UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS

FACULTY OF LAW AND MANAGEMENT

SECOND SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS

MAY 2017

BSc (Hons) Accounting (Minor: Business Informatics)

PROGRAMME BSc (Hons) Management (Minor: Business Informatics)

Level I

MODULE NAME DATABASE SYSTEMS

Wednesday
DATE 10 May 2017 MODULE CODE CSE1240(1)

TIME 13.30 – 15.30 Hours DURATION 2 Hours

NO. OF 4 NO. OF QUESTIONS 4

QUESTIONS SET TO BE ATTEMPTED

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

This paper consists of FOUR (4) questions.

Answer ALL questions.
 Database Systems – CSE1240(1)

Answer ALL questions.

Question 1 [25 marks]

Consider the following scenario for an event management company.

An event company called EventsLtd wants to build a database to store information

about the events they organize. The data requirements are described below. Each
event is described by: an event id, a start date, an end date and a budget.

Participants must register for the event. Each event must have at least one
participant and a participant participates in at least one event. The date of the
registration needs to be recorded. A participant is allowed to register for more
than one event. An event can be a competition or a concert. For each
competition, the name of the winner is recorded in the database. For the concert,
the name of the artist as well as price of the ticket is recorded. A participant is
described by: a participant id, a nick name of their choice, an address, a telephone
number and gender. More than one phone number can be recorded for a
participant.

A competition consists of a number of activities. An activity belongs to a single

competition and for each activity, the following details are recorded: an activity
id, a level (e.g. “qualifications”, “semi-finals”, “final”, etc.), a number (e.g.
number = 2 and level = “semifinals” means the second semi-final of the
competition), a day when it takes place, a starting time and a venue.

Events are supported by support staffs. A support staff is described by: a staff id,
a name and a telephone number. One support staff may be assigned to more than
one event and one event may require more than one support staff. Each event
must have at least one support staff. An assignment of a support staff to an event
may be compulsory (case in which the respective staff must attend the event) or
optional; this information will also have to be recorded in the database.

a) The owners of Events Ltd have requested you to create a conceptual model for the
database to be developed. The model should be in the form of an Entity Relationship
(ER) diagram. It should contain all entities, relationships, attributes and cardinalities.
[15 marks]
b) Explain FOUR drawbacks of using a file-based system to store the data recorded by
EventsLtd.
[4 marks]
c) The ANSI-SPARC model of a database identifies three distinct levels at which data
items can be described. Briefly explain each level.
[3 x 2 marks]

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 Database Systems – CSE1240(1)

Question 2 [25 marks]

A civil engineering consultancy company provides consultants to work on clients’ projects.

Each consultant works on only one project at a time, but a project may consist of more than
one consultant. Each consultant has a fee rate and the consultancy hours depend on how
much time a consultant works on a particular project.

The following table, CONSULTANCY, provides an extract of data pertaining to the current
project assignments.

Consultant Consultant Consultant Proj Proj Proj Proj Fee Consultancy

ID Name Category No RegNo Name Loc Rate Hrs
129 James 1 12 A0188 Apolo Dubai 500 40
Carager
129 James 1 9 T9800 Terra Mauritius 500 50
Carager
127 Sarah 2 12 A0188 Apolo Dubai 700 30
James
131 Cindy 3 9 T9800 Terra Mauritius 1000 20
Shraffer
131 Cindy 3 10 R1900 Riviera Mauritius 1000 30
Shraffer
145 Sheila 1 10 R1900 Riviera Mauritius 500 35
Ramah
199 Girish 2 10 R1900 Riviera Mauritius 700 10
Mitoo

a) Give the domain for the following attributes:

i) ConsultantName
ii) FeeRate
iii) ConsultancyHrs
[3x1 marks]

b) Using the CONSULTANCY table as an example, differentiate between Superkey,

Candidate key and Primary key.
[3x2 marks]

c) Using an example from the above table, explain what is lossy decomposition and
state how this problem can be solved?
[3+1 marks]

d) Normalise the CONSULTANCY table to 3NF. You should show all the steps,
functional dependencies and table schemas. You should also identify all primary
and foreign keys.
[12 marks]

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 Database Systems – CSE1240(1)

Question 3 [25 marks]

a) Explain the purpose of the following SQL keywords:

i) BETWEEN
ii) DISTINCT
iii) ORDER BY
[3 x 2 marks]

b) The following table illustrates the parking allocation details for a newly built
residential complex. Primary Keys are underlined.

Table: Resident
ResidentName ResidentPhone ResidentRoom ParkingId
John Adams 403-7765 Room3.2 P1
Sam Johnson 701-9043 Room1.3 P2
Mary James 777-4431 Room2.5 P4

Table: Parking
ParkingId ParkingLocation ParkingDetails ParkingSpace
P1 North Near shopping area 15
P2 East Near swimming pool 25
P3 West Near garden area 20
P4 South Near food court 35

The assumptions are:

1. A resident can be allocated only one parking in a parking location.

2. A resident can be identified using his/her phone number.
3. ParkingSpace represents the number of vehicles that can be parked.

Write the queries which follow in SQL.

i) List ALL the details of parking locations available at the residential complex.
[2 marks]
ii) List the parking location and details of the parking space which can
accommodate more than 20 vehicles.
[3 marks]
iii) Find the total parking space available in the North and South location. The
column listing the total should be named as “TotalParking”.
[5 marks]

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 Database Systems – CSE1240(1)

iv) Display the resident phone, room number, parking location and parking
details allocated to Mary James. Make use of alias in your query.
[5 marks]
v) Due to the increasing requests for parking spaces, a new parking location is
being created for the residential complex. The details are:

ParkingId ParkingLocation ParkingDetails ParkingSpace

P5 Center Near security office 40

[4 marks]

Question 4 [25 marks]

a) As a database designer, you have been asked to setup a database environment for a
mobile phone accessories shop. The manager of the company, Mr Samuel, is well
acquainted with latest technologies such as web and the internet. His main objective
is to market his products on the World Wide Web (WWW) and make his products
more visible to potential clients.

i) Discuss the type of database environment that you would recommend to Mr

Samuel. Your discussion should focus on the components required and
provide a comprehensive view of how they work together.
[10 marks]
ii) Identify THREE important considerations when performing database
application development.
[3 marks]

b) In a multi-user transaction processing system, many users can access the system
concurrently.

i) Explain the importance of concurrency control.

[3 marks]
ii) List the ACID properties of transactions.
[4 marks]

c) A Data Warehouse is a database used for reporting and analysis. Comment on the
following statement:

“Data warehouses integrate multiple databases and other information sources into a single
repository.”
[5 marks]

END OF QUESTION PAPER

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