Optimization of Nested Queries using the NF2 Algebra

Summary: NF2 algebra, an extension of relational algebra for nested tables, can represent all nested queries and a broad set of optimization equivalences, addressing limitations of current optimizers. Because it preserves compatibility with transformation-based optimizers, it enables performance gains with only minor changes to existing systems. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 5330
Venue: SIGMOD
Year: 2016
Pagerank: 5.6896396e-05
Overall Rank: 7,148 | 50.96%
DOI: 10.1145/2882903.2915241

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Jürgen Hölsch (University of Konstanz)
2. Michael Grossniklaus (University of Konstanz)
3. Marc H. Scholl (University of Konstanz)

BibTeX Citation

@inproceedings{holsch_sigmod16,
        title = {{Optimization of Nested Queries using the NF2 Algebra}},
        author = {Hölsch, Jürgen and Grossniklaus, Michael and Scholl, Marc H.},
        series = {{SIGMOD} '16},
        booktitle = {Proceedings of the {ACM} {SIGMOD} International Conference on Management of Data},
        publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
        doi = {10.1145/2882903.2915241},
        url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2882903.2915241},
        year = {2016}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 2 of 2 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
7,787	A Practical Approach to Groupjoin and Nested Aggregates	2021	VLDB	5.5449593e-05
11,037	DortDB: Bridging Query Languages for Multi-Model Data Ponds	2025	VLDB	5.093636e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 5 of 5 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
95	Of Nests and Trees: A Unified Approach to Processing Queries That Contain Nested Subqueries, Aggregates, and Quantifiers	1987	VLDB	0.00034607909
129	Optimization of Nested SQL Queries Revisited	1987	SIGMOD	0.0003068101
543	Orthogonal Optimization of Subqueries and Aggregation	2001	SIGMOD	0.0001682612
2,021	WinMagic : Subquery Elimination Using Window Aggregation	2003	SIGMOD	9.297379e-05
2,095	Enhanced Subquery Optimizations in Oracle	2009	VLDB	9.1803718e-05

Semantically Similar Papers

#	Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue
1	290	An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems	1998	PODS
2	2,494	Supporting Flat Relations by a Nested Relational Kernel	1987	VLDB
3	6,516	The Design of non-1NF Relational Databases into Nested Normal Form	1987	SIGMOD
4	2,815	Optimization and Dataflow Algorithms for Nested Tree Queries	1989	VLDB
5	143	Optimization of Nonrecursive Queries	1986	VLDB
6	140	Remarks on the Algebra of Non First Normal Form Relations	1982	PODS
7	95	Of Nests and Trees: A Unified Approach to Processing Queries That Contain Nested Subqueries, Aggregates, and Quantifiers	1987	VLDB
8	2,198	A Recursive Algebra and Query Optimization for Nested Relations	1989	SIGMOD
9	12,727	A Nested Relational Approach to Processing SQL Subqueries	2005	SIGMOD
10	129	Optimization of Nested SQL Queries Revisited	1987	SIGMOD