The book covers the most important requirements of teaching databases in a sharp and cleanly designed manner, and with a modular and progressive perspective. In fact, the whole book can be used for a full course (or pair of courses), but its first half can be profitably used for a shorter course....

Active database systems enhance traditional database functionality with powerful rule-processing capabilities, providing a uniform and efficient mechanism for many database system applications....

The most prominent Web applications in use today are data-intensive. Scores of database management systems across the Internet access and maintain large amounts of structured data for e-commerce, on-line trading, banking, digital libraries, and other high-volume sites....

The database field has experienced a rapid and incessant growth since the development of relational databases. The progress in database systems and applications has produced a diverse landscape of specialized technology areas that have often become the exclusive domain of research specialists....