  We present a different approach to developing a concept of time for
specifying temporality in the conceptual modeling of software and database
systems. In the database field, various proposals and products address temporal
data. The difficulty with most of the current approaches to modeling
temporality is that they represent and record time as just another type of data
(e.g., values of a bank balance or amounts of money), instead of appreciating
that time and its values are unique, in comparison to typical data attributes.
Time is an engulfing phenomenon that lifts a system s entire model from
staticity to dynamism and beyond. In this paper, we propose a conceptualization
of temporality involving the construction of a multilevel modeling method that
progresses from static representation to system compositions that form regions
of dynamism. Then, a chronology of events is used to define the system s
behavior. Lastly, the events are viewed as data sources with which to build a
temporal model. A case-study model of a temporal banking-management system
database that extends UML and the object-constraint language is re-modeled
using thinging machine (TM) modeling. The resultant TM diagrammatic
specification delivers a new approach to temporality that can be extended to be
a holistic monitoring system for historic data and events.
