Building a Sustainable Information System in the Domain of Chemical and Biological Safety

Abstract

This article gives a big picture of an innovative strategy to handle change in an application which supports assessment processes related to legal obligations of the Federal Environment Agency, Division IV Chemical Safety. Changes affect the data structures that describe the environmental impact of chemical. The solution is based on a data type construction kit, a Domain Specific Language (DSL) on top of XML schema, and dynamic XML processing. The solution enables modifications of the data structures at runtime, even without restarting the application. We do not claim a multiple-purpose solution, but one which is tailored to the common patterns of daily work in Division IV Chemical Safety. This is exactly why it may serve as a blue print for several similar application challenges in a different domain context.