Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

Work-Integrated Learning Programmes Division

Second Semester 2015-2016

Comprehensive Examination
(EC-3 Regular)

Course No. : SS ZG518

Course Title : DATABASE DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS
Nature of Exam : Open Book
Weightage : 50%
Duration : 3 Hours
Date of Exam : 10/04/2016 (AN)
No of pages: 3
No of questions: 5
Note:
1.       Please follow all the Instructions to Candidates given on the cover page of the answer book.
2.       All parts of a question should be answered consecutively. Each answer should start from a fresh
page.
3.       Assumptions made if any, should be stated clearly at the beginning of your answer.

Q.1 (a) For a Library of a College, we need to design a database. The business
        
rules are as follows.

We have Library Users. A Library user can borrow Books from the
Library. Each book belongs to a category like-
Engg/Management/Arts/Science (only one category). Each book has title,
bookID (unique), ISBN#, price as attributes. Books are published by
Publishers. A Publisher will have name(unique), city, contact as attributes.
Each book is published by only one publisher. Each publisher in the
database will have one to many books published. One user can borrow up
to 5 books. We also capture date of issue, expected return date when a book
is borrowed. We store only the info of currently issued books, not for the
returned ones. Each library user will have a userID (unique), name, address,
and category as attributes.
i                    First draw an ER diagram for the above requirement. Assume
necessary data which is missing in the question. The model should
include- Entity types, relationships, min-max, cardinality,
participation, and other relevant constraints.
ii                  Then design relational schemas to capture the data represented in
the ER diagram you have drawn.
[3 + 2 = 5]

Q.1 (b)          Look at the following Database schema.

River(rid, rname, length)
State(sname, capital, population)
RiverState(rid, sname) //This relation captures info about what river
flows through what states, and here rid is FK to rid of River, and sname is
FK to sname of State
 Now, write both Relational Algebra and SQL query expressions to:
(i)     Get the rid and rname for those rivers flow through all states with
population greater than 6 crores.
[1+ 1.5 = 2.5]
(ii)   Give the sname and capital for those states which do not have river
‘Yamuna’ flowing through them. [1
+ 1.5 = 2.5]
Note: You don’t have to rename the attributes in the result, use only DML
statements, and don’t use outer joins. Do not define new tables or views.

Q.2 (a)         

(i)               Give the procedure in steps, to decompose a relation in 3NF and not
in BCNF, to BCNF. Now schema of R is given as R(A,B,C,D) and
FDs are {ABàCD; DàA}. As such R is not in BCNF. Apply the
steps to bring R to BCNF.
(ii)             Assume that we have a relational R with schema
R(A,B,C,D,E,F) , with the following set (F) of functional
dependencies.
F={AàB; Cà{E,F}; Aà{C,D} } . If R is decomposed into three
relations- R1(A,B), R2(C,E,F), R3(A,C,D). Now check if this
decomposition is dependency preserving or not.
[Note: Give complete working in steps]. [2 + 3 = 5]
Q.2 (b)          Assume a situation where we have 8,50,000 records to be stored in a file.
The record length is 90 Bytes and the block size is 1024 Bytes. The address
of any disk block needs 5 Bytes, and the key field of the file is of 4 Bytes
length.
Now do the following.
(i)               If no indexing is done, give the number of block accesses needed
(worst) to retrieve a record with given key value from the above file.
Also give number of data blocks needed to store the data.
(ii)             Now, design a multilevel index with only two levels for the above
file on the key attribute. Give how many index blocks are needed at
1st and 2nd level, and give the number of block accesses needed to
retrieve a record with given key value from the file using two level
indexing structure.
Note: Assume unspanned record organization. [5]

Q.3 (a)          (i) For the following SQL query, give the query graph.
SELECT S.sid, S.age, C.cname, C.ceo, P.salary
FROM Student as S, Company as C, Placement as P
WHERE S.sid=P.sid and C.cid=P.cid and S.cgpa>8.0 and
C.city=’DELHI’;

(ii) With a simple example brief how pushing the selection and projection
operations as down as possible in the query tree, will improve the
performance.

[3
+2
 =
5]

Q.3 (b)          (i) In a certain concurrent schedule, we have four transactions T1, T2, T3
and T4. These transactions operate on data items A, B, and C. The
interleaving of operations of these transactions is given in the below.
Schedule :
{r2(A); r3(B); r1(C); w2(A); r3(C); r4(B); w3(B); w1(B); r2(C); r4(C); w1(C); }
Note: Here, r2(A); - means that the transaction-2 reads data item A
w2(C); - means that the transaction-2 updates data item C
Now, Determine whether the above schedule is conflict serializable, by
drawing a precedence graph.

(ii) Explain why undo operation is not required in deferred modification

technique, used in log-based recovery of databases. Give bulleted points.
[3 + 2 = 5]
SS ZG518 (EC-3 Regular) Second Semester 2015-2016
Page 3

Q.4 (a)          Assume that we use Linear hashing technique in some situation and we
use the hash Functions- h0, h1, h2, ... as (K mod 2), (K mod 4), (K mod 8)
and so on.

Assume that a bucket (one block) can accommodate 2 records. Now

insert the records with following keys in same order and show the
dynamic structure of the hashing scheme after each insertion. Note that a
split occurs whenever the File Load Factor (f) exceeds 0.80. Do consider
overflow buckets also for calculating f .
Keys to be inserted are: 14, 31, 5, 47, 56, 22, 2.
(Note: use the conventions taught in the class; complete working is to be
given.) [5]

Q.4 (b) Assume an XML document (Production.xml) with following structure.

        
Root element is Production which has one or more Part elements. Each
Part element has one Partname element, one Partcode as ID type attribute,
zero or more Project elements (to capture info regarding the projects to
which the part is supplied), and one Cost element. The Project element has
Projname, Location, Budget as sub-elements. Further, the Location element
has City and State as sub-elements. Assume all leaf nodes to have data of
the type #PCDATA.
For the above XML scenario:
(i)                 Give the XML DTD that specifies the above structure.
(ii)               Write an XQuery expression to retrieve partcode and partname
for those parts which are supplied to at least one project located in
‘DELHI’ and cost greater than 500.
[3 + 2 = 5]
Q.5 (a)          (i) Brief on statistical queries and related issues w.r.t., privacy protection
in statistical databases. [2]
(ii) What are the benefits of using UML for modeling databases? [3]

Note: For both (i) and (ii) give answer using bulleted points.

Q.5 (b) Look at the following partial schedule involving four transactions T1, T2,
        
T3, and T4.

Partial Schedule: T2_lock_X(C); T3_lock_S(B); T2_R(C); T2_lock_X(B);

T3_R(B); T1_lock_X(A); T4_lock_X(C); T4_W(C); T1_R(A); T3_R(B);
T3_lock_X(A); T2_R(B); T1_lock_S(B); T1_R(B);

Now check, if this leads to a deadlock condition, with the help of a wait-for
graph.
Note: T2_lock_S(A) – means T2 locks data item A in Share mode.
T2_lock_X(A) – means T2 locks data item A in Exclusive mode.
T4_R(B)- means T4 reads data item B
T3_W(A) - means T3 writes data item A
Complete working is required.
[5]