Many-To-Many Relations

NEs in the DNE can stand in a many-to-many relation with tiles and with other NEs.

There are many possible relations in which objects can stand, ranging from 0:0 to M(any):M(any). Traditionally, knowledge management involves a 1:M (one-to-many) relations. The DNE uses some 1:M relations, but also employs the more complex M:M relations.

A 1:M relation is like the parent to child relation: where a mother may have many children, each child must have exactly one mother (neither more nor fewer). Data storage is generally accomplished in a 1:M model. The folder to file relationship is 1:M since, where each folder may contain many files, each file must be stored in exactly one folder, neither more nor fewer. The DNE uses 1:M relations in its cabinet structure.

The relation between teachers and students (unlike between a father and sons) is M:M because, not only can a teacher have many students, but also a student can also have many teachers. This relation is much more complicated than the relations discussed above because an object can have many parents and also many children. The relation between NEs (outside the cabinet) and between NE and tile is a M:M relation. In each mode (the NE can manage information repository relations as well as any number of object models as completely independent sets of M:M relations), an NE can receive contributions by 0 to many NEs, can contribute to 0 to many NEs, can stand in affinity to 0 to many NEs and can be affiliated with 0 to many tiles (each of which can be affiliated with 0 to many other NEs).

By utilizing not only 1:M relations but also many-many relations, the DNE makes it easy accurately to manage the real relations between pieces of information.