An Object-Oriented Data Model for Hypermedia Systems

M. Hatzopoulos, D. Gouscos, M. Spiliopoulou, C. Vassilakis and M. Vazirgiannis
in Proceedings of the DELTA Conference in Research and Development, pp. 483-493, The Hague, October 1990.

Abstract
Our main objective is the definition of a design model for a hypermedia database, dedicated to accomodating multimedia information and to promote navigation as a means of information processing. We prefered the object-oriented paradigm to the relational one, because it provides generic modelling constructs and supports property inheritance. We observe the hyperbase as a network of items and links, where items contain multimedia information and links represent the relationship among them. So, we define a class hierarchy containing both the information pieces and the interconnections among them as objects in the same level of functionality. In this environment, we support typed and weighted links to enhance the declaration of semantic relationships, and keywords to allow for querying as an alternative tool for information processing.

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