The original version
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 13:59:34 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <af962027-2b46-49aa-b424-c4f38ddb28c6_at_d12g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>
Recently, I came upon a paper that was awarded first place in 11 November, 2009. (The name of paper is: Anchor Modeling, see http://api.ning.com/files/R0UON79E5Kh7ell4QTUVt0Aty-EEblPNcpyaTWiHnLMBXgte-CCu7smzUYIvHtcQwtab90phqS2vOLETydOEHIfEId88ND9q/AnchorModeling09.pdf ) As I read the paper, it became clear to me that it was merely a special case of my paper. Here are my explanations:
(a)
The main part of solving “temporal”, “historical” and other complex
databases consists of two sub-steps:
1. Constructing an identifier of an entity or relationship.
2. Connecting all changes of states of one entity (or relationship) to
the identifier of this
entity (or relationship).
I had published this idea on my website http://www.dbdesign10.com and
in this user group in 2005. This user group translates into many major
world languages (English, French, Russian, Chinese, German, Italian,
etc.), and even some less-used languages (Macedonian). So, these ideas
were essentially broadcasted in a global auditorium, possibly the
biggest one for database design. Here is a link to the
comp.databases.theory user group, where I presented my ideas in 2005:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.databases.theory/browse_frm/thread/c79f846beb00cc56#
(there are also many other links where the ideas in (a) were clearly
presented)
Later, I put these ideas in a paper, which was written in a broader context, and submitted it on 21 August 2008. I posted this paper on my website http://www.dbdesign11.com on 7 March 2009. If someone wants to see a version of this paper that has additional explanations and clarifications, he can do so on this webpage.
Therefore, as I stated, the main, most significant part of the paper
was the one cited under part (a). Without this component, nothing in
the paper could have been solved. I believe that the reason complex
databases and databases of a general character have not been solved
until now is because no one came up with that in part (a).
Also, an even more important factor in being able to solve general
databases is the good understanding of part (a). So, an anchor and a
surrogate key without the schema given in part (a) does not help at
all.
The mentioned solution is important also for others fields, for
example for philosophy, logic and semantics. (see for example: Ship of
Theseus ). People have always held that a name denotes a certain
entity, although this entity has been changed many times. But the
following problem has always existed: How an entity which has changed
to another entity is, in fact, the same entity. This problem is solved
in my paper. In my paper I gave the corresponding procedures,
constructions and semantics for solving this problem.
Anchor modeling uses the schema which is given in part (a); it uses
both of the following sub-steps:
1. Constructing an identifier of an entity.
2. Connecting all changes of one entity to the identifier of this
entity.
Vladimir Odrljin Received on Wed May 26 2010 - 22:59:34 CEST