ERCIM News No.22 - July 1995
by Helena Galhardas
The seventh ERCIM Database Research Group (EDRG) was held at INESC, Lisbon 15-16 May. The number of participants was 30 from 6 different countries. Seven papers were presented as well as two invited tutorials, two invited talks and a discussion panel.
In the past, there were workshops on "Languages and Theory" (CWI, Oct `91), "Scientific Databases" (RAL, Jul `92), "Updates and Constraints Handling in Advanced Databases" (IEI-CNR, Sept `92), "Repositories, Methods and Tools for Systems Engineering" (FORTH, May `93), "Parallelism and Non-determinism for Data intensive Applications" (INRIA, Nov `93), "Deductive and Interoperable Databases" (UPC/AEDIMA, Nov `94). This seventh edition focused on Object-Oriented Databases issues.
The first day began with the tutorial on "Object-Oriented Database Programming Languages" by Prof. Antonio Albano (Univ. Pisa). Then, the paper "Role Modeling: The ASO perspective" was presented by Elvira Locuratolo (IEI-CNR). An invited talk on "Roles", by Amândio Vaz Velho finished this first session entitled "Modeling". In the afternoon, two papers on Formal Approaches were presented: "Beyond Relations: Multi-dimensional Data Objects", by Brian J. Read (RAL) and "Prototyping a Formal Object-Oriented Database in P/FDM", by D. A. Nelson and B. N. Rossiter (Univ. Newcastle upon Tyne). The day ended with a discussion panel on the theme "Database Support of Non-Traditional Models". The panel members were Dr Karl Aberer (GMD), Keith Jeffrey (RAL) and Nuno Guimarães (INESC). Some questions were raised on the topics: Organisational Analysis and Design, Workflow and Group Interaction, Cooperation, Coordination, Synchronization, Expressivity and Representativity.
The tutorial on "The BLOOM Model for Database Interoperability" by Prof. Felix Saltor (UPC) started the second day. It was followed by a session entitled "Interoperability and Distribution" that enclosed the papers: "Object Orientation in Database Interoperation", by Maurice Dixon and John Kalmus, "Development of Distributed Applications with separation of Concerns", by António Rito da Silva and "SISIP - A Systems Integration Platform based on Distributed Persistent Objects", by Arne-Joergen Berre (SINTEF). Next, the paper "Querying the Software Information Base" was presented by Gerd Hillebrand (ERCIM fellow at RAL) and Polivius Klimathianakis (FORTH). Afterwords, an invited talk on "Quantitative Methods" was given by Fernando Brito e Abreu (INESC). The workshop finished by a short discussion about the future of this Database Research Group, namely future workshops and available funds.
The proceedings of this workshop will be published as an ERCIM workshop report.
Next EDRG workshop will take place on 23-25 August, in Trondheim, Norway. Themes discussed should be in the area of "Database Issues and Infrastructure in Cooperative Information Systems". It will be held in conjunction with IFIP WG8.1. Working Conference on "Information System Development for Decentralized Organizations" (21-23 August).
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