Authors: Andrea Neufeld, Peter C. Lockemann, Willi Gotthard
Tags: 1992, conceptual modeling
View integration refers to the activity of merging the locally developed user-oriented views or schemas for a given environment of users and applications into a unique global conceptual schema. View integration is itself part of the larger activity of database design which has as its objective a database structure that satisfies to the best possible degree all data requirements of the potential users and all process requirements of the intended applications. The paper takes its cues from a survey article by Batini, Lenzerini, and Navathe who point out that despite ten or more years of intense research many issues still remain open. Chief among them are a low emphasis on full-scale automated systems, a lack of algorithmic specifications of the integration activities, inattention to the design of databases with new properties such as databases for computer-aided design, and insufficient experience with data models with a rich set of type and abstraction mechanisms. The paper takes all four into consideration by focusing on the realm of design databases for software engineering, by relying on a semantic model on the basis of structural object-orientation, by utilizing the expressiveness of the model to take first steps toward algorithmic solutions, and by demonstrating how corresponding tools could be embedded methodically within the view integration process and technically within a database design environment. The central idea is to compute so-called assumption predicates that express suggested similarities between structures in two schemas to be integrated, and then have a human integrator confirm or reject them. The basic method is exemplified for a data model that includes molecular aggregation, generalization, and versioning. Appropriate predicates, integration, and transformation primitives for automating part of the integration process are introduced. First experiences with an experimental prototype are related.Read the full paper here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=124894
