Information for foreign students, spring 2002.
Prerequisites:
Basics in Databases (or the older Information Systems)(required);
Data
Structures
(recommended).
Course names in Finnish: Tietokantojen perusteet
(or Informaatiojärjestelmät;
Tietorakenteet)
The lectures as well as the weekly practice-group sessions will be given in Finnish.
For foreign students, English translations of the weekly homework
assignments are provided. Depending on demand, at least some advice
sessions
for exercises will be given in English.
The first exercise session is scheduled on Thursday, April 4th, at
14:15 to 15:45 (room B453).
If you have not yet made your registration you should make it (group 99). In addition, send a message to the lecturer, Hannu Erkiö.
Exercises (homeworks)
Exercise 1 ps pdfExercise 2 html
Exercise 3 ps pdf
Exercise 4 ps pdf
Exercise 5 ps pdf
Exercise 6
ps
pdf
How to pass the course
The examination can be taken in English.
Time of the examination: see the page of exams. (There is one examination at the end of the course, plus some re-trials in so-called final exams later).
There are two alternatives in passing the course: by the course examination and homeworks, or by the final exam later. When the course exam is used the homeworks are obligatory : you should be active at least in 4 exercise sessions (of the total 6). The 'active' means that you have prepared your solution to about one half of the tasks; the number of tasks required will be indicated for every week.
Besides that about half of the tasks are obligatory, activity in
exercises provides max 10 points to the grade calculation; the course
exam itself gives max 50 points. (This combination is for course exams
only; the exercise points are not valid in final exams.)
It is strongly recommended to be active in exercises also for
those who intend to pass the course in final exams.
(A foreign student
may also take part in one of the weekly (Finnish) practice-group sessions
but at least some knowledge of Finnish is needed.)
Textbook of the course:
R. Elmasri & S. B. Navathe: Fundamentals of Database Systems, 3rd edition. Addison-Wesley, 2000. Also the 2nd edition of the book (1994) can be used (but it requires more activity in finding the proper pages in the book).
The contents of the course
(by chapters of Elmasri & Navathe (EN)):
Obs. EN comments below are not exact.
In some parts it is quite
difficult to separate the parts which have been covered and
which have not been covered.
1. Introduction (database system concepts, dbms)
EN, Chs. 1-2; a very short review only.
2. Storage structures used in DBMSs.
EN, Chs. 5 except the following parts:
5.2.2, 5.3
5.9.1 (assumed as a prerequisite)
3. Index structures in databases
EN, Chs. 6 except the following parts:
details of the algorithm 6.2
6.4-6.5
4. Query processing and optimization
EN, Ch. 18 (excluding some details, mainly in 18.4.3-4;
most parts have been covered at least partially)
5. Database transaction management
general: EN, Ch. 19, especially 19.1.-19.3.
log-based recovery: EN, Ch. 21, especially 21.1, 21.3, partly
21.2.1 and 21.5(LSN)
concurrency control: EN, Ch. 19.5.1, 19.5.3, 19.6,
20.1 (20.1.3 only shortly), 20.5.1, 20.6 - 20.7
Hannu.Erkio@cs.Helsinki.FI