Incorporation of relational modeling method into object-oriented analysis

It is a generally accepted concept that multiple views are needed in object-oriented analysis or domain analysis techniques. Three commonly adopted models for requirements analysis include object model, functional model and dynamic model. This paper introduces and incorporates the concept of relational modeling into the analysis techniques. Relational modeling mainly deals with two tasks: classification of semantic relations and identification of higher-order system causal relations. Classification of semantic relations supports comparison and evaluation of various relations, which in turn can be used to select suitable methods to process the relations. A higher-order relation depicts the relations between different relations as opposed to the relations between objects often discussed in object modeling. A network of higher-order relations reveals the cause-effect dependency relationships and can facilitate understanding and reasoning of application systems. Furthermore, incorporation of relational modeling techniques can support software reuse in an application domain or across domains