Class Meetings
Venue: FL-320
Date/Time: Wednesday, 6:00 pm - 8:50 pm
Teaching Staff
Professor: Murali
Mani, FL-235, x6421, mmani@cs.wpi.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday: 3 - 4; Thursday 4 - 5
You are always welcome to approach the instructor with
questions. However, outside the specified office hours, you may want
to set up an appointment, rather than just dropping in, to ensure that
the instructor is around. However, if you have any problem whatsoever,
do NOT hesitate to approach the instructor. Further you are encouraged
to discuss among yourselves so as to get an excellent understanding of
the topics.
Objectives
This course is designed for students with a keen interest in database
systems research. As part of this course, you will be exposed to some
of the foundational aspects on which database systems are based.
We will spend about half the time on traditional textbook material
like logic database languages and their implementation, and the other
half will be spent on current database research topics like query
optimization and data integration.
The topics that will be covered in this course include (a) recursion
and their implementation in database systems (b) conjunctive queries,
and their minimization (c) schema mapping in data integration (d)
updating views: support in current database engines,as well as
research in updating join views (d) techniques for maintaining
materialized views.
Background Material
The course will require you to have as a pre-requisite a good
understanding of relational databases. Also we will assume that you
have a good breadth in computer science, including knowledge of
programming, algorithms, and basic graph theory.