Conceptual Modeling of Events Based on One-Category Ontology

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel conceptual modeling approach called the thimac, based on a one-category ontology, which unifies static objects and dynamic events, demonstrated through a library service system example.

Contribution

It presents a high-level application of the thimac model in software engineering, emphasizing event realization and contrasting it with related fields' event concepts.

Findings

TM effectively models static and dynamic aspects in software systems.

The concept of TM events incorporates time, enriching static models with dynamism.

Contrasts with philosophical and linguistic event definitions highlight TM's unique approach.

Abstract

In previous works, we proposed a one-category (entitled thimac) conceptual model called a thinging machine (TM), which integrates staticity (e.g., objects) and dynamism (e.g., events) without losing valuable aspects of diagrammatic intuition in conceptual modeling. We proposed applying TM to conceptual modeling in software engineering (e.g., on or above the level of UML as a conceptual modeling language). In this paper, to show such an application in software engineering, we first present a complete high-level description of a library service system to demonstrate the TM s applicability. Furthermore, we explore the TM s features, emphasizing the realization of thimacs as events. The purpose is to develop better understanding of the TM notions by contrasting them with their uses in related fields. The notion of an event plays a prominent role in many fields of study, including philosophy, linguistics, literary theory, probability theory, artificial intelligence, physics, and history. A TM event is a static thimac with a time breath (time subthimac) that infuses dynamism into the thimac. It arises from how the TM static region is infected with time. Such a view is contrasted with some philosophical and linguistics definitions of an event (e.g., unit of experience of Whitehead). We also raise interesting issues (e.g., event movement) in this study.