Towards a Unified Representation Framework for Modelbases and Databases

Abstract

Modelbases and databases are complementary to each other in Decision Support Systems. Hence, there exists a need for a framework to uniformly represent modelbases and databases in order to facilitate information exchange and integration between them. Because of the advancement in Web technologies and business globalization, such a framework must be Web-based, promote reuse and share modelbase and database information among branch locations, and be able to express user-defined rules, which are culturally diverse. This paper proposes a unified framework for modelbases and databases. It comprises two major components: Ontology and Schema. The former provides the meanings of specific terminology widely agreed upon by concerned communities; the latter, contains purely generic schematic descriptions of specific information. The framework is represented by means of OWL Declarative Description (ODD)—a language with well-defined semantics and expressive means for direct and uniform representation of database and modelbase components, as well as inferences and rules.