1.

Define each of the following terms:

a. entity type

A collection of entities that share common properties or characteristics

b. entity-relationship model

a logical representation of the data for an organization or for a business area, using entities for
categories of data and relationships for associations between entities

c. entity instance

A single occurrence of an entity type.

d. attribute

A property or characteristic of an entity or relationship type that is of interest to the organization.

e. relationship type

meaningful association between (or among) entity types.

f. identifier

An attribute (or combination of attributes) whose value distinguishes instances of an entity type

g. multivalued attribute

An attribute that may take on more than one value for a given entity (or relationship) instance

h. associative entity

An entity type that associates the instances of one or more entity types and contains attributes that are
peculiar to the relationship between those entity instances.

i. cardinality constraint

A rule that specifies the number of instances of one entity that can (or must) be associated with each
instance of another entity

j. weak entity

An entity type whose existence depends on some other entity type.

k. identifying relationship

The relationship between a weak entity type and its owner.

l. derived attribute

An attribute whose values can be calculated from related attribute values.

2

a. Stored attribute refers to an attribute that is stored directly in the database, while derived attribute
is an attribute that is derived from other attributes in the database and is not explicitly stored.

b. A simple attribute is an attribute that cannot be divided any further, while a composite attribute is
an attribute that can be divided into sub-attributes.

c. Entity type refers to an object or concept in the real world that is represented by a table in a
database, while relationship type refers to the association or connection between two or more entity
types in a database.

d. A strong entity type is an entity type that can be uniquely identified by its own attributes, while a
weak entity type is an entity type that cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes and
depends on a relationship with another entity type.

e. Degree refers to the number of entity types or tables involved in a relationship, while cardinality
refers to the number of instances of one entity type that can be associated with a single instance of
another entity type in a relationship.

f. Required attribute is an attribute that must have a value, while optional attribute is an attribute
that may or may not have a value.

g. A composite attribute is an attribute that can be divided into sub-attributes, while a multivalued
attribute is an attribute that can have multiple values for a single instance.

h. A ternary relationship is a relationship that involves three entity types or tables, while three binary
relationships involve three pairs of entity types or tables, each with their own relationship.