Normalization

1. What is Lossless join property?

It guarantees that the spurious tuple generation does not occur with respect to relation schemas after decomposition.

2. What is 1 NF (Normal Form)?

The domain of attribute must include only atomic (simple, indivisible) values.

3. What is Fully Functional dependency?

It is based on concept of full functional dependency. A functional dependency X Y is full functional dependency if removal of any attribute A from X means that the dependency does not hold any more.

4. What is 2NF?

A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute A in R is fully functionally dependent on primary key.

5. What is 3NF?

A relation schema R is in 3NF if it is in 2NF and for every FD X A either of the following is true

1. X is a Super-key of R.
2. A is a prime attribute of R.

In other words, if every non prime attribute is non-transitively dependent on primary key.

6. What is BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form)?

A relation schema R is in BCNF if it is in 3NF and satisfies an additional constraint that for every FD X A, X must be a candidate key.

Relational Calculus

1. What is Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented?

The High level or Non-procedural DML can specify and retrieve many records in a single DML statement. This retrieve of a record is said to be Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented.

2. What is Relational Algebra?

It is procedural query language. It consists of a set of operations that take one or two relations as input and produce a new relation.

3. What is Relational Calculus?

It is an applied predicate calculus specifically tailored for relational databases proposed by E.F. Codd. E.g. of languages based on it are DSL ALPHA, QUEL.

4. How does Tuple-oriented relational calculus differ from domain-oriented relational calculus?

1. The tuple-oriented calculus uses a tuple variables i.e., variable whose only permitted values are tuples of that relation. E.g. QUEL
2. The domain-oriented calculus has domain variables i.e., variables that range over the underlying domains instead of over relation. E.g. ILL, DEDUCE.

5. What is normalization?

It is a process of analysing the given relation schemas based on their Functional Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve the properties
(1).Minimizing redundancy, (2). Minimizing insertion, deletion and update anomalies.

6. What is Functional Dependency?

A Functional dependency is denoted by X Y between two sets of attributes X and Y that are subsets of R specifies a constraint on the possible tuple that can form a relation state r of R. The constraint is for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r if t1[X] = t2[X] then they have t1[Y] = t2[Y]. This means the value of X component of a tuple uniquely determines the value of component Y.

ER Model - DBMS

1. What is an Extension of entity type?

The collections of entities of a particular entity type are grouped together into an entity set.

2. What is Weak Entity set?

An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key, and its primary key compromises of its partial key and primary key of its parent entity, then it is said to be Weak Entity set.

3. What is an attribute?

It is a particular property, which describes the entity.

4. What is a Relation Schema and a Relation?

A relation Schema denoted by R(A1, A2, ..., An) is made up of the relation name R and the list of attributes Ai that it contains. A relation is defined as a set of tuples. Let r be the relation which contains set tuples (t1, t2, t3, ..., tn). Each tuple is an ordered list of n-values t=(v1,v2, ..., vn).

5. What is degree of a Relation?

It is the number of attribute of its relation schema.

6. What is Relationship?

It is an association among two or more entities.

DBMS Concepts

7. Define the "integrity rules"?

There are two Integrity rules.

1. Entity Integrity: States that "Primary key cannot have NULL value"
2. Referential Integrity: States that "Foreign Key can be either a NULL value or should be Primary Key value of other relation.

8. What is extension and intension?

1. Extension: It is the number of tuples present in a table at any instance. This is time dependent.
2. Intension: It is a constant value that gives the name, structure of table and the constraints laid on it.

9. What is System R? What are its two major subsystems?

System R was designed and developed over a period of 1974-79 at IBM San Jose Research Center. It is a prototype and its purpose was to demonstrate that it is possible to build a Relational System that can be used in a real life environment to solve real life problems, with performance at least comparable to that of existing system.
Its two subsystems are

1. Research Storage
2. System Relational Data System.

10. How is the data structure of System R different from the relational structure?

Unlike Relational systems in System R

1. Domains are not supported
2. Enforcement of candidate key uniqueness is optional
3. Enforcement of entity integrity is optional
4. Referential integrity is not enforced

11. What is Data Independence?

Data independence means that "the application is independent of the storage structure and access strategy of data". In other words, The ability to modify the schema definition in one level should not affect the schema definition in the next higher level.
Two types of Data Independence:

1. Physical Data Independence: Modification in physical level should not affect the logical level.
2. Logical Data Independence: Modification in logical level should affect the view level.

NOTE: Logical Data Independence is more difficult to achieve

12. What is a view? How it is related to data independence?

A view may be thought of as a virtual table, that is, a table that does not really exist in its own right but is instead derived from one or more underlying base table. In other words, there is no stored file that direct represents the view instead a definition of view is stored in data dictionary.

Growth and restructuring of base tables is not reflected in views. Thus the view can insulate users from the effects of restructuring and growth in the database. Hence accounts for logical data independence.

DBMS Basics

1. What is database?

A database is a logically coherent collection of data with some inherent meaning, representing some aspect of real world and which is designed, built and populated with data for a specific purpose.

2. What is DBMS?

It is a collection of programs that enables user to create and maintain a database. In other words it is general-purpose software that provides the users with the processes of defining, constructing and manipulating the database for various applications.

3. What is a Database system?

The database and DBMS software together is called as Database system.

4. What are the advantages of DBMS?

1. Redundancy is controlled.
2. Unauthorised access is restricted.
3. Providing multiple user interfaces.
4. Enforcing integrity constraints.
5. Providing backup and recovery.

5. What are the disadvantage in File Processing System?

1. Data redundancy and inconsistency.
2. Difficult in accessing data.
3. Data isolation.
4. Data integrity.
5. Concurrent access is not possible.
6. Security Problems.

6. Describe the three levels of data abstraction?

The are three levels of abstraction:

1. Physical level: The lowest level of abstraction describes how data are stored.
2. Logical level: The next higher level of abstraction, describes what data are stored in database and what relationship among those data.
3. View level: The highest level of abstraction describes only part of entire database.

Operating system Basics

1. Explain the concept of Reentrancy?

It is a useful, memory-saving technique for multiprogrammed timesharing systems. A Reentrant Procedure is one in which multiple users can share a single copy of a program during the same period. Reentrancy has 2 key aspects: The program code cannot modify itself, and the local data for each user process must be stored separately. Thus, the permanent part is the code, and the temporary part is the pointer back to the calling program and local variables used by that program. Each execution instance is called activation. It executes the code in the permanent part, but has its own copy of local variables/parameters. The temporary part associated with each activation is the activation record. Generally, the activation record is kept on the stack.
Note: A reentrant procedure can be interrupted and called by an interrupting program, and still execute correctly on returning to the procedure.

2. Explain Belady's Anomaly?

Also called FIFO anomaly. Usually, on increasing the number of frames allocated to a process virtual memory, the process execution is faster, because fewer page faults occur. Sometimes, the reverse happens, i.e., the execution time increases even when more frames are allocated to the process. This is Belady's Anomaly. This is true for certain page reference patterns.

3. What is a binary semaphore? What is its use?

A binary semaphore is one, which takes only 0 and 1 as values. They are used to implement mutual exclusion and synchronize concurrent processes.

4. What is thrashing?

It is a phenomenon in virtual memory schemes when the processor spends most of its time swapping pages, rather than executing instructions. This is due to an inordinate number of page faults.

5. List the Coffman's conditions that lead to a deadlock.

1. Mutual Exclusion: Only one process may use a critical resource at a time.
2. Hold & Wait: A process may be allocated some resources while waiting for others.
3. No Pre-emption: No resource can be forcible removed from a process holding it.
4. Circular Wait: A closed chain of processes exist such that each process holds at least one resource needed by another process in the chain.