Title
On the number of independent functional dependencies
Abstract
We will investigate the following question: what can be the maximum number of independent functional dependencies in a database of n attributes, that is the maximum cardinality of a system of dependencies which which do not follow from the Armstrong axioms and none of them can be derived from the remaining ones using the Armstrong axioms. An easy and for long time believed to be the best construction is the following: take the maximum possible number of subsets of the attributes such that none of them contains the other one (by the wellknown theorem of Sperner [8] their number is ($^{~~n}_{n/2}$)) and let them all determine all the further values. However, we will show by a specific construction that it is possible to give more than ($^{~~n}_{n/2}$) independent dependencies (the construction will give (1 + $\frac{1}{n^2}$) ($^{~~n}_{n/2}$) of them) and — on the other hand — the upper bound is 2n–1, which is roughly $\sqrt{n}(^{~~n}_{n/2})$.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1007/11663881_6
FoIKS
Keywords
Field
DocType
independent functional dependency,independent dependency,maximum possible number,best construction,long time,armstrong axiom,maximum cardinality,following question,maximum number,specific construction,functional dependency,upper bound
Discrete mathematics,Relational database,Computer science,Upper and lower bounds,Cardinal number,Cardinality,Algorithm,Functional dependency,Theoretical computer science,Armstrong's axioms
Conference
Volume
ISSN
ISBN
3861
0302-9743
3-540-31782-1
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
6
0.46
5
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
János Demetrovics1414163.60
Gyula O. H. Katona226466.44
Dezső Miklós361.13
Bernhard Thalheim41811442.28