Chapter 8

The Enhanced
Entity-
Relationship
(EER) Model

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Pearson Addison-Wesley

 Chapter 8 Outline
 Subclasses, Superclasses, and Inheritance
 Specialization and Generalization
 Constraints and Characteristics of
Specialization and Generalization
Hierarchies
 Modeling of UNION Types Using
Categories

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Chapter 8 Outline (cont’d.)
 A Sample UNIVERSITY EER Schema,
Design Choices, and Formal Definitions
 Example of Other Notation: Representing
Specialization and Generalization in UML
Class Diagrams
 Data Abstraction, Knowledge
Representation, and Ontology Concepts

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 The Enhanced Entity-
Relationship (EER) Model
 Enhanced ER (EER) model
 Created to design more accurate database
schemas
• Reflect the data properties and constraints more
precisely
 More complex requirements than traditional
applications

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance
 EER model includes all modeling concepts
of the ER model
 In addition, EER includes:
 Subclasses and superclasses
 Specialization and generalization
 Category or union type
 Attribute and relationship inheritance

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
 Enhanced ER or EER diagrams
 Diagrammatic technique for displaying these
concepts in an EER schema
 Subtype or subclass of an entity type
 Subgroupings of entities that are meaningful
 Represented explicitly because of their
significance to the database application

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
 Terms for relationship between a
superclass and any one of its subclasses
 Superclass/subclass
 Supertype/subtype
 Class/subclass relationship

 Type inheritance
 Subclass entity inherits all attributes and
relationships of superclass

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Specialization and
Generalization
 Specialization
 Process of defining a set of subclasses of an
entity type
 Defined on the basis of some distinguishing
characteristic of the entities in the superclass
 Subclass can define:
 Specific attributes
 Specific relationship types

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Specialization and
Generalization (cont’d.)
 Certain attributes may apply to some but
not all entities of the superclass
 Some relationship types may be
participated in only by members of the
subclass

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Generalization
 Reverse process of abstraction
 Generalize into a single superclass
 Original entity types are special subclasses
 Generalization
 Process of defining a generalized entity type
from the given entity types

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Constraints and Characteristics
of Specialization and
Generalization Hierarchies
 Constraints that apply to a single
specialization or a single generalization
 Differences between specialization/
generalization lattices (multiple inheritance)
and hierarchies (single inheritance)

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Constraints on Specialization
and Generalization
 May be several or one subclass
 Determine entity subtype:
 Predicate-defined (or condition-defined)
subclasses
 Attribute-defined specialization
 User-defined

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Constraints on Specialization
and Generalization (cont’d.)
 Disjointness constraint
 Specifies that the subclasses of the
specialization must be disjoint
 Completeness (or totalness) constraint
 May be total or partial
 Disjointness and completeness constraints
are independent

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Specialization and
Generalization Hierarchies
and Lattices
 Specialization hierarchy
 Every subclass participates as a subclass in
only one class/subclass relationship
 Results in a tree structure or strict hierarchy

 Specialization lattice
 Subclass can be a subclass in more than one
class/subclass relationship

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Specialization and
Generalization Hierarchies
and Lattices (cont’d.)
 Multiple inheritance
 Subclass with more than one superclass
 If attribute (or relationship) originating in the
same superclass inherited more than once via
different paths in lattice
• Included only once in shared subclass
 Single inheritance
 Some models and languages limited to single
inheritance
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Utilizing Specialization and
Generalization in Refining
Conceptual Schemas
 Specialization process
 Start with entity type then define subclasses by
successive specialization
 Top-down conceptual refinement process

 Bottom-up conceptual synthesis

 Involves generalization rather than
specialization

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Modeling of UNION Types Using
Categories
 Union type or a category
 Represents a single superclass/subclass
relationship with more than one superclass
 Subclass represents a collection of objects that
is a subset of the UNION of distinct entity types
 Attribute inheritance works more selectively
 Category can be total or partial

 Some modeling methodologies do not have

union types

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Example Modeling of
UNION Types Using
Categories
For example, suppose that we have
three entity types: PERSON, BANK,
and COMPANY. In a database for
motor vehicle registration, an owner of
a vehicle can be a person, a bank
(holding a lien on a vehicle), or a
company

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 A Sample UNIVERSITY EER
Schema, Design Choices, and
Formal Definitions
 The UNIVERSITY Database Example
 UNIVERSITY database
• Students and their majors
• Transcripts, and registration
• University’s course offerings

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Design Choices for
Specialization/Generalization
 Many specializations and subclasses can
be defined to make the conceptual model
accurate
 If subclass has few specific attributes and
no specific relationships
 Can be merged into the superclass

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Design Choices for
Specialization/Generalization
(cont’d.)
 If all the subclasses of a
specialization/generalization have few
specific attributes and no specific
relationships
 Can be merged into the superclass
 Replace with one or more type attributes that
specify the subclass or subclasses that each
entity belongs to

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Design Choices for
Specialization/Generalization
(cont’d.)
 Union types and categories should
generally be avoided
 Choice of disjoint/overlapping and
total/partial constraints on
specialization/generalization
 Driven by rules in miniworld being modeled

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Formal Definitions for the EER
Model Concepts
 Class
 Set or collection of entities
 Includes any of the EER schema constructs of
group entities
 Subclass
 Class whose entities must always be a subset
of the entities in another class
 Specialization
 Set of subclasses that have same superclass
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Formal Definitions for the EER
Model Concepts (cont’d.)
 Generalization
 Generalized entity type or superclass
 Predicate-defined
 Predicate on the attributes of is used to specify
which entities in C are members of S
 User-defined
 Subclass that is not defined by a predicate

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Formal Definitions for the EER
Model Concepts (cont’d.)
 Category
 Class that is a subset of the union of n defining
superclasses
 Relationship type
 Any class can participate in a relationship

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Example of Other Notation
 Representing specialization and
generalization in UML class diagrams
 Basic notation
• See Figure 8.10
 Base class
• Root superclass
 Leaf classes
• Subclasses (leaf nodes)

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Data Abstraction, Knowledge
Representation, and Ontology
Concepts
 Goal of knowledge representation (KR)
techniques
 Accurately model some domain of knowledge
 Create an ontology that describes the
concepts of the domain and how these
concepts are interrelated
 Goals of KR are similar to those of
semantic data models
 Important similarities and differences
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Classification and Instantiation
 Classification
 Systematically assigning similar objects/entities
to object classes/entity types
 Instantiation
 Inverse of classification
 Generation and specific examination of distinct
objects of a class

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Classification and Instantiation
(cont’d.)
 Exception objects
 Differ in some respects from other objects of
class
 KR schemes allow such class properties
 One class can be an instance of another
class (called a meta-class)
 Cannot be represented directly in EER model

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Identification
 Abstraction process
 Classes and objects are made uniquely
identifiable by means of some identifier
 Needed at two levels
 To distinguish among database objects and
classes
 To identify database objects and to relate them
to their real-world counterparts

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Specialization and
Generalization
 Specialization
 Classify a class of objects into more
specialized subclasses
 Generalization
 Generalize several classes into a higher-level
abstract class
 Includes the objects in all these classes

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

 Aggregation and Association
 Aggregation
 Abstraction concept for building composite
objects from their component objects
 Association
 Associate objects from several independent
classes
 Main structural distinction
 When an association instance is deleted
• Participating objects may continue to exist

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Ontologies and the Semantic
Web
 Documents contain less structure than
database information does
 Semantic Web
 Allow meaningful information exchange and
search among machines
 Ontology
 Specification of a conceptualization
 Specification
 Language and vocabulary terms used to
specify conceptualization
Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe
 Summary
 Enhanced ER or EER model
 Extensions to ER model that improve its
representational capabilities
 Subclass and its superclass
 Category or union type

 Notation and terminology of UML for

representing specialization and
generalization

Copyright © 2011 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant Navathe