Inheritance and instantiation in model management

The authors define a knowledge representation that supports large, diverse model bases. The knowledge representation distinguishes between model types which are classes of models defined by a collection of assumptions, and model templates and instances that instantiate model types through decomposition and specialization of components. Underlying the knowledge representation are inheritance, representing the level of generalization, and multiple levels of instantiation, representing the level of details among models. For inheritance, the authors define partial order relations for model characteristics including domains, classes, units, assumptions, metrics, and constraints, as well as models composed of these characteristics. For instantiation, the authors define constraints between models at different levels of detail. They also briefly discuss how the model management environment can manipulate the knowledge representation in search, explanation, instantiation, and classification of models