3DIS: An Extensible ObjectOriented Information Management Environment

1
3DIS An Extensible Object-Oriented Information
Management Environment

• HAMIDEH AFSARMANESH
• and
• DENNIS MCLEOD

2
What is the 3DIS

• Extensible framework for information management
• Supports database applications where
• Information objects of different levels of
  abstraction and modalities must be accommodated
• Descriptive and structural information is rich
  and dynamic
• Users who are not database experts must design.
  Manipulate and evolve databases
• Handles data and information uniformly

3
Research objectives

• Introduce a new information modeling framework
• Provide a rich extensible framework of
  meta-concepts to structurally organize the
  database
• Provide a simple geometric representation of the
  database.

4
Focus of this paper

• Describe the 3DIS data model
• Specify the 3DIS geometric representation
• Examine applications of 3DIS

5
Modeling constructs

• Objects
• Atomic Objects
• Composite Objects
• Type Objects
• Mappings
• Relationships
• They are modeled by triples

6
Relationships

• Single valued binary relationship
• EMPs name is SMITH
• (Emp, Has-Name, Smith)
• Multivalued binary relationship
• that the phone numbers of EMP are 743-1234 and
  743-5678
• (Emp, Has-Phone, 743-1234)
• (Emp, Has-Phone, 743-5678)
• OR
• (Emp, Has-Phone, 743-1234,743-578)

7
Relationships

• N-ary relationships
• a contract which has a buyer SUSAN, seller MARY,
  property GREEN-CAR and date 3/25/85.
• (Contract-rel, Has-Buyer, Susan)
• (Contract-rel, Has-Seller, Mary)
• (Contract-rel, Has-Property, Green-car)
• (Contract-rel, Has-date, 3/25/85)

8
Abstraction Mechanisms

• Pre-defined Abstraction Mechanisms
• User defined Abstraction Mechanisms.
• Predefined Abstraction Mechanisms
• Basic data/metadata relationships
• Underlying Database Structures
• Generic Recursion Abstraction
• Generic Interrelation Abstraction

9
Basic data/metadata relationships

• Established via 7 specific built in mappings
  called basic mappings.
• Basic mappings support
• Classification
• Aggregation
• Generalization

10
Underlying Database Structures

• (ROOT, Has-subtype, TYPES, MAPS, EVENTS)
• (TYPES, Has-subtypes, STRINGS, NUMBERS,
  BOOLEANS))
• (MAPS, Has-subtypes, META-MAPPINGS))
• (EVENTS, Has-subtypes, CONSTRAINT-EVALUATORS,
  STORAGE-TRANSACTIONS, RETRIEVALTRANSACTIONS)

Root
Types
Maps
Events
Retrieval-Trans
Storage-Trans
Booleans
Strings
Meta-Mappings
Numbers
Constraint-Eva
11
Generic Recursion Abstraction

• Generic Interrelation Abstraction

Recursive-Entity-Component
Recursively-Defined-Element
Single-Element
Nil
12
Object Specification Operations

• CREATE object-id
• DEFINE(oobject)object-id
• RELATE(dobject-id,mobject-id,robject-id)
• UNRELATE(dobject-id,mobject-id,robject-id)
• DELETE(iobject-id)
• DISPLAY(iobject-id, dvdevice-id)
• RETRIEVE(dobject-id,mobject-id,robject-id)
• PICK-D(set of simple triples)set of object-ids
• PICK-M
• PICK-R

13
Geometric Representation

• Simple and multipurpose 3D framework
• Discrete and orthogonal
• Located in positive octant
• 3 axes representing Domain, Mapping and Range
• Objects appear in D and R axes and mappings in
  the M axis
• Information traversal from d - m - r

14
Geometric Components

• Primary Components
• Points
• Lines
• Planes
• Composite Components
• Sublines
• Subplanes
• Subspaces
• On and Off Points

15
Components

• Point Component
• (d,m,r) triples
• Origin
• Points lying on the axes
• Line Component
• Discrete and parallel to an axis
• Initial points
• 9 generic categories of lines

16
Categories of lines

• (d,?,-)
• (-,?,r)
• (?,m,-)
• (-,m,?)
• (?,-,r)
• (d,-,?)
• (d,m,?)
• (?,m,r)
• (d,?,r)

17
Plane Components

• Discrete and Perpendicular
• Intersection of a line and a plane
• Intersection of two planes
• DM plane
• MR plane
• DR plane
• Three generic categories of planes are
• (d,?,?)
• (?,?,r)
• (?,m,?)

18
Subcomponents

• Comparison Operators
• Equal to
• Not equal to
• Less than
• Less than or equal to
• Greater than
• Greater than or equal to
• Boolean operators
• AND
• OR
• NOT
• Set Membership operators
• Is an element of
• Is not am element of

19
Subcomponents

• Subline Components
• SL(Dress, Has-Size,?7 and

20
Subcomponents

• Subplane components
• Defined over a plane
• SP(?John OR Mary,Has-Phone,? 623-1444)
• Subspace Components
• They are discrete orthogonal sub-representational
  spaces.

21
Results and Conclusions

• First Prototype
• Designed and implemented on an IBM PC/AT
• Written in PASCAL
• Browsing oriented interface
• Second Prototype
• Constructed on a SUN/3 workstation
• Written in a mixture of C and PROLOG
• THE 3DIS