Physical database design: A DSS approach

This paper presents a working decision support system for use in the physical design of a database. Physical database design, a structured decision problem, lends itself to a decision support approach because closed form algorithms are computationally infeasible. The paper describes the physical database design problem, presents an overview of a software system for use in solving this problem, and evaluates the use of the system in solving a sample problem.     

A feature-based database evolution approach in the design process

Design data are assigned in geometric and non-geometric form in order to meet design requirements. These data and information must be encapsulated in a data structure that has significance for design applications in each design process phase. The main goal of this research is to find design data groups that represent each mechanical design phase, which will be called phase's design signature. In addition, current data should be an evolution of the geometric and non-geometric information of the previous design phase. In this paper, the purpose is to identify and model a set of design features that encapsulate the design data and their transformations which occurred during the mechanical design phases. This database must capture the designer's intents that can be modeled and implemented using feature-based model in the conventional CAD systems, object-oriented modeling, and Java classes.     

A case study of database design using the dataid approach

This paper reports on the application of the DATAID-1 database design methodology, which has been described in the associated paper[1]. The case study concerns the design of a database information system and has been completely developed, from the requirements collection and analysis phase to the physical design phase, to illustrate the main features of the methodology.     

A conceptual database design approach based on rules and heuristics

Conceptual and logical database design are complex tasks for non-expert designers. Currently, the popular data models for conceptual and logical database design are the entity–relationship (ER) and the relational model, respectively. Logical design methodologies for relational databases have relied on mathematically rigorous approaches which are impractical, or textbook approaches which do not provide the rich constructs to capture real applications. Consequently, designers have to use their intuition to develop their own rules and heuristics. There is a need, therefore, to develop practical rules and heuristics that can be used to handle the complexity of design in real applications. This paper proposes a realistic and detailed approach for conceptual design using the ER model for relational databases. The approach is based on four rules that specify the order in which various types of relationships must be modelled, three rules that pertain to detection of derived relationships, and three heuristics based on observation of constructs in real applications. The approach is illustrated by many examples.     

An improvement on the automatic tool for relational database design

This paper corrects some misconceptions regarding an automatic tool for relational database design. A modified algorithm (SYNTHESIZER+) from the synthesis algorithm SYNTHESIZER is presented. For a given set of FDs, it can produce a third normal form (3NF) relational database schema with a minimum number of relations.     

Towards a new approach to secure database design

The problem of designing and managing a secure database system is considered in this paper. The approach which is proposed is primarily concerned with the security information definition and management in a database environment. A multiphase design methodology is presented reflecting current proposals of database design methodology. In particular four design phases are proposed: requirements analysis of the security system, conceptual, logical and physical design of security information. The content and the solution techniques of each phase are examined. A database management system architecture is also presented which is suitable to control access rights to the database.     

Heuristic approach to network database external parameters design

One of the most important issues in any database design is the optimization of its performance. The external database parameters play one of the main roles in a network database performance considerations. The analytic and the simulative approaches to establish these parameters are discussed. An heuristic approach using system simulation method to find the optimal database external parameters is developed and compared with the analytic one. The software system to implement the simulation methodology is presented. This system has been successfully implemented with the VAX-11 DBMS.     

Getting to grips with database design: A step by step approach

This article outlines an approach to teaching database design principles via a simple case study. Databases can be powerful management tools providing they are correctly designed, however, this is commonly viewed as a difficult technical task. This article provides a simple step by step approach to the problem which has been adopted with second year undergraduate students who have come from both arts and science backgrounds. It describes the implementation of the approach and briefly considers the results.     

The combinatorial design approach to automatic test generation

The combinatorial design method substantially reduces testing costs. The authors describe an application in which the method reduced test plan development from one month to less than a week. In several experiments, the method demonstrated good code coverage and fault detection ability     

A database for automatic classification of forest species

Forest species can be taxonomically divided into groups, genera, and families. This is very important for an automatic forest species classification system, in order to avoid possible confusion between species belonging to two different groups, genera, or families. A common problem that researchers in this field very often face is the lack of a representative database to perform their experiments. To the best of our knowledge, the experiments reported in the literature consider only small datasets containing few species. To overcome this difficulty, we introduce a new database of forest species in this work, which is composed of 2,240 microscopic images from 112 different species belonging to 2 groups (Hardwoods and Softwoods), 85 genera, and 30 families. To gain better insight into this dataset, we test three different feature sets, along with three different classifiers. Two experiments were performed. In the first, the classifiers were trained to discriminate between Hardwoods and Softwoods, and in the second, they were trained to discriminate among the 112 species. A comprehensive set of experiments shows that the tuple Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) achieved the best performance in both cases, with a recognition rate of 98.6 and 86.0% for the first and second experiments, respectively. We believe that researchers will find this database a useful tool in their work on forest species recognition. It will also make future benchmarking and evaluation possible. This database will be available for research purposes upon request to the VRI-UFPR.     

一种基于CRM的数据库设计模式

客户关系管理是以客户为中心的新型管理机制,为充分发挥其优势,基于客户关系管理而开发的数据库必须具有数据冗余小、灵活性高的特点。提出一种数据库设计模式,通过将实体归类并为不同类别的实体提取公共属性,从而使利用该模式设计的数据库在避免数据冗余的同时又具有很强的灵活性。实践证实这种设计模式特别适合于客户关系管理系统的数据库设计。     

A functional approach to database updates

PFL is a functional database language in which functions are defined equationally and bulk data is stored using a special class of functions called selectors. It is a lazy language, supports higher-order functions, has a strong polymorphic type inference system, and allows new user-defined data types and values to be declared. All functions, types and values persist in a database. Functions can be written which update all aspects of the database: by adding data to selectors, by defining new equations, and by introducing new data types and values. PFL is “semi-referentially transparent”, in the sense that whilst updates are referentially opaque and are executed destructively, all evaluation is referentially transparent. Similarly, type checking is “semi-static” in the sense that whilst updates are dynamically type checked at run time, expressions are type checked before they are evaluated and no type errors can occur during their evaluation.

In this paper we examine the expressiveness of PFL with respect to updates, and illustrate the language by developing a number of general purpose update functions, including functions for restructuring selectors, for memoisation, and for generating unique system identifiers. We also provide a translation mechanism between Datalog programs and equations, and show how different Datalog evaluation strategies can be supported.     

A deontic approach to database integrity

The logical theory of database integrity is developed as an application of deontic logic. After a brief introduction to database theory and Kripke semantics, a deontic operator X, denoting what should hold, non-trivially, given a set of constraints, is defined and axiomatized. The theory is applied to updates, to dynamic constraints and to databases extended with nulls.     

The design of a fuzzy system shell using a database approach

This study presented a prototype of fuzzy system shell called FuzzyAccess. Using Microsoft Access database as a developing tools, the proposed system provided a friendly interface for user self-building a fuzzy system. A novice who has no programming-knowledge can also self-define a new fuzzy project. The main contributions of the proposed system were that using SQL method to search the candidate rules in rule evaluation stage and providing an integrated tuning interface for system adjustment. The SQL method can significantly reduce the search time in rule evaluation. The integrated tuning interface can assist user quickly inspecting the influence among different system parameters adjustment and reducing the system development time.     

A hybrid automatic image annotation approach

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Automated image annotation (AIA) is an important issue in computer vision and pattern recognition, and plays an extremely important role in retrieving...     

DATAID-1: A database design methodology

DATAID-1 is a database design methodology developed as part of the DATAID project financed by the Italian National Research Council within the Progetto Finalizzato Informatica research project. Several working groups, both from academic and industrial environments, participate in the DATAID project. At present, the authors coordinate the project.The importance of developing methodologies and tools for database design has been indicated in recent years by the constant growth of computer-based systems which involve a database to provide their users with a controlled and centralized access to data. Accordingly, the DATAID project was undertaken in September 1979 with the objective of developing a methodology to support the specification, design and implementation of databases, including the construction of tools that would support the designer.In this study the main features of DATAID-1 are discussed with respect to other approaches existing in literature. A later article will completely describe a case study in DATAID-1 [1].     

A CASE tool for conceptual database design

The paper describes a Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tool to support conceptual database modelling. One popular approach for conceptual database modelling is use of the Entity-Relationship (ER) model. The paper proposes the use of an Enhanced Entity-Relationship (EER) model for conceptual database modelling. This Enhanced Entity-Relationship model extends the Entity-Relationship model by incorporating the generalization/specialization, aggregation and categorization abstractions. The CASE tool, which is based on the Enhanced Entity-Relationship model, is known as the Enhanced Entity-Relationship Diagrammer (EERD). In addition, the CASE tool supports direct visual query and update based on the EERM.