CSE 3901 FINAL QUESTION SET WITH RATIONALES AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING APPLICATION AND PRACTICE REVIEW 2026

CSE 3901 FINAL QUESTION SET WITH
RATIONALES AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
APPLICATION AND PRACTICE REVIEW 2026

◉ entity set.
Answer: a group of similar entities


◉ attrbute.
Answer: property of an entity or relationship


◉ domain.
Answer: set of values allowed for an attribute


◉ key attribute.
Answer: a unique property of the entity


◉ simple domain.
Answer: set of atomic values


◉ composite domain.
Answer: cartesian product of simple domains

,◉ relational algebra.
Answer: uses a set of operations that take one or more relations as
inputs and produce a new relation as an output


◉ unary operators.
Answer: accepts a single relation as an input


◉ set operators.
Answer: accepts more than one operation as an input


◉ select operator.
Answer: filters rows of a relation to create a new relation


◉ union operator.
Answer: combines the rows of both tables


◉ intersect operator.
Answer: finds the common rows in two relations


◉ difference operator.

, Answer: creates a new table without the common rows between the
two


◉ cartesian product.
Answer: combines every row with every other row, contains all
possible combinations


◉ operations.
Answer: have relations as inputs and outputs (they produce a new
relation)


◉ expressions.
Answer: a sequence of relational algebra expressions


◉ what can nested selects simplify to?.
Answer: the AND condition


◉ project operator.
Answer: selects columns from tables and disregards the others


◉ what are the four informal guidelines when designing a database?.
Answer: avoid redundancy, clear attribute semantics, avoid excessive
null values, avoid spurious tuples at all costs