Talks
Slides of talks and tutorials about ProvSQL and the provenance theory it builds on, by Pierre Senellart unless another speaker is named. Slides of talks that present a specific paper are also linked from the publications page.
For a general audience
Popularization talks: no prior knowledge of databases assumed.
D’où viennent les données ? La science de la provenance
La Nuit des données, École normale supérieure, Paris, 25 September 2026 – in French
A general-audience talk, in French, on why the numbers we read come with no trace of how they were produced, and what data provenance can do about it. From crowd-count estimates and spreadsheet errors to the semiring view of provenance, probabilities, and the Shapley value, with ProvSQL and ProvSQL Studio shown at work.
Tutorials and lectures
Introductions to database provenance and to ProvSQL, given at summer schools and to non-specialist audiences.
ProvSQL Tutorial: Introduction to Semiring Provenance
DesCartes school, Singapore, 10 October 2022
A short introduction to semiring provenance, as a preamble to a hands-on ProvSQL session.
Introduction to Fine-Grained Management of Data Provenance
Institut Pasteur, Paris, 17 June 2021
An introduction to database provenance and its applications, for an audience of scientists outside computer science.
Provenance in Databases: Principles and Applications
Reasoning Web Summer School, Bolzano, 20 September 2019
A tutorial on Boolean and semiring provenance, their applications (probabilistic databases, view maintenance, explanations), and their implementation in ProvSQL.
Research talks
Talks on the design of ProvSQL and on the research it embodies.
ProvSQL: A General System for Keeping Track of the Provenance and Probability of Data
Presented by Aryak Sen. IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), Montréal, May 2026
The ICDE 2026 system paper: semiring provenance, its implementation in ProvSQL, and benchmarks of provenance tracking and probability computation.
Provenance of HAVING Queries in Semirings with Monus
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 12 August 2026
A possible-world semantics for the provenance of HAVING queries in semirings with monus, its properties, the algorithms behind it, and its implementation and experimental evaluation in ProvSQL.
Optimizing Probabilistic Query Evaluation in ProvSQL
SinFra Symposium 2026, ASTAR, Singapore, 30 June 2026*
How ProvSQL computes answer probabilities efficiently although the problem is #P-hard in general: from Boolean provenance to tractable cases, knowledge compilation, and the choice of an evaluation method.
Efficiency and Effectiveness of a Practical Provenance and Probabilistic DBMS
Logic and Algorithms in DB Theory and AI Reunion, Simons Institute, Berkeley, 23 January 2025
Can a DBMS support several forms of provenance, a large and useful query language, and efficient computation of provenance and probabilities? ProvSQL’s design and its benchmarks against other provenance and probabilistic systems.
On the Impact of Val on Pierre & ProvSQL
ValFest 2024, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 25 May 2024
How the provenance semiring framework of Green, Karvounarakis, and Tannen shaped the design of ProvSQL, from its origins in 2016 to its state in 2024.
Expected Shapley-Like Scores of Boolean Functions: Complexity and Applications to Probabilistic Databases
Presented by Pratik Karmakar. ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS), Santiago, Chile, June 2024
The conference presentation of the paper: complexity of expected Shapley-like scores over probabilistic databases, and experiments with their computation in ProvSQL.
Expected Shapley-Like Scores of Boolean Functions: Complexity and Applications to Probabilistic Databases
Representation, Provenance, and Explanations in Database Theory and Logic seminar, Dagstuhl, 18 January 2024
Complexity of expected Shapley-like scores over probabilistic databases, and their computation in ProvSQL through knowledge compilation.
Also given at:
- Bases de Données Avancées (BDA), Orléans, 24 October 2024 (slides)
Challenges in Building a Provenance-Aware Database Management System
Simons Institute, Berkeley, 7 September 2023
Provenance, probabilistic databases, and the questions raised by their implementation inside a full-featured DBMS such as PostgreSQL.
Building a Provenance-Aware Database Management System
Laboratoire de Méthodes Formelles, Gif-sur-Yvette, 4 July 2023
Provenance in databases, its applications, and how ProvSQL implements it.
Also given at:
- Polaris Colloquium, Inria Lille, 17 November 2022 (slides)
Provenance and Probabilities in Relational Databases: From Theory to Practice
Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP), King’s College London, 11 July 2018
Provenance, its representation systems, and the implementation of provenance support in ProvSQL; a talk that accompanies the SIGMOD Record 2017 survey of the same title.
Also given at:
- National University of Singapore, 18 January 2019 (slides)
- TU Dresden, 22 June 2018 (slides)
- Colloquium LORIA, Nancy, 20 February 2018 (slides)
Semiring Provenance in Relational Databases: Foundations, Representation Systems, Implementation
Information Systems seminar, University of Oxford, 21 February 2017
The first talks presenting ProvSQL, a few months after its inception: semiring provenance, provenance circuits, and the early implementation.
Also given at:
- Valda seminar, École normale supérieure, Paris, 10 February 2017 (slides)
Provenance Circuits for Trees and Treelike Instances
Presented by Antoine Amarilli. International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP), Kyoto, 10 July 2015
Provenance circuits for queries over trees and treelike instances, a foundation of ProvSQL’s circuit representation of provenance and of its tree-decomposition route to probability computation.