NAME - KRUSHITHA.V.

P
ROLL NO. - 520791371
ASSIGNMENT SET 2
SUBJECT - MC0077
ADVANCED DATABASE
SYSTEM

August 2010
Master of Computer Application (MCA) Semester 4
MC0077 Advanced Database Systems
Assignment Set 2
6. Explain the following concepts with respect to Distributed
Database Systems:
A) Data Replication
B) Options for Multi Master Replication
A) Data Replication
Replication is the process of copying and maintaining database objects, such
as tables, in multiple databases that make up a distributed database system.
Changes applied at one site are captured and stored locally before being
forwarded and applied at each of the remote locations. Advanced Replication
is a fully integrated feature of the Oracle server; it is not a separate server.
Replication uses distributed database technology to share data between
multiple sites, but a replicated database and a distributed database are not
the same. In a distributed database, data is available at many locations, but a
particular table resides at only one location. For example, the employees
table resides at only the loc1.world database in a distributed database
system that also includes the loc2.world and loc3.world databases.
Replication means that the same data is available at multiple locations. For
example, the employees table is available at loc1.world, loc2.world, and
loc3.world. Some of the most common reasons for using replication are
described as follows:
Availability
Replication provides fast, local access to shared data because it balances
activity over multiple sites. Some users can access one server while other
users access different servers, thereby reducing the load at all servers. Also,
users can access data from the replication site that has the lowest access
cost, which is typically the site that is geographically closest to them.
Performance
Replication provides fast, local access to shared data because it balances
activity over multiple sites. Some users can access one server while other
users access different servers, thereby reducing the load at all servers. Also,
users can access data from the replication site that has the lowest access
cost, which is typically the site that is geographically closest to them.

Disconnected Computing
A Materialized View is a complete or partial copy (replica) of a target table
from a single point in time. Materialized views enable users to work on a
subset of a database while disconnected from the central database server.
Later, when a connection is established, users can synchronize (refresh)
materialized views on demand. When users refresh materialized views, they
update the central database with all of their changes, and they receive any
changes that may have happened while they were disconnected.
Network Load Reduction
Replication can be used to distribute data over multiple regional locations.
Then, applications can access various regional servers instead of accessing
one central server. This configuration can reduce network load dramatically.
Mass Deployment
Replication can be used to distribute data over multiple regional locations.
Then, applications can access various regional servers instead of accessing
one central server. This configuration can reduce network load dramatically.
B) Options for Multi Master Replication
Multi Master Replication (also called peer-to-peer or n-way replication)
enables multiple sites, acting as equal peers, to manage groups of replicated
database objects. Each site in a multi-master replication environment is a
master site, and each site communicates with the other master sites.
Options for Multi-Master Replication
Asynchronous replication is the most common way to implement multimaster replication. However, you have two other options: Synchronous
Replication and Procedural Replication.
A Multi-Master replication environment can use either asynchronous or
synchronous replication to copy data. With asynchronous replication, changes
made at one master site occur at a later time at all other participating master
sites. With synchronous replication, changes made at one master site occur
immediately at all other participating master sites.

When you use synchronous replication, an update of a table results in the

immediate replication of the update at all participating master sites. In fact,
each transaction includes all master sites. Therefore, if one master site
cannot process a transaction for any reason, then the transaction is rolled
back at all master sites.
Although you avoid the possibility of conflicts when you use synchronous
replication, it requires a very stable environment to operate smoothly. If
communication to one master site is not possible because of a network
problem
Procedural Replication
Batch processing applications can change large amounts of data within a
single transaction. In such cases, typical row-level replication might load a
network with many data changes. To avoid such problems, a batch processing
application operating in a replication environment can use Oracles
Procedural Replication to replicate simple stored procedure calls to
converge data replicas. Procedural replication replicates only the call to a
stored procedure that an application uses to update a table. It does not
replicate the data modifications themselves.
To use procedural replication, you must replicate the packages that modify
data in the system to all sites. After replicating a package, you must generate
a wrapper for the package at each site. When an application calls a
packaged procedure at the local site to modify data, the wrapper ensures
that the call is ultimately made to the same packaged procedure at all other
sites in the replication environment. Procedural replication can occur
asynchronously or synchronously.
Conflict Detection and Procedural Replication
When a replicating data uses procedural replication, the procedures that
replicate data are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the replicated data.
That is, you must design such procedures to either avoid or detect replication
conflicts and to resolve them appropriately. Consequently, procedural
replication is most typically used when databases are modified only with
large batch operations. In such situations, replication conflicts are unlikely
because numerous transactions are not contending for the same data.

5. Explain the following concepts in the context of Fuzzy Databases:

A) Need for Fuzzy Databases
B) Techniques for implementation of Fuzziness in Databases

C) Classification of Data
A) Need for Fuzzy Databases
Need for Fuzzy Databases
As the application of database technology moves outside the realm of a crisp
mathematical world to the realm of the real world, the need to handle
imprecise information becomes important, because a database that can
handle imprecise information shall store not only raw data but also related
information that shall allow us to interpret the data in a much deeper context,
e.g. a query Which student is young and has sufficiently good grades?
captures the real intention of the users query than a crisp query as
SELECT * FROM STUDENT
WHERE AGE < 19 AND GPA > 3.5
Such a technology has wide applications in areas such as medical diagnosis,
employment, investment etc. because in such areas subjective and uncertain
information is not only common but also very important.
B) Techniques for implementation of Fuzziness in Databases
One of the major concerns in the design and implementation of fuzzy
databases is efficiency i.e. these systems must be fast enough to make
interaction with the human users feasible. In general, we have two feasible
ways to incorporate fuzziness in databases:
1. Making fuzzy queries to the classical databases
2. Adding fuzzy information to the system
C) Classification of Data
The information data can be classified as following:
1. Crisp: There is no vagueness in the information.
e.g., X = 13
Temperature = 90
2. Fuzzy: There is vagueness in the information and this can be further
divided into two types as

a. Approximate Value: The information data is not totally vague and there
is some approximate value, which is known and the data, lies near that value.
e.g., 10 _ X _ 15
Temperature _ 85
These are considered have a triangular shaped possibility distribution as
shown below

Possibility Distribution for an approximate value

The parameter, d gives the range around which the information value lies.
b. Linguistic Variable: A linguistic variable is a variable that apart from
representing a fuzzy number also represents linguistic concepts interpreted in
a particular context. Each linguistic variable is defined in terms of a variable
which either has a physical interpretation (speed, weight etc.) or any other
numerical variable (salary, absences, gpa etc.) A linguistic variable is fully
characterized by a quintuple <v,T,X,g,m> where,
v is the name of the linguistic variable.
T is the set of linguistic terms that apply to this variable.
X is the universal set of the values of X.
g is a grammar for generating the linguistic terms.
T, a fuzzy set onm is a semantic rule that assigns to each term t
X. The information in this case is totally vague and we associate a fuzzy set
with the information. A linguistic term is the name given to the fuzzy set. e.g.,
X is SMALL

Temperature is HOT
These are considered have a trapezoidal shaped possibility distribution as
shown below

Possibility Distribution for a Linguistic Term SMALL for the Linguistic Variable
HEIGHT
4. Describe the following Data Mining Functions:
A) Classification B) Associations
C) Sequential/Temporal patterns D) Clustering/Segmentation
Data mining methods may be classified by the function they perform or
according to the class of application they can be used in.
A) Classification
Data Mining tools have to infer a model from the database, and in the case of
Supervised Learning this requires the user to define one or more classes. The
database contains one or more attributes that denote the class of a tuple and
these are known as predicted attributes whereas the remaining attributes are
called predicting attributes. A combination of values for the predicted
attributes defines a class.
When learning classification rules the system has to find the rules that predict
the class from the predicting attributes so firstly the user has to define
conditions for each class, the data mine system then constructs descriptions
for the classes.
Once classes are defined the system should infer rules that govern the
classification therefore the system should be able to find the description of
each class. The descriptions should only refer to the predicting attributes of

the training set so that the positive examples should satisfy the description
and none of the negative.
A rule said to be correct if its description covers all the positive examples and
none of the negative examples of a class.
A rule is generally presented as, if the left hand side (LHS) then the right
hand side (RHS), so that in all instances where LHS is true then RHS is also
true, is very probable. The categories of rules are:

Exact Rule permits no exceptions so each object of LHS must be an

element of RHS
Strong Rule allows some exceptions, but the exceptions have a
given limit
Probabilistic Rule relates the conditional probability P(RHS|LHS) to
the probability P(RHS) Other types of rules are classification rules
where LHS is a sufficient condition to classify objects as belonging to
the concept referred to in the RHS.

B) Associations
Given a collection of items and a set of records, each of which contain some
number of items from the given collection, an association function is an
operation against this set of records which return affinities or patterns that
exist among the collection of items. These patterns can be expressed by rules
such as "72% of all the records that contain items A, B and C also contain
items D and E." The specific percentage of occurrences (in this case 72) is
called the confidence factor of the rule. Also, in this rule, A, B and C are said
to be on an opposite side of the rule to D and E. Associations can involve any
number of items on either side of the rule.
A typical application, identified by IBM, that can be built using an association
function is Market Basket Analysis. This is where a retailer run an association
operator over the point of sales transaction log, which contains among other
information, transaction identifiers and product identifiers. The set of
products identifiers listed under the same transaction identifier constitutes a
record. The output of the association function is, in this case, a list of product
affinities. Thus, by invoking an association function, the market basket
analysis application can determine affinities such as "20% of the time that a
specific brand toaster is sold, customers also buy a set of kitchen gloves and
matching cover sets."
C) Sequential/Temporal patterns

Sequential/temporal pattern functions analyze a collection of records over a

period of time for example to identify trends. Where the identity of a
customer who made a purchase is known an analysis can be made of the
collection of related records of the same structure (i.e. consisting of a number
of items drawn from a given collection of items). The records are related by
the identity of the customer who did the repeated purchases. Such a situation
is typical of a direct mail application where for example a catalogue merchant
has the information, for each customer, of the sets of products that the
customer buys in every purchase order. A sequential pattern function will
analyze such collections of related records and will detect frequently
occurring patterns of products bought over time. A sequential pattern
operator could also be used to discover for example the set of purchases that
frequently precedes the purchase of a microwave oven.
Sequential pattern mining functions are quite powerful and can be used to
detect the set of customers associated with some frequent buying patterns.
Use of these functions on for example a set of insurance claims can lead to
the identification of frequently occurring sequences of medical procedures
applied to patients which can help identify good medical practices as well as
to potentially detect some medical insurance fraud.
D) Clustering/Segmentation
Clustering and Segmentation are the processes of creating a partition so that
all the members of each set of the partition are similar according to some
metric. A Cluster is a set of objects grouped together because of their
similarity or proximity. Objects are often decomposed into an exhaustive
and/or mutually exclusive set of clusters.
Clustering according to similarity is a very powerful technique, the key to it
being to translate some intuitive measure of similarity into a quantitative
measure. When learning is unsupervised then the system has to discover its
own classes i.e. the system clusters the data in the database. The system has
to discover subsets of related objects in the training set and then it has to
find descriptions that describe each of these subsets.
There are a number of approaches for forming clusters. One approach is to
form rules which dictate membership in the same group based on the level of
similarity between members. Another approach is to build set functions that
measure some property of partitions as functions of some parameter of the
partition.

3. Explain:

A) Data Dredging

B) Data Mining Techniques

A) Data Dredging
Data Dredging or Data Fishing are terms one may use to criticize someones
data mining efforts when it is felt the patterns or causal relationships
discovered are unfounded. In this case the pattern suffers of over fitting on
the training data.
Data Dredging is the scanning of the data for any relationships, and then
when one is found coming up with an interesting explanation. The
conclusions may be suspect because data sets with large numbers of
variables have by chance some "interesting" relationships. Fred Schwed said:
"There have always been a considerable number of people who busy
themselves examining the last thousand numbers which have appeared on a
roulette wheel, in search of some repeating pattern. Sadly enough, they have
usually found it."
Nevertheless, determining correlations in investment analysis has proven to
be very profitable for statistical arbitrage operations (such as pairs trading
strategies), and correlation analysis has shown to be very useful in risk
management. Indeed, finding correlations in the financial markets, when
done properly, is not the same as finding false patterns in roulette wheels.
Some exploratory data work is always required in any applied statistical
analysis to get a feel for the data, so sometimes the line between good
statistical practice and data dredging is less than clear. Most data mining
efforts are focused on developing highly detailed models of some large data
set. Other researchers have described an alternate method that involves
finding the minimal differences between elements in a data set, with the goal
of developing simpler models that represent relevant data.
When data sets contain a big set of variables, the level of statistical
significance should be proportional to the patterns that were tested. For
example, if we test 100 random patterns, it is expected that one of them will
be "interesting" with a statistical significance at the 0.01 level.
Cross Validation is a common approach to evaluating the fitness of a model
generated via data mining, where the data is divided into a training subset
and a test subset to respectively build and then test the model. Common
cross validation techniques include the holdout method, k-fold cross
validation, and the leave-one-out method.
B) Data Mining Techniques

10

Cluster Analysis
In an unsupervised learning environment the system has to discover its own
classes and one way in which it does this is to cluster the data in the
database as shown in the following diagram. The first step is to discover
subsets of related objects and then find descriptions Ex: D1, D2, D3 etc.
which describe each of these subsets.

Clustering and segmentation basically partition the database so that each

partition or group is similar according to some criteria or metric. Clustering
according to similarity is a concept which appears in many disciplines. If a
measure of similarity is available there are a number of techniques for
forming clusters. Membership of groups can be based on the level of
similarity between members and from this the rules of membership can be
defined. Another approach is to build set functions that measure some
property of partitions i.e. groups or subsets as functions of some parameter
of the partition. This latter approach achieves what is known as optimal
partitioning.
Many data mining applications make use of clustering according to similarity
for example to segment a client/customer base. Clustering according to
optimization
of
set
functions
is
used
in
data
analysis.
Clustering/segmentation in databases are the processes of separating a data
set into components that reflect a consistent pattern of behavior. Once the
patterns have been established they can then be used to "deconstruct" data
into more understandable subsets and also they provide sub-groups of a
population for further analysis or action which is important when dealing with
very large databases.

11

Induction
A database is a store of information but more important is the information
which can be inferred from it. There are two main inference techniques
available i.e. deduction and induction.

Deduction is a technique to infer information that is a logical

consequence of the information in the database
Induction has been described earlier as the technique to infer
information that is generalised from the database as in the example
mentioned above to infer that each employee has a manager. This is
higher level information or knowledge in that it is a general statement
about objects in the database. The database is searched for patterns or
regularities.

Decision Trees
Decision Trees are simple knowledge representation and they classify
examples to a finite number of classes, the nodes are labeled with attribute
names, the edges are labeled with possible values for this attribute and the
leaves labeled with different classes. Objects are classified by following a
path down the tree, by taking the edges, corresponding to the values of the
attributes in an object.
The objects contain information on the outlook, humidity etc. Some objects
are positive examples denote by P and others are negative i.e. N.
Classification is in this case the construction of a tree structure, which can be
used to classify all the objects correctly.

Decision Tree Structure

Rule Induction

12

A Data Mining System has to infer a model from the database that is it may
define classes such that the database contains one or more attributes that
denote the class of a tuple i.e. the predicted attributes while the remaining
attributes are the predicting attributes. A Class can then be defined by
condition on the attributes. When the classes are defined the system should
be able to infer the rules that govern classification, in other words the system
should find the description of each class.
Production rules have been widely used to represent knowledge in expert
systems and they have the advantage of being easily interpreted by human
experts because of their modularity i.e. a single rule can be understood in
isolation and doesnt need reference to other rules. The propositional like
structure of such rules has been described earlier but can summed up as ifthen rules.
Neural Networks
Neural Networks are an approach to computing that involves developing
mathematical structures with the ability to learn. The methods are the result
of academic investigations to model nervous system learning. Neural
Networks have the remarkable ability to derive meaning from complicated or
imprecise data and can be used to extract patterns and detect trends that are
too complex to be noticed by either humans or other computer techniques.
Neural Networks have broad applicability to real world business problems and
have already been successfully applied in many industries. Since neural
networks are best at identifying patterns or trends in data, they are well
suited for prediction or forecasting needs including:

Sales Forecasting
Industrial Process Control

Customer Research

Data Validation

Risk Management

Target Marketing etc.

The structure of a neural network looks something like the following:

13

Structure of a neural network

On-line Analytical processing
A major issue in information processing is how to process larger and larger
databases, containing increasingly complex data, without sacrificing response
time. The client/server architecture gives organizations the opportunity to
deploy specialized servers which are optimized for handling specific data
management problems. Until recently, organizations have tried to target
Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMSs) for the complete
spectrum of database applications. It is however apparent that there are
major categories of database applications which are not suitably serviced by
relational database systems. Oracle, for example, has built a totally new
Media Server for handling multimedia applications. Sybase uses an Object
Oriented DBMS (OODBMS) in its Gain Momentum product which is designed
to handle complex data such as images and audio. Another category of
applications is that of On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP).

Multidimensional Conceptual View

Transparency

Accessibility

Consistent Reporting Performance

Client/Server Architecture

Generic Dimensionality

Dynamic Sparse Matrix Handling

14

Multi-User Support

Unrestricted Cross Dimensional Operations

Intuitive Data Manipulation

Flexible Reporting

Unlimited Dimensions and Aggregation Levels

An alternative definition of OLAP has been supplied by Nigel Pendse defines

OLAP as, Fast Analysis of Shared Multidimensional Information which means;
Fast in that users should get a response in seconds and so doesnt lose their
chain of thought;
Analysis in that the system can provide analysis functions in an intuitive
manner and that the functions should supply business logic and statistical
analysis relevant to the users applications.
Shared from the point of view of supporting multiple users concurrently;
Multidimensional as a main requirement so that the system supplies a
multidimensional conceptual view of the data including support for multiple
hierarchies;
Information is the data and the derived information required by the user
application.
It is essentially a way to build associations between dissimilar pieces of
information using predefined business rules about the information you are
using. Kirk Cruikshank of Arbor Software has identified three components to
OLAP, in an issue of UNIX News on data warehousing;

A multidimensional database must be able to express complex

business calculations very easily. The data must be referenced and
mathematics defined. In a relational system there is no relation
between line items which makes it very difficult to express business
mathematics.
Intuitive navigation in order to `roam around data which requires
mining hierarchies.
Instant response i.e. the need to give the user the information as quick
as possible.

Data Visualization

15

Data visualization makes it possible for the analyst to gain a deeper, more
intuitive understanding of the data and as such can work well along side data
mining. Data mining allows the analyst to focus on certain patterns and
trends and explore in-depth using visualization. On its own data visualization
can be overwhelmed by the volume of data in a database but in conjunction
with data mining can help with exploration.

2. Describe the following with respect to SQL3 DB specification:

A) Complex Structures
B) Hierarchical Structures
C)
Relationships
D) Large OBjects, LOBs
E) Storage of LOBs
SQL3, defined as a standard in 1999, supports all SQL2 functions and
provides an extended set of data-types, including user-defined data types
and functions. Unfortunately, the SQL3 standard came after many of its
features had been implemented in different ORDBMS Systems. One of the
first was presented by Object Services and Consulting, Inc, probably in 1996
or 97, in their posting of an object-oriented presentation of SQL3, similar to
that implemented in Informix, This has lead to the existence of various
dialects. For example, IBMs/DB2 and Oracles ORDBMS support slightly
different versions of data-types, structures, and features.
A) Complex Structures
1. Create row type Address_t defines the address structure that is used in line
8.
2. Street#, Street, are regular SQL2 specifications for atomic attributes.
3. PostCode and Geo-Loc are both defined as having user defined data types,
Pcode and Point respectively. Pcode is typically locally defined as a list or
table of valid postal codes, perhaps with the post office name.
4. Create function Age_f defines a function for calculation of an age, as a
decimal value, given a start date as the input argument and using a simple
algorithm based on the current date. This function is used as the data type in
line 9 and will be activated each time the Person.age attribute is retrieved.
The function can also be used as a condition clause in a SELECT statement.
5. Create table PERSON initiates specification of the implementation structure
for the Person entity-type.

16

6. Id is defined as the primary key. The not null phrase only controls that
some not null value is given. The primary key phrase indicates that the DBM
is to guaranty that the set of values for Id are unique.
7. Name has a data-type, PersName, defined as a Row type similar to the one
defined in lines 1-3. BirthDate is a date that can be used as the argument for
the function Age_f defined in line 4.
8. Address is defined using the row type Address_t, defined in lines 1-3.
Picture
is
defined
as
a
BLOB,
or
Binary
Large
Object.
Here there are no functions for content search, manipulation or presentation,
which support BLOB data types. These must be defined either by the user as
user-defined functions, UDFs, or by the ORDBMS vendor in a supplementary
subsystem. In this case, we need functions for image processing.
9. Age is defined as a function, which will be activated each time the attribute
is retrieved. This costs processing time (though this algorithm is very simple),
but gives a correct value each time the attribute is used.
B) Hierarchical Structures
1. Create table STUDENT initiates specification of the implementation of a
subclass entity type.
2. GPA, Level, are the attributes for the subclass, here with simple SQL2
data types.
3. under PERSON specifies the table as a subclass of the table PERSON. The
DBM thus knows that when the STUDENT table is requested, all attributes and
functions in PERSON are also relevant. An OR-DBMS will store and use the
primary key of PERSON as the key for STUDENT, and execute a join operation
to retrieve the full set of attributes.
4. Create table COURSE specifies a new table specification, as done for
statements in lines 5 and 10 above.
5. Id, Name, and Level are standard atomic attribute types with SQL2 data
types. Id is defined as requiring a unique, non null value, as specified for
PERSON in line 6 above.
6. Note that attributes must have unique names within their tables, but the
name may be reused, with different data domains in different tables.
Both Id and Name are such attribute-names, appearing in both PERSON and
COURSE, as is Level used in STUDENT and COURSE.

17

7. Course.Description is defined as a character large object, CLOB. A CLOB

data type has the same defined character-string functions as char, varchar,
and long char, and can be compared to these. User_id is defined as Ucode,
which is the name of a user defined data type, presumably a list of
acceptable user codes. The DB implementer must define both the data type
and the appropriate functions for processing this type.
8. User_Id is also specified as a foreign key which links the Course records to
their "user" record, modeled as a category sub entity type, through the
primary key in the User table.
C) Relationships
The relationship definition needs only SQL2 specifications.

{Sid, Cid, and Term} form the primary key, PK. Since the key is
composite, a separate Primary key clause is required. (As compared
with the single attribute PK specifications for PERSON.Id and
COURSE.Id.)
The 2 foreign key attributes in the PK, must be defined separately.
TakenBy.Report is a foreign key to a report entity-type, forming a
ternary relationship as modeled in Figure 6.7a. The ON DELETE trigger
is activated if the Report relation is deleted and assures that the FK link
has a valid value, in this case null.

18

SSM Concepts and Syntax

D) Large OBjects, LOBs

The SSM syntax includes data types for potentially very long media types,
such as text, image, audio and video. If this model is to be realized in a single

19

database, the DMS will have to have the capability to manage store, search,
retrieve, and manipulate different media types. Object-relational dbms
vendors claim to be able to do this.

Media objects as attributes

SQL3 provides support for storage of Binary Large OBjects, BLOBs. A BLOB is
simply a very long bit string, limited in many systems today to 2 or 4GB.
Several OR-Dbms vendors differentiate BLOBs into data-types that give more
information about the format of the content and provide basic/primitive
manipulation functions for these large object, LOB, types. For example, IBMs
DB2 has 3 LOB types:

BLOB for long bit strings,

CLOB for long character strings, and

DBCLOB for double-byte character strings.

Oracle data types for large objects are BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB (fixed-width multibyte CLOB) and BFILE (binary file stored outside the DB). Note that the 1 st 3
are equivalent to the DB2 LOBs, while the last is really not a data-type, but
rather a link to an externally stored media object.
SQL3 has no functions for processing, f.ex. indexing the content of a BLOB,
and provides only functions to store and retrieve it given an external
identifier.

20

DBMS vendors who provide differentiated blob types have also extended the
basic SQL string comparison operators so that they will function for LOBs, or
at least CLOBs. These operators include the pattern match function "LIKE",
which gives a true/false response if the search string is found/not found in the
*LOB attribute.
E) Storage of LOBs
There are 3 strategies for storing LOBs in an or-DB:
1. Embedded in a column of the defining relation, or
2. Stored in a separate table within the DB, linked from the *LOB column
of the defining relation.
3. Stored on an external (local or geographically distant) medium, again
linked from the *LOB column of the defining relation.
Embedded storage in the defining relation closely maps the logical view of
the media object with its physical storage. This strategy is best if the other
attributes of the table are primarily structural metadata used to specify
display characteristics, for example length, language, format.
The problem with embedded storage is that a DMS must transfer at least a
whole tuple, more commonly a block of tuples, from storage for processing. If
blobs are embedded in the tuples, a great deal of data must be transmitted
even if the LOB objects are not part of the query selection criteria or the
result.
Separate table storage gives indirect access via a link in the defining relation
and delays retrieval of the LOB until it is to be part of the query result set.
Though this gives a two-step retrieval, for example when requesting an
image of Joan Nordbotten, it will reduce general or average transfer time for
the query processing system.
A drawback of this storage strategy is a likely fragmentation of the DB area,
as LOBs can be stored anywhere. This will decrease the efficiency of any
algorithm searching the content of a larger set of LOBs.
External storage is useful if the DB data is connected to established media
databases, either locally on CD, DVD, or on other computers in a network
as will most likely be the case when sharing media data stored in
autonomous applications, such as cooperating museums, libraries, archives,
or government agencies. This storage structure eliminates the need for
duplication of large quantities of data that are normally offered in read-only

21

mode. The cost is in access time which may currently be nearly unnoticeable.
A good multimedia DMS should support each of these storage strategies.

1. Explain the following with respect to Object Oriented databases:

A) Query Processing Architecture B) Object Relational Database
Implementation
A) Query Processing Architecture
Query Processing Methodology
A query processing methodology similar to relational DBMSs, but modified to
deal with the difficulties discussed in the previous section, can be followed in
OODBMSs.
The steps of the methodology are as follows.
1. Queries are expressed in a declarative language
2. It requires no user knowledge of object implementations, access paths
or processing strategies
3. The calculus expression is first
4. Calculus Optimization
5. Calculus Algebra Transformation
6. Type check
7. Algebra Optimization
8. Execution Plan Generation
9. Execution

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Object Query Processing Methodology

B) Object Relational Database Implementation
There are several methods and tools (data management systems) that can be
used for implementation of multimedia databases. The reasons are:

Application Oriented: We are considering applications that have a

combination of structured and multimedia data.
Historic: Object-relational technology is an extension of the relational
technology that is the dominant tool for management of data in
administrative applications.

Research Oriented: The claims of new technology should be tested

before they are accepted.

Pragmatic:
o

Free software is available for experimentation and testing.

Most readers of this text have a background in relational

technology.

DB Components
A database is defined as a logically coherent collection of related data,
representing some aspect of the real world, designed, built, and populated for
some purpose. In addition to the user data stored in the database proper (in
accordance to the above definition), two other data sets are stored within the
DB area. These data are necessary to support efficient data storage, retrieval,
and management, and include:

1. A schema that defines the DB structure, is compiled from data

definition language (DDL) statements.
2. A set of indexes, used to support efficient data access and system
integrity.

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In addition, a library of methods, (functions and procedures) is maintained to

process user input and/or database data. Methods are triggered by some DB
event and may trigger another method.
User data can be stored as a set of files or tables each of which represents
some entity or relationship type. Large objects, LOBs, used for storage of
media data, can be stored either within the file/table area of the parent
entity, as implied for the Person.Picture

Media objects as attributes

The storage area for a DB is frequently non-contiguous and DB segments may

reside on separate storage units of a machine and/or machines at
geographically separate locations. Thus media data stored on local systems
can be viewed as belonging to the scope of the dbms, and may be under the
management of the DBMS.
An index can be specified for any combination of columns or fields in a table
or for elements of unstructured data in a file, such as terms in a text. The
primary purpose of any index is to support efficient access to data items. An
everyday example of an index is that found in the back of most textbooks.
A DB index can be viewed as a table with 2 columns: an index term/value and
a list of pointers to DB elements (entity instances/table rows) that contain

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that value. In practice the index elements are ordered in some form of b-tree
to minimize access time.
Indexes may be unique or clustered, meaning that an index entry references
only one element or a set of elements, respectively. Unique indexes are
commonly used to enforce the primary key integrity constraint that each
tuple in a relation must be unique. Cluster indexes provide fast access to sets
of data containing the same values as the index term.
The method library contains user-defined functions, procedures, assertion
statements, integrity rules and the trigger functions that maintain them. In
ORDBMS, this library can be extended to include user definitions of new (to
the DBMS) data types and the functions necessary for manipulate them. A DB
schema contains the metadata specified for the database as defined using
the DBMS/ Data Definition Language (DDL).

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Modeling complex media objects

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