Data Model: A data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing data, data relationships, data semantics, and

consistency constraints. Entity:An entity is a thing or object in the real world that is distinguishable from all other objects. For example, each person in an enterprise is an entity.Entity set:An entity set is a set of entities of the same type that share the same properties, orattributes. The set of all persons who are customers at a given bank, for example, can be defined as the entity set customer. Similarly, the entity set loan might represent the set of all loans awarded by a particular bank. An entity is represented by a set of attributes. Attributes are descriptive properties possessed by each member of an entity set. The designation of an attribute for an entity set expresses that the database stores similar information concerning each entity in the entity set; however, each entity may have its own value for each attribute. Simple and composite attributes:the attributes havebeen simple; that is, they are not divided into subparts is called as "simple attributes". on the other hand, can be divided into subparts is called as "composite attributes".For example, an attribute name could be structured as a composite attribute consisting of first-name, middleinitial, and last-name. Single-valued and multivalued attributes:For instance, the loannumber attribute for a specific loan entity refers to only one loan number. Such attributes are said to be single valued. There may be instances where an attribute has a set of values for a specific entity. Consider an employee entity set with the attribute phone-number. An employee may have zero, one, or several phone numbers, and different employees may have different numbers of phones. This type of attribute is said to be multivalued. Derived attribute:The value for this type of attribute can be derived from the values of other related attributes or entities. For instance, let us say that the customer entity set has an attribute loans-held, which represents how many loans a customer has from the bank.We can derive the value for this attribute by counting the number of loan entities associated with that customer. Relationship Sets:A relationship is an association among several entities. A relationship set is a set of relationships of the same type. Mapping Cardinalities:Mapping cardinalities, or cardinality ratios, express the number of entities to which another entity can be associated via a relationship set. Mapping cardinalities are most useful in describing binary relationship sets, although they can contribute to the description of relationship sets that involve more than two entity sets.

customer-name attribute of customer is not a superkey, because several people might have the same name. candidate key:minimal superkeys are called candidate keys.If K is a superkey, then so is any superset of K. We are often interested in superkeys for which no proper subset is a superkey.It is possible that several distinct sets of attributes could serve as a candidate key.Suppose that a combination of customer-name and customerstreet is sufficient to distinguish among members of the customer entity set. Then, both {customer-id} and {customer-name, customerstreet} are candidate keys. Although the attributes customerid and customer-name together can distinguish customer entities, their combination does not form a candidate key, since the attribute customer-id alone is a candidate key. primary key:which denotes the unique identity is called as primary key.primary key to denote a candidate key that is chosen by the database designer as the principal means of identifying entities within an entity set. A key (primary, candidate, and super) is a property of the entity set, rather than of the individual entities. Any two individual entities in the set are prohibited from having the same value on the key attributes at the same time. The designation of a key represents a constraint in the real-world enterprise being modeled. Weak Entity Sets:An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key. Such an entity set is termed a weak entity set. An entity set that has a primary key is termed a strong entity set.For a weak entity set to be meaningful, it must be associated with another entityset, called the identifying or owner entity set. Every weak entity must be associated with an identifying entity; that is, the weak entity set is said to be existence dependent on the identifying entity set. The identifying entity set is said to own the weak entity set that it identifies. The relationship associating the weak entity set with the identifying entity set is called the identifying relationship. The identifying relationship is many to one from the weak entity set to the identifying entity set, and the participation of the weak entity set in the relationship is total. In our example, the identifying entity set for payment is loan, and a relationship loan-payment that associates payment entities with their corresponding loan entities is the identifying relationship. Although a weak entity set does not have a primary key, we nevertheless need a means of distinguishing among all those entities in the weak entity set that depend on one particular strong entity. The discriminator of a weak entity set is a set of attributes that allows this distinction to be made. In E-R diagrams, a doubly outlined box indicates a weak entity set, and a doubly outlined diamond indicates the corresponding identifying relationship.in fig the weak entity set payment depends on the strong entity set loan via the relationship set loan-payment. The figure also illustrates the use of double lines to indicate total participationthe of the (weak) entity set payment in the relationship loan-payment is total, meaning that every payment must be related via loan-payment to some loan. Finally, the arrow from loan-payment to loan indicates that each payment is for a single loan. The discriminator of a weak entity set also is underlined, but with a dashed, ratherthan a solid, line. Specialization:An entity set may include subgroupings of entities that are distinct in some wayfrom other entities in the set. For instance, a subset of entities within an entity set may have attributes that are not shared by all the entities in the entity set. The E-R model provides a means for representing these distinctive entity groupings. Consider an entity set person, with attributes name, street, and city. A personmay be further classified as one of the following: customer employee Each of these person types is described by a set of attributes that includes all the attributes of entity set person plus possibly additional attributes. For example, customer entities may be described further

One to one. An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in B, and an entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A. One to many. An entity in A is associated with any number (zero or more) of entities in B. An entity in B, however, can be associated with at most one entity in A. Many to one. An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in B. An entity in B, however, can be associated with any number (zero or more) of entities in A. Many to many. An entity in A is associated with any number (zero or more) of entities in B, and an entity in B is associated with any number (zero or more) of entities in A.

Keys: A key allows us to identify a set of attributes that suffice to distinguish entities from each other. Keys also help uniquely identify relationships, and thus distinguish relationships from each other. superkey:A superkey is a set of one or more attributes that, taken collectively, allow us to identify uniquely an entity in the entity set. For example, the customer-id attribute of the entity set customer is sufficient to distinguish one customer entity from another. Thus, customer-id is a superkey. Similarly, the combination of customername and customer-id is a superkey for the entity set customer. The

by the attribute customer-id, whereas employee entities may be described further by the attributes employee-id and salary. The process of designating subgroupings within an entity set is called specialization. The specialization of person allows us to distinguish among persons according to whether they are employees or customers. Generalization:The design process may also proceed in a bottom-up manner, in which multiple entity sets are synthesized into a higherlevel entity set on the basis of common features. The database designer may have first identified a customer entity set with the attributes name, street, city, and customer-id, and an employee entity set with the attributes name, street, city, employee-id, and salary. There are similarities between the customer entity set and the employee entity set in the sense that they have several attributes in common. This commonality can be expressed by generalization, which is a containment relationship that exists between a higher-level entity set and one or more lower-level entity sets. In our example, person is the higher-level entity set and customer and employee are lower-level entity sets. Higher- and lower-level entity sets also may be designated by the terms superclass and subclass, respectively. The person entity set is the superclass of the customer and employee subclasses.For all practical purposes, generalization is a simple inversion of specialization. We will apply both processes, in combination, in the course of designing the E-R schema for an enterprise. In terms of the E-R diagram itself, we do not distinguish between specialization and generalization. New levels of entity representation will be distinguished (specialization) or synthesized (generalization) as the design schema comes to express fully the database application and the user requirements of the database. Differences in the two approaches may be characterized by their starting point and overall goal.Generalization proceeds from the recognition that a number of entity sets share some common features (namely, they are described by the same attributes and participatein the same relationship sets). Aggregation: Aggregation is an abstraction in which relationship sets (along with their associated entity sets) are treated as higher-level entity sets, and can participate in relationships.