Nested relations and complex objects in databases (Q749194)

[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] Much attention has been currently paid to the nested relational database model, which can also be characterized as a complex object database model. This is due to the fact that complex object databases are believed to model the structure of the real world in a more adequate way than the classical ``flat'' relational database model, of which the nested model is an extension. The first-order structure of the flat model is extended to arbitrary, but fixed, higher orders. Hence these models provide support for hierarchically organized data, thus overcoming severe shortcomings of the relational data model. The primary goal of the volume is to present a survey of the research in the rapidly growing field. It is divided into four chapters: the first one presents an overview of the main implementational efforts, the second one deals with the fundamental issues of nested relations and complex objects, the third one is devoted to database modelling and finally the last one to the database design.