceptual schema.     

面向对象的图象数据模型

本文按照图象数据的特点,基于构造性类型定义数据库模式,提出了面向对象的图象数据模型,该模型可以对图象实体的结构及其联系进行描述,并支持语义建模的机制,它为图象实体提供了完善的建模能力,本文还讨论了模型中对象操作的形式语义,给出了构造性类型上图象代数运算所具有的形式。     

Interschema correspondence establishment in a cooperative OWL-based multi-information server grid environment

Establishing interschema semantic knowledge between corresponding elements in a cooperating OWL-based multi-information server grid environment requires deep knowledge, not only about the structure of the data represented in each server, but also about the commonly occurring differences in the intended semantics of this data. The same information could be represented in various incompatible structures, and more importantly the same structure could be used to represent data with many diverse and incompatible semantics. In a grid environment interschema semantic knowledge can only be detected if both the structural and semantic properties of the schemas of the cooperating servers are made explicit and formally represented in a way that a computer system can process. Unfortunately, very often there is lack of such knowledge and the underlying grid information servers (ISs) schemas, being semantically weak as a consequence of the limited expressiveness of traditional data models, do not help the acquisition of this knowledge. The solution to overcome this limitation is primarily to upgrade the semantic level of the IS local schemas through a semantic enrichment process by augmenting the local schemas of grid ISs to semantically enriched schema models, then to use these models in detecting and representing correspondences between classes belonging to different schemas. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using OWL-based domain ontologies both for building semantically rich schema models, and for expressing interschema knowledge and reasoning about it. We believe that the use of OWL/RDF in this setting has two important advantages. On the one hand, it enables a semantic approach for interschema knowledge specification, by concentrating on expressing conceptual and semantic correspondences between both the conceptual (intensional) definition and the set of instances (extension) of classes represented in different schemas. On the other hand, it is exactly this semantic nature of our approach that allows us to devise reasoning mechanisms for discovering and reusing interschema knowledge when the need arises to compare and combine it.     

Language design for program manipulation

The design of procedural and object-oriented programming languages is considered with respect to how easily programs written in those languages can be formally manipulated. Current procedural languages such as Pascal, Modula-2 and Ada; generally support such program manipulations, except for some annoying anomalies and special cases. Three main areas of language design are identified as being of concern from a manipulation viewpoint: the interface between concrete and abstract syntax; the relationship between the abstract syntax and static semantics naming, scoping and typing; and the ability to express basic transformations (folding and unfolding). Design principles are suggested so that the problems identified for current languages can be avoided in the future     

Extending the Object-Oriented Paradigm for Supporting Complex Objects

In this paper a generalized object-oriented approach for complex object modeling is proposed,which ischaracterized by adding the concept of Meta-Class into the object-oriented paradigm for unifying thehandling of object types and primary data models,and also characterized by integrating the modeling ofobject type hierarchy and object configuration hierarchy.Concepts such as Compositional RelationshipObject,Face,Object Configuration Schema Expression,Object Skeleton are introduced to specify objectstructure,to support high degree of object sharing and to offer high degree of data independence.Operationson the class hierarchy,the object configuration structures and the object instances are developed respectivelywith distinguished semantics.This approach provides an extended object-oriented framewerk for handlingcomplex objects in any AI or database system(?).     

Schema evolution of an object-oriented real-time database systemfor manufacturing automation

Database schemata often experience considerable changes during the development and initial use phases of database systems for advanced applications such as manufacturing automation and computer-aided design. An automated schema evolution system can significantly reduce the amount of effort and potential errors related to schema changes. Although schema evolution for nonreal-time databases was the subject of previous research, its impact on real-time database systems remains unexplored. These advanced applications typically utilize object-oriented data models to handle complex data types. However, there exists no agreed-upon real-time object-oriented data model that can be used as a foundation to define a schema-evolution framework. Therefore, the authors first design a conceptual real-time object-oriented data model, called Real-time Object Model with Performance Polymorphism (ROMPP). It captures the key characteristics of real-time applications-namely, timing constraints and performance polymorphism-by utilizing specialization-dimension and letter-class hierarchy constructs, respectively. They then re-evaluate previous (nonreal-time) schema evolution support in the context of real-time databases. This results in modifications to the semantics of schema changes and to the needs of schema change resolution rules and schema invariants. Furthermore, they expand the schema change framework with new constructs-including new schema change operators, new resolution rules, and new invariants-necessary for handling the real-time characteristics of ROMPP