PhD Qualifying Exam

    Data Management Systems Design (CIS631) area

    Summer 2006

    What is included:

• Entity-Relationship (ER) Model.
  
  Entities, Attributes, Types of Attributes, Keys, Null Values, Entity Types, Weak Entity Types,
  Binary Relationship Types, Roles, N-ary Relationship Types, Cardinality and
  Participation Constraints.

• Extended Entity-Relationship (EER) model.
  
  ISA-Relationships, Specialization Constraints, Specialization Hierarchies and Lattices.

• Relational Model
  
  Schemas and Instances, Null Values, Integrity Constraints, Update Operations,
  Integrity Constraint Violation

• Relational Algebra.
  
  Basic operations, Division Operation, Grouping and Aggregation Operations,
  Outer Join Operations.

• Mapping EER Schemas to Relational Schemas.

• SQL
  
  Data Definition, Simple and Complex Queries, Nesting, Data Modification, Views,
  Constraint Specification.
   

• Triggers
  
  Raw and Statement Level Triggers

• Dependencies and Normal Forms.
  
  Functional Dependencies, Inference of Functional Dependencies,
  1st, 3rd and BC Normal Forms, Keys and Functional Dependencies.
   

• Schema Decomposition (Normalization).
  
  Lossless Join Decompositions, Dependency Preserving Decompositions.

• Database Physical Organization
  
  File Structures, Primary, Clustering and Secondary Indexes, Multilevel Indexes,
  External Hashing.

• Transaction Processing.
  
  Schedule Serializability

• Concurrency Control.
  
  Basic Concepts

    I am using the following book in CIS631.

    Fundamentals of Database Systems, 4th Edition,
    R. Elmasri and S.B. Navathe
    Addison Wesley, ©  2004.

    The following books can be used as well.