Seminar Selected Topics in Database Theory

Course with SWS 0/2/0 (lecture/exercise/practical) in WS 2019

Lecturer

SWS

0/2/0

Modules

Examination method

Term paper
Seminar presentation

Content

Databases are a key technology in computer science that brings together fascinating theoretical topics and highly relevant practical applications. The goal of this seminar is to delve into some of the most relevant and recent publications in this field. The lecture will study the 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 seminar will consist of 2-3 introductory lectures on the topic and presentations made by the students of a self-selected research paper (see the "Literature" tab).

Prerequisites

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

Schedule and Location

All 2-3 introductory lectures session will take place on Wednesdays DS6 (16:40 to 18:10) in room APB/E005.

Research Opportunities

If interested, we can provide seminar attendees with follow-up research-related tasks that may be later developed into master's or bachelor's theses, and/or publications.

Contact

Please, feel free to send me an email at david.carral@tu-dresden.de if you have any further questions.

Acknowledgements

This seminar was inspired by a really good talk by Wim Martens on his paper Evaluation and Enumeration Problems for Regular Path Queries. Furthermore, the papers listed in the "Literature" tab were selected on his recommendation.