A formal context for acyclic join dependencies

Acyclic Join Dependencies (AJD) play a crucial role in database design and normalization. In this paper, we use Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to characterize a set of AJDs that hold in a given dataset. This present work simplifies and generalizes the characterization of Multivalued Dependencies with FCA.Postprint (author's final draft

A formal context for closures of acyclic hypergraphs

Database constraints in the relational database model (RDBM) can be viewed as a set of rules that apply to a dataset, or as a set of axioms that can generate a (closed) set of those constraints. In this paper, we use Formal Concept Analysis to characterize the axioms of Acyclic Hypergraphs (in the RDBM they are called Acyclic Join Dependencies). This present paper complements and generalizes previous work on FCA and databases constraints.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A New Formal Context for Symmetric Dependencies

In this paper we present a new formal context for symmetric dependencies. We study its properties and compare it with previous approaches. We also discuss how this new context may open the door to solve some open problems for symmetric dependencies.Postprint (published version

Conditional independence on semiring relations

Conditional independence plays a foundational role in database theory, probability theory, information theory, and graphical models. In databases, conditional independence appears in database normalization and is known as the (embedded) multivalued dependency. Many properties of conditional independence are shared across various domains, and to some extent these commonalities can be studied through a measure-theoretic approach. The present paper proposes an alternative approach via semiring relations, defined by extending database relations with tuple annotations from some commutative semiring. Integrating various interpretations of conditional independence in this context, we investigate how the choice of the underlying semiring impacts the corresponding axiomatic and decomposition properties. We specifically identify positivity and multiplicative cancellativity as the key semiring properties that enable extending results from the relational context to the broader semiring framework. Additionally, we explore the relationships between different conditional independence notions through model theory, and consider how methods to test logical consequence and validity generalize from database theory and information theory to semiring relations

New Closure Operators and Lattice Representations for Multivalued Dependencies and Related Expressions

In Database Theory, Multivalued Dependencies are the main tool to define the Fourth Normal Form and, as such, their inference problem has been deeply studied; two related notions appearing in that study are a syntactical analog in propositional logic and a restriction that maintains to this logic the same relationship as Functional Dependencies do to Horn logic. We present semantic, lattice-theoretic characterizations of such multivalued dependencies that hold in a given relation, as well as similar results for the related notions just mentioned. Our characterizations explain better some previously known facts by providing a unifying framework that is also consistent with the studies of Functional Dependencies.Postprint (published version

On redundancy, anomalies and on the question "what do normal forms really do"

In this paper we first survey various examples for anomalies given in the literature [1,3,8]. We discuss the formalizations and relate them to each other and the examples. We give arguments that show that decomposition of a relation scheme can help in getting rid of deletion/insertion anomalies and can fail in getting rid of update anomalies in the decomposed case

A definition of redundancy in relational databases

The relational data model as proposed by Codd is a well-established method for data abstraction. Two essential aspects in this model are the definition of the data structure via the relation scheme and the data semantics via data dependencies. Various classes of data dependencies have been studied in the past. In the presence of data dependencies "update dependencies" (or anomalies) and "redundancy" may occur as first observed by Codd. Normal forms have been proposed as a means to control update anomalies and redundancy. But as the notion of redundancy has never been formally defined, one cannot make any precise statement concerning the presence or absence of redundancy for a given design. In this paper we attempt to provide a formal definition of the notion of redundancy for the case of a single relation respectively relation scheme. We first give a static semantic definition of redundancy and then present an operational analogue. Intuitively speaking a relation r contains redundancy, if some "part" of the information given in r can be "determined" from the "rest" of r. And a relation scheme with a given set of data dependencies admits redundancy if there is a relation belonging to this scheme that contains redundancy. The paper is organized in six sections. Section 1 contains the definition of the relational model that we use. We make use of partial "relations" that are built from constants and variables. In section 2 we present the semantic definition of redundancy. Section 3 introduces a class of data dependencies, i.e. implicational dependencies and a chase procedure for partial relations. Section 4 gives an operational characterization of redundancy. The main theorem in this section is theorem 4.3. It states that a relation r in a class of relations sat(D) contains redundancy if there exists a partial relation q that "contains less information" than rand for which chase D(q