OCL2Trigger: Deriving active mechanisms for relational databases using Model-Driven Architecture

16 pages, 10 figures.-- Issue title: "Best papers from the 2007 Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC 2007), Melbourne, Australia, April 10-13, 2007, Australian Software Engineering Conference 2007".Transforming integrity constraints into active rules or triggers for verifying database consistency produces a serious and complex problem related to real time behaviour that must be considered for any implementation. Our main contribution to this work is to provide a complete approach for deriving the active mechanisms for Relational Databases from the specification of the integrity constraints by using OCL. This approach is designed in accordance with the MDA approach which consists of transforming the specified OCL clauses into a class diagram into SQL:2003 standard triggers, then transforming the standard triggers into target DBMS triggers. We believe that developing triggers and plugging them into a given model is insufficient because the behaviour of such triggers is invisible to the developers, and therefore not controllable. For this reason, a DBMS trigger verification model is used in our approach, in order to ensure the termination of trigger execution. Our approach is implemented as an add-in tool in Rational Rose called OCL2Trigger.This work is part of the "Software Process Management Platform: Modelling, reuse and measurement" TIN2004/07083 project.Publicad

Applying a Fuzzy Approach to Relaxing Cardinality Constraints

9 pages, 3 figures.-- Contributed to: 15th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA 2004, Zaragoza, Spain, Aug 30 - Sep 3, 2004).In database applications the verification of cardinality constraints is a serious and complex problem that appears when the modifications operations are performed in a large cascade. Many efforts have been devoted to solve this problem, but some solutions lead to other problems such as the complex execution model or an impact on the database performance. In this paper a method to reducing and simplifying the complex verification of cardinality constraints by relaxing these constraints using fuzzy concepts is proposed.Publicad

Plugging active mechanisms to control dynamic aspects derived from the Multiplicity Constraint in UML

8 pages, 5 figures.-- Contributed to: 7th International Conference on the Unified Modeling Language (UML'2004, Lisbon, Portugal, Oct 11-15, 2004).Multiple efforts have been devoted to face the problem of database modelling. One of them is the automatization of database design process using CASE tools. Frequently, these tools do not completely support all phases of database analysis and the design methodology that they propose. Therefore, we propose to incorporate new features to these tools enhancing them and solving some of the modelling problems. In this paper we present an add-in module that aims to generate triggers for preserving the multiplicity constraints of a conceptual scheme in the transformation to a relational scheme. The module is integrated into the RATIONAL ROSE case tool.Publicad

Integrating intelligent methodological and tutoring assistance in a CASE platform: The PANDORA experience

Database Design discipline involves so different aspects as conceptual and logical modelling knowledge or domain understanding. That implies a great effort to carry out the real world abstraction task and represent it through a data model. CASE tools emerge in order to automating the database development process. These platforms try to help to the database designer in different database design phases. Nevertheless, this tools are frequently mere diagrammers and do not carry completely out the design methodology that they are supposed to support; furthermore, they do not offer intelligent methodological advice to novice designers. This paper introduces the PANDORA tool (acronym of Platform for Database Development and Learning via Internet) that is being developed in a research project which tries to mitigate some of the deficiencies observed in several CASE tools, defining methods and techniques for database development which are useful for students and practitioners. Specifically, this work is focused on two PANDORA components: Conceptual Modelling and Learning Support subsystems

Educational experiences detecting, using, and representing ternary relationships in database design

Conceptual models are applied as the first step in software design methodologies for collecting the semantics involved in the universe of discourse. Nevertheless, the abstraction process creates some misunderstandings for novice designers, such as difficulties in modeling some constructs and in understanding the semantics that they represent. This paper presents a thorough study of errors detected among Database Design students in Computer Science Engineering when they apply the abstraction process to generate a conceptual schema using a specific model. Specifically, the paper focuses on errors made in the design of ternary relationships. Some heuristics are proposed in order to help novice designers avoid these common errors, and an experimental study is presented to compare the number of errors made by the students before and after applying these heuristics. (Contains 10 figures, 2 tables, and 3 footnotes.)This work was supported in part by the Software Process Management platform project Modeling, Reuse and Measurement (TIN2004/07083), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, which supports the APEINTA research and innovation project.Publicad

Learning to teach database design by trial and error

Proceedings of: 4th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2002), Ciudad Real, Spain, April 3-6, 2002The definition of effective pedagogical strategies for coaching and tutoring students according to their needs in each moment is a high handicap in ITS design. In this paper we propose the use of a Reinforcement Learning (RL) model, that allows the system to learn how to teach to each student individually, only based on the acquired experience with other learners with similar characteristics, like a human tutor does. This technique avoids to define the teaching strategies by learning action policies that define what, when and how to teach. The model is applied to a database design ITS system, used as an example to illustrate all the concepts managed in the model

An Approach to Circumstantial Knowledge Management for Human-Like Interaction

Proceedings of: 16th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS). Lisbon, Portugal, 27-30 April, 2014. http://www.iceis.org/?y=2014This paper proposes the design of a general-purpose domain-independent knowledge model formalizing and managing the circumstantial knowledge involved in the human interaction process, i.e., a Situation Model. Its design is aimed to be embodied into a human-like interaction system, thus enriching the quality of the interaction by providing context-aware features to the interaction system. The proposal differs from similar work in that it is supported by the spatio-temporal databases technology. Additionally, since the proposed model requires to be fed with real knowledge obtained from each specific interaction domain, this paper also proposes an edition tool for acquiring and managing that circumstantial knowledge. The tool also supports the simulation over the model to check the correctness and completeness of the acquired knowledge. Finally, some scenario examples are provided in order to illustrate how the Situation Model works, and to gain perspective on its future possibilities of application in different systems where context-aware services can make a difference.This work has been be applied in aresearch project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry (CADOOH,TSI-020302-2011-21).Publicad

Guidelines for representing complex cardinality constraints in binary and ternary relationships

Ternary relationships represent the association among three entities whose constraints database designers do not always know how to manage. In other words, it is very difficult for the designer to detect, represent and add constraints in a ternary relationship according to the domain requirements. To remedy the shortcomings in capturing the semantics required for the representation of this kind of relationship, the present paper discusses a practical method to motivate the designer's use of ternary relationships in a methodological framework. The method shows how to calculate cardinality constraints in binary and ternary relationships and to preserve the associated semantics until the implementation phase of the database development method.This work forms part of the ‘Thuban: Natural Interaction Platform for Virtual Attending in Real Environments’ project (TIN2008-02711), the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade through the project Semants (TSI-020100-2009-419) and also by the Spanish research projects: MA2VICMR: Improving the access, analysis and visibility of the multilingual and multimedia information in web for the Region of Madrid (S2009/TIC-1542).Publicad

Using UML’s Sequence Diagrams for Representing Execution Models Associated to Triggers

11 pages, 3 figures.-- Contributed to: 23rd British National Conference on Databases (BNCOD 23, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, July 18-20, 2006).Using active rules or triggers to verify integrity constraints is a serious and complex problem because these mechanisms have behaviour that could be difficult to predict in a complex database. The situation is even worse as there are few tools available for developing and verifying them. We believe that automatic support for trigger development and verification would help database developers to adopt triggers in the database design process. Therefore, in this work we suggest a visualization add-in tool that represents and verifies triggers execution by using UML’s sequence diagrams. This tool is added in RATIONAL ROSE and it simulates the execution sequence of a set of triggers when a DML operation is produced. This tool uses the SQL standard to express the triggers semantics and execution.This work is part of the project "Software Process Management Platform: modelling, reuse and measurement". TIN2004/07083.Publicad

Using the ACO algorithm for path searches in social networks

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comOne of the most important types of applications currently being used to share knowledge across the Internet are social networks. In addition to their use in social, professional and organizational spheres, social networks are also frequently utilized by researchers in the social sciences, particularly in anthropology and social psychology. In order to obtain information related to a particular social network, analytical techniques are employed to represent the network as a graph, where each node is a distinct member of the network and each edge is a particular type of relationship between members including, for example, kinship or friendship. This article presents a proposal for the efficien solution to one of the most frequently requested services on social networks; namely, taking different types of relationships into account in order to locate a particular member of the network. The solution is based on a biologically-inspired modificatio of the ant colony optimization algorithm.This study was funded through a competitive grant awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for the THUBAN Project (TIN2008-02711) and through MA2VICMR consortium (S2009/TIC-1542, http://www.mavir.net), a network of excellence funded by the Madrid Regional Government.Publicad