THE
ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP
APPROACH
on
THE
ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP
APPROACH
Manchester, UK
Data modelling for database design, process modelling for software and business process engineering, requirements modelling for software systems and knowledge engineering for expert system development are all activities which require the construction of symbolic representations of aspects of the real world, a task we often call 'world modelling'. Moreover, the demand for such world modelling skills for the computer professional is growing, as we find that software systems need to be conceived right from the start as embedded systems in a complex, evolving organizational setting. The primary vehicles for world modelling have been symbolic, often graphical, notations that go by the name of 'conceptual models'. Of these, the Entity-Relationship Model proposed by Peter Chen in 1975 is by far the best known and most successful.
The Entity-Relationship Conference is the oldest international conference whose sole aim is to provide a forum for the presentation of research and the exploration of research directions on the topic of conceptual modelling. Since its first meeting in San Jose in 1979, this conference has grown in stature and prestige internationally and is now the most established international conference on conceptual modelling. This year's theme, 'Business Modelling and Re-Engineering', is a topic of tremendous interest to industry and one where technological advances in conceptual modelling can have a profound impact on how corporations are engineered and re-engineered to meet changing business objectives and cope with evolving operational environments.
It gives me great pleasure to invite you to E-R '94 in Manchester. I look forward to attending along with you a successful conference that will be remembered for years to come.
John Mylopoulos
General Conference Chair
An Introduction to E-R '94
The ER conference is the primary forum for researchers and practitioners in the field of conceptual data modelling. Since its inception, the ER conference has proved to be one of the major vehicles for exchange of research results and practical experiences using many different modelling approaches including variants of the ER model, Object-Oriented models, Object-Role models, Rule-based models, Temporal models etc. as well as related technology aspects such as databases and knowledge bases.
The ER '94 conference will offer a programme of state of the art papers, combined with panel sessions, invited talks and tutorials. The theme of the conference in 1994 will be Business Modelling and Re-engineering. This is a key challenging area as increasingly organisations strive to improve the coordination between systems and ultimately individuals. Improving the performance of large business processes, some of which may take place across different organisations, requires appropriate modelling techniques and infrastructure technology to assist in the management of the interaction between different agents participating in these processes. The ER '94 conference will represent a balance between the interrelated areas of modelling and infrastructure.
The conference will be held in the Manchester Conference Centre at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Delegates may choose to stay at the conference centre itself or stay in one of Manchester's many fine hotels.
The first day of the conference consists of two half-day tutorial sessions.
Tutorial One
Modelling Business Processes - for Understanding, Improvement and Enactment
Martyn Ould, Praxis PLC
A number of developments have led people to concern themselves with their business processes in recent years, not least business process (re-)engineering. At the same time, new technologies such as workflow management are seen as 'enablers' of new styles of process: in short, the radical change only becomes possible with technological support. Central to this must be a detailed understanding of what the new or redesigned process is to be, and that understanding must be solid enough to ensure that the right process is given the right support by the right technology. In my tutorial I shall present a proven approach to business process modelling that tackles this important bridge between vision and support. I shall show how precise and unambiguous models of a process can be constructed and how the right mix of technologies - workflow, workgroup, IT, and manual - can then be selected for the entire process.
Martyn Ould read mathematics at Cambridge University and entered the software industry directly in 1970, working for several years for ICL on operating systems. After a short spell at King's College Hospital Computer Centre, he worked for eleven years with Logica, principally on real-time systems, as developer, designer, and project manager. In his last two years there he co-founded a company-wide software engineering initiative, concentrating on the introduction of new methods and life-cycles.
In 1985 he joined Praxis where he is now Quality and Technical Director, with responsibility for the company's quality policy and strategy, and its overall technical strategy. Most recently he has been leading the development of Praxis' process modelling technique STRIM and has been consulting for Praxis clients on process issues as well as software engineering.
He has written or edited three books and has a fourth - 'Modelling Business Processes' - in preparation. He is a regular contributor of articles, reviews and papers to the computing press, and lectures frequently to public, government, university and corporate audiences. He is a coeditor of Wiley's Software Engineering Series. He is a Fellow of the BCS and a Chartered Engineer.
Tutorial Two
Object-Role Modelling: NIAM and beyond
Terry Halpin, University of Queensland
For correctness, clarity and efficiency, database schemas are best developed by mapping a conceptual model of the application structure. The most popular approach for specifying conceptual schemas is to use a version of Entity Relationship (ER) modelling. Although useful, ER modelling typically has a number of weaknesses when modelling non-trivial applications. It will be argued that these deficiencies can be overcome by using Object-Role Modelling (ORM) for the tasks of formulating, transforming and evolving conceptual schemas. ORMs role-based notation allows diagrams to be populated with fact instances for validation, and many constraints to be simply depicted. Since ER schemas can be derived from ORM schemas by a simple abstraction mechanism, ORM also provides a better way of developing ER models. Basically, ORM views the application world in terms of objects that play roles; the attribute concept is used only in abstractions. The most well known version of ORM is NIAM, but several advanced versions now exist. This tutorial provides an overview of ORM, and discusses several recent extensions to the following aspects of the method: verbalization; constraints; subtyping; derivation; schema transformation and optimization; abstraction mechanisms; mapping (relational and object-oriented); complex objects; CASE support.
Terry Halpin, BSc, DipEd, BA, MLitStud, PhD, is a senior lecturer in computer science at The University of Queensland, Australia. His doctoral thesis provided a formalization of conceptual schema specifications and equivalence transformations for NIAM (Natural Language Information Analysis Method), a well known version of the ORM (Object-Role Modelling) approach. Currently his major research efforts involve extending the modelling and mapping procedures in ORM to provide more comprehensive and efficient information systems. To support this activity he has also been actively involved with the development of associated CASE tools. In this connection, he is the director of the Asymetrix research laboratory at the University of Queensland. As well as serving on several academic computing committees, he has been an information modelling consultant and trainer for various industry bodies. He is the author or coauthor of over fifty refereed academic papers, as well as two books on logic, and the following book on database design: Conceptual Schema and Relational Database Design, 2nd edition (Prentice Hall, 1994).
Wednesday December 14 Parallel Stream 1
09:00 - 10:30 Opening Session
Welcome
Invited Talk:
'Reflections on the relationship between Business Process Re-Engineering and
Software Process Modelling'
B. Warboys United Kingdom
11:00 - 12:30 Business Process Modelling
'Specifying Business Processes over Objects'
P. Hartel, R. Jungclaus Germany
'Deriving Complex Structured Object Types for Business Process Modelling'
P. Jaeschke, A. Oberweis, W. Stucky Germany
'Business Process Modelling in the Workflow-Management Environment Leu'
G. Dinkhoff, V. Gruhn, A. Sallmann, M. Zielonka Germany
14:00 - 15:30 Enterprise Modelling
'An Assisting Method for Enterprise-wide Conceptual Data Modelling using the Bottom-up Approach'
H. Nakawatase, M. Yamamuro, M. Kawashimo, M. Nakagawa Japan
'Organisational and Information System Modelling for Information Systems
Requirement Determination'
D. Flynn, M. Davarpanah-Jazi United Kingdom
'What makes a Good Data Model? Evaluating the Quality of Entity Relationship
Models'
D. Moody, G. Shanks Australia
16:00 - 17:30 Systems Evolution
'Database Evolution: the DB-Main Approach'
J-L. Hainaut, V.EngleBert, J. Henrard, J-M. Hick, D. Roland Belgium
'Database Schema Evolution through the Specification and Maintenance of Changes
on Entities and Relationships'
C-T. Liu, P. Chrysanthis, S-K. Chang U.S.A.
'Method Restructuring and Consistency Checking in Object-Oriented Systems'
Z. Tari, X.Li Australia
Wednesday December 14 Parallel Stream 2
09:00 - 10:30 Opening Session
Welcome
Invited Talk:
'Reflections on the relationship between Business Process Re-Engineering and
Software Process Modelling'
B. Warboys United Kingdom
11:00 - 12:30 Modelling Integrity Constraints
'Dynamic Semantics in Databases'
B. Thalheim Germany
'Modelling Constraints with Exceptions in Object-Oriented Databases'
N. Bassiliades, I Vlahavas Greece
'Declarative Specification of Constraint Maintenance'
E. Baralis, S. Ceri, S. Paraboschi Italy
14:00 - 15:30 Object-oriented Databases
'On the Representation of Objects with Polymorphic Shape and Behaviour'
M. Papazoglou, A. Bouguettaya Australia B. Krämer Germany
'A Normal Form Object-Oriented Entity Relationship Diagram'
T. Ling, P. Teo Singapore
'COMan Coexistence of Object-Oriented and Relational Technology'
G. Kappel, S. Preishuber, E. Proll, S. Rausch-Schott, W. Retschitzegger, R.
Wagner Austria
16:00 - 17:00 Active Databases
'Cardinality Consistency of Derived Objects in DOOD Systems'
X. Ye, C. Parent, S. Spaccapietra Switzerland
'Conceptual Modelling and Manipulation of Temporal Databases'
A. Ait-Braham, B. Theodoulidis, G. Karvelis United Kingdom
Thursday December 15 Parallel Stream 1
09:00 - 10:30 Invited Talk:
'Process Repositories: Models and Experiences'
M. Jarke Germany
11:00 - 12:30 Panel Session
'Conceptual Modelling: The Emerging Perspective'
Chair: C. Rolland France
14:00 - 15:30 CASE
'A Formal Software Specification Tool Using the Entity-Relationship Model'
N. Nagui-Raïss France
'An Overview of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Extended Entity-Relationship
Tools'
V. Markowitz, A. Shoshani U.S.A.
'A Generic Data Model for the Support of Multiple User Interaction
Facilities'
R. Cooper, Z. Qin United Kingdom
16:00 - 17:30 Reverse Engineering
'Using Queries to Improve Database Reverse Engineering'
J-M. Petit, J. Kouloumdjian, J-F. Boulicaut, F. Toumani France
'Reconstruction of ER Schema from Database Applications: a Cognitive
Approach'
O. Signore, M. Loffredo, M. Gregori, M. Cima Italy
'Extracting an Entity Relationship Schema from a Relational Database through
Reverse Engineering'
M. Andersson Switzerland
Thursday December 15 Parallel Stream 2
09:00 - 10:30 Invited Talk:
'Process Repositories: Models and Experiences'
M. Jarke Germany
11:00 - 12:30 Panel Session
'Conceptual Modelling: The Emerging Perspective'
Chair: C. Rolland France
14:00 - 15:30 Information System Modelling
'Levelled Entity Relationship Model'
M. Gandhi, E. Robertson U.S.A
'Formalised Conceptual Models as a Foundation of Information Systems
Development'
R. Winter Germany
'Abstraction levels for entity-relationship schemas'
C. Francalanci, B. Pernici Italy
16:00 - 17:30 Schema Coordination
'Coordination System Modelling'
M. Norrie, M. Wunderli Switzerland
'Virtual Structures - A Technique for Supporting Scientific Database
Applications'
T. Smith, J. Su, A. Saran U.S.A.
'Resolving Fragmentation Conflicts in Schema Integration'
Y. Dupont Switzerland
Friday December 16
09:00 - 10:30 Re-Engineering
'An Executable Meta Model for Re-Engineering of Database Schemas'
M. Jeusfeld, U. Johnen Germany
'From E-R to 'A-R' - Modelling Strategic Actor Relationships for Business
Process Reengineering'
E. Yu, J. Mylopoulos Canada
'Standard-driven re-engineering of Entity-Relationship schemas'
S. Castano, V. De Antonellis Italy
11:00 - 12:30 Panel Session
'Why don't we know what we are modelling?'
Chair: B. Nillsson Sweden
12:30 Conference Ends
Social Programme
The E-R '94 conference will offer many opportunities for delegates to meet socially. The two organised events in the social programme are a reception which will take place on Wednesday the 14th December and the Conference Dinner which takes place on Thursday 15th December.
The conference reception will take place at the Manchester Conference centre which is the venue for the formal conference sessions. The reception includes a buffet and will give delegates a chance to get to know each other.
The venue for the conference dinner is the Quarry Bank Mill in Styal. The mill was built in 1784 for weaving and spinning cotton. It is now one of the U.K.'s major industrial heritage attractions and offers the chance of seeing the only water powered cotton mill in the world.
Quarry Bank Mill was one of the first generation of factories to harness water power for textile manufacture. The mill was also one of the key developments in the factory system which led to the spectacular rise of the cotton industry. Situated in the heart of Styal Country Park, a 275 acre estate of outstanding beauty, the Mill, Apprentice House and the millworker's village of Styal provide the most complete and best preserved factory colony of the early Industrial Revolution.
Delegates will have the chance of rediscovering the history of the Mill and the cotton industry through a series of dramatic reconstructions, live demonstrations and exciting hands-on displays.
Exhibition
An exhibition of commercial database related software products will accompany the conference. Companies who wish to exhibit should contact:
Babis Theodoulidis
ER94 Conference
Department of Computation
UMIST
P.O. Box 88
Sackville Street
Manchester M60 1QD
U. K.
Historic Manchester
The history of Manchester spans over 1900 years. The original town began life in what is now known as the Castlefield area of the city during the Roman occupation of Britain. The focus of this early settlement was the fort of Mamucium which was built by Gnaeus Julius Agricola in 79 A.D. using turf and timber. A garrison of 500 soldiers took up residence in what became an important crossroads between the Roman settlements at Chester, York, Buxton and Ribchester. In time the fort was replaced by a stone structure and Manchester grew into a civilian settlement of about 2000 people. The fort was abandoned in 411 A.D. following the Roman withdrawal from Britain.
After the Norman conquest of England, Manchester was the largest baronry in the county of Lancashire. The centre of the town at this time was the Church of St. Mary which stood on or near the site of the present day Cathedral. By 1222 Manchester was growing into a sizeable town and was granted the right of holding an annual fair. In 1301 the town received its first charter.
By the 16th. century Manchester had become a prosperous town. The source of this wealth was the flourishing textile industry in southern Lancashire. Manchester acted as the centre for dealers in wool and linen. In 1538 John Leland described Manchester as 'the busiest and most populous town in Lancashire'.
A hundred years further on, in the seventeenth century, woollen weaving in Manchester began to decline and the town became involved in the manufacture of cotton goods. It was the cotton trade which led to the establishment of Manchester as one of the U.K.'s premier cities. Although cotton has today lost its importance for the Manchester economy the city is still occasionally referred to as 'King Cotton'.
The Victorian era saw the zenith of Manchester's wealth. The city has been described as 'England's Greatest Victorian City'. Today's Manchester still contains some of the finest examples of Victorian architecture in Britain.
Modern Manchester is a city of surprises, a city of variety, a city of colour and vitality. In Manchester you can find Europe's largest municipal park, the hottest nightlife in Britain, the best theatreland outside London's West End, two world class orchestras and a shopping centre which caters for all tastes.
Committees
General Conference Chair
John Mylopoulos, University of Toronto, Canada
European Conference Chair
Stefano Spaccapietra, Ecole Polytechnic Federale Lausanne, Switzerland
North American Conference Chair
Sham Navathe, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.
Organising Chair
Keith Jeffery, DRAL, U.K.
Programme Chairs
Pericles Loucopoulos, UMIST, U.K.
Ramez Elmasri, University of Texas, USA.
Panel Organising Chair
Colette Rolland, Universite Paris 1 - Pantheon Sorbonne
Tutorials Organising Chair
Carole Goble, University of Manchester, U.K.
Treasurer
Babis Theodoulidis, UMIST, U.K.
Publicity Chair
Mike Jackson, University of Wolverhampton, U.K.
Programme Assistant
Bob Champion, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Regional Coordinators
R Andersen Norwegian Institute of Technology, Norway
R Carapuca INESC, Portugal
J Fong City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
J B Grimson Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
M Kersten CWI, Netherlands
K-C Lee Hua Hsing Information Corp, Taiwan
M Leonard Universite de Geneve, Switzerland
B G Lundberg University of Stockholm, Sweden
S Nishio Osaka University, Japan
M E Orlowska University of Queensland, Australia
A Pirotte Universite de Louvain, Belgium
F Plasil Czech University of Technology, Czech Republic
S Sa The People's University of China, China
F Saltor Technical University of Barcelona, Spain
G Schlageter Fern University of Hagen, Germany
D Shasha New York University, USA
C K Tan National University of Singapore, Singapore
L Tucherman IBM Brazil, Brazil
Y Vassiliou Research Centre of Crete, Greece
Programme Committee
David Avison U.K.
Jorge Bocca U.K.
Omar Boucelma France
Sjaak Brinkkemper Netherlands
Janis Bubenko Sweden
John Carlis U.S.A.
Sharma Chakravarthy U.S.A.
Valeria De Antonellis Italy
Anthony Finkelstein U.K.
Guy Fitzgerald U.K.
Andre Flory France
Donald Flynn U.K.
Michael Freeston Germany
Carole Goble U.K.
Ted Goranson U.S.A.
Georges Grosz France
Terry Halpin Australia
Michael Huhns U.S.A.
Manfred Jeusfeld Germany
Vram Kouramajian U.S.A.
Mike Mannino U.S.A.
Salvatore March U.S.A.
Leora Morgenstern U.S.A.
Renate Motschnig Austria
Shamkant Navathe U.S.A.
Eric Neuhold Germany
Antoni Olive Spain
Maria Orlowska Australia
Mike Papazoglou Australia
Barbara Pernici Italy
Naveen Prakash India
Sudha Ram U.S.A.
Colette Rolland France
Thomas Rose Germany
Kevin Ryan Ireland
Arie Segev U.S.A.
Amilcar Sernadas Portugal
Madan Singh U.K.
Arne Solvberg Norway
Il-Yeol Song U.S.A.
Stefano Spaccapietra Switzerland
Peter Stocker U.K.
Toby Teorey U.S.A.
Constantino Thanos Italy
Babis Theodoulidis U.K.
Aphrodite Tsalgatidou Greece
Yannis Vassiliou Greece
Benkt Wangler Sweden
Marianne Winslett U.S.A.
Bob Wood U.K.
Trevor Wood-Harper U.K.
Carlo Zaniolo U.S.A.
E-R Steering Committee
Jacky Akoka
Peter Chen
Ramez Elmasri
Hannu Kangassalo
Tok Wang Ling
Fred Lochovsky
Peri Loucopoulos
Sal March
Sham Navathe
Arie Segev
Stefano Spaccapietra (Coordinator)
Toby Teorey
Bernard Thalheim
Min Tjoa
Conference Only Registration (Package A) ( Early Registration: 250.00 sterling, Standard 325.00 sterling)
Conference only registration consists of attendance at any of the conference sessions and lunch 14th and 15th December; tea and coffee between conference sessions; conference dinner; one copy of the conference proceedings. Attendance at the tutorial is not included in this package.
Tutorial and Conference Registration (Package B) (Early Registration: 325.00 sterling, Standard 400.00 sterling)
Tutorial and conference attendance combines Package A with tutorial attendance. This includes a copy of the tutorial notes and lunch on 13th December.
Early registration
Reduced fees for packages A and B are payable if bookings are made on or before 31/10/94
Day Rate (150.00 sterling)
A day rate is available for all the days of the conference including the tutorial day. Payment of this fee will entitle the delegate to attendance, lunch on the day booked; tea/coffee and a copy of the proceedings (conference proceedings if attending a conference day, tutorial slides if attending the tutorial).
Accommodation
Accommodation is not included in the fee for the conference . Delegates may use this form to book at additional cost rooms in the Manchester Conference Centre (Weston Building Hotel) or at the Dominion Hotel. Bed and Breakfast fees are 50.00 U.K. pounds per night at the Weston Building Hotel and 62.50 U.K. poundsper night at the Dominion Hotel. Delegates wishing to find alternative accommodation in Manchester are responsible for making their own arrangements.
Accompanying Persons
The Weston Building Hotel and the Dominion hotel are able to accommodate delegate's partners etc. Accompanying persons will be charged at the same rate as delegates. Additional guests at the conference dinner will be charged 50.00 U.K. pounds. Delegates should supply name, address, special requirements etc. for any accompanying persons.
Student Bursaries
Details of these are available on request from the ER '94 secretariat.
Further details and application forms can be obtained from:
Mrs. Janet Houshmand
ER94 Conference
Department of Computation
UMIST
P.O. Box 88
Sackville Street
Manchester M60 1QD
U.K.
Tel: +44-61-200-3302
Fax: +44-61-200-3324
e-mail: er94@sna.co.umist.ac.uk
Gopher: scitsc.wlv.ac.uk
Public Archive / ER94 Conference Information
ftp: scitsc.wlv.ac.uk
/pub/databaseinfo