Title
Bag Query Containment and Information Theory
Abstract
AbstractThe query containment problem is a fundamental algorithmic problem in data management. While this problem is well understood under set semantics, it is by far less understood under bag semantics. In particular, it is a long-standing open question whether or not the conjunctive query containment problem under bag semantics is decidable. We unveil tight connections between information theory and the conjunctive query containment under bag semantics. These connections are established using information inequalities, which are considered to be the laws of information theory. Our first main result asserts that deciding the validity of a generalization of information inequalities is many-one equivalent to the restricted case of conjunctive query containment in which the containing query is acyclic; thus, either both these problems are decidable or both are undecidable. Our second main result identifies a new decidable case of the conjunctive query containment problem under bag semantics. Specifically, we give an exponential-time algorithm for conjunctive query containment under bag semantics, provided the containing query is chordal and admits a simple junction tree.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1145/3472391
ACM Transactions on Database Systems
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Query containment, bag semantics, information theory, entropy
Journal
46
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
3
0362-5915
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Mahmoud Abo Khamis1387.66
Phokion G. Kolaitis22733514.37
Hung Q. Ngo367056.62
Dan Suciu496251349.54