NetID:
CS411 Database Systems
Spring 2010, Prof. Chang
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Midterm Examination
March 2, 2010
Time Limit: 75 minutes
• Print your name and NetID below. In addition, print your NetID in the upper right
corner of every page.
Name: NetID:
• Including this cover page, this exam booklet contains 9 pages. Check if you have
missing pages.
• The exam is closed book and closed notes. No calculators or other electronic devices
are permitted. Any form of cheating on the examination will result in a zero grade.
• Please write your solutions in the spaces provided on the exam. You may use the blank
areas and backs of the exam pages for scratch work. Please do not use any additional
scratch paper.
• Please make your answers clear and succinct; you will lose credit for verbose, convo-
luted, or confusing answers. Simplicity does count!
• Generally, we think one minute per point is a reasonable allocation of time; so plan
your time accordingly. You should look through the entire exam before getting started,
to plan your strategy.
Problem 1 2 3 4 Total
Points 36 28 18 18 100
Score
Grader
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Problem 1 (36 points) Misc. Concepts
For each of the following statements:
• for true/false choices, indicate whether it is TRUE or FALSE by circling your choice, and
provide an explanation to justify;
• for short answer questions, provide a brief answer with clear explanation.
You will get 3point for each correct answer with correct explanations, and no penalty (of negative
points) for wrong answers.
Notice: To get full credit, you need to provide both correct answer, and correct explanations. If
you simply choose True or False without explaining, you will automatically lose 1 point for the
question. Moreover, since the questions here are true/false choices, or short answer questions, no
partial credit is given for incomplete answers.
(1) False
An E-R diagram with m entities and n relationships will translate to m+n tables.
⇒ Explain: Many-to-one relationships can often be merged and therefore reduce the overall
number of tables needed.
(2) True
A table with two attributes, such as R(A, B), must be in BCNF.
⇒ Explain: The only two non-trivial FDs for this relation will be A → B or B → A, and
both does not violate BCNF.
(3) True or False
An SQL query can often be translated into multiple relational algebra expressions.
⇒ Explain: The answer to this question can be true or false based on different assumptions.
Our grading takes your assumption into consideration, and grades accordingly.
(4) Give a relation that is in 3NF but not in BCNF.
⇒ Explain: A relation R(A,B,C) with two FDs: AB → C and C → A. The second FD
violates BCNF, since C is not a superkey. However, it does not violate 3NF as A is part of a
key (AB).
(5) True
In relational algebra, join is a derived operator.
⇒ Explain: It can be derived from Cartesian product and selection.
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(6) False
Schema normalization often contributes to enhancement of query processing efficiency.
⇒ Explain: Schema normalization is mainly for reducing redundancy, rather than for improv-
ing query efficiency. In fact, it often introduces more query processing, as decomposed tables
have to be joined online for answering queries.
(7) True
For relation R(A, B, C), if A is a key, then the decomposition into R(A, B) and S(A, C) is
lossless.
⇒ Explain: You can always reconstruct the original table (A,B,C) by joining (A,B) with
(A,C), since A is a key. (many of your wrong answers give examples where A is not a key)
(8) True
In the following relation R(A, B, C, D), the F.D. AC → B is not violated.
A B C D
==============================
1 3 2 2
2 3 2 4
3 1 3 6
3 1 1 12
⇒ Explain: In the 4 tuples given, AC → B is not violated. You will also get full credit, if you
choose False and argue that FD dependence can not be inferred from a set of given tuples
(and should rather be derived based on the property of the relation).
(9) In the above relation R(A, B, C, D), what are possible keys of the table?
⇒ Explain: Possible keys are D, or AC. You will also get full credit, if you argue we can not
inferred keys from the set of 4 tuples.
(10) Provide a lossless-join decomposition of the above relation R(A, B, C, D) (into to two rela-
tions). If there is no such decomposition, explain why.
⇒ Explain: You can decompose it into (ABC) and (ACD), just based on the 4 tuples given in
the table. You will also get full credit, if you argue no such decomposition is possible, since
we do not know the FDs for the relation.
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(11) For the above relation R(A, B, C, D), write a relational algebra expression to return the lowest
value of D.
⇒ Explain: πD R − πR1.D (R1⋊
⋉R1.D>R2.D R2) where R1 and R2 are just renames of R.
(12) What is the result of the following query, for the above relation R(A, B, C, D)?
select A, B
from R
where C >
(select D from R where A = 3)
⇒ Explain: This query will report error. The reason is the subquery returns a scalar, and
therefore can not be compared against a single data value. You would need to add “ANY”
or “ALL” before the subquery for the query to run.
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Problem 2 (28 points) Database Design
You have been asked to design a database for the university administration, which records the
following information:
1. All students necessarily have a unique student ID, a name, and a university email address.
Each student is also either an undergraduate or a graduate student.
2. Each graduate student has an advisor.
3. Each undergraduate student has a major.
4. Students take courses. A student may take one course, multiple courses, or no courses.
5. Each course has a course number, course name, and days of the week the course is scheduled.
6. Each course has exactly one head TA, who is a graduate student.
7. Every head TA has an office where he or she holds office hours.
(a) Draw an ER diagram for this application. Be sure to mark the multiplicity of each relationship
of the diagram. Decide the key attributes and identify them on the diagram. Please state all
assumptions you make in your answers. (16 points)
Figure 1: ER Diagram
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(b) Translate your ER diagram into a relational schema. Select approaches that yield the fewest
number of relations; merge relations where appropriate. Specify the key of each relation in your
schema. (12 points)
Undergrad(studentID, name, email, major)
Grad(studentID, name, email, advisor)
TakeCourse(studentID, course number)
Course(course number, studentID, course name, days of week, office)
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Problem 3 (18 points) Relational Algebra
Nowadays, web search engine is widely used by people all over the world to find useful information.
To analyze users’ search behaviors, a query log stores the history of users’ queries and clicked URLs.
There are two relations in a query log:
• Request(T ime, U serID, Query, Results), which lists the time, the userID, the query he/she
requested, the number of search results for one search process.
• Click(T ime, U serID, Query, U RL), which lists the time, the userID, the query he/she re-
quested and the URL clicked on after request this query.
For both Request and Click relation, the attributes (T ime, U serID) forms the only key which
implies one user can request only one query or click on only one URL each time.
Example instances of these two relations are given here:
Request Relation
Time UserID Query Results
2010-02-12 19:00:00 U001 NBC 100
2010-02-12 19:01:00 U001 NBC Olympics 50
2010-02-12 18:54:00 U002 NBC 2010 80
2010-02-13 09:00:05 U001 Olympics wiki 70
2010-02-15 19:27:08 U003 Olympics 2010 medals 5
2010-02-16 13:24:45 U004 NBC Olympics 50
2010-02-16 13:25:55 U004 Vancouver 2010 95
2010-02-16 17:11:56 U002 NBC 2010 80
2010-02-20 20:13:45 U005 Olympics ski 54
2010-02-20 20:45:34 U005 Olympics Austria medals 7
Click Relation
QueryID UserID Query URL
2010-02-12 19:01:06 U001 NBC Olympics www.nbcolympics.com
2010-02-12 19:01:34 U001 NBC Olympics www.nbcolympics.com/video
2010-02-12 18:54:01 U002 NBC 2010 www.nbcolympics.com
2010-02-15 19:27:22 U003 Olympics 2010 medals www.vancouver2010.com
2010-02-15 19:29:01 U003 Olympics 2010 medals www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-medals/
2010-02-16 13:25:58 U004 Vancouver 2010 www.vancouver2010.com
2010-02-16 17:12:56 U002 NBC 2010 www.nbcolympics.com
2010-02-20 20:14:00 U005 Olympics ski www.usskiteam.com
2010-02-20 20:45:40 U005 Olympics Austria medals en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria at the Olympics
2010-02-20 20:45:50 U005 Olympics Austria medals www.vancouver2010.com
Note that not all the queries have corresponding clicked URLs since a user might not be interested
in any returned URL. Sometimes user may click on multiple URLs using one query.
Though different from the actual case, you can assume that the number of returned search results
associated with the same query doesn’t change no matter when and who request this query.
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Answer the following queries using relational algebra. Your answer should work for any instance of
the database, not just this one.
(a) List all the queries that do not have any corresponding URL. (8 points)
Solution:
πQuery Request − πQuery Click
(b) List all the queries that have been requested by different users. (10 points)
Solution:
πRequest1 .Query (Request1 ⊲⊳C Request2 )
where, Request1 and Request2 are both type of Request
C = (Request1 .Query = Request2 .Query AND Request1 .U serID <> Request2 .U serID)
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Problem 4 (18 points) SQL
Consider the same schema as Problem 3. Answer the following queries using SQL. Your statements
should work for any instance of the database, not just this one. You do not need to remove dupli-
cations in your results.
(a) List all the users (userID) who either requested the query “NBC 2010” or clicked on the URL
“www.nbcolympics.com.” (8 points)
Solution:
select UserID from Request where Query = “NBC 2010”
union
select UserID from Click where URL = “www.nbcolympics.com”
(b) Return the query whose corresponding URLs contain “www.vancouver2010.com” and, among
these queries, has the minimum number of returned search results. (10 points)
Solution:
select Request.Query from Request, Click
where Request.Query = Click.Query
and Click.URL = “www.vancouver2010.com”
and Results <= All
(select Results from Request, Click
where Request.Query = Click.Query
and Click.URL = “www.vancouver2010.com”)
