DOYLC

An involuntary hiatus has prevented me from the pleasure of blogging on definitions for about a month.  I am now gradually getting back to normal, and am able to blog again. Today I want to look at concept systems, and types of concept system. In data modeling, only one type of concept system commonly appears - the generic concept system, containing Supertypes and Subtypes.  Very occasionally, the part-whole type of concept system can also be found.  The latter be seen in "bill of material" structures.  Strangely, the visual representation of a generic concept system and a part-whole concept system can look very similar in a data model.   I think that this leads data modelers to play down the idea of concept systems, and indeed the term "concept system" is not really met with in data modeling. However, if we turn to the discipline of terminology, the idea of concept system is very prominent, and different types of concept systems are called out.  Let me quote from t