Information Modeling and Relational Databases, 2nd Edition

15.8. Summary

ORM provides a powerful methodology and notation for capturing the structure of information at a conceptual (i.e., implementation-free) level. From an ORM model one can infer some partial ordering on the dynamics of the information. For example, information on mandatory fact types associated with a primary object type must be available no later than the time at which that object type is instantiated. References between primary fact types must be ordered in a way that maintains referential integrity—in a database system these typically appear as foreign key references.

However, these limited constraints fall far short of a definition of a process. Some other forms of expression are necessary to define explicitly the intentions of ...