GIS DATABASE

(MGIS 150)
Chapter 4 – Database Using ER Model
Outline
• Design Process
• Modeling
• Constraints
• E-R Diagram
• Design Issues
• Weak Entity Sets
• Extended E-R Features
• Design of the Bank Database
• Reduction to Relation Schemas
• Database Design
• UML
Design
Phases

THE INITIAL PHASE NEXT, THE DESIGNER A FULLY DEVELOPED

OF DATABASE CHOOSES A DATA CONCEPTUAL
DESIGN IS TO MODEL AND, BY SCHEMA ALSO
CHARACTERIZE APPLYING THE INDICATES THE
FULLY THE DATA CONCEPTS OF THE FUNCTIONAL
NEEDS OF THE CHOSEN DATA REQUIREMENTS OF
PROSPECTIVE MODEL, TRANSLATES THE ENTERPRISE. IN
DATABASE USERS. THESE A “SPECIFICATION OF
REQUIREMENTS FUNCTIONAL
INTO A CONCEPTUAL REQUIREMENTS”,
SCHEMA OF THE USERS DESCRIBE THE
DATABASE. KINDS OF
OPERATIONS (OR
TRANSACTIONS)
THAT WILL BE
PERFORMED ON THE
DATA.
Design Phases (Cont.)
• The process of moving from an abstract data model to
the implementation of the database proceeds in two
final design phases.
• Logical Design – Deciding on the database schema.
Database design requires that we find a “good”
collection of relation schemas.
• Business decision – What attributes should we
record in the database?
• Computer Science decision – What relation
schemas should we have and how should the
attributes be distributed among the various
relation schemas?
• Physical Design – Deciding on the physical layout of the
database

•
Design Approaches
• Entity Relationship Model
(covered in this chapter)
• Models an enterprise as a collection
of entities and relationships
• Entity: a “thing” or “object” in the
enterprise that is distinguishable from
other objects
• Described by a set of attributes
• Relationship: an association among
several entities
• Represented diagrammatically by
an entity-relationship diagram:
• Normalization Theory (Chapter 8)
• Formalize what designs are bad,
and test for them
Outline of the
ER Model
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.
 • 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

Entity • An entity is represented by a set of attributes; i.e.,

descriptive properties possessed by all members of an

Sets 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.
Entity Sets -- instructor and
student

instructor_ID instructor_name student-ID student_name

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
Relationship Set advisor
Relations
hip 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. (More on
this later.)
Example: students work on research
projects under the guidance of an
instructor.
relationship proj_guide is a ternary
relationship between instructor,
student, and project
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
• One to many
• Many to one
• Many to many
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 Many to many

one
Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any
elements in the other set
 • Attribute types:
• Simple and composite attributes.
• Single-valued and multivalued
attributes
• Example: multivalued attribute:
phone_numbers
Complex • Derived attributes
Attributes • Can be computed from other attributes
• Example: age, given date_of_birth
• Domain – the set of permitted
values for each attribute
Composite Attributes
 • 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
Redundant sets. Since it is the primary key for the entity set
department, it replicates information present in
Attributes the relationship and is therefore redundant in
the entity set instructor and needs to be
removed.
• BUT: when converting back to tables, in some
cases the attribute gets reintroduced, as we will
see later.
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.
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.

Relations
hip Sets
with
Attributes
 • Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct
• Each occurrence of an entity set plays a “role” in
Roles 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
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
Reduction diagram can be represented by a collection
of schemas.
to
• For each entity set and relationship set
Relation there is a unique schema that is assigned
Schemas 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.
Representing Entity Sets

• A strong entity set reduces to a

schema with the same attributes

student(ID, name, tot_cred)

• 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 )
 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)

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_initial,
last_name,
street_number, street_name,
apt_number, city, state, zip_code,

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)
• 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)
 Redundancy of Schemas
 Many-to-one and one-to-many relationship sets that are total on the
many-side can be represented by adding an extra attribute to the
“many” side, containing the primary key of the “one” side
 Example: Instead of creating a schema for relationship set inst_dept,
add an attribute dept_name to the schema arising from entity set
instructor
 Redundancy of Schemas (Cont.)

If participation is partial on the

“many” side, replacing a schema
For one-to-one relationship sets,
by an extra attribute in the
either side can be chosen to act
schema corresponding to the
as the “many” side
“many” side could result in null
values

That is, an extra

attribute can be added
to either of the tables
corresponding to the
two entity sets
 • The schema corresponding to a
relationship set linking a weak entity set to
Redundancy of its identifying strong entity set is
redundant.
Schemas
(Cont.) • Example: The section schema already
contains the attributes that would appear
in the sec_course schema
 • Most relationship sets are binary

Non-binary • There are occasions when it is more

convenient to represent relationships
Relationship as non-binary.
• E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship
Sets
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
 Specialization

Top-down design process; we These sub-groupings become Depicted by a triangle Attribute inheritance – a
designate sub-groupings lower-level entity sets that component labeled ISA (e.g., lower-level entity set inherits
within an entity set that are have attributes or participate instructor “is a” person). all the attributes and
distinctive from other entities in relationships that do not relationship participation of
in the set. apply to the higher-level the higher-level entity set to
entity set. which it is linked.
Specialization
Example
• Overlapping – employee and
student
• Disjoint – instructor and secretary
• Total and partial
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
• Drawback: name, street and city ID,
mayname, street,redundantly
be stored city, salary for
people who are both students and employees
Generalization

• A bottom-up design process – combine a number of entity sets that

share the same features into a higher-level entity set.
• 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.
Design 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
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
 • 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
Aggregati may not correspond to any eval_for
relationships
on • So we can’t discard the proj_guide
relationship
(Cont.) • 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
Representing Aggregation
via 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.
Design Issues
Entities vs. Attributes

• Use of entity sets vs. attributes

• 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

• 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 (described shortly) 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
• Chen, IDE1FX, …
ER Notations
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
ER Diagram Notation
Diagrams
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.