From first-order logic to automated word generation for Lyee

A conceptual schema can be viewed as a language to describe the phenomena in a system to be modelled, i.e. a set of derivation rules and integrity constraints as well as a set of event-rules describing the behaviour of an object system. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the Lyee software requirements concepts with various constructs in conceptual modelling. Within our work we choose the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a modelling notation for explaining conceptual models. The result obtained models a fully expressive set of UML and First Order Logic constructs mapped into Lyee concepts.     

Bridging Ontologies and Conceptual Schemas in Geographic Information Integration

Integration of geographic information has increased in importance because of new possibilities arising from the interconnected world and the increasing availability of geographic information. Ontologies support the creation of conceptual models and help with information integration. In this paper, we propose a way to link the formal representation of semantics (i.e., ontologies) to conceptual schemas describing information stored in databases. The main result is a formal framework that explains a mapping between a spatial ontology and a geographic conceptual schema. The mapping of ontologies to conceptual schemas is made using three different levels of abstraction: formal, domain, and application levels. At the formal level, highly abstract concepts are used to express the schema and the ontologies. At the domain level, the schema is regarded as an instance of a generic data model. At the application level, we focus on the particular case of geographic applications. We also discuss the influence of ontologies in both the traditional and geographic systems development methodologies, with an emphasis on the conceptual design phase.     

CAD^2B—一个计算机辅助数据库设计系统

本文介绍了一个用Ｔｕｒｂｏ Ｃ语言在ＡＳＴ－２８６机器上实现的计算机辅助数据库设计系统ＣＡＤ＾２Ｂ。该系统提供了人机交互的环境，供设计者进行概念模型设计，并自动完成从概念模型逻辑模型的映射，创建满足规范化要求的关系表。该系统采用的概念模型是引入了事件和时间的扩展了的实体关系模型。该模型既能充分反映应用环境的静态和动态语义，又是向关系模式转化的基础。     

Semantic hierarchies and abstractions in conceptual schemata

A conceptual schema is a clear, easy to understand and exact representation of the semantics of an underlying universe of discourse. The role of such schemata in the specification and design of information bases is now widely recognized. However, in “real life” applications, it is often the case that the size of the conceptual schema exceeds the limit above which it is necessary to have an abstraction mechanism available, as otherwise it would become difficult to understand.In this paper, we present several concepts and heuristic procedures which allow for semantic modularization of a conceptual schema, thus providing a concise representation, using different degrees of abstraction and/or viewpoints, of a schema of any size.     

利用本体簇生成标准概念模式

提出了一种标准概念模式的生成方法，为概念模式的复用提供了一种新的方法，其通过引入本体与本体族，对给定概念模式的语义完整性进行评估；然后，对符合完整性要求的概念模式采用量化手段进行处理，从而产生具有代表性的标准概念模式，该方法从语义与结构两个方面对概念模式进行处理，使产生的标准概念模式更具有复用价值。     

A procedure to define the object type structure of a conceptual schema

The most important phase in the design of an information system is, in our opinion, the phase which we have given the name Information Analysis (I.A.). During I.A. a conceptual schema is designed which accurately reflects the deep semantic structure of the information which will eventually be used in the information system.

This paper describes part of a methodology which systematizes the design of the conceptual schema, forcing the user to resolve ambiguities and documenting his decisions. The algorithms used in this methodology allow for automatic detection of certain semantic inconsistencies, as well as automatic generation of (parts of) the final conceptual schema based on specifications provided by the user.

In this paper, we concentrate on the specification and generation of the object type structure of the conceptual schema.     

Fact-oriented modelling for data analysis

Abstract. Although entity-relationship modelling is the most popular means of specifying the conceptual schema for the data perspective of an information system, an alternative design approach known as fact-oriented modelling appears to offer advantages. This paper provides an overview of fact-oriented modelling, including some recent revisions and an evaluation of how the method has coped with large-scale practical applications. One distinguishing feature of the approach is its emphasis on natural verbalization of information examples in terms of elementary facts. This notion of elementarity is clarified to cater for a problematic case involving compositely identified object types. Finally, the algorithm for mapping a conceptual to a relational schema is revised to cater for lazy object types.     

Design of statistical databases: A methodology for the conceptual step

The aim of the conceptual step in database design is to describe data involving in the application in a formal and abstract way, without any concern to the specific model and language chosen for the implementation. In statistical applications, data are described at different levels of aggregation, from elementary facts of the reality to complex aggregations such as classifications, time series, indexes. The paper describes a methodology for conceptual design of statistical databases that provides the designer suitable strategies for defining such different levels of aggregation starting from user requirements, and checking the completeness, coherence and minimality of the conceptual schema at the different levels. The methodology makes use of two data models for the representation of data: for elementary data the Entity-Relationship model, widely used in database applications, and for summary data a new model is proposed, designed to be an effective trade-off between expressive power and simplicity of use.     

Deriving static and dynamic concepts from software requirements using sophisticated tagging

Natural language requirements specifications form the basis for the subsequent phase of the information system development process, namely the development of conceptual schemata. Both, the textual as well as the conceptual representations are not really appropriate for being thoroughly captured and validated by the ‘requirement holders’, i.e. the end users. Therefore, in our approach the textual specifications are firstly linguistically analyzed and translated into a so-called conceptual predesign schema. That schema is formulated using an interlingua which is based on a lean semantic model, thus allowing users to participate more efficiently in the design and validation process. After validation, the predesign schema is mapped to a conceptual representation (e.g. UML). The sequence of these translation and transformation steps is described by the “NIBA workflow”. This paper focuses on the information supporting a step by step mapping of natural language requirements specifications to a conceptual model, and on how that information is gained. On particular, we present a four-level interpretation of tagging-output.     

Multiple views and abstractions with an extended-entity-relationship model

The features of the Entity-Relationship model are examined, as a means for representing both the conceptual schema and the external schema in a database system. In order to serve in this dual capacity, its modelling features are extended to support multiple user views. We show how to represent a model and present a suitable diagrammatic technique. To represent these concepts at the user level we propose a data definition language with a concise and simple structure. Furthermore, guidelines are given for interfacing the E-E-R schema with existing DBTG-like systems.     

Distributed representation learning and intelligent retrieval of knowledge concepts for conceptual design

Data-driven conceptual design is rapidly emerging as a powerful approach to generate novel and meaningful ideas by leveraging external knowledge especially in the early design phase. Currently, most existing studies focus on the identification and exploration of design knowledge by either using common-sense or building specific-domain ontology databases and semantic networks. However, the overwhelming majority of engineering knowledge is published as highly unstructured and heterogeneous texts, which presents two main challenges for modern conceptual design: (a) how to capture the highly contextual and complex knowledge relationships, (b) how to efficiently retrieve of meaningful and valuable implicit knowledge associations. To this end, in this work, we propose a new data-driven conceptual design approach to represent and retrieve cross-domain knowledge concepts for enhancing design ideation. Specifically, this methodology is divided into three parts. Firstly, engineering design knowledge from the massive body of scientific literature is efficiently learned as information-dense word embeddings, which can encode complex and diverse engineering knowledge concepts into a common distributed vector space. Secondly, we develop a novel semantic association metric to effectively quantify the strength of both explicit and implicit knowledge associations, which further guides the construction of a novel large-scale design knowledge semantic network (DKSN). The resulting DKSN can structure cross-domain engineering knowledge concepts into a weighted directed graph with interconnected nodes. Thirdly, to automatically explore both explicit and implicit knowledge associations of design queries, we further establish an intelligent retrieval framework by applying pathfinding algorithms on the DKSN. Next, the validation results on three benchmarks MTURK-771, TTR and MDEH demonstrate that our constructed DKSN can represent and associate engineering knowledge concepts better than existing state-of-the-art semantic networks. Eventually, two case studies show the effectiveness and practicality of our proposed approach in the real-world engineering conceptual design.     

Soft systems methodology to information systems: a Wittgensteinian approach

Abstract. A logical foundation for information system design requires a theory of meaning. Ideational theories attach meaning to the ideas in the private world of a conscious subject. By contrast Wittgenstein held that language and meaning were primarily public and that a private, purely subjective, language was impossible. The iterative debate among stake-holders that takes place in the practice of soft systems methodology (SSM) can be understood as a Wittgensteinian language game in which meaning is created not just discovered. The conceptual models used in SSM can be developed into logico-linguistic models which express stipulative definitions. These definitions can be taken as a logical basis for information system design.     

Towards a cognitive foundation for knowledge representation

Abstract. Knowledge engineering, knowledge management and conceptual modelling are concerned with representing knowledge of business and organizational domains. These research areas use ontologies for knowledge representation. Ontologies are understood either in the philosophical sense as firm metaphysical commitments or in the looser sense of dictionaries or taxonomies.
This paper critically examines the understanding and use of ontologies and knowledge representation languages in information systems (IS) research and application. As ontologies are intended to be conceptualizations of a perceived reality, they should reflect the empirically observed reality. This motivates proposing psychology of language as a reference discipline for knowledge engineering and knowledge management. Natural language is argued to reflect the cognitive concepts we use to think about and perceive the world around us. These cognitive concepts are the relevant terms with which to structure and represent knowledge about the world.
Psychology of language can provide empirical justification for a particular set of concepts to represent knowledge. This paper draws on psycho-linguistic research to develop a proposal for a system of cognitive structures. This is argued to provide the relevant concepts on which to found knowledge representation schemata for knowledge engineering, knowledge management and conceptual modelling.     

Database design with user-definable modelling concepts

Modelling is an integral part of engineering processes. Consequently, database design for engineering applications should take into account the modelling concepts used by engineers. On the other hand, these applications exhibit a wide diversity of modelling concepts. Rather than consolidating these into one single semantic data model one should aim for correspondingly specialized semantic models. This paper takes a constructive approach to developing such specialized models by proposing an Extensible Semantic Model (ESM) as the basis for declaring specialized semantic data models. The paper introduces a computerized environment for database design based on an ESM, and discusses the consequences of the ESM for a number of design tools: the need for a formal definition of the notion of modelling concept in order to have reliable and precise foundation for the extensions, declarative techniques for quickly introducing graphical representations for new concepts and for using them during schema design, conceptual-level test data generation for a designer-oriented evaluation of designs, and optimization techniques to control the wide latitude in mapping a conceptual schema to a logical schema. First experiences seem to point to considerable productivity gains during database design.     

A case study in mapping conceptual designs to object‐relational schemas

The recent emergence of object‐relational technology into the commercial database market has caused new challenges for the implementation of conceptual database designs. This paper presents our experience with using the Oracle 8 object‐relational data model in the implementation of an engineering application described using the EXPRESS conceptual modeling language. EXPRESS is part of the engineering community's Standard for the Exchange of Product Data and can be characterized as a structurally object‐oriented modeling language, supporting the notion of entities, entity hierarchies, complex constraints on entity hierarchies, relationships and inverse relationships between entities, and user‐defined types. As a result, EXPRESS provides an excellent framework for studying the mapping of conceptual modeling concepts into an object‐relational model. In this paper, we describe the way in which the features of EXPRESS can be mapped into object‐relational features such as object tables, object references, and nested tables. We also describe the manner in which features such as member functions on object types, triggers, and stored procedures can be used to support the implementation of constraints associated with a conceptual schema. Although the mappings presented are specific to EXPRESS and Oracle 8, the mappings are generalizable to conceptual modeling languages and object‐relational models with similar features. Our work defines how traditional mapping concepts must be revised in order to make adequate use of the features now found in object‐relational models. As part of this paper, we also compare our mapping approach using Oracle 8 to mapping issues for the PostgreSQL object‐relational model and the Objectivity/DB object‐oriented data model. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ADDS: A system for automatic database schema design based on the binary-relationship model

This paper presents the system ADDS that has been developed to assist the database designer designing a database schema. A distinction is made between the stage of information structure analysis in which the information structure of the system is defined according to its user information needs, and the stage of database schema design in which the record types of the database and the relationships between them are defined. In the first stage a conceptual schema is obtained, represented as an information structure diagram (ISD), and in the later stage the ISD is used to derive the database schema in the form of a data structure diagram (DSD).ADDS automatically creates the database schema out of a conceptual schema which is expressed as an ISD of the binary-relationship data mode. The resulting schema consists of normalized record types, according to the relation model, along with hierarchical/set relationships between ‘owner’ and ‘member’ record types, as in the CODASYL/Network model. ADDS applies algorithms to convert the conceptual schema into the database schema. It is implemented on a micro-computer under MS-DOS using dBASE III.     

Conceptual schema for CAD

A conceptual schema and the associated concepts of entities, attributes, relations and consistency constraints established during the 1976 IFIP TC-2 conference are applied to engineering computer-aided design. Additional concepts of multiple hierarchies of models, structural versions, design control, design analysis and synthesis are required.     

Defining views in the Binary Relationship Model

The Binary Relationship Model has been praised for the way it not only supports, but practically forces us to model the “deep structures” of the information in the conceptual schema. An adverse effect is that the conceptual schema becomes very large. This, combined with the fact that a Binary Relationship Model schema gives a “flat” representation of the information, makes it very hard to distinguish important concepts of a model from its less important details. Furthermore, the length of DML statements is directly proportional to the size of the schema. What we need for practical applications is a way of keeping the “deep structures” while seeing only the “surface structures”. We need to be able to define views on a conceptual schema. We need to be able to select and derive from the conceptual schema precisely the concepts we are interested in for each application of our model.We propose two new concepts for view definition in the Binary Relationship Model, DOTs and shortcuts. DOTs are dervied object types and shortcuts are derived roles which are used in the definition of derived binary relationship types.     

Collaborative optimization with disciplinary conceptual design

For the first time, a multilevel optimization approach with disciplinary conceptual design is demonstrated. Collaborative optimization is used to decompose an example bridge design problem among two groups of designers – a superstructure design group and a deck design group. The disciplinary groups are allowed to search over different design concepts and formulate the design variables and constraints for each. The autonomy of the two groups is managed by a system-level group which insures that overall system objectives are met and coupling is properly accounted for. Even though discrete conceptual design occurs within the disciplinary groups, a continuous gradient-based optimization algorithm is used at the system level. The procedure was started from a nonoptimal concept, and converged to the optimal concept. Received September 9, 1999     

基于草图的面向概念设计的协同图表绘制工具

概念设计过程使用了多种图表来表示设计概念以及构建功能结构.将手绘草图作为设计者之间的一种通信语言引入到异地同步协同概念设计过程,提出了基于手绘草图的协同图表绘制多agent 系统,包含草图交互、草图识别、通信、协调等多个agent.讨论了各agent 之间的通信机制以及主要agent 的实现策略,包括草图识别以及语义一致性维护策略.将系统应用到协同流程图绘制领域,运行结果表明,该工具能够改善人机交互模式,促进多用户之间的交流和协作.