Neighborhoods, Rough Sets, and Query Relaxation in Cooperative Answering

  • James B. Michael
  • T. Y. Lin

Abstract

We present a mathematical treatment of query relaxation based on the notions of neighborhoods and rough sets. In a relational database management system, for each query term, the user provides the system a list of related terms, called a neighborhood. A relational database management system engine then performs queries using related terms in the neighborhood. A neighborhood in this sense is a binary relation without further axioms. Since the relational database management system engine can not perform transitive closure, the resulting list of relaxed queries is the closure (or upper approximation) in the theory of neighborhood systems. In contrast to relational database management systems, the underlying logic model for first-order deductive database systems provides for transitive closure and therefore guarantees the transitive closure of a neighborhood, the resulting list of which is precisely the upper approximation in rough set theory.

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Copyright information

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997

Authors and Affiliations

  • James B. Michael
    • 1
  • T. Y. Lin
    • 2
  1. 1.Advanced Vehicle Control Systems Group, California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways ProgramUniversity of California at BerkeleyRichmondUSA
  2. 2.Department of Mathematics and Computer ScienceSan Jose State UniversitySan JoseUSA

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