Prospects for and Issues with Mapping the Object-Role Modeling language into DLRifd

Object-Role modellers miss the advantages of automated reasoning over their ORM conceptual models, which could be addressed by DL reasoners. DLs are not considered user-friendly and could benefit from the easy to use ORM diagrammatic and verbalization interfaces and modelling methodologies. Relating the two would greatly expand the scope for automated reasoning with additional scenarios to improve quality of software systems. Given that none of the extant DL languages are as expressive as ORM or its successor ORM2, the ‘best-fit’ DLRifd was chosen to map the formal conceptual modelling language ORM2. For the non-mappable constraints, pointers to other DL languages are provided, which could serve as impetus for research into DL language extensions or interoperability between existing DL languages.