Relational algebraic framework for management of multifacetted systems

Abstract

Most of real world systems may have multifacetted nature and be composed of large number of entities in a hierarchical manner. It has placed demands on a highly structured and rigorous framework. This thesis proposes a new framework, called the RASES (relational algebraic system entity structure), for the management of multifacetted systems. It is based on the system entity structuring (SES) formalism and the relational algebraic (RA) formalism. The SES formalism was adapted as a conceptual basis to manage the structural knowledge of multifacetted systems. A family of hierarchical structures of a system can be organized in the form of entity structure. The entity structure combines the decomposition, taxonomy, and coupling relationships among the components of a system. It can be visualized as a labeled tree with attached attributes. The RA formalism was also accepted as a vehicle to manipulate the entity structures in a database. Under the RASES framework, entity structures are represented in the form of relations which may be stored as tables in a relational database. Furthermore, several operations on the entity structures can be defined in terms of relational algebra which may be coded in a standard query language such as the SQL. The RASES can be easily implemented on, and fully utilize the functionality of, the relational database management system (RDBMS). The RASES framework has been implemented on a general purpose RDBMS, INFORMIX, for the management of multifacetted systems. Huge amount of system structures, which is inevitable in the management of real world systems, can be efficiently managed by virtue of the capability of RDBMS. Using the facilities of the framework, designers can create designs which meet their designing objectives, and conduct appropriate experiments on the designs under investigation. Some examples showed that the framework can be applicable to the models management and the systems configuration problem. Applications of the fram...