Christine Parent Libros

Conceptual modeling is essential for developing complex systems, serving as the primary communication tool among developers, end-users, and customers. It offers languages, methods, and tools to understand and represent application domains, elicit and formalize system requirements, communicate designs to stakeholders, and verify system designs at high abstraction levels, thereby reducing ambiguities in development. Initially focused on data-intensive information systems, conceptual modeling has now expanded to various application areas, including e-business, e-learning, web-based systems, life sciences, and geographic applications. The annual International Conference on Conceptual Modeling is a key platform for presenting and discussing research and applications related to this field. This year, the Call for Papers invites contributions on topics such as the logical and philosophical foundations of conceptual modeling, information modeling concepts including ontologies, modeling correctness, web and mobile information systems, semi-structured data and XML, integration, information retrieval, design methodologies, quality assurance, conceptual evolution, data warehousing, spatial and temporal modeling, business process modeling, knowledge management, and requirements elicitation, among others.

The increasing application of data enriched with spatio-temporal features spans various domains, including environmental management and geo-marketing. However, the development of new spatio-temporal applications faces challenges due to a lack of conceptual design methods that can handle the complexity of spatio-temporal data. This complexity arises from the unique semantics of space and time and the necessity for multiple representations to meet the diverse needs of heterogeneous user communities. Effective conceptual design methods are crucial for facilitating data exchange and reuse, especially in geographical data management where collection costs are high. Unfortunately, current practices in geographical information systems and moving objects databases often overlook these methods. This book demonstrates that a conceptual design approach for spatio-temporal databases is both feasible and accessible. It provides a solid foundation through an extensive discussion of traditional data modeling concepts while focusing on modeling spatial and temporal information. The authors present a comprehensive description of their approach, MADS (Modeling of Application Data with Spatio-temporal features), and survey alternative models from both industry and academia. The text is rich with visual notations and examples, making it invaluable for advanced professionals, researchers, and students in spatio-temporal databases and geographical