This lab’s main focus is:
Advanced programming techniques and data structures including tables, linked lists, queues and stacks, abstract data types, recursion, searching and sorting, hashing, binary trees.
External storage devices, file organization, file processing techniques.
Theory and current practices in database management systems, database design, data modeling and normalization, query optimization, functional dependencies, data integrity, and data security.
Data organizational models, including hierarchical and networked, with relational and semantic models stressed.
Traditionally, databases contain data that are both exact and highly structured. However, many modern applications (e.g., sensor networks, satellite images, Web text extraction) require the storage of data that have neither of these characteristics. The data may have contradictory pieces of information, and could be of only uncertain correctness. Dealing with uncertain data in an effective and systematic manner is a challenging and important issue that requires solutions for many different problems; for example, modeling of uncertain or probabilistic data, semantics for querying, and efficient query-evaluation algorithms.
Databases make sense, they bring and maintain order, they force the user to think in a very logical and linear path, and they are flexible. A database is truly an invaluable tool for any organization. There are a lot of research opportunities.