Month: September 2016

Line Coding

Introduction The process of converting digital data to digital signals. Digital data – sequences of bits. Characteristics Data rate vs. signal rate Data rate (bit rate) – the number of data elements in a unit time (bps). Signal rate (pulse, modulation rate, baud rate) – the number of signal element in a unit time (baud). No. of Signal Levels Two data levels, Two Signal levels Two data levels Three signal levels DC components It is the mean value of the waveform. If the mean amplitude is zero, there is no DC offset. unable to pass a low-pass filter or Over one ... Read more

Extended Entity Relationship Model (EER Diagram)

The E-R model that is supported with the additional semantic concepts is called the extended entity relationship model. Specialization: It is the process of designation subgroupings within an entity set. It is a Top-down process. Example: Person – <IS A> – Employee – Customer Generalization: It is the process of defining a more general entity type from a set of more specialized entity types. Example: Person Condition defined constraint: In condition-defined lower-level entity sets, membership is evaluated on the basis of whether or not an entity satisfies an explicit condition or predicate. Example: Account_type = “checking account” User defined constraint: ... Read more

Types of keys in E-R modeling

Super key: Allows us to identify uniquely an entity in the entity set. Example: Roll_No attribute of student distinguishes student entity from another. Candidate key: A superkey for which no subset is a superkey. Example: Roll_No and {Student_Name, Student_street}  are candidate keys Primary key: It is a candidate key that is chosen by the database designer as the principle means of identifying entities within an entity set. Example: Address field should not be a primary key whereas Social Security Number can be a primary key. Foreign key: An attribute or set of attributes, within one relation that matches the candidate ... Read more

Constraints of E-R Modeling

An E-R enterprise schema may define certain constraints to which the contents of a database system must conform. Mapping Cardinalities One to one One to many Many to one Many to many Participation Constraints Total participation: If every entity in E participation is at least one relationship in R. Partial participation: If only some entities in E participate in relationships in R.  

Data Models

Entity relationship model Keywords: Entity, Relationship, Attributes Advantages: Easy to develop, Mapping cardinalities, primary key, generalization and specialization Disadvantages: not use for implementation Relational model Keywords: tables, columns with unique names Advantages: Structural independence, Conceptual simplicity, Good for ad hoc requests, Simple to navigate, Greater flexibility Disadvantages: Significant hardware and software overheads, Not as good for modeling, Slower processing times Hierarchical model Keywords: tree structure, main frame database Advantages: High speed of access, ease of updates, simplicity, data security and efficiency Disadvantages: implementation complexity, database management problems, lack of structural independence Network model Keywords: based on directed graph theory, ability ... Read more

Database Administrator

A person who has central control over the system is called a Database Administrator (DBA). The functions of DBA include: Schema definition Schema and physical organization modification Granting of authorization for data access Routine Maintenance

Database Languages

A database system provides a data definition language to specify the database schema and a data manipulation language to express database queries and updates. DDL (Data Definition Language) We specify a database schema by a set of definitions expressed by a special language called a DDL. Create Alter Drop Truncate Comment Example: create table account (acc_no char(10), balance integer); DML (Data Manipulation Language) DML is retrieval, insertion, and deletion of information from database. Insert Update Delete Query Example: select acc_no, balance from account where acc_no = ‘A101’;

Views of Data

A major purpose of DBMS is to provide users with an abstract view of the data. There are 3 levels of abstraction. Physical Level: Describes how the data are actually stored (complex low-level data structures in detail) e.g. customer, account, employee record Logical View: Describes what data are stored in database and relationships. e.g. data type of data View Level: Describes only part of entire database. e.g. application programs to display data  

Database Management System (DBMS)

Introduction Database is a collection of data. It contains information about one particular enterprise. DBMS is a set of prewritten programs that are used to store, update and retrieve a database. It accepts requests for data from the application program and instructs the operating system to transfer the appropriate data. Some Application Areas Banking and financial services Culture and scientific information Transport Tourism Library systems One can derive importance of DBMS from above points. Advantages of DBMS Redundancy can be reduced Inconsistency can be avoided The data can be shared Standards are enforced Security can be enforced Integrity can be ... Read more

Sparse Matrix (Introduction)

A Sparse Matrix is a special type of matrix in which maximum number of Elements are “Zero Elements” or In other words, A Matrix containing least number of “Non-Zero  Elements”. The concept of Sparse Matrix is very useful in Data Structures and Algorithms which helps reduce Time Complexity of the functionality of the code as compared to the traditional way of performing operations on a Matrix.   Sparse Matrix