Technische Universität Ilmenau

Theoretical Foundations of Data Management - Interactive curriculae of TU Ilmenau

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module properties Theoretical Foundations of Data Management in degree program Bachelor Informatik 2021
module number201312
examination number2200899
departmentDepartment of Computer Science and Automation
ID of group 2242 (Algorithms)
module leaderProf. Dr. Christoph Berkholz
term winter term only
languageEnglisch
credit points5
on-campus program (h)45
self-study (h)105
obligationelective module
examoral examination performance, 30 minutes
details of the certificate
link to Moodle course
teacherProf. Berkholz
signup details for alternative examinations
maximum number of participants
previous knowledge and experienceBasics on algorithms and data structures; A basic course on database systems; Knowledge of first-order logic is benefical
learning outcome

.    The students know the basic terms and concepts that build the theoretical foundations of data management. They know core theorems and algorithms in the research area "database theory" and can relate them to practical database systems.
.    The students are able to analyze, evaluate and compare the expressiveness and complexity of query languages.
.    The students are able to make strategy-oriented choices of theoretical concepts for analyzing data processing tasks.
.    The students know how to use structural properties to design efficient query evaluation algorithms.
.    By the end of the lecture the students are able to summarize, explain and evaluate current research papers in database theory.

contentThe course focusses on the logical, algorithmic, and complexity theoretical foundations of querying data. Covered topics include
  • formal connections between first-order logic, relational algebra, and SQL
  • query rewriting and minimization
  • evaluation algorithms for conjunctive queries (e.g. using acyclicity and hypertree decompositions)
  • size-bounds for multi-way join queries and worst-case optimal join algorithms
  • further selected research topics in database theory, for example  
    • datalog
    • querying incomplete and probabilistic databases
    • tree- and graph-structured data
media of instruction and technical requirements for education and examination in case of online participationBeamer presentations, homework tasks and lecture notes in PDF format.
Chalk board presentations.
literature / references

Marcelo Arenas, Pablo Barceló, Leonid Libkin, Wim Martens, Andreas Pieris: Database Theory. 2022. Open source at https://github.com/pdm-book/community
Serge Abiteboul, Richard Hull, Victor Vianu:
Foundations of Databases. Addison-Wesley 1995.

evaluation of teaching