A general theory for evolving application models

Provides a general theory for evolving information systems. This theory makes a distinction between the underlying information structure at the conceptual level, its evolution on the one hand, and the description and semantics of operations on the information structure and its population on the other hand. The main issues within this theory are object typing, type relatedness and identification of objects. In terms of these concepts, we propose some axioms on the well-formedness of evolution. In this general theory, the underlying data model is a parameter, making the theory applicable for a wide range of modelling techniques, including object-role modelling and object-oriented techniques.