INF2603 - Key Terms - Chapter 9

Atomic Attribute - answer-An attribute that cannot be further subdivided to produce meaningful components. For example, a person's last name attribute cannot be meaningfully subdivided. Atomic Transaction Property (atomicity) - answer-A property that requires all parts of a transaction to be treated as a single, logical unit of work in which all operations must be completed (committed) to produce a consistent database. Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF) - answer-A special type of third normal form (3NF) in which every determinant is a candidate key. A table in BCDF must be in 3NF. See also determinant. Denormalization - answer-A process by which a table is changed from a higher-level normal form to a lower-level normal form, usually to increase processing speed. Denormalization potentially yields data anomalies. Dependency Diagram - answer-A representation of all data dependencies (primary key, partial, or transitive) within a table. Determinant - answer-Any attribute in a specific row whose value directly determines other values in that row. See also Boyce-Codd normal form (BCNF). First Normal Form (1NF) - answer-The first stage in the normalization process. It describes a relation depicted in tabular format, with no repeating groups and a primary key identified. All non-key attributes in the primary key are dependent on the primary key. Fourth Normal Form (4NF) - answer-A table that is in 3NF and contains no multiple independent sets of multi-valued dependencies. Granularity - answer-The level of detail represented by the values stored in a table's row. Data stored at their lowest level of granularity are said to be atomic data...