Database reverse engineering: From requirements to CARE tools

This paper analyzes the requirements that CASE tools should meet for effective database reverse engineering (DBRE), and proposes a general architecture for data-centered applications reverse engineering CASE environments. First, the paper describes a generic DBMS-independent DBRE methodology, then it analyzes the main characteristics of DBRE activities in order to collect a set of desirable requirements. Finally, it describes DB-MAIN, an operational CASE tool developed according to these requirements. The main features of this tool that are described in this paper are its unique generic specification model, its repository, its transformation toolkit, its user interface, the text processors, the assistants, the methodological control and its functional extensibility. Finally, the paper describes five real-world projects in which the methodology and the CASE tool were applied. This is a heavily revised and extended version of “Requirements for Information System Reverse Engineering Support” by J.-L. Hainaut, V. Englebert, J. Henrard, J.-M. Hick, D. Roland, which first appeared in the Proceedings of the Second Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 136–145, July 1995. This paper presents some results of the DB-MAIN project. This project is partially supported by the Région Wallonne, the European Union, and by a consortium comprising ACEC-OSI (Be), ARIANE-II (Be), Banque UCL (Lux), BBL (Be), Centre de recherche public H. Tudor (Lux), CGER (Be), Cockerill-Sambre (Be), CONCIS (Fr), D'Ieteren (Be), DIGITAL, EDF (Fr), EPFL (CH), Groupe S (Be), IBM, OBLOG Software (Port), ORIGIN (Be), Ville de Namur (Be), Winterthur (Be), 3 Suisses (Be). The DB-Process subproject is supported by the Communauté Fran?aise de Belgique.     

Kinetics of benzonitrile nitration with mixed acid under homogeneous conditions

Chemical kinetics of benzonitrile nitration with mixed acid is investigated in the temperature range 283–299 K. Pseudo-first-order rate constants are evaluated by means of rate experiments on homogeneous reacting mixtures having large stoichiometric excesses of nitric acid. The second-order kinetic constants for nitronium ion attack to the aromatic substrate are derived on the basis of the assessed nitration mechanism. An activation energy of 604 ± 37 kJ mol^?1 is calculated for this reaction step. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Dielectric relaxation in polar nematic liquid crystals

The relationship between the complex dielectric permittivity tensor of a polar nematic liquid crystal and the autocorrelation matrix for the permanent dipole moment of a molecule is obtained. The theory is applicable to the whole frequency range which characterizes orientational relaxation in liquid crystals (up to ∼ 5 THz). The models of rotational diffusion and extended rotational diffusion in a mean field nematic potential are used to evaluate the dielectric absorption and dispersion in nematics.     

Hybrid free radical/cationic frontal photopolymerizations

The irradiation of hybrid photopolymer systems consisting of a free radically polymerizable multifunctional acrylate monomer and a cationically polymerizable epoxide or oxetane monomer was conducted under conditions where only the free radical polymerization takes place. This results in the formation of a free‐standing polyacrylate network film containing quiescent oxonium ions along with the unreacted cyclic ether monomer. The subsequent application of a point source of heat to the film ignites a cationic ring‐opening frontal polymerization that emanates from that site and propagates to all portions of the irradiated sample. This article examines the impact of various molecular structural and experimental parameters on these novel hybrid frontal polymerizations that produce interpenetrating network polymers. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 4331–4340, 2007     

On the existence and the stability of solutions for higher-order semilinear Dirichlet problems

We investigate the existence and stability of solutions for higher-order two-point boundary value problems in case the differential operator is not necessarily positive definite, i.e. with superlinear nonlinearities. We write an abstract realization of the Dirichlet problem and provide abstract existence and stability results which are further applied to concrete problems.