Renovation of complex objects in the temporal object system

In many engineering applications, changes to the state and/or structure of an object needs to be maintained over a period of time. The authors discuss the temporal object system (TOS) which maintains changes in both the structure and the state of an object. An object in a TOS is reffered to as a temporal object which evolves over time. Changes to both the structure and the state of the object are maintained throughout its various stages. A set of temporal objects which share a common knowledge, i.e., structure and state is referred to as a family. The TOS also facilitates the construction of a complex family which is an aggregation of temporal objects from various families. The objects in a complex family increases the knowledge sharing of nonhomogeneous temporal objects and the transportability of them. Two types of renovations for temporal complex objects are discussed. A query language for TOS is presented