Unit-I (b): Database Design &

The Entity-Relationship Model

Unit-I (b): Entity-Relationship Model

1. The Entity-Relationship Model

2. Constraints

3. Removing Redundant Attributes in Entity Sets

4. Entity-Relationship Diagrams

5. Reduction to Relational Schemas

6. Entity-Relationship Design Issues

7. Extended E-R Features

 1. ER model -- Database Modeling
 The ER data mode was developed to facilitate database design by
allowing specification of an enterprise schema that represents the
overall logical structure of a database.
 The ER model is very useful in mapping the meanings and interactions
of real-world enterprises onto a conceptual schema. Because of this
usefulness, many database-design tools draw on concepts from the ER
model.
 The ER data model employs three basic concepts:
 entity sets,
 relationship sets,
 attributes.
 The ER model also has an associated diagrammatic representation, the
ER diagram, which can express the overall logical structure of a
database graphically.
 a. Entity Sets
 An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other objects.
 Example: specific person, company, event, plant
 An entity set is a set of entities of the same type that share the same
properties.
 Example: set of all persons, companies, trees, holidays
 An entity is represented by a set of attributes; i.e., descriptive properties
possessed by all members of an entity set.
 Example:
instructor = (ID, name, street, city, salary )
course= (course_id, title, credits)
 A subset of the attributes form a primary key of the entity set; i.e., uniquely
identifiying each member of the set.
 Each entity has a value for each of its attributes. (Salary = 15000)
 A database thus includes a collection of entity sets, each of which contains
any number of entities of the same type.
 Entity Sets -- instructor and student

instructor_ID instructor_name student-ID student_name

 1.2 Relationship Sets
 A relationship is an association among several entities
Example:
44553 (Peltier) advisor 22222 (Einstein)
student entity relationship set instructor entity
 A relationship set is a mathematical relation among n  2 entities, each
taken from entity sets
{(e1, e2, … en) | e1  E1, e2  E2, …, en  En}

where (e1, e2, …, en) is a relationship

 Example:
(44553,22222)  advisor

 The function that an entity plays in a relationship is called that entity’s role.
 A relationship may also have attributes called descriptive attributes.
 The same entity set participates in a relationship set more than once, in
different roles is called a recursive relationship set,
Relationship Set advisor
 Relationship Sets (Cont.)
 An attribute can also be associated with a relationship set.
 For instance, the advisor relationship set between entity sets
instructor and student may have the attribute date which tracks when
the student started being associated with the advisor
 Degree of a Relationship Set
 Binary relationship
 involve two entity sets (or degree two).
 most relationship sets in a database system are binary.

 Relationships between more than two entity sets are rare.

Most relationships are binary.
 Example: students work on research projects under the
guidance of an instructor.
 Relationship proj_guide is a ternary relationship
between instructor, student, and project
 c. Attributes
 For each attribute, there is a set of permitted values, called the domain, or
value set, of that attribute.

 Attribute types:
 Simple ( and composite (Name, Address) attributes.
 Single-valued (Student Id) and multivalued (Phone No) attributes
 Example: multivalued attribute: {Dependent_name}
 Derived attributes
 Can be computed from other attributes
 Example: age, given date_of_birth (base/stored attribute) &
students_advised based on count

 An attribute takes a null value when an entity does not have a value for it. It
may indicate “not applicable”— that is, that the value does not exist for the
entity.

 Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute

Composite Attributes instructor name and address.
 2. Constraints

a. Mapping Cardinalities

b. Participation Constraints

c. Keys
 a. Mapping Cardinality Constraints
 Express the number of entities to which another entity can be associated
via a relationship set.
 Most useful in describing binary relationship sets.
 For a binary relationship set the mapping cardinality must be one of the
following types:
 One to one -An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in B,
and an entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A.
 One to many - An entity in A is associated with any number (zero or
more) of entities in B. An entity in B, however, can be associated with
at most one entity in A.
 Many to one - An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in
B. An entity in B, however, can be associated with any number (zero
or more) of entities in A.
 Many to many- An entity in A is associated with any number (zero or
more) of entities in B, and an entity in B is associated with any
number (zero or more) of entities in A.
 Mapping Cardinalities

One-to-one One-to-many
Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any elements in
the other set.
 Mapping Cardinalities

Many-to-one Many-to-many
Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any
elements in the other set
 Examples on cardinalities
 consider the advisor relationship set.
 If, in a particular university, a student can be advised by only one instructor,
and an instructor can advise several students, then the relationship set from
instructor to student is one-to-many.

 If a student can be advised by several instructors (as in the case of students

advised jointly), the relationship set is many-to-many.
 b. Participation Constraints
 The participation of an entity set E in a relationship set R is said to be total if
every entity in E participates in at least one relationship in R.

 If only some entities in E participate in relationships in R, the participation of

entity set E in relationship R is said to be partial.

 In Figure-a, the participation of B in the relationship set is total while the

participation of Ain the relationship set is partial. In Figure-b, the participation
of both Aand B in the relationship set are total.

 Every student entity to be related to at least one instructor through the

advisor relationship. Therefore the participation of student in the relationship
set advisor is total.

 An instructor need not advise any students. Hence, it is possible that only
some of the instructor entities are related to the student entity set through the
advisor relationship, and the participation of instructor in the advisor
relationship set is therefore partial.
 c. Keys
 The values of the attribute values of an entity must be such
that they can uniquely identify the entity. In other words, no
two entities in an entity set are allowed to have exactly the
same value for all attributes.

 A key for an entity is a set of attributes that suffice to

distinguish entities from each other. Keys also help to identify
relationships uniquely, and thus distinguish relationships
from each other.

 The primary key of an entity set allows us to distinguish

among the various entities of the set.
 If the relationship set R has no attributes associated with it,
then the set of attributes primary-key(E1) ∪ primary-key(E2)
∪ ·· · ∪ primary-key(En) describes an individual relationship
in set R.

 If the relationship set R has attributes a1, a2, . . . , am

associated with it, then the set of attributes primary-key(E1)
∪ primary-key(E2) ∪ · · · ∪ primary-key(En) ∪ {a1, a2, . . . ,
am} describes an individual relationship in set R.

 In both of the above cases, the set of attributes primary-

key(E1) ∪ primary-key(E2) ∪ · · · ∪ primary-key(En) forms a
superkey for the relationship set.
 3. Removing Redundant Attributes in Entity Sets
 Suppose we have entity sets:
 instructor, with attributes: ID, name, dept_name, salary
 department, with attributes: dept_name, building, budget
 We model the fact that each instructor has an associated
department using a relationship set inst_dept
 The attribute dept_name appears in both entity sets. Since
it is the primary key for the entity set department, it
replicates information present in the relationship and is
therefore redundant in the entity set instructor and needs to
be removed.

 A good entity-relationship design does not contain redundant

attributes. For our university example, we list the entity sets
and their attributes below, with primary keys underlined:
• classroom: with attributes (building, room number, capacity).
• department: with attributes (dept name, building, budget).
• course: with attributes (course id, title, credits).
• instructor: with attributes (ID, name, salary).
• section: with attributes (course id, sec id, semester, year).
• student: with attributes (ID, name, tot cred).
• time slot: with attributes (time slot id, {(day, start time, end time) }).

The relationship sets in our design are listed below:

• inst dept: relating instructors with departments.
• stud dept: relating students with departments.
• teaches: relating instructors with sections.
• takes: relating students with sections, with a descriptive attribute grade.
• course dept: relating courses with departments.
• sec course: relating sections with courses.
• sec class: relating sections with classrooms.
• sec time slot: relating sections with time slots.
• advisor: relating students with instructors.
• prereq: relating courses with prerequisite courses.

None of the entity sets has any attribute that is made redundant by one of the
relationship sets.
 Weak Entity Sets
 Consider a section entity, which is uniquely identified by a
course_id, semester, year, and sec_id.
 Clearly, section entities are related to course entities.
Suppose we create a relationship set sec_course between
entity sets section and course.
 Note that the information in sec_course is redundant, since
section already has an attribute course_id, which identifies
the course with which the section is related.
 One option to deal with this redundancy is to get rid of the
relationship sec_course; however, by doing so the
relationship between section and course becomes implicit
in an attribute, which is not desirable.
 Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
 An alternative way to deal with this redundancy is to not store the attribute
course_id in the section entity and to only store the remaining attributes
section_id, year, and semester. However, the entity set section then does not
have enough attributes to identify a particular section entity uniquely; although
each section entity is distinct, sections for different courses may share the
same section_id, year, and semester.

 To deal with this problem, we treat the relationship sec_course as a special

relationship that provides extra information, in this case, the course_id,
required to identify section entities uniquely.

 The notion of weak entity set formalizes the above intuition. A weak entity set
is one whose existence is dependent on another entity, called its identifying
entity; instead of associating a primary key with a weak entity, we use the
identifying entity, along with extra attributes called discriminator to uniquely
identify a weak entity. An entity set that is not a weak entity set is termed a
strong entity set.
 Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
 Every weak entity must be associated with an identifying entity; that is,
the weak entity set is said to be existence dependent on the
identifying entity set. The identifying entity set is said to own the weak
entity set that it identifies. The relationship associating the weak entity
set with the identifying entity set is called the identifying relationship.

 Note that the relational schema we eventually create from the entity
set section does have the attribute course_id, for reasons that will
become clear later, even though we have dropped the attribute
course_id from the entity set section.
4. E-R Diagrams
 Entity Sets
 Entities can be represented graphically as follows:
• Rectangles represent entity sets.
• Attributes listed inside entity rectangle
• Underline indicates primary key attributes
 Relationship Sets

 Diamonds represent relationship sets.

Relationship Sets with Attributes
 Roles

 Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct

 Each occurrence of an entity set plays a “role” in the relationship
 The labels “course_id” and “prereq_id” are called roles.
 Cardinality Constraints

 We express cardinality constraints by drawing either a directed line

(), signifying “one,” or an undirected line (—), signifying “many,”
between the relationship set and the entity set.

 One-to-one relationship between an instructor and a student :

 A student is associated with at most one instructor via the
relationship advisor
 A student is associated with at most one department via
stud_dept
 One-to-Many Relationship
 one-to-many relationship between an instructor and a student
 an instructor is associated with several (including 0) students
via advisor
 a student is associated with at most one instructor via advisor,
 Many-to-One Relationships
 In a many-to-one relationship between an instructor and a student,
 an instructor is associated with at most one student via
advisor,
 and a student is associated with several (including 0)
instructors via advisor
 Many-to-Many Relationship
 An instructor is associated with several (possibly 0) students via
advisor
 A student is associated with several (possibly 0) instructors via
advisor
 Total and Partial Participation
 Total participation (indicated by double line): every entity in the
entity set participates in at least one relationship in the relationship
set

participation of student in advisor relation is total

 every student must have an associated instructor
 Partial participation: some entities may not participate in any
relationship in the relationship set
 Example: participation of instructor in advisor is partial
 Notation for Expressing More Complex Constraints

 A line may have an associated minimum and maximum cardinality,

shown in the form l..h, where l is the minimum and h the maximum
cardinality
 A minimum value of 1 indicates total participation.
 A maximum value of 1 indicates that the entity participates in
at most one relationship
 A maximum value of * indicates no limit.

Instructor can advise 0 or more students. A student must have

1 advisor; cannot have multiple advisors
Notation to Express Entity with Complex Attributes
 Expressing Weak Entity Sets

 In E-R diagrams, a weak entity set is depicted via a double rectangle.

 We underline the discriminator of a weak entity set with a dashed
line.
 The relationship set connecting the weak entity set to the identifying
strong entity set is depicted by a double diamond.
 Primary key for section – (course_id, sec_id, semester, year)
E-R Diagram for a University Enterprise
 5. Reduction to Relation Schemas

i. Representation of Strong Entity Sets with Simple

Attributes
ii. Representation of Weak Entity Sets
iii. Representation of Strong Entity Sets with Complex
Attributes
iv. Representation of Relationship Sets
a. Redundancy of Schemas
b. Combination of Schemas
E-R Design for the Relational Schema Design
 Reduction to Relation Schemas
 Entity sets and relationship sets can be expressed uniformly as relation
schemas that represent the contents of the database.

 A database which conforms to an E-R diagram can be represented by a

collection of schemas.

 For each entity set and relationship set there is a unique schema that is
assigned the name of the corresponding entity set or relationship set.

 Each schema has a number of columns (generally corresponding to

attributes), which have unique names.
i. Representation of Strong Entity Sets with Simple Attributes

 A strong entity set reduces to a schema with the same attributes

student (ID, name, tot_cred)

ii. Representation of Weak Entity Sets

 A weak entity set becomes a table that includes a column for the
primary key of the identifying strong entity set.

section ( course_id, sec_id, sem, year )

iii. Representation of Entity Sets with Composite Attributes

 Composite attributes are flattened out by creating a

separate attribute for each component attribute
 Example: given entity set instructor with
composite attribute name with component
attributes first_name and last_name the schema
corresponding to the entity set has two attributes
name_first_name and name_last_name
 Prefix omitted if there is no ambiguity
(name_first_name could be first_name)
 Ignoring multivalued attributes, extended instructor
schema is
 instructor(ID,
first_name, middle_name, last_name,
street_number, street_name,
apt_number, city, state, pincode,
date_of_birth)
 Representation of Entity Sets with Multivalued Attributes

 A multivalued attribute M of an entity E is represented by a separate schema

EM

 Schema EM has attributes corresponding to the primary key of E and an

attribute corresponding to multivalued attribute M

 Example: Multivalued attribute phone_number of instructor is represented by

a schema:
inst_phone= ( ID, phone_number) & references Instructor(Id)

 Each value of the multivalued attribute maps to a separate tuple of the relation
on schema EM
 For example, an instructor entity with primary key 22222 and phone
numbers 456-7890 and 123-4567 maps to two tuples:
(22222, 456-7890) and (22222, 123-4567)
 iv. Representing Relationship Sets
 A many-to-many relationship set is represented as a schema with
attributes for the primary keys of the two participating entity sets, and
any descriptive attributes of the relationship set.

 Example: schema for relationship set advisor

advisor = (s_id, i_id)

 a. Redundancy of Schemas
 The schema corresponding to a relationship set linking a
weak entity set to its identifying strong entity set is
redundant.

 Example: The section schema already contains the

attributes that would appear in the sec_course schema
 b. Combination of Schemas
 Consider a many-to-one relationship set AB from entity set
A to entity set B. we will get three schemas: A, B, and AB.
 Then we can combine the schemas A and AB to form a
single schema consisting of the union of attributes of both
schemas.
 The primary key of the combined schema is the primary
key of the entity set into whose schema the relationship
set schema was merged.
 Ex: inst dept. The schemas instructor and department
correspond to the entity sets A and B, respectively. Thus,
the schema inst_dept can be combined with the instructor
schema. The resulting instructor schema consists of the
attributes {ID, name, dept name, salary}.
 6. Design Issues

1. Use of Entity Sets versus Attributes

2. Use of Entity Sets versus Relationship Sets

3. Binary versus n-ary Relationship Sets

4. Placement of Relationship Attributes

 a. Entity sets Vs. Attributes

 Use of entity sets vs. attributes

Alternatives for adding phone to the instructor entity set.

 Use of phone as an entity allows extra information

about phone numbers (plus multiple phone numbers)
 Entities vs. Relationship sets
 Use of entity sets vs. relationship sets
Possible guideline is to designate a relationship set to
describe an action that occurs between entities

Replacement of takes by registration and two relationship sets

 Placement of relationship attributes

For example, attribute date as attribute of advisor or as

attribute of student
 Binary Vs. Non-Binary Relationships
 Although it is possible to replace any non-binary (n-ary, for n > 2)
relationship set by a number of distinct binary relationship sets, a n-ary
relationship set shows more clearly that several entities participate in a
single relationship.

 Some relationships that appear to be non-binary may be better

represented using binary relationships
 For example, a ternary relationship parents, relating a child to
his/her father and mother, is best replaced by two binary
relationships, father and mother
 Using two binary relationships allows partial information (e.g.,
only mother being known)
 But there are some relationships that are naturally non-binary
 Example: proj_guide
 Converting Non-Binary Relationships to Binary Form
 In general, any non-binary relationship can be represented using binary
relationships by creating an artificial entity set.
 Replace R between entity sets A, B and C by an entity set E, and three
relationship sets:
1. RA, relating E and A
2. RB, relating E and B
3. RC, relating E and C
 Create an identifying attribute for E and add any attributes of R to E
 For each relationship (ai , bi , ci) in R, create
1. a new entity ei in the entity set E 2. add (ei , ai ) to RA
3. add (ei , bi ) to RB 4. add (ei , ci ) to RC
 Converting Non-Binary Relationships (Cont.)
 Also need to translate constraints
 Translating all constraints may not be possible
 There may be instances in the translated schema that
cannot correspond to any instance of R
 Exercise: add constraints to the relationships RA, RB
and RC to ensure that a newly created entity
corresponds to exactly one entity in each of entity
sets A, B and C
 We can avoid creating an identifying attribute by making
E a weak entity set identified by the three relationship
sets
 E-R Design Decisions
 The use of an attribute or entity set to represent an object.
 Whether a real-world concept is best expressed by an
entity set or a relationship set.
 The use of a ternary relationship versus a pair of binary
relationships.
 The use of a strong or weak entity set.
 The use of specialization/generalization – contributes to
modularity in the design.
 The use of aggregation – can treat the aggregate entity set
as a single unit without concern for the details of its internal
structure.
Summary of Symbols Used in E-R Notation
Symbols Used in E-R Notation (Cont.)
 Alternative ER Notations
 Chen, IDE1FX, …
Alternative ER Notations

Chen IDE1FX (Crows feet notation)

 UML

 UML: Unified Modeling Language

 UML has many components to graphically model different aspects
of an entire software system
 UML Class Diagrams correspond to E-R Diagram, but several
differences.
 ER vs. UML Class Diagrams

*Note reversal of position in cardinality constraint depiction

 ER vs. UML Class Diagrams
ER Diagram Notation Equivalent in UML

*Generalization can use merged or separate arrows independent

of disjoint/overlapping
 UML Class Diagrams (Cont.)

 Binary relationship sets are represented in UML by just drawing a

line connecting the entity sets. The relationship set name is written
adjacent to the line.
 The role played by an entity set in a relationship set may also be
specified by writing the role name on the line, adjacent to the entity
set.
 The relationship set name may alternatively be written in a box,
along with attributes of the relationship set, and the box is
connected, using a dotted line, to the line depicting the relationship
set.
 Non-binary Relationship Sets
 Most relationship sets are binary
 There are occasions when it is more convenient to
represent relationships as non-binary.
 E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship
Cardinality Constraints on Ternary Relationship

 We allow at most one arrow out of a ternary (or greater degree)

relationship to indicate a cardinality constraint
 For exampe, an arrow from proj_guide to instructor indicates each
student has at most one guide for a project
 If there is more than one arrow, there are two ways of defining the
meaning.
 For example, a ternary relationship R between A, B and C
with arrows to B and C could mean
1. Each A entity is associated with a unique
entity from B and C or
2. Each pair of entities from (A, B) is associated with
a unique C entity, and each pair (A, C) is
associated with a unique B
 Each alternative has been used in different formalisms
 To avoid confusion we outlaw more than one arrow
7. Extended E-R Features
 7. Extended E-R Features
1. Specialization
2. Generalization
3. Attribute Inheritance
4. Constraints on Generalizations
5. Aggregation
6. Reduction to Relation Schemas
Representation of Generalization
Representation of Aggregation
 i. Specialization
 The process of designating subgroupings within an entity set is called
specialization.

 Top-down design process; we designate sub-groupings within an entity

set that are distinctive from other entities in the set.

 These sub-groupings become lower-level entity sets that have

attributes or participate in relationships that do not apply to the higher-
level entity set.

 Depicted by a triangle component labeled ISA (e.g., instructor “is a”

person).

 Attribute inheritance – a lower-level entity set inherits all the attributes

and relationship participation of the higher-level entity set to which it is
linked.
 Specialization Example
 Overlapping – employee and student
 Disjoint – instructor and secretary
 Total and partial
 Specialization Example
 The university could create two specializations of student,
namely graduate and undergraduate.

 student entities are described by the attributes ID, name,

address, tot_cred.

 The entity set graduate would have all the attributes of

student and an additional attribute office_number.

 The entity set undergraduate would have all the attributes

of student, and an additional attribute residential_college.
 Overlapping Vs Disjoint specialization
 The way we depict specialization in an E-R diagram depends on
whether an entity may belong to multiple specialized entity sets or if it
must belong to at most one specialized entity set.

 The former case (multiple sets permitted) is called overlapping

specialization,while the latter case (at most one permitted) is called
disjoint specialization.

 For an overlapping specialization (student and employee as

specializations of person), two separate arrows are used.

 For a disjoint specialization (instructor and secretary as specializations

of employee), a single arrow is used.
 ii. Generalization
 A bottom-up design process – combine a number of entity sets that
share the same features into a higher-level entity set.

 Generalization, which is a containment relationship that exists between

a higher-level entity set and one o rmore lower-level entity sets.

 Specialization and generalization are simple inversions of each other;

they are represented in an E-R diagram in the same way.

 The terms specialization and generalization are used interchangeably.

 Ex: Employee is the higher-level entity set and instructor and secretary
are lower-level entity sets.
 ii. Generalization
 Higher- and lower-level entity sets also may be designated by the terms
superclass and subclass, respectively.

 The person entity set is the superclass of the employee and student
subclasses.

 It proceeds from the recognition that a number of entity sets share some
common features. On the basis of their commonalities, generalization
synthesizes these entity sets into a single, higher-level entity set.

 Generalization is used to emphasize the similarities among lower-level

entity sets and to hide the differences;

 It also permits an economy of representation in that shared attributes

are not repeated.
 iii. Attribute Inheritance
 A crucial property of the higher- and lower-level entities created by
specialization and generalization is attribute inheritance.

 The attributes of the higher-level entity sets are said to be inherited

by the lower-level entity sets.

Ex: student and employee inherit the attributes of person.

 Attribute inheritance applies through all tiers of lower-level entity

sets;
 instructor and secretary, which are subclasses of employee, inherit
the attributes ID, name, and address from person, in addition to
inheriting salary from employee.
 A lower-level entity set (or subclass) also inherits participation in the
relationship sets in which its higher-level entity (or superclass)
participates.

Eg: The person entity set participates in a relationship person_dept with

department. Then, the student, employee, instructor and secretary entity
sets, which are subclasses of the person entity set, also implicitly
participate in the person_dept relationship with department.

• A higher-level entity set with attributes and relationships that apply to

all of its lower-level entity sets.
• Lower-level entity sets with distinctive features that apply only within a
particular lower-level entity set.
• In a hierarchy, a given entity set may be involved as a lowerlevel entity
set in only one ISA relationship; then it is called single inheritance or
else it is called as multiple inheritance.
 iv. Constraints on a Specialization/Generalization

 Completeness constraint -- specifies whether or not an entity in the

higher-level entity set must belong to at least one of the lower-level
entity sets within a generalization.
 Total: an entity must belong to one of the lower-level entity sets
 Partial: an entity need not belong to one of the lower-level entity
sets
 Partial generalization is the default. We can specify total generalization in an
ER diagram by adding the keyword total in the diagram and drawing a dashed
line from the keyword to the corresponding hollow arrow-head to which it
applies (for a total generalization), or to the set of hollow arrow-heads to which
it applies (for an overlapping generalization).
 The student generalization is total: All student entities must be either graduate
or undergraduate. Because the higher-level entity set arrived at through
generalization is generally composed of only those entities in the lower-level
entity sets, the completeness constraint for a generalized higher-level entity set
is usually total.
 Disjoint: A disjointness constraint requires that an entity
belong to no more than one lower-level entity set.
 Ex: student entity can satisfy only one condition for the
student type attribute; an entity can be either a graduate
student or an undergraduate student, but cannot be both.
 Overlapping: In overlapping generalizations, the same
entity may belong to more than one lower-level entity set
within a single generalization.
 Ex: Consider the employee work-team example, and
assume that certain employees participate in more than
one work team. A given employee may therefore appear in
more than one of the team entity sets that are lowerlevel
entity sets of employee. Thus, the generalization is
overlapping.
 All the lower-level entities are evaluated on the basis of the
same attribute (Ex: student_type), this type of
generalization is said to be attribute-defined.

 User-defined lower-level entity sets are not constrained by

a membership condition; rather, the database user assigns
entities to a given entity set. (Work teams under employee)
 v. Aggregation
 Consider the ternary relationship proj_guide, which we saw earlier
 Suppose we want to record evaluations of a student by a guide on a
project
 Aggregation (Cont.)
 Relationship sets eval_for and proj_guide represent overlapping
information
 Every eval_for relationship corresponds to a proj_guide relationship
 However, some proj_guide relationships may not correspond to any
eval_for relationships
 So we can’t discard the proj_guide relationship

 Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation

 Treat relationship as an abstract entity
 Allows relationships between relationships
 Abstraction of relationship into new entity
 Aggregation (Cont.)
 Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation without introducing
redundancy, the following diagram represents:
 A student is guided by a particular instructor on a particular project
 A student, instructor, project combination may have an associated
evaluation
 vi. Reduction to relational schemas

 To represent aggregation, create a schema containing

 Primary key of the aggregated relationship,
 The primary key of the associated entity set
 Any descriptive attributes

 In our example:
 The schema eval_for is:
eval_for (s_ID, project_id, i_ID, evaluation_id)
 The schema proj_guide is redundant.
 Representing Specialization via Schemas

 Method 1:
 Form a schema for the higher-level entity
 Form a schema for each lower-level entity set, include primary
key of higher-level entity set and local attributes
schema attributes
person ID, name, street, city
student ID, tot_cred
employee ID, salary

 Drawback: getting information about, an employee requires

accessing two relations, the one corresponding to the low-level
schema and the one corresponding to the high-level schema
 Representing Specialization as Schemas (Cont.)

 Method 2:
 Form a schema for each entity set with all local and inherited
attributes
schema attributes
person ID, name, street, city
student ID, name, street, city, tot_cred
employee ID, name, street, city, salary

 Drawback: name, street and city may be stored redundantly for

people who are both students and employees
End of Unit-1(b)