Unravelling Is-a Structures
Authors: Goldstein, Robert C.; Storey, Veda C.
Journal: Information Systems Research (1992)
DOI: 10.1287/isre.3.2.99
<jats:p> Is-a relationships are widely recognized as conveying important information for database design. Although these relationships are implicitly hierarchical in nature, it is not uncommon to find collections of is-a relationships that form nonhierarchical structures. This paper formally defines is-a structures and classifies and interprets them. It illustrates how is-a structures can be used to identify possible database design errors or inefficiencies and to produce a database design that incorporates more of the semantics of an application. </jats:p>