Declarative taxonomic constraint enforcement in conceptual schemas

Abstract

We propose to declaratively specify policies for the enforcement of integrity constraints directly in the structural conceptual schema. The policies we propose depend on the kind of taxonomic constraint to be enforced (disjointness, covering or specialization) and on the particular event that may cause the constraint violation. We also provide a formal definition of these policies and of the repair actions that must be taken into account to guarantee the enforcement of the corresponding constraint. This formalization serves as a basis for the automatic repair of events to preserve consistency and for ensuring that the repair process terminates.