The conceptual design of OSEA: an object-oriented semantic data model

Semantics is integrated with an object-oriented data model to increase its power of expression, leading to the notions of subsumption of attributes, values, and relationships. In addition, the concept of inheritance is extended to include inheritance of relationships as well as attributes and operations. The specification of attributes, relationships and operations for the hierarchical framework is explained. Multiple relationships between two objects pertaining to the same hierarchy are also allowed. These are important features for object-oriented data models as opposed to object-oriented programming systems where relationships do not play such a central role. These features have been consolidated into a unified model, namely the OSEA (object-oriented semantic model for exception accommodation) model, which also incorporates additional constraints and modeling of exceptions. A prototype system has been developed based on the OSEA model with the view of providing a more complete set of operations for exception handling