Database Theory

From International Center for Computational Logic

Database Theory

Course with SWS 4/2/0 (lecture/exercise/practical) in SS 2018

Lecturer

Tutor

SWS

  • 4/2/0

Modules

Examination method

  • Oral exam

Lecture series


Databases are a key technology in computer science that brings together fascinating theoretical topics and highly relevant practical applications. The goal of this lecture is to give an extended introduction to this interesting field, with a special focus on database query languages, their expressive power, and computational complexity. The lecture will introduce the relational data model, and then discuss theoretical and practical aspects of a variety of query languages:

  • first-order logic as a query language and the relational algebra
  • conjunctive queries and their unions
  • navigational queries: path queries
  • Datalog and its relatives
  • query answering under database dependencies

The lecture focuses on core principles that apply to many types of databases alike (relational, graph-based, semantic web). Some important query answering algorithms are presented, too, but otherwise, the details of database implementation and administration are not covered.

Prerequisites

An undergraduate-level knowledge of predicate logic, regular languages, and algorithmic and computational complexity is required. The lecture will connect with other topics in the Computer Science and Computational Logic curriculum, such as relational databases, logic programming, and Semantic Web technologies – familiarity with these topics is not required to follow the lecture.

Schedule and Location

UPDATE: All the three lectures on the 19th of June will take place in room APB 1004.

  • The weekly lecture sessions will take place on Tuesdays DS2 (9:20 to 10:50) and DS3 (11:10 to 12:40).
  • The weekly exercise session will take place on Tuesdays DS5 (14:50 to 16:20).
  • The first exercise session will take place in the second week, i.e., on 17 April 2017.
  • All sessions will take place in room APB/E005 except for the lectures on the 19th of June, which will take place in room APB 1004.

Legacy

This course has first been taught at TU Dresden in the form of the 2015 lecture Foundations of Databases and Query Languages. The plan for this year's course will be very similar.

The structure of some of the lectures of this course is inspired by the course Theory of Data and Knowledge Bases in the version given by Georg Gottlob and Thomas Lukasiewicz at the University of Oxford.

The main reference textbook for the lecture is:

  • Serge Abiteboul, Richard Hull, Victor Vianu: Foundations of Databases. Addison-Wesley. 1994.
The book is available for free from its webpage, but there are also copies in the library.

Further texts might be consulted for background information and additional details:

  • Michael Sipser: Introduction to the Theory of Computation. 2005
Accessible introduction to complexity theory that covers all topics of computational complexity that the lecture touches upon.
  • Evgeny Dantsin, Thomas Eiter, Georg Gottlob, Andrei Voronkov: Complexity and expressive power of logic programming. ACM Computing Surveys, 33:3, pp 374-425, 2001.
Covers all Datalog complexity results mentioned in the lecture. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/502807.502810 (may require access from within a university network)
  • additional references will be added in the course of the lecture

Subscribe to events of this course (icalendar)

Lecture Introduction/Relational Data Model DS2, April 10, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture First-Order Queries DS3, April 10, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Query Answering Complexity DS2, April 17, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture FO Query Answering Complexity (I) DS3, April 17, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Relational Algebra DS5, April 17, 2018 in APB E005 File
Exercise First-Order Queries DS5, April 24, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture FO Query Answering Complexity (II) DS2, May 8, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Conjunctive Queries DS3, May 8, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise First-order Query Complexity DS5, May 8, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Tree-Like Conjunctive Queries (1) DS2, May 15, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Tree-Like Conjunctive Queries (2) DS3, May 15, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Conjunctive Queries, CSP, and Hypergraphs DS5, May 15, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Query Optimisation DS2, May 29, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Conjunctive Query Optimisation DS3, May 29, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Treewidth and Hypertreewidth DS5, May 29, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Query language expressivity DS2, June 5, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Expressivity of FO queries DS3, June 5, 2018 in APB E005
Exercise Trakhtenbrot's Theorem DS5, June 5, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Introduction to Datalog DS2, June 12, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Datalog Complexity DS3, June 12, 2018 in APB E005
Exercise Query Optimsation DS5, June 12, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Datalog Expressivity and Query Containment DS2, June 19, 2018 in APB 1004 File 1 File 2
Lecture Datalog Implementation (1) DS3, June 19, 2018 in APB 1004 File 1 File 2
Exercise Datalog DS5, June 19, 2018 in APB 1004 File
Lecture Datalog Implementation (2) DS2, June 26, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Graph Databases DS3, June 26, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Semi-positive Datalog DS5, June 26, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Regular Path Queries DS2, July 3, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Dependencies DS3, July 3, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Datalog Evaluation DS5, July 3, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture The Chase DS2, July 10, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Chase Termination and Acyclicity DS3, July 10, 2018 in APB E005
Exercise Graph Databases and Path Queries DS5, July 10, 2018 in APB E005 File
Lecture Query Answering Beyond Acyclic TGDs DS2, July 17, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Lecture Summary and Outlook DS3, July 17, 2018 in APB E005 File 1 File 2
Exercise Dependencies DS5, July 17, 2018 in APB E005 File


Calendar