Advances in Databases

Unit VI
Contents
 Emerging Databases:
 Active and Deductive Databases,
 Main Memory Databases,
 Semantic Databases.

 Complex Data Types:

 Semi-Structured Data, Features of Semi-Structured Data Models.

 Nested Data Types:

 JSON,
 XML.

 Object Orientation:
 Object-Relational Database System,
 Table Inheritance,
 Object-Relational Mapping.

 Spatial Data:
 Geographic Data,
 Geometric Data.
Emerging Databases

 Data is growing rapidly. Day by day it is becoming complex to handle such

huge amount of data properly.

 In order to use the data efficiently the database systems are supported by
modern tools and techniques.

 Emerging databases are those databases that are heavily influenced both by
evaluation of software applications, and by advances in computing
hardware and operating system design.
Active Databases

 Active Database is a database consisting of set of triggers.

 These databases are very difficult to be maintained because of the complexity that arises in
understanding the effect of these triggers.
 In such database, DBMS initially verifies whether the particular trigger specified in the statement that
modifies the database is activated or not, prior to executing the statement.
 If the trigger is active then DBMS executes the condition part and then executes the action part only if
the specified condition is evaluated to true.
 It is possible to activate more than one trigger within a single statement. In such situation, DBMS
processes each of the trigger randomly.
 The execution of an action part of a trigger may either activate other triggers or the same trigger that
Initialized this action. Such types of trigger that activates itself is called as ‘recursive trigger’.
 The DBMS executes such chains of trigger in some pre-defined manner but it effects the concept of
understanding.

 The commercial databases such as Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQLServer allows the use of triggers.
Active Databases (Cont’d)
Active Databases (Cont’d)

 Generalized Model for Active Databases

 The generalized model for active database is considered as Event-Condition-
Action(ECA) model.
 This model has three components:
 Event : The events are DB update operations that are performed explicitly on the
databases.
 Condition: The condition determines whether the rule action should be executed. If the
action is not specified then the action will be executed automatically on occurrence of
the event.
 Action: The action is usually a sequence of SQL statements. It could be a database
transaction or external program that will be executed on occurrence of condition.
Active Databases (Cont’d)
Active Databases (Cont’d)

 Features of Active Database:

1. It possess all the concepts of a conventional database i.e. data modelling facilities, query
language etc.
2. It supports all the functions of a traditional database like data definition, data manipulation,
storage management etc.
3. It supports definition and management of ECA rules.
4. It detects event occurrence.
5. It must be able to evaluate conditions and to execute actions.
6. It means that it has to implement rule execution.
Active Databases (Cont’d)

 Advantages :
1. Enhances traditional database functionalities with powerful rule processing capabilities.
2. Enable a uniform and centralized description of the business rules relevant to the
information system.
3. Avoids redundancy of checking and repair operations.
4. Suitable platform for building large and efficient knowledge base and expert systems.
Deductive Databases
 A deductive database is a database system that can make deductions (i.e. conclude
additional facts) based on rules and facts stored in the (deductive) database.
 Datalog is the language typically used to specify facts, rules and queries in deductive
databases.
 Deductive databases have grown out of the desire to combine logic
programming with relational databases to construct systems that support a powerful
formalism and are still fast and able to deal with very large datasets.
 Deductive databases are more expressive than relational databases but
less expressive than logic programming systems.
 In recent years, deductive databases such as Datalog have found new application in data
integration, information extraction, networking, program analysis, security, and cloud
computing.
 Deductive databases reuse many concepts from logic programming; rules and facts
specified in the deductive database language Datalog look very similar to those
in Prolog.
Deductive Databases (Cont’d)
 These two lines define two facts, i.e. things that always hold:
 parent(xerces, brooke). parent(brooke, damocles).
 This is what they mean: xerces is a parent of brooke and brooke is a parent of damocles.
 The names are written in lowercase because strings beginning with an uppercase letter stand for
variables.

 These two lines define rules, which define how new facts can be inferred from
known facts.
 ancestor(X, Y) :- parent(X, Y). ancestor(X, Y) :- parent(X, Z), ancestor(Z, Y).
 meaning:
 X is an ancestor of Y if X is a parent of Y.
 X is an ancestor of Y if X is a parent of some Z, and
 Z is an ancestor of Y.

 This line is a query:

 ?- ancestor(xerces, X).
 It asks the following: Who are all the X that xerces is an ancestor of?
 It would return brooke and damocles when posed against a Datalog system containing the facts and
rules described above.
Main Memory Databases

 A main memory database system is a DBMS that primarily relies on main memory
for computer data storage.
 In contrast, conventional database management systems typically employ hard disk based
persistent storage.
 The main advantage of MMDBMS over normal DBMS technology is superior
performance, as I/O cost is no more a performance cost factor.
 With I/O as main optimization focus eliminated, the architecture of main memory
database systems typically aims at optimizing CPU cost and CPU cache usage.
 The backup copy of such database is maintained on the disk.
 As access to main memory is much faster than the disk access, hence transactions gets
completed quickly.
 Essential to have backup copy of the DB because if main memory gets failed then the
entire DB system gets lost.
 Popularly used MMDBMS are CSQL, TimesTen
Semantic Databases
 What is a Semantics?
 Semantics is an emerging field of research and development in information
science.
 Semantics is the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with
meaning.
 This can be broken down into three major categories:
1. Formal Semantics
 Logical aspects of meaning:
 Sense
 Reference
 Implication
 Logical form
Semantic Databases (Cont’d)
2. Lexical Semantics
 Word meaning
 Word relations

3. Conceptual Semantics
 Cognitive structure of meaning

 Or, to put it a bit more concretely:

 Semantics is the study of meaning

 It focuses on the relationship between:

 Signifiers: words, phrases, signs and symbols
 Denotation: what they stand for
Semantic Databases (Cont’d)

 A Semantic Database
 In a semantic database, the schema:
1. describes denotations
2. describes relationships between denotations
 The job of the database then is to associate signifiers (values) to
those denotations. Therefore:
 Structure resolves to concrete properties to which instance
values can be associated
Semantic Databases (Cont’d)

 Benefits of a Semantic Database

• By preserving semantic structure, we can query the database at different
levels of semantic meaning, from very specific to very general.
• For example, the semantic type “Title” is very general but allows us to ask “what are
all the values of things having the meaning “Title”?

• By inspecting the relationships, we can ask “what are the things having “Title” in
their meaning?

• When we query the database, we don’t just get back a list of records – we get
back fully “rehydrated” semantic types.
Semantic Databases (Cont’d)
 Drawbacks of a Semantic Database
• Tables and their fields are organized by hierarchical rather than logical
structure:
• We usually think about organizing information into logical associations and relationships
• Hierarchical organization creates many more tables
• The number of joins in a query can degrade performance.
• Multiple insert operations are required to create the semantic type’s hierarchy.
• Designing hierarchies isn’t easy
• We need to learn how to think about multiple levels of abstraction.
• We need to think carefully about unique native types and unique semantic types.
• Writing SQL queries by hand is painful:
• lots of joins, often with multiple references to the native type tables making it hard to keep track of
which FK join is associated with what meaning-value.
• Writing insert statements by hand is even more painful:
• multiple inserts from the bottom up, requiring the ID of the child table to populate the foreign key
in the parent table.
References

 https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/active-databases/
 https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/applications-of-commercial-deductive-database-systems/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_database
 https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/832959/Semantic-Database-Concept-Architecture-and-
Impleme