Certain Conjunctive Query Answering in SQL

An uncertain database db is defined as a database in which distinct tuples of the same relation can agree on their primary key. A repair (or possible world) of db is then obtained by selecting a maximal number of tuples without ever selecting two distinct tuples of the same relation that agree on their primary key. Given a query Q on db, the certain answer is the intersection of the answers to Q on all repairs. Recently, a syntactic characterization was obtained of the class of acyclic self-join-free conjunctive queries for which certain answers are definable by a first-order formula, called certain first-order rewriting [2]. In this talk, we investigate the nesting and alternation of quantifiers in certain first-order rewritings, and propose two syntactic simplification techniques. We then experimentally verify whether these syntactic simplifications result in lower execution times on real-life SQL databases, and study the influence of several parameters using synthetic SQL databases. This talk is based on a recent paper by Decan, Pijcke, and Wijsen [1].