Representing and Reasoning on Database Conceptual Schemas

Abstract. In this paper we address the problem of reasoning about database conceptual schemas by exploiting the possibility of using a description logic. We develop an approach by using as a foundation an entity-relationship model that displays features such as ISA, disjointness and cardinality constraints. We propose an equivalence-preserving transformation of entity relationship schemas into terminologies in a description logic. This equivalence, based on the measure of information capacity, ensures that the semantics of entity-relationship schemas is accurately captured by the corresponding terminologies. As a consequence, reasoning on entity-relationship schemas is appropriately reduced to reasoning on terminologies in a description logic.

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