improving quality in conceptual modeling
Quality of a conceptual model can be defined along three dimensions - syntax, semantics and pragmatic. Pragmatic quality has been improved in the literature through schema transformations. We suggest an approach that also improves the semantic quality by schema transformations. A semantic quality parameter 'extent of normalization' is defined. Based on this parameter and functional dependencies from problem domain, a set of rules is suggested to improve a given conceptual model. We also show that relational schema produced after these transformations is normalized up to 3NF at least.
conceptual model schema transformation normalization functional dependency er model