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Option A — Databases

1. Marble Reading Book Stores (MRBS) is a chain of bookstores based in London. The
stores want to keep information about the books they sell, the authors of the books and the
publishers they work with. The assumptions made when the database was created were:
• a publisher can publish books from one or more authors
• an author can write one or more books.

(a) Construct the entity-relationship diagram (ERD) for this scenario. [2]

Three of the tables in the MRBS database are shown below:

PUBLISHER
Publisher_Name City Country Telephone

Orlando Crux Melbourne Australia 6187675423

Owen Troy Taipei Taiwan 8867843525

Philip Hall Los Angeles USA 1546838382

AUTHOR
Author_Num Author_Name1 Author_Name2 DOB Publisher_Name

OC80 David Gully 05/06/1974 Orlando Crux

OC89 Clint Donald 02/12/1957 Orlando Crux

OT66 Steve Leking 11/07/1989 Owen Troy

PH54 Mary West 23/12/1990 Philip Hall

BOOK
ISBN Book_Title Genre Author_Num Year_Pub

0-12763-777-1 Recipes of the East Non-Fiction PH54 2014

0-65432-187-1 Ken and his life Fiction OC89 2014

0-66655-916-2 All about the Grand Canyon Geography PH54 2012

0-76544-987-2 Tidings Fiction OT66 2015

0-87022-176-0 The fair price of life Fiction OC80 2014

0-98124-612-2 Seeking the truth Non-fiction OT66 2016

(b) Outline why data validation is difficult for the Book_Title attribute. [2]

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(c) State the result from the following query: [1]

SELECT Book_Title
FROM BOOK
WHERE Genre = "Non-fiction"
AND ISBN = '0-98124-612-2'

(d) Construct a query to find the titles of the books published by “Orlando Crux”. [4]

The MRBS database undergoes many transactions.

(e) Outline why atomicity is important within a database. [2]

(f) Outline how data consistency can be maintained in transactions in this database
system.[2]

Some data in the MRBS database is redundant.

(g) Outline one problem caused by redundant data. [2]

2. A school maintains a database of students’ details and teaching resources on a central

server. This data can be accessed by all teachers in the school.

Teachers may need to edit resources when preparing their lessons.

(a) Explain how concurrent use of the school database is possible in this situation. [3]

When storing student details, data security is an important consideration.

(b) Describe two ways that data security in the school's database can be maintained. [4]

The school has appointed a database administrator (DBA).

A DBA is required to carry out tasks such as ensuring there is a strategy to recover the
database if it becomes corrupted and that the data is shared ethically.

(c) (i) Describe one strategy that could be used to ensure the data can be recovered if
the database becomes corrupted. [2]

(ii) Suggest how the privacy of student data can be ensured. [3]

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(Option A continued)

3. Armour Hardware Company has the following data about salespersons and the quantities of
items sold.

Each salesperson can sell many different products.

SALES_PERSON
Product_ Unit_ Product_ Date_And_ Sales_ Sales_ Manager_ Manager_
Number Price Name Time Person_ Person_ Number Name
Number Name

19 440 12.50 Saw 03/07/2018 102 Owen 16 Benson

12:23:34

32 456 14.50 Hammer 03/07/2018

12:56:23

35 647 35.00 Drill 03/07/2018 199 Dahl 45 Rogers

12:35:02

67 895 13.25 Wrench 03/07/2018

12:49:56

98 760 12.25 Pliers 03/07/2018

13:23:34

67 896 9.25 Wrench 03/07/2018 154 Fraser 16 Benson

12:46:23

32 456 14.50 Hammer 03/07/2018

12:50:16

35 647 35.00 Drill 03/07/2018 234 Robert 16 Benson

12:55:09

32 456 14.50 Hammer 03/07/2018

12:57:12

67 895 13.25 Wrench 03/07/2018

13:25:36

(a) Outline two reasons why databases are normalized. [4]

(b) Outline why the SALES_PERSON table is not in 1st Normal Form (1NF). [2]

(c) Construct the 3rd Normal Form (3NF) of the unnormalized relation shown above. [8]

(d) Outline why it is necessary to ensure that referential integrity is maintained in databases. [2]

(e) Outline why a primary key may consist of more than one attribute. [2]

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4. ZCC has a chain of offices that sell different types of paper to customers all over the world.
They have data stored in their data warehouses that will help them make important marketing
decisions for the future, as they have plans to diversify into other products like gift-wrappers,
scribble-pads, stationery, books and calculators.

(a) (i) Outline why data warehousing is time dependent. [2]

(ii) Outline one reason why ZCC uses a data warehouse. [2]

(b) Outline why transformation of the data is necessary prior to it being loaded into the
data warehouse. [2]

ZCC is going to use data mining techniques to discover patterns in their data.

(c) Compare cluster analysis and classification as techniques for discovering patterns in
ZCC's data. [6]

The company has customers who have missed the payment deadline for their purchases
from ZCC.

(d) Describe how the process of deviation detection can be applied to identify customers
who are likely to miss the payment deadline for their purchases from ZCC.[3]

ZCC is aware that other data mining and detection techniques will allow more informed
marketing decisions to be made.

(e) Explain how database segmentation and link analysis can be used by ZCC to improve
their marketing strategies. [5]

End of Option A

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