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Foundations for a Fourth Normal Form over SQL-Like Databases

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Conceptual Modelling and Its Theoretical Foundations

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7260))

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Abstract

In the relational model of data the Fourth Normal Form condition guarantees the elimination of data redundancy in terms of functional and multivalued dependencies. For efficient means of data processing the industry standard SQL permits partial data and duplicate rows of data to occur in database systems. Here, the combined class of uniqueness constraints, functional and multivalued dependencies is more expressive than the class of functional and multivalued dependencies itself. Consequently, the Fourth Normal Form condition is not suitable for SQL databases. We characterize the associated implication problem of the combined class in the presence of NOT NULL constraints axiomatically, algorithmically and logically. Based on these results we are able to establish a suitable Fourth Normal Form condition for SQL.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

    Flavio Ferrarotti

  2. Institut für Informatik, Technische Universität Clausthal, Germany

    Sven Hartmann

  3. N-Squared Software, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Henning Köhler

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand

    Sebastian Link

  5. School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia, Australia

    Millist W. Vincent

Authors
  1. Flavio Ferrarotti
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  2. Sven Hartmann
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  3. Henning Köhler
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  4. Millist W. Vincent
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Antje Düsterhöft Meike Klettke Klaus-Dieter Schewe

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Ferrarotti, F., Hartmann, S., Köhler, H., Link, S., Vincent, M.W. (2012). Foundations for a Fourth Normal Form over SQL-Like Databases. In: Düsterhöft, A., Klettke, M., Schewe, KD. (eds) Conceptual Modelling and Its Theoretical Foundations. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7260. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28279-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28279-9_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-28278-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-28279-9

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