  We show that database schema validation and update processing problems such
as view updating, materialized view maintenance, integrity constraint checking,
integrity constraint maintenance or condition monitoring can be classified as
problems of either abductive or deductive nature, according to the reasoning
paradigm that inherently suites them. This is done by performing abductive and
deductive reasoning on the event rules [Oli91], a set of rules that define the
difference between consecutive database states In this way, we show that it is
possible to provide methods able to deal with all these problems as a whole. We
also show how some existing general deductive and abductive procedures may be
used to reason on the event rules. In this way, we show that these procedures
can deal with all database schema validation and update processing problems
considered in this paper.
