Cohesion of object histories (Q1114448)

In an earlier paper, the first author and \textit{K. Tanaka} [ACM Trans. Database Syst. 11, 186-212 (1986; Zbl 0602.68098)] introduced a record- based, algebraically-oriented, event-driven model for describing historical data for objects (here called ``object histories''). The major construct in the model is a computation-tuple sequence scheme (CSS) which specifies the set of all possible ``valid'' object histories for the same type of object. The current paper considers the problem of combining the global information residing in a number of object histories in a distributed system. A suggested solution is in the form of an operation called ``cohesion'', which is the analogue for object histories of join for relational databases. The basic question considered in this paper is the following: Given two sets \({\mathcal S}_ 1\) and \({\mathcal S}_ 2\) of object histories described by CSS \(T_ 1\) and \(T_ 2\), does there exist a CSS which describes the cohesion of \({\mathcal S}_ 1\) and \({\mathcal S}_ 2 ?\) The answer is shown to be yes by constructing a specific CSS (called the ``cohesion'' of \(T_ 1\) and \(T_ 2)\) from \(T_ 1\) and \(T_ 2\). The cohesion operation also turns out to be a useful tool for establishing some subsidiary results.