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International Conference on Model and Data Engineering

MEDI 2019: Model and Data Engineering pp 3–19Cite as

Semiotics in Databases

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 11815))

Abstract

In database research and practice, syntax is commonly considered a “firstness” property, while semantics is a “secondness” property (in the sense of Peirce); pragmatics is largely neglected. This paper discusses foundations in first-order predicate logic, highlights its usefulness, but also point out its problematic issues. These cover in particular safe expressions in the relational tuple calculus, rigid normalisation emphasising atomicity of attributes, and a large body of knowledge on database constraints. Database theory is still oriented on flat relational structures although systems became object-relational. We first survey the goodliness of classical database constraint theory and then develop an alternative approach to some constraints including (\(\alpha \)) the handling of constraint sets instead of homogeneous classes of constraints, (\(\beta \)) visual reasoning on constraints and structures, and (\(\gamma \)) calculi for robust reasoning, in particular for “exceptions” and object-relational reasoning.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The number k is the maximal number of premises in a Hilbert-type deduction rule.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Christian-Albrechts University at Kiel, 24098, Kiel, Germany

    Bernhard Thalheim

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  1. Bernhard Thalheim
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Correspondence to Bernhard Thalheim .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UIUC Institute, Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, China

    Klaus-Dieter Schewe

  2. INPT-ENSEEIHT/IRIT, Toulouse, France

    Neeraj Kumar Singh

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Thalheim, B. (2019). Semiotics in Databases. In: Schewe, KD., Singh, N. (eds) Model and Data Engineering. MEDI 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11815. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32065-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32065-2_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32064-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32065-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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