Chapter 4:

The Enhanced E-R Model and

Business Rules
Modern Database Management
9th Edition
Jeffrey A. Hoffer, Mary B. Prescott,
Heikki Topi

© 2009 Pearson Education, Inc.  Publishing as Prentice Hall 1

 Objectives
 Definition of terms
 Use of supertype/subtype relationships
 Use of generalization and specialization techniques
 Specification of completeness and disjointness
constraints
 Develop supertype/subtype hierarchies for realistic
business situations
 Develop entity clusters
 Explain universal data model
 Name categories of business rules

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 Supertypes and Subtypes
 Subtype: A subgrouping of the entities in an entity
type that has attributes distinct from those in other
subgroupings
 Supertype: A generic entity type that has a
relationship with one or more subtypes
 Attribute Inheritance:
 Subtype entities inherit values of all attributes of
the supertype
 An instance of a subtype is also an instance of the
supertype

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 Figure 4-1 Basic notation for supertype/subtype notation

a) EER

notation

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 Figure 4-1 Basic notation for supertype/subtype notation (cont.)

b) Microsoft
Visio
Notation

Different modeling tools may have different notation for the same
modeling constructs

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 Figure 4-2 Employee supertype with three subtypes

All employee subtypes

will have emp nbr, name,
address, and date hired

Each employee subtype

will also have its own
attributes

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 Relationships and Subtypes
 Relationships at the supertype level
indicate that all subtypes will participate in
the relationship
 The instances of a subtype may
participate in a relationship unique to that
subtype. In this situation, the relationship
is shown at the subtype level

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Figure 4-3 Supertype/subtype relationships in a hospital

Both
outpatients
and resident
patients are
cared for by
a responsible
physician

Only resident patients are

assigned to a bed

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 Generalization and
Specialization
 Generalization: The process of defining
a more general entity type from a set of
more specialized entity types. BOTTOM-UP
 Specialization: The process of defining
one or more subtypes of the supertype and
forming supertype/subtype relationships.
TOP-DOWN

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 Figure 4-4 Example of generalization
a) Three entity types: CAR, TRUCK, and MOTORCYCLE

All these types of vehicles have common attributes

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 Figure 4-4 Example of generalization (cont.)
b) Generalization to VEHICLE supertype

So we put
the shared
attributes in
a supertype

Note: no subtype for motorcycle, since it has no unique

attributes
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 Figure 4-5 Example of specialization

a) Entity type PART

Only applies to
manufactured parts

Applies only to purchased parts

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 Figure 4-5 Example of specialization (cont.)
b) Specialization to MANUFACTURED PART and PURCHASED PART

Created 2
subtypes

Note: multivalued attribute was replaced by an

associative entity relationship to another entity
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 Constraints in Supertype/
Completeness Constraint
 Completeness Constraints:
Whether an instance of a supertype must
also be a member of at least one subtype
 Total Specialization Rule: Yes (double line)
 Partial Specialization Rule: No (single line)

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 Figure 4-6 Examples of completeness constraints
a) Total specialization rule

A patient must be either

an outpatient or a
resident patient

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 Figure 4-6 Examples of completeness constraints (cont.)
b) Partial specialization rule

A vehicle
could be a
car, a
truck, or
neither

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 Constraints in Supertype/
Disjointness constraint
 Disjointness Constraints: Whether
an instance of a supertype may
simultaneously be a member of two (or
more) subtypes
 Disjoint Rule: An instance of the supertype
can be only ONE of the subtypes
 Overlap Rule: An instance of the supertype
could be more than one of the subtypes

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 Figure 4-7 Examples of disjointness constraints

a) Disjoint rule

A patient can either be outpatient

or resident, but not both

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 Figure 4-7 Examples of disjointness constraints (cont.)
b) Overlap rule

A part may be
both purchased
and manufactured

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 Constraints in Supertype/
Subtype Discriminators
 Subtype Discriminator: An attribute of the
supertype whose values determine the target
subtype(s)
 Disjoint – a simple attribute with alternative values
to indicate the possible subtypes
 Overlapping – a composite attribute whose subparts
pertain to different subtypes. Each subpart contains a
boolean value to indicate whether or not the instance
belongs to the associated subtype

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Figure 4-8 Introducing a subtype discriminator (disjoint rule)

A simple attribute with

different possible values
indicating the subtype

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 Figure 4-9 Subtype discriminator (overlap rule)
A composite
attribute with
sub-attributes
indicating “yes”
or “no” to
determine
whether it is of
each subtype

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 Figure 4-10 Example of supertype/subtype hierarchy

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 Entity Clusters
 EER diagrams are difficult to read when
there are too many entities and
relationships
 Solution: Group entities and relationships
into entity clusters
 Entity cluster: Set of one or more entity
types and associated relationships grouped
into a single abstract entity type
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Figure 4-13a
Possible entity
clusters for Pine
Valley Furniture in
Microsoft Visio

Related
groups of
entities could
become
clusters

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 Figure 4-13b EER diagram of PVF entity clusters

More readable,
isn’t it?

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 Figure 4-14 Manufacturing entity cluster

Detail for a single cluster

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 Figure 4-15 PARTY, PARTY ROLE, and ROLE TYPE in
a universal data model

Packaged data
models are generic
models that can be
customized for a
particular
organization’s
business rules

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 Business Rules
 Statements that define or constrain some aspect of
the business
 Classification of business rules:
 Derivation–rule derived from other knowledge, often in
the form of a formula using attribute values
 Structural assertion–rule expressing static structure.
Includes attributes, relationships, and definitions
 Action assertion–rule expressing constraints/control of
organizational actions

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Figure 4-18
EER diagram
to describe
business
rules

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 Types of Action Assertions
 Result
 Condition–IF/THEN rule
 Integrity constraint–must always be true
 Authorization–privilege statement
 Form
 Enabler–leads to creation of new object
 Timer–allows or disallows an action
 Executive–executes one or more actions
 Rigor
 Controlling–something must or must not happen
 Influencing–guideline for which a notification must
occur

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 Stating an Action Assertion
 Anchor Object–an object on which actions
are limited
 Action–creation, deletion, update, or read
 Corresponding Objects–an object
influencing the ability to perform an action
on another business rule

Action assertions identify corresponding objects that

constrain the ability to perform actions on anchor objects
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 Figure 4-19 Data model segment for class scheduling

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 Figure 4-20 Business Rule 1: For a faculty member to be assigned to
teach a section of a course, the faculty member must be qualified to
teach the course for which that section is scheduled

Corresponding object
In this case, the
action assertion is
a Restriction Action assertion

Anchor object

Corresponding object

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 Figure 4-21 Business Rule 2: For a faculty member to be assigned to
teach a section of a course, the faculty member must not be assigned to
teach a total of more than three course sections

In this case, the

action assertion Corresponding
is an object

Upper LIMit
Action assertion
Anchor object

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