A General Theory for the Evolution of Application Models -- Full version
  In this article we focus on evolving information systems. First a
delimitation of the concept of evolution is provided, resulting in a first
attempt to a general theory for such evolutions. The 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. 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.
