Giezelle Mae C.

Gonzales

BA 73 Chapter 8

Monday, May 11, 2015

Review Questions

1. What are two fundamental components of data structures?

The two fundamental components of data structure are organizational method

and access method. Organization refers to the way records are physically arranged
on the secondary storage device. The access method is the technique used to locate
records and to navigate through the database or file.

2. What are the criteria that influence the selection of the data structure?

The criteria that influence the selection of the data structure: retrieve a record
from file based on its primary key, Insert a record into a file, update a record in the
file, read a complete file of records, find the next record in the file, scan a file for
records with common secondary keys and delete a record from a file.

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a sequential data structure?
Give an example of each.

Sequential data structures are simple and easy to process, each record is
processed in sequence. When a large portion of the file is to be processed in one
operation such payroll, this method is efficient for record updating. A disadvantage is
that a file that has only a small portion updated. Example is purchase by 20 of 1000
customers, will not be efficiently updated because all records will have to be read and
rewritten.

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using an indexed sequential file
structures?

Indexed sequential file structure are easier to maintain, in terms of adding

records because new key records are simply added to the end of the index without
regard with their sequence. The advantage of indexed random file is operations
involving the processing of individual records. Another advantage is their efficient use
of disk storage. Disadvantage is that files are not efficient structures for operations
that involve processing large portion of file. A great deal of access time may be
required to access an entire file of records that are randomly dispersed throughout
the storage device.
5. What are the three physical components of a VSAM file? Explain how a record is
searched through these components.

A VSAM file has three components: the indexes, the prime data storage area and
the overflow area. The access method first goes to the overall file index, which
determine the approximate location of the record, from the approximate location in
the prime data storage area, the files are searched sequentially for the record. If the
records are in an overflow area, a pointer where the record should reside indicates
where the record actually is residing. Thus, accessing a record may involve searching
the indexes, searching the tracks in the prime data area and finally searching the
overflow area.

6. What is a pointer? Discuss the three commonly used types of pointers and their
relative merits.

A structure in which the addresses of one record is stored in the field on a related
record. One type of pointers is the physical address pointer; it contains the actual disk
storage location needed by the disk controller. Next is the relative address pointer;
contains the relative position of a record in the file. The logical key pointer contains
the primary key of the related record.

7. What are some limitations of the hierarchical database model?

The hierarchical database model forces users to navigate between data

elements using predefined structured paths. Hierarchical database models also limit
the degree of process integration and data sharing that can be achieved.

8. Discuss and give an example of one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many record

associations.

A one-to-one means that for every occurrence in record type X, either zero or
one occurrence exist of record type Y. Example for every employee, only one social
security exist. A one-to-many means that for every occurrence in record type in
record type X, zero, one, or many occurrences exist of record type Y. Example is
buyer assigned seating at concerts. A many-to-many association is two-way
relationship, for occurrence of record type X and Y, zero, one or many occurrence
exist or record type Y and X, respectively. An example would be a student- professor
relationship. Each student has a multiple professors each semester, and each
professor has multiple students each semester.

9. Why is a hierarchical database model considered to be a navigational database?

The hierarchical database model is considered to be a navigational database

because traversing through it requires predefined linkages between related records
 that start at the root. A limitation of this model is that a parent record may have more
than one parent. If a child needs to be linked to one or more parents, duplication of
files with different predefined linkages may be required.

10. Explain how a separate linking file works in a network model.

A network model allows parent to have multiple children and vice versa. A
separate linking file works by creating a file that contains pointer records in linked-list
structure.

11. What is an embedded audit module?

An EAM is a specially programmed module embedded in a host application to

capture predetermined transaction types for subsequent analysis.

12. Explain the GAS is and why it is so popular with larger public accounting firms.
Discuss the independence issue related to GAS.

Generalized audit software (GAS) s the most widely used CAATT for IS auditing.
GAS allows auditors to access electronically coded data files and perform various
operations on their contents. The widespread popularity of GAS is due to four factors:
GAS languages are easy to use and require little computer background on the part of
the auditor, many GAS products can be used on both mainframe and PC system,
auditors can perform their test independent of the clients computer service staff and
GAS can be used to audit the data stored in most file structures and formats.

13. Discuss and give example of the following types of association: (1:0,1), (1:1), (1:M),
and (M:M).

(1:0,1). A one-to-one means that for every occurrence in record type X, either zero or
one occurrence exist of record type Y. Example for every employee, only one social
security exist.

(1:1), Describes a situation in which record in one entity is always associated with
one record in associated with one entity. For example, a company laptop computer is
assigned to only one manager, and every manager is assigned only one laptop.

(1:M), . A one-to-many means that for every occurrence in record type in record type
X, zero, one, or many occurrences exist of record type Y. Example is buyer assigned
seating at concerts.

(M:M). A many-to-many association is two-way relationship, for occurrence of record

type X and Y, zero, one or many occurrence exist or record type Y and X,
respectively. An example would be a student- professor relationship. Each student
 has a multiple professors each semester, and each professor has multiple students
each semester.

14. Distinguish between association and cardinality.

The labeled line connecting entities in data model describes the nature of the
association between them. This association is represented with verb, such as ships,
request or receives. Cardinality is the degree of association between two entities.
Simply stated, cardinality describes the number of possible occurrences in one table
that are associated with a single occurrence in a related table.

15. Explain how a separate linking table works in a many-to-many association.

In many-to-many association, a link table with combined key consisting of the

primary keys of the two related tables is created in order to link the related table.

16. What are the four characteristics of properly designed relational database tables?

Properly designed relational database tables possess the following characteristic:

The value of at least one attribute in each occurrence must be unique, all attribute
values in any column must be of the same class, each column in given table must be
uniquely named, and tables must conform to the rules of normalization.

17. What do the relational features restrict, project, join mean?

Restrict- Extract specified rows from specified table.

Project- Extract specified attributes from a table that creates a virtual table.

Join- Build a new physical table from two tables consisting of all concatenated
pairs of rows, one from each table.

18. What are the conditions for third normal form (3NF)?

1. All nonkey (data) attributes in the table are independent on (defined by) the
primary key.

2. All nonkey attributes are independent of the other nonkey attributes.

19. Explain how the SELECT and WHERE commands help a user to view the
necessary data from multiple database files (tables).

SELECT command identifies all of the attributes to be contained in the view,

when the same attribute appears in more than one table, the source table name must
also be specified. WHERE command specifies how rows in the inventory, part
supplier, and supplier tables are to be matched to create a view.
20. What is a data model?

Data modeling is often the first step in database design and object-oriented
programming as the designers first create a conceptual model of how data items
relate to each other. Data modeling involves a progression from conceptual model to
logical model to physical schema.

21. How can a poorly designed database result unintentional loss of critical records?

The deletion anomalies may cause data to be deleted unintentionally from

incorrectly normalized table. In such situations, records that are legitimately deleted
from the table may result in the deletion of other data not intended for deletion.

22. What is user view?

User view or subschema defines the users section of the database—the portion
that an individual user is authorized to access.

23. Does a user view always require multiple tables to support it? Explain.

User view derives from underlying database tables. Simple views maybe
constructed from a single table, while more complex views may require several
tables. Furthermore a single table may contribute data to many different views.

24. What two conditions must valid entities meet?

Condition 1: Am entity must consist of two or more occurrence.

Condition 2: An entity must attribute at least one attribute that is not provided through
other entities.

25. Can two different entities have the same defining attributes? Explain.

Because attributes are logical and relevant characteristic of an entity, they are
unique to it. Therefore the same attributes should not be used to define two different
entities.