Conceptual data modeling on the evolution of the spatiotemporal object

Abstract

A framework to express the changes and the causalities within the object's evolution is proposed based on a general inspection of the interactions among the Spatiotemporal Objects (STOs). Why the STOs can evolve is that they can exchange the material, the energy and the information mutually. The result of their evolution is the changes of their features and mechanism. Feature changes can be categorized into 2 levels: the changes of the feature statuses and the changes of the feature structures. The former result in just the increment of the data quantity of the database, the later can furthermore result in the increment of data structures defined in the database. Any a change of a STO is caused directly by a behavior of either itself or another STO. Feature changes can be directly expressed by spatiotemporal data or data structure, but the mechanism changes of a STO can only be indirectly reflected by its feature and behavior description. The proposed framework consists of five key elements: the essence, the features, and the behaviors of the STO, the information flow and the material flow within the spatiotemporal interactive process.