The 1st International Conference on Information Science and Engineering (ICISE2009)

Design the Database of Laboratory Management System

BAO Kao-ming CHENG Geng-guo
Department of Information Science and Engineering Department of Information Science and Engineering
Wuhan University of Science and Technology Wuhan University of Science and Technology
Wuhan 430081, China Wuhan 430081, China
bao_km@163.com chenggengguo@163.com

Abstract - Database design is a complicated and important II. THE METHOD AND SKILL OF DATABASE DESIGN
work, it determines the success or failure of the system, so it
needs considering a combination of factors and handling The database design refers to construct the best
properly. In designing the database of laboratory database mode, build database and the application
management system, use data-driven concept and increase system, make it to store data effectively and satisfy the
proper redundancy of Space-for-Performance method, requirements of users in a certain application
which meet the needs of flexible management, large storage environment. Nowadays, the majority work of database
requirements of the user. The system is deployed on a PC design still accomplished artificially, it still lacks of a set
server, and putted into operation for one year, it has a stable of perfect theories, methods and tools to realize the
performance, fine effects, and reaches the expected design
automation or interactive semi automation of database
target. The realization of the system has accumulated great
experiences for developments of enterprise application design. Therefore, it reflects the difficulty and importance
system which develop in the PC sever and have a large of database design. Database design mainly includes four
mount of data. stages: requirements analysis, conceptual schema design,
Index Terms - database, Data-driven, Performance logical structure design and physical structure design.
A. Requirements analysis
Optimization
Investigate and analyze the business activities and data
use situations, make clear of the type, scope, quantity as
I. INTRODUCTION well as the exchanges in business activities of the data
The database’s design is the most important factor that may be used, make sure of the apply requirements and all
decides the software’s quality. In production of software, kinds of constraints and then form user’s requirement
the key point is structure, but the core of software itself is agreements.
domain, that is design of database. The quality of The requirements analysis is the process to fully
database design has great influence on the system understand the user’s requirements, to deeply understand
performance. If design an unreasonable database model, the real world. Whether the database can reflect the real
it will not only increase the difficulty of maintaining and world correctly, mainly depends on requirements
programming, but also have a bad influence on the analysis. In the process of requirements analysis, via
system when is putted into operation. In the procession of carefully investigating the object of real world need to be
analyzing, designing, testing and test running, the handled, to get a full knowledge of the original system,
designer and tester often put emphasis on the function make sure of the user’s requirements, expand new
realization, and often ignore the weak aspects of the functions and data requirements based on the original
performance because the data’s size is not great. When one, and consider the possible extension and change in
the system was putted into operation for a period of time, the future, but not only according to the current
they began to notice that the performance of the system is requirementss to design database. The commonly used
low, even it was unable to satisfy the basic needs, and analyze methods are: top-down structured analysis
finally caused the failure of the system and needed a method (Structured analysis, called SA method for short),
completely new development. So it has a very good this method start form the top layer of the system
engineering and theoretical meaning to study the organization structure, and adopt a way of decompose by
modeling, designing, developing and applying of the layer to analyze system, and use data flow chart and data
database. dictionary at the same time.
The sample chemical test is an unique industry, it has B. Conceptual schema design
the character of indefinite test task, large data etc. In the According to the real world user described, classify,
condition of limited investment, how to design, develop assemble and abstraction, build the abstract conceptual
the laboratory management system and enable it with data model. This conceptual model reflects the
large data and flexible managed functions is the main information structure, flow condition, mutual restriction,
task, and among with the design and develop of database and storage, querying, processing of information in each
is the key point. departments of the real world. The building model should
avoid the detailed aspects of database to be realized in
computer, and show it in an abstract form.
The conceptual structure design often base on
intermediate data flow chart to design branch E-R

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diagram. By using of abstract mechanism to analyze the manage group print the results and send it to the
data that was collected in the requirements analysis stage, customer.
mark the entity, attributes, prime key and the connection B. requirements analysis
and type(1:1，1:n，m:n) between entities. Then merge To achieve network information management, the
the part views that are branch E-R charts together, system should realize the following functions:
integrate it into a whole data conceptual structure. 1) Task allocation: input the basic data of the sample
The steps of integrate branch E-R diagrams: that customer sent, according to the requirements and the
1) Assemble branch E-R diagrams together, shape the national test standard, fix on the test elements that need to
preliminary E-R diagram. be tested, and then allocate the task to the working group
2)Eliminate redundancy, shape the basic E-R diagram. based on a certain working allocate principles.
The redundant data and the connection of data can 2) Input results: input the result according to the task
easily destroy the integrity of the database, and increase allocated.
the difficulty to maintain the database. But some times in 3) Verification: the examination personnel verify the
order to improve the efficiency at the cost of preserving test results, and send back the error data to the test group
redundant data. It depends on the user which redundant to analyse again.
data must be eliminated and which must be preserved. 4) Sign and issue. When each group have finished
C. logical structure design inputting data and passed the vertification, the manager
The logic structure design is mainly transforming the examine the results of each sample and carry on the
real world conceptual data model to the data model signing and issuing.
(relational model for example) that DBMS backs up, and 5) Print Reports: The manager group prints the results
optimize it properly. Design logic structure should choose reports by sample, element, unit, test results after signing
the data model that is appropriate for describing and and issuing.
expressing the corresponding conceptual data model, and 6) Integrated management: Manage the company
then choose the suitable DBMS. The database used now information that sends the sample, test elements, test
is relational database, putting E-R diagram into relational principle, and working group information.
model, it is actually transforming the entity, attributes of 7) Limits of authority: Grant the role of user that use
entity, connection of entity into relational model, this the system.
kind of transformation can be realized by following the IV. SYSTEM DESIGN
existing normal principle.
To further enhance the performance of database A. conceptual design
application system, it usually takes the standard theory as According to the actual request of the laboratory, the
instruction, and also modify, adjust the data model key points of the system are: how to realize the chemical
structure properly, which is data model optimization. examination project management; how to invest the
Make sure of the data dependence, eliminate the capital under the condition of limited equipments to
connection of redundancy. Make sure of the relational satisfy the requirements of storing large amount of data.
mode which paradigm it belongs to, make sure whether it The chemical test management is the nerve center of
is needed to compose or decompose them. the system, it decides the type of the elements, the units
D. physical structure design of the elements, the allocating of the working group of
Physical structure design is to choose the best physical that project tests. It also decides the flexibility and
structure for logical data model (including memory expansibility of the system, along with the change of
structure and access method) that suited application business the test project also changed. How to realize to
environment most. According to the characteristics of manage the test project by the user itself, add the items
DBMS and handling needs, arrange the physical memory, itself, edit the items and add, edit the test elements in
design the index, and form the internal schema of time, and need not to modify the program, is the key
database. point and difficulty of the system.
To realize this flexible laboratory project management
III. SYSTEM ANALYSIS system, it adopt a data driven design method, but not hard
A. system requirements coding method, the data driven method make it easy to
realize and maintain the system, and greatly increase the
The laboratory takes on the task of test metal sample.
flexibility and expansibility of the system. According to
The metal sample is sent by the customer, who fills in a
the above analysis and the character of the system itself,
task notice and then takes away an evidental document.
the E-R model of the laboratory system design is as
According to the task notice, the laboratory following the
following:
national standards and user’s requirements, fix the target
of the element that need to be test, and then allocate the
task to the underling working group by the internet. The
working groups are wished to finish the testing work and
submit a result report within the time allowed. Finally,
the leader checking the results and then sign it. The

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 The primary key is the most important attributes in
relational data model, it has the function of marking the
record, and the principles that determine a primary key
are as follows:
Use attributes as the primary key:
The primary should be only.
Avoid to use compound key.
The foreign key is always connected to the other
primary key.
2. Use the primary key that system generates:
Fig. 1 the E-R model of the flexible laboratory project management
Use the primary key that system generates itself, it can
To satisfy the need of storing large amounts of data on
effectively control the access to the data each line stored.
the condition of limited investment and limited
Optimization of the data model, make sure of the data
equipments, it requires an optimize methods to design the
dependence, eliminate the redundancy connection, fix the
database. According to the history records of the
scheme rank of relational model. Merge or decompose of
laboratory, there are about 300 test sample needed to test
the data model that does not fit the data model, so as to
each day, and there are about 20 sample test elements of
reduce data redundancy.
each sample test results needed to record each day, so
there are about 300×20＝6000 items of records, and C. physical structure design
there are about 6000 × 30 × 12 ＝ 2160000 items of Physical structure design is to choose a best physical
records. structure that suit the environment best for the logical
If the system need to store data for 3 to 5 years, there data model. In this design, in order to manage
are thousands of records in the system, and if need to conveniently and enable the system to reach its best
query, statistics, printing, it need to connect with other performance, design three storage spaces separately:
tables, which will bring about large amount of user’s basic data space（USER_DATA）, it is used for
intermediate results, and the system performance will store user’s basic data, and the data is not changed
suffer great challenge, even cause the system collapse regularly. Business data space（BUSIN_DATA）is used to
under the condition of limited PC hardware resources. So store large mount of business data, and the space of data
it takes a strategy of adding suitable redundancy change needs to backup frequently. User’s index space
for the performance to design database, the E-R model (USER_IND_DATA) is used to store all the indexes.
are as follows:
Ⅴ. CONCLUSION
Database designing is a complicated and important
work, it determines to the success or failure of the
system, so it needs considering a combination of factors
and handling properly. It not only needs to consider the
feasibility, but also consider the possible changes, not
only consider the convenient of the development, but also
the running efficiency of the system. In designing of
laboratory management database system, use data-driven
concept and add proper redundancy change for the
performance, enable the system with the functions that
the user can manage the test project by themselves, they
Fig. 2 the E-R model of the redundancy history records can add, edit the test project freely, and they can also add,
B. Logical design edit the elements, units of the test projects. To solve the
problem of storage large amount data, adopt a method
This system uses Oracle9 relational database, and
that use space change for performance, add properly
transforms E-R chart to the relational model according to
redundancy data, to guarantee the efficient of the system.
the rule of E-R model, and optimizes it at the same time.
The system database and Web application server are
The transformation is mainly transforming the entity,
deployed on the single IBM X3500 PC server, and putted
entity attributes, and the relation between entities to the
into use for more than one year, the system performance
relational model. The specific methods are: An entity
is stable and fine, it satisfies the user that can manage
type transform to a relational mode, the entity attributes
flexible, large amount data storage, arrives the original
transforms to the relational attributes. The connection
design target. The system’s effective design and success
transforms according to the different types,1:1 relation
put into use under limited investment and limited
directly pass to any correspondence relational entities,1:n
resources have accumulated very good experience of
relation pass to the majority correspondence relational
large data storage and flexibly management.
model, n:m relation should establish another relational
model, and all the relation attributes transform to
relational model attributes.

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