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Data Analysis 2: DR Gordon Russell

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28 views20 pages

Data Analysis 2: DR Gordon Russell

Uploaded by

Stan Lem
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Data Analysis 2

Chapter 2.2
V3.0
Copyright @ Napier University
Dr Gordon Russell
Entity Relationship Modelling - 2

Overview

• construct an ER model
• understand the problems associated with ER
models
• understand the modelling concepts of Enhanced
ER modelling
Country Bus Company

A Country Bus Company owns a number of busses. Each bus is


allocated to a particular route, although some routes may have
several busses. Each route passes through a number of towns.
One or more drivers are allocated to each stage of a route,
which corresponds to a journey through some or all of the towns
on a route. Some of the towns have a garage where busses are
kept and each of the busses are identified by the registration
number and can carry different numbers of passengers, since
the vehicles vary in size and can be single or double-decked.
Each route is identified by a route number and information is
available on the average number of passengers carried per day
for each route. Drivers have an employee number, name,
address, and sometimes a telephone number.
Entities

• Bus - Company owns busses and will hold information about


them.
• Route - Buses travel on routes and will need described.
• Town - Buses pass through towns and need to know about
them
• Driver - Company employs drivers, personnel will hold their
data.
• Stage - Routes are made up of stages
• Garage - Garage houses buses, and need to know where
they are.
Relationships

• A bus is allocated to a route and a route may have several


buses.
– Bus-route (m:1) is serviced by
• A route comprises of one or more stages.
– route-stage (1:m) comprises
• One or more drivers are allocated to each stage.
– driver-stage (m:1) is allocated
• A stage passes through some or all of the towns on a route.
– stage-town (m:n) passes-through
Relationships cont...

• A route passes through some or all of the towns


– route-town (m:n) passes-through
• Some of the towns have a garage
– garage-town (1:1) is situated
• A garage keeps buses and each bus has one
‘home’ garage
– garage-bus (m:1) is garaged
Draw E-R Diagram

is garaged m is serviced by
Bus n Route
has
m
Garage
Stage n
Driver
m n is allocated
is situated in Town passed through
Attributes

• Bus (reg-no,make,size,deck,no-pass)
• Route (route-no,avg-pass)
• Driver (emp-no,name,address,tel-no)
• Town (name)
• Stage (stage-no)
• Garage (name,address)
Problems with ER Models

There are several problems that may arise when


designing a conceptual data model. These are
known as connection traps.

There are two main types of connection traps:

1. fan traps
2. chasm traps
Fan traps

A fan trap occurs when a model represents a relationship


between entity types, but the pathway between certain entity
occurrences is ambiguous. It occurs when 1:m relationships fan
out from a single entity.
is on employ
Department Site Staff
n m
Fan traps cont...

A single site contains many departments and employs many staff.


However, which staff work in a particular department?

The fan trap is resolved by restructuring the original ER model to


represent the correct association.

works for is on
Staff Department Site
n m
Chasm traps

A chasm trap occurs when a model suggests the existence of a


relationship between entity types, but the pathway does not exist
between certain entity occurrences.

It occurs where there is a relationship with partial participation,


which forms part of the pathway between entities that are related.

is_allocated oversees
Branch Staff Property
n 0 0
Chasm traps cont...

• A single branch is allocated many staff who


oversee the management of properties for rent.
Not all staff oversee property and not all property
is managed by a member of staff.
• What properties are available at a branch?
• The partial participation of Staff and Property in
the oversees relation means that some properties
cannot be associated with a branch office through
a member of staff.
Chasm Traps cont...

• We need to add the missing relationship which is called ‘has’


between the Branch and the Property entities.
• You need to therefore be careful when you remove relationships
which you consider to be redundant.

is_allocated n 0 oversees
Staff
0
Branch Property
has
Enhanced ER Models (EER)

The basic concepts of ER modelling is not powerful


enough for some complex applications... We require
some additional semantic modelling concepts:

• Specialisation
• Generalisation
• Categorisation
• Aggregation
EER Models cont...

First we need some new entity constructs.


• Superclass - an entity type that includes distinct subclasses that
require to be represented in a data model.
• Subclass - an entity type that has a distinct role and is also a
member of a superclass.

Manager Secretary

Sales
Personnel
Staff
EER Models cont...

Subclasses need not be mutually exclusive; a member of staff


may be a manager and a sales person.

The purpose of introducing superclasses and subclasses is to


avoid describing types of staff with possibly different attributes
within a single entity. This could waste space and you might
want to make some attributes mandatory for some types of staff
but other staff would not need these attributes at all.
Specialisation

This is the process of maximising the differences


between members of an entity by identifying their
distinguishing characteristics.

• Staff(staff_no,name,address,dob)
• Manager(bonus)
• Secretary(wp_skills)
• Sales_personnel(sales_area, car_allowance)
Specialisation cont...

manages Manager Secretary


Department
Sales
Personnel
works for Staff

• Here we have shown that the manages relationship is only


applicable to the Manager subclass, whereas the works_for
relationship is applicable to all staff.
• It is possible to have subclasses of subclasses.
Generalisation

Generalisation is the process of minimising the


differences between entities byidentifying common
features.

This is the identification of a generalised superclass


from the original subclasses. This is the process of
identifying the common attributes and relationships.

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