Hi Len, (01)
Thanks for the URL. I looked at the page and was interested in the OntoBase
software. OntoBase looks like nice work! Was it developed at Stanford? If
so, there are probably lots of academic papers on how it was designed and
developed. (02)
Do you have any publications (or web pages) that describe how the product
transforms RDBs into classes? Especially: (03)
1. any discussion of the ways in which you group columns in one table
to make subclasses (is it based on Foreign Key / Primary Key columns?); (04)
2. ways in which multitable structures can be transformed into sensible
classes that human observers can be comfortable with. (05)
There are many ways to do it subjectively, but it would be nice to have some
material that ranks some potential class groupings higher or lower than
other potential class groupings (PCGs). For example, if a PCG has too many
columns, it might be a nonintuitive class, but too few columns might be too
simple a class. Choosing classes within the structuring from the RDB, and
meeting psychological best practices, could automatically produce a first
set of classes that could later be subjectively refined by a human modeler. (06)
Thanks!
-Rich (07)
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com (08)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Len Yabloko
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 2:36 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Is there something I missed? (09)
Rich and Matthew (010)
>
>Dear Rich,
>
>> Thanks Matthew,
>>
>> You've written a large number of papers on modeling - my
>> congratulations for
>> being so prolific. Your papers seem to begin with the concept of data
>> modeling and then go into the proper principles for modeling.
>>
>> But I'm looking for ways to use existing database tables and to
>> discover the
>> classes and relationships that, by chance, went into the original table
>> design. (011)
Reverse-engineering RDB can help you recover original conceptual design (if
there was one to being with). However, it can be one of many possible
logical models, and not necessarily the original one. If I understood you
correctly you are looking for some inductive reasoning algorithms that start
with RDB meta-data and performs inference of classes and relations from it.
Even if you find this kind of reasoner (or write one yourself) it will
generate large number of possible conceptualizations. Recovery of original
design requires abduction (vs induction). (012)
>> So if you must begin with an existing database's table designs, how can
>> a
>> reasonable class model be developed for that legacy database? Are
>> there
>> automatic methods for generating the As-Is class models?
>
>[MW] The only other thing that I am aware of is the Boro method, mentioned
>here recently, which starts from the data (and you really need to look at
>how people have used a database to be confident of what it is all about).
>
>>
>> Suggestions, URLs, replies appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Rich (013)
I recommend you to take a look at the software I developed for converting
RDB into KB, which can be used as a first step in discovering or creating
conceptual model from meta-data
http://protegewiki.stanford.edu/index.php/OntoBase (014)
--Len (015)
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