Abstract
Layering ER diagrams has been a key tool to abstract the complexity of large data schemas generated by enterprise modeling. However, the current approaches have a certain impedance between successive steps of refining (or abstracting) ER diagrams. First, most approaches do not have a well-defined correspondence between an entity at a higher level and the entity cluster at a lower level. Second, a relationship to a subentity from an entity in a higher plane is modeled using a relationship which breaks the encapsulation of the entity which contains the subentity. Clearly, it would be nice to have non-encroaching relationships to model such situations. Finally, a refinement (abstraction) step adds (deletes) encroaching relationships and thus cascades changes to the schema beyond the current entity being refined (entity cluster being abstracted).
This paper presents the Leveled Entity Relationship Model which demonstrates how one may have an abstraction formalism which does satisfy the above properties.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
P. P. Chen. The Entity-Relationship Model — Toward a unified view of data. ACM Transactions in Database Systems, 1(1):9–36, March 1976.
C. R. Carlson, W. Ji, and A. K. Arora. The Nested Entity-Relationship Model. In F.H. Lochovsky, editor, Entity-Relationship Approach to Database Design and Querying, pages 221–236, North-Holland, 1990. Elsevier Science Publishers B. V.
E. F. Codd. Extending the Database Relational Model to Capture More Meaning. ACM Transactions on Database Systems, 4(4), December 1979.
C. J. Date. An Introduction to Database Systems, volume 2 of The Systems Programming Series. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, July 1983.
R. Elmasri and S. B. Navathe. Fundamentals of database systems. Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc., RedWood City, California, 1989.
R. Elmasri, J. Weeldreyer, and A. Hevner. The Category Concept: An Extension to the Entity-Relationship Model. International Journal on Data and Knowledge Engineering, 1(1), May 1985.
P. Feldman and D. Miller. Entity Model Clustering: Structuring a Data Model by Abstraction. Computer Journal, 29(4):348–360, August 1986.
C. Gane and T. Sarson. Structured System Analysis. Prentice-Hall, 1979.
D. Harel. On Visual Formalisms. Communications of the ACM, 31(5):514–530, May 1988.
S. Huffman and R. V. Zoeller. A Rule-Based System Tool for Automated ER Model Clustering. In F.H. Lochovsky, editor, Entity-Relationship Approach to Database Design and Querying, pages 221–236, North-Holland, 1990. Elsevier Science Publishers B. V.
M. Lacroix and M. Vanhoedenaghe. Tool Integration in an Open Environment. In C. Ghezzi and J.A. McDermid, editors, 2nd European Software Engineering Conference, Proceedings, pages 311–324, Berlin, Hiedelberg, September 1989. Springer-Verlag.
D. Reiner, M. Brodle, G. Brown, M. Friedell, D. Kramlich, J. Lehman, and A. Rosenthal. The Database Design and Evaluation Workbench (DDEW) Project at CCA. Database Engineering, 7(4):10–15, 1985.
J. Smith and D. Smith. Database Abstractions: Aggregation and Generalization. TODS, 2(2), June 1977.
T. J. Teorey, G. Wei, D. L. Bolton, and J. A. Koenig. ER Model Clustering as an Aid for User Communication and Documentation in Database Design. Communications of the ACM, 32(8):975–987, August 1989.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Gandhi, M., Robertson, E.L., Van Gucht, D. (1994). Leveled entity relationship model. In: Loucopoulos, P. (eds) Entity-Relationship Approach — ER '94 Business Modelling and Re-Engineering. ER 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 881. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58786-1_94
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58786-1_94
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58786-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49100-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive