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Computer Science Syllabus - Databases
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Databases

Lecturer: Dr T.G. Griffin

No. of lectures: 12


Aims


The overall aim of the course is to cover the fundamentals of database management systems (DBMSs), paying particular attention to relational database systems. The course covers modelling techniques, transferring designs to actual database implementations, SQL, models of query languages, transactions as well as more recent developments, including data warehouses and On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP), and use of XML as a data exchange language. The lectures will make use of the open source DBMS, MySQL.


Lectures

  • Introduction: What is a database system?

  • Entity-relationship modelling.

  • The relational data model.

  • Relational algebra.

  • Relational calculus.

  • SQL and integrity constraints.

  • Schema refinement: functional dependencies.

  • Schema refinement: normalisation.

  • Further relational algebra, SQL.

  • Transaction management overview.

  • On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP).

  • XML as a data exchange format.

Objectives


At the end of the course students should

  • be able to design entity-relationship diagrams to represent simple database application scenarios

  • know how to convert entity-relationship diagrams to relational database schemas in the standard Normal Forms

  • be able to program simple database applications in SQL

  • understand the basic theory of the relational model and both its strengths and weaknesses

  • be familiar with various recent trends in the database area

Recommended reading


* Date, C.J. (2000). An introduction to database systems. Addison-Wesley (7th ed.).
Elmasri, R. & Navathe, S.B. (2000). Fundamentals of database systems. Addison-Wesley (3rd ed.).
Silberschatz, A., Korth, H.F. & Sudarshan, S. (2002). Database system concepts. McGraw-Hill (4th ed.).
Ullman, J. & Widom, J. (1997). A first course in database systems. Prentice Hall.
Miszczyk, J. and others (1998). Mastering Data Warehousing Functions. (IBM Redbook DB2/400) Chapters 1 & 2 only. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245184.html
Garcia-Molina, H. Data Warehousing and OLAP. Stanford University. http://www.cs.uh.edu/ ceick/6340/dw-olap.ppt
London Metropolitan University, Department of Computing. Data Warehousing and OLAP Technology for Data Mining. http://learning.unl.ac.uk/csp002n/CSP002N_wk2.ppt



next up previous contents
Next: Economics and Law Up: Easter Term 2006: Part Previous: Complexity Theory   Contents
Christine Northeast
Sun Sep 11 15:46:50 BST 2005