Emerging Database

UNIT 1 EMERGING DATABASE MODELS, Models, Technologies

and Applications-I
TECHNOLOGIES AND
APPLICATIONS-I
Structure Page Nos.
1.0 Introduction 5
1.1 Objectives 5
1.2 Multimedia Database 6
1.2.1 Factors Influencing the Growth of Multimedia Data
1.2.2 Applications of Multimedia Database
1.2.3 Contents of MMDB
1.2.4 Designing MMDBs
1.2.5 State of the Art of MMDBMS
1.3 Spatial Database and Geographic Information Systems 10
1.4 Gnome Databases 12
1.4.1 Genomics
1.4.2 Gene Expression
1.4.3 Proteomics
1.5 Knowledge Databases 17
1.5.1 Deductive Databases
1.5.2 Semantic Databases
1.6 Information Visualisation 18
1.7 Summary 19
1.8 Solutions/Answers 20

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Database technology has advanced from the relational model to the distributed DBMS
and Object Oriented databases. The technology has also advanced to support data
formats using XML. In addition, data warehousing and data mining technology has
become very popular in the industry from the viewpoint of decision making and
planning.

Database technology is also being used in advanced applications and technologies.

Some of this new application includes multimedia based database applications,
geographic applications, Gnome databases, knowledge and spatial databases and
many more such applications. These applications require some additional features
from the DBMS as they are special in nature and thus are categorised as emerging
database technologies.

This unit provides a brief introduction of database requirements of these newer

applications.

1.1 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit, you should be able to:

• define the requirements of a multimedia database systems;

• identify the basic features of geographic databases;
• list the features of Gnome databases;
• differentiate various knowledge databases and their advantages, and
• define the terms information visualisation and spatial databases.

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 Emerging Trends and
Example DBMS
Architectures
1.2 MULTIMEDIA DATABASE
Multimedia and its applications have experienced tremendous growth. Multimedia
data is typically defined as containing digital images, audio, video, animation and
graphics along with the textual data. In the past decade, with the advances in network
technologies, the acquisition, creation, storage and processing of multimedia data and
its transmission over networks have grown tremendously.

A Multimedia Database Management System (MMDBMS) provides support for

multimedia data types. It also provides the facilities for traditional DBMS functions
like database creation, data modeling, data retrieval, data access and organisation, and
data independence. With the rapid development of network technology, multimedia
database system, multimedia information exchange is becoming very important. Any
such application would require the support for a string multimedia database
technology. Let us look into some of the factors that influence the growth of
multimedia data.

1.2.1 Factors Influencing the Growth of Multimedia Data

(i) Technological Advancements
Some of the technological advances that attributed to the growth of multimedia data
are:

• computers, their computational power and availability,

• availability of high-resolution devices for the capture and display of multimedia
data (digital cameras, scanners, monitors, and printers),
• development of high-density storage devices, and
• integration of all such technologies through digital means.

(ii) High Speed Data Communication Networks and Software

Secondly high-speed data communication networks are common these days. These
networks not only support high bandwidth but also are more reliable and support
digital data transfer. Even the World Wide Web has rapidly grown and software for
manipulating multimedia data is now available.

(iii) Applications
With the rapid growth of computing and communication technologies, many
applications have come to the forefront. Thus, any such applications in future will
support life with multimedia data. This trend is expected to go on increasing in the
days to come.

1.2.2 Applications of Multimedia Database

Multimedia data contains some exciting features. They are found to be more effective
in dissemination of information in science, engineering, medicine, modern biology,
and social sciences. They also facilitate the development of new paradigms in distance
learning, and interactive personal and group entertainment.

Some of the typical applications of multimedia databases are:

• media commerce
• medical media databases
• bioinformatics
• ease of use of home media
• news and entertainment
• surveillance

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• wearable computing Emerging Database
Models, Technologies
• management of meeting/presentation recordings and Applications-I
• biometrics (people identification using image, video and/or audio data).

The huge amount of data in different multimedia-related applications needs databases

as the basic support mechanism. This is primarily due to the fact that the databases
provide consistency, concurrency, integrity, security and availability of data. On the
other hand from a user perspective, databases provide ease of use of data
manipulation, query and retrieval of meaningful and relevant information from a huge
collection of stored data.

Multimedia Databases (MMDBs) must cope with the large volume of multimedia
data, being used in various software applications. Some such applications may include
digital multimedia libraries, art and entertainment, journalism and so on. Some of
these qualities of multimedia data like size, formats etc. have direct and indirect
influence on the design and development of a multimedia database.

Thus, a MMDBs needs to provide features of a traditional database as well as some

new and enhanced functionalities and features. They must provide a homogenous
framework for storing, processing, retrieving, transmitting and presenting a wide
variety of multiple media data types available in a large variety of formats.

1.2.3 Contents of MMDB

A MMDB needs to manage the following different types of information with respect
to the multimedia data:
Media Data: It includes the media data in the form of images, audio and video.
These are captured, digitised, processes, compressed and stored. Such data is the
actual information that is to be stored.

Media Format Data: This data defines the format of the media data after the
acquisition, processing, and encoding phases. For example, such data may consist of
information about sampling rate, resolution, frame rate, encoding scheme etc. of
various media data.

Media Keyword Data: This contains the keyword related to the description of media
data. For example, for a video, this might include the date, time, and place of
recording, the person who recorded, the scene description, etc. This is also known as
content description data.

Media Feature Data: This contains the features derived from the media data. A
feature characterises the contents of the media. For example, this could contain
information on the distribution of colours, the kinds of textures and the different
shapes present in an image. This is also referred to as content dependent data.

The last three types are known as meta data as, they describe several different aspects
of the media data. The media keyword data and media feature data are used as indices
for searching purpose. The media format data is used to present the retrieved
information.

1.2.4 Designing MMDBs

The following characteristics of multimedia data have direct and indirect impacts on
the design of MMDBs:

• the huge size of MMDBs,

• temporal nature of the data,
• richness of content through media, and
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 Emerging Trends and • complexity of representation and subjective interpretation specially from the
Example DBMS
Architectures
viewpoint of the meta data.

Challenges in Designing of Multimedia Databases

The major challenges in designing multimedia databases are due to the requirements
they need to satisfy. Some of these requirements are:
1) The database should be able to manage different types of input, output, and
storage devices. For example, the data may be input from a number of devices
that could include scanners, digital camera for images, microphone, MIDI
devices for audio, video cameras. Typical output devices are high-resolution
monitors for images and video, and speakers for audio.
2) The database needs to handle a variety of data compression and storage formats.
Please note that data encoding has a variety of formats even within a single
application. For example, in a medical application, the MRI image of the brain
should be loss less, thus, putting very stringent quality on the coding technique,
while the X-ray images of bones can be coded with lossy techniques as the
requirements are less stringent. Also, the radiological image data, the ECG data,
other patient data, etc. have widely varying formats.
3) The database should be able to support different computing platforms and
operating systems. This is due to the fact that multimedia databases are huge
and support a large variety of users who may operate computers and devices
suited to their needs and tastes. However, all such users need the same kind of
user-level view of the database.
4) Such a database must integrate different data models. For example, the textual
and numeric data relating to a multimedia database may be best handled using a
relational database model, while linking such data with media data as well as
handling media data such as video documents are better done using an object-
oriented database model. So these two models need to co-exist in MMDBs.
5) These systems need to offer a variety of query systems for different kinds of
media. The query system should be easy-to-use, fast and deliver accurate
retrieval of information. The query for the same item sometimes is requested in
different forms. For example, a portion of interest in a video can be queried by
using either:
(a) a few sample video frames as an example
(b) a clip of the corresponding audio track or
(c) a textual description using keywords.

6) One of the main requirements for such a Database would be to handle different
kinds of indices. The multimedia data is in exact and subjective in nature, thus,
the keyword-based indices and exact range searches used in traditional
databases are ineffective in such databases. For example, the retrieval of records
of students based on enrolment number is precisely defined, but the retrieval of
records of student having certain facial features from a database of facial
images, requires, content-based queries and similarity-based retrievals. Thus,
the multimedia database may require indices that are content dependent key-
word indices.
7) The Multimedia database requires developing measures of data similarity that
are closer to perceptual similarity. Such measures of similarity for different
media types need to be quantified and should correspond to perceptual
similarity. This will also help the search process.

8) Multimedia data is created all over world, so it could have distributed database
features that cover the entire world as the geographic area. Thus, the media data
may reside in many different distributed storage locations.
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 Emerging Database
9) Multimedia data may have to be delivered over available networks in real-time. Models, Technologies
and Applications-I
Please note, in this context, the audio and video data is temporal in nature. For
example, the video frames need to be presented at the rate of about 30
frames/sec for smooth motion.

10) One important consideration with regard to Multimedia is that it needs to

synchronise multiple media types relating to one single multimedia object. Such
media may be stored in different formats, or different devices, and have
different frame transfer rates.

Multimedia data is now being used in many database applications. Thus, multimedia
databases are required for efficient management and effective use of enormous
amounts of data.

1.2.5 State of the Art of MMDBMS

The first multimedia database system ORION was developed in 1987. The mid 90s
saw several commercial MMDBMS being implemented from scratch. Some of them
were MediaDB, now MediaWay, JASMINE, and ITASCA (the commercial
successor of ORION). They were able to handle different kinds of data and support
mechanisms for querying, retrieving, inserting, and updating data. However, most of
these products are not on offer commercially and only some of them have adapted
themselves successfully to hardware, software and application changes.

These software are used to provide support for a wide variety of different media types,
specifically different media file formats such as image formats, video etc. These files
need to be managed, segmented, linked and searched.

The later commercial systems handle multimedia content by providing complex object
types for various kinds of media. In such databases the object orientation provides the
facilities to define new data types and operations appropriate for the media, such as
video, image and audio. Therefore, broadly MMDBMSs are extensible Object-
Relational DBMS (ORDBMSs). The most advanced solutions presently include
Oracle 10g, IBM DB2 and IBM Informix. These solutions purpose almost similar
approaches for extending the search facility for video on similarity-based techniques.

Some of the newer projects address the needs of applications for richer semantic
content. Most of them are based on the new MPEG-standards MPEG-7 and MPEG-
21.

MPEG-7
MPEG-7 is the ISO/IEC 15938 standard for multimedia descriptions that was issued
in 2002. It is XML based multimedia meta-data standard, and describes various
elements for multimedia processing cycle from the capture, analysis/filtering, to the
delivery and interaction.

MPEG-21 is the ISO/IEC 21000 standard and is expected to define an open

multimedia framework. The intent is that the framework will cover the entire
multimedia content delivery chain including content creation, production, delivery,
presentation etc.

Challenges for the Multimedia Database Technologies: Multimedia technologies

need to evolve further. Some of the challenges posed by multimedia database
applications are:

• the applications utilising multimedia data are very diverse in nature. There is a
need for the standardisation of such database technologies,

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 Emerging Trends and • technology is ever changing, thus, creating further hurdles in the way of
Example DBMS
Architectures
multimedia databases,
• there is still a need to refine the algorithms to represent multimedia information
semantically. This also creates problems with respect to information
interpretation and comparison.
) Check Your Progress 1
1) What are the reasons for the growth of multimedia data?
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2) List four application areas of multimedia databases.
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3) What are the contents of multimedia database?
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4) List the challenges in designing multimedia databases.
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1.3 SPATIAL DATABASE AND GEOGRAPHIC

INFORMATION SYSTEMS
A spatial database keeps track of an object in a multi-dimensional space. A spatial
database may be used to represent the map of a country along with the information
about railways, roads, irrigation facilities, and so on. Such applications are known as
Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Let us discuss GIS in this section.
The idea of a geographic database is to provide geographic information; therefore,
they are referred to as the Geographic Information System (GIS). A GIS is basically a
collection of the Geographic information of the world. This information is stored and
analysed on the basis of data stored in the GIS. The data in GIS normally defines the
physical properties of the geographic world, which includes:
• spatial data such as political boundaries, maps, roads, railways, airways, rivers,
land elevation, climate etc.
• non-spatial data such as population, economic data etc.

But what are the Applications of the Geographic Databases?

The applications of the geographic databases can be categorised into three broad
categories. These are:

• Cartographic Applications: These applications revolve around the capture and

analysis of cartographic information in a number of layers. Some of the basic
applications in this category would be to analyse crop yields, irrigation facility
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 planning, evaluation of land use, facility and landscape management, traffic Emerging Database
monitoring system etc. These applications need to store data as per the required Models, Technologies
and Applications-I
applications. For example, irrigation facility management would require study
of the various irrigation sources, the land use patterns, the fertility of the land,
soil characteristics, rain pattern etc. some of the kinds of data stored in various
layers containing different attributes. This data will also require that any
changes in the pattern should also be recorded. Such data may be useful for
decision makers to ascertain and plan for the sources and types of and means of
irrigation.

• 3-D Digital Modelling Applications: Such applications store information about

the digital representation of the land, and elevations of parts of earth surfaces at
sample points. Then, a surface model is fitted in using the interpolation and
visualisation techniques. Such models are very useful in earth science oriented
studies, air and water pollution studies at various elevations, water resource
management etc. This application requires data to be represented as attribute
based just as in the case of previous applications.

• The third kind of application of such information systems is using the

geographic objects applications. Such applications are required to store
additional information about various regions or objects. For example, you can
store the information about the changes in buildings, roads, over a period of
time in a geographic area. Some such applications may include the economic
analysis of various products and services etc.

Requirements of a GIS
The data in GIS needs to be represented in graphical form. Such data would require
any of the following formats:

• Vector Data: In such representations, the data is represented using some

geometric objects such as line, square, circle, etc. For example, you can
represent a road using a sequence of line segments.
• Raster Data: Here, data is represented using an attribute value for each pixel or
voxel (a three dimensional point). Raster data can be used to represent three-
dimensional elevation using a format termed digital elevation format. For object
related applications a GIS may include a temporal structure that records
information about some movement related detail such as traffic movement.

A GIS must also support the analysis of data. Some of the sample data analysis
operations that may be needed for typical applications are:

• analysing soil erosion

• measurement of gradients
• computing shortest paths
• use of DSS with GIS etc.

One of the key requirements of GIS may be to represent information in an integrated

fashion, using both the vector and raster data. In addition it also takes care of data at
various temporal structures thus, making it amenable to analysis.

Another question here is the capturing of information in two-dimensional and three-

dimensional space in digital form. The source data may be captured by a remote
sensing satellite, which can then be, further appended by ground surveys if the need
arises. Pattern recognition in this case, is very important for the capture and
automating of information input.

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 Emerging Trends and Once the data is captured in GIS it may be processed through some special operations.
Example DBMS
Architectures
Some such operations are:

• Interpolation for locating elevations at some intermediate points with reference

to sample points.
• Some operations may be required for data enhancement, smoothing the data,
interpreting the terrain etc.
• Creating a proximity analysis to determine the distances among the areas of
interest.
• Performing image enhancement using image processing algorithms for the
raster data.
• Performing analysis related to networks of specific type like road network.

The GIS also requires the process of visualisation in order to display the data in a
proper visual.

Thus, GIS is not a database that can be implemented using either the relational or
object oriented database alone. Much more needs to be done to support them. A
detailed discussion on these topics is beyond the scope of this unit.

1.4 GNOME DATABASES

One of the major areas of application of information technology is in the field of
Genetics. Here, the computer can be used to create models based on the information
obtained about genes. This information models can be used to study:

• the transmission of characteristics from one generation to next,

• the chemical structure of genes and the related functions of each portion of
structure, and
• the variations of gene information of all organisms.

Biological data by nature is enormous. Bioinformation is one such key area that has
emerged in recent years and which, addresses the issues of information management
of genetic data related to DNA sequence. A detailed discussion on this topic is beyond
the scope of this unit. However, let us identify some of the basic characteristics of the
biological data.

Biological Data – Some Characteristics:

• Biological data consists of complex structures and relationships.

• The size of the data is very large and the data also has a lot of variations across
the same type.
• The schema of the database keeps on evolving once or twice a year moreover,
even the version of schema created by different people for the same data may be
different.
• Most of the accesses to the database would be read only accesses.
• The context of data defines the data and must be preserved along with the data.
• Old value needs to be kept for future references.
• Complex queries need to be represented here.

The Human Genome Initiative is an international research initiative for the creation of
detailed genetic and physical maps for each of the twenty-four different human
chromosomes and the finding of the complete deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequence
of the human genome. The term Genome is used to define the complete genetic
information about a living entity. A genetic map shows the linear arrangement of
genes or genetic marker sites on a chromosome. There are two types of genetic maps−
genetic linkage maps and physical maps. Genetic linkage maps are created on the

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basis of the frequency with which genetic markers are co-inherited. Physical maps are Emerging Database
Models, Technologies
used to determine actual distances between genes on a chromosome. and Applications-I

The Human Genome Initiative has six strong scientific objectives:

• to construct a high-resolution genetic map of the human genome,

• to produce a variety of physical maps of the human genome,

• to determine the complete sequence of human DNA,

• for the parallel analysis of the genomes of a selected number of well-

characterised non-human model organisms,

• to create instrumentation technology to automate genetic mapping, physical

mapping and DNA sequencing for the large-scale analysis of complete
genomes,

• to develop algorithms, software and databases for the collection, interpretation

and dissemination of the vast quantities of complex mapping and sequencing
data that are being generated by human genome research.

Genome projects generate enormous quantities of data. Such data is stored in a

molecular database, which is composed of an annotated collection of all publicly
available DNA sequences. One such database is the Genbank of the National Institutes
of Health (NIH), USA. But what would be the size of such a database? In February
2000 the Genbank molecular database contained 5,691,000 DNA sequences, which
were further composed of approximately 5,805,000,000 deoxyribonucleotides.

One of the major uses of such databases is in computational Genomics, which refers
to the applications of computational molecular biology in genome research. On the
basis of the principles of the molecular biology, computational genomics has been
classified into three successive levels for the management and analysis of genetic data
in scientific databases. These are:

• Genomics.
• Gene expression.
• Proteomics.

1.4.1 Genomics
Genomics is a scientific discipline that focuses on the systematic investigation of the
complete set of chromosomes and genes of an organism. Genomics consists of two
component areas:

• Structural Genomics which refers to the large-scale determination of DNA

sequences and gene mapping, and

• Functional Genomics, which refers to the attachment of information

concerning functional activity to existing structural knowledge about DNA
sequences.

Genome Databases
Genome databases are used for the storage and analysis of genetic and physical maps.
Chromosome genetic linkage maps represent distances between markers based on
meiotic re-combination frequencies. Chromosome physical maps represent distances
between markers based on numbers of nucleotides.

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 Emerging Trends and Genome databases should define four data types:
Example DBMS
Architectures • Sequence
• Physical
• Genetic
• Bibliographic

Sequence data should include annotated molecular sequences.

Physical data should include eight data fields:

• Sequence-tagged sites
• Coding regions
• Non-coding regions
• Control regions
• Telomeres
• Centromeres
• Repeats
• Metaphase chromosome bands.

Genetic data should include seven data fields:

• Locus name
• Location
• Recombination distance
• Polymorphisms
• Breakpoints
• Rearrangements
• Disease association
• Bibliographic references should cite primary scientific and medical literature.

Genome Database Mining

Genome database mining is an emerging technology. The process of genome database
mining is referred to as computational genome annotation. Computational genome
annotation is defined as the process by which an uncharacterised DNA sequence is
documented by the location along the DNA sequence of all the genes that are involved
in genome functionality.

1.4.2 Gene Expression

Gene expression is the use of the quantitative messenger RNA (mRNA)-level
measurements of gene expression in order to characterise biological processes and
explain the mechanisms of gene transcription. The objective of gene expression is the
quantitative measurement of mRNA expression particularly under the influence of
drugs or disease perturbations.

Gene Expression Databases

Gene expression databases provide integrated data management and analysis systems
for the transcriptional expression of data generated by large-scale gene expression
experiments. Gene expression databases need to include fourteen data fields:

• Gene expression assays

• Database scope
• Gene expression data
• Gene name
• Method or assay
• Temporal information

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• Spatial information Emerging Database
Models, Technologies
• Quantification and Applications-I
• Gene products
• User annotation of existing data
• Linked entries
• Links to other databases
o Internet access
o Internet submission.

Gene expression databases have not established defined standards for the collection,
storage, retrieval and querying of gene expression data derived from libraries of gene
expression experiments.

Gene Expression Database Mining

Gene expression database mining is used to identify intrinsic patterns and
relationships in gene expression data.

Gene expression data analysis uses two approaches:

• Hypothesis testing and

• Knowledge discovery.

Hypothesis testing makes a hypothesis and uses the results of perturbation of a

biological process to match predicted results. The objective of knowledge discovery is
to detect the internal structure of the biological data. Knowledge discovery in gene
expression data analysis employs two methodologies:

• Statistics functions such as cluster analysis, and

• Visualisation.

Data visualisation is used to display the partial results of cluster analysis generated
from large gene expression database cluster.

1.4.3 Proteomics
Proteomics is the use of quantitative protein-level measurements of gene expression in
order to characterise biological processes and describe the mechanisms of gene
translation. The objective of proteomics is the quantitative measurement of protein
expression particularly under the influence of drugs or disease perturbations. Gene
expression monitors gene transcription whereas proteomics monitors gene translation.
Proteomics provides a more direct response to functional genomics than the indirect
approach provided by gene expression.
Proteome Databases
Proteome databases also provide integrated data management and analysis systems for
the translational expression data generated by large-scale proteomics experiments.
Proteome databases integrate expression levels and properties of thousands of proteins
with the thousands of genes identified on genetic maps and offer a global approach to
the study of gene expression.
Proteome databases address five research problems that cannot be resolved by DNA
analysis:

• Relative abundance of protein products,

• Post-translational modifications,
• Subcellular localisations,
• Molecular turnover and
• Protein interactions.

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 Emerging Trends and The creation of comprehensive databases of genes and gene products will lay the
Example DBMS
Architectures
foundation for further construction of comprehensive databases of higher-level
mechanisms, e.g., regulation of gene expression, metabolic pathways and signalling
cascades.

Proteome Database Mining

Proteome database mining is used to identify intrinsic patterns and relationships in
proteomics data. Proteome database mining has been performed in areas such as
Human Lymphoid Proteins and the evaluation of Toxicity in drug users.

Some Databases Relating to Genome

The following table defines some important databases that have been developed for
the Genome.

Database Name Characteristics Database Problem Areas

GenBank Keeps information on the Schema is always evolving.
DNA/RNA sequences and This database requires
information on proteins linking to many other
databases
GDB Stores information on genetic It faces the same problem of
map linkages as well as non- schema evolution and linking
human sequence data of database. This database
also has very complex data
objects
ACEDB Stores information on genetic It also has the problem of
map linkages as well as non- schema evolution and linking
human sequence data. It uses of database. This database
object oriented database also has very complex data
technology objects

A detailed discussion on these databases is beyond the scope of this Unit. You may
wish to refer to the further readings for more information.

) Check Your Progress 2

1) What is GIS? What are its applications?
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2) List the requirements of a GIS.
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3) What are the database requirements for Genome?
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 Emerging Database
1.5 KNOWLEDGE DATABASES Models, Technologies
and Applications-I

Knowledge databases are the database for knowledge management. But what is
knowledge management? Knowledge management is the way to gather, manage and
use the knowledge of an organisation. The basic objectives of knowledge management
are to achieve improved performance, competitive advantage and higher levels of
innovation in various tasks of an organisation.

Knowledge is the key to such systems. Knowledge has several aspects:

• Knowledge can be implicit (called tacit knowledge) which are internalised or

can be explicit knowledge.
• Knowledge can be captured before, during, or even after knowledge activity is
conducted.
• Knowledge can be represented in logical form, semantic network form or
database form.
• Knowledge once properly represented can be used to generate more knowledge
using automated deductive reasoning.
• Knowledge may sometimes be incomplete. In fact, one of the most important
aspects of the knowledge base is that it should contain upto date and excellent
quality of information.

Simple knowledge databases may consist of the explicit knowledge of an organsiation

including articles, user manuals, white papers, troubleshooting information etc. Such a
knowledge base would provide basic solutions to some of the problems of the less
experienced employees.
A good knowledge base should have:

• good quality articles having up to date information,

• a good classification structure,
• a good content format, and
• an excellent search engine for information retrieval.
One of the knowledge base technologies is based on deductive database technology.
Let us discuss more about it in the next sub-section.
1.5.1 Deductive Databases
A deductive database is a database system that can be used to make deductions from
the available rules and facts that are stored in such databases. The following are the
key characteristics of the deductive databases:

• the information in such systems is specified using a declarative language in the

form of rules and facts,
• an inference engine that is contained within the system is used to deduce new
facts from the database of rules and facts,
• these databases use concepts from the relational database domain (relational
calculus) and logic programming domain (Prolog Language),
• the variant of Prolog known as Datalog is used in deductive databases. The
Datalog has a different way of executing programs than the Prolog and
• the data in such databases is specified with the help of facts and rules. For
example, The fact that Rakesh is the manager of Mohan will be represented as:
Manager(Rakesh, Mohan) having the schema:
Manager(Mgrname, beingmangaed)
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 Emerging Trends and Similarly the following represents a rule:
Example DBMS
Architectures Manager(Rakesh, Mohan) :- Managedby(Mohan, Rakesh)

• Please note that during the representation of the fact the data is represented
using the attribute value only and not the attribute name. The attribute name
determination is on the basis of the position of the data. For instance, in the
example above Rakesh is the Mgrname.
• The rules in the Datalog do not contain the data. These are evaluated on the
basis of the stored data in order to deduce more information.

Deductive databases normally operate in very narrow problem domains. These

databases are quite close to expert systems except that deductive databases use, the
database to store facts and rules, whereas expert systems store facts and rules in the
main memory. Expert systems also find their knowledge through experts whereas
deductive database have their knowledge in the data. Deductive databases are applied
to knowledge discovery and hypothesis testing.

1.5.2 Semantic Databases

Information in most of the database management systems is represented using a
simple table with records and fields. However, simple database models fall short of
applications that require complex relationships and rich constructs to be represented
using the database. So how do we address such a problem? Do we employ object
oriented models or a more natural data model that represents the information using
semantic models? Semantic modeling provides a far too rich set of data structuring
capabilities for database applications. A semantic model contains far too many
constructs that may be able to represent structurally complex inter-relations among
data in a somewhat more natural way. Please note that such complex inter-
relationships typically occur in commercial applications.

Semantic modeling is one of the tools for representing knowledge especially in

Artificial Intelligence and object-oriented applications. Thus, it may be a good idea to
model some of the knowledge databases using semantic database system.

Some of the features of semantic modeling and semantic databases are:

• these models represent information using high-level modeling abstractions,

• these models reduce the semantic overloading of data type constructors,
• semantic models represent objects explicitly along with their attributes,
• semantic models are very strong in representing relationships among objects,
and
• they can also be modeled to represent IS A relationships, derived schema and
also complex objects.
Some of the applications that may be supported by such database systems in addition
to knowledge databases may be applications such as bio-informatics, that require
support for complex relationships, rich constraints, and large-scale data handling.

1.6 INFORMATION VISUALISATION

Relational database offers one of the simplest forms of information visualisation in the
form of the tables. However, with the complex database technologies and complex
database inter-relationship structures, it is important that the information is presented
to the user in a simple and understandable form. Information visualisation is the
branch of Computer Graphics that deals with the presentation of digital images and
interactions to the users in the form that s/he can handle with ease. Information
visualisation may result in presentation of information using trees or graph or similar
data structures.
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Another similar term used in the context of visualisation is knowledge visualisation Emerging Database
the main objective of which is to improve transfer of knowledge using visual formats Models, Technologies
and Applications-I
that include images, mind maps, animations etc.

Please note the distinction here. Information visualisation mainly focuses on the tools
that are supported by the computer in order to explore and present large amount of
data in formats that may be easily understood.

You can refer to more details on this topic in the fifth semester course.

) Check Your Progress 3

1) What is a good knowledge base?
……………………………………………………………………………………
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2) What are the features of deductive databases?
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………

3) State whether the following are True or False:

(a) Semantic model is the same as an object.

(b) IS A relationship cannot be represented in a semantic model.

(c) Information visualisation is used in GIS.

(d) Knowledge visualisation is the same as information visualisation.

1.7 SUMMARY
This unit provides an introduction to some of the later developments in the area of
database management systems. Multimedia databases are used to store and deal with
multimedia information in a cohesive fashion. Multimedia databases are very large in
size and also require support of algorithms for searches based on various media
components. Spatial database primarily deals with multi-dimensional data. GIS is a
spatial database that can be used for many cartographic applications such as irrigation
system planning, vehicle monitoring system etc. This database system may represent
information in a multi-dimensional way.

Genome database is another very large database system that is used for the purpose of
genomics, gene expression and proteomics. Knowledge database store information
either as a set of facts and rules or as semantic models. These databases can be utilised
in order to deduce more information from the stored rules using an inference engine.
Information visualisation is an important area that may be linked to databases from
the point of visual presentation of information for better user interactions.

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 Emerging Trends and
Example DBMS
Architectures
1.8 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS
Check Your Progress 1
1) a) Advanced technology in terms of devices that were digital in nature and
support capture and display equipment.
b) High speed data communication network and software support for
multimedia data transfer.
c) Newer application requiring multimedia support.
2) Medical media databases
Bio-informatics
Home media
News etc.
3) Content can be of two basic types:
a) Media Content
b) Meta data, which includes media, format data, media keyword data and
media feature data.
4) Some of the challenges are:
a) Support for different types of input/output
b) Handling many compressions algorithms and formats
c) Differences in OS and hardware
d) Integrating to different database models
e) Support for queries for a variety of media types
f) Handling different kinds of indices
g) Data distribution over the world etc.
Check Your Progress 2

1) GIS is a spatial database application where the spatial and non-spatial data is
represented along with the map. Some of the applications of GIS are:
• Cartographic applications
• 3-D Digital modeling applications like land elevation records
• Geographic object applications like traffic control system.
2) A GIS has the following requirements:
• Data representation through vector and raster
• Support for analysis of data
• Representation of information in an integrated fashion
• Capture of information
• Visualisation of information
• Operations on information
3) The data may need to be organised for the following three levels:
• Geonomics: Where four different types of data are represented. The
physical data may be represented using eight different fields.
• Gene expression: Where data is represented in fourteen different fields
• Proteomics: Where data is used for five research problems.
Check Your Progress 3
1) A good knowledge database will have good information, good classification and
structure and an excellent search engine.

2) They represent information using facts and rules

New facts and rules can be deduced
Used in expert system type of applications.

3) a) False b) False c) True d) False.

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 Emerging Database
Models, Technologies
and Applications-I

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