This book is the first comprehensive survey of the field of constraint databases, written by leading researchers. Constraint databases are a fairly new and active area of database research. The key idea is that constraints, such as linear or polynomial equations, are used to represent large, or even infinite, sets in a compact way. The ability to deal with infinite sets makes constraint databases particularly promising as a technology for integrating spatial and temporal data with standard relational databases. Constraint databases bring techniques from a variety of fields, such as logic and model theory, algebraic and computational geometry, as well as symbolic computation, to the design and analysis of data models and query languages.

Finite model theory,as understoodhere, is an areaof mathematicallogic that has developed in close connection with applications to computer science, in particular the theory of computational complexity and database theory. One of the fundamental insights of mathematical logic is that our understanding of mathematical phenomena is enriched by elevating the languages we use to describe mathematical structures to objects of explicit study. If mathematics is the science of patterns, then the media through which we discern patterns, as well as the structures in which we discern them, command our attention. It isthis aspect oflogicwhichis mostprominentin model theory,"thebranchof mathematical logic which deals with the relation between a formal language and its interpretations". No wonder, then, that mathematical logic, and ?nite model theory in particular, should ?nd manifold applications in computer science: from specifying programs to querying databases, computer science is rife with phenomena whose understanding requires close attention to the interaction between language and structure. This volume gives a broadoverviewof some central themes of ?nite model theory: expressive power, descriptive complexity, and zero-one laws, together with selected applications to database theory and arti?cial intelligence, es- cially constraint databases and constraint satisfaction problems. The ?nal chapter provides a concise modern introduction to modal logic,which emp- sizes the continuity in spirit and technique with ?nite model theory.

Emphasizes the computer science aspects of the subject.

Details applications in databases, complexity theory, and formal languages, as well as other branches of computer science.

This Festschrift volume, published in honour of Peter Buneman, contains contributions written by some of his colleagues, former students, and friends. In celebration of his distinguished career a colloquium was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, 27-29 October, 2013. The articles presented herein belong to some of the many areas of Peter's research interests.

Emphasizes the computer science aspects of the subject.

Details applications in databases, complexity theory, and formal languages, as well as other branches of computer science.

This is the first comprehensive survey of the field of constraint databases, written by leading researchers. Constraint databases are a fairly new and active area of database research. Their ability to deal with infinite sets makes them particularly promising as a technology for integrating spatial and temporal data with standard relational databases. Constraint databases bring techniques from a variety of fields, such as logic and model theory, algebraic and computational geometry, as well as symbolic computation, to the design and analysis of data models and query languages.

Data exchange is the problem of finding an instance of a target schema, given an instance of a source schema and a specification of the relationship between the source and the target. Such a target instance should correctly represent information from the source instance under the constraints imposed by the target schema, and it should allow one to evaluate queries on the target instance in a way that is semantically consistent with the source data. Data exchange is an old problem that re-emerged as an active research topic recently, due to the increased need for exchange of data in various formats, often in e-business applications. In this lecture, we give an overview of the basic concepts of data exchange in both relational and XML contexts. We give examples of data exchange problems, and we introduce the main tasks that need to addressed. We then discuss relational data exchange, concentrating on issues such as relational schema mappings, materializing target instances (including canonical solutions and cores), query answering, and query rewriting. After that, we discuss metadata management, i.e., handling schema mappings themselves. We pay particular attention to operations on schema mappings, such as composition and inverse. Finally, we describe both data exchange and metadata management in the context of XML. We use mappings based on transforming tree patterns, and we show that they lead to a host of new problems that did not arise in the relational case, but they need to be addressed for XML. These include consistency issues for mappings and schemas, as well as imposing tighter restrictions on mappings and queries to achieve tractable query answering in data exchange. Table of Contents: Overview / Relational Mappings and Data Exchange / Metadata Management / XML Mappings and Data Exchange

This volume collects the papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Database Theory, ICDT 2005, held during January 5-7, 2005, in Edinburgh, UK. ICDT (http: //alpha.luc.ac.be/ lucp1080/icdt/) has now a long tra- tion of international conferences, providing a biennial scienti?c forum for the communication of high-quality and innovative research results on theoretical - pects of all forms of database systems and database technology. The conference usually takes place in Europe, and has been held in Rome (1986), Bruges (1988), Paris (1990), Berlin (1992), Prague (1995), Delphi (1997), Jerusalem (1999), London (2001), and Siena (2003) so far. ICDT has merged with the Sym- sium on Mathematical Fundamentals of Database Systems (MFDBS), initiated in Dresden in 1987, and continued in Visegrad in 1989 and Rostock in 1991. ICDT had a two-stage submission process. First, 103 abstracts were subm- ted, which were followed a week later by 84 paper submissions. From these 84 submissions, the ICDT Program Committee selected 24 papers for presentation at the conference. Most of these papers were "extended abstracts" and preli- nary reports on work in progress. It is anticipated that most of these papers will appear in a more polished form in scienti?c journals.

This book presents a coherent suvey on exciting developments in database semantics. The origins of the volume date back to a workshop held in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1995. The nine revised full papers and surveys presented were carefully reviewed for inclusion in the book. They address more traditional aspects like dealing with integrity constraints and conceptual modeling as well as new areas of databases; object-orientation, incomplete information, database transformations and other issues are investigated by applying formal semantics, e.g. the evolving algebra semantics.

Edited in collaboration with FoLLI, the Association of Logic, Language and Information this book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Communication, WoLLIC 2013, held in Darmstadt, Germany, in August 2013. The 17 contributed papers presented together with 6 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The scope of the workshop spans the theoretical and practical aspects of formal logic, computing and programming theory, and natural language and reasoning.

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The problem of exchanging data between different databases with different schemas is an area of immense importance. Consequently data exchange has been one of the most active research topics in databases over the past decade. Foundational questions related to data exchange largely revolve around three key problems: how to build target solutions; how to answer queries over target solutions; and how to manipulate schema mappings themselves? The last question is also known under the name 'metadata management', since mappings represent metadata, rather than data in the database. In this book the authors summarize the key developments of a decade of research. Part I introduces the problem of data exchange via examples, both relational and XML; Part II deals with exchanging relational data; Part III focuses on exchanging XML data; and Part IV covers metadata management.

Finite model theory,as understoodhere, is an areaof mathematicallogic that has developed in close connection with applications to computer science, in particular the theory of computational complexity and database theory. One of the fundamental insights of mathematical logic is that our understanding of mathematical phenomena is enriched by elevating the languages we use to describe mathematical structures to objects of explicit study. If mathematics is the science of patterns, then the media through which we discern patterns, as well as the structures in which we discern them, command our attention. It isthis aspect oflogicwhichis mostprominentin model theory,"thebranchof mathematical logic which deals with the relation between a formal language and its interpretations". No wonder, then, that mathematical logic, and ?nite model theory in particular, should ?nd manifold applications in computer science: from specifying programs to querying databases, computer science is rife with phenomena whose understanding requires close attention to the interaction between language and structure. This volume gives a broadoverviewof some central themes of ?nite model theory: expressive power, descriptive complexity, and zero-one laws, together with selected applications to database theory and arti?cial intelligence, es- cially constraint databases and constraint satisfaction problems. The ?nal chapter provides a concise modern introduction to modal logic,which emp- sizes the continuity in spirit and technique with ?nite model theory.