Database Theory
Database Theory
Course with SWS 4/2/0 (lecture/exercise/practical) in SS 2021
Lecturer
Tutor
SWS
- 4/2/0
Modules
Examination method
- Oral exam
Lecture series
Important Information: The oral exam is going to take place on August 13th 2021. If you want to take the exam, please send an email to Sebastian Rudolph and Jonas Karge.
Announcement: because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule and location of this lecture have changed quite a bit. For more information have a look at the corresponding section below.
Course Description
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
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
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to transform this lecture into an online course. The lecture and tutorials will be held as virtual live sessions via Zoom (lecture) and BigBlueButton (tutorials). Please use the link below:
Zoom: https://tu-dresden.zoom.us/j/83224074259?pwd=QXJWR2wxZ3J1TktWYjIyV2F2T1lDUT09
Password: 5j%@cP4*
The links for the exercise sessions are:
With ZIH-Login: https://selfservice.zih.tu-dresden.de/l/link.php?m=139763&p=b55653ea Without ZIH-Login: https://selfservice.zih.tu-dresden.de/link.php?m=139763&p=922d5a38
Legacy
This course has first been taught at TU Dresden by Prof. Dr. Markus Krötzsch in the form of the 2015 lecture Foundations of Databases and Query Languages, the 2018 lecture Database Theory, and the 2019 lecture Database Theory. The plan for this year's course will be somewhat 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.
Subscribe to events of this course (icalendar)
| Lecture | Introduction/Relational Model | DS5, April 12, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | First-Order Queries | DS6, April 12, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| No session | No lecture | DS5, April 19, 2021 in N/a | |
| No session | No lecture | DS6, April 19, 2021 in N/a | |
| Exercise | Relational Algebra | DS3, April 20, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Complexity of Query Answering | DS5, April 26, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Complexity of FO Query Answering (1) | DS6, April 26, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | First-Order Queries | DS3, April 27, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Complexity of FO Query Answering (2) | DS5, May 3, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Conjunctive Queries | DS6, May 3, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| No session | Exercise session postponed to following week | DS3, May 4, 2021 in N/a | |
| Lecture | Tree-Like Conjunctive Queries (1) | DS5, May 10, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Tree-Like Conjunctive Queries (2) | DS6, May 10, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Complexity of FO Query Answering | DS3, May 11, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Query Optimisation | DS5, May 17, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Conjunctive Query Optimisation | DS6, May 17, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Conjunctive Queries, CSP, and Hypergraphs | DS3, May 18, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| No session | No Lecture: Pentecost | DS5, May 24, 2021 in N/a | |
| No session | No Lecture: Pentecost | DS6, May 24, 2021 in N/a | |
| No session | No Exercise Session: Pentecost | DS3, May 25, 2021 in N/a | |
| Lecture | Query Expressiveness (Part 1) | DS5, May 31, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Query Expressiveness (Part 2) | DS6, May 31, 2021 in Video conference | |
| Exercise | Treewidth and Hypertreewidth | DS3, June 1, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Datalog Introduction | DS5, June 7, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Datalog Expressivity | DS6, June 7, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Trakthenbrot's Theorem | DS3, June 8, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Datalog Evaluation (1) | DS5, June 14, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Datalog Evaluation (2) | DS6, June 14, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Query Optimisation and FO Query Expressivity | DS3, June 15, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Graph Databases | DS5, June 21, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Datalog | DS3, June 22, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Regular Path Queries | DS5, June 28, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Dependencies | DS6, June 28, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Semi-Positive Datalog | DS3, June 29, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | The Chase | DS5, July 5, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Query Answering Beyond Acyclic TGDs | DS6, July 5, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Datalog Evaluation | DS3, July 6, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Graph Databases and Path Queries | DS3, July 13, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Lecture | Lecture Recap | DS5, July 19, 2021 in Video conference | File |
| Exercise | Dependencies | DS3, July 20, 2021 in Video conference | File |
Calendar
