Database Theory
Administrative
- Instructors: Sarah Kleest-Meißner, Prof. Dr. Tilmann Rabl
- The course will be conducted on-site at HPI. The sessions will take place on Wednesdays, 13:30 - 15:00 in room F - E.06.
- All seminar announcements and course materials will be shared through Moodle.
- The course is graded and has 3 ECTS.
- The course is limited to 12 students.
- If, for any unforeseen reasons, you must drop the course, this needs to happen by 27th April 23:59.
- If you have any questions, please contact us.
Description
Modern database systems have a strong connection to logic: we can interpret a relational database as a set of mathematical relations and SQL queries as first-order logic formulas, allowing us to make precise statements about the expressiveness and evaluation complexity of database query languages. In this seminar we will illustrate this connection and discuss both, fundamental results as well as state-of-the-art research in database theory. Topics may include (acyclic) conjunctive queries, complexity of query evaluation, enumerating answers under updates, and worst-case optimal join algorithms.
Paper presentations
In this course, the students will have the opportunity to prepare discussion sessions on both, foundations and state-of-the-art research in database theory. This includes studying a research paper or a chapter in the book (Database Theory - Querying Data, by Arenas et al.) in detail, presenting it in front of the group, introducing valuable insights, and leading the following discussion. To be adequately prepared for this, we will beforehand discuss the best practices for reading, writing, and presenting existing research. Every week, each student will need to summarize one of the presented papers in a one-pager. At the end of the semester, students hand in a written report (4-6 pages) on the topic of their talk.
Grading
- Paper presentation(s) - 70%
- Written report - 30%
- One-pagers - pass/fail - they will not be included in the final grade