View Integration in Conceptual Database Design : Problems, Approaches and Solutions

Sammanfattning: View integration is a complex and time-consuming task because there are several problems that need to be addressed. Two such problems are conflict identification and conflict resolution. Conflicts occur because end users may define concepts on different levels of abstraction and because end users may name concepts differently. Therefore there is a need for methods that can cope with these problems when applying the chosen conceptual modeling language. The aim of this thesis is to develop a method for view integration in conceptual database design in which the dependencies of the Enterprise Modeling approach are applied. For this purpose four research studies have been conducted and each study is presented in one paper. In the first study the problem of semantic loss during view integration is addressed; in the second, the problems of identification and resolution of the homonym conflicts are addressed; in the third, the problem of how to define both databases and software components using Enterprise Modeling as a generic and integrated approach are addressed; and finally, in the fourth study, the problems of applying inference rules for conflict simplification or resolution and for interschema property simplification or resolution are addressed. These research studies together with the five introductory chapters contribute to answering the overall research question: In what way is view integration supported by applying the semantic dependencies of the Enterprise Modeling approach? In this thesis it is argued that using the dependencies of the Enterprise Modeling approach simplifies the view integration process and using the proposed resolution techniques for name conflicts reduces the possibility of semantic loss occurring.