Abstract:
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The evolution of information systems from their conceptual schemas is an
important research area in information systems engineering. In this
paper, we aim at contributing to the area by focusing on a particular
conceptual modeling construct, the partitions. We analyze the evolution
of partitions in conceptual schemas of information systems. We deal with
conceptual models with multiple specialization and classification, and
consider whether entity types are base or derived. We provide a list of
possible schema changes and, for each of them, we give its
preconditions, and its effects on the schema, taking into account the
state of the information base. In this paper, we deal with conceptual
schemas in the UML. However, the results reported here should be
applicable to most conceptual modeling languages and also to
object-oriented database schemas. |