Journal Article

On three classes of division queries involving ordinal preferences

Pivert, Olivier, Soufflet, Olivier, Bosc, Patrick

2011

Overview

In this paper, we are interested in taking preferences into account for a family of queries inspired by the relational division. A division query aims at retrieving the elements associated with a specified set of values and usually the results remain not discriminated. So, we suggest the introduction of preferences inside such queries with the following specificities: (i) the user gives his/her preferences in an ordinal way and (ii) the preferences apply to the divisor which is defined as a hierarchy of sets. Different uses of the hierarchy are investigated, which leads to queries conveying different semantics and the property of the result in terms of a quotient is studied. Special attention is paid to the implementation of such extended division queries using a regular database management system along which some experiments to support the feasibility of the approach. Moreover, the issue of empty or overabundant answers is dealt with.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V,Springer Verlag
• Subject: Artificial Intelligence / Computer Science / Conveying / Data base management systems / Data Structures and Information Theory / Division / Feasibility / Hierarchies / Information retrieval / Information Storage and Retrieval / Information systems / Intelligent systems / IT in Business / Natural Language Processing (NLP) / Preferences / Queries / Relational data bases / Semantics / Studies