Abstract
This chapter focuses on formally representing life cycle semantics of part-whole relations in conceptual data models by utilizing the temporal modality. We approach this by resorting to the temporal conceptual data modelling language ERvt and extend it with the novel notion of status relations. This enables a precise axiomatization of the constraints for essential parts and wholes compared to mandatory parts and wholes, as well as introduction of temporally suspended partwhole relations. To facilitate usage in the conceptual stage of information systems development, a set of closed questions and decision diagram are proposed. The long-term objectives are to ascertain which type of shareability and which lifetime aspects are possible for part-whole relations, investigate the formal semantics for sharability, and how to model these kind of differences in conceptual data models.
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